Rilek1Corner

Tag: Indonesia

  • No Execution Of Foreigners In Near Future In Indonesia

    No Execution Of Foreigners In Near Future In Indonesia

    High-ranking government officials said on Wednesday that no executions of drug convicts would take place in the next few months, as the country’s judiciary was still processing their appeals and case reviews.

    Attorney General M. Prasetyo said that although all preparations for the drug convicts’ executions had been completed, prosecutors were still waiting for the final verdicts on their appeals.

    Prasetyo went on to say that all death-row convicts in the second batch had to be executed simultaneously, including Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso of the Philippines and French inmate Serge Atlaoui, whose case reviews are now being handled by the Supreme Court.

    “If they were not executed simultaneously, it would create further problems for us,” Prasetyo said at the State Palace on Wednesday before a Cabinet meeting presided over by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.

    Prasetyo claimed the AGO had no deadline for the executions, adding that it was waiting for the ongoing legal proceedings to wrap up.

    “There are several ongoing legal proceedings. We must wait for them [to reach their conclusion],” he said, adding that the appeals and case reviews included those filed at the Jakarta State Administrative Court (PTUN) by two Australian drug smugglers on death row, Andrew Chan, 31, and Myuran Sukumaran, 33.

    Prasetyo maintained that the executions’ delay was not due to foreign pressure.

    Vice President Jusuf Kalla backed up the attorney general’s remarks, saying that the government was unlikely to execute the death-row convicts for weeks or even months, until the courts ruled on their last-minute legal appeals.

    Kalla was quoted by Reuters as saying, “We’re waiting for the decision of the courts,” adding that it could take “weeks or months”.

    Kalla also said that Indonesia was being especially careful with the legal appeals in light of diplomatic efforts to save the prisoners.

    “We will always hear and consider opinions not only from Australia but also France and Brazil,” he said.

    “That is why we are very careful in […] following the process of the law,” he explained.

    Four death-row inmates have appealed against their sentences after the President rejected their clemency pleas late last year.

    Australia has made repeated calls for mercy on behalf of Sukumaran and Chan but Jokowi has refused to budge, turning down offers of a one-off prisoner exchange and to have the Australian government bear the cost of the convicts serving life sentences.

    Kalla said relations with Brazil had been harmed and Indonesia was now reviewing all its military contracts with Latin America’s largest economy.

    “We’re not reviewing contracts with other countries because Australia and the Netherlands did not harm our diplomatic relations like Brazil,” he said, referring to Brazil’s refusal to let Indonesia’s envoy take part in a ceremony.

    Brazil and the Netherlands recalled their ambassadors in January after Indonesia executed a group of six drug offenders, including citizens of those two countries.

    A Brazilian national is also among a second group of 11 prisoners due to be executed. Rodrigo Gularte’s family has pleaded for clemency on the grounds of mental illness.

    Others facing imminent execution on the prison island of Nusakambangan include citizens of France, the Philippines, Ghana, Nigeria and Indonesia.

     

    Source: www.thejakartapost.com

  • Vice-President Jusuf Kalla Reminds Singapore And Malaysia To Be Grateful For Fresh Air For Most Of The Year

    Vice-President Jusuf Kalla Reminds Singapore And Malaysia To Be Grateful For Fresh Air For Most Of The Year

    Jakarta. Vice President Jusuf Kalla has denounced neighboring Singapore and Malaysia for complaining about the severe haze caused every year by Indonesian forest fires. He said he took note of the way the neighboring countries had kept complaining when toxic haze from adjacent areas in Indonesia, Riau in particular, fouled their air.

    “For 11 months, they enjoyed nice air from Indonesia and they never thanked us. They have suffered because of the haze for one month and they get upset,” Kalla said on Tuesday.

    Environmental group Greenpeace Indonesia reported forest fires in Riau have worsened from 6,644 hotspots in 2011 to 15,112 hotspots in 2013.

    Kalla said Indonesia has repeatedly and profoundly apologized for the forest fires and for the inconvenience and pollution the haze caused in neighboring countries.

    However, the outspoken vice president has previously sparked controversy when he claimed that foreign technology was behind the forest fires and therefore foreign countries must share the burden of responsibility in dealing with the forest fires.

    “Somebody once told me that Indonesia must restore its tropical forests, and I told him, ‘Excuse me? What did you say? Do you know who damaged our forests?’” Kalla added.

    Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency, or BNPD, said the potential economic losses from the fires and haze that took place during the emergency period that ran from Feb. 26 to April 4 last year were estimated at Rp 20 trillion ($1.6 billion).

    Nearly 22,000 hectares of land were adversely affected, including 2,400 hectares in biosphere reserves. Nearly six million people were exposed to the haze, and 58,000 people suffered respiratory problems as a result.

     

    Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com

  • Indonesia Prepared To Return Australia Tsunami Aid

    Indonesia Prepared To Return Australia Tsunami Aid

    Jakarta. Vice President Jusuf Kalla said on Monday that Indonesia was prepared to return the $1 billion in aid that Australia provided following the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami.

    The comments were in response to a reminder from Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who last week mentioned the relief when making a plea for two Australian drug traffickers on death row in Indonesia.

    “I have explained that we understood during the tsunami, there was humanitarian aid from 56 countries, including from Australia,” Kalla said on Monday. “If it was not considered humanitarian aid, we will return it.”

    Abbot’s comments have struck a raw nerve with many Indonesians, and in some major cities protests and theatrical coin collections have started.

    Twitter and Facebook have been flooded with messages under the hashtag #CoinsFor Australia — a campaign to repay Australia and a demand its neighbor respect Indonesia’s legal system.

    Since making the comments, Abbot has claimed they were not a threat but instead the aid referred to the strength of the two countries’ bilateral relations.

    Kalla said he had been communicating with Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and he had explained that the execution of Australians Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan — ringleaders of the so-called Bali Nine heroin trafficking group — was not a decision made solely by President Joko Widodo.

    “She appreciated the explanation. She understands Indonesian law and I have told her it wasn’t the president who decided on the death penalty but an independent and objective court,” Kalla said.

    Sukumaran, 33, and Chan, 31, were caught trying to smuggle heroin out of Bali in 2005. They are among the next group of inmates to be executed by a firing squad.

     

    Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com

  • Employment Agencies Call For FDWs To Undergo Professional Training In Singapore

    Employment Agencies Call For FDWs To Undergo Professional Training In Singapore

    Employment agencies in Singapore are calling for domestic workers to undergo professional training here so that they can become skilled workers. This comes after Indonesian President Joko Widodo said last week that the country wants to stop sending its women overseas as maids to preserve the country’s “dignity”.

    Although no time frame for the stoppage has been given, the Indonesian manpower ministry has been ordered to come up with a “clear road map” on when this can take place.

    According to estimates by the Indonesian Embassy, there are about 125,000 Indonesian domestic workers in Singapore. The number accounts for about half of all such workers in the Singapore, say industry players. Hence if Indonesia stops sending its women overseas as maids, employment agencies here say the impact could be bad.

    The president of the Association of Employment Agencies (Singapore), Ms K Jayaprema, said that for the employers, “if we were to lose this source, then we will have a very small pool of alternative workers we are looking at now – who come from Philippines, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and India, and in the Philippines we are having our own set of problems at this point in time.”

    “For the domestic workers themselves, what is going to happen is they’re going to lose whatever protection that they have been receiving from the Indonesian government and they will become undocumented workers. They will continue to come in – because there are just too many exit points which they can freely move in from – we’re looking at Jakarta, we’re looking at Batam and we’re looking at Semarang,” she added.

    The employment agencies added that competing with other countries for a limited pool of domestic workers could also spell higher costs and a longer processing time for employers. The agencies also noted that traditional sources are imposing restrictions to protect their workers. For example, the Philippines plans to introduce a quota system on domestic workers coming to Singapore.

    The agencies said finding alternative sources to hire domestic workers will also be a challenge. The owner of Best Home Employment Agency, Mr Tay Khoon Beng, said: “All the traditional sources of supply are thinking of how to better protect their women. At the moment, for example, Myanmar has a ban on all licensed recruiters to send domestic helpers to Singapore. The Philippines has got a quota system now for Singapore, due to unresolved placement fee issues.

    “For non-traditional sources, it’s very difficult to open up a new market. For example, the Ministry of Manpower has piloted a two-year project on the Cambodian market. In the two years, we are supposed to bring in 600 Cambodian helpers.

    “18 months has passed and the pilot group only managed to bring in about 400 Cambodian workers. And I was told that as high as 50 per cent of these Cambodian workers have either left Singapore or changed employers.

    “So it takes time to open up a new market and employers may not adapt to the new market as well.”

    To mitigate the effects of a potential supply cut, Mr Tay suggested implementing a mandatory professional course for these workers. He said: “For Indonesia specifically, they wish to train their helpers to meet the standard we require before exporting them. However, I also see at the moment, they may have difficulties to train their helpers to meet our standard.

    “So instead of a bottleneck and allowing the ban to happen, why not they continue to export the unskilled helpers to us and we being an education hub will then work out with the employer to upgrade the skill of all these women so that at the end of the contract, they are fully trained, skillful and can go back to being a better skilled person.

    “I think we need employers to understand that this is a new reality. Definitely there will be inconvenience caused to them, in terms of the helpers having to take time off to take courses, and at the same time they have to subsidise many of these skilled courses.”

    Agencies said other issues like high placement fees also need to be addressed. Currently, the placement fee can range from zero to S$3,000 or S$4,000 – which is equivalent to about eight months of a domestic worker’s monthly pay.

    Ms Jayaprema said: “We should only recognise the two-month fees that Singapore agencies are allowed to collect from the domestic workers as service fees. So we do not want to allow any of the source cost to be brought to Singapore as placement fee and allow the agencies to collect this on behalf of the foreign agencies, because that’s what makes the whole figure looks very large. This will be a better solution.”

     

    Source: www.todayonline.com

  • Indonesia Pushes Ahead With Mega Islamic Bank Plans

    Indonesia Pushes Ahead With Mega Islamic Bank Plans

    JAKARTA: Indonesia is pushing ahead with plans to create an US$8 billion Islamic bank, even as Malaysia’s ambitions of creating the first such mega-bank fade.

    Indonesia’s Financial Services Authority declared 2015 as the year of the sharia capital market, with its first act to merge three state-owned Islamic banks: Bank Mandiri Syariah, Bank Rakyat Indonesia and Bank Negara Indonesia. A small unit of Bank Tabungan Negara is also likely to be looped in.

    “The team will assess the feasibility of the merger, including its profit opportunity, possible financial loss and impact towards the industry, said Teddy Poernama, a spokesman for Ministry of State Owned Enterprises. “If we really need something we will surely put our efforts to make it happen. We will surely try to reduce the likelihood of our plans failing.”

    Indonesia has the world’s biggest Muslim population, but its Islamic finance market lags behind Malaysia. Indonesia’s Islamic banks hold just 5.5 per cent of the country’s banking assets, compared to Malaysia’s 20.7 per cent, according to the latest World Islamic Banking Competitiveness Report.

    However, the three-way mega merger could present an oppportunity for the Islamic banking sector to offer services at more competitive rates, due to scale, and win business away from leading names in banking, such as Standard Chartered and HSBC.

    Indonesia’s Islamic Banking Association said in just three years, its market share will double to 10 per cent. But with the merger, it said, sharia banking could quadruple to take 20 per cent of the market in that same time. More importantly, it could force to lenders to move away from microfinancing and into funding large infrastructure projects.

    “A merger is a good thing. We need to also pay attention to the required adjustments during the merger. It’s not as easy as turning on a switch when you expect a sharia bank that has a core clientele among small and medium enterprises to now focus on the corporate sector,” said Jadi Suriadi, Head of Economics and Syariah Banking at Azzahra University Graduate School.

    “There’s going to be a significant cost involved. If the government is serious in merging the banks, then cost won’t matter,” he added.

    The Financial Services Authority also unveiled a five-year roadmap for Islamic banking development, with plans to issue six new regulations this year, which will include incentives to attract first-time investors to the sharia capital market.

     

    Source: www.channelnewsasia.com