Author: Muhamad Anindita

Jakarta – Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani said she has not been presented with any student loan proposal from Education Minister Nadiem Makariem. “So I cannot give my feedback yet,” she said on Wednesday, May 22, 2024.  This student loan scheme was discussed in a Tuesday meeting between the House of Representatives (DPR) and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology. This meeting discussed, among other things, the topic of tuition fees for college students. Commission X of DPR mentioned the student loan plan to overcome high tuition rates. Deputy Chairman of Commission X of DPR, Dede Yusuf Macan, said student loans must be established…

London (20/5 – 20)One academic was asked about the internet eating their young. This triggered a heated debate about the use of the internet the freedom in presents, the dangers of unfettered go for it all to the public, the rise of the left, the response by the right, and AI, or Artificial Intelligence. The seriousness of the debate can be seen at the UK sponsored conference on AI at Bletchley Park. Following this was the adaptation of the European law on Artificial Intelligence. 28 countries at the summit, including the United States, China, and the European Union, have issued…

Northern Elders showing Buyer’s Remorse for Backing Tinubu in 2023 It seems unthinkable that the wealthy and powerful cattle-herding class could be on the margins of President Bola Tinubu’s ruling clique, but it’s thinkable now. During the eight years of Fulani-born Muhammadu Buhari, the beef-on-the hoof lobby called Miyetti Allah Cattlemen’s Association marched vast herds of bony white cattle the length of the nation over lands public and private with impunity. The herds and their rifle-carrying herders uprooted thousands of small plot farms and sent thousands of civilians to their graves in so-called farmer-herder clashes. During those years, the killers…

Warsaw, Berlin (25/3 – 80) A diverse group of Pamiri and Ismaili interest groups gathered to discuss the terror attack in Moscow. “We reject the notion this were Pamiris or Ismailis representing us”, said one of the spokespeople, who want to remain anonymous out of fear of persecution by the Tajik authorities. “They are Takfiris”, he said. Non-believers, apostates to the cause. The majlis (meeting) was called after Moscow was quick to blame Tajik immigrants for the terror attacks. Previous warnings were ignored by Moscow. “We as a Pamiri community do not belief in the use of violence against the…

On the first anniversary of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan’s deadliest border war, marked in September, irascible Kyrgyz national-security chief Kamchybek Tashiev aired his frustrations at the slow progress in talks aimed at demarcating the disputed frontier. Tajikistan, said Tashiev, was making “territorial claims” against Kyrgyzstan in the talks. “But our answer is that there should be no such claims,” Tashiev fumed, noting ominously that Kyrgyzstan had found “new documents” related to the border. “Based on those, we know that many parts of Kyrgyzstan had been given to Tajikistan,” he claimed. “If [Tajikistan] does not renounce its territorial claims against Kyrgyzstan then…

The 1975 caused quite a stir during their set at the Good Vibes Festival in Malaysian over the summer when singer Matty Healy kissed bassist Ross McDonald on stage to protest the country’s anti-LGBTQ laws. The rest of the three-day festival got cancelled with organizers citing “non-compliance with local performance guidelines” as the reason, and the band was banned from performing in the country. But that’s not all: the Malaysian government actually changed laws because of the stunt. As New Strait Times reports, concerts must now have a “kill switch” to cut off performances that don’t abide by the country’s guidelines. They were also considering…

Standing at 56 storeys, the five towers of the M Vertica flats in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur, are colloquially known as “ Hong Kong”, alluding to the dense high-rise housing that is conjured up in the mind of the Malaysian public when they think of the East Asian city. In the shadow of this housing complex, however, stood a different one that drew parallels to another infamous feature of Hong Kong: coffin houses. Located in nearby Maluri, a dense neighbourhood criss-crossed by several major train stations, 78 coffin-sized “rooms” were packed inside a two-storey shop lot and advertised as “capsules” and “mini rooms”,…

Brussels (4/11 – 25) It’s an old story, a broken record: war crimes in the Middle East, encouraged and stoked by outsiders with their own agenda. Israel, offended and humiliated by the 7 October attacks for which they had repeatedly been warned by Egypt. Hamas, encouraged and bankrolled by Israel initially, in its effort to undercut the appeal of Al-Fatah, has turned into Frankenstein’s Monster, breaching a border that was trumpeted as the most invincible in the world, with 24/7 surveillance, sensors to detect tunnels, full camera coverage and on and on – yet several thousand Hamas warriors parachuted in…

Through the EU-GIZ and IUCN “Rethinking Plastic” partnership project, significant strides have been made in enhancing the circular economy model at the local level and improving municipal waste management practices and policies. The video below provides a summary of the efforts made by local people, the private sector, civil society, and local authorities in the Koh Libong Sub-district, Kantang District, Trang Province, Thailand. It highlights the project’s achievements, lessons learned, and the areas impacted in the eight targeted island-based communities since the project’s inception in February 2021 through October 2022. The achievements include: From November 2021 to September 2022, small…

Council president Ted Osius also says Malaysia’s Bumiputera equity ownership requirement is a barrier to foreign investment. Osius, a former US ambassador to Vietnam, also said Malaysia was equipped with an entrepreneurial ecosystem conducive to fruitful investment. “US companies have generally succeeded in diversifying their supply sources and expanding their market reach through investment in Malaysia, particularly in the petrochemical and electronic sectors. “However, barriers to investment fruition remain in the form of inconsistent government approval of FDI activities and in equity ownership limitations,” he said. Osius said a “streamlined bureaucratic approval process” for FDIs would enhance Malaysia’s efforts to…