Indonesia’s Social Affairs Ministry plans to help at least 400,000 families achieve economic independence in 2026, a major increase from the 77,000 households that “graduated” from social assistance programmes this year. Minister Saifullah Yusuf said the expansion is supported by a larger 2025 budget and aims to break long-term poverty cycles by combining capital support, training, and business mentoring. Families exiting schemes such as PKH and basic food aid will continue to receive guidance to prevent them from slipping back into poverty, with further empowerment overseen by the new Coordinating Ministry for Community Empowerment. The initiative targets structural, sustainable poverty reduction.

Prabowo to visit Pakistan to mark 75 years of Indonesia-Pakistan ties

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto will visit Pakistan on December 8 to 9 at the invitation of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, marking his first trip there since taking office in 2024 and coinciding with 75 years of Indonesia-Pakistan diplomatic ties. Prabowo is expected to meet President Asif Ali Zardari and senior military officials, with both sides set to discuss expanding cooperation in trade, defence, investment, health, IT, climate, education, and culture. Several agreements are likely to be signed. Reports say Prabowo departed from Aceh after inspecting disaster-hit areas, though the Presidential Palace has yet to confirm his travel.

Indonesia to extend free meal program to disabled in 2026

Indonesia will deliver free breakfast and lunch to 36,000 people with disabilities starting in 2026, Social Affairs Minister Saifullah Yusuf announced. Meals will be prepared by community groups and delivered directly to recipients’ homes by village cadres, who will also provide emotional and social support. The program will expand to 100,000 elderly beneficiaries and is guided by Presidential Instruction No. 4, ensuring accurate targeting through detailed national data. Launched in January 2025, the wider meal initiative already serves 49 million Indonesians daily, with a nationwide expansion planned to reach 82.9 million people by March 2026.

Prabowo doubles aid to Rp4 billion as Sumatra disaster toll climbs

President Prabowo Subianto has doubled emergency funding to Rp4 billion ($239,000) for each of the 52 districts and cities hit by floods and landslides in Sumatra, after Home Minister Tito Karnavian requested half that amount. Prabowo also ordered an additional Rp20 billion ($1.19 million) for the worst-affected province and pledged full central government support. Regional contingency funds are reportedly running low, with some areas left with only Rp75 million ($4,493). A separate pooling scheme has gathered Rp34 billion ($2.03 million) for redistribution. According to BNPB, the disasters have killed 929 people, left 274 missing, and affected millions across Aceh, North Sumatra, and West Sumatra.

Indonesia to repatriate two elderly Dutch drug convicts

Indonesia and the Netherlands have agreed to repatriate two elderly Dutch drug convicts — one on death row — after a humanitarian request from The Hague. Siegfried Mets, 74, sentenced to death in 2008 for smuggling 600,000 ecstasy pills, and Ali Tokman, 65, whose death sentence for MDMA smuggling was later reduced to life imprisonment, will be flown to Amsterdam on December 8. Indonesian minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra said President Prabowo approved the request, noting Mets’ deteriorating health. Dutch officials welcomed the move, saying it would allow both men to be closer to their families and reflected strong bilateral ties.

What's going on?

The amount each person needs to eat without losing weight will depend on how heavy they are to begin with as well as their height, gender, age and the amount of physical activity they do. Consequently, countries where people are already heavier and taller such as the US and western European nations typically need to each more. Countries where a higher proportion of the population are children , such as in Africa, may have lower requirements on average. However, the UN figures are not a guide for each individual. They are designed for planning at large scale and individuals should calculate their own calorie requirements based on their own circumstances.

Which countries are recommended to eat the least?

The Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the world's poorest countries has the lowest recommended calorie intake, according to the UN. Its total of 1,655 kilocalories a day is equivalent to one meal of a large burger, fries, a soda and a small packet of candy. Other countries at the bottom of the list  include the Central African Republic, Niger, Burundi and Afghanistan.

Which countries are recommended to eat the least?

The other end of the table is dominated by more wealthy nations, which have a considerably larger recommended energy intake.

The UAE and Qatar feature highly because their populations include large male workforces. Men tend to need more calories than women and outdoor work also increases the minimum energy required to avoid losing weight, especially in hotter environments. However, top of the table is Dominica, which has a rural economy where workers perform frequent manual labour. Its minimum level of 2,111 kilocalories per day is 466kcal higher than in the DRC, that's equivalent to an extra 100g of milk chocolate.

She indicated that the prevalence of diet culture perpetuates pressure on individuals with larger body sizes to lose weight to feel healthy.

Aparicio criticised the reliance on Body Mass Index (BMI), which considers a person's weight and height, as an inadequate measure for diagnosing health conditions.

“Diet culture is very wrongly rooted. Diet culture is a culture where we prefer smaller bodies over larger bodies, equate weight with health, body size with health and it's definitely not that clear cut but again it's influenced by a lot of the dieting industry in the West which has over time prioritized weight. BMI is outdated and should not be used to identify or correlate to an individual’s health. BMI is very misleading and now even in the US, they have pushed a lot of these BMI standards internationally, recognizing that when we are talking about clinical applications, they are not relevant,” she told GSW’s Wonder Hagan.

In place of BMI, Aparicio recommends the use of more appropriate methods such as blood, urine, and specific tests for detecting health abnormalities in individuals.

According to her, body stereotyping and misinformation about body size can be minimised through this, leading to a reduced inclination for individuals to resort to extreme weight loss measures.

“We have the measures to determine other much more important measures of health,” she added.

Watch the interview below.

This is where dietary therapy methods including intermittent fasting where food is avoided and ketogenic diets where the focus is on high fat and protein and less carbohydrates come in.

Globally, this is gradually becoming a popular means of weight loss in place of exercising and other healthier eating practices.

How does this affect your body?

Nutritional Anthropologist and health content innovator, Sasha Aparicio said that these methods of dieting though may provide short-term weight loss results, are usually not sustainable.

According to her, despite results including smaller weight numbers determined by the weighing scale as a result of these methods, the long-term effects on the body may be dire.

The body might end up relying on muscle mass to survive because it is being starved and the consequences of this, she noted, may be dangerous.

“When we talk about these popular diets like Keto and fasting. Popular diets could be short-term. The issue with these is that though it may show you effects in the short-term, the weight loss is not necessarily acquainted with health so they may see a smaller number on the scale but they may also have reduced in muscle mass and muscle mass is really important for our health. And when you are starving yourself, your body may start eating at that muscle mass. So yes, you may have a smaller number on the scale but are you healthier? What you should ask is, is it sustainable for years? Is it something that you can sustain for a long period of time?” she said in an interview with GSW’s Wonder Hagan.

Healthy eating

The nutritionist further recommended healthy eating patterns as suggested by researchers as the best alternative to achieving healthy weight loss.

“There are a lot of things we need to analyse. What is it about society that we acquaint beauty and health with body size when it is not necessarily the same and why are we prioritizing these diets that have a lot of products behind them, somebody is benefitting from them, benefitting from selling them to you ultimately, why are we prioritizing these over what we know in the huge body of research of what healthy eating patterns can look across cultures.

According to Sasha, the weight of a person does not determine their health and the Body Mass Index which is usually calculated based on the height and weight of people is toxic information to rely on to determine health and decide on dieting methods like fasting and keto.

“Diet culture is very wrongly rooted. Diet culture is a culture where we prefer smaller bodies over larger bodies, equate weight with health, body size with health and it's definitely not that clear cut but again it's influenced by a lot of the dieting industry in the West which has over time prioritized weight. BMI is outdated and should not be used to identify or correlate to an individual’s health. We have the measures to determine other much more important measures of health. BMI is very misleading and now even in the US they have pushed a lot of these BMI standards internationally, recognizing that when we are talking about clinical applications, they are not relevant,” she added.

Watch the interview below.

Indonesia's government's debt, which makes up 38.75% of the GDP, is at Rp 8,253.09 trillion ($528 billion) as of January 2024, a 1.33% increase from December 2023. According to the Jakarta Globe , the debt structure consists of government bonds (SBN) and loans amounting to Rp 975.06 trillion (approximately $62.19 billion). Indonesia’s Finance Minister Sri Mulyani said that the government's disciplined approach to debt management contributes to maintaining the country's sovereign ratings at investment grade. "The government consistently manages debt carefully and prudently, mitigating risks related to interest rates, currency, liquidity, and optimal maturity," the minister told reporters.

Inauguration of explosives factory

Indonesian President Joko Widodo is set to inaugurate an explosives factory on February 29 in Bontang City, on the eastern coast of the island of Borneo in the East Kalimantan province in Indonesia, with a production capacity of around 75,000 tons of explosives annually. The factory is expected to support mining activities in East Kalimantan province and to help the Southeast Asian nation make the most of its resources of ammonium nitrate in various sectors to reduce the volume of imports and achieve energy self-sufficiency, state news agency Antara reports.

Survey to track Javan leopards

The Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry and the Save Indonesian Nature & Threatened Species (SINTAS) Foundation have begun a population survey of the Javan leopard on Java Island to determine its exact number and provide valid data on its population. According to the Director General of the Indonesian Natural Resources and Ecosystem Conservation of the ministry, Satyawan Pudyatmoko the collected data will be used to update the Javan Leopard Conservation Strategy and Action Plan document. He is quoted by Antara to have said "The basic data (gathered from the survey) is very important for developing the conservation program." The Javan leopard is an endemic species on Java Island and is threatened with extinction.

Importation of 1.6 million tonnes of rice

The National Food Agency (Bapanas) has announced that the government of the Southeast Asian country plans to import an additional 1.6 million tons of rice to fill its rice reserves. "This 1.6 (million tons) is being prepared. The president asked that there be a minimum of 1.2 (million tons) in stock at Bulog, while actually, he wanted it to be three million tons," Bapanas Head Arief Prasetyo Adi is quoted by the Indonesian state news agency. According to the official, the government has an import quota of two million tons for the rice reserve stock, but the realization of imported rice has only reached 500 thousand tons. As the country waits for the main harvest season to begin, President Joko Widodo of Indonesia issued an order requiring a minimum stock of 1.2 million and 3 million tonnes of reserve rice stock, the state agency reports

Free lunch programme

Indonesia's Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, Airlangga Hartarto, has announced that the government’s free lunch programme will cost Rp15,000 (US$0.96) per beneficiary. The programme which aims to cover over 80 million beneficiaries by 2029 was proposed by Indonesian president-elect and vice president-elect, Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka in their vision and mission programme. It aims to address stunting and will target students and also provide nutritional assistance to pregnant women and toddlers, state agency Antara reported.