Lady gaga cancels her gig in Indonesia and proves that artistic freedom is more important than money,

Anton Goryunov writes from Seoul: The Indonesian leg of President Barack Obama’s Asian tour was probably one of the most untimely visits by an American leader to a foreign land. It was all very fine for Mr Obama to reminisce about his years as a schoolboy in Jakarta, attending Muslim prayers with his mates and embracing the local culture, like those spicy meatballs with rice – mmm, yummy – but on balance it wasn’t really a great idea, if you [...]

Martin McCauley writes: US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, visited Indonesia last week as part of a tour of East and South East Asia. It underlined the fact that Asia is the main priority of the new US Administration. Military relations between Jakarta and Washington were normalised in 2005 after being frozen because of alleged Indonesian breaches of human rights in East Timor and Papua. Mrs Clinton called Indonesia a ‘dynamic country’ and one which shares democratic values with the [...]