VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Chairperson of the Committee for Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation (BKSAP) of the House of Representatives​​​​​​​ (DPR), Fadli Zon (left), and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Friday (February 23, 2024). (ANTARA/HO-BKSAP DPR RI) - 

Voinews, Jakarta (ANTARA) - Chairperson of the Committee for Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation (BKSAP) of the House of Representatives (DPR), Fadli Zon, has underlined the need to boost connectivity and people-to-people connections between Indonesia and Azerbaijan.

"Relations between Indonesia and Azerbaijan have been quite strong so far, but we need to increase connectivity and people-to-people connections," he said during a bilateral meeting with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov, according to an official statement received here on Saturday.

The two countries need to increase connectivity and people-to-people connections in social, cultural, economic, and other strategic aspects, Zon expounded.

One of the things that needs to be highlighted, he said, is the potential for tourism cooperation, considering that Indonesia is the largest archipelagic country in the world with a host of tourism potentials.

As one of the initiators of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), a global forum for countries committed to peace who are not in alliance with any bloc, Indonesia has its own space in the international arena, Zon observed.

He said that Indonesia has become a role model for countries that uphold the principle of being free and active in their foreign policy.

According to him, through the Bilateral Cooperation Group (GKSB) of the DPR-Parliament of Azerbaijan, the two countries have knitted a fairly close interaction.

"That way, it (the group) is expected to become a foundation for strengthening the bilateral cooperation framework of the two countries in order to achieve common goals," he said.

Meanwhile, Bayramov welcomed the potential for cooperation between Indonesia and Azerbaijan, especially in tourism.

He also congratulated Indonesia for having held its elections safely, peacefully, and democratically. This condition, he said, is expected to strengthen bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and Indonesia in the latter's new leadership era//ANTARA-VOI

View of Kijing Port in Mempawah District, West Kalimantan. (ANTARA/Dedi) - 

Voinews, Pontianak (ANTARA) - Pelindo II Pontianak General Manager, Hambar Wiyadi, stated that Poland expressed a high level of interest in palm shells in West Kalimantan to be used as raw material source for producing its renewable energy.

"The Polish Embassy has visited West Kalimantan and seen port activities. They are interested in the potential of palm shells as raw materials for renewable energy," Wiyadi remarked in Pontianak, Saturday.

He explained that from the port side, export activities to various countries are ready, especially through the Kijing Terminal Port in Mempawah District.

"Dwikora Port cannot be docked by large ships because it is shallow. However, Kijing Port allows depths of up to 16 meters," he remarked.

Meanwhile, Deputy Head of Mission of the Polish Embassy, Piotr Firlus, stated that so far, Poland has received energy sources, such as coal from Indonesia, which is from Kalimantan and Sumatra.

Currently, environmentally-friendly energy sources, such as palm shells, are being explored.

"We saw and heard that West Kalimantan is a fairly large producer of palm shells and has a new port that is quite large and can accommodate large ships. Hence, this is a great potential for synergy with each other," he affirmed.

He explained that the Republic of Poland is a country located in the central European continent. Rusia's war with Ukraine has had an impact on the need for energy supplies, both for industry and households.

As extreme temperatures are recorded in Poland during winter, it requires extensive energy supplies for fulfilling the people's needs.

"To meet these needs, Poland still has a bit of dependency, where import and export activities to meet the needs of the Polish population mostly still go through the Rotterdam Port of Dutch because there is the center of transshipment for large ships and the center of the energy industry," he explained//ANTARA-VOI

FILE PHOTO: A woman stands in front of a Google logo during the inauguration of a new hub in France dedicated to the artificial intelligence (AI) sector, at the Google France headquarters in Paris, France, February 15, 2024. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo - 

Voinews, San Francisco - Google on Wednesday (Feb 21) released new artificial intelligence (AI) models that outside developers potentially can fashion as their own, following a similar move by Meta Platforms and others.

The Alphabet subsidiary said individuals and businesses can build AI software based on its new family of "open models" called Gemma, for free. The company is making key technical data such as what is called model weights publicly available, it said.

The move may attract software engineers to build on Google's technology and encourage usage of its newly profitable cloud division. The models are "optimised" for Google Cloud, where first-time cloud customers using them get US$300 in credits, the company said.

Google stopped short of making Gemma fully "open source," meaning the company still may have a hand in setting terms of use and ownership.

Some experts have said open-source AI was ripe for abuse, while others have championed the approach for widening the set of people who can contribute to and benefit from the technology.

With the announcement, Google did not make its bigger, premier models known as Gemini open, unlike Gemma. It said the Gemma models are sized at two billion or seven billion parameters - or the number of different values that an algorithm takes into account to generate output.

Meta's Llama 2 models range from seven to 70 billion parameters in size. Google has not disclosed the size of its largest Gemini models. For comparison, OpenAI's GPT-3 model announced in 2020 had 175 billion parameters.

Chipmaker Nvidia on Wednesday said it has worked with Google to ensure Gemma models run smoothly on its chips. Nvidia also said it will soon make chatbot software, which it is developing to run AI models on Windows PCs, work with Gemma//CNA-VOI

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Lawrence Wong speaking with panellists on CNA's Ask the Finance Minister programme on Feb 21, 2024. (Photo: CNA/Jeremy Long) - 

Voinews, Singapore - Measures announced at Budget 2024 affecting Central Provident Fund (CPF) members are “very much in line with the purpose and intent of the CPF”, said Finance Minister Lawrence Wong on Wednesday night (Feb 21).

Mr Wong, who is also Deputy Prime Minister, was addressing the move to close the CPF Special Account and the reactions it drew online.

Those aged 55 and above will no longer have a Special Account from 2025 onwards, but they will be able to put more money into their Retirement Accounts.

The Ordinary Account holds funds that can be withdrawn for housing and earns short-term interest rates, while the Special Account is for long-term purposes and so has a higher interest rate. 

“That’s the principle,” explained Mr Wong on CNA’s Ask the Finance Minister show, a post-Budget panel discussion that saw him field questions from four panellists.

“Of course, at age 55, you also have a Retirement Account. So instead of now having Special Account and Retirement Account, we are streamlining it into just one, which is the Retirement Account, which is for the long-term, for your retirement needs.”

Under the move, CPF members who have excess funds in their Special Account can transfer it to the Retirement Account – “all the way up to the revised Enhanced Retirement Sum and still earn the same interest rate as the Special Account”, said Mr Wong.  

“The vast majority of Singaporeans will be able to do so. And if they do so, they will get more in their Retirement Account. And eventually when they retire, they will get higher CPF payouts for life.” 

The Enhanced Retirement Sum is the maximum amount that CPF members can put into their Retirement Accounts to receive payouts. It is currently set at three times the Basic Retirement Sum (BRS), but will be increased to four times the BRS next year.

Those who have remaining Special Account savings after hitting the Enhanced Retirement Sum cap will have these savings transferred to their Ordinary Account. 

Mr Wong on Wednesday also touched on how employers should help their mid-career employees, particularly those aged 40 and above, reboot their skills. 

Even though employers who embrace this new mindset may experience higher-costs in the short-term as they have to invest in their workers’ training, Mr Wong believes they will emerge “much better” as a company//CNA-VOI