Indonesia bus crash kills many pilgrims, including children

Just under 1% of Indonesia's 17 million Indigenous people have been vaccinated against COVID. Bureaucratic and geographical obstacles are to blame for the low rate of inoculation.

Indonesia's coronavirus death toll topped 100,000 on Wednesday as the country struggles to control the spread of the Delta variant. The impact of the pandemic can be seen at the Rorotan public cemetery, one of the biggest Covid burial sites in the nation.

Saudi Arabia will begin receiving requests for umrah pilgrimage from abroad for vaccinated worshipers starting August 9. The move comes 18 months after a border closure due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Human rights groups have long decried the invasive "two-finger" tests as cruel and abusive, while the Indonesian military previously said the tests helped determine recruits' morality.

A Nigerian diplomat has been brutalised by Indonesian Immigration officials. It is unclear what led to the incident but the official was harassed in front of the Nigerian diplomatic mission in the Asian country, on Saturday.

The Indonesian army says it will no longer conduct the "two-finger" tests on women applying to join the forces, but there are worries that the ban might not last long.

Kasegeran is a remote town in Java that most Indonesians would struggle to find on a map. But it’s also home to an unlikely collection of emerging YouTubers, as villagers swap their traditional jobs for the big earnings of online video stars.

Afghan refugees in Indonesia express concerns about the safety of their family members after the Taliban takeover of the country. They demand to be reunited with their relatives from Afghanistan after living in limbo at a shelter in Indonesia for years without certainty.

The fire at a prison in the Banten province also injured around 80 inmates, with eight suffering severe burns. The overcrowded prison was designated for drug offenders and housed a much higher number than its capacity.

Cigarettes in Indonesia are already among the world's cheapest, but in times of economic hardship, a boom in illegal cigarettes is continuing.

At least 45 people, including 12 children, died as a bus carrying mostly North Macedonian tourists crashed in flames on a highway in western Bulgaria on Tuesday, officials said.

It is the last place on the planet where the Sumatran rhino, tiger, elephant and orangutan still roam together in the wild – and it is under threat. The Leuser Ecosystem in Aceh, Indonesia is facing a series of mounting pressures, including loggers, plans for hydroelectric dams, and human encroachment on the land. Now activists, led by a group of women, are fighting to ensure it survives. We spoke to Farwiza Farhan, one of the women on the front line of forest conservation.