VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Islamic State on Monday claimed responsibility for an attack on Taliban forces in Kabul.

The militant group said on Telegram that the attack on Sunday had killed 20 people and wounded 30.

A spokesman for Afghanistan's Taliban-run interior ministry said an explosion outside the military airport in the capital Kabul had caused multiple casualties.

The interior ministry denied the casualty figures claimed by Islamic State and said it would release the official death toll.

Islamic State has claimed several high-profile attacks in Kabul, including the storming of a hotel that caters to Chinese businessmen and a shooting at Pakistan's embassy that Islamabad called an assassination attempt against its ambassador, who escaped unharmed. (Reuters)

Russia acknowledged on Monday that scores of its troops were killed in one of the Ukraine war's deadliest strikes, drawing demands from nationalist bloggers for commanders to be punished for housing soldiers alongside an ammunition dump.

Russia's defence ministry said 63 soldiers had died in the fiery blast which destroyed a temporary barracks in a former vocational college in Makiivka, twin city of the Russian-occupied regional capital of Donetsk.

It said the accommodation had been hit by four rockets fired from U.S.-made HIMARS launchers, claiming two rockets had been shot down. Kyiv said the Russian death toll was in the hundreds, though pro-Russian officials called this an exaggeration.

Russian military bloggers, many with hundreds of thousands of followers, said the huge destruction was a result of storing ammunition in the same building as a barracks, despite commanders knowing it was within range of Ukrainian rockets.

Separately, Ukraine said on Monday it had shot down all 39 drones Russia had launched in an unprecedented third straight night of air strikes against civilian targets in Kyiv and other cities.

Ukrainian officials said their success proved that Russia's tactic in recent months of raining down air strikes to knock out Ukraine's energy infrastructure was increasingly a failure as Kyiv beefs up its air defences.

'EACH MISTAKE HAS A NAME'

Unverified footage posted online of the aftermath of the Makiivka strike on the Russian barracks showed a huge building reduced to smoking rubble.

Igor Girkin, a former commander of pro-Russian troops in east Ukraine who has emerged as one of the highest profile Russian nationalist military bloggers, said the death toll was in the hundreds, later editing his post to include wounded in that figure. Ammunition had been stored at the site and Russian military equipment there was uncamouflaged, he said.

Another nationalist blogger, Rybar, said around 70 soldiers were confirmed dead and more than 100 wounded.

"What happened in Makiivka is horrible," wrote Archangel Spetznaz Z, another Russian military blogger with more than 700,000 followers on Telegram.

"Who came up with the idea to place personnel in large numbers in one building, where even a fool understands that even if they hit with artillery, there will be many wounded or dead?" he wrote. Commanders "couldn't care less" about ammunition stored in disarray on the battlefield, he said.

"Each mistake has a name."

Russia's acknowledgement of scores of deaths in one incident was almost without precedent. Moscow rarely releases figures for its casualties, and when it does the figures are typically low - it acknowledged just one death from among a crew of hundreds when Ukraine sank its flagship cruiser Moskva in April.

Russia has seen in the new year with nightly attacks on Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, hundreds of kilometres from the front lines. The nightly attacks mark a change in tactics, after months in which Moscow usually spaced such strikes around a week apart.

After firing dozens of missiles on Dec. 31, Russia launched dozens of Iranian-made Shahed drones on Jan. 1 and Jan. 2. But Kyiv said on Monday it had shot down all 39 drones in the latest wave, including 22 shot down over the capital.

Kyiv said the new tactic was a sign of Russia's desperation as Ukraine's ability to defend its air space had improved.

"Now they are looking for routes and attempts to hit us somehow, but their terror tactics will not work. Our sky will turn into a shield," presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak said on Telegram.

In his latest nightly speech, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy praised Ukrainians for showing gratitude to the troops and one another and said Russia's efforts would prove useless.

"Drones, missiles, everything else will not help them," he said of the Russians. "Because we stand united. They are united only by fear."

Ukraine's air defence systems worked through the night to bring down incoming drones and to warn communities of the approaching danger.

"It is loud in the region and in the capital: night drone attacks," Kyiv Governor Oleksiy Kuleba said.

Russia has turned to mass air strikes against Ukrainian cities since suffering humiliating defeats on the battlefield in the second half of 2022.

It says its attacks, which have knocked out heat and power to millions in winter, aim to reduce Kyiv's ability to fight. Ukraine says the attacks have no military purpose and are intended to hurt civilians, a war crime.

Russia has flattened Ukrainian cities, killed thousands of civilians and annexed swathes of Ukraine since Putin ordered his invasion in February, calling Ukraine an artificial state whose pro-Western outlook threatened Russia's security.

Ukraine has fought back with Western military support, driving Russian forces from more than half the territory they seized. In recent weeks, the front lines have been largely static, with thousands of soldiers dying in intense warfare.

In a stern New Year's Eve message filmed in front of a group of people dressed in military uniform, Putin vowed no let-up in his war.

"The main thing is the fate of Russia," Putin said. "Defence of the fatherland is our sacred duty to our ancestors and descendants. Moral, historical righteousness is on our side." (Reuters)

President Joko Widodo (Jokowi), during a visit to Tanah Abang Market, here, on Monday, stated that his resolution for 2023 was that Indonesia would not be affected by the potential of global recession.

"We hope that Indonesia will not be affected by the global recession. That is all," he told the media after visiting the market.

Jokowi noted that globally, 2022 was considered as a year of economic turbulences, while 2023 will be a year of challenges.

According to the president, if Indonesia can solve the challenges in 2023 as good as overcoming the turbulences in 2022, it will encourage the country's economic growth in 2024.

“If we can get through it, God willing, (the condition in) 2024 will be easier for our economic growth," he remarked.

Furthermore, Jokowi expected that Indonesia's economic growth in 2023 could be above five percent.

"I am optimistic that (the result of the assessment of) the economic growth in 2022 will be (that it reaches) above five percent. We pray that in 2023, it will be above five percent again," he noted.

The government has not released details of the assessment of national economic growth in 2022.

However, according to Statistics Indonesia (BPS), the national economic growth in the third quarter of 2022 was recorded at 5.72 percent year on year (yoy).

The national economic recovery was also bolstered by 1.8 percent in the third quarter of 2022 as compared to the second quarter of 2022.

The president noted that his visit to Tanah Abang Market was aimed at reviewing the current condition of the real economy sector while driving the optimism of economy players after the lifting of the enforcement of the Community Activities Restrictions (PPKM) on December 30, 2022.

"(This is) since 2022 was not an easy year, and the previous year (the 2021) was also far from easy. Thus, we hope that in 2023, there will be (more) optimism because (the implementation of) the PPKM has been revoked," he added. (Antaranews)

President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) hinted at a reshuffle in the Onward Indonesia Cabinet in 2023 as he urged all people to wait for his next step.

"Just wait and see," the president stated in response to queries about the cabinet reshuffle at Tanah Abang Market here Monday.

The president responded in a similar manner on being quizzed about changes to the political party composition in the cabinet.

Last December, the president stated that a cabinet reshuffle in 2023 is a possibility after his response was sought to a national survey agency report that indicated public support for a cabinet shake-up.

"It is a possibility. Just see later," Jokowi stated during the visit to Sukamahi Dam, Bogor, West Java, on Friday (December 23, 2022).

Following the formation of the Onward Indonesia Cabinet that will assist Jokowi in his second presidential term from 2019 to 2024, several cabinet reshuffles have occurred to date.

The first reshuffle on December 23, 2020, replaced six ministers for the Health Ministry, Social Affairs Ministry, Religious Affairs Ministry, Trade Ministry, Marine and Fisheries Ministry, and Tourism and Creative Industry Ministry.

Meanwhile, the second cabinet reshuffle on April 28, 2021, was conducted to accommodate the newly established Education, Culture, Research and Technology Ministry and the Investment Ministry/Investment Coordination Board (BKPM), which was elevated as a cabinet office.

The president inducted the head and deputy head of Nusantara Capital Authority -- a cabinet-level office -- on March 10, 2022.

The next reshuffle on June 15, 2022, saw the induction of new ministers for the Trade Ministry and Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning Ministry/National Land Agency (BPN), as well as new deputy ministers for the Home Affairs Ministry, Manpower Ministry, and Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning Ministry.

Following the death of its office holder, Jokowi appointed the new Minister of State Apparatus Utilization and Bureaucracy Reform on September 7, 2022.  (Antaranews)