VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

A total of 210 Chinese tourists getting on board a chartered plane arrived at I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport in the Indonesian resort island of Bali on Sunday.

The Chinese nationals are allowed to travel abroad for the first time in almost three years following Beijing ease of restrictions of its COVID-19 measures.

“This is officially first flight (from China). It is a good momentum to bring back the Chinese tourists to Bali,” Deputy for Marketing of the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy Ni Made Ayu Marthini said in Bali on Sunday.

The 210 tourists who departed from Shengzhen, China, by getting on board Indonesia's Lion Air were greeted with a garland of flowers, traditional Balinese dances and the traditional lion dance or barongsai.

Marthini hoped that after the first flight, there would be more Chinese tourists coming to Bali.

"The Indonesian Government has set a target of attracting 255.300 tourists from China coming to Indonesia this year. However, the targeted number of Chinese visitors can hopefully be exceeded, and if possible, it can be similar to that of 2019," she said.

According to the information she received, the Government of People's Republic of China would also allow group tours to visit several countries, including Indonesia, starting from February 6.

Bali Governor Wayan Koster said he believes that the returns of tourists from China will help Bali’s tourism get back to normal.

“We hope our tourism will return to normal like before the pandemic. At that time.it drew 6.3 million foreign visitors a year. However, we hope, this year, it can reach at least 4.5 million visitors,” he remarked.

Meanwhile, China's Consul General in Denpasar Zhu Xinglong said before the COVID-19 pandemic, there were around 1.3 million Chinese citizens traveling to Bali in 2019.

After this first flight, there would be a number of direct flights from China arriving in Bali in the very near future.

“We will also encourage other cities in China such as Beijing and Shanghai to make more direct flights to Bali. In February, there will be more flights from China coming to Bali,” Xinglong said. (antaranews)

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is considering visiting Kyiv in February and holding talks with Ukraine's President Volodomyr Zelenskiy, the Yomiuri newspaper said, citing Japanese government sources.

As chair of the Group of Seven (G7) leading economies this year, Japan wants to show it intends to keep providing support to Ukraine while it also aims to release a statement with Kyiv condemning Russia's aggression, Yomiuri said.

Kishida will make a final decision about whether to go ahead with the visit based on the state of the war in Ukraine, Yomiuri said, citing multiple unnamed government sources.

Japan's foreign ministry was not immediately available to comment on the report.

Speaking at a television programme on Sunday, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiji Kihara said the idea was something Japan must contemplate as chair of G7 this year.

"But nothing has been decided at this stage," he said, when asked about the possibility of Kishida visiting Kyiv.

Earlier this month, the Japanese leader told Zelenskiy in a phone call that he would weigh an invitation to visit Kyiv depending on "various circumstances".

Japan will host the annual G7 summit in May in Hiroshima, when Ukraine is expected to be a major topic of discussion. The other G7 countries are the United States, Canada, Germany, Britain, France and Italy. (reuters)

China rang in the Lunar New Year on Sunday with its people praying for health after three years of stress and financial hardship under the pandemic, as officials reported almost 13,000 new deaths caused by the virus between January 13 and 19.

Queues stretched for about one kilometre (a half-mile) outside the iconic Lama temple in Beijing, which had been repeatedly shut before COVID-19 restrictions ended in early December, with thousands of people waiting for their turn to pray for their loved ones.

One Beijing resident said she wished the year of the rabbit will bring "health to everyone".

"I think this wave of the pandemic is gone," said the 57-year-old, who only gave her last name, Fang. "I didn’t get the virus, but my husband and everyone in my family did. I still think it's important to protect ourselves."

Earlier, officials reported almost 13,000 deaths related to COVID in hospitals between January 13 and 19, adding to the nearly 60,000 in the month or so before that. Chinese health experts say the wave of infections across the country has already peaked.

The death toll update, from China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention, comes amid doubts over Beijing's data transparency and remains extremely low by global standards.

Hospitals and funeral homes were overwhelmed after China abandoned the world's strictest regime of COVID controls and mass testing on Dec. 7 in an abrupt policy U-turn, which followed historic protests against the curbs.

The death count reported by Chinese authorities excludes those who died at home, and some doctors have said they are discouraged from putting COVID on death certificates.

China on Jan. 14 reported nearly 60,000 COVID-related deaths in hospitals between Dec. 8 and Jan. 12, a huge increase from the 5,000-plus deaths reported previously over the entire pandemic period.

Spending by funeral homes on items from body bags to cremation ovens has risen in many provinces, documents show, one of several indications of COVID's deadly impact in China.

Some health experts expect that more than one million people will die from the disease in China this year, with British-based health data firm Airfinity forecasting COVID fatalities could hit 36,000 a day this week.

As millions of migrant workers return home for Lunar New Year celebrations, health experts are particularly concerned about people living in China's vast countryside, where medical facilities are poor compared with those in the affluent coastal areas.

About 110 million railway passenger trips are estimated to have been made during Jan. 7-21, the first 15 days of the 40-day Lunar New Year travel rush, up 28% year-on-year, People's Daily, the Communist Party's official newspaper, reported.

A total of 26.23 million trips were made on the Lunar New Year eve via railway, highway, ships and airplanes, half the pre-pandemic levels, but up 50.8% from last year, state-run CCTV reported.

The mass movement of people during the holiday period may spread the pandemic, boosting infections in some areas, but a second COVID wave is unlikely in the near term, Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Saturday on the Weibo social media platform.

The possibility of a big COVID rebound in China over the next two or three months is remote as 80% of people have been infected, Wu said.

After China re-opened its borders on Jan. 8, some Chinese also booked trips abroad. Asia's tourist hotspots have been bracing for the return of Chinese tourists, who spent $255 billion a year globally before the pandemic.

"Because of the pandemic, we hadn't been out of China for three years," said tourist and business owner Kiki Hu, 28, in Krabi on Thailand's southwest coast. "Now that we can leave and come here for holiday, I feel so happy and emotional". (reuters)

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Sunday he would nominate a new Bank of Japan governor next month, as markets test whether the central bank will change the ultra low-rate policy of the dovish Haruhiko Kuroda.

Kishida initially told a TV Tokyo programme that he would decide on Kuroda's replacement by considering the economic situation for April, but when pressed he acknowledged this would likely be in February, "considering parliament's schedule."

He did not elaborate.

Kuroda, whose five-year term ends on April 8, has stuck with policies aimed at stoking price rises and growth, even with inflation at 41-year highs and double the BOJ's target, and as central banks elsewhere have been raising interest rates.

The terms of Kuroda's two deputies end on March 19. The three nominations must be approved by both houses of parliament.

The BOJ stuck to its ultra-easy policy on Wednesday, defying investors who have recently sought to break the bank's cap on the 10-year government bond yield. But with even Kuroda sounding bullish about wage rises, expectations are growing that the BOJ will end its expansionist experiment this year.

Last week's test followed the BOJ's surprise December decision to double the target band for the yield to 0.5% above or below zero.

Former BOJ board member Sayuri Shirai, an advocate of reviewing the current stimulus who is considered a candidate for deputy governor, said on Sunday the BOJ should make its government bond buying more flexible but that low interest rates are warranted.

There is also speculation about changes to a policy accord between the central bank and the government, in which the BOJ pledges to achieve its 2% inflation target as early as possible.

Kishida said it was too early to comment on whether the accord needed to be altered but said there will be no change to the "basic stance" that his government and the BOJ work together "to achieve economic growth that involves structural wage hikes and reach the price-stability target stably and sustainably". (Reuters)