VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Mar. 4 - World food prices rose for a ninth consecutive month in February, hitting their highest level since July 2014, led by jumps in sugar and vegetable oils, the United Nations food agency said on Thursday.

The Food and Agriculture Organization’s food price index, which measures monthly changes for a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat and sugar, averaged 116.0 points last month versus a slightly revised 113.2 in January.

The January figure was previously given as 113.3.

The Rome-based FAO also said in a statement that worldwide cereal harvests remained on course to hit an annual record in 2020, adding that early indications pointed to a further increase in production this year. (Reuters)

Mar. 4 - Citing data, the Health Ministry pointed to a spike in cases of obesity in Indonesia, with one in three adults being obese and one in five children, aged 5-12 years, also being overweight or obese.

"Obesity in Indonesia is increasing at an alarming rate. Basic Health Research (Riskesdas) 2018 shows that the trend of weight problems in adults has almost doubled, from 19.1 percent in 2007 to 35.4 percent in 2018. We need to really suppress this trend of increasing obesity," Director of Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases at the Health Ministry, Dr. Cut Putri Arianie, noted in a statement received by ANTARA here on Thursday.

Although obesity is not taken as seriously as other diseases, it has serious health implications and can be an increasingly expensive financial risk to the country.

With over 800 million obese people globally, the medical consequences of obesity will reach over US$1 trillion by 2025.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines obesity as an abnormal or excessive accumulation of fat that can interfere with health. For Asian people, someone is obese if they have a body mass index (BMI) above 25.

Cut Putri has called on the government to give serious attention to the problem of obesity. The first measure to be conducted is to prepare a case diagnosis at the earliest.

"To reduce obesity rates in Indonesia, case diagnosis as early as possible should be conducted to offer better treatment," Putri noted.

The ministry has developed an Integrated Development Post (Posbindu) and launched the CERDIK program to provide education about healthy living habits.

The program comprised regular health checks and some efforts to prevent cigarette smoking, encourage people to exercise and follow a healthy and balanced diet, as well as get plenty of rest and manage stress.

"We are also promoting the 'Healthy Living Community Movement' (GERMAS). With this action, we expect the obesity rate to be lowered," Putri stated.

On the same occasion, Medical Director of Novo Nordisk Indonesia, Dr. Fahad Jameel, stated that obesity is a grave chronic disease. The community should prioritize handling, so that the disease does not give rise to other ailments and does not create large socio-economic burden.

"As a leading global health company, Novo Nordisk is committed to making obesity a health priority. Changing Obesity is our long-term commitment together with our various partners to improve the quality of life for sufferers by increasing prevention and treatment efforts in the health sector," Fahad remarked. (Antaranews)

Mar. 4 - Officials from APEC member economies finalized their work toward modernizing and increasing the security and efficiency of business travel through the unveiling of the virtual or digital APEC Business Travel Card (ABTC).

The virtual ABTC showcased a digital version of the APEC Business Travel Card on a mobile application, thereby facilitating cardholders to present their virtual card to enter an APEC economy, according to a written statement issued by the APEC Business Mobility Group and received here on Thursday.

"Our objective is to make traveling under the APEC Business Travel Card scheme more secure, efficient, convenient, and user-friendly, particularly as APEC members are looking for safe and effective measures to open up borders and resume international travel," Kimberlee Stamatis, convenor of the APEC Business Mobility Group, overseeing the scheme, stated.

The Virtual ABTC encompasses security features, such as user verification, the use of holographic watermarks, and disabling of screenshots within the mobile application to ensure authenticity of the cardholder.

It also offers real-time connectivity to the internet, providing speedy updates of pre-clearance information required for entry into APEC economies.

"Each APEC economy will determine its own timeline to transition to the virtual ABTC for its cardholders. Cardholders from transitional members will not have access to the digital service for now. However, the existing processes will remain unchanged," Stamatis stated.

Stamatis, concurrently the director at Australia’s Department of Home Affairs, noted that Australia will be the first economy to transition to the digital service for all Australian cardholders from March 2021.

"We really look forward to seeing other economies transition as soon as possible thereafter," she affirmed.

In order to support member economies’ transition to the new digital service, the process for issuing Virtual ABTCs has been streamlined to align with existing operations with as little alteration as necessary.

Some 19 APEC economies are fully participating members of the ABTC scheme: Australia; Brunei Darussalam; Chile; China, Hong Kong, China; Indonesia; Japan; South Korea; Malaysia; Mexico; New Zealand; Papua New Guinea; Peru; the Philippines; the Russian Federation; Singapore; Chinese Taipei; Thailand; and Vietnam.

Meanwhile, Canada and the United States are transitional members.

The APEC Business Travel Card (ABTC) scheme facilitates short-term business travel within the APEC economies by streamlining the entry process at ports of entry within the region. Approved applicants are issued a card that functions as the entry authority to fully participating economies.

The scheme lowers travel costs between APEC economies by 38 percent for cardholders and businesses pay 27 percent less in application fees and 52 percent less in immigration processing. (Antaranews)

Mar. 4  - Coordinating Minister for Maritime and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan highlighted the government's target to lower the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) decline owing to the natural disaster to 0.10 percent in 2021.

The target is an indicator of increasing disaster and climate resilience as stipulated in Presidential Regulation Number 18 of 2020 on the National Middle Term Development Plan (RPJMN) for the 2020-2024 period.

Hence, Pandjaitan has urged all regions to continue to step up vigil against potential natural disasters, including earthquakes and tsunamis.

"I call upon the governors, district heads and mayors as well as their subordinates to be heedful of this set target. This is important," the minister remarked while addressing participants of the 2021 National Disaster Mitigation Coordination Meeting (Rakornas PB) here on Thursday.

The government is also eyeing to reduce the time to deliver disaster early warning information to the public, from five minutes in 2019 to three minutes by 2024.

The minister has called upon local authorities to organize disaster risk and mitigation stimulation to support the realization of targets stipulated in the country's RPJMN for the 2020-2024 period.

Pandjaitan reminded local governments to not underestimate disaster and climate awareness. He also cautioned that infrastructure development would be ineffective in the absence of preparation and awareness of potential disasters.

The minister urged local governments to work in an integrated manner in taking requisite precautionary measures and handling natural disasters.

Meanwhile, according to Monardo, head of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBN), during the period between February 2020 and February 2021, the BNPB recorded that Indonesia had witnessed 3,253 disasters, including earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, forest fires, flooding, landslides, and whirlwinds. "The minister of finance has said that every year, we experience economic losses due to disasters, which average Rp22.8 trillion per year. That is huge. Not to mention, if we look at the statistics of casualties due to disasters in the last 10 years, (we will find) an average of 1,183 people died as a result of natural disasters," Monardo noted.

The World Bank ranks Indonesia among the 35 nations facing the highest disaster risk in the world, he pointed out. (Antaranews)