Out of the frying pan: Indonesians pay price of cooking oil crisis

Employees fry sliced tempe, a traditional Indonesian food made from fermented soybeans, at a home industry that produces chips in Jakarta. - AFP

JAKARTA (AFP): About three weeks after Russian troops invaded Ukraine, Indonesian housewife Liesye Setiana was forced to close her banana chip business as cooking oil supplies dried up across the country.

Millions of consumers and small business owners in the world's fourth most populous nation have been rattled for months by skyrocketing cooking oil prices.