VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

North Korea's United Nations envoy accused the United States and South Korea on Tuesday of pushing the Korean peninsula closer to the brink of nuclear war, telling the U.N. General Assembly that as a result his country had no choice but to further accelerate a build-up of its self-defense capabilities.

"The year 2023 has been recorded as an extremely dangerous year," Ambassador Kim Song told the last day of the annual U.N. gathering of world leaders. "The Korean peninsula is in a hair-trigger situation with imminent danger of nuclear war breakout."

"Given the prevailing circumstances, the DPRK (North Korea) is urgently required to further accelerate the build-up of its self-defense capabilities to defend itself impregnably," Kim told the 193-member General Assembly.

North Korea has tested dozens of ballistic missile in the past 18 months. The United States has long warned that Pyongyang was ready to carry out a seventh nuclear test.

Pyongyang says it is exercising its right to self-defense with its ballistic missile tests to safeguard its sovereignty and security interests from military threats.

"The DPRK remains steadfast and unchanged in its determination to firmly defend the national sovereignty, security interests and well-being of the people against the hostile threats from outside," Kim said.

North Korea - formally known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) - has been under U.N. Security Council sanctions for its missile and nuclear programs since 2006. The measures have been steadily strengthened over the years.

However, for the past several years the 15-member Security Council has been divided over how to deal with Pyongyang. Russia and China, veto powers along with the United States, Britain and France, have said more sanctions will not help and want such measures to be eased.

China and Russia say joint military drills by the United States and South Korea provoke Pyongyang, while Washington accuses Beijing and Moscow of emboldening North Korea by shielding it from more sanctions. (Reuters)

The coastguard of the Philippines urged the country's fishermen on Wednesday to keep operating at the disputed Scarborough Shoal and other sites in the South China Sea, pledging to step up patrols there despite an imposing Chinese presence.

On Monday, the Philippine coastguard cut a 300-m (980-ft) floating barrier installed by China that blocked access to the Scarborough Shoal, a bold response in an area Beijing has controlled for more than a decade with coastguard ships and a fleet of large fishing vessels.

Philippine vessels were unable to maintain a constant presence but were committed to protecting the rights of fishermen inside the country's exclusive economic zone (EEZ), coastguard spokesperson Commodore Jay Tarriela said.

"We're going to increase patrols in Bajo de Masinloc and other areas where Filipino fishermen are," he told DZRH radio, referring to the shoal, one of Asia's most contested maritime features, by its Philippine name.

The Philippines has said China's response at the shoal, which Beijing calls Huangyan Island, has so far been measured.

China's foreign ministry had earlier advised the Philippines to avoid provocations and not cause trouble, but on Wednesday its spokesperson Wang Wenbin took a more critical view.

"I would also like to reiterate once again. Huangyan Island is China's inherent territory," he told a regular briefing.

"The so-called operation of the Philippine side is a purely self-indulgent farce."

STRATEGIC LOCATION

Philippine Defence Secretary Gilbert Teodoro said the Philippines' cutting of the cordon was not a provocation.

"We are reacting to their action," he said during a senate hearing on Wednesday.

The rocky, mid-sea outcrop is the site of numerous diplomatic rows. Both countries claim sovereignty over the shoal, a prime fishing spot about 200 km (124 miles) off the Philippines and 850 km (530 miles) from mainland China and its southern island of Hainan.

The shoal is close to shipping lanes that transport an estimated $3.4 trillion of annual commerce, and control of it is strategic for Beijing, which claims sovereignty over most of the South China Sea.

Those claims complicate fisheries and offshore oil and gas activities by its Southeast Asian neighbours.

Coastguard official Tarriela said the Philippine fisheries bureau had successfully anchored a vessel just 300 m (980 ft) from the Scarborough Shoal's lagoon, its closest point to the atoll since China seized it in 2012.

It was not clear whether China's use of a barrier represented a change to a status quo that has existed since 2017 in which Beijing's coastguard allowed Filipinos to operate there, albeit on a far smaller scale than Chinese vessels.

It comes amid soured relations, with the Philippines increasingly assertive over the conduct of China's coastguard in its EEZ, as it strengthens military ties with ally the United States by expanding access to its bases.

"The Scarborough Shoal is closer to the Philippines," said fisherman Pepito Fabros who had come ashore in the province of Zambales between trips to sea.

"Why are they stopping us from entering?" (Reuters)

The U.N. human rights office has expressed concern about the arrest of a Vietnamese green energy expert, who had worked with U.N. and U.S. agencies, just days after President Joe Biden signed business and human rights deals with Hanoi on a visit.

Hanoi police on Sept. 15 detained Ngo Thi To Nhien, Executive Director of the Vietnam Initiative for Energy Transition (VIET), an independent think tank focused on green energy policy, Reuters reported last week citing a charity and a source.

"We are aware of the arrest and are following the developments with concern," Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) told Reuters in a statement.

Nhien had worked for the World Bank, with the United Nations Development Programme and the United States aid agency (USAID), according to her profile on LinkedIn.

She "has participated in international and national events, including consultations organized by UNDP on the topic of energy transition," the UNDP in Vietnam confirmed in an email message to Reuters.

A State Department official said Washington regularly calls on Vietnam to respect and protect human rights, but had no specific comment on Nhien's detention and its timing close to Biden's visit.

Over the last two years Vietnam has arrested five environmental human rights defenders accusing them of tax evasion, a OHCHR spokesperson said in June, noting the arrests happened while the country was negotiating international funding for energy transition away from coal, of which it is a major user.

Nhien kept a very low public profile and was considered an expert, not an activist.

Vietnam's government has not issued any public statement about Nhien's arrest, and did not reply to requests for comment.

On Friday, Vietnam also executed a man, Le Van Manh, who had been sentenced to death in July 2005 after being found guilty of murder, child rape and robbery.

The European Union had called to halt the execution.

Phil Robertson, Deputy Asia Director at Human Rights Watch, said Manh had a strong alibi which was disregarded. (Reuters)

VOINews, Jakarta - BNN Head Commissioner General of Police Petrus Reinhard Golose held a bilateral meeting with the Agencia de Renovacion del Territorio (ART) Director Raul Delgado Guerrero to exchange experiences in handling illegal plants.

"ART is a Colombian government agency that has the main task of supporting the Colombian government's program to substitute illegal crops and encourage alternative development for farmers of coca and other prohibited crops," Golose noted in a written statement from National Narcotics Agency (BNN) received in Jakarta, Wednesday.

Colombian ART is in accordance with one of the four strategies of the Indonesian BNN in the war on drugs, namely the soft power approach, Golose remarked.

Golose explained that the soft power approach was conducted through an alternative empowerment program as an effort to empower communities in narcotics-prone areas.

Based on the ART data, he noted that currently, there are 234 thousand hectares of coca fields and 11 thousand hectares of marijuana fields in Colombia.

"ART is currently pushing for the completion of the Programa Nacional de Sustitución de Cultivos de uso Ilícito (National Program of Substitution of Illicit Crops/PNIS) that has helped more than one thousand farming families make the transition from illegal crops to legal crops," Golose remarked.

At a meeting held in Colombia, Monday (Sept 25), Indonesia and Colombia agreed to explore the forming of a letter of intent (LoI) or memorandum of understanding (MoU).

The LoI or MoU is the basis for further cooperation, especially in terms of exchanging data and information to increase the effectiveness of alternative empowerment programs in the two countries. (Antaranews)