Indonesia News
SetNov Dodges KPK Questioning Once Again
Will Setya Novanto ever have his day before the court? The Golkar politician was once again a no-show at the anti-graft agency, avoiding questioning in a massive corruption case involving a plan to modernize the national ID system a third time. His excuse? He needed to spend time with his constituents. —Tempo
Anies Baswedan Knows What’s Wrong With Jakarta’s Traffic: All Those Pedestrians
Yeah, you read that right. In a country where no one walks, and the cities don’t even have real sidewalks, pedestrian are the issue. The other causes: road construction and the sheer number of angkot idling around waiting for passengers. Well, the governor’s got a point on the last two. —Kompas
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Indonesians Are Spending Less and Less
Now we know where all that missing money went. The central bank found that Indonesians were saving more of their money than they used to, and also expecting a pay rise in the next six months. —CNN Indonesia
Defense Minister Wants More Island Prisons, Calls Current Penitentiaries ‘Crime Schools’
Indonesia’s prisons are notoriously over-crowded—which makes prison breaks surprisingly common. So is turning some of Indonesia’s 14,000 islands into remote tropical prisons the solution? Top defense minister Wiranto thinks so. The minister also likened prisons to crime schools where convicted felons go inside and emerge with new, even more criminal skills —KBR
International News
Japanese Court Sentences ‘Black Widow’ Serial Killer to Death
She murdered three lovers, and tried to kill a fourth, by serving them a poison cyanide-spiked brew before she was arrested by police back in 2014. Chisako Kakehi, now 70, was found guilty of using matchmakers to find wealthy men she could kill to inherit their fortunes. —Kyodo News Wire
Thailand Latest Country to Require Biometric Data for SIM Cards
The country will require all mobile phone customers to register biometric data—including fingerprints and facial scans—by the end of the year, under a new regulation passed by the national telcom commission. Thai officials say the measures are meant to cut down on fraud, but, as recent events in neighboring Malaysia show, stockpiling all that personal data can sometimes have the opposite effect. —Bangkok Post
Singaporean Academic Resigns After Saying Tiny City-State Needs to Remember Its Size
When Qatar was cut off from its neighbors in the Gulf, Kishore Mahbubani saw an important lesson for his tiny city-state: “Small states must always behave like small states.” Now, after four months of severe blowback, Mahbubani has decided to step down from Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy—a prestigious institution he helped found. —Reuters
South Korea Opens City Just for Self-Driving Cars
K-City is the first of its kind in the technologically advanced country of South Korea—a city built entirely to test self-driving cars. The 320,000-square meter city will replicate real-world hazards, including potholes, pedestrian crossings, and rail ways to train the country’s cars to drive themselves. —Quartz
Everything Else
Young Artists on the Politics of Making Music In the Middle East
Think your band has it hard? Just try to be a musician in some of the Middle East’s tumultuous countries. —i-D Magazine
UK Supermarkets Banned the Sale of Kiwis to Anyone Under 25
Because One Direction fans keep throwing them at Harry Stiles in an apparent show of love. Yeah, we don’t get it either. —MUNCHIES
I Asked a Stuntman to Teach Me How to Jump Off a Building
Turns out it’s way harder than I thought. I don’t want to give the story away, so let’s just say my stuntman career lasted exactly one day. —VICE
All The Elite Hypocrisy Revealed By the Paradise Papers So Far
People who claim to want to eradicate poverty in “helping to perpetuate it” shocker. Details on Bono, Queen Elizabeth, and Lord Ashcroft. —VICE UK
