VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Jakarta. Spokesperson for the Task Force Handling COVID-19 Prof. Wiku Adisasmito has urged the local government to disseminate information on limited face-to-face learning and supervision during its implementation.

"Related to this (case), the central government has urged the regional government to disseminate information on the decision on face-to-face learning that has been drafted by various ministries," Adisasmito noted in a written statement here on Wednesday.

In order that the upcoming direct learning runs smoothly, the government has ensured that educators will also receive the COVID-19 vaccination targeted to be completed in June 2021.

Meanwhile, the number of teachers expected to receive the COVID-19 vaccination reaches 5.8 million.

"This target is set after passing various considerations and is adjusted to the vaccination capability on the field," he stated.

The government had earlier issued a Joint Decree (SKB) of Four Ministers on Learning Guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic. The decree regulates limited face-to-face learning in July 2021. (Antaranews)

Jakarta. Data was withheld from World Health Organization investigators who travelled to China to research the origins of the coronavirus epidemic, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Tuesday.

The United States, the European Union and other Western countries immediately called for China to give “full access” to independent experts to all data about the original outbreak in late 2019.

In its final report, written jointly with Chinese scientists, a WHO-led team that spent four weeks in and around Wuhan in January and February said the virus had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal, and that a lab leak was “extremely unlikely” as a cause.

One of the team’s investigators has already said China refused to give raw data on early COVID-19 cases to the WHO-led team, potentially complicating efforts to understand how the global pandemic began.

“In my discussions with the team, they expressed the difficulties they encountered in accessing raw data,” Tedros said. “I expect future collaborative studies to include more timely and comprehensive data sharing.”

The inability of the WHO mission to conclude yet where or how the virus began spreading in people means that tensions will continue over how the pandemic started - and whether China has helped efforts to find out or, as the United States has alleged, hindered them.

“The international expert study on the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was significantly delayed and lacked access to complete, original data and samples,” Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Korea, Slovenia, Britain, the United States and the European Union said in a joint statement.

“NOT EXTENSIVE ENOUGH”

Although the team concluded that a leak from a Wuhan laboratory was the least likely hypothesis for the virus that causes COVID-19, Tedros said the issue required further investigation, potentially with more missions to China.

“I do not believe that this assessment was extensive enough,” he told member states in remarks released by the WHO. “Further data and studies will be needed to reach more robust conclusions.”

The WHO team’s leader, Peter Ben Embarek, told a press briefing it was “perfectly possible” the virus had been circulating in November or October 2019 around Wuhan, and so potentially spreading abroad earlier than documented so far.

“We got access to quite a lot of data in many different areas, but of course there were areas where we had difficulties getting down to the raw data and there are many good reasons for that,” he said, citing privacy laws and other restrictions.

Second phase studies were required, Ben Embarek added.

He said the team had felt political pressure, including from outside China, but that he had never been pressed to remove anything from its final report.

Dominic Dwyer, an Australian expert on the mission, said he was satisfied there was “no obvious evidence” of a problem at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The European Union called the study “an important first step” but renewed criticisms that the origin study had begun too late, that experts had been kept out of China for too long, and that access to data and early samples had fallen short.

In a statement, Walter Stevens, EU ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, called for further study with “timely access to relevant locations and to all relevant human, animal and environmental data available”. (Reuters)

Jakarta. The European Union will now kick off the process to allow the free flow of data from the 27-country bloc to South Korea after concluding talks to iron out potential issues and tack on additional safeguards, the European Commission said on Tuesday.

Such adequacy decisions would allow businesses to transfer data from bank details to payroll processing and healthcare data, and also allow police to cooperate.

The discussion showed a similar high level of protection of personal data on both sides, the EU executive said, following a call between EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders and the head of South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission Yoon Jong In.

“The European Commission will now proceed with launching the decision-making procedure with a view to having the adequacy decision adopted as soon as possible in the coming months,” the EU executive said in a statement.

The draft decision will need feedback from EU data watchdog the European Data Protection Board and approval from the 27 EU countries before it can come into force.

EU concerns about data transfers have been growing ever since former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013 of mass U.S. surveillance. Such worries have resulted in Europe’s top court in rejecting two transatlantic data transfer deals in recent years. (Reuters)

Jakarta. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday replied to a letter written by his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, and said Islamabad desires peaceful relations with New Delhi, an official source told Reuters.

Modi had written to Khan on the occasion of Pakistan’s Republic Day on March 23, also calling for peaceful relations between the two nuclear-armed rivals.

Dated March 29, the letter wasn’t officially released by either side but the official, speaking on anonymity, confirmed its contents which were shared widely on social media.

“The people of Pakistan also desire peaceful, cooperative relations with all neighbours, including India,” Khan said in his reply, adding, “I thank you for your letter conveying greetings on Pakistan Day.”

Neither the Indian or Pakistani foreign ministries responded to requests for comment.

Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper quoted Modi’s letter on March 23, Modi as saying that “India desires cordial relations with the people of Pakistan” and “for this, an environment of trust, devoid of terror and hostility, is imperative.”

India and Pakistan have fought three wars and have shared a fractious relationship since the two gained independence in 1947, and in 2019 tensions rose dramatically as they sent combat planes into each other’s territory.

Pakistani army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa has called on both the nations to bury the past after the militaries of both countries released a rare joint statement last month announcing a ceasefire along a disputed border in Kashmir. (Reuters)