VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Feb. 4 - Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi urged the informal partnership of five middle power countries -- Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey, and Australia (MIKTA) -- to call for equitable access to the COVID-19 vaccine for all.

"The year 2021 will be yet another year full of challenge and struggle, but the world must be more optimistic, given a decline in the COVID-19 infection rate, global economic recovery, and US re-engagement in multilateral cooperation," the minister remarked at the 18th MIKTA Foreign Ministers' Meeting held virtually on Wednesday.

At the meeting, Marsudi laid emphasis on the crucial role of MIKTA, as an inter-regional group, to form joint leadership and bridge the multilateral system, the foreign ministry noted in a written statement released on that day.

"The global crisis not only brings about challenges but also tests our collective leadership," she remarked.

In her address, the minister highlighted three key messages for MIKTA members to continue their cooperation.

Related news: ASEAN-US ties should boost COVID-19 handling efforts: Minister

First, Marsudi called on MIKTA members to promote multilateralism that will be the key to preserving international cooperation in responding to the current and future global challenges.

Second, MIKTA should encourage global equitable access to the COVID-19 vaccine and take precautionary measures against the threat of so-called vaccine nationalism and protectionism to ensure fair access to the vaccine for all countries, particularly developing nations.

For its part, MIKTA should support the continuation of COVAX, as the only multilateral platform, to ensure equitable access to the vaccine.

Third, MIKTA should strengthen cooperation in the fields of creative economy and digital economy.

Marsudi noted that the COVID-19 pandemic had battered the creative economy industry. Hence, MIKTA needs to find ways to revive the sector without sacrificing public health.

The minister further highlighted the efforts to achieve concrete results of MIKTA's activities. "The real and concrete results will be able to minimize the interval between the formulation of government policy and the direct impact at the grassroots level," she stated.

The minister remarked that MIKTA had continued to encourage the spirit of multilateralism amid the current global situation, including conveying a joint statement at the level of head of state/government to the 75th UN General Assembly in 2020.

MIKTA has also launched several cooperation programs, including the MIKTA Development Cooperation Agency Network (DCAN), which may lay down the foundation for the realization of development cooperation in future.

The 18th MIKTA Foreign Ministers’ Meeting issued a joint communiqué containing common views of MIKTA member states on a wide range of global issues, including Indonesia's proposal for equitable access to the COVID-19 vaccine and a joint statement on the latest developments in Myanmar. (Antaranews)

Feb. 4 - A team of investigators led by the World Health Organization visited a virus research laboratory in China’s central city of Wuhan and met with a prominent virologist there in its search for clues to the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The experts spent about 3-1/2 hours at the heavily-guarded Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has been at the centre of some conspiracy theories that claim a laboratory leak caused the city’s first coronavirus outbreak at the end of 2019.

“Extremely important meeting today with staff at WIV including Dr Shi Zhengli. Frank, open discussion. Key questions asked & answered,” team member Peter Daszak said on Twitter.

Shi, a well-known virus hunter who has long focused on bat coronaviruses - earning her the nickname “Bat Woman” - was among the first last year to isolate the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

Most scientists, including Shi, reject the hypothesis of a lab leak. However, some experts speculate that a virus captured from the wild could have figured in lab experiments to test the risks of a human spillover and then escaped via an infected staff member.

“Very interesting. Many questions,” Thea Fischer, a Danish member of the team, called from her car as it sped away from the lab following Wednesday’s visit, in response to a question whether the team had found anything.

Some scientists have called for China to release details of all coronavirus samples studied at the lab, to see which most closely resembles SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the respiratory disease.

The WHO, which has sought to manage expectations for the Wuhan mission, has said its members would be limited to visits organised by their Chinese hosts and have no contact with community members, because of health restrictions.

While the novel coronavirus that sparked the pandemic was first identified in Wuhan, Beijing has sought to cast doubt on the notion that it originated in China, pointing to imported frozen food as a possible conduit.

The team will spend two weeks conducting field work after having completed two weeks in hotel quarantine after arrival in Wuhan. (Reuters)

Feb. 4 - The Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) has said that an early warning on weather had been issued on the day the Sriwijaya Air flight SJ-182 crashed into the ocean on January 9, 2021.

“The early warning regarding the weather condition prevailing over Soekarno-Hatta International Airport's airspace was issued at 1:15 p.m. local time, though the visibility was getting better," the agency's head, Dwikorita Karnawati, said.

“Based on the weather observation at the airport, the weather turned bad at 1:31 p.m.,” she told members of Commission V of the House of Representatives (DPR), which oversees transportation, during a hearing here on Wednesday.

Therefore, passengers were not allowed to board the Boeing 737-500 jet, Karnawati said, adding that at 2:36 p.m., the weather conditions began improving, so the air traffic controllers allowed the flight to take off.

However, the ill-fated aircraft, which was carrying 50 passengers and 12 crew members, reportedly lost contact four minutes after taking off, she stated.

The BMKG had predicted rainfall with thunderstorms between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. and cumulonimbus clouds at 1,800 ft over Soekarno-Hatta International Airport's airspace on January 9, 2021, she said.

Moreover, more than 80 percent of the airport's airspace was expected to be blanketed by clouds at 1,600 ft, the agency had forecast, she said.

"We conducted an observation by releasing weather balloons on January 7, 8, and 9 (2021)," she informed.

The weather observation had revealed a likelihood of icing at 0-20 degrees Celsius at a height of 16 thousand to 27 thousand feet, while there was no likelihood of icing at 11 thousand feet, Karnawati explained.

From 1:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. Western Indonesia Time (WIB) on the day of the crash, the weather was marked by rainfall with thunderstorms, and rainfall with moderate intensity and lightning, she said.

The visibility was recorded at around four thousand meters and it then increased to five thousand meters at 2:30 p.m., she added.

The Sriwijaya Air flight SJ-182 crashed into the ocean near Jakarta shortly after taking off from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Banten province on January 9, 2021.

According to the Indonesian Transportation Ministry, the airport authorities lost contact with the flight serving the Jakarta-Pontianak route around 2:40 p.m. local time.

The last contact with the Boeing 737-500 jet was made at 11 nautical miles north of Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, after the aircraft crossed an altitude of 11 thousand feet and was ascending to 13 thousand feet.

The plane, bearing the registration number PK-CLC, took off at 2:40 p.m. local time and was scheduled to land at Supadio Airport in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, at 3:50 p.m. local time on January 9, 2021.

The aircraft's flight data recorder (FDR) was retrieved by Indonesian Navy divers from the seabed on January 12, 2021, but its cockpit voice recorder remains to be found.

The aircraft's FDR has been handed over to the National Transportation Safety Commission (KNKT) for a post-crash examination. (Antaranews)

Feb. 4 - The National Committee for Transportation Safety (KNKT) has continued its manual search for the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) of the crashed Sriwijaya Air flight SJ-182 in the waters off Seribu Islands.

"The search for the CVR memory has continued without the help of the underwater location beacon. So, we are searching for it ourselves on the seabed. That is the peculiar difficulty we are facing," KNKT chief Soerjanto Tjahjono said during a hearing with Commission V of the House of Representatives (DPR) in Jakarta on Wednesday.

The search for the CVR has been continued for the purpose of investigation, he informed.

A CVR plays an important role in recording voices from four canals in an airplane — voice from the pilot's microphone, voice from the co-pilot's microphone, voice from the cockpit and the reserved canal (cockpit and cabin interphone), he said.

"FDR and CVR are important components in an investigation since they record flight data such as time, altitude, speed, coordinates and so on," he added.

The flight data recorder (FDR) of SJ-182 was located on January 12, 2021, three days after the plane crashed.

"From the plane's log book, we did not find significant (data) of damage during the January 6-9, 2021 period," Tjahjono revealed.

Meanwhile, Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi said the search operation for the Sriwijaya Air flight was officially ended on January 21, 2021 in accordance with the rules.

He said the search for the CVR memory has continued as it was separated from its casing, which was retrieved on January 15, 2021.

The 13-day joint search operation for flight SJ-182 involved personnel from the Indonesian military, police, and institutions, among others. The joint operation was extended twice by three days each time.

More than 4,300 personnel, 63 vessels, and 15 airplanes were pressed into service for the joint operation.

The joint team collected 324 bags of human remains, 68 bags of small debris, and 55 bags of large debris from the crash site.

The team also retrieved the flight data recorder (FDR) on the fourth day of the search operation and the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) casing on the seventh day of the search operation.

The debris of the crashed plane was handed to the KNKT, while the human remains were handed to the National Police's Disaster Victim Investigation (DVI) team.

The Sriwijaya Air flight SJ-182, bearing the registration number PK-CLC, had lost contact on January 9, 2021 at 2:40 p.m. Western Indonesia time (WIB) shortly after take-off and crashed between Lancang Island and Laki Island, Thousand Islands, DKI Jakarta. The plane had taken off from Jakarta and was headed to Pontianak.

Based on the manifest, the plane was carrying 50 passengers and 12 crew members on board. Of the total passengers, 40 were adults, seven were children, and three were infants. (Antaranews)