VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Chief of the Presidential Staff Office, Moeldoko, has said that Presidential Regulation (Perpres) Number 55/2019 on the Acceleration of the Battery-based Electric Vehicle Program for Road Transportation has three important aspects.

"The regulation has three aspects which must be understood by all parties, such as environment and conservation, energy efficiency and security, as well as the development of industrial capacity and competitiveness," he informed at the Indonesia Electric Motor Show (IEMS) 2021 in Serpong sub-district, South Tangerang city on Wednesday.

Environmental and conservation are important issues for the electric vehicle industry, he pointed out.

"It is because Indonesia has committed to reducing CO2 carbon emission by 29 percent by 2030. The government is striving to achieve zero emissions by 2060," he said.

Meanwhile, energy efficiency and security aspects are crucial for reducing Indonesia’s fuel consumption, which has reached 1.8 million barrels per day.

"We can only produce about 700 thousand barrels each day. Thus, we still have to import the remaining 60 percent," Moeldoko informed.

He stressed that if the condition continues and Indonesia does not start developing electric cars soon, the situation will worsen as the demand for energy increases.

“Hence, the energy transition will be able to make Indonesia become more efficient," he remarked.

Furthermore, the third aspect is advancing Indonesia’s competitiveness against developed countries in manufacturing electric vehicles, he said.

So far, in the conventional vehicle sector, Indonesia has only been a market, he noted.

Moeldoko said he is optimistic that the transition to electric cars will prove to be a big jump for the domestic automotive industry.

“We have been left combustion engine technology behind. However, with the development of electric cars, Indonesia can still compete and not be left behind. If we collaborate well with each other, I am sure we can succeed," he remarked.

The government and related stakeholders must also collaborate to provide supporting facilities to convince people to stop using conventional vehicles, he added. (Antaranews)

Slovakia reported its highest daily rise in new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, just ahead of a government meeting likely to agree a short-term lockdown to quell the world's fastest surge in infections.

Slovakia, a country of 5.5 million, has the highest per-capita infection rise in the world, according to figures from Our World in Data, as Europe becomes an epicentre of the pandemic again.

Neighbouring Austria has already locked down its population this week, for at least 10 days, to become the first to re-impose such restrictions, and Slovakia was looking at taking a similar step on Wednesday when the government meets.

Before the meeting, Defence Minister Jaroslav Nad said no alternative existed.

"If we want to be responsible, we have only one option, the rest is populism," he was quoted as saying by news server Dennik N, which earlier reported government parties had a preliminary agreement on a two-week lockdown.

A strong surge in COVID-19 cases has been seen around central and eastern Europe: the Czech Republic and Hungary also reported record daily tallies of new coronavirus cases on Wednesday.

In Slovakia, which has the European Union's third-lowest vaccination rate with only 45% of the population inoculated, the surge is putting new pressure on hospitals.

The Health Ministry said the number of people hospitalised had reached a "critical point" at 3,200 and was approaching peaks of around 3,800 seen in the last wave of the pandemic. Most patients were unvaccinated. (Reuters)

Russian fighter planes and ships practiced repelling air attacks on naval bases and responding with air strikes during military drills in the Black Sea, Interfax reported on Wednesday, as neighbouring Ukraine also held combat exercises.

The drills come at a time of high tension over Ukraine, with Ukrainian and U.S. officials voicing concerns about a possible Russian attack on its southern neighbour, a suggestion the Kremlin has dismissed as false. read more

"About 10 aircraft crews and ships of the Black Sea fleet's Novorossiysk naval base... took part in this combat training event," Interfax cited Russia's Black Sea fleet as saying.

Sukhoi fighter jets were among the planes rehearsing how to respond to enemy air attacks with training flights over Black Sea waters in cooperation with the Black Sea fleet, it said.

Russia's Black Sea Fleet is based in Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Kyiv wants Russia to hand it back.

Ukraine, which has accused Russia of massing troops nearby and says Belarus could send migrants over its borders, on Wednesday launched an operation to strengthen its frontier, including military drills for anti-tank and airborne units. (Reuters)

Barbados, a former British colony, will next week ditch Queen Elizabeth as head of state, breaking its last remaining imperial bonds with Britain nearly 400 years since the first English ship arrived at the Caribbean island.

Barbados casts the removal of Elizabeth II, who is queen of Barbados and 15 other realms including the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and Jamaica, as a sign of confidence and a way to finally break with the demons of its colonial history.

"This is the end of the story of colonial exploitation of the mind and body," said Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, a Barbadian historian. He said this was a historic moment for Barbados, the Caribbean and all post-colonial societies.

"The people of this island have struggled, not only for freedom and justice, but to remove themselves from the tyranny of imperial and colonial authority," said Beckles, vice-chancellor of The University of the West Indies.

The birth of the republic, 55 years to the day since Barbados declared independence, finally unclasps almost all the colonial bonds that have kept the tiny island in the Lesser Antilles tied to England since an English ship claimed it for King James I in 1625.

It may also be a harbinger of a broader attempt by other former colonies to cut ties to the British monarchy as it braces for the end of Elizabeth's nearly 70-year-old reign and the future accession of Charles, who will attend the republican celebrations in Bridgetown.

Barbados's move is the first time a realm has removed the queen as head of state in nearly 30 years: Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean, proclaimed itself a republic but remained in the Commonwealth, an association of mostly former British colonies which is home to 2.5 billion people.

Buckingham Palace says the issue is a matter for the people of Barbados.

SUGAR AND SLAVES

Originally populated by waves of Saladoid-Barrancoid and Kalinago migrants, Spanish slaver raids forced Amerindians to flee. Barbados was unpopulated when the English first arrived.

The English initially used white British indentured servants to toil on the plantations of tobacco, cotton, indigo and sugar, but Barbados in just a few decades would become England's first truly profitable slave society.

Barbados received 600,000 enslaved Africans between 1627 and 1833, who were put to work in the sugar plantations, earning fortunes for the English owners.

"Barbados under English colonial rules became the laboratory for plantation societies in the Caribbean," said Richard Drayton, a professor of imperial and global history at Kings College, London who lived in Barbados as a child.

"It becomes the laboratory for slave society, which is then exported to Jamaica and the Carolinas and Georgia after that."

More than 10 million Africans were shackled into the Atlantic slave trade by European nations between the 15th and 19th centuries. Those who survived the often brutal voyage, ended up toiling on plantations.

While full freedom was finally granted in 1838, the plantation owners preserved considerable economic and political power might into the 20th Century. The island gained full independence in 1966.

REPUBLICAN SEEDS

Prince Charles, the 73-year-old heir to the British throne, will travel to Barbados for the ceremonies marking the removal of his 95-year-old mother as head of state.

Barbados will remain a republic within the Commonwealth, a grouping of 54 countries across Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe and the Pacific that has always been a priority for Elizabeth, who heads it.

Though its name will remain simply Barbados, its removal of the queen may well sow the seeds of republicanism further across the Caribbean, according to Drayton.

"This will have consequences particularly within the English-speaking Caribbean," said Drayton, who pointed to talk of a republic in both Jamaica and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

"The queen has had an enormous personal relationship to many of these countries and has shown her own commitment to the Commonwealth vision which she inherited from that imperial moment of the 1940s and 1950s, so I do think that in the wake of the queen's passing that some of these questions would become more urgent in places like Canada and Australia."

The queen has made many visits to Barbados and, according to Buckingham Palace, has had "a unique relationship with this, the most easterly of the Caribbean islands".

The republic of Barbados will be declared at a ceremony which begins late in the evening on Monday, Nov. 29 at the National Heroes Square in Bridgetown.

"The time has come to fully leave our colonial past behind," Prime Minister Mia Mottley said in a 2020 speech prepared for Governor General Sandra Mason, who will replace Elizabeth as Barbados' head of state after being elected president.

"This is the ultimate statement of confidence in who we are and what we are capable of achieving." (Reuters)