VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

An Air New Zealand plane at Wellington airport. (File photo: AFP/Marty Melville) - 

New Zealand will lift its partial suspension of a travel bubble with Australia from midnight on Sunday (May 9) as fears of a COVID-19 outbreak in Sydney eased.

New Zealand had blocked travel to and from New South Wales, Australia's most populous state, on Thursday after a couple in Sydney with no links to high-risk professions or people tested positive for COVID-19.

However, state health officials on Saturday reported a second straight day without a new case, allaying concerns about a wider outbreak in the city.

New Zealand COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said travel to and from NSW, home to one-third of Australia's 25 million population, would resume after health officials determined the risk to New Zealand was low.

"New Zealand has consistently taken a precautionary approach to keeping COVID-19 out," Hipkins said in a statement.Australia and New Zealand began allowing quarantine-free travel less than a month ago, after a protracted run of zero locally-acquired cases in the neighbouring countries."Border controls are a key tool for stopping the introduction and spread of new cases from overseas and remain central to our elimination strategy," Hipkins said.Australia has meanwhile barred travel from India due to high infection rates, but it has said it would begin chartering repatriation flights on May 15//CNA

Lava avalanches from the summit of Mt Merapi viewed from Turi, Sleman District of Yogyakarta on April 25, 2021. ANTARA PHOTO/Hendra Nurdiyansyah/wsj - 

Volcanic activity at Mount Merapi, straddling Central Java and Yogyakarta, remained high, according to the Geological Disaster Technology Research and Development Center’s (BPPTKG's) monitoring from April 30 to May 6.

"Volcanic activity at Mt Merapi remains high, with effusive eruption. The volcano's status remained at siaga (watch)," BPPTKG Head Hanik Humaida noted in a statement here on Saturday.

According to the monitoring, Humaida remarked that the monitoring found Merapi to have emitted searing clouds 12 times that drifted nearly two thousand meters to the southwest.

Incandescent avalanches were recorded 74 times up to a distance of two thousand meters to the southwest and twice to a distance of 600 meters to the southeast, Humaida revealed.

"Seismic intensity this week has increased as compared to that of last week," she added.According to the agency, the volume of Merapi's two lava domes had continued to increase at a rate of 17 thousand cubic meters per day, and currently, the volume had reached 1.7 million cubic meters.

According to photo analysis, volume of the lava dome in the southwest had reached 1.1 million cubic meters, and growth rate was recorded at 17 thousand cubic meters per day.

The volcano's deformation, monitored through EDM and GPS this week, did not show abridgement of 0.6 cm per day. "There is no report on the lava and increased currents of the rivers that upstream in Merapi," she stated.

The BPPTKG has maintained the volcano's status at siaga (watch), or level 3 of Indonesia’s four-tiered alert system.

The authority has urged residents to remain vigilant of the potential for lava avalanches and hot clouds arising from the volcano in the southwest region covering the Kuning River, Boyong, Bedog, Krasak, Bebeng, and Putih.

Mount Merapi’s eruption could launch volcanic material to as far as three kilometers away from the summit//CNA

Former president of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed is in intensive care after the Male bombing AFP/Ahmed SHURAU - 

Former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed remained in intensive care on Saturday (May 8) as security services stepped up the hunt for the attackers, who allegedly used a remote control bomb on the democracy pioneer and climate activist.

The 53-year-old, who remains the Indian Ocean country's number two leader, is recovering from 16 hours of surgery to remove shrapnel from his lungs, liver, chest, abdomen and limbs after the attack on Thursday night.

"The improvised explosive device was triggered using a remote control," an MNDF official told reporters in the capital Male.

Police say they have identified four suspects seen close to the attack, but no arrests had been made.The Maldives is expecting Australian Federal Police officers to join the investigation on Saturday in addition to two experts from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih thanked Nasheed's medical team and said he prayed for his "quick recovery and return - stronger and steadier than ever".

Nasheed is a democracy pioneer in the Maldives who ended decades of one-party rule in the archipelago and became its first democratically elected president in 2008.

He is also known internationally as a champion for battling climate change and rising sea levels that he says threaten to submerge the nation of 1,192 tiny coral islands.

Nasheed was barred from contesting a 2018 presidential election because of a terrorism conviction after he was toppled in a military-backed coup in February 2012.

There has been no claim of responsibility, but his Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) officials alleged political interests may have been involved.

Nasheed had been vocal on the need to bring to justice some 72 suspects in a US$90 million theft case dating from the tenure of former strongman president Abdulla Yameen//CNA

China's Long March 5B rocket took off from the southern island of Hainan. (File photo: AFP) - 

A large segment of a Chinese rocket is expected to make an uncontrolled re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere on the weekend, but Beijing has downplayed fears and said there is a very low risk of any damage.

A Long March 5B rocket launched the first module of China's new space station into Earth's orbit on Apr 29. Its 18-tonne main segment is now in free fall and experts have said it is difficult to say precisely where and when it will re-enter the atmosphere.

Re-entry is expected to be around 11pm GMT on Saturday (7am on Sunday, Singapore time), according to the Pentagon, with a window of plus or minus nine hours either side.

Chinese authorities have said most of the rocket components would likely be destroyed on re-entry."The probability of causing harm ... on the ground is extremely low," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters on Friday.

Although there has been fevered speculation over exactly where the rocket - or parts of it - will land, there is a good chance any debris that does not burn up will just splash down into the ocean on a planet made up of 70 per cent water.

"We're hopeful that it will land in a place where it won't harm anyone," said Pentagon spokesman Mike Howard.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin earlier said that the US military had no plans to shoot it down, and suggested that China had been negligent in letting it fall out of orbit.

"Given the size of the object, there will necessarily be big pieces left over," said Florent Delefie, an astronomer at the Paris-PSL Observatory.

"The chances of debris landing on an inhabited zone are tiny, probably one in a million."

In 2020, debris from another Long March rocket fell on villages in the Ivory Coast, causing structural damage but no injuries or deaths//CNA