Other scenes in the videos depict the four pleading for cards from locals, one of whom appears to be the 1.7 million-follower YouTuber Night Scape. The three people and one woman’s whereabouts in Japan were unknown at the time the video was shot. According to a spokeswoman,” We are awareContinue Reading
Angel investors took part in this nbsp square.Funds will be used to develop the team, develop a lab, and improve marketing initiatives.An Indonesian business focused on dog genomics and biology called Moosa Genetics announced andnbsp that it has received funding from East Ventures, a trailblazing, sector-agnostic venture capital firm in Southeast…Continue Reading
SEOUL: According to the government, South Korean government detained a North Korean ship carrying people on Tuesday, October 24. Early on Tuesday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff reported that the small, wooden ship was stopped off the northeast area of Sokcho in South Korea after being spotted close to theContinue Reading
Zionism is fundamentally an effort to provide a secure environment for Israeli individuals. Minorities in Europe were developing new strategies to protect their social and religious freedom at the time that its ideology was born.
Safety was a requirement for any concept of national independence in the case of the Israeli citizens, who had endured centuries of persecution. Early Jewish thinkers gave much thought to how native Palestinians may respond to the establishment of a Hebrew state on their property, despite their preoccupation with Israeli national independence. & nbsp,
Right-wing Zionists argued that using military force would be the only way to increase protection for the Jewish state( and, by extension, the Jews people ) as it became apparent that achieving peaceful coexistence may present a challenge. The & nbsp, or” Iron Wall,” was the concept that would later serve as the cornerstone for Israeli leaders.
The Iron Wall was effectively destroyed when Hamas attackers attacked citizens in Israel on October 7, more than 70 years after the development of this tactic. & nbsp,
The Iron Wall concept is credited to Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the creator of reactionary Zionism, a hard-right branch of the philosophy that supported the greatest expansion of Israel’s state. A volunteer peace deal with Palestinians, he claimed, was” impossible.”
Therefore, according to Jabotinsky & nbsp’s 1923 essay,” Zionists must either suspend our settlement efforts or continue them without paying attention to the mood of the natives.” So, colony can grow behind an iron wall that they will be unable to breach, under the security of a force that is independent of the local populace.
It was dangerous and dishonest for Zionists to show any willingness to negotiate with Palestinians, according to Jabotinsky’s divided logic. Israeli leaders from all social spheres were influenced by Jabotinsky’s ideas, which eventually became the de facto policy of the first state. Israel’s primary goal is to establish a safe Israeli country, after all.
Israel established a system of control over Arab life when the state was established in 1948 and more than 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly removed from their homes. The Iron Wall, which divided the Israeli state from the rest of the area, was built on walls, gates, and intelligence-gathering.
Another fundamental idea in the Jewish brain is the need to protect their property from returning Palestinian refugees. Everything starts with this tenet of security. & nbsp,
All changed on October 7. The army was not present when Hamas extremists, many of whom are descended from Palestinian refugees, poured across the frontier walls separating Israel and Gaza. Without assistance from the government, Israelites endured hours of terrible atrocities at the hands of extremists. & nbsp,
The military and security forces may stop migrants from returning and killing them in their homes, which was the cornerstone of Israel’s interpersonal agreement with its citizens. Israelis didn’t think it was possible for the Iron Wall to be breached. Also Hamas was astounded by the frailty of the Israeli military. & nbsp,
What will happen next? The fundamental cultural agreement between Israelis, their state, and the fundamental idea of Zionism has been broken. Israeli leaders have some justifications for this gigantic loss.
Israel’s complex system of managing Palestinian living had been running slowly up until October 7. For many years, Israel was lulled into a false sense of security. The idea that occupying Arab territory serves as a security checkpoint is flawed in its entirety. In addition, & nbsp,
What happens to the fundamental tenet of the Jewish state, which is that Israel can and will defend Jews from terrible problems, now that the Iron Wall has been breached? How can this cultural lease be reinstated by the state? How you trust in its capacity to defend be restored?
It may take some time to find the answers to these challenging questions, but the Jewish leadership’s first response hasn’t been encouraging. No senior Israeli chief has resigned, despite the fact that the Israeli public relations machine has been swift to interpret the assault on Israeli citizens as an assault on all Jews. & nbsp,
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom the majority of Israelis single out as the main cause of this loss, had declare special elections in six months after the battle stops and declare that he didn’t run for re-election. This has not occurred, and there are no signs that it will.
Additionally, rather than concentrating on liberating the hostages held by Hamas, the Israeli army has intensified the pounding of war in preparation for a ground invasion of Gaza. History has demonstrated that surface attacks in Gaza rarely have long-lasting effects. They’ve already done that and been that. & nbsp,
Israel finally lacks the solution at this time because doing so would require completely dismantling the nation’s occupation and control over Israeli life. According to the Iron Wall reasoning, the nation has sold the profession as an obvious precaution to guarantee Israeli security. It is ineffective. & nbsp,
Israel has a sophisticated knowledge system in addition to one of the most sophisticated forces on the planet. However, the commotion that results from decades of occupation by Palestinians shows how ineffective those resources are at delivering fundamental protection. & nbsp,
Unfortunately, going beyond the philosophy of natural force to achieve an equal settlement where everyone between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea has equal rights is the best way to bring about the Iron Wall’s desired outcomes. We have seen the consequences for both parties of the status quo.
The copyright-holding Syndication Bureau, & nbsp, provided this article.
A larger power struggle between the United States and Iran is still going on in the Middle East as Israel prepares for a ground invasion of Gaza and Palestinian and Israeli human deaths keep rising.
In the Middle East, the US has much held a significant management position. Maintaining close ties with numerous friends, such as Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, has been crucial to American control.
Additionally, since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Iran’s leaders have worked to undermine American relations in the Middle East in order to increase their local influence and maintain their home power.
Iran has established a regional network that is primarily made up of Shia Muslim organizations, including the Palestinian militant organization Hezbollah and Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria.
Additionally, the US-designated criminal organization Hamas, a Sunni Islamic activity that controls Gaza, has long received support from Iran. Hamas is dedicated to the annihilation of Israel, just like Iran.
As an expert in international elections, I’m curious to see how this conflict between the US and Iran has developed and how it might be impacted by this battle.
Iran’s local plan, which aims to sever tensions between Israel and its neighbors and exacerbate US connections in the Muslim world, is centered on the long-running Israel-Palestinian conflict. The Israel-Hamas warfare appears to be having exactly those effects so far.
Iran has denied having any clear presence in the atrocities carried out by Hamas fighters in Israel on October 7, 2023, in which they killed around 1,400 people and abducted more than 200.
It is too early to pinpoint Iran’s precise contribution to the crime, according to US officials and others.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme head of Iran, has praised the problems.
As Israeli casualties spark significant protests against the Jewish rude throughout the Middle East, he has referred to Israel’s ensuing assault on Gaza as” a murder.”
More than 3,780 people have died as a result of Jewish cuts in Gaza since October 7, according to the UN.
If Israel continues its rude, Iran has also threatened to take” proactive” action against it.
Israel and Hezbollah are currently exchanging rocket fire and weapon on a daily basis. Israel has established a buffer zone close to its Lebanon-Lebanese borders and started evicting its people it.
Israel has even bombed important terminals in Syria, a longtime foe with close ties to Hezbollah. These activities dangerously bring Israel, one of America’s closest friends, closer to a larger conflict with an Iranian-backed partnership.
Iran has been utilizing the differences between the US and Israel over the past few decades in an effort to increase its local control.
Iran supported the fatal 1983 attacks on the US Embassy and Marine camp in Beirut and contributed to the construction of Hezbollah in Lebanon in the early 1980s.
Following the 2003 destroy of Saddam Hussein, one of Iran’s main rivals, Tehran has gained control in Iraq by joining forces with pleasant Islamist groups.
By providing the Syrian government with weapons, intellect, and troops, Iran and Hezbollah have assisted the Assad regime in winning the government’s ongoing civil war.
Additionally, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates support Iranian rebel groups in Yemen, which are fighting the government there.
Iran, meanwhile, has backed radical organizations in the Arab territories since the 1980s. Earlier in the 1990s, Hezbollah and Egyptian troops were training Hamas soldiers in Lebanon.
During the Second Intifada, a bloody Palestinian uprising that lasted from 2000 to 2005, Iran increased help to Hamas. After winning the Gaza election in 2006 once more, Gaza became occupied. During its 2008 – 2009 and 2014 armed conflicts with Israel, Iran also provided weapons and money to Hamas.
The Israeli-Palestinian issue has remained prominent in Middle Eastern politics as a result of ongoing battle in Gaza. Iran’s goals of undermining U.S. and Jewish relationships with its Muslim rivals, quite as Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, have advanced as a result of this battle and stress.
By mediating the 2020 Abraham Accords, in which Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates agreed to maintain diplomatic ties with Israel, the US thus achieved a significant diplomatic success.
In March 2023, seven years after their breakup, Iran declared it had reached a deal to resume political relations with Saudi Arabia.
Following this declaration, US officers attempted to reach an agreement to formally reestablish ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which the Gaza War has frozen. According to some experts, this is the exact cause Iran may include encouraged Hamas to attack Israel.
The US faces significant political difficulties as a result of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Israel’s attack, threatened surface invasion, and aid restrictions in Gaza have energised its adversaries and heightened tensions with its allies.
The Israeli attack has been referred to as a” massacre” by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. While Iranian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has claimed that Israel’s plan amounts to” social abuse” of the people of Gaza, Qatar has attributed the crime to Israel.
After Hamas accused Israel of the blast on October 17 outside a Gaza doctor, deteriorating diplomatic relations between some associates became even more obvious. Although Israel and the US have insisted that Palestinians were responsible for the blast, anti-Israel protests quickly spread throughout the Middle East, perhaps in failure.
Jordan canceled his designed conference with el-Sisi, Jordanian King Abdullah II, and Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, just before President Joe Biden arrived in Israel for a local attend on October 18.
Solid support for Israel has been attempted to be balanced by the Biden administration with a message of caution.
Biden defended Israel’s right to respond to defend its borders and citizens while in Israel, and he made an effort to stop Iran and other nations from escalating the conflict. He also persuaded Israel to abide by the laws of war and won a deal with them that would allow some assistance to enter Gaza via Egypt.
On October 21, the border between Egypt and Gaza was opened, allowing some canned war and health resources to enter Gaza.
The Biden administration’s efforts to deter Iran and avoid a wider battle, despite pressure and rage throughout the region, are in line with the priorities of the majority of Muslim governments, which worry that Tehran and its allies are extremely wary of local and regional stability.
Other countries may turn up toward Washington as a result of perceptions that Tehran is causing local unrest and escalation. The solution to reducing the humanitarian crisis and preventing Iran from emerging victorious from the conflict in Gaza may be to push for Jewish restraint.
University of Michigan professor of open plan John Ciorciari
Under a Creative Commons license, this post has been republished from The Conversation. Read the article in its entirety.
The cartels are also infamous for their” pig butchering” scams, in which con artists lure people into virtual tales while persuading them to invest their money in dubious plans, frequently halfway across the globe. Foreign and non-Chinese are the two divisions into which the con artists divide their victims. ToContinue Reading
Large areas of land were contaminated with low-level radiation as a result of the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear accidents. Great efforts were made to decontaminate the disturbed regions after both incidents.
However, a recent Fukushima research casts doubt on the viability of these purification efforts. Less than one-third of the populace has returned to the evacuated areas, and the region’s vast tracts of contaminated bush.
More than 100,000 people were evicted from their homes as a result of the evacuation of about 1, 100 square km following the accident at Fukushima Daiichi in 2011. Although subject to ongoing radiation monitoring, a polluted area that was about eight times larger remained inhabited.
Gamma rays produced by contaminated grounds, pavement, roads, and buildings were the main source of radiation exposure for individuals. The goal of the purification procedure was to guarantee that the general public received an annual dose of radiation from Fukushima that was less than 1, 000 microsieverts( Sv ) above the normal background levels. Japan receives 2, 200 sv of normal rays annually on average.
In terms of energy dose, radiocaesium, the most significant long-lived radioactive element released by the incident, clearly adheres to soil particles. As a result, the purification of agricultural land mainly involved removing the top 5 cm of ground. In urban areas, decontamination efforts included pressure washing empties and gutters, sanding or pressurewashing hard surfaces, and removing soil from sports fields.
People were able to return to their homes in a sizable portion of the evacuated area thanks to these efforts, which reduced doses by approximately 60 % in private and farmland areas. This is a deep scream from Chernobyl, where significant decontamination efforts were finally abandoned, leaving sizable evacuated areas that are still deserted. But was it interesting to decontaminate Fukushima?
The cost of decontaminating Fukushima’s property was in the tens of billions. Regrettably, the process has also exposed the workers involved to a significant amount of radiation and produced enormous amounts of irradiated soil waste. However, the decision of whether to decontaminate property is complicated and only partly supported by scientific data.
Purification, on the one hand, confirms that quantities are being decreased and that energy is being” cleaned up.” However, it may also give the impression that low-level energy poses a greater threat than it does.
In some areas of Fukushima that were susceptible to purification, prescription rates were never dangerously high. In actuality, doses( less than 12, 000 sv ) were relatively low in the first year after the accident, and they steadily dropped over time.
These levels fall within the range of cosmic radiation, rock, soil, building materials, and radioactivity that people are exposed to on a global scale( typically between 1,000 and 10,000 Sv per year, but occasionally higher ).
Overall, I believe the assurance that pollution was being removed was beneficial in some places where people continued to live. Additionally, purification made it possible to immediately put agricultural land back to creative use. Nonetheless, the removal of soil had the unintended consequence of impairing soil fertility.
It’s less obvious that disinfection was advantageous in the evacuated corridor where dose rates were roughly ten times higher. In the most contaminated so-called” difficult to return area ,” only 30 % of people have returned to their homes, and a large portion of the land is still deserted.
Declaring the majority of this area a nature reserve and allowing for controlled forest of the place might have been preferable. In any case, referrals is taking place to a significant degree, as it has at Chernobyl. Additionally, it would have prevented radiation exposure for purification staff and provided more financial assistance for people moving.
However, this is a difficult decision that must take into account the opinions of numerous parties, no the least of whom are the evacuated individuals themselves.
The area in and around the towns and villages in the area has typically been properly decontaminated. However, forest makes up a large portion of the Fukushima Prefecture( 71 %). The majority of this bush is still contaminated.
It has long been known that radiocaesium persists in communities, especially in trees. In comparison to agricultural methods, radiocaesium degrees in wild foodstuffs like fungi, edible plants, game animals, and saltwater fish are typically higher.
As a result of both Chernobyl and traditional nuclear weapons tests, wild boar in some areas of Germany, for example, nevertheless exhibit radicaesium levels exceeding usage limits. Following the Chernobyl event, restrictions on the consumption of forest materials have persisted for years. Additionally, they are anticipated to persist in some wooded places of Fukushima.
Due to the abundance of healthy soils and the lack of fertilizer software, radiocaesium persists in forests. Small nutrient levels make it easier for plants to absorb radiocaesium. The substance resemblance between radiocaesium and potassium, a vital plant nutrient, is primarily to blame for this.
There is a threat of fire in forests. Since the incident, there have been numerous forest fires close to Chernobyl. However, even for firefighters, smoke inhalation radiation doses are very small, and the radioactivity from the fires hasn’t been tremendously redistributed.
Cleaning up after a nuclear incident is not an easy task. Japan has made significant and frequently effective work to lower energy doses and comfort residents of or visiting the affected regions. However, low-level energy is still present outside, especially in trees.
However, it’s important to keep in mind that energy quantities are almost never quite high. The natural effects of nuclear accidents, which generally result in DNA damage, are identical to those of the natural radiation that we are all exposed to from our food and the environment around us. While workers’ dose rates during an accident can be very large, those from environmental radiation are lower over the long term.
Millions of people receive higher monthly healthy radiation doses than those who live in the Fukushima zones without even realizing it.
Professor of climate science at the University of Portsmouth, Jim Smith.
Under a Creative Commons license, this post has been republished from The Conversation. Read the original publication.
I first visited Rempang island in the summer of 2022. Greeting me were lush fields lined with coconut and banana trees, picture-book fishing villages with houses jutting into the water on stilts, and boats carrying people between the dozens of islands that dot the Riau archipelago in western Indonesia. I had made the pleasant, one-hour ferry trip from bustling, glass-and-chrome Singapore. This felt like another world.
My hosts (an environmental lawyer and an indigenous Melayu community organizer) and I had reached Rempang from the economic hub of Riau Islands province: the special manufacturing, trade and logistics zone of Batam.
We had gone from Batam to Rempang by crossing one of the six metal bridges that connect the islands of Batam, Rempang and Galang. This network of bridges has turned the islands into an economic zone, now called the Barelang region.
My ongoing research is investigating how the international quest for green energy is reliant on “sacrificial zones” in developing countries. The transition to green energy, far from creating a green new deal for all, is actually reinforcing entrenched inequalities and hierarchies.
I became interested in Rempang when I saw news reports heralding a renewable energy revolution. Companies from Singapore, Portugal and beyond were signing agreements to build vast floating solar farms in local reservoirs in the Batam region. The plan was that the clean energy produced would be transported from the sunlit western Indonesian islands of Batam, Bulan, and Rempang to energy-intensive Singapore via undersea cable.
But on reaching the islands, and visiting the sites named in the news reports, I saw no sign of green energy activity. The waters were placid. There was no solar farm in sight. I shrugged, met friends, ate the freshest possible seafood at a small Kelong restaurant that was half on land and half in the sea, and went back to Singapore on the ferry.
My return a year later could not have been more different. The atmosphere was tense and the roads were lined with armed police. Large military trucks moved ominously on the tar, monitoring the situation. Villagers stood around in clusters, anxious and clutching at straws of information trickling through on WhatsApp and word of mouth about what seemed to be a state-backed land grab.
People were protesting because the 16 villages and 7,500 inhabitants of Rempang are facing eviction, as plans to transform their home into the latest hub for the global green transition gather apace. The Indonesian government and a Chinese-backed business consortium want to move the entire community to another island and turn their home into a huge solar panel manufacturing center, solar farm, and “ecocity”.
Videos filmed by residents from sites of protest show armed military and police clashing with the farmers and fishers of Rempang. The videos, some of which have been posted on social media, show people being thrown to the ground, bleeding, apparently roughed up by state forces. There have been many arrests.
I regularly hear from friends and acquaintances who tell me that police and government authorities have taken to summoning suspected protestors, examining their phones for incriminating evidence, and looking into their home, work lives and tax affairs. Residents are clear this is “harassment” and “pressure” to give up their land and withdraw from the struggle.
Alongside large and publicized confrontations, the residents of Rempang are resisting the everyday encroachments of the proposed project. In local, spontaneous opposition in affected villages, women, including mothers and grandmothers in veils, have blocked roads, preventing government officials from entering villages to measure their land.
Videos show them wailing as armed police approach. In others, young girls and old women can be seen in a semi-conscious state, being taken to hospital after apparent tear gassing.
[embedded content]
But how did things move so fast? From April 2023, news had begun to filter in that a well-connected businessman from Jakarta, who reportedly made his money and reputation through businesses operated on behalf of the Indonesian military, before turning to banking and real estate, was to build a “township” on Rempang.
By August, the better informed in the community had gathered that the planned Rempang project was to be a collaboration between Tomy Winata’s Artha Graha Group, and a Chinese “glass manufacturer.”
By September, Winata himself was granting interviews and talking about his plans for an ecocity. The project – which has the enthusiastic blessings of the Batam economic zone authorities, the provincial government of Riau Islands, and importantly, the central government in Jakarta – is imminent.
It will displace 16 villages on Rempang island and will cover a mind-boggling 17,000 hectares (one square hectare is roughly equivalent to one rugby field). As residents discussed these figures among themselves, they lobbed questions at me: “Why do they need so much land?” and “what will they even do with it?”
An elderly, mild-mannered fisherman I spoke to in August, who was trying to organize resistance to what was then still a mysterious investment pushed by Jakarta and China said he was worried about the community being relocated:
People here have history. Their whole story is in this area. They love this land. They live here. You can make your project here. Welcome. But build it in an empty area. Whatever you do, don’t disturb us. Keep us here, give jobs to our children … When people ask me, where is your village, I say it is Bapke [pseudonym]. Later, what will I say? Our identity will be lost.
On first learning about the Rempang project, residents petitioned different layers of government, sought meetings, and even went to Jakarta to try and meet officials. Finding them unresponsive, people contemplated taking to the streets.
By mid-August, groups were meeting at local cafes and in the homes of community leaders. They were determined not to give up their land. One member of a group that was congregating in Batam told me “there is a meeting of Melayu youth to plan a protest at Barelang [bridge], and at the mayor’s office [in Batam]. We are here to discuss the situation. We will protest in the coming days”.
By the last week of August, there were demonstrations organized by the community at various locations in Rempang and Batam, and by civil society organizations in Jakarta. Soon, my contacts were talking about “clashes between the community and BP Batam” (the authority in charge of the Batam free trade zone), and larger and larger demonstrations involving not just Rempang residents, but ethnic Melayus from the surrounding islands as well. At these early protests, police forces were present, there was tension, but no violence.
Despite growing opposition, authorities dismissed popular discontent as “miscommunication”. As reported in the press, increasingly incensed residents began to resort to violence, using rocks and glass bottles. These were desperate measures from increasingly desperate people facing the might of the state.
Local and international media, which had initially ignored the Rempang issue, was finally covering it amid escalating “rioting” at Rempang.
A Melayu youth messaged me on Whatsapp recently, saying: “I was called to the police station for questioning … I went through the investigation process [for many hours] regarding the case at [location X]. There was a clash between community and authorities which resulted in eight people being sent to prison.”
Meanwhile, preparations for the Rempang development have continued apace. It appears that as early as 2004, the Indonesian company PT Makmur Elok Graha (PT MEG), which is part of the Artha Graha Group, secured permission from the Batam Regional People’s Representative Council to develop Rempang. The understanding at the time was for a tourism zone, covering 5,000 hectares. Existing villages were to be preserved in this plan.
Nothing came of the agreement with PT MEG, until 2023. Earlier in 2023, representatives of PT MEG visited houses of notable locals in Rempang and indicated their intention to survey the land.
According to one such local businessperson and community leader, the company did not inform him about what they intended to build. However, in a neighboring village, some people say they were told about a survey for a glass factory, and in yet another, there was apparently talk of a hotel.
Now, in October 2023, the official business and government plans have revealed a much larger development than was suggested in 2004. The “Rempang ecocity” will be an industrial, service, and tourism area, as envisioned in the National Strategic Programme (PSN) of 2023.
It is a joint venture between BP Batam (which incorporates the free trade zone and Free Port Management Agency) and PT MEG. The project aims to attract investment of about 381 trillion Indonesian rupiah by 2080, creating jobs for 30,000 workers. This equates to around US$24.8 billion.
Crucially, there is a major international investor: the world’s largest manufacturer of glass and solar panels, China’s Xinyi Glass. And the “glass factory” is no ordinary enterprise. It is a mega-investment from Xinyi which has reportedly pledged US$11.6 billion for the factory over several decades. In return, it seems, they have been promised Rempang’s land.
In my previous research, I called a similar zone of special economic interest in India, “hydra-like.” That’s because these sought-after zones change shape, name and purpose according to what’s profitable at a particular point in time.
And what’s profitable in Indonesia, and the world today, is the transition to green energy. Therefore, the showpiece of the Rempang ecocity proposal is the mega solar panel manufacturing facility that will probably supply the world with solar panels in the near future.
In the existing vision of the ecocity, there will be several zones for industries, commercial and residential purposes, tourism, solar farms, and wildlife and nature. Rempang currently sustains farmers, fishers, seaweed processors and exporters, traders and shopkeepers, seafood kelongs, ten primary schools, three junior high schools, a senior school, hospitals, tourist guest houses and more. But it seems there is no place for this community in the futuristic vision of “green” Rempang.
The proposed solar panel manufacturing facility, and the Rempang ecocity, may be a portent of a globalized production boom that the government of Indonesia, and its partner countries like China, envision for this region. This economic vision intends to draw on Indonesia’s young and cheap labor, its land and natural resources like silica, nickel and cobalt, and its willingness for regulatory flexibility.
It is this flexibility that made the government declare the proposed Rempang ecocity as a Project of National Strategic Importance, allowing it to bypass social and environmental impact assessments, and acquire land quickly.
The strategic importance of the Rempang project has not been lost on my contacts in Rempang. One of them speculated that the government’s plans to build a new capital city on Borneo could be a motive for closer relations with China. They wondered whether the money for the new capital Nusantara would come from China, and whether that was why their land in Rempang had been “gifted” to the Chinese.
Another said: “Did they ask us? No. They only value investment. Not people.” Still others draw links with China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which has invested heavily in Indonesian infrastructure.
Not far from Rempang is one such investment: the series of bridges that will connect two of the largest islands in Riau province: the Batam-Bintan bridge project spread over 7 kilometers. Funded by the China-led Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, the bridge will make it even easier to manufacture on Indonesia’s westernmost islands and carry this produce by road and sea to Singapore and the rest of the world.
The Rempang project may also be part of a looming trade war between China, the US and the EU. In 2022, China manufactured three-quarters of the world’s solar panels and produced 97% of the silicon wafers that go into them.
So far, the bulk of this production has been in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang, which have a poor human rights record towards minorities like Uyghurs. Concerns around forced labor and Uyghur “re-education” camps, have attracted sanctions from the West.
This has come with protectionist policies towards emerging solar industries in the EU and America. That is, to encourage national renewables manufacturing and create much needed green jobs, western governments are ready to generously subsidize manufacturers, while heavily taxing imports from competitors like China.
This international trade tussle begs the question: does mass solar industrial manufacturing in a third country allow China to bypass sanctions and retain its domination of global solar panel manufacturing?
We know that the green transition will require critical minerals like cobalt, lithium and nickel to produce electric vehicles, solar cells and wind turbines. Indonesia has some of the world’s largest deposits of nickel and cobalt, making it extremely attractive for countries and companies involved in the renewables push.
Rempang is not known for critical mineral or metal deposits. Yet, apart from its strategic location in the South China Sea, overlooking Singapore, Rempang is sitting on a crucial resource in the renewables transition: sand. Rempang, and its surrounding islands are abundant in silica and quartz sand, which is the base material for the manufacture of glass, and solar panels.
Mass mining of sand is considered a global environmental crisis that often goes unreported. The world over, a push for infrastructure and urbanization is founded on massive supplies of cement and concrete, which are made from sand. By 2060, the world is expected to require 4.6 billion tonnes of sand. The hunger for solar panels is part of this global sand rush.
Indonesia is at the heart of the sand trade. For years, it has supplied sand to Singapore. Official figures suggest that between 1997-2002 alone, Singapore imported 150 million tonnes of sand from Indonesia. Between 1999-2019, Singapore has shipped in 517 million tonnes of sand from neighbors like Malaysia, Indonesia and Cambodia.
Riau Islands are directly affected, with several islands shrinking significantly in area due to legal and illegal sand export to Singapore. About a quarter of Singapore, including iconic spaces like Marina Bay Sands and the luxury beach and resort area of Sentosa are built on reclaimed land with imported sand.
The losers in this process of land-making have been fishworkers, and others dependent on coastal land and waters, including my contacts in the Riau Islands. Fishworkers I have met speak of muddied waters, islands disappearing and drastic reduction in fish and seaweed at the peak of the sand trade.
In 2003, facing irreversible environmental harm, including rising seawater owing to reduced sand and mangrove plant buffers, Indonesia banned the sand trade. Yet, the illegal trade in sand went on. In 2023, sand is back on the government’s agenda as a legally tradeable commodity. Rempang is very likely to face the repercussions of renewed sand mining.
The ecocity and solar panel project are a priority for the government of Indonesia. Ministers have now been deployed to the site to convince locals to support the project, and to hear them out. This includes the investment minister, Bahlil Lahadalia.
At the same time, residents were handed an eviction date of September 28, 2023. Representatives of BP Batam told them to sign consent forms by mid-September or risk losing the compensation on offer. Finally, villagers were made aware of the terms of compensation: a 45-square metre house, on 500 square meters of land. The house and land is estimated to cost around Rp120 million (US$7,557).
Residents rejected the compensation, with some instead demanding a 70-square meter house, 1,000sq metres of land, and Rp200 million in cash. As a political commentator indicated in the local press, if the government were to meet this higher demand, it would cost them Rp1.04 trillion for compensating all residents. When the proposed investment in the ecocity is Rp381 trillion, what is a compensation amount of a little under 0.3% of the total cost?
While the government is finally in talks with people at Rempang, and as compensation is being discussed, some people have already signed relocation papers. Some say they have been under intense pressure to do so.
This, however, is not the narrative being pushed by BP Batam which is now trying to win a PR war. In its latest press release, it claimed: “most residents at some point have voluntarily accepted the shift.” It quoted the head of BP Batam, Muhammad Rudi, as saying, “there is no coercion or intervention,” and that the choice to be relocated was being made “purely from the hearts of the people” who support the ecocity project.
But others are holding out, convinced that “the Melayu cannot be bought”, or moved from their land. The idea that the local Melayu community is not for sale was repeated by many of my contacts. The powerful slogan was also printed on posters that have gone up in Rempang villages in the gathering movement against the glass factory and ecocity.
Rumors and threats that the resistance at Rempang will lead to the cancellation of the project are beginning to be circulated. These have been denied at the highest levels but protests have forced the government to postpone the eviction date, even as they remain determined to start solar panel production at Rempang by 2024.
The government has also been compelled to negotiate with protestors regarding compensation, and has shifted the site of relocation from Galang Island to Tanjung Banon, a district in the south-eastern corner of Rempang.
There is also talk of a phased relocation and a reduced project area. Some in the government have suggested that shifting within the same island, and fishing just a few kilometres past their old homes, can hardly even be called relocation.
But for those who continue to resist the project, their only true home is where they currently live, and where their histories lie. Having had to reckon with relocation, residents are asking fundamental questions like: where will our children study? And, will the solar panel factory displace Melayu ancestral graves?
After fighting alone for their rights for months, the people of Rempang finally have assistance from civil society groups and legal aid organizations. In August 2023, a civil society activist from Jakarta told me “there are too many resource and land conflicts in Indonesia. Something or other is always happening on our 17,500 islands. It is hard to keep up, and be involved in everything”.
But from September, prominent civil society groups are assisting the residents of Rempang with a strategy for pushing back. Legal aid has been offered to them relating to their land rights as long-term residents – some of whom trace their connection to Rempang at least to the early 1800s.
My contacts at Rempang had been contemptuous of the suggested shift to Galang Island, and are not impressed by the alternate, smaller site at Tanjung Banon either.
One said: “How can you take people from 16 villages, and put them in one small island? There will be conflict over land, and fishing. We are all fishers.” Adding to this incredulity is the idea that the government could even consider moving them to Galang — an island they know as the “Vietnamese refugee island”.
Galang housed boat people from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos under the auspices of the UNHCR between 1975-1996. These were refugees in limbo, as they sought clearance of paperwork to emigrate to richer countries like the US and Australia. More recently, Galang housed the area’s main Covid emergency hospital.
People I am speaking to are understandably furious at being seen as “residue” by their own government – successors to a land that housed refugees and the sick and dying that needed to be isolated from the rest of society.
It is easy to understand the fury of those being left behind, or even trodden on, in the global march for greener energy. These local populations are, sometimes literally, at the coalface of the transition, yet their needs – and sometimes even their human rights – are deemed of little importance.
It is often Chinese investment, which makes the headlines. But my ongoing research makes it clear that local people as residue is at the heart of this area’s longstanding development model. Indeed, as my writing on the global south more broadly shows, colonial and postcolonial development, and continuing north-south structural inequalities are built on the idea of the residual, racialized, inferior “other.”
The transition to green energy is reinforcing these long-held hierarchies. Events in Rempang are just the tip of the iceberg, as the poorer areas of the south become suppliers in the world’s energy needs.
Batam, and its neighboring islands in Riau, were first conceptualized as an oil trading and logistics zone by US companies and fossil fuel contractors in the late 1960s. The US had aligned with the military General Suharto, against left-leaning nationalist President Sukarno in the fraught Cold War context. With US support, Suharto’s dictatorial New Order ruled Indonesia from 1968-98.
The US was the biggest oil producer in Indonesia at this time, with Caltex, a joint venture between Texaco and Chevron, producing a million barrels of oil per day at its peak. Batam, as a regional logistics – and then a manufacturing and services – hub, is a creation of the Suharto era.
It was a major outlet for the crude oil trade from Batam to Singapore, and further afield. It was also an inlet for refined oil, with Western oil companies and their enablers in Indonesia hiving off profits at the expense of a decimated environment, and a dispossessed local population.
Meanwhile, people on the small islands around Batam receive between four and six hours of electricity a day from the public utility provider. They experience a sense of déjà vu, as their government starts yet another ambitious project with foreign companies. Once more, their resources are to be plowed into a money-spinning investment. They will be residue, to be signed off the land. Except this time, in the hotbed of Rempang, they have decided to fight back.
As the world looks to up its green energy consumption, with attendant demands on resources like sand, land and water, we will do well to consider the likely winners and losers in this process. There is a lot of talk on climate and energy justice in international circles right now. The idea of a green energy transition that can be “just” is absent from the volatile spaces of Rempang.
Faced with losing everything they call their own, the people of Rempang are not waiting for justice to be delivered to them. They are fighting for it on the ground. It might be the only way they will be heard, and counted, in the global green energy transition.
The Conversation approached the Indonesian government and the Artha Graha group for comments but none were received by time of publication.
Nikita Sud is Professor of the Politics of Development, University of Oxford
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
SINGAPORE: The Energy Market Authority ( EMA ) has approved the importation of 1.2 gigawatts( GW ) of Vietnamese electricity on conditional terms, which is a further step toward Singapore’s ambition to import up to 4GW of low-carbon electricity by 2035. & nbsp,
The conditional approval indicates that the job by Sembcorp Utilities, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Semmcorp Industries, has undergone initial testing to determine its technical and commercial viability.
Tan See Leng, the second secretary for trade and industry, made the declaration on Tuesday, October 24, during his conversation at the Singapore International Energy Week’s Asia Clean Energy Summit.
As part of its goal to decarbonize its power source, Singapore has recently announced plans to buy up to 4GW of low-carbon electricity by 2035.
The EMA has granted conditional certifications to initiatives from Indonesia and Cambodia in addition to Vietnam. These include 2GW and 1GW of energy imports, both, and they will use a combination of hydropower, wind, renewable energy. & nbsp,
Singapore lacks renewable energy sources, so importing strength enables it to import cleaner foreign resources. Local power grids can diversify power sources away from fossil fuels while also accelerating the region’s development of renewable energy and facilitating economic growth. & nbsp,
On light import trials, EMA has collaborated with a number of partners, which enables it to improve the technological and regulatory frameworks.
Singapore started importing up to 100 kwh( MW) of renewable electricity from Lao PDR via Thailand and Malaysia in June of last year as part of the & nbsp, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore Power Integration Project.
Dr. Tan, the Manpower Minister, commented on the job and said it demonstrated how cross-border and nbsp energy trading between various nations had become a reality in Southeast Asia. & nbsp,
About 270GW hours of electricity have been exported from Lao PDR to & nbsp, Singapore, since its inception. All four nations are currently debating how to improve this job, including exchanging at capacities greater than 100MW and facilitating electricity flow in all directions.
Four members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations( ASEAN) are involved in the project, which is the first international cross-border energy trade and import of alternative energy into Singapore.
Weerapon” Golf” Lapchan sits in the middle of a group of Thai mothers as they chant and tie light threads around his forearms. The village is situated close to the Mekong River.
After his narrow escape on October 7 during the Hamas attack on Israel, they are literally calling his” kwan” or spirit back to his body.
The 34-year-old is one of more than 25,000 Thais who were employed in Israel’s fields and trees when Hamas militants stormed on from Gaza. Among the 200 or but foreigners who were killed in the attack were at least 30 Thais.
Thousands of people are currently being assisted by the Thai authorities to gain back.
Nearly all of the international farm labor in Israel is provided by Thailand. Additionally, there have been instructions that if many Thais decide to avoid the country after the Hamas strike, it could have disastrous effects on the agricultural economy of the nation. Many Vietnamese employees had to borrow money in order to travel to Israel, and as a result, they are now unemployed and in debt upon their return.
However, some golfers never want to return.
When Golf and his coworkers witnessed missiles being fired and later intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system on the morning of October 7, he claims they were certainly overly concerned.
Golf had spent almost a year working at an orange orchard in Yesha, which is only 5 kilometers( three miles ) from the Gaza border. He had previously witnessed missiles flying overhead.
But, when they heard gunshots, they realized it was more severe and spent the majority of the day hiding. According to Golf, the Hamas intruders came back in the evening, hurling bombs and lighting their hiding places on fire. He and 11 other people made a getaway. They fired at us from behind as we leaped over the roof. There is a loud eruption.
He claims that when he dashed to the center of the garden, his only clothing was a pair of dark boxer shorts. In order to prevent the intruders from seeing the light, he and the others knelt down and turned off their devices.
He claims,” We were all stunned and kept calm the entire night, so silent that we could hear the leaves falling.”
On October 13, a government-organized removal journey brought golf up to Thailand. He has made up his mind that he will not return, no matter what is offered to him. That morning, he claims, death was only a few hours away. They have all made the decision to never again experience that.
Hamas are thought to have kidnapped at least 19 Thai personnel, and many more are also missing.
Since the dawn of the invasion, Narissara Chanthasang hasn’t heard anything from her spouse Nattapong in another town to the north. He had called her to inform her that there had been a firing and that he was fleeing.
In June of last year, he left her and his six-year-old brother to work on an olive and fruit farm in the Nir Oz community, not far from where Golf was employed.
One of the areas most severely impacted by the invasion was Nir Oz. The insurgents are thought to have killed or abducted one in four of the locals, including some children.
Nattapong may have been kidnapped, but he is not on the government’s record of Vietnamese captives, which is Narissara only hope.
In search of employment, people have often left north-eastern Thailand.
The country’s primarily rural area is one of the poorest, with wheat cultivation providing only a meager subsistence living and few well-paying jobs. In Israel, more than 80 % of Thai staff are from the north-east. In the 1980s, they began traveling to Israel, and in 2011, a deal between the two administrations formalized the agreement.
It has not been without debate. In the past, labor organizations and human rights organizations have complained about the Thais being overworked in unsafe circumstances.
Individuals told the BBC that they must pay up to 120, 000 ringgit, including additional costs and illegal obligations, in addition to the standard charges of about 70,000 and$ 100, respectively, to travel to Israel. However, they even claim that their income is seven to eight times higher than Thailand’s. Some people praised their Jewish employers for taking good care of them and paying them on occasion.
According to archaeologist Poonnatree Jiaviriyaboonya of Nakhon Phanom University,” Part it’s about improving their cultural position.” ” Those who returned from working abroad receive more respect.” They appear to be more knowledgeable and liberal. However, in reality, they are also underprivileged migrant workers and poor corn farmers who have received government neglect. In order to prevent people from having to leave their families and travel abroad, we need to change our plans for developing this area.
Those who returned shortly are concerned about the bills they have accumulated. They typically work in Israel for at least five years in order to pay off what they owe, and they borrow cash against their property or their home.
Last month, Golf’s younger sister secured a product for him to travel. To increase the 200, 000 ringgit required to send Nattapong to Israel, Narissara’s family mortgaged her grain fields.
Anusorn Kamang, a 25-year-old whose family even mortgaged her property for him to travel to Israel, is thinking about this.
Before taking out more loans for his journey home, he endured a terrifying several days of nonstop rocket attacks at the organic vegetable farm where his job was located.
Although the Thai government has pledged to cover that expense, his mother also owes money, and he is considering returning once the battle is over.
” My boss treated me well, and I made a lot of money in Israel.” Working these didn’t help me achieve anything. It’s sufficient for meals, but nothing more. A property and a car are what I want. I don’t still have any of that.
