Indonesia is no role model for Egypt
Let’s hope life after Mubarak does not resemble the post-Suharto era
Hot money threatens to scorch Asia again
Just 13 years after the Asian Contagion, Eric Ellis questions whether the region's reforms would prevent another crisis
Asian sirens cast a spell but leave some things to be desired
They're robust and the road to the future, but our nearest and dearest could resolve to do better
Indonesia: New dawn slowed by speed limits
In December 1967, the prominent US magazine The Atlantic made a foray into the Pacific, to look at Indonesia. Fast forward 43 years - 30 of them under Suharto - one is struck by just how much of the 1967 article could be written about today's Indonesia under the President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, with just the names - but not all of them - changed
Double A team inspires new hope in Indonesia
New evangelical, deal-making networks are tiptoeing to the edges of power in south-east Asia
LIFE'S daily drama that is modern Indonesia can be glibly boiled down to an arm-wrestle between goodies and baddies. The reformist goodies are gathered under the moral and electoral authority of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, now a year into a second five-year term and as popular as ever. Reform is sclerotic, but it is happening and Indonesians are starting to believe that democracy delivers not just a vote, but credible institutions
Touted as the next Bric country, Indonesia has avoided the worst of the financial crisis and its economy is powering ahead - but is that despite or because of a vacancy at the head of the country's central bank?
Islamic finance: Hub or hubris?
Shariah banking is becoming big business in Southeast Asia, with Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta battling for the title of regional Islamic finance centre. But even the most optimistic bankers fear further expansion could be stymied by arcane regulation and lack of cross-border consensus
stymied by arcane regulation
and lack of cross-border consensus. Eric Ellis report
Kuala Lumpur a world financial centre through growth in Islamic banking
Banks run on Koranic principles are very popular, writes Eric Ellis in Kuala Lumpur
Crony v reformer; fight becomes feisty in
Jakarta
IT IS Asia's feud of the year, and one that could define whether Indonesia makes it to international investment grade, or will spend some more time in the economic basket-case category
Fire rages over Red Dragon "prawn ultimatum"
A spat between a company controlled by one of Asia's richest families and a group of well-known western investors is turning ugly. Owners of Red Dragon's exchangeable bonds have moved to put the company in default. Parent company CP Prima is fighting back hard. As Eric Ellis reports, it's all part of the bitter cocktail that is Indonesia's capital markets
Indonesian reform the path to investment
PESKY corporate regulators sniffing around the business? Stock exchange on your
case? Not in Jakarta, where it's plain sailing for all manner of corporate
governance fiddles
Indonesia’s elite has too much to lose from addressing its actions in East Timor - part 1 - part 2
From financial powerhouses to the houses of power
Former bankers are emerging as political leaders across a region that could desperately use the economic smarts of expert high-financiers, perhaps fixing the impact of mistakes made by colleagues elsewhere
WITH Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) re-elected for a second term as Indonesia’s president, the big question Jakarta bankers are asking is whom he will appoint to his cabinet
Campaign fever and the corruption crackdown make Indonesia sweat
President Yudhoyono may seem to be pandering to Islamists, but the grafters will be running scared if he wins another term
Putting Indonesian Governance to the Test
Where on Earth can you find a 500% return these days? Here's one that its sponsors claim is guaranteed. Hmmm.
Corruption is the hot election issue, but the biggest fish are yet to be fried
It’s early days in Indonesia’s election season, but already Jakarta is transformed into a riot of colour....
THE best Asian budget airline story I’ve heard was in 2006, while taking a short walk in Pakistan’s Hindu Kush to visit the old princely state of Chitral, a Shangri-la where Osama bin Laden is said to be enjoying the alpine air and hospitality
Farewell to Asia’s greatest kleptocrat
The death of Indonesia’s former dictator may spur attempts to recover the loot accumulated by his family
Keeping it in the family
After a decade of concealing their enormous wealth, the Soeharto offspring
suddenly have found themselves back in the limelight
The curtain finally falls on Suharto, with the actors still performing their roles
Unease grows between Jakarta and Singapore
Resentment and envy still appear to underpin a testy relationship, writes Eric Ellis
The temblors this time weren't nearly as devastating...
Singapore cashes in on a raft of graft
The island state has laid out the welcome mat for Jakarta's dubious tycoons
The island state that wishes it could be towed to less murky waters
Something needs to be done about regional air pollution, but John Howard's $200 million is not the answer
One man’s extraordinary journey from middle Australia into the heart of Indonesia’s Islamic world. Or was it into the heart of darkness?
Pramoedya Ananta Toer 1925-2006
Indonesia's greatest writer should have won a Nobel prize
Now that John Howard has a strong rapport with the Indonesian president, it's time he got chummy with SBY's more influential deputy
Indonesia’s suicide bombers are not fervent assassins but desperate boys from impoverished communities, preyed on by the real murderers
Indonesia v Newmont
The gold-mining company is accused of poisoning villagers. Will this be a test
case for the country's judicial reform?
At 27, Schapelle Corby is probably a bit too young for Warren Zevon but, given her present predicament, she would doubtless appreciate the American singer’s sentiments. Which are surely appropriate now that Jakarta’s most flamboyant lawyer, Hotman Paris Hutapea, has stepped into her troubled life, well practised as he is in law, guns and, particularly, in money
Eric Ellis on the weeping, xenophobic hysteria in Australia over the conviction of Schapelle Corby for smuggling drugs into Indonesia
The Bali expats and intelligentsia are disgusted by Australia’s racist reaction. The other 230 million Indonesians ask, “Schapelle who?”
The trials of Schapelle
There are braying reporters, dozing judiciary members, colourful lawyers and
assorted hangers-on basking in the limelight and baking in the Indonesian heat.
Centre stage, an Australian woman's life is at stake
Shock therapy to defeat terrorism
In an interview with The Times, the new President of Indonesia reveals his plans to fight a modern scourge
There are difficult places to invest in, and then there is Indonesia
In a wide-ranging interview, Indonesia’s president talks of a new era in regional relations, economics, defence and anti-terrorism. Eric Ellis spoke with him at Jakarta's Istana Merdeka
Locals claim a monster lurks in the waters of northern Sulawesi's Buyat Bay. Mining leviathan Newmont says that's nonsense
Monday blues? Not on my island
Life is GOOD. And lest I sound too smug, here's why.
In the days after the bombing of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, The Bulletin journeys into Indonesia's hardline Islamic world
Twenty years ago, Redgum's hit song summed up Australia's unique relationship with Bali
An Australian woman is rescuing the Kuta bombing's latest victims: children traded for sex by poverty-stricken families
Has Asia, home to the world’s most dynamic economies, a region which provided the world’s first modern female leader, suddenly become enlightened?
Bali economy victim of nightclub bombings
Indonesia's famous tropical resort isle still struggles with terrorism's effects
The hopes of a generation of Indonesians were destroyed in the rubble of the Sari Club
This weekend's Bali bombing commemoration has upset the island's Hindu elders, who say the gods will not be pleased
Indonesia holds a world record that Jakarta doesn’t like to make public: the most pirate-infested seas on the planet
Singapore's New Straits: Piracy on the high seas is on the rise in South-East Asia
Why is Singapore Inc. investing big time in its neighbor?
DENPASAR, INDONESIA -- The tiny town of Malimping, in the remote corner of southwestern Java, revolves around the alun-alun, a village square as big as a football field. Symbols of the Indonesian state gather around it: a police station, a school, a health clinic, municipal offices and the telephone exchange. There's also a modest mosque, and Indonesia's red-and-white national flag flutters proudly above.
Power Behind the Throne: Taufik Kiemas
In modern politics it is difficult to know what constitutes appropriate behaviour for the husbands of female leaders. In Indonesia, however, Taufik Kiemas, the garrulous spouse of President Megawati Sukarnoputri, is redefining the parameters
THE BALI BOMBINGS - October 12, 2002
Allah's Assassins *winner of the 2003 Walkley Award, Asia-Pacific reporting
The Bali bombers were rootless young men recruited from the dusty poverty of a village in West Java - their overseer a worldly West Javanese, burning with Islamic zeal and with the contacts to organise and bankroll their jihad. Eric Ellis retraces their steps as they moved from village to town meeting the fixers, financiers and bombmakers, and finally assembling and detonating the devices that would kill and maim so many in a Kuta Beach tourist precinct.
Indonesian forces have historically sought ties with Islamic groups only to suit their purposes, as Eric Ellis reveals
The determination of authorities in Indonesia to execute any convicted Bali bombers raises many questions about Australia's role in the investigation, writes Eric Ellis in Jakarta
A month after the Bali bombings, Eric Ellis finds life is returning to "normal" on the island
An elaborate purification ritual may have exorcised some of Bali's demons, but the killers still to face justice there are monsters on the loose. In Kuta, ERIC ELLIS talks to the policeman heading the investigation and examines the secretive world of 'Indonesia's Arabs."
Bali buyers will play for time
Bali prays for delivery from evil
Mayor's blisters bear witness to tourism fall
Indonesian police reveal details of Bali bomb suspects
The black marks of a bomb-maker
Trouble in Paradise - Bali Bomb Blasts Indonesia
'Our defense to convince people that doing business in Indonesia is safe is finished.'
As well as the lives of many, the nightclub bombs destroyed any lingering illusions that Bali was a tranquil haven somehow isolated from Indonesia's current malaise. Eric Ellis reports from Kuta Beach.
As dawn broke on the chaos that was Kuta Beach, Eric Ellis searched for survivors of Australia's worst terrorist outrage
Indonesia detains two over Bali terror attack
Cleansing of foreign evils a `good thing'
From Upper East to further east
Doing business in Indonesia is tough, reports Eric Ellis
INDONESIA'S FIRST HUSBAND
From Gas Station Czar to Megawati Power Broker.
Observers hope that Taufik Kiemas won't return the country to Suharto-style
cronyism
Free Papua: the information war is half the battle
A
'Matt Drudge' You Can Respect
We won't tell you who 'Joyo' is, but he's someone you should know
Being Free Is Not the Same Thing as Being Prosperous
Although coffee is East Timor's No. 1 export earner, the territory's economic viability may not amount to a hill of beans
Batam's Moment of
Truth
The industrial enclave strives for Singapore's prosperity but inherits
Indonesia's ethnic strife
Connecting nuns in East Timor to the Internet
Can East Timor Avoid a Civil War?
President Habibie pushes a plan that might be the last chance for peace in Indonesia's most troubled province
Foreigners hired to repair Asia's banks face a tough and thankless task
The organization created to clean up corporate Indonesia is itself tainted by a corruption scandal
Dot-coms
Redux
Opportunity knocks, and Indonesian Calvin Lukmantara listens
