Indonesia's central bank unexpectedly cut policy rates on Wednesday, resuming its monetary easing to prop up growth in Southeast Asia's largest economy despite financial market volatility that has sharply weakened the rupiah currency.

It also comes just three months after President Prabowo Subianto took office with an ambitious goal of boosting growth to 8 per cent in the next five years. Indonesia has been growing at a steady rate of 5 per cent over the previous decade, except for during the Covid pandemic.

Authorities call for evacuation of 3,000 people living near Mount Ibu, on remote Halmahera island in North Maluku province

Authorities have begun evacuating 3,000 residents near the Mount Ibu volcano on Indonesia's eastern island of Halmahera, the disaster agency said on Thursday, after an eruption this week sent a cloud of thick grey ash as high as four-km (2.

Thousands of islanders are set to be evacuated after a volcano erupted in eastern Indonesia, spewing a towering column of smoke and ash into the atmosphere, officials said Wednesday.