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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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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Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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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Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed
More than 80% of council areas declared disasters in the past four years, Watt says
Murray Watt was hesitant to attribute the individual disaster in the Kimberley to climate change, unlike his colleague Chris Bowen. But he said the overall pattern of increasing disasters was “undoubtedly climate change”:
I don’t think that you can point to one particular event and say it’s due to climate change, but there is no doubt that we are seeing before our eyes is climate change happening. We know from all the scientists that we’re going to be facing more of these intense events more frequently.
I was actually advised yesterday by our agency that just in the last 12 months we’ve seen 316 of Australia’s 537 council areas disaster-declared: that’s about 60% of the council areas in the country. And if you go back four years to the black summer, 438 council areas in Australia have been disaster-declared, which is over 80%.
A lot of people aren’t aware but the wet season in northern Western Australia … generally doesn’t begin until later this month. So their wettest months actually tend to be February and March rather than starting as early as January. So to have this amount of water come through the system this early in the wet season is a concern.
Continue reading...Woman recounts suffering on perilous journeys taken to escape oppression in Myanmar and squalid Bangladesh camps
Hatemon Nesa recalled hugging her young daughter tightly as the cramped, broken-down boat they were sitting on drifted aimlessly. They had set off on 25 November from the squalid Cox’s Bazar refugee camp in Bangladesh, where they had lived since 2017, when a brutal crackdown by Myanmar’s military forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee over the border.
The 27-year-old, like many other Rohingya refugees, was hoping for a better life in Malaysia. But about 10 days into the journey the boat’s engine stopped working and food and water supplies began to run out.
Continue reading...Contact lost for weeks with vessel that left camps in Bangladesh and was crossing Andaman Sea bound for Malaysia
About 180 Rohingya refugees are feared to have died after their boat went missing in the Andaman Sea, making 2022 one of the deadliest years for the refugees trying to flee the camps in Bangladesh.
In a statement on Sunday, the United Nations said it was concerned that a boat carrying the refugees, which had left the camps in the Bangladeshi city of Cox’s Bazar on 2 December bound for Malaysia, had sunk with no survivors, which would make it one of the worst disasters for Rohingya sea crossings this year.
Continue reading...Indonesian authorities investigating death of West Australian university student Niamh Finneran Loader ‘following medical procedure’
An accomplished West Australian university student has died suddenly in Bali, where she had travelled to receive dental treatment.
Niamh Finneran Loader, 25, died on 2 December. Indonesian authorities are investigating the circumstances of her death.
Continue reading...Six people in Indonesia share their views on the controversial legislation and what it means for them
The news that Indonesia’s parliament has passed new legislation outlawing sex outside marriage – as part of a wider overhaul of the country’s criminal code – has triggered concern from human rights activists and prompted protests in the capital Jakarta.
Here, six people in Indonesia share their views on the controversial legislation, and what it may mean for their personal lives and those of fellow citizens when it comes into effect.
Continue reading...Conservationists have already raised concerns about Thursday’s auction at Sotheby’s of development rights to coral atoll network
Indonesia’s plan to auction the development rights to an entire archipelago of more than 100 tropical islands has descended into chaos, with a fisheries ministry official joining conservationists in criticising the sale.
Sotheby’s has described the uninhabited pristine Widi Reserve as “one of the most intact coral atoll ecosystems left on Earth”, and is due to open bidding on Thursday. No sale price has been stated, but prospective buyers will need to provide a US$100,000 deposit.
Continue reading...Analysis: the moralistic aspects of the new criminal code risk obscuring wider concerns about a stifling of protest and criticism of the state
Indonesia’s new criminal code limits the right to protest and participate in the public sphere, threatens the freedom of women and LGBTQ people and represents a trend of vague or “rubber” laws that are open to broad interpretation and selective implementation, experts have warned.
With provisions restoring a ban on insulting the president, state institutions and state ideology, as well as extramarital and premarital sex, the code will come into effect within three years, following Indonesia’s 2024 elections. Insults to a sitting president can lead to up to three years in jail.
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