VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Suez Canal shipping backlog to end on Saturday - canal authority

The last ships stranded by the grounding of a giant container vessel in the Suez Canal should pass through the waterway on Saturday, according to the canal authority, which said an investigation into the incident would report its findings soon.

Osama Rabie, chairman of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA), said 85 ships were expected to pass the canal from both sides on Saturday. They will include the last 61 ships out of the 422 that were queuing when the Ever Given container vessel was dislodged on Monday, thus ending the backlog of shipping that built up during the crisis, he added.

International supply chains were thrown into disarray when the 400-metre-long (430-yard) Ever Given ran aground in the vital trade artery on March 23, with specialist rescue teams taking almost a week to free her after extensive dredging and repeated tugging operations.

An SCA investigation began on Wednesday into what caused the vessel to run aground in the Suez Canal and block the waterway for six days, Rabie told the MBC Masr private TV late on Friday.

“The investigation is going well‮ ‬and will take two more days, then we will announce the results,” he added//Reuters

Rescuers work at the site a day after a deadly train derailment at a tunnel north of Hualien, Taiwan on Apr 3, 2021. (Photo: REUTERS/Ann Wang)

A Taiwan court on Saturday (Apr 3) released on bond the manager of a construction site whose truck authorities believe to have caused a train accident that killed at least 50 people, but prosecutors vowed to appeal.

Friday's crash was Taiwan's worst rail accident in seven decades, when an express train hit the truck that had slid down a bank beside the track from the building site, whose manager is suspected of having failed to properly engage the brake.The train, with almost 500 people aboard, was travelling from Taipei, the capital, to Taitung on the east coast when it derailed in a tunnel just north of the city of Hualien. Forty people are in hospital, from among the 178 reported injured.

Prosecutors had applied to a court to detain the manager on charges of causing death by negligence and forged documents, a justice ministry official told reporters on Saturday.

But a court in Hualien released the manager, Lee Yi-hsiang, on a bond of T$500,000 (US$17,525), although it restricted him from leaving Taiwan and said he had to stay in Hualien.

Yu Hsiu-duan, head of the Hualien prosecutors' office, said it would appeal against the decision.

"The court said there was no reason to keep him in custody," she told reporters. "The court changed it to a surety of $T500,000."

Lee's court-appointed lawyer declined to comment to reporters as he left the court.

Workers on Saturday began moving the train's rear portion, which was relatively unscathed as it had stopped outside the tunnel away from the accident spot.

However, other mangled sections remained in the tunnel, where fire department official Wu Liang-yun said more bodies were likely to be found.

"We're still carrying out rescue work," he said.

President Tsai Ing-wen visited hospitals in Hualien to speak to family members and survivors, thanking ordinary people and non-government groups for efforts to help.

"This shows the good side of Taiwanese society," she said.

The government has ordered flags flown at half mast for three days in mourning, while the de facto French embassy in Taipei confirmed that one of its citizens had died in the crash.

Taiwan's foreign ministry said one US citizen was among the dead and another was missing.

The accident happened at the start of a long holiday weekend. The train was packed with tourists and residents going home for the traditional Tomb Sweeping Day to clean the graves of ancestors.

Taiwan has no domestic travel curbs as the COVID-19 pandemic is well under control, with only a handful of active cases in hospital.

Before the Hualien accident, Taiwan's worst train crash was in 1948, when 64 people are estimated to have died when a train caught fire//CNA

Solar Panel 

The Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology Indonesia (BPPT) has pushed for innovation in the development of alternative energy to support the availability of clean and environment-friendly national energy.

"The BPPT is ready to seek innovations in the field of renewable energy with all stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem," the agency’s head, Hammam Riza, noted in a statement here on Saturday.

Riza pointed out that national development constantly involved the electric energy sector to meet the declining availability of fossil fuel sources. Hence, the development and utilization of renewable energy is important for the government in maintaining energy availability.

As one of the Non-Ministerial Government Institutions (LPNK) under the coordination of the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education, the BPPT supports alternative energy development programs in accordance with the National Energy General Plan (RUEN) that serves as the basis for the government for managing energy in the country.The BPPT has made various technological innovations to develop alternative energy, comprising waste power plants, biogas power plants from palm oil waste, and the production of 30-percent biodiesel fuel, or B30, in order to reduce the imports of diesel oil.

Moreover, the BPPT has conducted various studies and technological applications in the electricity sector, such as the engineering of smartgrid systems for buildings and fast charging stations to support electric vehicles that are integrated with solar power plants as an alternative energy source.

"I am optimistic that the mastery of technology can provide benefits for the development of alternative energy in Indonesia," Riza remarked.

He pointed out that the BPPT is also developing the capacity of the national electricity industry, so that the development of new and renewable energy can increase significantly.Meanwhile, Indonesia remains committed to achieving a clean energy mix of 23 percent by 2025. Currently, the share of new and renewable energy utilization in the national energy mix has only reached 11.2 percent.

Based on data from the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources in 2020, the new and renewable energy generation capacity in Indonesia still reaches 10,467 megawatts (MW), comprising 3.6 MW of hybrid power, 154.3 MW of wind power, 153.8 MW of solar power, 1,903.5 MW of bio power, 2,130.7 MW of geothermal power, and 6,121 MW of hydropower.

The government has set a target of five-percent growth in the new and renewable energy generation capacity or nearly 978 MW for 2021.

One of the strategies adopted in the energy transition process is replacing energy sources having high emissions with lower-emission energy sources, for instance, by optimizing natural gas and solar utilization rather than coal//ANT

Head of BPS Maluku, Asep Riyadi - ANT

The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) of Maluku Province recorded that export activities in the province in February 2021 were valued at US$1.11 million, an approximate 42.16-percent rise from the figure in January this year.

"The cumulative export value of Maluku during the January-February 2021 period reached US$1.90 million, or decreased by 83.69 percent as compared to the same period in 2020," Head of Maluku Province BPS, Asep Riyadi, stated here on Saturday.

All of Maluku's exports in February 2021 came from the non-oil and gas sector, with destination countries comprising Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Japan, and the United States. The United States clocked the highest export value, reaching as much as US$0.70 million.

Maluku's export activities in February 2021 through the Ambon City export port were conducted at the Yos Sudarso Port and Pattimura Airport. Meanwhile, in February 2021, no export activities were conducted at the ports of Dobo, Tual, Bula, and Lirang.

Riyadi noted that the total export value of commodities from Maluku exported from ports outside the province in February 2021 reached US$0.18 million, or decreased by 395.42 percent, from the figure in January 2021.

Cumulatively, the export value of Maluku’s commodities exported from ports outside the province during the January-February 2021 period had reached US$0.76 million, a decrease of 70.79 percent as compared to the same period in 2020.

He explained that Maluku's exports during the January-February 2021 period came from non-oil and gas commodities, comprising tuna, live lobsters, and crabs, with an export value of US$1.90 million.

"In comparison with the corresponding period in 2020, the export value during the January-February 2021 period shows a decline of around 83.69 percent," Riyadi pointed out//ANT