VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

VOINews, Jakarta - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi), Thursday, will participate in groundbreaking ceremonies to commence the development of a solar power plant and the Bank Indonesia (BI) office in the new capital city (IKN) Nusantara, East Kalimantan Province.

As cited from a statement received here on Thursday, the president began the third day of his working visit to East Kalimantan by visiting the development site of the Presidential Office building.

According to the statement, President Jokowi arrived at the site from the location where he spent the night at around 7:05 Central Indonesia Standard Time. He inspected the progress in development of the office thereafter.

Furthermore, he also conducted a review of the progress in the development of several projects in IKN from the top of the Presidential Office building.

After launching the development of BI's office and the power plant in IKN, the head of state is scheduled to attend the Kompas 100 CEO Forum event in the city.

Earlier, on Wednesday (November 1), President Jokowi joined groundbreaking activities of several projects in IKN, including a hospital and an airport.

Meanwhile, on September 23, the president had instructed parties to conduct groundbreaking events of various development projects in IKN on a monthly basis.

"I demand that a groundbreaking be held every month, and I will come here from month to month," he stated.

President Jokowi expressed hope that by holding groundbreaking events every month, the government and all related parties would expedite the development of IKN Nusantara.

Jokowi also spoke of having planned on routinely visiting the Nusantara development site on a monthly basis to inspect the progress in its development.

State Secretary Minister Pratikno, Ad Interim Maritime Affairs and Investment Coordinating Minister Erick Thohir, Minister of Public Works and Public Housing Basuki Hadimuljono, Head of the Nusantara Capital Authority (OIKN) Bambang Susantono, and OIKN Deputy Head Dhony Rahajoe accompany the president during Thursday's agendas. (Antaranews)

VOINews, Jakarta - Pakistani authorities began rounding up undocumented foreigners, most of them Afghans, on Wednesday, ahead of a midnight deadline for them to leave or face expulsion.

The removal of people to temporary holding centres began a day earlier than previously announced. The interior ministry said 140,322 people had already voluntarily left after days in which trucks piled high with belongings and crammed with people have jammed major roads out of the country.

Pakistan set the Nov. 1 start date last month for the expulsion of all undocumented immigrants, including hundreds of thousands of Afghans. It cited security reasons, brushing off calls to reconsider from the United Nations, rights groups and Western embassies.

Some of those ordered to leave have spent decades in Pakistan.

"A process to arrest the foreigners... for deportation has started as of Nov.1," the interior ministry said in a statement, while adding that voluntary return would still be encouraged.

Within hours of the interior ministry statement, authorities had begun detaining and transferring what they said were undocumented foreigners to transit centres.

In the southern port city of Karachi, home to a large number of Afghan migrants and refugees, deputy commissioner Junaid Iqbal Khan said up to 74 people had so far been moved to one of the transit centres, up to 40 of them without any proper documents.

Reuters witnesses saw police bring some people in police vehicles. Inside the centre, authorities had set up tents to shelter those rounded up. Media were not allowed access inside.

Most of the Afghan nationals were brought to the centers in rickety busses, some of them handcuffed.

Some complained about mishandling by the authorities.

Jan Muhammad, 40, said his cousin was detained even though he had all the legal documents.

"I have shown up here with his original card," he told Reuters, saying the guards were now asking for another document. "We didn't bring that with us."

AFGHANS HEAD HOME

Of the voluntary returnees, around 104,000 Afghan nationals have left the country via the main Torkham border crossing in northwest Pakistan during the last two weeks.

"Some of them have been living in Pakistan for more than 30 years without any proof of registration," said Nasir Khan, the area deputy commissioner.

Another 35,000 Afghan nationals who didn't have legal documents to stay returned voluntarily by the Chaman border crossing in the southwestern province of Balochistan, provincial caretaker minister Jan Achakzai said. About 100 such Afghan nationals were arrested, he said.

Local media pictures showed long queues of busses heading to the Torkham crossing where thousands of people waited for clearance and would likely spend night in open as the crossing closes at 9pm.

Some of them said they had never been to Afghanistan, and wondered how would they start a new life there.

"We have never been to Afghanistan," Rizwan Khan, 25, told Reuters in Khyber tribal district before heading to the border. "We would be strangers to the people and they would be unknown to us. We do not have a house to live in in our native village," he said.

His grandfather had migrated from Afghanistan.

Of the more than 4 million Afghans living in Pakistan, the government estimates 1.7 million are undocumented.

Many fled Afghanistan during its decades of internal conflict since the late 1970s, while the Taliban takeover after the U.S. withdrawal in 2021 led to another exodus.

Pakistan has taken a hardline stance, saying Afghan nationals have been behind militant attacks, smuggling and other crimes in the South Asian nation.

Kabul has dismissed the accusations.

In the Afghan capital, the Taliban administration asked all countries hosting Afghan refugees to give them more time to prepare for repatriation.

"We call on them not to deport forcefully Afghans without preparation, rather give them enough time and countries should use tolerance," it said in a social media posting on Afghans in Pakistan and elsewhere.

It assured Afghans leaving over political concerns that they could return and live peacefully in Afghanistan. (Reuters)

VOINews, Jakarta - The Indonesian government, with several humanitarian agencies, is ready to send humanitarian assistance for Gaza Strip's residents affected by the latest conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group, Hamas.

"This is in line with President Joko Widodo's order to Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi to coordinate the delivery of aid to Gaza, both from the government and from the community," spokesperson of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Lalu Muhamad Iqbal, stated in a press conference on Wednesday.

Iqbal remarked that the humanitarian aid will comprise goods needed by the Palestinian people and will be delivered at the end of this week. The details of the aid delivery are still being discussed between the government and several organizations involved.

"This aid will be sent to Egypt first and handed over to the Egyptian Red Crescent, then distributed to Gaza by UNRWA. Egyptian Red Crescent is the only organization allowed to deliver aid into Gaza," Iqbal remarked.

The Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) had also contributed to sending humanitarian aid comprising healthy kit, generators, and oxygen cylinders worth Rp2.9 billion to Gaza residents.

"Until now, we are still waiting for approval from the UN agency that can confirm what types of aid can enter Gaza," PMI officer Niniek Kun Naryatie remarked.

Meanwhile, the Indonesia Humanitarian Alliance (IHA) has collected support of up to Rp5 billion from the community that will be distributed in stages to Gaza.

In the first period, IHA will provide assistance in the form of ready-to-eat food, blankets, and mattresses. The delivery will be coordinated with the government this weekend.

The National Alms Agency (Baznas) was also able to collect public donations amounting to Rp10 billion and will continue to collect donations until reaching the target of Rp20 billion.

These funds were collected not only through Baznas representative offices spread across all provinces, districts, and cities in Indonesia but also from individual collection partners, including the Kitabisa platform, ayobantu.com, Shopee, Tokopedia, Bukalapak, and Blibli.

"It is our responsibility to ensure this aid delivery to Gaza. According to the aid items recommended by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we will send food, medicine, hygiene kits, clothes, and blankets," Baznas' Deputy for Distribution and Utilization, Imdadun Rahmat, stated.

Plans to send Indonesian humanitarian aid to Gaza are still being coordinated, especially by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Finance through the International Development Cooperation Fund (LDKPI), the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Health, Indonesian Defense Forces (TNI), and the National Police. (Antaranews)

VOINews, Jakarta - More foreigners prepared to leave the besieged Gaza Strip on Thursday as its Hamas-run government said at least 195 Palestinians died in Israel's attacks on the Jabalia refugee camp, strikes that U.N. human rights officials said could be war crimes.

At least 320 foreign citizens on an initial list of 500, as well as dozens of severely injured Gazans, crossed into Egypt on Wednesday under a deal among Israel, Egypt and Hamas.

Passport holders from Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Jordan, the United Kingdom and the United States were in the evacuation.

Gaza border officials said the border crossing would reopen on Thursday so more foreigners could exit. A diplomatic source said some 7,500 foreign passport holders would leave Gaza over about two weeks.

Pressing an offensive against Hamas militants, Israel has bombed Gaza by land, sea and air in its campaign to wipe out Hamas after the Islamist group's cross-border rampage into southern Israel on Oct. 7. Israel said Hamas killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and took more than 200 hostages.

The Gaza health ministry says at least 8,796 Palestinians in the narrow coastal enclave, including 3,648 children, have been killed by Israeli strikes since Oct. 7.

Explosions were heard in the early hours of Thursday around the al-Quds hospital in densely populated Gaza City, the Palestinian Red Crescent said. Israeli authorities had previously warned the hospital to evacuate immediately, which U.N. officials said was impossible without endangering patients.

TWO HAMAS COMMANDERS KILLED, SAYS ISRAEL

Israel said its strikes on Tuesday and Wednesday killed two Hamas military leaders in Jabalia, Gaza's biggest refugee camp. Israel said the group had command centres and other "terror infrastructure under, around and within civilian buildings, intentionally endangering Gazan civilians".

Gaza's Hamas-run media office said on Thursday that at least 195 Palestinians were killed in the two Israeli attacks on Jabalia, with 120 missing under the rubble. At least 777 people were wounded, it said in a statement.

Palestinians on Wednesday sifted through rubble in a desperate hunt for trapped victims. "It is a massacre," said one witness.

U.N. human rights officials said strikes on the camp could be a war crime.

"Given the high number of civilian casualties and the scale of destruction following Israeli air strikes on Jabalia refugee camp, we have serious concerns that these are disproportionate attacks that could amount to war crimes," the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights wrote on social media site X.

The Israeli military said one soldier was killed in Gaza on Wednesday. Fifteen were killed on Tuesday.

Amid growing international calls for a humanitarian pause in hostilities, conditions in the seaside enclave are increasingly desperate under Israel's assault and tightened blockade. Food, fuel, drinking water and medicine have run short.

Dr Fathi Abu al-Hassan, a U.S. passport holder waiting to cross into Egypt on Wednesday, described hellish conditions in Gaza without water, food or shelter.

"We open our eyes on dead people and we close our eyes on dead people," he said.

Hospitals have struggled as shortages of fuel forced shutdowns including Gaza's only cancer hospital. Israel has refused to let humanitarian convoys bring in fuel, citing concern that Hamas fighters would divert it for military purposes.

Ashraf Al-Qudra, a spokesperson for the Gaza health ministry, said the main power generator at the Indonesian Hospital was no longer functioning due to lack of fuel.

The hospital was switching to a back-up generator but would no longer be able to power mortuary refrigerators and oxygen generators. "If we don't get fuel in the next few days, we will inevitably reach a disaster," he said.

U.S. DIPLOMAT DEPARTS FOR ISRAEL, AGAIN

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due to depart on Thursday for his second visit to Israel in less than a month. He plans to meet Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday to voice solidarity but also to reassert the need to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties, his spokesperson said.

Blinken will also stop in Jordan, one of a handful of Arab states to have normalised relations with Israel. On Wednesday Jordan withdrew its ambassador from Tel Aviv until Israel ends its assault on Gaza. Israel said it regretted Jordan's decision.

In Jordan, Blinken will underscore the importance of protecting civilian lives and reiterate a U.S. commitment to ensure Palestinians are not forcibly displaced from Gaza, a growing concern of the Arab world, the spokesman said.

He will pursue talks led by Egypt and Qatar on securing the release of all of the hostages held by Hamas.

Also on Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives could pass with Republican support a bill providing $14.3 billion in aid for Israel.

But it is unlikely to become law, as it faces stiff opposition in the Democratic-controlled Senate and the White House has threatened a veto. President Joe Biden wants a $106-billion bill that would fund Ukraine, border security and humanitarian aid as well as money for Israel. (Reuters)