The Indonesian government announced that the holy fasting month of Ramadan (1435 Hijrah) will start on 29 June 2014. This decision was made after the Ministry for Religious Affairs held an isbat (confirmation) meeting on Friday evening joined by various Muslim organizations. However, Indonesia’s second-largest Muslim organization, the Muhammadiyah, previously determined 28 June as the starting point of the Ramadan. This difference is due to a different method of determining the location of the moon.

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In the past week, commotion occurred in Indonesia related to the presidential election (which is scheduled for 9 July 2014). This commotion, which involved two 2001 interviews by award-winning American journalist Allan Nairn, a Nazi video, and US ambassador Robert O. Blake Jr, was related to controversial presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto, former army general and former son-in-law to Indonesia’s second president Suharto. The 2014 election has become a tight race between Subianto and market favourite Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo.

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According to the latest Grant Thornton International Business Report (IBR), released on 26 June 2014, confidence of Indonesian businesses regarding the country’s economy as well as business environment experienced a significant decline in the second quarter of 2014 from a net balance of 78 percent¹ in the previous quarter to 48 percent. However, despite this decline, optimism amongst Indonesian business owners is still ahead of the global average at 46 percent. Indonesia is ranked fourteenth among the 34 surveyed economies.

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The director of Indonesian publicly listed company Cipaganti Citra Graha, Andianto Setiabudi, together with chairwoman Julia Sri Redjeki and commissioner Yulinda Tjendrawati have been named suspects in a new embezzlement case by the West Java police. The three people are accused of embezzling funds and equity from the Cipaganti Karya Guna Persada cooperative. More than 8,700 people had invested a minimum amount of IDR 100 million (USD $8,333) in the cooperative’s profit sharing program (for a return of 1.5 percent per month).

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