VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

 As Indonesia struggles to tackle a devastating surge in COVID-19 infections, authorities in Jakarta have deployed teams of health workers to drive around the capital and vaccinate communities in crowded, harder-to-access districts.

On Thursday, the first day of operations, at least 16 mini-vans fanned out across the Jakarta area to administer 100 doses each of the Chinese-made Sinovac Biotech vaccine.

In one south Jakarta district, residents came out to a park to await their vaccinations.

"My advice for the government is to speed up the vaccinations, because there are many people who haven't been vaccinated yet," said 51-year-old resident Widodo, who like many Indonesians, goes by one name. Widodo also suggested children should be prioritised for vaccinations.

The world's fourth-most populous country has set ambitious targets to innoculate 181.5 million people by early next year, but up to now only around 5.4% of a total population of over 270 million have been fully innoculated.

With hospitals in Jakarta and across Java island now overflowing with patients amid record numbers of infections driven by the Delta variant first detected in India, the government has been scrambling to speed up the vaccine rollout.

"This is a lot easier for me, because it's organised in our neighbourhood," said Yeni Nawang, 21, another resident getting inoculated, noting how she had seen others struggling to access vaccines.

Ray Wijaya, a 25-year-old doctor working with one of the mobile vaccine vans said the teams aimed to reach those who might otherwise be overlooked.

"Our target as planned by the health ministry is to focus on residents who lack access to healthcare and vaccination centres," he said, adding: "We come to them." (Reuters)

A Taliban delegation in Moscow said on Friday that the group controlled over 85% of territory in Afghanistan and reassured Russia it would not allow the country to be used as a platform to attack others.

Foreign forces, including the United States, are withdrawing after almost 20 years of fighting, a move that has emboldened Taliban insurgents to try to gain fresh territory in Afghanistan.

That has prompted hundreds of Afghan security personnel and refugees to flee across the border into neighbouring Tajikistan and raised fears in Moscow and other capitals that Islamist extremists could infiltrate Central Asia, a region Russia views as its backyard.

At a news conference in Moscow on Friday, three Taliban officials sought to signal that they did not pose a threat to the wider region however.

The officials said the Taliban would do all it could to prevent Islamic State operating on Afghan territory and that it would also seek to wipe out drug production.

"We will take all measures so that Islamic State will not operate on Afghan territory... and our territory will never be used against our neighbours," Taliban official Shahabuddin Delawar said through a translator.

The same delegation said a day earlier that the group would not attack the Tajik-Afghan border, the fate of which is in focus in Russia and Central Asia. read more

Moscow has noted a sharp increase in tensions on the same border, two thirds of which the Taliban currently controls, the Interfax news agency cited Russia's foreign ministry as saying on Friday.

Russia's foreign ministry called on all sides of the Afghanistan conflict to show restraint and said that Russia and the Moscow-led CSTO military bloc would act decisively to prevent aggression on the border if necessary, RIA reported.

The Taliban delegation told the same news conference that the group would respect the rights of ethnic minorities and all Afghan citizens should have the right to a decent education in the framework of Islamic law and Afghan traditions.

"We want all representatives of Afghan society ... to take part in creating an Afghan state," said Delawar. (Reuters)

Last year, when much of the world was in coronavirus lockdown, Australia was successfully hosting international cricket matches and tennis tournaments in front of packed crowds in a show of what post-pandemic life could look like.

But in recent weeks, new virus outbreaks, a chaotic vaccine rollout and a tightening of already strict curbs on international travel have rapidly reversed those fortunes. read more

As crowds in London watch Wimbledon and the Euro Cup football finals, Australians confront new disappointments, with the Melbourne Formula 1 Grand Prix cancelled and holiday plans scuppered.

Unlike last year, business and consumer tolerance for the restrictions and uncertainty is quickly evaporating as Australians witness other countries reopen. read more

"We are one of only two countries in the world where the citizens aren't allowed to leave the country, and the other is North Korea, which is not one I’d want to be held up against," said Rodger Powell, managing director at consultancy Tourism and Hospitality Services Australasia.

"There's an increasing ground swell of dissatisfaction and frustration with not being able to travel, with the complete lack of certainty," Powell said.

Consumers, flush with cash, have been forced to cancel holidays within their own country as states shut their borders in response to even minor outbreaks.

Anger is growing around the lack of clarity on when Australia will allow international tourism and migration to resume. Companies regularly complain of labour shortages and universities are crying for international students to return. read more

The country's economy reopened earlier than expected in 2020 after curbing the virus. There are more jobs now than before the pandemic, house prices are hitting record highs and the construction sector is booming.

Borders, however, remained shut and this week, Australia's central bank governor, Philip Lowe, cited recurrent lockdowns as a key uncertainty for policymaking. 

"The closure of the borders and the slow rollout of the vaccine is affecting people at a very personal level," Lowe said. "It's also affecting businesses… but I do think we also need to remember that we will get through this and we need to be patient."

The central bank concedes it will likely lag global peers in returning to pre-pandemic policy, with only about 9% of the country's population vaccinated so far. read more

Neighbouring New Zealand, which also shut its borders and enjoyed early economic success during the pandemic, has also only vaccinated a small percentage of its population so far.

Businesses in New Zealand struggling with staff shortages this week staged a "lights out" protest, calling for border restrictions to be eased to allow in much-needed workers. read more

Australian Open tournament organisers worry players will not be willing to go through two weeks of hard quarantine in their Melbourne hotel rooms ahead of next year's Grand Slam. L3N2OJ0YX

Sydney resident Nicole Miller, a retiree, was so excited about the resumption of cruise trips in Australia, she booked five when they reopened.

"And bit by bit they have just all been cancelled, which is really disappointing because I've been so looking forward to getting back to cruise ships and that lifestyle again," said Miller, who is not yet vaccinated but said she would be before embarking on a cruise.

She says she would welcome the idea of cruises that only allowed vaccinated people onboard.

Her views are echoed by business owners who hope faster immunisation would return some freedoms.

Afghan government forces on Thursday wrested back control of a western provincial capital stormed by the Taliban a day earlier and hundreds of fresh troops have been deployed to the region, the defence ministry said.

It said some fighting was continuing on the fringes of Qala-e-Naw, capital of Badghis province, which borders the central Asian country of Turkmenistan.

Insurgents had on Wednesday seized key government buildings in the city including police headquarters as part of a dramatic Taliban advance unfolding as foreign forces withdraw from Afghanistan after a 20-year-long intervention. 

“The city is fully (back) under our control and we are conducting operations against the Taliban on the outskirts of the city,” Defence Ministry spokesman Fawad Aman said.

The ministry said 69 Taliban fighters had been killed in fresh operations on the edge of Qala-e-Naw - the first major provincial capital entered by the Islamist insurgents in their latest offensive.

A large quantity of Taliban arms and ammunition was also seized by government forces, the ministry said on Twitter.

The rest of Badghis province is in Taliban hands. Western security officials say the Taliban have captured more than 100 districts in Afghanistan; the Taliban say they hold over 200 districts in 34 provinces comprising over half the country. Main cities and provincial capitals remain under government control.

The insurgents have been gaining territory for weeks but accelerated their thrust as the United States vacated its main Afghan base, effectively ending an intervention that began with the ousting of the radical Islamist Taliban government in 2001.

Taliban advances have been especially dramatic in northern provinces where they had long been kept at bay. Stop-start peace talks between the government and insurgents remain inconclusive.

Later on Thursday, U.S. President Joe Biden is scheduled to comment on the U.S. withdrawal, which has raised fears of an outbreak of civil war there and drawn criticism. (Reuters)