VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The government took into account the impact on social and legal issues, as well as investment, before repatriating Indonesian foreign terrorist fighters, Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Mahfud MD has assured. "There are some 660 alleged Indonesian foreign terrorist fighters (FTF) in various countries," Mahfud said here Tuesday.

Mahfud has held a meeting with some ministers and related institutions to discuss the repatriation of the Indonesian FTF.

Present at the meeting were Social Affairs Minister Juliari P Batubara, Law and Human Rights Affairs MInister Yasonna Laoly, Head of the National Counter-terrorism Agency (BNPT) Suhardi Alius, as well as representatives of the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) and Foreign Affairs Ministry.

Some of the fighters requested repatriation, while some others were returned by host countries, he said. "Some of the countries only return children, or women and children, but not the fighters."

On the other hand, host countries were alarmed by their presence in their territories, he said.

"We have discussed the issues, whether or not we will return them all. It will not be easy because based on the constitution, each citizen has the right of citizenship and they should not become stateless," Mahfud remarked.

The problem is that their return could pose a security threat, he said.

"This will involve some ministries. The Social Affairs Ministry, for instance, is dealing with the social impact while the Law and Human Rights Affairs Ministry with the legal issue and citizenship. Tourism and investment can also be affected if they pose a security threat," he said.

President Joko Widodo has yet to make a decision on the repatriation of the FTF, Batubara said earlier.

"There is no decision yet (on Indonesian FTF). We have to wait for the President to decide," Batubara said after the meeting. (ANTARA)

Lebak, Banten - The Ministry of Social Affairs has handed over compensation to the families of 11 people who died in the flash floods and landslides that recently swamped certain areas in Lebak District, Banten Province.

The compensation was handed over to the families of the victims in Darul Mustofa Islamic Boarding School and at a military training center of Siliwangi Regional Military Command in Banten Province Tuesday.

"The amount of compensation for each victim reaches Rp15 million," said Grace Batubara, adviser of the Ministry of Social Affairs' Dharma Wanita (the women's organization of the bureaucracy).

Besides submitting the compensation, Batubara, who is the wife of Social Minister Juliari P Batubara also handed over school uniforms to students affected by the disaster.

"The total humanitarian assistance we handed over today exceeded Rp700 million while the total value of the Ministry of Social Affairs' financial assistance for those affected by floods and landslides in Lebak reached more than Rp2 billion," she said.

Nurhaedi, a 40-year-old man who lost his wife and three children after his house was buried in a landslide on January 1, 2020 said he thanked the government for the compensation.

On the day the landslide struck his village, the rain was not heavy. Therefore, he never thought a cliff behind his house would slide down, he said.

He would use the money to conduct prayers for his wife and his three children until the 100th day of their deaths, Nurhaedi said.

The catastrophe in early January that struck the areas of Lebak District, Banten Province, did not merely kill a dozen local residents but it also destroyed several infrastructure facilities.

Bearing the maximum impact of the recent flash floods and landslide, the residents of Sukarame Village in Sarija Sub-district built an emergency bridge with bamboo poles to cross over to their neighboring villages.

The flash floods and landslide swamped the areas of Sukarame Village in early January, damaging several houses and the infrastructure.

Several houses had also been destroyed by the floodwaters. Sukarame Village is one of the areas in Banten Province that bore the maximum impact. (ANTARA)

Scientists have identified the world's oldest asteroid crater in Australia, adding it may explain how the planet was lifted from an ice age.The asteroid hit Yarrabubba in Western Australia about 2.2 billion years ago - making the crater about half the age of Earth, researchers say. Their conclusion was reached by testing minerals found in rocks at the site. The scientists say the find is exciting because it could account for a warming event during that era. The Curtin University research was published in the journal Nature Communications on Wednesday.

How did they date it?

The crater was discovered in the dry outback in 1979, but geologists had not previously tested how old it was. Due to billions of years of erosion, the crater is not visible to the eye. Scientists mapped scars in the area's magnetic field to determine its 70km (43 miles) diameter.

"The landscape is actually very flat because it's so old, but the rocks there are distinctive," researcher Prof Chris Kirkland told the BBC.

To determine when the asteroid hit Earth, the team examined tiny zircon and monazite crystals in the rocks. They were "shocked" in the strike and now can be read like "tree rings", Prof Kirkland said.

These crystals hold tiny amounts of uranium. Because uranium decays into lead at a consistent pace, the researchers were able to calculate how much time had passed. It is at least 200 million years older than the next most ancient impact structure - the Vredefort Dome in South Africa.

"We were interested in the area because the Western Australian landscape is very old but we didn't expected [the crater] to be as old as this," Prof Kirkland said.

"It's absolutely possible that there's an older crater out there just waiting to be discovered, but the difficulty is in finding the crust before it erodes and you lose that early Earth history".

Could it have ended an ice age?

The timing of the impact could also explain why the world warmed around this time, according to the researchers. Scientists believe the planet was previously in one of its "Snowball Earth" periods, when it was largely covered in ice. At some point, the ice sheets melted and the planet began to rapidly warm.

"The age of the [crater] corresponds pretty precisely with the end of a potential global glacial period," Prof Kirkland said.

"So the impact may have had significant changes to our planetary climate."

Using computer modelling, the team calculated that the asteroid struck a kilometres-thick ice sheet covering the Earth. The event would have released huge volumes of water vapour, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. This could have helped the planet's warming during the Proterozoic era - a stage when oxygen had just appeared in the atmosphere and complex life had not yet formed.

"Obviously we were very excited just with the age itself," Prof Kirkland said. "But placing that right with the context of Earth's other events makes it become really very interesting."

There is not enough modelling from the time to comprehensively test the theory, but "the rocks tell a story about the massive impact into the planet". Another theory for the warming event is that volcanic eruptions may have pushed carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. (BBC World News) 

South Sulawesi Governor HM Nurdin Abdullah plans to build a railroad in the southern part of South Sulawesi.

"There used to be a train route in the Dutch era to the south. It was what the BPPT wanted to explore," Abdullah noted in a statement in Makassar on Saturday.

He explained that it was in line with the Ministry of Transportation's program that was also focused on making South Sulawesi one of the centers of railway development in Indonesia.

The governor added that work on the Makassar-Parepare train project is still ongoing and must be completed.

"The train and railroad will be imported from Japan. The train model is a fast train one. Hence, it needs to be studied first. There are cars from Hokkaido. Try to examine whether it is suitable for our conditions," he stated.

The study conducted by BPPT will serve as the basis for taking the right decision later. To support this, the next plan is to hold a joint office of the South Sulawesi Provincial Government-BPPT.

"We will hold an office here, specifically with the BPPT to design our train needs," he remarked.

In addition to the train team, a special team will each be deployed for accelerating agricultural, fisheries, and livestock development. (ANTARA)