Category Archives: Indonesia

Australian man arrested in Indonesia says he felt ‘almost possessed’ during naked rampage

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Bodhi Mani Risby-Jones faces up to five years in jail after he allegedly assaulted a fisherman who required 50 stitches for his injuries

Bodhi Mani Risby-Jones says he was not himself and felt “almost possessed” during an alleged drunken naked rampage that led to his arrest on an Indonesian island.

The 23-year-old Australian faces up to five years in jail if convicted over the alleged incident on Thursday on Simeulue, within the conservative Aceh province off the coast of Sumatra.

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Revealed: most of EU delegation to crucial fishing talks made up of fishery lobbyists

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Europe accused of ‘neocolonialism’ for using vassal small island states to sway policy and continue ‘disgraceful plundering’ of distant waters

More than half of the EU’s delegation to a crucial body of tuna stock regulators is made up of fishing industry lobbyists, the Guardian’s Seascape project can reveal, as Europe is accused of “neocolonial” overfishing in the Indian Ocean.

The numbers could shed some light on why the EU recently objected to an agreement by African and Asian coastal nations to restrict harmful fish aggregating devices (FADs) that disproportionately harvest juvenile tuna. Stocks of yellowfin tuna are overfished in the Indian Ocean.

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2023 Goldman environmental prize winners include Texas Gulf coast defender

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Diane Wilson took on Formosa Plastics and won a $50m settlement to help clean up decades worth of toxic plastic waste

Grassroots activists who took on British mining giants and a serial plastics polluter – and won – are among this year’s recipients of the world’s most prestigious environmental prize.

The environmental campaigns led by the six 2023 Goldman prize winners highlight the hurdles faced by some local activists, who are often on the frontlines confronting the toxic mix of corporate greed and systemic corruption that is fuelling the climate emergency, biodiversity collapse and increasingly forced displacement.

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‘Otherworldly’ hybrid solar eclipse reaches totality over Australia – as it happened

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Among those in Exmouth, Australia today are the Solar Wind Sherpas, an international team of scientific adventurers who have tracked solar eclipses across the Sahara and Mongolia, in Svalbard and Antarctica.

There are 13 sherpas and they come from countries including Germany, the Czech Republic and the US.

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Cyclone Ilsa: 11 shipwrecked fishers rescued off WA coast after six days, nine others feared dead

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Makeshift camp of Indonesian crew spotted by a surveillance plane in the Rowley Shoals, about 300km west of Broome

Eleven Indonesian fishers have been rescued from a remote island off Western Australia after their vessel was destroyed by Cyclone Ilsa.

The men were shipwrecked without food and water for six days on a remote island in the Rowley Shoals, about 300km west of Broome.

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Six soldiers killed, 30 missing in attempt to rescue kidnapped pilot in West Papua

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Separatist rebels confronted Indonesian army troops as they searched for New Zealander who was taken hostage in February

Separatist gunmen attacked Indonesian army troops who were deployed to rescue a New Zealand pilot taken hostage by the rebels in Indonesia’s restive Papua province, leaving at least six dead and about 30 missing, officials said on Sunday.

Initial information from army reports said there were about 36 soldiers at a post in the hilly district of Nduga, when attackers from the West Papua Liberation Army, the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement, opened fire on Saturday.

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Indonesia considers tourist tax to curb bad behaviour in Bali

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Business groups fear cost could damage tourism sector still recovering from effects of pandemic

Indonesia is considering imposing a tax for tourists after a series of incidents in which badly behaved foreigners have violated laws or customs, according to local media.

The tourism and creative economy minister, Sandiaga Uno, told reporters this week that the possibility of a tourism tax was “currently being studied”.

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Families dismayed as Indonesia court acquits two police over stadium crush that left 135 dead

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Another officer jailed but sentence too light, say victims’ relatives, after police blamed for triggering crush last October

An Indonesian court has acquitted two senior police officers charged with negligence over a stadium crowd crush last year that killed 135 people, angering relatives of those who died in one of football’s worst tragedies.

Another officer was jailed for 18 months but families of the victims said he had been treated too leniently.

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Parents in Indonesia outraged by 5.30am school start trial

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Controversial pilot project in Kupang, the capital of East Nusa Tenggara province, has twelfth-graders at 10 high schools starting classes in the dark

Early every morning in a city in Indonesia’s far east, sleepy teenagers can be seen trudging through the streets on their way to school.

The students are taking part in a controversial experiment to get the day off to a much earlier start.

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Bali to ban tourists from renting motorbikes

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Governor says foreigners will only be allowed to rent cars, after series of road traffic offences

The Indonesian island of Bali plans to ban tourists from renting motorbikes after a series of incidents in which foreigners have violated traffic rules.

Bali’s governor, Wayan Koster, said that underchanges to be imposed this year, foreigners would only be allowed to drive cars rented from travel agents.

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Two children among 17 people killed after fire at Jakarta fuel storage depot

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Another 60 people injured and hundreds evacuated after fire at Pertamina’s Plumpang depot

At least 17 people including two children have died after a fuel storage depot fire in Jakarta.

Three people are still missing after Friday night’s blaze at state energy firm Pertamina’s Plumpang depot in north Jakarta, with Indonesian officials the next day calling for an audit of “all fuel facilities and infrastructures” in the country.

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Scientists prove clear link between deforestation and local drop in rainfall

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Study adds to fears Amazon is approaching tipping point after which it will not be able to generate its own rainfall

For the first time researchers have proven a clear correlation between deforestation and regional precipitation. Scientists hope it may encourage agricultural companies and governments in the Amazon and Congo basin regions and south-east Asia to invest more in protecting trees and other vegetation.

The study found that the more rainforests are cleared in tropical countries, the less local farmers will be able to depend on rain for their crops and pastures.

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Troy Johnston death: Indonesian man arrested after Australian Rio Tinto worker dies in Bali bar

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Perth man dead after altercation in South Kuta bar

An Indonesian man has been arrested and police say will be charged with murder after the death of an Australian man in a Bali bar.

Local media reported that on Wednesday night Perth man Troy Johnston, 40, was drinking at Uncle Benz cafe in South Kuta.

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West Papuan separatists release video of New Zealand pilot they took hostage

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Phillip Mark Mehrtens, a pilot for Susi Air, was abducted by armed wing of the Free Papua Movement

Separatist rebels in Indonesia’s restive Papua province have released photos and videos of a man they say is the pilot from New Zealand they took hostage last week.

Phillip Mark Mehrtens of Christchurch, a pilot for the Indonesian aviation company Susi Air, was abducted by independence fighters from the West Papua National Liberation Army, the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement, who stormed his single-engine plane shortly after it landed on a small runway in Paro, in the remote Nduga district.

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UK recruiter of debt-hit Indonesians loses seasonal workers licence

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Some of the over 1,450 people brought by AG Recruitment owed thousands to unlicensed brokers

A British recruitment agency that brought Indonesian farmworkers to the UK who had debts of thousands of pounds to foreign brokers has lost its licence as a seasonal worker sponsor.

More than 1,450 Indonesians were brought to Britain last year by AG Recruitment to pick berries and other fruits to supply British supermarkets.

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Separatists fighters in Papua hold New Zealand pilot hostage

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Police and military sent to Nduga area after Susi Air plane was stormed and then burned by separatists opposed to Indonesian rule

Separatist fighters in Indonesia’s Papua region have taken a New Zealand pilot hostage after setting a small commercial plane alight when it landed in a remote highland area on Tuesday, a pro-independence group said in a statement.

A police spokesperson in Papua province, Ignatius Benny Adi Prabowo, said police and military personnel were sent to the area to locate the pilot and five passengers.

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WHO urges action after cough syrups linked to more than 300 child deaths

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Deaths in the Gambia, Indonesia and Uzbekistan due to kidney injury associated with contaminated medicines, the WHO said

The World Health Organization has called for “immediate and concerted action” to protect children from contaminated medicines after a spate of child deaths linked to cough syrups last year.

In 2022, more than 300 children - mainly aged under 5 - in the Gambia, Indonesia and Uzbekistan died of acute kidney injury, in deaths that were associated with contaminated medicines, the WHO said in a statement on Monday.

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Sea ‘a graveyard’ as number of Rohingya fleeing Bangladesh by boat soars

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UN figures show number of those attempting to escape horrendous conditions in refugee camps increased from 700 in 2021 to over 3,500 in 2022

The number of Rohingya refugees taking dangerous sea journeys in the hope of reaching Malaysia or Indonesia has surged by 360%, the UN has announced after hundreds of refugees were left stranded at the end of last year.

Rohingya in Bangladesh refugee camps have warned that human smugglers have ramped up operations and are constantly searching for people to fill boats from Myanmar and Bangladesh headed for Malaysia, where people believe they can live more freely.

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‘Billionaire biffo’ shines light on hugely ambitious $30bn Sun Cable solar project

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The row between Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew Forrest reveals the technical, economic and even geopolitical hurdles to completion

Behind the “billionaire biffo” between Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew Forrest over the future of Sun Cable is a project that has analysts dubbing “visionary” but also “extremely ambitious”.

In Australia’s first big business story of the year, Sun Cable was placed into voluntary administration on Wednesday. That signalled the company won’t be able to meet debt payments without another injection of funds said to be $60m, with Forrest the one not “aligned” with other investors in a willingness to dig deep again.

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Indonesian government accused of putting lives at risk with zinc mine permit

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In an area prone to natural disasters, residents claim a new mining project has damaged homes and livelihoods and left them fearing for their safety

Villagers in North Sumatra have accused the Indonesian government of putting their lives at risk by allowing a zinc mining firm to operate in an area prone to earthquakes and flooding.

People in the mountainous Dairi Regency claim construction work carried out by Dairi Prima Mineral (DPM) has damaged their homes and livelihoods. They fear for their safety as the mine, which is expected to be operational in 2025, will sit on the Great Sumatran fault.

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