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From Our Own Correspondent: Prabowo's past - and presidential future?

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02/03/2024 GMT

Prabowo's past - and presidential future?

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, Prabowo's past - and presidential future?

Indonesia's presumed choice of leader raises questions about what it wants from democracy

What do Indonesian voters really want? Plus: climate change hits farmers hard in Somalia; a baby-trafficking scandal in Georgia; women join in a once all-male festival in Japan

Pascale Harter introduces insights, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents, journalists and writers from around the world.

Early results from Indonesia's election appear to show Prabowo Subianto well in the lead and the man most likely to be its next President. Jonathan Head met him back in the 1990s, in the final days of the former Suharto regime, and wonders what the result signals for Indonesian democracy today.

First four years of drought - then a spring of raging floods. Facing increasingly extreme weather, farmers in Somalia are more vulnerable than ever to armed groups like al Shabaab. Peter Oborne reports from areas northeast of Mogadishu on how rural communities are struggling.

Stories are emerging from the former Soviet republic of Georgia of a baby-trafficking racket which lasted for decades. Thousands of mothers who'd gone to hospital to give birth were told their babies had died - but in fact many had been sold on to other families, apparently with the collusion of medical staff. Fay Nurse travelled to Tbilisi to try and unravel some of these stories of secrets and lies.

And Shaimaa Khalil joins the crowds cheering on crews of scantily-clad men (and rather more modestly dressed women) making sacred offerings at the "hadaka matsuri", or "naked festival", held every year at the Konomiya Shinto shrine in Inazawa, near Nagoya, in Japan. For the first time, some of this year's teams were female - and many of the festivalgoers felt it was a great breakthrough.

Producer: Polly Hope
Editor: Matt Willis
Production Co-Ordinator: Rosie Strawbridge 


(Image: Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto awarded four-star honorary general, Jakarta, Indonesia. Credit: EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

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