VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Unlicensed tutoring services in China could face penalties of up to 100,000 yuan ($13,715.54), the country's Education Ministry said as it seeks to crack down on the lucrative after school industry and promote a "good environment" for learning.

The announcement made by the Ministry of Education on state run CCTV on Tuesday, is the most recent measure by authorities to reform China's education sector and alleviate the academic pressure on students.

Beijing in 2021 imposed tough rules to clamp down on the booming $120 billion private tutoring industry, aiming both to ease pressure on children and boost the country's birth rate by lowering family costs.

However, problems such as unlicensed after school tutoring continues to "varying degrees" and the problem of individual institutions "taking money and running away" still occurs, the ministry said.

"There is an urgent need to improve the legal system for after school training," it said.

China's slowing economy, grappling with chronically low consumer confidence, is affecting young couples' plans to either get married or have children, compounding the demographic headaches of one of the world's fastest-ageing societies.

The high cost of education has been cited as a key factor by young Chinese for not wanting to have children. (Reuters)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday the geopolitical climate had changed completely since the United Nations imposed sanctions on North Korea, and he accused the West of breaking pledges on humanitarian support for Pyongyang.

Lavrov was speaking to a Russian TV reporter as President Vladimir Putin hosted North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at a summit in Russia's far east. Since 2006 North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions, which Russia supported, over its banned nuclear weapons and missile programmes.

"Sanctions against North Korea were adopted in a completely different geopolitical situation when there were problems establishing dialogue (with Pyongyang), when there were quite serious debates in the Security Council," Lavrov told Russian TV reporter Pavel Zarubin.

He said the reason that Russia and China had blocked a further U.S.-drafted sanctions resolution against North Korea last year was that the West had given a false promise at the time of the original sanctions on humanitarian aid for the country.

"That was another lie. We, the Chinese and the North Koreans were deceived," Lavrov said.

In a separate clip posted by Zarubin on social media, the reporter raised the sanctions issue again with Lavrov and asked him to comment on Western media reports that the Putin-Kim meeting could lead to Russia supplying arms to North Korea, or vice versa.

Lavrov did not reply directly, but said the West had broken contractual agreements by providing Soviet-era weaponry to Ukraine - a reference to arms supplied to Kyiv by central and eastern European countries which once belonged to the Moscow-led Warsaw Pact but which are now members of NATO.

Lavrov said this violated "every possible contractual obligation" because the weapons had been originally supplied by Moscow with end-user certificates that prevented them from being transferred to third parties.

Lavrov's assertion that sanctions on North Korea were the product of a different global situation and of bad faith from untrustworthy Western powers were significant at a moment when Russia's own adherence to them is under close scrutiny.

Earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia maintained its commitments as a member of the U.N. Security Council but this would not be an obstacle to developing its relations with North Korea. (Reuters)

The weekend G20 summit was India's big moment on the world stage, giving the country an opportunity to work on global issues and providing Prime Minister Narendra Modi a chance to present his credentials as a global statesman.

Although some analysts said the meeting showed few concrete results, his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is now cashing in on Modi's enhanced image ahead of a series of state elections and national elections due by May 2024.

In the run-up to the summit, Modi's face was plastered on G20 hoardings across the country. During the meeting last weekend, local television channels had wall-to-wall coverage of Modi with world leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, and the praise that was showered on him for a successful meeting.

The BJP peppered its social media platforms with messages of praise from world leaders.

The summit declaration papered over key differences and had few breakthroughs in critical areas such as debt and climate change but for a popular leader with a long-dominant lead over his political rivals, these are diplomatic intricacies that matter little in domestic politics, analysts said.

India's successful mission last month to land a spacecraft on the moon is another factor that feeds into the country's feel-good image and gives Modi a fillip, they said.

The opposition Congress party has criticised Modi for turning G20 into an election campaign, charging him with promoting dialogue and peace on the international stage while his Hindu nationalist administration discriminates against religious minorities and quashes dissent, charges the government has denied.

But analysts say Modi's political position is so strong there is little risk of the strategy backfiring.

"The message which has gone out is that India has really emerged very strong in the world," said Sanjay Kumar, psephologist at New Delhi's Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.

"And it's only because of Modi. The narrative is the national pride of an average Indian has gone up," he said.

Modi enjoys high approval ratings and surveys suggest he will easily win the general election and a third term next year despite concerns about rising inflation, unemployment and an uneven economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic. Worries about violence in the northeastern state of Manipur have also affected Modi's image.

The BJP plans to highlight the "success of the summit" during fortnight-long celebrations of Modi’s birthday starting on Sunday, a party official said.

Modi's contribution to India's rising global stature will be a key theme of a special five-day parliament session beginning next week, the official said.

NATIONAL PRIDE

"It’s really a fact that India's image has transformed under Prime Minister Modi," BJP vice president Baijayant Jay Panda told Reuters.

Modi, who turns 73 on Sunday, swept to power in 2014 promising stability and change from what he called the long-ruling Congress party's corruption and poor governance.

He consolidated his win with welfare economics, boosting infrastructure and unabashed Hindu nationalism, winning a second term in 2019 with a bigger majority.

Modi often underlines national pride in his speeches, which resonates with a large section of the people that has been aggrieved about India's portrayal in Western media as a poor country, analysts said.

"Every small thing counts when a narrative of national pride is being built," said Yashwant Deshmukh, a psephologist with the C-Voter agency.

According to C-Voter's biannual "Mood of the Nation" survey in India Today magazine last month, 47% said India's G20 presidency will enhance the country's global stature and 73% said it will be a poll plank in 2024.

The opposition Congress party was not so impressed, with its chief spokesperson Jairam Ramesh saying Modi's statements of tolerance on the global stage are "sheer hypocrisy".

"At home...he remains silent on hate speech, lynchings, targeted killings, and attacks on holy places. His party, and the larger ecosystem he belongs to, has unleashed systematic polarisation campaigns...and has torn apart the social fabric of the nation," Ramesh posted on X, formerly Twitter.

The government has denied these charges.

Former Congress prime minister Manmohan Singh, who Modi replaced, said: "While India's standing in the world should rightfully be an issue in domestic politics, it is equally important to exercise restraint in using diplomacy and foreign policy for party or personal politics." (Reuters)

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida unveiled a fresh cabinet line-up on Wednesday that features five women, but falls short of female representation seen in most other G7 nations, although it matches a domestic tally twice before achieved.

Women now account for a quarter of the cabinet members, for a figure roughly on par with the female ratio in Italy's cabinet, for instance, but Japan lags far behind other members of the Group of Seven developed economies.

Four of Kishida's appointments are new to cabinet, with the only exception being Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi, a heavyweight in his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), who has previously run for its top post, and by extension, the top job.

Japan needs to send more women to parliament to have more balanced gender representation at the top, said Koichi Nakano, a specialist in comparative politics at Sophia University in Tokyo.

"You have to simply have a wider pool of eligible and qualified women, and only having 10 percent of lawmakers from the female sex is not enough," he added, saying that a rigorous quota system was one solution.

"Many people in Japan think of a quota system as unfair and biased," Nakano said. "But it's the other way around. The existing system gives too much privilege to men, and particularly men from political dynasties."

Japan's underrepresentation of women in politics was on full display in June when it hosted a G7 ministerial meeting on gender equality and women's empowerment, at which Tokyo was the only member represented by a male minister.

The World Economic Forum rated Japan 125th among 143 countries for gender parity in a report this year, spurring Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno to pledge to push for more social participation by women, especially in politics.

Japan's gender parity in political empowerment was among the world's lowest, ranking 138, behind China, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

In June, Kishida's ruling LDP said it aimed to nearly triple the number of its women lawmakers to 30% in the next decade, through steps such as offering babysitting arrangements and a fund to support female candidates.

On Wednesday, besides re-appointing Takaichi to the economic security role, Kishida named former justice minister Yoko Kamikawa as foreign minister, and three others to ministerial posts for the first time.

They are Ayuko Kato, minister overseeing children-related policies; Hanako Jimi, a minister in charge of Okinawa and Northern Territories affairs; and Reconstruction Minister Shinako Tsuchiya.

Before Kishida, cabinets formed in 2001 by then-prime minister Junichiro Koizumi and in 2014, by Shinzo Abe, had five female ministers each. (Reuters)