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It was 2 Oct 1629, Dutchman Jeronimus Cornelisz was noosed along with 15 other men by the Dutch East Indies Company for a reign of terror that included mutiny and murder off the coast of Australia.* Six others would eventually hang in the infamous affair, two marooned on the Australian mainland, and many more punished for the gruesome atrocities committed on the Southern Ocean. Cornelisz was not such an assuming character when he boarded the vessel Batavia in 1628. Rather, he was a marginally failed merchant, someone who could buy his way on board as an under-merchant** and sail to...

The Jakarta Health Agency warned that the number of COVID-19 cases will continue to surge over the next few days after the Arcturus variant hit the country. Indonesia has reported 10 confirmed cases of the Arcturus variant since the strain was first detected on Mar 23. The 10 cases are all in Jakarta. The Arcturus – or XBB.1.16 - is a subvariant of the Omicron virus which, according to a study by the University of Tokyo, spreads about 1.17 to 1.27 times more efficiently than the XBB.1 and XBB.1.5 strains.

Indonesia’s parliament has approved a bill to relocate the nation’s capital from Jakarta to a jungled area of Kalimantan on Borneo island, the planning minister said on Tuesday. The new state capital law, which provides a legal framework for President Joko Widodo’s ambitious $32 billion mega project, stipulates how development of the capital will be funded and governed. The new center will be called “Nusantara”, a Javanese name for the Indonesian archipelago chosen by the president, Monoarfa announced on Monday. Plans to relocate the government from Jakarta, a bustling megacity of 10 million people that suffers from chronic congestion, floods...

Indonesian officials are monitoring the country's most active volcano after it erupted again Saturday morning, launching hot ash clouds high into the air, and sending lava spewing down the side of the mountain. Ash plumes shot more than 600 feet into the air as volcanic debris spilled down the slopes of Mount Merapi in Yogyakarta on the densely populated Indonesian island of Java, about 250 miles east of Jakarta. The volcano erupted hot clouds of ash at least eight times, and sent several pyroclastic flows down its slopes, according to the Indonesia's Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation. No...

Window Swap is an easy and ingenious way to travel all around the world, from the comfort of your own home. All you have to do is visit the Window Swap website and click on the “Open a new window somewhere in the world” button to instantly be transported in a stranger’s home in cities like London, Bangalore or Jakarta from the windows of whom you can admire the views they wake up to every day. According to a description on its official website, Window Swap “is here to fill that deep void in our wanderlust hearts by allowing us...

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Jakarta Metro Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Yusri Yunus said the investigation into the disposal site of aborted fetuses in Paseban, Central Jakarta, is still on going. He suspected the perpetrators had thrown hundreds of aborted fetuses into the septic tank. "We are still investigating where [the fetuses were discarded], but from similar cases like this, [the fetuses] are usually disposed of in septic tanks," said Yusri in Paseban, Central Jakarta, on Friday, February 14, 2020. In addition, Yusri urged the patients who had had an abortion in Paseban to report, as the practice of abortion in the...

Indonesia has announced plans to build a new capital city as its current capital, Jakarta, struggles with pollution, traffic gridlock — and the fact that the city is sinking. After a Cabinet meeting on Monday, planning minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said President Joko Widodo has decided to move the capital out of Indonesia's main island, Java. It's not clear exactly when this will happen, or where the new capital would be located. The idea has been out there for decades, though previous leaders have been unable to accomplish the ambitious plan. Earlier this month, Widodo secured another term in office, according...

Bambang Brodjonegoro said President Joko Widodo had chosen to relocate the capital in "an important decision"... Jakarta, home to over 10 million people, is sinking at one of the fastest rates in the world... Researchers say that large parts of the megacity could be entirely submerged by 2050. North Jakarta sunk 2.5m (eight feet) in 10 years and is continuing to sink an average of 1-15cm a year... But President Joko Widodo has achieved ambitious infrastructure building in his five years in office, so he may well be the man that finally does it.

On Nov 22nd 2018 the KNKT gave a presentation to Indonesia's Parliament about the findings so far. The KNKT told the parliament that the FDR contained 1790 parameters spanning 19 flights. The last two flights, the flight from Denpasar to Jakarta as well as the accident flight, were showing the same issue, the right hand speed (first officer's IAS) signficantly higher than the left hand speed (captain's speed). The captain's AoA indicated about 20 degrees higher than the first officer's AoA. As result the left stick shaker activated immediately after takeoff and operated, with a brief period where it stopped...

An Indonesian airliner has crashed into the sea with 189 people on board. The Boeing 737, owned by the low-cost airline Lion Air, went down after taking off from the capital Jakarta. Flight JT 610 was headed for the western city of Pangkal Pinang. Rescuers have recovered some bodies and personal items, including baby shoes. There is no sign of survivors. The cause of the crash, which involved a plane that had been in operation since August, remains unclear. The incident is reported to be the first major accident involving a Boeing 737 Max - an updated version of the...

A Lion Air flight between Jakarta and an island off Sumatra has crashed, Indonesian search and rescue officials have said. A search and rescue effort has been launched after the passenger jet lost contact 13 minutes after takeoff on Monday morning. The Boeing 737-800 left the Indonesian capital at 6.20am and was headed north to arrive in Pangkal Pinang, on the island of Bangka, at

PALU, Indonesia, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Indonesia is in a race against time to save victims of a devastating earthquake and tsunami on Sulawesi island, the government said on Tuesday, as the official death toll rose to more than 1,200 and looting fueled fears of lawlessness. Four days after the double disaster struck, officials feared the toll could soar, as most of the confirmed dead had come from Palu, a small city 1,500 km (930 miles) northeast of Jakarta. Some remote areas have been largely cut off after Friday's 7.5 magnitude quake triggered tsunami waves, destroying roads and bridges, and...

Cape Town is in the unenviable situation of being the first major city in the modern era to face the threat of running out of drinking water. However, the plight of the drought-hit South African city is just one extreme example of a problem that experts have long been warning about - water scarcity. Despite covering about 70% of the Earth's surface, water, especially drinking water, is not as plentiful as one might think. Only 3% of it is fresh. Over one billion people lack access to water and another 2.7 billion find it scarce for at least one month...

he Lost City of Atlantis may be little more than a fable but for the residents of Jakarta, the watery fate of that metropolis is an all-too-real threat. That is because the Indonesian capital is sinking faster than any city on Earth, by up to 25cm per year in some places, with experts warning large parts of it will be underwater within a decade. Ministers are currently building sea walls to shield the residents from disaster, but that does little more than delay the inevitable, since it is not the ocean rising but the ground dropping that is causing the...

A mezzanine floor has collapsed at the Jakarta stock exchange building (IDX), injuring dozens of people. Dramatic CCTV footage captured the moment of collapse, which sent a group of more than 30 students gathered on the mezzanine crashing into the lobby. The area was evacuated and cordoned off by police, but trading has now resumed. Police say 72 people were hurt and are being treated in three different hospitals in Jakarta, but there have been no fatalities.

Following another week of dust-ups between the media and President Donald Trump, his predecessor shared a bit of wisdom Saturday from the other side of the world about tolerance and taking the daily news cycle in stride. “I wasn’t worried about what was in the newspapers today,” former President Barack Obama said during a nostalgic visit to Indonesia’s capital, his childhood home. “What I was worried about was, ‘What are they going to write about me 20 years from now when I look back?’” Obama was greeted by a crowd of thousands, including leaders, students and businesspeople, in Jakarta, where...

The Christian governor of Indonesia’s capital city of Jakarta was sentenced to two years in prison on Tuesday for committing blasphemy against Islam. While running for governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, also known as “Ahok,” said his opponents were inaccurately citing the Quran to say voters cannot vote for a non-Muslim. Despite trying to make Islam seem like a more tolerant religion, Purnama’s comments were reportedly edited and shared in a video that caused mass protest and outrage from the Islamic community. On Nov. 2016, at least 200,000 Islamic protesters took to the streets of Jakarta and demanded Purnama be thrown in jail...

An Indonesian court has sentenced the minority Christian governor of Jakarta to two years in prison for blaspheming the Koran at a trial that undermined the country's reputation for practicing a moderate form of Islam.

Former President Barack Hussein Obama's former tranny nanny talks about how hard it has been for him/her and other transgender males to live in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country. She goes on to describe the pride she felt upon learning that the little child she cared for many years earlier had grown up to become America's President! Even though her official name is Turdi--that of a male--Evie picked her female sounding name "because it sounded sweet," according to a lengthy article by the online news aggregator, The Blaze. Evie says her father beat her because he did not want...

Tens of thousands of Indonesians gathered at the national mosque in the capital on Saturday for mass prayers urging people to vote for a Muslim governor of the city as the country prepares for regional elections next week. The crowds overflowed from Istiqlal Mosque in the heart of Jakarta into the surrounding streets. Clerics gave sermons calling on people to protect Islam and vote for Muslim candidates. Police denied hard-line groups permission to march through the city. […] Protests against the minority Christian governor of Jakarta drew hundreds of thousands of people to the city’s streets in November and December...