‘We are really suffering right now’

Artistic protest: University students staging a theatrical show during a rally against the fuel price hike in Jakarta. — Reuters

THOUSANDS of people rallied in Indonesia’s biggest cities, demanding that the government reverse its first subsidised fuel price increase in eight years amid soaring inflation.

Under pressure to control a ballooning energy subsidy budget, President Joko Widodo on Saturday said he had little choice but to cut the subsidy and let fuel prices rise by about 30% in the country of 270 million people.