VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

VOINews, Jakarta - Deputy Health Minister Dante Saksono Harbuwono has said he is confident that Indonesia will be able to produce quality medical devices to meet people's needs.

"To accelerate domestic production of medical devices, medicines, and vaccines, the government requires the active role of all parties, including industry and universities," he observed at the re-launch of the Mixsafe Transport Infant Blending Resuscitator in Jakarta on Monday.

He said that accelerating the production of quality medical devices will require the role of three related parties: the government, industry, and universities.

The government has the political and legal capital to devise regulations to support accelerated production and guarantee product purchases, Harbuwono explained.

Meanwhile, he said, the private industry has the venture capital to provide investment and production capacity for medical devices.

Universities also have science capital, namely researchers and innovators who can initiate the creation of medical device products, he pointed out.

"With the active role of these three parties, I am sure we can produce quality medical device products and meet the needs of the community," he emphasized.

Harbuwono then lauded the efforts made by a number of local industries that produce medical devices. He said that those industries are helping carry out the third pillar of health transformation, namely health resilience.

"The third pillar is in line with Presidential Instruction Number 6 of 2016 to accelerate the development of the pharmaceutical and medical device industry, as well as Presidential Instruction Number 2 of 2022 to accelerate the use of domestic products," he added.

With the transformation and the issuance of the presidential instructions, the volume of medicinal raw materials and medical devices produced domestically has increased, Harbuwono informed.

This has been indicated by the fall in the percentage of medical device import transactions from 88 percent to 70 percent in 2021–2022, he disclosed.

Therefore, he said he hopes that the industrial sector can work together with universities to increase the domestic production of medical devices.

The Mixsafe Transport Infant Blending Resuscitator is a portable baby respirator made by researchers from the University of Indonesia (UI). The device works to supply oxygen and medical gases at a specified concentration for babies and has a battery life of six hours. (Antaranews)

VOINews, Jakarta - The Indonesian Migrant Workers' Protection Agency (BP2MI) and the South Tangerang Police have thwarted an attempt to illegally place 18 migrant workers in Singapore and arrested three suspects.

The three suspects have been identified by their initials as MAY, who acted as a recruiter and distributor of migrant worker candidates; HK, who served as the manager of a shelter and language teacher; and MM, who served as a shuttle driver to the airport.

The migrant workers were found at a shelter located in a housing complex in North Serpong Sub-district in South Tangerang City, Banten Province, BP2MI Head Benny Rhamdani informed here on Monday.

Two of the workers were found while they were preparing to travel from Soekarno-Hatta Airport in Banten to Hang Nadim, Riau Islands, at 5:55 a.m. on Monday.

The agency had earlier received a tip on the illegal placement of the two workers in Singapore.

"So, on Monday, August 14, 2023, at around 3 a.m. WIB, BP2MI officers coordinated with the South Tangerang Police to jointly carry out prevention activities," Rhamdani said.

The workers were promised a monthly salary of S$640–S$750, or around Rp7 million to Rp9 million, as domestic workers.

Rhamdani said that each migrant worker candidate had already received Rp5 million to Rp6 million as pocket money.

"Of course, on this occasion, I, as the head of BP2MI, would like to express my deepest gratitude to all parties, especially the National Police, who have supported the eradication of the trafficking in persons (TPPO) involving Indonesian migrant workers as victims, and I hope that the perpetrators will be immediately exposed and processed properly," he said.

Rhamdani urged all Indonesian people who plan to work abroad to comply with work procedures, in accordance with existing regulations, through official channels that have been provided, as stipulated by Law Number 18 of 2017 concerning the Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers.

"Working abroad is the right of every citizen and the state will prepare all the facilities needed for the people to work abroad," he said. (Antaranews)

Japan and the U.S. will agree this week to jointly develop an interceptor missile to counter hypersonic warheads being developed by China, Russia and North Korea, Japan's Yomiuri newspaper said on Sunday.

The agreement on interceptors to target weapons designed to evade existing ballistic missile defences is expected when President Joe Biden meets Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in the U.S. on Friday, the report said, without giving any source for the information.

Officials at Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs could not be reached for comment outside business hours.

Unlike typical ballistic warheads, which fly on predictable trajectories as they fall from space to their targets, hypersonic projectiles can change course, making them more difficult to target.

Biden and Kishida are to meet the sidelines of a trilateral summit with South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, the Yomiuri said.

The U.S. and Japan agreed in January to consider developing the interceptor at a meeting of Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin with their Japanese counterparts, Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada.

An agreement would be the second such collaboration in missile defence technology.

Washington and Tokyo developed a longer-range missile designed to hit warheads in space, which Japan is deploying on warships in the sea between Japan and the Korean peninsula to guard against North Korean missiles strikes. (Reuters)

Crowded into a small, rented room near Pakistan's capital, an Afghan family of 12 is waiting, like thousands of others, for progress on their applications to go to the United States as refugees.

As time passes, their money is running out and their worries are growing.

In a small kitchen, 18-year old Marwa, whose father used to work as a guard for an American aid organisation, cuts vegetables.

The family have applied for resettlement in the U.S. under a special programme for Afghans who worked for U.S. organisations, known as P2.

"We cook and eat twice a day, some days we eat even less to save money," she said.

Reuters is withholding the full names of family members for security reasons. They sold their home in Afghanistan and left last year, having been told by U.S. authorities to travel to a third country to get their application processed.

Marwa's husband, Khalilzad, estimates the family's saving would last for at most two more months.

"It's been two years and things have not improved, they should consider our basic need and speed things up, the process is moving very slowly," Khalilzad said.

For thousands of Afghans applying for refugee status and visas in the West, neighbouring Pakistan was their only option. Between 16,000 and 20,000 applicants for the P2 programme are estimated to be in Pakistan, according to community members and advocates.

Most Afghans are not allowed to work and are ineligible for public education and healthcare.

Many had built middle-class lives in Afghanistan in the two decades after the United States and its allies intervened in 2001.

Now they face destitution in Pakistan where the government, grappling with an economic crisis, is increasingly anxious about the number of Afghans arriving, at times at the request of Western governments, Pakistani officials say.

Afghans waiting for their applications say they fear being detained by Pakistani authorities, as many Afghans have anecdotally reported, so they stay indoors as much as they can.

'LIKE PRISON'

The children of the family have not been able to go to school for more than a year.

On a recent stifling summer day, Asra, 14, was going through the alphabet with her younger siblings.

"I teach them sometimes but I'm worried that neither they nor I go to school ... every day I'm at home like a prisoner."

Asra was barred from school in Afghanistan where the Taliban closed girls' high-schools after their return to power in 2021.

"I suffer a lot when I see other girls going to school. I’m very anxious when I see them going and I can't," she said.

"I want to go to America with my family and continue my studies, I want to become a judge," she said.

In the chaotic withdrawal of U.S.-led foreign troops as Taliban forces seized Kabul in 2021, Western countries like the United States and Britain vowed to help, especially those Afghans who had worked for them or on projects they backed. But many have been disappointed.

President Joe Biden pledged to help "Afghan allies" and just before the Taliban takeover, the United States announced the P-2 programme for admission as refugees for Afghans who met certain criteria, including having worked for U.S. organisations and media.

Though the Taliban announced an amnesty for old foes, many Afghans fear reprisals, curtailed freedoms and restrictions on women's education and work, as well as economic hardship.

Human rights and refugee advocates have criticized the slow progress in processing Afghans by Western governments.

'PROBLEMS'

A U.S. government watchdog, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, said in April that problems in P2 processing had been identified and lawmakers had required reports on processing times and staffing shortages.

"However, these reports are not public, and problems persist," the agency said.

A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said: "Our processing capacity in Pakistan remains limited, but we are actively working to try to expand it."

Shawn VanDiver, the founder of #AfghanEvac, a coalition of U.S. volunteer groups helping Afghans resettle, said there had recently been progress in P2 processing.

"It's light years ahead of where we were a month ago," VanDiver said.

But he warned that processing was "limited in scope" and "not going to be fast". He declined to provide details due to concern over triggering a flood of hopeful applicants into Pakistan.

He acknowledged that a major problem had been the failure to keep applicants informed. "Communications ... have been a disaster," he said. "They've served to cause chaos and confusion and despair. The Afghans are just sitting around waiting."

The Khalilzad family's last official contact was a cursory email in May.

"Our remaining money will last one or two more months, if this runs out ... what can we do?" he said. "People have become depressed ... we are in a state of uncertainty with no destiny." (Reuters)