October 2026

In brief · 58 stories · outlook -56 ↑ better than September · mostly Economy & Environment

October reads badly again, landing almost exactly where September did story for story. The fires and the MSCI warning did most of it, against only a praised finance minister, new money for closing coal plants early and a defence pact signed in Doha.

• The fire season ran from blame to leverage to a body count: Singapore named companies, Jakarta trimmed gas to its loudest critic, and a research group tied more than 5,200 deaths to the smoke.
• Foreign money turned on Jakarta: MSCI warned it may drop Indonesia from the list global funds follow, while economists in the region noted most private foreign borrowing is still owed in dollars.
• Seen from outside, household costs looked worse than the growth rate: a two-year review questioned the official figures themselves, and late in the month Black Sea drone attacks cut Ukraine's wheat off from Indonesian mills.
• The state kept taking ground while the president's own numbers sank: serving officers now give the compulsory Pancasila lecture, and a governor from his own party outpolls him three to one.

Why it matters Anyone downwind pays twice, in clinic visits now and at the market later, because smoke and dry fields cut harvests before anyone counts them. The death count is the figure to follow, since the smoke from October's own weeks is not in it yet.