Indonesia’s Bali moves to ban plastic bottles

Special Indonesia’s Bali moves to ban plastic bottles
Participants and volunteers remove plastic waste and other garbage washed ashore at a beach in Indonesia's Bali island on Jan. 4, 2025. (AFP)
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Updated 03 February 2025
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Indonesia’s Bali moves to ban plastic bottles

Indonesia’s Bali moves to ban plastic bottles
  • Bali produces around 300,000 tons of plastic waste every year  
  • It was the first Indonesian province to ban single-use plastics in 2019 

JAKARTA: Indonesia’s Bali began banning plastic bottles on Monday, in a move aimed at tackling plastic pollution in one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations.

The island produces around 300,000 tons of plastic waste annually, more than half of which goes uncollected, including 33,000 tons that gets into Bali’s waterways. 

Under the new policy, plastic bottles will be banned across all government offices and schools in Bali. 

“We hope this policy will be implemented in full responsibility by all relevant parties for a green and sustainable Bali,” Dewa Made Indra, the province’s regional secretary, said in a statement. 

The policy also requires “school principals and teachers to serve as role models for students by using tumblers to reduce or eliminate plastic waste from food and beverage packaging.” 

In recent years, Bali’s plastic waste problem has made international headlines as iconic beaches were littered with trash during the peak of the monsoon season, when heavy winds and rain wash up pollution also from neighboring Java island.

Last month, clips of massive “trash waves” on the shoreline of Jimbaran beach went viral on social media, marking one of the year’s first instances of what has become an annual occurrence around the island. 

The issue is also a concern for the central government, with Indonesia’s Environment Minister Hanif Faisol Nurofiq taking part in Bali’s beach clean-up events twice last month. 

“It is urgent for the sake of environmental sustainability, and also considering that Bali is a barometer for tourism in Indonesia, so we must show that our country is dedicated to find solutions to the plastic waste management problem,” Ratna Hendratmoko, who heads the Natural Resources Conservation Center in Bali, told Arab News. 

Bali, an island known for its scenic natural beauty and rich traditional culture, draws millions of foreign tourists annually. In 2024, it welcomed more than 6.3 million international visitors — which is around half of the total number of such arrivals in Indonesia. 

In 2019, the Bali provincial government banned single-use plastics in an effort to tackle marine pollution, becoming the first Indonesian province to do so.

The latest policy, which mandates government officials to bring their own reusable water bottles, may be the first step to implementing an islandwide ban.  

“Our staff are committed to comply with this new policy,” I Made Rentin, head of the forestry and environment agency in Bali, told Arab News. 

“For now, we will strengthen implementation internally at the government level.”


One person dies as migrants aim to cross English Channel

One person dies as migrants aim to cross English Channel
Updated 34 sec ago
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One person dies as migrants aim to cross English Channel

One person dies as migrants aim to cross English Channel
  • Both the British and French governments have made tackling migrants crossing the English Channel illegally a high priority
PARIS: One person has died after a boat carrying migrants trying to cross the English Channel from France got into difficulties overnight, said a local French authority on Thursday.
The French local authority responsible for the North Sea and English Channel regions said 15 people had been rescued and brought back to shore at the port of Gravelines, near Dunkirk.
Both the British and French governments have made tackling migrants crossing the English Channel illegally – often in perilous conditions as they travel in dinghies or small boats – a high priority.
Data in January showed Britain’s Labour government had removed 16,400 illegal migrants since coming to power last July, marking the highest rate of such removals since 2018, although Labour’s political opponents say the government needs to do more.

Sudan TV says army close to taking control of Presidential Palace from paramilitary RSF group

Sudan TV says army close to taking control of Presidential Palace from paramilitary RSF group
Updated 21 min 45 sec ago
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Sudan TV says army close to taking control of Presidential Palace from paramilitary RSF group

Sudan TV says army close to taking control of Presidential Palace from paramilitary RSF group
  • Marks a significant shift in the two-year-old conflict that threatens to fracture the country
  • The war has led to what the UN calls the world’s largest humanitarian crisis

DUBAI: Sudan’s state TV said on Thursday that the army is close to taking control of the Presidential Palace in Khartoum from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, marking a significant shift in the two-year-old conflict that threatens to fracture the country.
Late on Wednesday, heavy clashes erupted near the palace, with explosions heard and airstrikes by the army targeting central Khartoum, witnesses and military sources said.
After nearly two years of war, the RSF controls most of the west of Sudan and parts of the capital Khartoum, but has been losing ground in central Sudan to the army.
The two military factions staged a coup in 2021, derailing a transition to civilian rule, and warfare broke out in April 2023 after plans for a new transition triggered violent conflict.
The war has led to what the UN calls the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with both the RSF and the army accused of widespread human rights abuses.


India detains hundreds of farmers as police bulldoze protest sites

India detains hundreds of farmers as police bulldoze protest sites
Updated 20 March 2025
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India detains hundreds of farmers as police bulldoze protest sites

India detains hundreds of farmers as police bulldoze protest sites
  • The farmers had camped on the border with adjoining Haryana since last February
  • Security forces have earlier halted their march toward the capital, New Delhi

NEW DELHI: Police in India’s northern state of Punjab detained hundreds of farmers and used bulldozers to tear down their temporary camps in a border area where they had protested for more than a year to demand better crop prices.
The farmers had camped on the border with adjoining Haryana since last February, when security forces halted their march toward the capital, New Delhi, to press for legally-backed guarantees of more state support for crops.
“We did not need to use any force because there was no resistance,” Nanak Singh, a senior police officer, told the ANI news agency about Wednesday night’s clearance action. “The farmers cooperated well and they sat in buses themselves.”
The farmers had been given prior notice, he added.
Television images showed police using bulldozers to demolish tents and stages, while escorting farmers carrying personal items to vehicles.
Media said among the hundreds detained were farmers’ leaders Sarwan Singh Pandher and Jagjit Singh Dallewal, the latter carried away in an ambulance as he had been on an indefinite protest fast for months.
“On one hand the government is negotiating with the farmer organizations and on the other hand it is arresting them,” Rakesh Tikait, a spokesperson for farmer group Bhartiya Kisan Union said on X.
Punjab’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which authorized the eviction, said it stood by the farmers in their demands, but asked them to take up their grievances with the federal government.
“Let’s work together to safeguard Punjab’s interests,” said the party’s vice president in the state, Tarunpreet Singh Sond, adding that the blockage of key roads had hurt the state’s economy. “Closing highways is not the solution.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government was forced to repeal some farm laws in 2021 after a year-long protest by farmers when they camped outside Delhi for months.
Federal government officials met the farmers’ leaders on Wednesday, said Fatehjung Singh Bajwa, the vice president of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Punjab.
“It is clear that this arrest is a deliberate attempt to disrupt the ongoing dialogue between farmers and BJP leadership,” he added in a post on X.


Muslims with tattoo regrets flock to a free removal service during Ramadan

Muslims with tattoo regrets flock to a free removal service during Ramadan
Updated 20 March 2025
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Muslims with tattoo regrets flock to a free removal service during Ramadan

Muslims with tattoo regrets flock to a free removal service during Ramadan
  • A growing number of people in Indonesia’s capital have signed up for free tattoo removal services offered by Amil Zakat National Agency
  • Launched in 2019, the tattoo removal program is now held every Ramadan, a month of fasting, increased worship, religious reflection and good deeds

JAKARTA, Indonesia: Teguh Islean Septura groans in pain as each staccato rat-a-tat-tat of the laser fires an intense beam at the elaborate tattoos on his arm. But the former musician’s determination to “repent” in the holy month of Ramadan is enough to keep him going.
The 30-year-old guitarist got his back, arms and legs tattooed to “look cool” when he was performing in a band. But these days Septura has a newfound zeal for Islam, including the conviction that Muslims should not alter the body that God gave them.
“As humans, sometimes we make mistakes. Now I want to improve myself by moving closer to God,” Seputra said, as a health worker aimed the white laser wand at Septura’s skin, blasting the red, green and black pigments with its penetrating light. “God gave me clean skin and I ruined it, that’s what I regret now.”
Septura is among a growing number of people in Indonesia’s capital who have signed up for free tattoo removal services offered by Amil Zakat National Agency, an Islamic charity organization, during Ramadan to give practicing Muslims an opportunity to “repent.”
Launched in 2019, the tattoo removal program is now held every Ramadan, a month of fasting, increased worship, religious reflection and good deeds. Some 700 people have signed up for the services this year, and in total nearly 3,000 people have taken part.
“We want to pave the way for people who want to hijrah (to move closer to God), including those who want to remove their tattoos” said Mohammad Asep Wahyudi, a coordinator of the event. He added that many people cannot afford to remove their tattoos or know where and how they can do so safely.
Laser removal, which takes repeated treatment and may not be completely successful, could cost thousands of dollars for tattoos as extensive as Septura’s.
Tattooing remains strongly associated with gangs and criminality in some Asian cultures. In addition to the religious prohibitions in Muslim-majority Indonesia, ideas about tattoos also reveal oppressive attitudes toward women, who if tattooed can be labeled as promiscuous or disreputable and not worth marrying.
Sri Indrayati, 52, said she tattooed the name of her first daughter on her hand shortly after she gave birth to her at the age of 22. She said she regretted it when her two grandchildren kept asking her to erase it because it looked like dirty, thick marker writing.
“When I take my grandson to school, (the children) whisper to each other: ‘look at that grandma, she has a tattoo!” she said.
Another woman, Evalia Zadora, got a tattoo of a large star on her back and the words “Hope, Love and Rock & Roll” on her upper chest as a teen to gain acceptance into a gang. She wants to remove them now to move closer to God and out of consideration for her family.
“Bad image (against people with tattoos) is not a big deal for me, but it affected my husband and son,” said Zadora, 36. “They are not comfortable with my tattoos and I respect their feelings, so I want to remove it.


On Trump’s orders, thousands of JFK assassination documents newly public

On Trump’s orders, thousands of JFK assassination documents newly public
Updated 20 March 2025
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On Trump’s orders, thousands of JFK assassination documents newly public

On Trump’s orders, thousands of JFK assassination documents newly public
  • The archives’ Kennedy assassination collection has more than six million pages of records, the vast majority of which had been declassified and made public before Trump’s order

WASHINGTON: Thousands of pages of digital documents related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy are now available for historians, conspiracy theorists and the merely curious, following orders from US President Donald Trump.
The president, shortly after taking office for his second term in January, signed an executive order directing national intelligence and other officials to quickly come up with a plan “for the full and complete release of all John F. Kennedy assassination records.”
The archives’ Kennedy assassination collection has more than six million pages of records, the vast majority of which had been declassified and made public before Trump’s order. Trump told reporters on Monday that 80,000 pages would be released on Tuesday. Justice Department lawyers got orders Monday evening to review the records for release. The digital documents did not start appearing until 7 p.m. (2300 GMT) Tuesday on a National Archives web page. As of 10:30 p.m. Tuesday (0230 GMT Wednesday), the National Archives had published 2,182 PDFs totaling 63,400 pages.
The archives did not immediately respond on Wednesday to a request for comment on whether more documents would soon be released in response to a January order from Trump.
Kennedy’s murder has been attributed to a sole gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald. The Justice Department and other federal government bodies have reaffirmed that conclusion in the intervening decades. But polls show many Americans still believe his death was a result of a conspiracy.
“There will be people who will be looking at the records and seeing if there is any hint of any confirmation about their theory,” Larry Schnapf, an environmental lawyer who has researched the assassination and pushed the government to make public what it knows about what led up to the shooting in Dallas on a November afternoon six decades ago, said on Wednesday.
Schnapf, who stayed up until 4 a.m. poring over the documents, said that what he found as he went through them was less illuminating about Kennedy’s assassination than about US spy operations.
“It’s all about our government’s covert activities leading up to the assassination,” he said.
Department of Defense documents from 1963 that were among those released Tuesday covered the Cold War of the early 1960s and the US involvement in Latin America, trying to thwart Castro’s support of communists in other countries. One document released from January 1962 reveals details of a top-secret project called “Operation Mongoose,” or simply “the Cuban Project,” which was a CIA-led campaign of covert operations and sabotage against Cuba, authorized by Kennedy in 1961, aimed at removing the Castro regime.
Trump promised on the campaign trail to provide more transparency about Kennedy’s death. Upon taking office, he also ordered aides to present a plan for the release of records relating to the assassinations in 1968 of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.
Larry Sabato, head of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said he advocates for transparency in Washington and noted previous administrations, including the Biden administration, have also released Kennedy assassination documents. But he added that even with the thousands of new documents, the public will still not know everything, as much evidence may have been destroyed throughout the decades.
The National Archives did not immediately respond to queries on Wednesday about whether plans for releasing documents on Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr had been developed or when such documents would be released.