VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

China's consistent position is to maintain stability in the Korean peninsula, its foreign ministry said on Wednesday, after South Korean media reported that North Korea may conduct a nuclear test in coming months.

The relevant parties should take concrete actions to respond to the legitimate concerns of the DPRK, said Wang Wenbin, spokesman at the Chinese foreign ministry at a regular media briefing, referring to North Korea's formal name - the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

North Korea's first nuclear test since 2017, if it takes place, is likely to happen between Oct. 16 and Nov. 7, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported on Wednesday, citing lawmakers briefed by the national intelligence agency.  (Reuters)

Pakistan's new finance minister Ishaq Dar said on Wednesday he will work to rein in inflation while cutting interest rates, saying the rupee currency was undervalued and promising a strong response to the South Asian nation's worst economic crisis.

In his fourth time in the job, the chartered accountant is facing a balance of payment crisis, foreign reserves that cover barely a month's imports, historic lows in the rupee, inflation exceeding 27% and the aftermath of devastating floods.

"We will control inflation," Dar told reporters in televised comments after he was sworn in.

"We will bring interest rates down," he said. He did not explain how he would tame price pressures while also cutting rates.

Dar also had a warning for currency market speculators, saying that the Pakistani rupee was undervalued. It has weakened more than 30% against the U.S. dollar so far this year.

"Our currency right now is not at the place where it should be, it is undervalued," said Dar, who is known to favour currency market intervention to keep the rupee stable.

"I hope the speculators will stop. I think they have already got it and we are seeing the rupee rising," he added. "No one will be allowed to play with the Pakistani currency."

The country's sovereign dollar-denominated bonds fell to record lows on Wednesday, signalling growing fears of a default.

Shorter-dated issues suffered the biggest decline, with the 2024 bond bid at 40.2 cents on the dollar, according to Tradeweb data . Bonds due in 2025 and 2027 fell just over 4 cents while longer-dated maturities were bid at just over 36.6 cents in the dollar.

The premium demanded by investors to hold the bonds blew out to record levels, with the sovereign spread over U.S. Treasuries widening to 2,442 basis points on the JPMorgan EMBI Global Diversified index. (.JPMEGPAKR)

"We thought even before this (the huge floods) that there was a high likelihood of a debt restructuring so the way I would put it is that likelihood is now significantly higher," said Carl Ross, a partner at investment firm GMO.

"The numbers being talked about, 10% of GDP or so in damages, that is probably going to require burden sharing across a lot of different stakeholders."

A member of parliament's upper house, Dar got the job after his predecessor, Miftah Ismail became the fifth to quit the post in less than four years, amid persistent economic turbulence.

The rupee has been gaining firmly ahead of his appointment and stocks responded positively before Wednesday's swearing-in.

WRECKED ECONOMY

Dar, a senior politician in the ruling party of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, flew to Islamabad on Monday night after ending five years in self-exile in London.

In 2017, he had been facing corruption charges he says were politically motivated, but last week an anti-graft court suspended warrants for his arrest, enabling his return.

On Wednesday, the court extended the suspensions.

"I told the court that my passport was revoked," Dar said.

"I wasn't able to travel for the last four years," he added, describing the legal action against him as political victimisation by the previous government of Prime Minister Imran Khan. Khan's party denies this.

Analysts say Dar's key mandate is to halt inflation that mainly stems from his predecessor's unpopular decisions to stick to preconditions set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), including rolling back subsidies made by Khan's government.

Sharif's coalition government says it inherited a wrecked economy after Khan's ouster in a vote of no-confidence in April, a charge the former premier denies.

As the new government took over, the IMF's $6 billion bailout package agreed in 2019 was in question because of the lack of an agreed policy framework.

Last month the IMF board approved the programme's seventh and eighth reviews, allowing the release of more than $1.1 billion in funding assistance.

Former finance minister Ismail had said the tranche was likely to be increased after Pakistan sought help to remedy economic losses of an estimated $30 billion caused by the unprecedented floods.

The disaster could cut economic growth to below 3%, from 5% estimated for fiscal 2022-23, the government has said. (Reuters)

India declared the Popular Front of India (PFI) Islamic group and its affiliates unlawful on Wednesday, accusing them of involvement in terrorism and banning them for five years, after authorities detained more than 100 PFI members this month.

The PFI said it had dissolved itself and asked its members to stop their activities.

"As law-abiding citizens of our great country, the organisation accepts the decision of the Ministry of Home Affairs," the PFI's branch in Kerala state, where it has a big presence, said in a statement.

On Tuesday, the PFI denied accusations of violence and anti-national activities when its offices were raided and dozens of its members were detained in various states.

The home ministry, in announcing the ban, said in a statement the PFI and its affiliates had "been found to be involved in serious offences, including terrorism and its financing, targeted gruesome killings, disregarding the constitutional set up".

The PFI's now-banned student wing, the Campus Front of India (CFI), called the government action a political vendetta and propaganda. It denied the accusations of involvement in terrorism.

Muslims account for 13% of India's 1.4 billion people and many have complained of marginalisation under the rule of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.

Modi's party denies accusations of discrimination against Muslims and points to data its says shows that all Indians irrespective of religion are benefiting from the government focus on economic development and social welfare.

The PFI has supported causes such as protests against a 2019 citizenship law that many Muslims deem discriminatory, as well as protests in the southern state of Karnataka this year demanding the right for Muslim women students to wear the hijab in class.

The ban is likely to stir an outcry among opponents of the government, which retains broad public support and a comfortable majority in parliament eight years after Modi first became prime minister.

'RUTHLESSLY SUPPRESSED'

The Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), which works with the PFI on some issues but was not included in the ban, said the government had struck a blow against democracy and human rights.

"Freedom of speech, protests and organisations have been ruthlessly suppressed by the regime against the basic principles of the Indian constitution," the SDPI said in a statement.

Some SDPI office were raided and some of its members were detained this month.

The government said in a notification it had banned the PFI and affiliates CFI, Rehab India Foundation, All India Imams Council, National Confederation of Human Rights Organisation, National Women's Front, Junior Front, Empower India Foundation and Rehab Foundation, Kerala.

The government said it found a "number of instances of international linkages of PFI with global terrorist groups", adding that some of its members had joined Islamic State and participated in "terror activities" in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

India has been the victim of some major militant attacks over the past two decades, most linked to Islamists based in neighbouring Pakistan.

The PFI came together in late 2006 and was launched formally the next year with the merger of three organisations based in south India. It calls itself a "social movement striving for total empowerment" on its website. (Reuters)

North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast on Wednesday, South Korea's military said, a day before U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is set to arrive in Seoul.

The launch came two days after South Korea and U.S. forces conducted a military drill in waters off the South's east coast involving an aircraft carrier. On Sunday, North Korea fired another ballistic missile towards the sea off its east coast.

Wednesday's missiles were launched from the Sunan area of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, between 6:10 and 6:20 p.m. 0910-0920 GMT), South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

They flew about 360 km (225 miles), reaching an altitude of 30 km (19 miles) and a maximum velocity of Mach 6 (4,600 mph or 7,450 kmh), they said, adding a detailed analysis was underway.

"North Korea's provocations will further strengthen the South Korean-U.S. deterrence and response capability, and only deepen North Korea's isolation from the international community," the Joint Chiefs said in a statement.

South Korea's national security council held an emergency meeting and condemned the test, vowing to continue building "overwhelming" capacity to deter North Korea, President Yoon Suk-yeol's office said in a separate statement.

North Korean state media did not mention the reports of the latest launches, but its leader Kim Jong Un has said its development of nuclear weapons and missiles are meant to defend North Korea against U.S. threats.

Japan's coast guard also reported a suspected ballistic missile test, which its minister of state for defence, Toshiro Ino, condemned as "unacceptable". He said Pyongyang's repeated missile launches imperilled Japanese and international security.

Following a stop in Japan, Harris will land in the South Korean capital and visit the heavily fortified Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) between the neighbours on Thursday.

In a speech hours earlier aboard the destroyer USS Howard in the Japanese city of Yokosuka, Harris called Sunday's missile launch part of an "illicit weapons programme which threatens regional stability and violates multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions".

The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said the latest launch highlights "destabilising impact" of the North's unlawful weapons programmes.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson also condemned the test as a regional threat, but said Washington remained committed to a diplomatic approach and urged Pyongyang to engage in dialogue.

North Korea has tested missiles at an unprecedented pace this year, while this week's joint drill is a show of force intended to warn against what could be Pyongyang's first nuclear test since 2017.

The isolated country has completed preparations for a nuclear test, a window for which could open between China's party congress in October and the U.S. mid-term elections in November, South Korean lawmakers said on Wednesday. (Reuters)