VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Immigration office receiving foreign tourist to handle visa on arrival - 

Acting Director General of Immigration instructs the Head Immigration Office of Soekarno-Hatta, Ngurah Rai and for Surabaya to provide facilities and special services for about 2,051 foreign journalists who will be covering the G20 Summit in Bali.

“We have informed the Head of the Immigration Office in charge of the International airport of Soekarno-Hatta, Ngurah Rai and Surabaya to facilitate foreign journalists who will cover the G20 Summit in Bali,” explained Plt. Director General of Immigration, Widodo Ekatjahjana, Friday (11/11/2022). These foreign journalists can enter Indonesia with Visa exemption facility, or use Visa on Arrival (VoA) if they want to stay in Indonesia longer.

According to a release received by Voice of Indonesia on Friday, the three immigration offices were instructed to: provide appropriate immigration services easy and fast, both to obtain a Visa exemption facility, VoA and the clearance process at the Immigration Checkpoint; provide a special service counter if there is any journalists and G20 delegates who have lost their passports and need immigration service assistance; and create a hotline number for G20 journalists who need help of immigration//VOI

China on Friday condemned a White House plan to brief Taiwan on the results of a much-anticipated meeting between President Joe Biden and his counterpart, Xi Jinping, next week on the sidelines of a G20 gathering in Indonesia.

The two leaders will meet on Monday, the White House said, for their first face-to-face meeting since Biden became president, amid low expectations for significant breakthroughs. China confirmed the planned meeting but did not give a date.

Ties between China and the United States are at their worst in decades, strained over issues including trade and technology, human rights and Taiwan, the self-governed democratic island that Beijing claims as its territory. Taiwan rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan announced the plan to brief Taiwan about the talks on Thursday, telling reporters the United States aimed to make Taiwan feel "secure and comfortable" about U.S. support.

But Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said any such briefing by the United States for Taiwan would violate a U.S. promise to maintain only non-official contacts with the island.

"It is egregious in nature. China is firmly opposed to it," Zhao told a regular briefing, shortly after the ministry announced that Xi would meet Biden and also attend the G20 meeting and a later APEC summit next week.

Several analysts have said that both sides may use the talks to seek clarification on each other's "red lines", identify areas for cooperation and to stabilise relations, but significant progress is unlikely.

"I don't think we can expect any breakthrough," Collin Koh, a research fellow at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies told Reuters.

"They are able to finally get to meet face to face and convey each other's concerns to the other," he said.

Biden and Xi last met in person when Biden was vice president during the Obama administration.

"This face-to-face meeting will provide the Biden administration the best opportunity to test whether Xi recognises the importance of stable relations with the U.S. to China's own security and economy," said Susan Shirk, an author and professor at the University of California San Diego.

Xi's visit to Southeast Asia will be only his second foreign trip since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

When he travelled to Uzbekistan for a meeting of regional leaders in September, he skipped a dinner with 11 other heads of state because of his delegation's COVID-19 policy.

The G20 summit is on the Indonesian island of Bali, where Xi will also meet with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, before travelling to Thailand for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, the foreign ministry said. (Reuters)

Afghan women will no longer be allowed in parks, a spokesperson for the Taliban's morality ministry said, in part because they had not been meeting its interpretation of Islamic attire during their visits.

Mohammad Akif Muhajir, the spokesman for the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, made the comments in an interview with local media and, when asked about the restrictions, referred Reuters to audio of the interview.

"For the last 14 or 15 months we were trying to provide an environment according to Sharia (Islamic law) and our culture for women to go to the parks," he said.

"Unfortunately, the owners of parks didn't co-operate with us very well, and also the women didn't observe hijab as was suggested. For now, the decision has been taken that they are banned," he said, referring to the group's interpretation of the Islamic dress code for women.

Almost all women in Afghanistan wear a head scarf, or hijab, in public. However, the Taliban have said women should wear long flowing clothes that cover their bodies and also cover their faces, such as the all-enveloping burqa. Some women in Kabul and other urban centres do not cover their faces in public and others wear a surgical face mask.

Western governments have said the Taliban needs to reverse its course on women's rights, including a U-turn on signals they would open girls' high schools, for any path towards formal recognition of the Taliban government.

It was not clear how long the park restrictions would last and whether they would be extended across Afghanistan.

Park operators in western Herat and northern Balkh and Badkahshan provinces said they had not been asked to stop women entering yet.

Some women in those provinces told Reuters they were watching the restrictions in Kabul closely and were worried they might be applied in other provinces.

"Here they haven't restricted women and girls yet but you will never know when they change their minds," said a woman in Badakhshan who asked to remain anonymous.

The Taliban say they respect women's rights in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic law. (Reuters)

South Korea's President Yoon Suk-yeol said on Friday that unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the Asian region by force can never be accepted amid tension over the South China Sea, Taiwan and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Yoon made the comment at a summit of leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.

Yoon said his Indo-Pacific strategy was aimed at fostering a "free, peaceful and prosperous" region built on a rules-based order.

To that end, he would help shore up rules-based efforts to prevent conflicts and ensure the principle of peaceful resolutions through dialogue.

"Peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region is directly related to our survival and prosperity," Yoon said in opening remarks at the summit.

"Any unilateral change in the status quo by force should never be tolerated."

Yoon also said he would boost shared economic prosperity based on an "open, fair order" and step up cooperation with ASEAN countries to increase the resilience of global supply chains and economic security. (Reuters)