VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Deposed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi faces a possible 15 years in prison on Monday, when a court in the military-ruled country is scheduled to deliver a verdict in the first of multiple corruption cases against her.

Since being forced from power in a coup last year, Nobel laureate Suu Kyi has been charged with offences ranging from incitement and graft to violations of electoral and state secrets laws, which carry combined maximum sentences of more than 150 years.

She has been found guilty of two lesser offences so far and sentenced to six years, in a series of trials that could last years, leaving little chance for a political comeback for the figurehead of the country's struggle against dictatorship.

According to a source familiar with the trial, the judge is set to decide on Monday on charges that Suu Kyi accepted bribes totalling $600,000 and 11.4 kg of gold from Phyo Min Thein, a former Yangon chief minister once seen as her future successor.

Phyo Min Thein, a protege of Suu Kyi, in October testified that he gave money and gold to her in exchange for her support. Suu Kyi has dismissed his allegations, which the junta aired separately on national television, as "absurd."

Suu Kyi, 76, is being held in an undisclosed location, without visitors. She denies all charges.

The military has restricted information about her trial and imposed a gag order on her lawyers. The international community calls the trial a farce.

The junta has said Suu Kyi is being given due process by an independent court. (Reuters)

Pakistan has sought an increase in the size and duration of its $6 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, the country's Finance Minister, Miftah Ismail, said on Monday.

Ismail made the comments in a video statement following talks with the IMF in Washington. It came after the fund said Islamabad has agreed to roll back subsidies to the oil and power sectors ahead of a resumption next month of a review of the IMF's support for the country. read more

"I've requested the fund and I think they have, largely, they've agreed to extend this programme for another one year," he said. "I've also requested that they enhance the funding available to Pakistan from $6 billion under this programme to perhaps a little bit more."

The details will be decided when the mission comes to Pakistan in May, he said.

"Based on the constructive discussions with the authorities in Washington, the IMF expects to field a mission to Pakistan in May to resume discussions over policies for completing the 7th EFF review," the IMF said in a statement, referring to its Extended Fund Facility programme.

This covers $6 billion of support the IMF agreed in 2019 to extend to Pakistan. Payment of the funds has been slowed down several times because of IMF concerns over monetary policy and fiscal tightening measures.

The IMF also said the Pakistani authorities had requested to extend the EFF arrangement through June 2023 after the talks in Washington agreed to drop the subsidies.

From April to June, Pakistan will be giving more than $2 billion of subsidies to the oil and power sectors.

According to former finance minister Shaukat Tarin, the IMF had previously questioned how the government could fund that without risking a high fiscal deficit.

If the IMF review is cleared, Pakistan will get more than $900 million, which will also unlock other external funding.

With a widening current account and foreign reserves falling as low as $10.8 billion, the South Asian nation is in dire need of external finances.

A new Pakistani government that took over this month from ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan said it was facing enormous economic challenges, with the risk of GDP growth falling and double-digit inflation it blames on the mismanagement of the previous administration.

Finance minister Ismail said before leaving for Washington that to revive the IMF programme, Islamabad would cut both ordinary expenditure and its funding for development projects. (Reuters)

Inquiries began into what caused the disappearance of a tour boat off Japan's northern coast as search efforts intensified on Monday to find the vessel and its missing passengers, with the confirmed death toll rising to 11.

The "Kazu I" left harbour on Saturday for a sightseeing trip when it ran into trouble off the Shiretoko peninsula on the island of Hokkaido. The boat was carrying 24 passengers, including 2 children, and two crew members. Only a few orange flotation devices bearing its name have been discovered adrift by a rocky area along the rugged coastline.

One child is among the dead.

Searching resumed on Monday using aircraft and patrol boats, with media saying local fishing boats from the port of Utoro had also been mobilised. Searchers also walked steep cliffs along the shoreline.

The Transport Ministry sent officials to the site on Sunday to coordinate operations, and Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito also visited, calling for every possible measure to be taken in determining what went wrong and preventing a recurrence.

Hiroaki Okuma, an investigator from the Japan Transport Safety Board investigator, told reporters they were collecting information from bad weather to conditions of the vessel to find out the cause, and questioning staff at the ship operator.

According to media reports, waves were high in the area on Saturday and fishing boats that departed early in the morning returned to port quickly because of the conditions.

The Kazu I was the first tour boat to operate in the area this season, Kyodo news agency said. It added that the same vessel had collided with a floating object in May 2021, injuring three people, and ran aground in shallow water shortly after leaving port in June.

The coast guard said it would be difficult to say what exactly had happened to the ship until more evidence or debris was found, but so far there are no hints of its whereabouts. The boat company could not be immediately reached for comment.

The boat went missing on Saturday several hours after departing for a tour of the Shiretoko Peninsula, famous for its rugged coastal scenery and wildlife. The boat operator had called to report it was taking on water and listing at a 30-degree angle, local media reported, shortly before contact was lost. read more

Questions have arisen about why it took several hours after the boat's first distress call for rescuers to arrive, but Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihiko Isozaki said the nearest military aircraft were based 150 km away and on patrol at the time.

The sea and weather conditions meant it took longer than normal from coast guard ships to arrive, Isozaki added.

Drift ice can be seen in area waters as late as March, and water temperatures now would be 2 to 3 degrees Celsius (36-37 Fahrenheit), local officials said.

"Just a few minutes in that sort of water would start clouding your consciousness," a local fisheries official said. (Reuters)

The United States promised on Monday to reopen its embassy in Kyiv soon, as Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Ukraine's capital and hailed its success so far against Russia's invasion.

Both men said the fact they were able to come to Kyiv was proof of Ukraine's tenacity in forcing Moscow to abandon an assault on the capital last month, and promised more aid to fend off Russian troops now attempting an advance in the east.

"What you've done in repelling the Russians in the battle of Kyiv is extraordinary and inspiring quite frankly to the rest of the world," Austin told President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at a meeting overnight, after a train journey from Poland. "We are here to support you in any way possible."

Said Blinken: "The reason we're back is because of you, because of the extraordinary courage, leadership and success that you've had in pushing back this horrific Russian aggression."

U.S. officials said they pledged new assistance worth $713 million for Zelenskiy's government and other countries in the region that are fearful of further Russian aggression.

The meeting between the U.S. delegation and Ukraine's leaders ran for three hours, or more than double the allotted time, a U.S. official said.

"In terms of Russia’s war aims, Russia has already failed and Ukraine has already succeeded," Blinken told a briefing in Poland after the two officials returned.

Russia has always denied intending to overthrow Ukraine's government. Western countries say that was its aim from the outset but it failed in the face of Ukrainian resistance.

Just weeks ago, Kyiv was a frontline city under curfew and bombardment, with tens of thousands of Russian troops massing on its northern outskirts. Residents spent nights huddled in its metro stations, sheltering from artillery.

Today, the nearest Russian troops are hundreds of miles away, normal life is returning to the capital, Western leaders have been visiting and countries are reopening their embassies.

Blinken said U.S. diplomats would first return to Lviv in the west and should be back in Kyiv within weeks.

But despite Ukraine having repelled the assault on Kyiv, the war is far from over. Russia has regrouped its forces and sent more troops in to eastern Ukraine. Last week it launched a massive assault there in an attempt to capture eastern provinces known as the Donbas.

Five railway stations came under fire in western and central Ukraine on Monday, causing an unspecified number of casualties, Ukrainian television quoted state-run Ukrainian Railways as saying. Oleksander Kamyshin, the company's chief, said the attacks took place in the space of an hour.

All of the country was placed under an unusually long air raid warning for two hours on Monday morning.

Across the border in Russia's Bryansk region, authorities were battling a huge blaze at an oil depot. There was no immediate indication that the fire was connected to the war, but Russia accused Ukraine of a helicopter attack in that area last week. read more

Before the U.S. officials' visit, Ukraine had drawn up a list of weapons urgently needed from the United States, such as anti-missile systems, anti-aircraft systems, armoured vehicles and tanks, Zelenskiy aide Igor Zhovkva told NBC News on Sunday.

The United States and NATO allies have shown growing readiness to supply heavier equipment and more advanced weapons systems. Britain has promised to send military vehicles and is considering supplying British tanks to Poland to free up Warsaw's Russian-designed T-72s for Ukraine.

In a daily update on the conflict, Britain's defence ministry said Russia had only made minor advances in some parts of Donbas.

"Without sufficient logistical and combat support enablers in place, Russia has yet to achieve a significant breakthrough," it said.

In an emotional address at Kyiv's 1,000-year-old Saint Sophia Cathedral to mark the Orthodox Christian Easter on Sunday, Zelenskiy said his nation would overcome "dark times". read more

The relative calm in Kyiv is a contrast with the south and east of the country, where the war grinds on relentlessly.

Some 320 kilometres (200 miles) southeast of Kyiv, Russian missile strikes on an oil refinery and power plant in Kremenchuk, killing one person and wounding seven, the governor of the Poltava region said.

Ukraine's general staff described Russian shelling and assaults along most of the front in the east, including missile and bomb attacks on a huge steel works in Mariupol where the last Ukrainian defenders are holed up in a city destroyed during two months of Russian siege and bombardment.

Moscow, which describes its actions in Ukraine as a "special military operation", denies targeting civilians.

The European Union is preparing "smart sanctions" against Russian oil imports, possibly some form of oil embargo, Britain's The Times newspaper reported on Monday, citing the European Commission's executive vice president, Valdis Dombrovskis.  (Reuters)