Jakarta authorities kick out refugees

UN refugee agency told to remove 1,500 people from temporary shelter, but more
than 500 are refusing to budge

Public Order Agency officers monitor UNHCR  workers prepare to remove

refugees from a temporary shelter in Jakarta. (Photo by Konradus
Epa/ucanews.com)

By Konradus Epa
Published: September 06, 2019 05:34 AM GMT
More than 500 refugees in the Indonesian capital Jakarta are refusing to
leave a temporary shelter in an ex-military building after being given their
marching orders by city authorities.
They say they will remain despite having had their electricity and water cut
off since Aug. 31.

The Jakarta city council had told them to leave the building in the city’s
Kalideres district by Aug. 31 and that it was the responsibility of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to remove them.

The refugees have been at the site since July after camping out outside the
UNHCR offices to demand a place to stay.
"This is now in the hands of the UNHCR. We've [the city
government] provided the temporary shelter to help them," the Jakarta
Globe news website quoted Jakarta city council secretary Saefullah as
saying.

Saefullah, like many Indonesians only goes by one name.

Although, some of the 1,500 people living at the site began leaving in buses
provided by the UNHCR on Sept. 1, there was no designated place for them
to go and were reportedly being advised to find temporary shelter wherever
they could.

This prompted others still at the site to remain where they are.

However, a UNHCR worker, who did not wish to be named, told

ucanews.com that refugees were to be moved to temporary shelters in
Bogor in West Java and in Tebet and Kalibata in South Jakarta.
The U.N. agency has reportedly offered the refugees up to 2 million rupiah
(US$141) each depending on their circumstances to leave, but the refugee
say the amount is not enough.

"It will not even enough to buy our daily needs for a month,” said Hasym, 24,
from Afghanistan, who has been in Indonesia for six years waiting to be
resettled in a third country.
“We don’t want the money. We want justice.… It doesn’t matter if we sleep
here in this dark, smelly place, being bitten by mosquitoes.”

Abdullah, 52, a Somalian, his wife, and his three children also preferred to
remain in the building.

"We will not move out. It’s not a big problem if we sleep on the floor and
there are no lights,” he said.

Gading Gumilang Putra, National Legal Liaison Officer of the Jesuit

Refugee Service Indonesia said the organization would continue to try to
offer help, including to those who had already vacated the building.

“In this situation, where there are so many refugees, we can only support
the most vulnerable families,” he said.

According to UNHCR, there are more than 14,000 refugees in Indonesia —

mainly from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan — half of
them are in Jakarta.
US-China rivalry, North Korea to dominate ASEAN summit

  Wed, November 9, 2022 The US-China rivalry and growing fears of a new North Korean nuclear
test will loom over a meeting this week of Southeast Asian leaders attended by US President Joe
Biden.

Leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will meet in Phnom Penh from
Friday, kicking off a diplomatic blitz in the region that also takes in next week's G20 in Bali and an
APEC summit in Bangkok.

Biden's administration has identified China as the only global rival to the United States, saying
Beijing is attempting to remould the world order in "its own authoritarian model".

Making his second trip to Asia this year off the back of bruising midterm elections at home, Biden
faces another tough battle to woo ASEAN leaders, many of whom are wary of overtly taking sides
against a giant neighbour and key trading partner.

A senior US official said Biden would push the importance of peace in the region, including
Taiwan, and respect for the "rules-based international order".

An ASEAN foreign ministers' meeting in August was dominated by US House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi's visit to Taiwan and the furious response from Beijing, which claims the self-governing
island as part of its territory.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang stole a diplomatic march on Biden on Tuesday, arriving in Phnom
Penh for talks with Cambodian leader Hun Sen.

At a summit with ASEAN leaders in Washington in May, Biden pledged $150 million in support
for Southeast Asian nations -- dwarfed by the $1.5 billion that China promised to the region last
year in Covid aid alone.
The US-China relationship is deteriorating over issues including Taiwan and alleged rights abuses
in Xinjiang, and other Western governments have complained about Chinese activities on their
soil, including harassment of dissidents.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has said Beijing and Washington must "find ways to get along", but
at the same time has continued to enforce a far more muscular foreign policy that shows no
deference to the United States.

Xi is expected to attend the G20 summit in Bali, where he will have his first face-to-face meeting
with Biden on its sidelines. In Phnom Penh, Li can expect a warm reception, having cultivated
close ties with most ASEAN members, including host Cambodia.

"China will seek to consolidate her relationships with Southeast Asian countries, in order to either
shore up regional support for Beijing or make sure that they do not end up being on the US side
against China," analyst Yongwook Ryu of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy told
AFP.

The war in Ukraine is also likely to weigh on leaders' minds at ASEAN.

Kyiv will sign a "treaty of amity and cooperation" with ASEAN on Thursday, a first step towards
establishing formal relations with the bloc.

And Cambodia has said it is considering a request by President Volodymyr Zelensky to address
the meeting by video link.

China has refused to join Western sanctions on Russia, and Washington has accused Beijing of
providing diplomatic cover for Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

Russia has been invited to the ASEAN summit but it is not clear who will represent it.

N. Korea missile drama  Leaders are also expected to discuss the growing crisis on the Korean
peninsula, where Pyongyang carried out a spate of weapons tests last week -- including an
intercontinental ballistic missile.

Washington and Seoul have warned that the launches could culminate in a nuclear test, which
would be the reclusive communist state's seventh.
North Korea, whose closest ally is China, has said its tests were in response to the largest-ever
military drills between the United States and South Korea, which ended at the weekend.

Biden is also expected to hold talks with counterparts South Korean Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, either on the sidelines of ASEAN or at the G20, according to
Japanese media.

ASEAN leaders will also tackle Myanmar, where bloody conflict rages between the junta, which
seized power in February last year, and civilian militias trying to oust it.

Leaders of the 10-member bloc, which has led so far fruitless diplomatic efforts to resolve the
crisis, are expected to discuss ways to implement a "five-point consensus" peace plan agreed
upon with Myanmar last year.

Because of the lack of progress on the plan, ASEAN refused to invite junta supremo Min Aung
Hlaing to the summit.

The United States has urged ASEAN -- long decried as a toothless talking shop for authoritarian
regimes -- to take tougher action on Myanmar and Biden is likely to press the case.

This article was published in thejakartapost.com with the title "US-China rivalry, North Korea to
dominate ASEAN summit - Asia and Pacific - The Jakarta Post". Click to
read: https://www.thejakartapost.com/world/2022/11/09/us-china-rivalry-north-korea-to-
dominate-asean-summit.html.

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Indonesia steps up fight against climate change

Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Sheena Suparman (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta   ●   Sat, October 30, 2021 President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has pledged that Indonesia is
fully committed to controlling climate change, including reducing emissions by 29 percent by
2030. Emission reduction will be focused on the energy sector and maritime sector, as well as
forest governance and land management.

The government is focusing on rehabilitating and restoring the mangrove and peatland
ecosystems in order to assist Indonesia in fulfilling the commitment it made for the Paris
Agreement.

Indonesia has one of the largest mangrove areas and the fourth-largest amount of peatland in the
world. Mangroves have the ability to absorb carbon at a rate four-to-five times greater than
mainland tropical forests, while the country’s tropical peatland stores 30 percent of the world's
carbon reserves.

Through the Mangrove and Peatland Restoration Agency (BRGM), peatland restoration has
started in Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, South Kalimantan
and Papua.

This year, the BRGM has built 85 deep wells, 850 blocking canals and 18 backfill canals,
revegetated 510 hectares and rolled out 244 livelihood-revitalization programs.

Meanwhile, work to rehabilitate mangroves has also begun in nine provinces, namely North
Sumatra, Riau, Riau Islands, Bangka Belitung, West Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, North
Kalimantan, Papua and West Papua.

President Jokowi is targeting 34,000 ha for 2021 by planting 29,500 ha of mangrove across the
nine provinces "2021 is the first year when the accelerated mangrove rehabilitation program
started, so with the data we have, we chose a location with a high probability of success and well
received by the community," Hartono, the head of the BRGM, said.

So far, the program involved 470 community groups (pokmas) and a technical design for 83
percent of the mangrove-planting locations has been prepared. This effort is expected to be
accomplished by November 2021.

The mangrove-rehabilitation program has also been proven to be beneficial for the economy,
especially in the wake of the pandemic. Hartono said the project was in the context of National
Economic Recovery (PEN). “This means that all work is done by the community, with an account
to account payment model. So, it doesn't involve third parties," he explained.

Moreover, support from the community has been garnered from Independent-Village Cares for
Peatland and Independent-Village Cares for Mangroves. The two were formed to integrate the
protection and management of peat and mangrove ecosystems in a sustainable manner.

"We have formed 75 DMPGs and 220 DMPMs to ensure that the community is educated and the
activities that have been carried out in the villages can be maintained and continued by the
community," concluded Hartono.

This article was published in thejakartapost.com with the title "Indonesia steps up fight against
climate change". Click to read: https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2021/10/30/indonesia-
steps-up-fight-against-climate-change.html.

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