VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

VOINews, Jakarta - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un expressed his resolve to fulfil agreements made at his summit last month with Russian President Vladimir Putin as he met visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, state media KCNA reported on Friday.

Kim took a rare trip to Russia last month during which he invited Putin to Pyongyang and discussed military cooperation, including over North Korea's satellite programme, and the war in Ukraine.

Kim and Lavrov discussed ways to ramp up cooperation to actively respond to regional and global issues based on "solid political and strategic trust relations," and Lavrov conveyed Putin's greetings to Kim, KCNA said.

Kim pledged to "work out a stable, forward-looking, far-reaching plan for the DPRK-Russia relations in the new era by faithfully implementing the agreements ... and push forward with the cause of building a powerful state," KCNA said.

He was referring to North Korea by the initials of its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui and Lavrov signed a plan for exchanges in 2024-25 as they held separate talks to follow up on the summit and explore greater cooperation on the economy, culture and advanced science and technology, KCNA said.

The two diplomats also discussed how to place bilateral ties "on a higher stage," it said.

"Both sides had an in-depth exchange of views on intensifying joint action on several regional and international issues including the situation on the Korean peninsula and in Northeast Asian region and reached a consensus of views on them," KCNA said in another dispatch.

Lavrov has departed Pyongyang after the meetings, it said.

Lavrov, at a reception after arriving in Pyongyang on Wednesday, thanked Pyongyang's "unwavering and principled support" for Russia in the Ukraine war, and vowed "complete support and solidarity" for the North, according to Moscow's foreign ministry.

'FIRST TARGET OF DESTRUCTION'

Russia and North Korea have been seeking to forge closer ties in the face of what they see as a hostile and aggressive U.S.-led Western camp.

Seoul and Washington have expressed concerns about growing exchanges between Moscow and Pyongyang, and the U.S. has stepped up military drills with Japan in response to North Korea's evolving military threats, involving an aircraft carrier and other strategic assets.

In a separate commentary, KCNA criticised the U.S. deployment of the strategic assets, including a B-52 bomber and F-22 Raptor stealth fighter, and the joint exercises.

Those assets would be "the first targets of destruction" if signs of any attack on North Korea were detected, it said, adding the country has already enacted "the policy of nuclear force which allowed the necessary procedures of action."

"This is the intentional nuclear war provocative moves of the U.S.," the commentary said.

"Now that the U.S. and gangsters of the 'Republic of Korea' have committed a provocation of nuclear war against the DPRK, the DPRK will take corresponding option," it said, referring to South Korea. (Reuters)

VOINews, Jakarta - The United States "strongly" encouraged Afghanistan's neighbors, including Pakistan, to allow entry for Afghans seeking protection and urged them to uphold obligations in treatment of refugees, the U.S. State Department said on Thursday.

THE TAKE

Pakistan has set a Nov. 1 deadline for all illegal immigrants, including hundreds of thousands of Afghans, to leave the country or face forcible expulsion.

BY THE NUMBERS

Some 1.73 million Afghans in Pakistan have no legal documents, according to Islamabad, which alleged that Afghan nationals carried out over a dozen suicide bombings this year.

Pakistan has hosted the largest number of Afghan refugees since the Soviet invasion of Kabul in 1979. Islamabad says the number of Afghan refugees in Pakistan totaled 4.4 million.

Some 20,000 or more Afghans who fled the 2021 Taliban takeover of Afghanistan are in Pakistan awaiting the processing of their applications for U.S. Special Immigration Visas (SIVs) or resettlement in the United States as refugees.

KEY QUOTE

"We strongly encourage Afghanistan's neighbors, including Pakistan, to allow entry for Afghans seeking international protection and to coordinate with international humanitarian organizations ... to provide humanitarian assistance," a U.S. State Department spokesperson told reporters on Thursday.

CONTEXT

Pakistan says the deportation process would be orderly and conducted in phases and could begin with people with criminal records.

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers have said Pakistan's threat to force out Afghan migrants was "unacceptable".

Relations have deteriorated between Pakistan and Afghanistan over the past couple of years, largely over accusations that Islamists fighting the Pakistani state operate from Afghan territory. The Taliban deny this claim.

A group of former top U.S. officials and resettlement organizations have urged Pakistan to exempt from deportation to Afghanistan thousands of Afghan applicants for special U.S. visas or refugee relocation to the United States. (Reuters)

VOINews, Jakarta - The Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy held a One Data Forum for Tourism and Creative Economy to optimize data provision in the tourism and creative economy sectors.

The Ministry's Head of Data Center and Information System, Norman Sasono, in his remarks at the One Data Forum for Tourism and Creative Economy III Year 2023 said that this forum is part of a series of activities to improve data governance in the Ministry, as well as a form of socialization of the use of the One Data Portal for Tourism and Creative Economy.

"This forum is also part of the implementation of One Data within the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, therefore, we hope that in this forum all participants, especially PIC data producers in the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, will increasingly understand and realize the importance of determining priority data in the One Data Indonesia scheme," he said at Harris Hotel & Convention Ciumbuleuit Bandung, Friday (19/10/2023).

The One Data Portal for Tourism and Creative Economy is a follow-up to Presidential Regulation No.39 of 2019 concerning One Data Indonesia.

Every agency or institution is obliged to realize the integration of development planning, implementation, evaluation, and control by having data that is accurate, up-to-date, easily accessible, and shared, and is managed carefully, integrated, and sustainable.

Following up on this, the Ministry issued Regulation of the Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Number 8 of 2022 concerning One Data for Tourism and Creative Economy which regulates the governance of data owned by the Ministry within the framework of One Data for Tourism and Creative Economy.

"Pusdatin (Center for Data and Information Systems) as one of the work units that has duties and functions in data and information management, I think is still not optimal in providing data related to tourism and the creative economy. Therefore, we at Pusdatin have developed the One Data Portal for Tourism and Creative Economy," said the Head of Pusdatin in his speech.

The One Data Portal for Tourism and Creative Economy can be accessed through the link https://satudata.kemenparekraf.go.id. This portal can be accessed by the public because it does not contain state secrets, personal secrets, or other similar things.

Satu Data for Tourism and Creative Economy provides various data related to the tourism sector and creative economy, such as tourist data, labor data, to GDP and export data for the creative economy.

Meanwhile, Chief Data and Governance Officer of Satu Data Indonesia Bappenas/PPN, Dini Maghfira, hopes that through the Satu Data forum for Tourism and Creative Economy will find various agreements in providing data.

"This forum is not only a forum for communication, but it can also find agreements, especially in cross-ministerial agreements," said Dini.

The One Data Forum for Tourism and Creative Economy will last for three days from October 18 to 20, 2023. (Ministry of Tourism)

VOINews, Jakarta - Indonesia has exported gold jewelry worth US$286.98 million to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the 49 days since the implementation of the Indonesia-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IUAE-CEPA).

On September 8, 2023, Indonesia exported its first shipment of gold jewelry, worth US$6.98 million, under the IUAE-CEPA framework. On October 19, gold jewelry exports from Indonesia were valued at US$280 million, taking the total value of exported gold jewelry to US$286.98 million.

During the signing ceremony of the Indonesian gold jewelry export contract with the UAE in Tangerang on Thursday, the Indonesian Ambassador to the UAE, Husin Bagis, said that the implementation of the IUAE-CEPA has forged a closer bilateral relationship between the two countries, especially in trade and investment.

“The coming years are a momentum that should not be missed by business actors and stakeholders in Indonesia to be able to implement strategic partnership projects,” he added in a press release issued by the Indonesian Embassy in Abu Dhabi.

Muhammad Khomaini, head of the Indonesian Trade Promotion Center (ITPC) in Dubai, said that Indonesia is currently ranked seventh among suppliers of jewelry to the UAE market after India, Turkey, Italy, France, Singapore, and Malaysia.

With the IUAE-CEPA in place, it is hoped that Indonesian businesses will take advantage of the momentum to boost the exports of jewelry and other leading products, thus helping Indonesia’s products become more competitive, he added.

The IUAE-CEPA, which came into force on September 1, covers various areas, including trade in goods, trade in services, investment, and digital trade.

The agreement is expected to boost the total trade value of both countries to more than US$10 billion within 3 years.

According to ITC Trademap data, Indonesian jewelry exports to the world have grown by 16.6 percent a year over the past five years and reached a value of US$3.78 billion in 2022.

The top five export markets for Indonesian jewelry in 2022 were Switzerland (US$1.6 billion), Singapore (US$605 million), Jordan (US$443 million), the United Arab Emirates (US$364 million), and the United States (US$330 million).

Based on data from the Ministry of Trade, the total trade between Indonesia and the UAE in 2022 was recorded at US$5.06 billion.

Of the total, Indonesia’s exports to the UAE were pegged at US$2.30 billion and its imports from the UAE were recorded at US$2.76 billion.

Indonesia’s exports to the UAE are dominated by products such as jewelry, footwear, textiles, and agricultural products. Meanwhile, Indonesia’s imports from the UAE are dominated by products such as crude oil, petrochemical products, and plastic products. (Antaranews)