JAKARTA: New rules issued this week by Indonesia will make the police the only authority allowed to give the go-ahead for abortions for rape victims, drawing criticism from rights activists who said the changes were regressive. Abortion is illegal in Indonesia, home to the world’s largest Muslim population, except inContinue Reading
JAKARTA: Bali authorities have tightened the screening of foreign nationals entering the Indonesian resort island in response to a surge in tourist arrivals this year.
The number of international visitors reached 3.89 million in the first seven months of 2024, an increase of almost 1 million from the same period last year.
According to the head of the Bali Regional Office of the Law and Human Rights Ministry, Pramella Yusnida Pasaribu, the heightened supervision applies to all foreign visitors arriving at Bali’s I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport.
“We are committed to ensuring strict immigration supervision to maintain security and order in the Bali region,” said Mdm Pramella, in a statement on Thursday (Aug 1) as quoted by local news platform Antara.
She said that the enhanced screening includes meticulous checks of travel documents. Immigration officers will scrutinise passports, visas, and residence permits with greater diligence.
This tightening of controls is further supported by an integrated immigration information system designed to facilitate the monitoring of foreigners’ movements.
The immigration checks also integrate facial recognition technology for greater border control management, according to Antara.
Additionally, Bali’s immigration office collaborates closely with relevant agencies, including the police, customs, and tourism offices, to enhance the effectiveness of the screening.
Antara reported that since Mar 6, 2024, Bali’s Immigration had installed 30 autogate units, or automated immigration facilities, at the Ngurah Rai Airport’s international arrival terminal.
The immigration checks at the autogates integrate the facial recognition technology with the Border Control Management (BCM).
An additional 20 autogates will be also installed at the international departure terminal. Overall, the Ngurah Rai Airport will be equipped with 80 autogate units.
According to data from Ngurah Rai Immigration, the number of foreign tourists visiting Bali from January to July 2024 reached 3.89 million, up from 2.9 million during the same period in 2023.
Australians dominated arrival numbers with 877,329 visitors, followed by 328,767 from India and 278,329 from China.
Significant numbers of tourists also came from the United Kingdom, South Korea, the United States, France, Malaysia, Singapore, and Germany.
Mdm Pramella also emphasised that her office actively educates the public on the importance of maintaining security and order, including reporting any suspicious foreign nationals.
She urged all foreigners to comply with Indonesia’s laws and regulations.
According to the data released by her office, 258 foreigners were deported from Bali between January and July 19, 2024.
In April 2024, the Ngurah Rai Immigration Office reported denying entry to 318 foreign nationals between January and March 2024, mostly because they did not have Indonesian visas.
Other reasons for denied entry included having criminal records or passport validity of less than six months.
In 2023, 340 foreigners were deported, an increase from 188 in 2022.
The influx of foreign tourists has also boosted Bali’s Non-Tax State Revenue (PNBP) which saw the Ngurah Rai Immigration Office collect about 963.4 billion rupiah (US$60 million) in non-tax state revenue for the first semester of 2024.
This is an increase of about 8 per cent from 894.7 billion rupiah collected in the same period in 2023.
The majority of this revenue came from visa fees which form about 90 per cent of the total revenue collected and about half of the 1.5 trillion rupiah target for 2024.
Despite the tightened immigration checks, Mdm Pramella assured that services to tourists in Bali remain safe and comfortable.
“We want to ensure that every tourist who comes to Bali can enjoy the natural beauty and culture of Bali safely and comfortably,” she said.
CHOORALMALA, India: The search for survivors and bodies after devastating landslides in Kerala is expected to speed up on Friday (Aug 2), after the army completed construction of a bridge that will help in transportation of heavy equipment to the affected area. Heavy rain in the southern coastal state ofContinue Reading
Since April, heatstroke has killed 59 people in Japan, according to the disaster management agency. Parasols and chunky necklaces that can be stored in the freezer have been a common sight around Tokyo, where street performer Jiro Kan, 56, told AFP he was feeling the heat. “After spending two hoursContinue Reading
In 2023, global electric vehicle sales exceeded 13 million. China has the largest domestic electric vehicle market with more than seven million units sold, representing a third of car sales.
In addition, China exported 1.2 million electric vehicles in 2023. This was 80 per cent more than the previous year.
Electric vehicles are already cheaper than cars with internal combustion engines in China, because they have such a high market share. Local carmakers already offer nearly 50 different small, affordable electric models.
In April, China announced it was preparing to extend emissions trading to the steel industry. This sector is the country’s second largest CO2 emitter, behind power.
Emissions trading is a market-based approach to controlling pollution. The government allocates permits that allow release of a certain amount of CO2 over a set period of time. These permits can be bought and sold, or traded.
China accounts for more than half of the world’s steel production. But the industry also supports the energy transition, because steel is used in renewables and electric vehicles manufacturing. Nearly 70 per cent of the world’s key components of wind turbines and 80 per cent of solar panel components are made in China.
The government is encouraging industry to work with universities and research institutes to reduce emissions. It will not be easy, and it will be costly.
China is the world’s largest hydrogen producer, but 80 per cent comes from fossil fuels. Investment in green hydrogen research and development is increasing, with some firms determined to take the lead. If steel-making could be powered by green hydrogen, it would be a major breakthrough.
HANOI: A Vietnamese coast guard vessel is en route to the Philippines for joint training exercises, Hanoi said, the first such exchange between the countries in dispute with Beijing over the South China Sea. Beijing claims almost the entire South China Sea but the Philippines, Vietnam and several other nations claimContinue Reading
SEOUL: Korean Air will stop serving instant cup noodles, a popular snack in Korea known as ramyeon that requires boiling water, on its long-haul flights, part of changes in response to increased turbulence incidents. Concerns about turbulence on planes have heightened since a Singapore Airlines flight from London in MayContinue Reading
Swiatek, a four-time French Open champion at Roland Garros, went into Thursday’s match at a sweltering Court Philippe Chatrier on a 25-match win streak in Paris. The 23-year-old had also defeated Zheng in all of their six previous meetings. However, she was hit off the court by the powerful 21-year-oldContinue Reading
JAKARTA: The Indonesian government will set up a national registry to record statistics on suicide attempts and deaths as part of prevention efforts.
The registry is among several health policies in a new regulation issued by President Joko Widodo on Tuesday (July 30), reported news outlet Kompas.
The registry is expected to include details such as the individuals’ gender, age, location, method, risk factors as well as motives.
The bulk of the information will come from the Indonesian National Police (Polri), population and civil records, agencies involved in gathering data as well as health services agencies. No timeframe was given for the establishment of the registry.
The presidential order also outlines mitigation and prevention measures for suicide, which include responsible reporting of suicide by the mass media and on social media, as well as guidelines on mitigating thoughts of self-harm by developing life, social and emotional skills.
According to the guidelines, people with suicide risk should be restricted from access to tools, materials or facilities that can trigger attempts, for instance.
The government will provide access to counselling services through suicide prevention hotlines, support through survivor groups, and physical and mental health treatment for survivors.
The relevant government agencies will also prohibit the public from abandoning, shackling, or committing violence against people with mental disorders, or ordering others to do so, the health regulation states.
Netizens welcomed the new regulation but cautioned that data, especially for attempted suicide cases, must be handled carefully.
Indonesia suffered a crippling ransomware attack in recent weeks on its national data centres that affected 239 institutions, including 30 government ministries and agencies.
The hacker group Brain Cipher claimed responsibility and demanded US$8 million from the government to unlock the data, but later unexpectedly released the decryption key for free.
“Suicide attempts recorded by the government will have the potential for stigmatisation if it leaks,” commented a netizen on social media platform X. The netizen hoped more details on safeguards would be spelled out in the regulations.
Based on data from Indonesian police’s National Criminal Information Center (Pusiknas), there were 287 suicides in Indonesia from January to March this year.
Of these cases, about a-third or 97 cases took place in Central Java.
According to a groundbreaking study published in February, however, suicides are likely under-reported by about 860 per cent in Indonesia based on data from 2016 to 2018. Reasons include families asking for a suicide not to be reported, and suicide-related investigations that are not pursued by the police.
Through a national government partnership, the researchers from various institutions and universities in Australia and Indonesia obtained non-public data on attempts and suicides from 2016 to 2021, and put together Indonesia’s first suicide statistics profile.
Indonesia’s national suicide attempt rate was 2.25 attempts per 100,000 individuals, according to the study, titled “Indonesia’s first suicide statistics profile: an analysis of suicide and attempt rates, underreporting, geographic distribution, gender, method, and rurality”.
The ratio of female to male suicides was found to be 1: 2.11.
The highest suicide rates were in Bali, Riau Islands, Yogyakarta, Central Java and Central Kalimantan. “Further investigation is needed to identify underlying patterns in these priority provinces,” stated the study, published in The Lancet Regional Health Southeast Asia.
The data provides “essential information which can allow for critical steps in suicide prevention, such as means restriction and allocation of resources between rural and urban areas, as well as certain geographic regions”, the researchers wrote.
“Given the scarcity of resources for suicide prevention and mental health, resources must be used judiciously”, together with data-driven approaches to maximise effectiveness, they said.
Three others were detained in the following days with the government saying at the time they had been held for their own safety. Justice Minister Anisul Huq told AFP on Thursday that all six had volunteered to be in police custody. “They came willingly. They said they wanted to go.Continue Reading