Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture Muhadjir Effendy has highlighted the importance of health checks for prospective brides and grooms to support efforts to accelerate stunting reduction.
"Through health checks, the physical health and reproductive health of prospective brides and grooms will be known," he said in a statement released here on Monday.
Effendy expressed the hope that through health checks, anemia can be prevented in prospective brides.
"Preventing or correcting anemia in prospective brides will support efforts to prevent stunting because if the prospective bride is suffering from anemia, she will have the potential to suffer anemia during pregnancy," he explained.
If anemia in pregnant women is not handled, they are at risk of giving birth to children with lower body weight or stunted children, he said.
Therefore, health screening or health checks, education and assistance for prospective brides and grooms are needed to improve their understanding and awareness, the minister said.
In this regard, the Coordinating Ministry for Human Development and Culture is encouraging regional governments, especially village governments, to ensure that prospective brides and grooms in their respective areas get marriage guidance and undergo health checks.
"If needed, a village regulation can be made that emphasizes the obligation for prospective brides and grooms to report three months before marriage to get marriage guidance and carry out health checks," he said.
The government is currently continuing to make strategic efforts to accelerate stunting reduction, the minister added. The 2022 Indonesian Nutritional Status Survey (SSGI) pegged Indonesia's stunting prevalence at 21.6 percent.
"Meanwhile, the government is targeting stunting prevalence to decline to be at 14 percent in 2024," Effendy said.
To achieve the target, cross-sectoral cooperation, starting from the government at the central level to the regional and village level, is needed, he added. (antaranews)
At least 912 people were killed and more than 5,000 injured when a magnitude-7.8 earthquake struck southern Turkey overnight, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday, calling it a historic disaster for which the death toll is likely to rise.
The quake was centred on the province of Kahramanmaras and shook southern Turkey and northern Syria overnight. It was followed by another powerful tremor with a 7.7 magnitude in the same region at around 1025 GMT.
Erdogan said 2,818 buildings collapsed after the first tremor, describing it as the country's "largest disaster" since 1939, when a major quake struck the eastern province of Erzincan.
In 1999, a tremor of similar magnitude devastated Izmit and the heavily populated eastern Marmara Sea region near Istanbul, killing more than 17,000.
"Everyone is putting their heart and soul into efforts, although the winter season, cold weather and the earthquake happening during the night make things more difficult," he told reporters in a news conference at Turkey's disaster coordination centre in Ankara.
"We do not know how high the casualty numbers will go as efforts to lift the debris continue in several buildings in the earthquake zone," he said.
Some 9,000 personnel were taking part in the rescue operations, he said. Offers off assistance have been made by NATO, the European Union and 45 countries, he added.
Erdogan said 5,385 people had been injured in the quake as rescue operations continued, with 2,470 people rescued from the ruins of buildings.
"Today is a day for 85 million to be together as one heart," he said. (Reuters)
Wailing children, flattened buildings and hospitals full of bodies - a devastating earthquake on Monday looked painfully familiar for Syrian families and rescuers worn down by nearly 12 years of bombardment and displacement.
The 7.8 magnitude earthquake sent people rushing into the streets in the country's north, where air strikes and shelling have already traumatised the population and weakened the foundations of many buildings.
In the rebel-held town of Jandaris in Aleppo province, a mound of concrete, steel rods and bundles of clothes lay where a multi-storey building once stood.
"There were 12 families under there. Not a single one came out. Not one," said a thin young man, his eyes wide open in shock and his hand bandaged.
"We were pulling people out ourselves at three in the morning," he said, his breath visible in the cold winter air as he spoke.
Young men could be seen clawing through debris and heaving hammers onto slabs of concrete to look for survivors. Dented water tanks and solar panels had flown off roofs and landed on the damp ground.
The White Helmets, a rescue service founded in rebel-held territory to treat people hurt in bombardment, said at least 147 people were killed in opposition-held northwest Syria. In government-held territory, officials put the death toll at more than 300 with more than 1,000 injured.
In Turkey, President Tayyip Erdogan said more than 900 people were killed and more than 5,000 injured.
"We are in a race against time to save the lives of those under the rubble. Even if our teams are exhausted, we don't have time to rest," White Helmets head Raed al-Saleh told Reuters by phone.
He said air strikes over the years had left buildings structurally fragile so they "immediately collapsed", ultimately leading to more deaths.
Millions of people in northwest Syria have been left vulnerable by the conflict, according to the United Nations, which says 2.9 million people in the region have been displaced and 1.8 million are living in camps.
The rescue teams have worked for years rescuing people from shelling and aerial raids by Syrian government or Russian forces which often hit the same location multiple times, risking paramedics' lives.
"At least now, no one is going to bomb us as we work," Saleh said.
But the cold winter weather added another challenge for the rescue workers, who said families have been left exposed in near-freezing temperatures and heavy rains.
In the countryside of Idlib province, the earthquake damaged the modest structures set up in displacement camps hosting Syrians who had fled the war over the years, said Ahmad al-Sheikh, a resident of a nearby border town.
Further west, the main hospital in the rebel-held town of Afrin was teeming with wounded residents writhing on the ground and women struggling to reach loved ones by phone as the lines were down.
Medics zipped up black body bags on a bloodstained floor as toddlers screamed in the background.
"Ambulance sirens are heard everywhere. People are shocked," said Afrin resident Ibrahim Obaid. "The situation is so tragic. There's so much fear and we still feel the tremors." (Reuters)
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Western missions would "pay" for issuing security warnings and temporarily closing consulates in Turkey last week, while police said there was no serious threat to foreigners after detaining 15 Islamic State suspects on Sunday.
Ankara summoned the ambassadors of nine countries on Thursday to criticise their decisions to temporarily shut diplomatic missions and issue security alerts. Turkish officials said the following day that Western nations, including the United States and Germany, had not shared information to back up their claims of a security threat.
"The other day our foreign ministry summoned all of them and gave the necessary ultimatum, told them 'You will pay for this heavily if you keep this up,'" Erdogan said during a meeting with youth that was pre-recorded and broadcast on Sunday.
Alongside the closures, several Western states warned citizens of a heightened risk of attacks to diplomatic missions and non-Muslim places of worship in Turkey, following a series of far-right protests in Europe in recent weeks that included several incidents of burning copies of the Muslim holy book, the Koran.
Turkey suspended negotiations for Sweden and Finland's NATO accession last month following a protest in Stockholm during which a copy of the Koran was burned.
Erdogan said that the Western states were "playing for (more) time" and that the "necessary decisions" would be taken during Monday's cabinet meeting, without elaborating.
Earlier on Sunday, police said they had not found evidence of any concrete threat to foreigners in the detentions of 15 Islamic State suspects accused of targeting consulates and non-Muslim houses of worship, state media reported.
Anadolu Agency cited an Istanbul police statement saying the suspects had "received instructions for acts targeting consulates of Sweden and the Netherlands, as well as Christian and Jewish places of worship".
While the suspects' ties to the jihadist group were confirmed, no concrete threats toward foreigners were found, the statement said.
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu repeated on Saturday Turkey's frustration with what it says is Sweden's inaction toward entities that Ankara accuses of terrorist activity. All 30 NATO members must ratify newcomers.
Turkey, Sweden and Finland signed an agreement in June aimed at overcoming Ankara's objections to their NATO bids, with the Nordic states pledging to take a harder line primarily against local members of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984. (Reuters)