VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

 A Russian-installed official in the occupied part of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region said on Friday that Ukrainian forces had broken the final power line connecting the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant with Ukraine, state-owned news agency TASS reported.

TASS quoted Vladimir Rogov, a member of the Russian-backed local administration, as saying that the plant is currently not supplying electricity to Ukraine.

On Thursday, Ukraine's state nuclear energy company said that the plant's six reactors had been disconnected from the country's national grid, and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy blamed Russian shelling.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe's largest, was captured by Russian forces in March. It remains near the frontline, and has repeatedly come under fire in recent weeks. Both Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of shelling the facility. (Reuters)

The U.S. Treasury's warning to Turkey that its companies risked being sanctioned if they did business with sanctioned Russians was "meaningless," Finance Minister Nureddin Nebati said on Friday, assuring businesspeople there was no need for concern.

NATO-member Turkey has sought to strike a balance between Moscow and Kyiv by criticising Russia's invasion and sending arms to Ukraine, while opposing the Western sanctions and continuing trade, tourism and investment with Russia.

Some Turkish firms have purchased or sought to buy Russian assets from Western partners pulling back, while others maintain large assets in the country. Ankara has repeated that Western sanctions will not be circumvented in Turkey.

The U.S. Treasury warned both the country's largest business group TUSIAD and the finance ministry this month that Russian entities and individuals were attempting to use Turkey to bypass Western sanctions.

"The letter relayed to Turkish business groups creating concern among business circles is meaningless. We are pleased to see that the United States, our ally and trade partner, is inviting its businesses to invest in our economy," Nebati said in a tweet.

"Separately, we are determined to improve our economic and commercial relations with our neighbours especially in the areas of tourism and various sectors within a framework that is not subject to sanctions," he said.

All actors in Turkey's economy are tied to free market principles and are working to obtain a bigger share of global trade, Nebati added.

Turkey, which has close ties and Black Sea borders with both Russia and Ukraine, has said sanctioning Russia would have hurt its already strained economy and argued that it is focused on mediation efforts between the sides.

One benefit for Turkey has been a jump beyond pre-pandemic levels in foreign visitors last month, thanks largely to Russian visitors with little other option due to Western flight restrictions.

The head of a metal exporters group said this month that Russian demand had increased for Turkish products it could no longer source from European companies, and that Turkish companies had received enquiries from European businesses about supplying Russia via Turkey. (Reuters)

Pope Francis has asked for invitation from North Korea to visit the isolated country, South Korean broadcaster KBS reported.

"I will go there as soon as they invite me. I'm saying they should invite me. I will not refuse," KBS quoted the pope as saying in the interview aired on Thursday.

Such a visit would be the first by a pope to the reclusive state, which does not allow priests to be permanently stationed there. Little is known about how many of its citizens are Catholic, or how they practice their faith.

Former South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who is Catholic, has urged Francis to visit North Korea, saying a papal visit to Pyongyang would help build peace on the Korean Peninsula. (Reuters)

It was when the Taliban came to arrest her and her brother in October that Fawzia Saidzada, an Afghan journalist and women's rights activist, finally decided it was time to flee.

The 30-year-old managed to get out the next day after promising the Taliban she would inform on other journalists and activists - something she never did. Her brother was held for 15 days.

"When the Taliban came to power, we decided to fight against the Taliban," said Saidzada, who is raising a 13-year-old son alone. "Our slogan was 'either freedom or death'."

But the episode taught her she would have to carry on her struggle for the rights of girls and women from abroad. She arrived in Berlin six weeks ago along with her son, mother, two brothers and one of the brother's families.

"Afghan women are heroes," she told Reuters TV. "Afghan women are courageous, they are fighters who have faced war in the past four decades but have not lost hope."

Saidzada is one of thousands of Afghans who have settled in Germany since U.S. President Joe Biden ordered the withdrawal of the U.S.-led forces that for decades propped up the government in Kabul.

Within days, the Taliban had regained control, after fighting a 20-year insurgency in which tens of thousands of civilians were killed. Since then, they have curtailed the rights of women and girls.

Until Kabul's fall, Saidzada was a prototype of the new Afghanistan's free woman, studying first law then journalism before working as a journalist and commentator and running a human rights organisation.

The U.N. mission to Afghanistan says the Taliban is limiting dissent by arresting journalists, activists and protesters.

The Taliban government, some of whose top leaders are on U.S. wanted lists for suspected links to terrorism, has vowed to respect people's rights according to its interpretation of Islamic law, and said it would investigate alleged abuses.

In Germany, Saidzada said she wants to set up an aid organization especially for young people in Afghanistan and maintains contacts with human rights defenders, women activists and former soldiers in her home country. And she wants to finish her master's degree in international relations.

But the struggle will be a long one, since, she says, the Taliban have brought Islamist militants to Afghanistan from all over the world, and driven skilled doctors, lawyers and journalists from their jobs.

Even as she hastens to learn German and settle in, Saidzada has strong words of reproach for a country which, in coalition with the United States, first promised to save Afghanistan and then abandoned it. One day she would like to address the German parliament, she said.

"Why did you leave us alone?" Saidzada said she would ask lawmakers. (Reuters)