VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Unprecedented floods that have submerged huge swathes of Pakistan have killed nearly 1,500 people, data showed on Thursday, as authorities said hundreds of thousands of people were still sleeping in the open air after the disaster.

The deluge, brought by record monsoon rains and glacial melt in northern mountains, has impacted 33 million people out of a population of 220 million, sweeping away homes, vehicles, crops and livestock in damage estimated at $30 billion.

The tally of the dead stands at 1,486, with about 530 children among them, the National Disaster Management Authority said, as it released its first country-wide total since Sept. 9.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been made homeless by flooding in the southern Sindh province, with many sleeping by the side of elevated highways to protect themselves from the water.

"We have been buying tents from all the manufacturers available in Pakistan," Sindh's chief minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said in a statement on Thursday.

Still, one-third of the homeless in Sindh don't even have a tent to protect them from the elements, he said.

Over the last few weeks, authorities have built barriers to keep the flood waters out of key structures such as power stations and homes, while farmers who stayed to try and save their cattle have faced a new threat as fodder has begun to run out.

The government and the United Nations have blamed climate change for the surging waters in the wake of record-breaking summer temperatures.

Pakistan received 391 mm (15.4 inches) of rain, or nearly 190% more than the 30-year average, in July and August. That climbed to 466% for Sindh province, one of the worst-affected areas.

Aid flights from the United Arab Emirates and the United States arrived on Thursday, the foreign ministry said. The United Nations is assessing reconstruction needs. (Reuters)

China said on Thursday that it had lodged "solemn representations" with the United States, after a U.S. Senate panel advanced legislation that would enhance U.S. military support for Taiwan.

If the bill continues to go forward, it would affect U.S.-China relations, Mao Ning, a foreign ministry spokesperson, said at a regular media briefing.

Mao also described the new U.S. legislation as sending "a serious false signal to the separatist forces of Taiwan independence."

"China is firmly opposed to this and has made solemn representations to the U.S. side that there is only one China in the world, that Taiwan is an inseparable part of China's territory, and that China will unswervingly promote the complete reunification of the country," the spokesperson said.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee backed the Taiwan Policy Act of 2022 by 17-5, despite concerns about the bill in U.S. President Joe Biden's administration and anger about the measure from Beijing. 

The bill comes over one month after China conducted its largest-ever military exercises around Taiwan in response to an earlier visit to the self-ruled island by U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi. (Reuters)

Iran has moved a step closer towards becoming a permanent member of a central Asian security body dominated by Russia and China, as Tehran seeks to overcome economic isolation imposed by U.S. sanctions.

Foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian on Thursday said Iran had signed a memorandum of obligations to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which is holding a summit this week in Uzbekistan.

The body, formed in the 2001 as a talking shop for Russia, China and ex-Soviet states in Central Asia, expanded four years ago to include India and Pakistan, with a view to playing a bigger role as counterweight to Western influence in the region.

"By signing the document for full membership of the SCO, now Iran has entered a new stage of various economic, commercial, transit and energy cooperation," Hossein Amirabdollahian wrote on his Instagram page.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was in the Silk Road oasis of Samarkand, Uzbekistan on Thursday to attend the summit. He held a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian state TV reported.

Last year, the central Asian security body approved Iran's application for accession, while Tehran's hardline rulers called on members to help it form a mechanism to avert sanctions imposed by the West over its disputed nuclear programme.

Iran will now be able to take part in the body's meetings, although it is likely to take some time to achieve full membership, deputy secretary-general of the organisation Grigory Logvinov told Russian state TV, which also reported the signing.

Iran's economy has been hit hard since 2018, when then-U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers, including Russia and China.

Months of indirect talks between Iran and U.S. President Joe Biden's administration have hit a dead end over several obstacles to reviving the nuclear pact, under which Tehran agreed to curbs on its nuclear programme in return for the lifting of sanctions.

The U.S. sanctions and growing concerns about an emerging, U.S.-backed Gulf Arab-Israeli bloc that could shift the Middle East balance of power further away from Tehran have prompted Iran's clerical rulers to pursue closer economic and strategic ties with Russia, itself hit with sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.

"Iran is determined to boost its ties with Russia, from economic to aerospace and political fields," Raisi said during his meeting with Putin, according to Iranian state media.

"The cooperation between Tehran and Moscow can significantly neutralise the limitations imposed on our countries by the U.S. sanctions," he said.

In July, just days after Biden visited Israel and Saudi Arabia, Putin visited Tehran in his first trip outside the former Soviet Union since the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.

Putin said on Thursday that a delegation of 80 large companies will visit Iran next week, Russian state-owned news agency RIA reported, in another sign of the growing ties with Iran.  (Reuters)

The Papua Provincial Planning and Development Agency (Bappeda) will refine the Regional Action Plan for Food and Nutrition or the RAD-PG, which aims to strengthen food security and improve the community’s nutrition.

A public consultation on the RAD-PG has been carried out to improve the document, acting head of economic affairs at Papua Bappeda, Syahrudin Kadir, said here during the public consultation on Wednesday.

"This is to resolve food and nutrition problems in the maternal and children aspects," Kadir explained.

With an enhanced food and nutrition program targeting mothers and children, it is expected that a better generation of Papuans can be realized, he added.

He said that his agency expects the document to be a useful instrument in the formulation of the regional development plan.

“So, for the transition period, we can use this document to enrich the future direction of development policies," he added.

Meanwhile, the chief of the UNICEF Office in Papua & West Papua, Aminudin Mohammad Ramdan, said that for drafting the RAD-PG, his office worked with Papua Bappeda from the beginning—right from the preparation of the document to the public consultation.

"After this consultation, there will be a regional action plan in the form of a Papua gubernatorial decree or a regional regulation, but what is certain is that the (provincial) government will issue the RAD-PG, which will then become a reference for districts and cities to form RAD-PGs in each region," Ramdan informed.

The public consultation on the RAD-PG document took place in Jayapura City on Wednesday and was opened by Papua Province's Assistant III for General Affairs Derek Hegemur.

The RAD-PG document is also expected to help realize sustainable food security and increase the society's nutritional status in Papua.

Some local commodities, such as cassava and sago, can help people meet their daily nutritional needs, expert staff to the governor, Elsye Rumbekwan, said. (antaranews)