VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Jakarta. President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) condemned the suicide bombing in front of Cathedral Church in Makassar, South Sulawesi on Sunday.

"In regard to the terror act at the entrance gate of Makassar Cathedral Church today, I strongly condemn the terror act," Jokowi said at the Bogor Presidential Palace in Bogor,West Java on Sunday.

A bomb exploded at 10.30 a.m. local time at the entrance gate of Makassar Cathedral Church, allegedly killing two suicide bombers and injuring 14 people.

The explosion occurred when churchgoers were just finished Sunday Palm services.

"I have ordered the Indonesian Police Chief to investigate thoroughly the (terrorist) networks and uncover it to its root," Jokowi stressed.

The President said, terrorism is a crime against humanity and has no relations to any religious teaching.

"All religions are against terrorism whatever the arguments. All state apparatus will not let this terror acts happen," he noted.

Jokowi has called on people to remain calm because the state guarantees people's safety to perform worship without fear.

Fourteen people were injured due to a suicide bomb attack outside Cathedral Church in Makassar, South Sulawesi on Sunday morning, police said.

The Indonesian Police spokesman Insp. Gen Pol Argo Yuwono said three of the injured are being treated at Stella Maris Hospital, seven at Akademis Hospital, and four at Pelamonia Hospital.

Some body parts were also found along with damaged motorcycle in the bomb attack scene.

It is believed the body parts belonged to two suspected suicide bomb attackers.

Shortly before the explosion, two people on a motorcycle tried to enter the church compound and were stopped by church security personnel.(Antaranews)

Jakarta. Brazil’s Butantan biomedical institute will seek approval on Friday to begin human trials for a potential COVID-19 vaccine, officials said, making it the first shot developed in the country to reach clinical testing.

Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria said the goal was to begin inoculations with the vaccine in July, an aggressive timeline even by the standards of the recent race for new COVID-19 shots.

Butantan aims to produce 40 million doses of the new vaccine this year, called Butanvac, starting in May, officials said, aiming to help a sputtering national immunization program, which has done little to stop Brazil’s raging coronavirus outbreak.

Doria told a news conference that Butanvac production will not interfere with the the state-funded institute’s partnership to produce and distibute a COVID-19 shot developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd.

Butantan officials said the new vaccine had been designed to protect against the contagious P1 variant of the coronavirus, which emerged in the Amazon region last year and is fueling to a deadly second wave of cases overwhelming the country’s hospitals.

Butantan plans to test the vaccine on 1,800 volunteers over two phases, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters ahead of the official announcement. The Butanvac milestone was first reported by Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo.

Vietnam and Thailand are also part of the consortium developing the vaccine, Folha reported.

Butantan has already delivered 27.8 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine, called CoronaVac, to the Brazilian government, which is the current centerpiece of the national immunization plan. (Reuters)

Jakarta. The Philippines reported 9,838 coronavirus cases on Friday, the biggest daily jump since the pandemic began, as the World Bank called for vaccinations to be a priority to limit further deaths and support the country’s health system.

Complicating the government’s vaccination drive is the reluctance of most Filipinos to receive vaccines due to safety fears, an opinion poll showed, despite wide-scale worries about contracting the virus.

A recent spike in infections has forced authorities to widen tighter restrictions in the capital Manila to surrounding provinces, but once-a-day religious services with up to 10% of a church’s capacity will be allowed in the week ahead of Easter.

The Philippines, which is facing the second worst outbreak of COVID-19 in Southeast Asia after Indonesia, has seen record new cases in three of the past five days, while infections reported in the past 10 days accounted for a tenth of its total 702,856 cases.

The capital region, a congested urban sprawl of 16 cities home to at least 13 million people, accounted for more than two-fifths of the COVID-19 cases.

A University of the Philippines research team had warned that COVID-19 infections may hit 10,000 to 11,000 a day by late March because the virus reproduction rate, which measures the number of people infected by each case, had increased.

“Rapid vaccination is a priority to reduce high numbers of deaths and pressure on struggling health systems,” the World Bank said in a report on Friday.

But six of 10 Filipinos are unwilling to be vaccinated because of safety concerns, according to Pulse Asia’s survey of 2,400 respondents between Feb. 22 and March 3. In a similar poll in November, only 47% said they would refuse a vaccination.

Pulse Asia said 94% of respondents were worried about contracting the virus.

The Philippines started its inoculation drive on March 1, with officials acknowledging the uphill struggle to persuade many to take it.

More than 508,000 people have so far been inoculated, or less than 1% of the 70 million target this year.

Strict and lengthy lockdowns have taken a huge toll on the Philippine economy, which contracted by a record 9.5% last year.

The World Bank cut its economic growth forecast for the Philippines to 5.5% this year from 5.9% previously. (Reuters)

Jakarta. The government will expand the implementation of micro-scale Public Activity Restrictions (PPKM) and tighten its criteria after April 5, 2021, Chief of the COVID-19 Handling and National Economic Recovery Committee (KPC PEN) Airlangga Hartarto stated.

"As instructed by the president, the micro-scale PPKM will be expanded. After April 5, we will expand it to five more provinces," Hartarto remarked at the Presidential Office here on Friday.

Hartarto, simultaneously the coordinating economic affairs minister, noted that the PPKM will be implemented more aggressively, with the application of stringent criteria.

The government had earlier extended the restriction to March 23 through April 5 and expanded its implementation to five provinces: South Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, North Sulawesi, East Nusa Tenggara, and West Nusa Tenggara.

"The implementation of micro-scale PPKM from March 23 to April 5 was expanded to South Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, North Sulawesi, East Nusa Tenggara, and West Nusa Tenggara," he affirmed.

The 10 provinces of North Sumatra, Banten, West Java, Jakarta, Central Java, East Java, Yogyakarta, Bali, East Kalimantan, and South Sulawesi already enforce the PPKM.

Speaking in connection with the progress in the vaccination program, Hartarto remarked that as of March 26, some 10 million people had been administered the COVID-19 vaccine shots.

As of Friday, Indonesia had recorded 1,482,559 COVID-19 cases, with a positivity rate of 11.49 percent and the number of national active cases at 8.45 percent, far below the global active cases at 17.06 percent.

The nation’s fatality rate was recorded at 2.7 percent and recovery rate at 8.8 percent. The global fatality rate was recorded at 2.2 percent and recovery rate at 8.74 percent. (Antaranews)