VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

x

Jakarta. Indonesian police's special counter-terrorism detachment, Densus 88, has apprehended one of four most-wanted terror suspects in Jakarta.

The terror suspect has been identified as AN, National Police spokesperson Sen.Coms. Ahmad Ramadhan said here on Wednesday.

The three other suspects, identified as YI, ARH, and NF, remain fugitives and a hunt has been launched for them, he added.

Police allege AN, YI, ARH, and NF have links with four other terror suspects, identified as BS, AJ, ZA, and WJ, nabbed in Jakarta and Bekasi, West Java province at the end of March this year.

Police have so far arrested 10 terror suspects in Jakarta, Ramadhan informed.

Indonesia has been a target of terror attacks since 2000, and the spread of radicalism and terrorism continues to threaten the nation.

In May, 2018, a church in the East Java city of Surabaya was attacked by terrorists, as reported by ANTARA at the time. Two years earlier, on January 14, 2016, ISIS supporters in Indonesia had launched a suicide bombing and shooting attack in Jakarta, resulting in the deaths of eight people, including three civilians.

The incident added to the list of deadly assaults conducted by terror cells in Indonesia.

Between 2000 and 2012, over a dozen attacks have taken place in the Indonesian capital, including the Australian embassy bombing of September 9, 2004, and the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotel bombings of July 17, 2009.

At about 10:30 a.m. local time on March 28, 2021, Indonesia again witnessed a terror attack with two suicide bombers blowing themselves up outside a church on Kajaolalido Road in the Baru neighborhood area of Makassar, South Sulawesi province.

The bombers, believed to be a married couple, had tried in vain to enter the church compound after a Palm Sunday Mass service ended, but security guards had stopped them at the gate.

At least 20 people, including churchgoers and the security guards at the gate, were injured in the blast.

The suicide bombers, who reportedly belong to a JAD network, died shortly after the attack, which was carried out using a pressure cooker bomb.

One of the most effective ways of freeing Indonesia from radicalism and terrorism is empowering women in the country, as they can actively contribute to preventing children from being misled by terror recruiters, observers have said.  (Antaranews)

Jakarta. The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), South Sumatra chapter, has objected to the Palembang city administration's plan to develop Kemaro Island in the center of Musi River into a dream land.

"The development of Kemaro Island (into a dream land) will destroy historical, social, and cultural (values), and threaten the continuation of ecology," executive director of the Walhi chapter, M.Hairul Sobri, said here on Wednesday.

The Palembang city administration has committed to turning Kemaro Island into a tourist destination, like the Jaya Ancol Dream Land in Jakarta.

To that end, the city government has cleared 25 hectares of land on the island and built several bungalows on it.

Construction work on the project, scheduled for completion in 2023, will cost an estimated Rp1.4 trillion.

To secure the sizable amount of construction funds, the city government is teaming up with state-owned companies and encouraging investors to invest in the area.

The Walhi chapter has expressed the fear that the planned construction of the dream land will have an adverse impact on the life of the local people.

The other impact will be the reduction or disappearance of water catchment areas along the river basin, which will later trigger floods, it pointed out.

While calling for a halt to the project, the Walhi chapter has urged the city government to focus on developing the island into a tourist site which highlights its natural atmosphere.

The city government should pay attention to how to develop the existing potential in the activities of the local people so that it can offer new attractions, Sobri said.

Chief of the Palembang City Tourism Office, Isnaini Madani, had said earlier that the city government intended to develop the tourist site on the 30-hectare island to attract both domestic and foreign tourists. (Antaranews)

Jakarta. Success in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic is one of the prerequisites to the development of the new Indonesian capital in East Kalimantan Province, according to National Development Planning Minister Suharso Monoarfa.

"Several requirements must be fulfilled before developing the new capital city. One of them is how we deal with the pandemic. The key performance indicator of success is a decline in the number of people contracting the coronavirus," he said during an online interview with ANTARA in Jakarta on Wednesday.

A flattening of the curve of COVID-19 cases is one of the prerequisites to the development of the new capital city, he informed.

To that end, the government is striving to achieve the target of inoculating one million people per day as part of efforts to build herd immunity, he added.

"Groundbreaking (for the construction of the new capital city) will be done after the prerequisites have been met. If the President asks me whether (the groundbreaking) can be done next week, I will first ensure that everything is well-equipped and well-treated," he continued.

Monoarfa, who is also head of the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), said the master plan for the development of the new capital city had been completed last year and the government is in the process of finalizing the detailed plan.

The minister is scheduled to visit the site for the new capital city next week to determine the zero point, which will become the location for the state palace.

Bappenas has assured that the construction of the Presidential palace in the new capital city will kick off this year and will be completed in 2024, in accordance with the master plan. (Antaranews)

Jakarta. A total of 9,187,757 people in Indonesia have received their first shots of the COVID-19 vaccine as of Wednesday, an increase of 212,391 compared to the day before, according to the government's COVID-19 task force.

Data from the task force shows the number of people receiving their first and second doses of the vaccine increased by 169,229 to 4,547,580 on Wednesday compared to the previous day.

The government has set a target of inoculating 40,349,049 people in the first and second phase of the national vaccination program.

The first and second phases of the vaccination program are targeting healthcare workers, state officials, public service officers, senior citizens, government employees, teachers, lecturers, traders, and religious figures.

The government has rolled out a nationwide vaccination program since January 13 this year to stem the spread of the coronavirus.

According to the Health Ministry's estimates, it will take 15 months to vaccinate about 70 percent of the country's total population to build herd immunity against COVID-19.

By March, 2022, the government is targeting to inoculate at least 181.5 million people, including 1.3 million paramedics and 17.4 million public sector workers, in 34 provinces, the Health Ministry's spokesperson for the vaccination program, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, stated recently.

According to Tarmizi, the first phase of the government's immunization program has been divided into two periods: January-April, 2021 and April, 2021-March, 2022. (Antaranews)