VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The Australian government said it would announce the voting date for a landmark referendum to constitutionally recognise the country's Indigenous people next Wednesday as it battles a dip in support for the proposal in recent months.

Australians will be asked to vote either in October or November on whether they support altering the constitution to include a "Voice to Parliament", an Indigenous committee to advise Parliament on matters affecting them.

"Very soon, our nation will have a once in a generation chance to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in our constitution - and make a positive difference to their lives with a Voice," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.

"I will be campaigning for constitutional recognition. Because if not now, when?," Albanese said in a statement on Wednesday.

Albanese has staked significant political capital on the referendum. Since Australian independence in 1901, only eight of the 44 proposals for constitutional change have been approved.

Opinion polls out early this month showed the referendum would fail if it was held now, adding pressure on the government to improve its messaging. To succeed, a referendum requires a national majority of votes as well as a majority of votes in at least four of the six states.

Making up about 3.2% of Australia's near 26 million population, the Aboriginal people were marginalised by British colonial rulers and are not mentioned in the 122-year-old constitution. They were not granted voting rights until the 1960s and track below national averages on most socio-economic measures.

The referendum debate has divided opinions with supporters arguing the Voice will bring progress for the Aboriginal community, recognise the 65,000 year-old culture and "unite the nation". Opponents say it would hand excessive powers to the body, while others have described it as tokenism and toothless. (Reuters)

When Pakistani villager Gul Faraz rang his family to raise the alarm that a cable had snapped and he and seven schoolchildren were trapped in a cable car swaying in the wind high above a rocky ravine, he doubted he would ever see home again.

"It is an unforgettable day," Faraz said on Wednesday, a day after army commandos performed a miraculous rescue, winching two to safety with a helicopter, and bringing the rest down on a zip line when it became too dark to fly safely in the gusting winds.

"I can't tell you what we experienced yesterday when one cable of the cable car suddenly snapped and we were stranded in the air," said Faraz, who at 20 years old was the only adult aboard, and the only person with a cell phone.

He called his family first, and then television channel Geo News, whose coverage quickly drew the attention of the world's media to the drama unfolding in the remote mountains of northern Pakistan.

It is a part of the world where cable cars and rickety rope bridges are the fastest way to move from a village on one hillside to its nearest neighbour across ravines and valleys.

The schoolchildren, aged between 10 and 16, had been coming down from their homes in Jhangri to a school in Battangi, two villages in the Allai valley, when the calamity struck at around 7 am.

The journey by cable car usually took just a matter of minutes, whereas travelling on the rough mountain roads and tracks takes hours.

It would be 16 hours before the high-risk rescue operation brought everyone safely off the flimsy car as it dangled 183 metres (600 feet) above the ground, the military said, lowering the height estimated by officials earlier but making it no less deadly.

There were fears the remaining cable could give way any time, and cries of 'God is Great' arose from people gathered around to see the children brought down on harnesses by soldiers on a zip line.

"At some point, I had lost hope that we would safely return home," Faraz told Reuters by telephone from his home, where his family was receiving visitors from villages across the region, all offering thanks for their survival.

Having dreaded the worst, Pakistan exulted with relief and pride over the daring rescue.

"Our first priority was to secure the children," caretaker Prime Minister Anwar ul Haq Kakar said, describing the feat as "near impossible".

"It was heartening to see the whole nation praying and standing united ... in the hour of need," Kakar told a news conference in the southern city of Karachi.

Those prayers were answered for Faraz and the children.

"We got a second life," he said. (Reuters)

Maintaining peace needs a powerful defence, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said on Wednesday, as she made a rare visit to a frontline island located right next to China, to mark the anniversary of a key military clash with Chinese forces.

China has stepped up military activity to try and force democratically-governed Taiwan to accept Beijing's sovereignty, despite strong objections from the government in Taipei.

Tsai laid a wreath and bowed her head in respect at a memorial park on Kinmen island, at its closest less than 2 km (1.2 miles) away from Chinese-controlled territory, for the 65th anniversary of the start of the second Taiwan Strait crisis.

"Our position on maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is very firm," Tsai told veterans at a lunch, adding that there would be no Taiwan today if they had not prevailed during the crisis in 1958.

The crisis was the last time Taiwanese forces joined battle with China on a large scale.

"However, to maintain peace, we must first strengthen ourselves," Tsai added.

"We must thus continue to implement national defence reforms, promote defence self-sufficiency, and continuously improve the combat power and resilience of national defence."

In August 1958, Chinese forces began more than a month of bombardment of Kinmen, along with the Taiwan-controlled Matsu archipelago further up the coast, including naval and air battles, seeking to force them into submission.

Taiwan fought back at the time with support from the United States, which sent military equipment like advanced Sidewinder anti-aircraft missiles, giving Taiwan a technological edge.

The crisis ended in a stalemate, and Taiwan observes Aug. 23 every year as the date it fended off the Chinese attack.

It was only Tsai's third visit as president to Kinmen to mark the anniversary, following a visit in 2020 when she was accompanied by the de facto U.S. ambassador to Taipei.

Formerly called Quemoy in English, Kinmen today is a popular tourist destination, though remnants of past fighting such as underground bunkers scatter the island, and Taiwan maintains a significant military presence.

Taiwan has controlled Kinmen and Matsu since the defeated Republic of China government fled to Taipei in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong's communists. (Reuters)

VOINews, Jakarta - President Joko Widodo's (Jokowi's) visit to Tanzania, East Africa, resulted in an agreement on cooperation in trade, energy, health security, and agriculture sectors.

"The Global South contains 85 percent of the world's population. Therefore, the world should listen to the voices and interests of the countries in the Global South, including the right to carry out development projects," he said while issuing a joint press statement with the President of the United Republic of Tanzania Samia Suluhu Hassan on Tuesday.

During their meeting at the Dar Es Salaam State House, the two leaders discussed a number of bilateral cooperation areas along with the signing of a number of Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs).

Indonesia also pushed for a preferential trade agreement (PTA) to further optimize the trade potential between the two countries, which experienced an increase of 20.7 percent in 2022.

President Widodo also conveyed Indonesia's willingness to increase investment in Tanzania, including in the management of a gas block in Mnazi Bay, Tanzania, by a state-owned enterprise (SOE) and the conversion of natural gas into chemicals and fertilizers.

"This cooperation is very strategic and will strengthen collaboration between developing countries. In addition, I propose the establishment of a bilateral investment treaty to ensure the protection and continuity of investments between the two countries," he stated.

Furthermore, Indonesia has committed to participate in health resilience development in Tanzania by exporting products made by its domestic pharmaceutical industry, he added.

"Indonesia is committed to helping Tanzania in building their health resilience in the form of Indonesian pharmaceutical company exports to Tanzania as a form of contribution to meeting the need for pharmaceutical products in Tanzania," he said.

He then expressed his commitment to realizing concrete collaboration, including through the formulation of plans to revitalize the farmer, agriculture, and rural training center in Morogoro, Tanzania.

"Indonesia is finalizing a grand design for the next five years of development for Africa," he disclosed.

In his speech, President Widodo noted that Tanzania has historical roots that have strengthened relations between Indonesia and African countries since the 1955 Asian-African Conference and the 1951 Non-Aligned Movement.

"We must strengthen the spirit of solidarity and collaboration between countries in the Global South," he emphasized. (antaranews)