RI'S GOVERNMENT MAKES FUEL PRICE HIKE CONDITIONAL ON COMPENSATION PACKAGE by Fardah

   Jakarta,  April 30, 2013 (Antara) -  After prolonged discussions, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono finally announced the government's plan to raise subsidized fuel prices but it is conditional on compensation package for those likely to be affected.

         "When will subsidized fuel prices be raised? When the poverty funding is ready," President Yudhoyono  told  high ranking government officials  attending  the National Development Planning Meeting here on Tuesday (April 30, 2013).

         Initially, the government  had prepared  a scenario to raise the price of subsidized gasoline and diesel oil from Rp4,500 to less than Rp6,500 a liter as of May 1, 2013.

INDONESIA URGED TO EXTEND, STRENGTHEN MORATORIUM ON DEFORESTATION by Fardah

      Jakarta, April 28, 2013 (Antara) - A number of non-governmental organizations have urged the Indonesian government to extend two-year moratorium on deforestation which will expire in May 2013, to protect the country's remaining forests and peat lands.

         In May 2011, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono signed long-waited  Presidential Instruction No. 10/2011 on Moratorium on New Logging Concessions for Primary Forests and Peat lands, after a prolonged tug of war between environmentalists and business lobbyists.

         Under the moratorium, no new licenses for logging concessions in parts of the country's primary forests and peat lands can be issued.

INDONESIA STRIVES FOR 30-PERCENT QUOTA FOR WOMEN IN PARLIAMENT by Fardah

  Jakarta, April 24, 2013 (Antara) - Indonesia is currently gearing up for  legislative elections which will be held on April 9, 2014, to elect 560 lawmakers to sit in the House of Representatives (DPR).

        Local general election commission (KPU) offices are currently also busy collecting and verifying lists of candidates for legislative elections at the district/city levels such as in  Padang (West Sumatra), Kubu Raya (West Kalimantan), Manado (North Sulawesi), Sumenep (Madura, East Java), and Bantul (Yogyakarta).

INDONESIA SEEKS CLOSER ECONOMIC TIES WITH MYANMAR by Fardah

    Jakarta, April 21, 2013 (Antara) - As fellow member states of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Indonesia has always maintained good relations with Myanmar and strongly supported the democratization process in the country formerly called Burma.

         Indonesia has lately intensified efforts to boost economic ties with Myanmar which has offered significant trade and investment opportunities as the Nay Pyi Taw administration has been moving towards democracy.

INDONESIA GEARS UP FOR 2014 GENERAL ELECTIONS by Fardah

    Jakarta, April 16, 2013(Antara) - The year 2014 will be a "party time for democracy" in Indonesia as the nation will hold direct legislative and presidential elections, which will be the third democratic elections since the political reform that started in
1998.
   The legislative elections will take place on April 9, 2014, after campaign period from March 16 to April 5, 2014, while the presidential election is expected to be organized on July 9, 2014.

INDONESIA TO RESTORE POLLUTED RIVERS by Fardah

     Jakarta, April 13, 2013 (Antara) - Indonesia is a tropical country having at least 5,590 rivers and 65,017 tributaries with a total length of the rivers at around 94,573 km and broad river basins reaching 1,512.466 km2.

         Like in many other countries, river is a source of water which  has a very important function for the lives and livelihoods of the Indonesian people, among other things for irrigation and drinking water.

           The Indonesian environmental affairs ministry last month, however, issued shocking data revealing that 52 strategic rivers in Indonesia's 33 provinces have been polluted.  

IN CURRENT TRANSITION PERIOD, FLOODS, LANDSLIDES STILL THREATEN INDONESIA by Fardah

    Jakarta, April 11, 2013 (Antara) - A number of Indonesia's provinces such as East Java, West Sumatra and Aceh, have been hit by floods and landslides which were triggered by incessant heavy rains and killed more than ten people, since the beginning of April 2013.

         As the country is in the period of transition between the rainy and dry season, the government has warned people living in flood-prone areas in particular to be on alert for floods and landslides

SPILL-OVER EFFECTS OF ROHINGYA ISSUE ON INDONESIA by Fardah

     Jakarta, April 8, 2013 (Antara) - As the tension has escalated in Myanmar due to sectarian conflicts between two different ethnic groups, more refugees were flowing out of the country by boats and some of them were stranded in other ASEAN member nations including in Indonesia.

         Over the past two days (April 7 and 8, 2013), the Indonesian authorities had detained Myanmarese refugees respectively on Sumatra and Java Islands for illegal entry into the Indonesian waters, although their intended destinations were actually Australia and Malaysia.

INDONESIAN ARMY PRAISED FOR TRANSPARENCY IN INVESTIGATING PRISON RAID by Fardah

     Jakarta, April 5 , 2013 (Antara) - Ten days after the shocking raid at Cebongan penitentiary by armed masked men who killed for detainees, the Indonesian Army (TNI)'s investigation team announced the identities of the attackers to the public.

         "The attack was carried out by members of the army, in this case members of the Indonesian Army's special forces Kopassus Group 3 Kartosuro," the chief of army investigators for the case, Brigadier General Unggul K Yudhoyono, said at a press conference in Jakarta, on April 4, 2013.

INDONESIA EMPHASIZES "PREVENTION, DETECTION AND PROTECTION" TO TACKLE PEOPLE SMUGGLING by Fardah

     Jakarta, April 3, 2013 (Antara) - Indonesia and Australia have agreed that people smuggling and trafficking in persons are complex and multidimensional problems that require cooperation among source, transit and destination countries to tackle them.

        The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that 2012 saw unprecedented migratory movements on all maritime routes in the Asia-Pacific region, Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr said in his opening speech at the Fifth Ministerial Conference of the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime.