VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

VOInews, Jakarta: Voice of Indonesia, the Overseas Broadcast Station of Radio Republic Indonesia successfully held a Diplomatic Forum entitled ‘Cultural Diplomacy Binds Nations’ on March 27, 2024, in Medan, North Sumatra. The forum presented the Malaysian Consul General in Medan, the Dutch Consul Honorary, Ony Hindra Kusuma, and the Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of North Sumatra, Rober Sibarani as speakers.

Consul General of Malaysia in Medan, Shahril Nizam Abdul Malek talks about Malaysian experience in presenting culture amidst its multiracial communities as a unifying factor of the nation.

“Let me share with you two interesting points. It may be joke to some, but there is only in Malaysia that you can combine four languages and it will make perfect sense. The Sentence is like “Wei macha, you want to makan here or tapau?” so, it is a mix of bahasa Chinese, English, Malay and also Indian. Wei macha is a salutation call for Indian cha. You want to makan here or tapau?, tapau is Chinese (means takeaway). And it makes perfect sense. So that one fact that you can make one sentence that can combine all the main four langugaes in Malaysia.” Said Shahril Nizam Abdul Malek.

Malaysian Consul General in Medan also shared his view about Malaysia who has 50 holidays that symbolize tolerance and the joy of celebrating cultural diversity.

“The second cultural diversity which I believe I can share with you is that Malaysia is perhaps one of the countries that have the most public holiday in the world. Why? Because we have so many multiracial communities and ethnic, so, we have to celebrate all the cultural diversity, so, I think we have more than about fifty public holidays per year, just to show the cultural diversity in Malaysia” Shahril Nizam Abdul Malek added. (Daniel)

VOInews, Jakarta: Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi's visit to Algeria in December 2023 brought an agreement concerning energy cooperation, one of which was the signing of a collaboration between Sonatrach, the Algerian National Oil Company and Pertamina. The Indonesian Ambassador to Algeria, Chalief Akbar Tjandraningrat, in an interview with Voice of Indonesia which was broadcast on Wednesday (27/03/2024) gave an update on the potential and achievements of this collaboration.

Ambassador Chalief Akbar Tjandraningrat said that Algeria has abundant oil and gas reserves that open up opportunities for cooperation.

“Algeria has very high oil reserves, and is probably number 15 in the world, and even higher gas reserves at number 11 in the world. From this aspect alone, we can actually increase Pertamina's investment here, that's why, when signing the MOU, and extending the contract license, it also has the potential for us to take gas, because previously we couldn't take gas, now we can take gas to bring to Indonesia .” Said Ambassador Chalief Akbar Tjandraningrat.

Ambassador Chalief Akbar further explained the division of the oil and gas business into upstream, downstream and mixstream sectors.

"For oil, there is a division of business between upstream, then downstream, and in the middle there is mixstream. If we talk about upstream, it could be Pertamina or we can go in for exploration, both onshore and offshore, and then if we talk about downstream, we can go in or sell and introduce Pertamina products for use in Algeria. " continued Ambassador Chalief Akbar.

Regarding the mixstream sector, Ambassador Chalief Akbar sees big opportunities in this sector. "Mixstream is in the middle of storage, there are storage facilities, there are shipping facilities, so we can play there," explained Ambassador Chalief Akbar.

Chalief Akbar also said that Sonatrach invited Pertamina to invest together in third countries.

"Apart from that, Sonatra also offered Pertamina to work in third countries, for example in this case Libya, they could enter together." Explained Ambassador Chalief Akbar.

Ambassador Chalief Akbar saw Pertamina's opportunity to maximize Algeria's strategic position for penetration of European and American markets through the giant oil and gas companies in Algeria.

“Algeria is now the main supplier, the main player for gas and oil supplies to Europe. Many large European and American oil companies have entered here. For example, Pertamina uses drilling fluid for drilling. "That's their own product and that's one example of how we can sell our products to the giant NOCs in Algeria," concluded Ambassador Chalief Akbar. (Daniel)

VOInews.id, Jakarta: Embassy of Pakistan in Jakarta held a flag ceremony on Saturday (23/3/2024) to commemorate Pakistan Day. The ceremony took place in the embassy's front yard, attended by some embassy officials and the Pakistani diaspora in Indonesia. The ceremony was simple, with the raising of the flag accompanied by the national song Qaumi Tarana as well as several remarks.

VOInews.id, Jakarta: Researchers from the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) examined biodiversity around the Java Trench to explore the richness of deep-sea biodiversity in the Indonesian waters. The research took place from February 28 to March 22, 2024.