OPINION

October 16 has been dedicated as “World Food Day”, a day when every country takes stock of food challenges that are still rampant and in dire need of resolution. In Catholic churches within the Diocese of Jakarta, while no Saturday or Sunday mass featured a homily by the celebrating priest, the Church instead played a video of a sermon delivered by the Archbishop of Jakarta, Ignatius Cardinal Suharyo, S.J., on the commemoration of World Food Day. 

In a world grappling with an unexpected surge in rice prices, propelled by India’s rice export ban and adverse weather conditions affecting production in many locations, the global economy finds itself at a critical crossroads.

The national vision and mission, enshrined in the preamble of the 1945 Constitution, must be realized through planned and sustainable development based on realistic targets. This vision and mission is also the mandate of the people of the sovereign republic as stated in the State Policy Outlines (PPHN). Thus, they must be adhered to while serving as a constitutional guarantee for sustainable efforts to realize a prosperous society.

Apparently, the decision of the government, the House of Representatives (DPR), and the Regional Representative Council (DPD) to remove the Draft Law on General Elections (RUU Pemilu) from the priority list of the 2021 National Legislation Program (Prolegnas) will have an enduring effect. Early on, the government argued that the current Election Law and Regional Election Law, Law No. 1 of 2017 concerning General Elections and Law No. 1 of 2015 concerning the Election of Governors, Regents, and Mayors, had been implemented effectively during the examination of the 2019 Simultaneous Elections and 2020 Simultaneous Regional Elections. 

This past week Marzuki Darusman, a former attorney general and head of a UN fact-finding mission on Myanmar, lodged a complaint with the Indonesian rights commission, or Komnas HAM, in which he and other plantiffs claim that three Indonesian state-owned weapons manufacturers broke the law by selling arms to Myanmar’s military. 

The 43rd ASEAN Summit is officially concluded, resulting in 90 documents, two of which – that Indonesia initiated – are about employment. The Indonesian Manpower Minister highly commends the two final documents. 

The conflicts in the Rempang EcoCity project on Rempang Island, Batam City, Riau Islands, have garnered public attention, particularly after the acts of violence recorded on September 7, 2023. 

The three most influential pillars of a state of law are power, politics and law. These are intertwined and mutually influence each other. Either justify any means to achieve a goal or use the correct means to achieve a goal – whatever the planned goal happens to be. 

On the evening of August 15, 2023, at Bidakara Auditorium, Jakarta, Presidential Candidate Prabowo Subianto, before the Civitas Academica of Universitas Kebangsaan RI (UKRI) and an audience encompassing the entire nation, shared his thoughts on the strategy and program of how to achieve the Golden Era of our nation in 2045, precisely one hundred years after our founding fathers declared our Independence, following three hundred and fifty years of Dutch colonization and three and a half years of Japanese occupation. 

The current land conflict brewing on Rempang Island reflects the intricate battle between the human rights of the people, the ambitions of private businesses and the dilemma of the Government’s interest. As a nation founded on the principles of social justice for all Indonesian people, we must reflect: Have we fulfilled this promise? 

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will be attending the seminal ASEAN summit, to be held in Jakarta this year, together with other heads of big powers, like the US, China and India. A score of meetings have been organized by the organization’s Secretariat for the event, one of which is of Japan’s key engagement platform via an ASEAN-Japan conference.