VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The Biden administration expects to ink a deal with allies in the near-term to bring them on board with new U.S. rules curbing China's access to sophisticated chipmaking tools, a senior Commerce Department official said on Thursday.

This month, the Commerce Department published a sweeping set of export controls, including measures tightly restricting Chinese access to U.S. chipmaking technology, vastly expanding its reach in its bid to slow Beijing's technological and military advances.

But it faced criticism for failing to convince key allies to put in place similar equipment curbs, since Japanese and Dutch firms Tokyo Electron Ltd (8035.T) and ASML Holding NV (ASML.AS), along with U.S. companies, produce chipmaking equipment.

"We expect to have a deal in the near term," Undersecretary of commerce for industry and security Alan Estevez said in an interview with Washington-based think tank CNAS, when asked what it would take to get allies, particularly Japan and the Netherlands, to implement similar rules.

When asked what parts of the sprawling new China export rule could be included in a deal with allies, Estevez said "we're looking at the whole gamut," including chips as well as tools.

The rule also cuts China off from certain semiconductor chips made anywhere in the world with U.S. equipment. Estevez said countries could receive carveouts from the U.S. rules if they implement similar regimes at home. (Reuters)

Uzbek workers at a waste processing plant in the western Russian city of Oryol, who were handed mobilisation notices and ordered to show up at the local conscription point, have asked their president for help, a local news outlet reported.

Moscow started the mobilisation campaign, its first since World War Two, last month as its military campaign in Ukraine stalled and Russian forces began to lose ground. Hundreds of thousands of men have since fled Russia to avoid being sent to the front lines.

According to the Istoki video report, Oryol authorities sent out a fresh batch of mobilisation notices this week, including 50 to workers of the EcoCity waste processing facility.

Half of the workers, however, are Uzbek nationals, it said, showing a group of men displaying their Uzbek passports and asking Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to intervene on their behalf.

The Uzbek embassy in Russia said on Thursday that the notices had been served to 26 Uzbeks by mistake and the issue has been resolved, as have other cases where Uzbeks - over a million of whom are estimated to work in Russia - were called up to Russian conscription points.

The mobilisation campaign drew criticism after notices were served to many people not eligible for military service, prompting Russian President Vladimir Putin to order officials to correct all mistakes.

Uzbekistan has warned its citizens against joining foreign armies, which qualifies as a felony under Uzbek law. (Reuters)

The three most glaring omissions from China's new Communist Party leadership share one common trait: all rose through its Youth League and were considered members of a once-powerful faction whose influence Xi Jinping has now effectively crushed.

Premier Li Keqiang and Vice Premier Wang Yang, both 67 and young enough to be re-appointed to the elite seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, were left off even the wider Central Committee, as Xi installed loyalists in top party posts during the recent twice-a-decade leadership reshuffle.

Fellow vice premier and one-time high-flyer Hu Chunhua, who, at 59, had been seen by some party watchers as a candidate for premier and once even a possible future president, did not make it to the 24-man Politburo.

The omissions show Xi has succeeded in a years-long effort to eradicate the faction, analysts said.

"On Hu Chunhua, I think this has been Xi Jinping's main tactic of shutting down the youth league faction," said Victor Shih, an expert on elite politics in China and a professor at the University of California, San Diego.

"He has stifled the careers of quite a few cadres in that faction."

In a dramatic incident widely viewed as symbolic of the faction's demise, Xi's predecessor, Hu Jintao, who is 79 and a Youth League veteran, was unexpectedly escorted from the stage at Saturday's closing ceremony of the party congress.

Exactly what happened remains unclear, but state news agency Xinhua said in two English posts on Twitter that it was related to Hu's health. The social network is blocked in China.

"They are completely defeated," said Cheng Li, a specialist on the transformation of political leaders in China, referring to the sidelining of the Youth League faction.

"It means Xi can do many things he wants to, and opposing forces have got weaker," added Li, who is with the Brookings Institution in Washington.

"It can be read as, he didn't want the Western-style balance of power and wanted to show more of the centralisation of his power."

As Xi kicks off his third leadership term with more power than any leader since Mao Zedong, he faces a mountain of problems, from a dismal economy to his own COVID-19 policy that has backed China into a corner, and souring ties with the West.

TRAINING GROUND

The "faction" refers to officials in leadership roles in the Youth League, which recruits and trains some of China's brightest, mainly high school and university students, traditionally acting as a feeder organisation for the party.

The Youth League's budget has been cut from nearly 700 million yuan ($96 million) in 2012, the year Xi assumed power, to about 260 million yuan in 2021, official data shows.

Membership has dropped to about 74 million over the same period from around 90 million.

China's Communist Party has about 97 million members.

"As a party-led organization, the CYL has lost its clout as the place for grooming leaders," said Dali Yang, a political scientist at the University of Chicago.

"But it has already been working hard to adapt to the changing political circumstances," he said, adding that the Youth League had built a social media presence, appealing to nationalistic pride, and engaged in civic functions.

The Youth League has been active in attacking foreign brands accused of misbehaviour in China, such as false advertising.

Last year, Western journalists said they received death threats after its branch in the central province of Henan asked social media followers to report the whereabouts of a BBC reporter covering major floods there.

The Youth League did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

Its political image lost some sheen in 2012, when Ling Jihua, a top aide to Hu Jintao, tried to cover up the circumstances around the death of his son, killed while driving a Ferrari that crashed in Beijing.

Ling was later charged with corruption and jailed for life.

XI'S 'ZHIJIANG NEW ARMY'

Factions, cliques and power bases have existed, with varying levels of influence, since the party's founding a century ago.

They famously included the so-called "Shanghai Gang" of former leader Jiang Zemin, who is now 96.

Xi's faction, the so-called "Zhijiang New Army", was forged during his years as party chief of the eastern province of Zhejiang between 2002 and 2007.

John Delury, a professor of Chinese studies at Seoul's Yonsei University, said the new leadership reflects Xi's predominance.

"But history would remind us that no political system on earth has eradicated the existence of internal disagreement, rivalry, and power struggles," he said.

"It can take time, but after one particular faction is eliminated, another faction eventually emerges." (Reuters)

There are four provinces in Indonesia that have high marine water quality, according to director of coastal and marine damage and pollution control at the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, Dasrul Chaniago.



"We control the marine water quality by calculating the national index for the 2020–2021 period, and the result is that there are four provinces with high water quality," he informed after attending the 2022 PEMSEA Network of Local Governments (PNLG) event here on Thursday.



The four provinces are Bali, Banten, Yogyakarta, and Central Java, he said.



Further, 4 of the 34 provinces in Indonesia do not meet the national quality index of 59 points, namely Papua, Riau Islands, Aceh, and Southeast Sulawesi, he added.



According to Chaniago, in terms of the volume of waste in the sea in the 2017–2021 period, North Sulawesi was the province with the highest contribution, namely around 600 thousand kilograms per square meter.



Meanwhile, North Sumatra recorded the lowest amount of waste in the sea of below 100 thousand kilograms per square meter.



"The sea waste consists 44 percent of plastic, 12 percent of garments, 15 percent of glass and ceramics, 9 percent of rubber, 10 percent of other materials, and 3 percent of wood," he expounded.



The Indonesian government aims to reduce 70 percent of plastic waste entering the sea by 2025.



Earlier, deputy for coordination of environmental and forestry management at the Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs and Investment, Nani Hendiarti, informed that research conducted by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) found that the amount of plastic waste entering the sea ranges from 0.27 to 0.59million tons per year.



“Now, for handling plastic waste, Indonesia has set an ambitious target, which is to reduce (plastic) waste that enters the sea by 70 percent by 2025. That target is stated in the action plan from Presidential Decree Number 83 of 2018. Thus, we have three years to implement it," she said on Wednesday. (Antaranews)