The government has lifted its travel ban on countries with severe COVID-19 transmission and reduced the length of mandatory quarantine to just a week, according to new regulations issued on Wednesday, allowing international arrivals to resume despite rising infection numbers.

The country grappled with a devastating second wave of infections in July, driven by the spread of the Delta variant.

The National Police plan to change the uniform of private security guards (Satpam) to differentiate them from their law enforcement counterparts.

Civil groups are calling for more transparency in the governance of the oil palm sector, saying that Indonesia could still maximize its revenue from the sector as research has calculated substantial potential state losses from the sector due to alleged tax evasion.

The government faces pressure to prioritize COVID-19 vaccinations for children prior to resuming full-capacity online learning amid a rise in cases of the Omicron variant.

Although several government officials have expressed their support for the prosecutors’ demand for the death penalty for a pesantren (Islamic boarding school) teacher accused of the rape of his students, activists have questioned the deterrent effect of the death penalty in cases of sexual abuse.

The elderly and immunocompromised people were the latest recipients of a free third dose of COVID-19 vaccines in a nationwide rollout that began on Wednesday, part of wider efforts to boost immunity against a more transmissible Omicron variant.

Elderly and immunocompromised residents, who are being prioritised in the program, queued up at local health centres to boost their defences against a virus that has infected more than 4 million Indonesians.

The government will start administering COVID-19 booster shots for free on Wednesday, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said, in an effort to strengthen the population’s immunity to the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

The government has played down the threat of the more transmissible Omicron strain of COVID-19, with officials suggesting that the situation in the country remains under control despite an uptick in pandemic indicators.

The National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) has recently announced the discovery of seven new ornamental plant species in Indonesia.

Experts said the Omicron variant, which was first detected in Indonesia around three weeks ago, was far more widespread among the population than the official data showed, adding that a third wave of infections could be coming in the near term.

The Jakarta Post journalist Dian Septiari has won the Foreign Ministry's prestigious 2022 Adam Malik Award for Best Print Journalist for her writing on international news and matters related to Indonesian diplomacy.

The Jakarta Corruption Court has handed heavier-than-expected sentences to four former directors of state insurer PT Asabri convicted of involvement in a multitrillion-rupiah corruption scandal at the institution, arguing that the prosecutors’ sentencing demands were too light given the severity of the crimes.

The government has announced it will start administering a third COVID-19 dose for members of the general public starting Jan. 12 as Omicron cases continue to rise in the country.

Even though Indonesia continues to record daily caseload figures in the low three digits, concerns over the Omicron strain of COVID-19 continues to grow.

Health workers were given booster doses in July and the plan now is to cover all adults who took their second shots over six months ago. Some 21 million will be covered under the booster program this month, Budi said.

Last year was a banner year for the exposure of personal information, and the lesson learned is that Indonesia needs to adopt a privacy law this year.

Amid preparations to welcome in the new year, the country is united in the hope that the dark days of 2021, particularly the deadly Delta wave of the coronavirus, will not repeat themselves, as the highly mutated Omicron variant makes its way into the country.

Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan has managed to deliver some notable achievements this year despite the overbearing sense of crisis, but many of the capital city’s fundamental problems still persist.

A new joint ministerial decree requires schools in regions under the lowest level of pandemic curbs to transition back to classroom learning next year.

Indonesia reported on Tuesday its first community transmission of the highly transmissible Omicron variant, raising concerns over the possibility of another wave of infections following the year-end holidays.

The first confirmed case was a 37-year-old male who was from the city of Medan and had visited a restaurant in Jakarta's central business district earlier this month, Siti Nadia told a news conference.

For Indonesia, 2021 began with a sense of optimism espoused by a government that was confident its long-awaited COVID-19 vaccination drive would bolster the country's pandemic response.

Experts have called for the government to batten down the hatches against Omicron to prevent community transmission as the nation’s caseload nearly doubles, mostly as a result of international travel.

The government is expanding quarantine facilities for international flight passengers arriving into the country in anticipation of an uptick in arrivals during the year-end holiday period.

Indonesia is starting to reap more economic benefits as it implements circular economy principles, although the country still has a lot of room to improve its waste collection and management, a ministry official has said.

The policy dilemma over in-person vs. online learning was not the only challenge that Education, Culture, Research and Technology Minister Nadiem Makarin faced this year, as his flagship policy, the Merdeka Belajar program, was met with criticism from teachers and education observers, while a regulation on tackling sexual violence on campuses received pushback from Islamic groups.

Coordinating Economic Minister Airlangga Hartarto said the government would soon amend some of its regulations to allow booster shots be given to the public.

Further restrictions will be introduced if case figures pass the government’s threshold of 2,700 cases per day – equivalent to 10 cases per million people – as well as if hospitalizations and fatality rates increase.