VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Pakistan on Tuesday ordered all illegal immigrants, including 1.73 million Afghan nationals, to leave the country or face expulsion after revealing that 14 of 24 suicide bombings in the country this year were carried out by Afghan nationals.

It was not immediately clear how Pakistani authorities could ensure the illegal immigrants leave, or how they could find them to expel them.

Islamabad's announcement marks a new low in its relations with Kabul that deteriorated after border clashes between the South Asian neighbours last month.

"We have given them a November 1 deadline," said Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti, adding that all illegal immigrants should leave voluntarily or face forcible expulsion after that date.

Bugti said some 1.73 million Afghan nationals in Pakistan had no legal documents to stay, adding a total of 4.4 million Afghan refugees lived in Pakistan.

"There are no two opinions that we are attacked from within Afghanistan and Afghan nationals are involved in attacks on us," he said. "We have evidence."

Islamabad has received the largest influx of Afghan refugees since the Soviet invasion of Kabul in 1979.

Bugti was speaking in Islamabad after civil and military leaders met the prime minister and army chief to discuss law and order after a recent spate of militant attacks.

The violence has seen an unusual uptick since local Taliban militants known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella group of hardline Sunni Islamist militants, revoked a ceasefire with the government late last year.

The TTP wants to overthrow the Pakistani government to replace it with its strict rule under Islamic law.

Two suicide bombings targeted religious gatherings in Pakistan last week, killing at least 57 people. The TTP denied involvement. Bugti said that one of the suicide bombers had been identified as an Afghan national.

Islamist State also operates in the Afghan border regions and has been involved in attacks in Pakistan.

The Pakistani military has conducted several offensives against Islamist militants, mainly in the rugged mountainous region along the Afghan border, which it says forced them to flee to Afghanistan.

Islamabad alleges that the militants use Afghan soil to train fighters and plan attacks inside Pakistan, a charge Kabul denies, saying Pakistani security is a domestic issue.

There was no immediate response from Kabul to Bugti's comments.

(Reuters)

A bipartisan U.S. Senate delegation will visit China, Japan and South Korea in October, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's office said on Tuesday.

The six-senator group will be co-led by Republican Mike Crapo, whose office said earlier the trip is planned for next week and that the senators hope to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Schumer has repeatedly urged the United States to take a harder line on China, and urged lawmakers earlier this year to begin new legislation aimed at addressing concerns about the world's second-biggest economy. The trip will follow visits by a series of Biden administration officials, including Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo in August.

Schumer's office said the trip's goal is to advance U.S. economic and national security interests in the region and will feature meetings with government leaders and business leaders from each country and from U.S. companies operating in each country.

Schumer "will focus on the need for reciprocity in China for U.S. businesses that will level the playing field for American workers, as well as on maintaining U.S. leadership in advanced technologies for national security," his office said.

Other senators on the trip include Republicans Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy and Democrats Maggie Hassan and Jon Ossoff. The Chinese Embassy declined to comment Monday on the planned trip.

Raimondo said in August that U.S.companies had complained to her that China has become "uninvestable," pointing to fines, raids and other actions that made it risky to do business in the country.

"For U.S. business in many cases, patience is running thin, and it's time for action," she said, adding that companies face "exorbitant fines without any explanation, revisions to the counterespionage law, which are unclear and sending shock waves through the U.S. community; raids on businesses – a whole new level of challenge and we need that to be addressed."

(Reuters)

The Indonesian government is working to strengthen food stability to control the inflation rate, Head of the Fiscal Policy Agency (BKF) of the Ministry of Finance Febrio Kacaribu has said.

One of the biggest contributors to the inflation of 2.28 percent year-on-year (yoy) recorded in September was rice. Therefore, to anticipate price increases, the government quickly met supply needs through rice imports.

"The volatile food (VF) component of price inflation has also continued its upward trend, mainly driven by rising rice prices due to the impact of El Nino," Kacaribu said here on Tuesday.

The President, he added, has instructed that rice imports be increased by one million tons to strengthen national rice reserves.

Volatile price inflation in September was recorded at 3.62 percent yoy, up from 2.42 percent yoy in August.

Besides maintaining rice supplies, the government is also making other efforts to maintain food stability such as market operations and the provision of cheap food in various regions.

"The non-cash food assistance program, which started this month, is also expected to be able to maintain people's purchasing power and restrain the increase in food prices," said Kacaribu.

Although rice made a large contribution to September inflation, the inflation rate was still lower compared to August, when it reached 3.27 percent yoy.

This decline was driven by a slowdown in inflation in the government-administered price component (AP) and core inflation.

Inflation in AP components experienced a sharp decline in line with the end of the base effect of fuel price adjustments in September 2022.

However, the government will remain alert to pressure on non-subsidized fuel prices, tracking the recent trend of increasing world crude oil prices.

Statistics Indonesia (BPS) recorded annual inflation of 2.28 percent in September 2023. Meanwhile, the monthly inflation (month-to-month/mtm) reading was 0.19 percent and year-to-date (ytd) inflation was 1.63 percent.

(Antara News)

Indonesia will encourage Asian-African Legal Consultative Organization (AALCO) members to include illegal wildlife trade (IWT) as transnational organized crime (TOC) at the organization's 61st Annual Session, Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna H. Laoly stated.

The meeting will be held at the Bali Nusa Dua Convention Center (BNDCC), Bali, on October 15-20, 2023.

"AALCO is an important moment for us to encourage Asian-African countries to have the same view on various issues," he told the press after opening the "Kompolnas Public Consultation with Law Practitioners and Mass Media Practitioners" event here on Tuesday.

The minister also drew attention to the fact that several countries did not share the same view as Indonesia regarding the subject of including illegal fishing as a TOC, environmental issues, and asset recovery.

According to Laoly, shared views established in this forum also have the potential to be applied by Asian and African countries in other international forums, especially to fight discriminatory regulations implemented by developed countries, for instance, on the palm oil issue.

"Issues like that, both in the environment and others, we share (them) with Asian and African member countries of AALCO, so that we can use this as a common platform in dealing with other international interests," he remarked.

Earlier, at a media gathering on the preparation of the 61st Annual Session of the AALCO here on Monday, Laoly stated that the government would push for illegal fishing to be included as a TOC at the organization's 61st Annual Session.

"This is important to be conveyed because economic losses from illegal fishing are very large," he emphasized.

The 61st Annual Session of the AALCO will be attended by 47 AALCO member countries, 44 observer countries, 24 observer organizations, two observer authorities, and two permanent observer countries.

The meeting will discuss several issues that include the violation of international law in Palestine, sustainable development, international trade and investment law, and maritime law.

(Antara News)