Cement maker PT Indocement Tunggal Prakarsa Tbk has set its production target for 2016-2017 at 25 million tons to meet growing domestic demand. The company’s production currently stood at 18.6 million tons and would be raised by 7 million tons to 25 million tons in 2016-2017, Indocement Corporate Secretary Sahat Panggabean said on Saturday.
The addition of 7 million tons would among others come from a new plant in Cirebon, West Java. The construction of the plant with a production capacity of 1.5 million tons per year was underway, he said.
"The remaining 5.5 million tons will be produced by the company’s two plants to be built in Central Java. The two plants will have a production capacity of 2.5 million tons and 3 million tons each," he said.
Built in 2010 the new plant in Cirebon was making preparations for trial production. The two plants in Central Java would be built in 2016 and 2017.
He said Indocement’s sales in the first half of 2011 reached 7.1 million tons, a 14.1 percent increase compared to 6.3 million tons in the same period last year.
Indocement held a 31.1 percent share of the domestic cement market in the first semester of 2011 compared to 31.2 percent in the same period last year. He attributed the increase in cement sales to the increasing number of development projects particularly in Java.
Pages
▼
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Indonesia's Plastic Product Imports Up Significantly
North Sumatra’s plastic and plastic product imports in the first semester of 2011 almost doubled to US$107.449 million from US$55.99 million in the same period last year.
"The imports mostly came from China," Head of the North Sumatra Provincial Statistics Office Suharno said here on Saturday.
In the first half of 2011 North Sumatra also imported plastics and plastic products from Malaysia, Thailand and Saudi Arabia, he said. The plastic and plastic product imports from China consisted of daily needs, ranging from plates, drinking apparatuses to toys.
"Plastic and plastic product imports from China have shown an upward trend particularly since the Indonesia-China free trade accord was put into force," he said. Azmuni, a trader at Petisah market in Medan, added the plastic products including plate, glass and toys were in great demand.
"The imports mostly came from China," Head of the North Sumatra Provincial Statistics Office Suharno said here on Saturday.
In the first half of 2011 North Sumatra also imported plastics and plastic products from Malaysia, Thailand and Saudi Arabia, he said. The plastic and plastic product imports from China consisted of daily needs, ranging from plates, drinking apparatuses to toys.
"Plastic and plastic product imports from China have shown an upward trend particularly since the Indonesia-China free trade accord was put into force," he said. Azmuni, a trader at Petisah market in Medan, added the plastic products including plate, glass and toys were in great demand.
Special Warning for All Indonesian Corruption Suspects
Minister of Law and Human Rights Patrialis Akbar said the government would keep chasing all corruption suspects on the wanted list.
"We will chase all that have been able to flee abroad," he said here on Saturday.
He said the government would hunt for not only Neneng Sri Wahyuni but also others that have fled and "we have instructed the Directorate General to set up a team to hunt for Neneng Sri Wahyuni and other wanted corrupters."
He said to find graft suspect Neneng, who is also the wife of graft suspect Nazaruddin, he would cooperate with the police and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) as well as the foreign ministry.
"The four institutions are currently still studying the possibility of working together in a joint team like they did when they caught Nazaruddin," he said.
He said the hunt for Neneng Sri Wahyuni would be done like when arresting Nazaruddin abroad recently. "We believe Neneng Sri Wahyuni and her children are now still in Malaysia," he said.
He said the immigration office had not detected Neneng moving to other countries after July 25, 2011. "It is very likely that Neneng Sri Wahyuni is now still in Malaysia," he said.
He said he had held her passport after she was officially declared an Interpol wanted person. Neneng has been banned from traveling abroad since May 31, 2011 and named suspect.
"She has been given a travel ban and this includes the revocation of her passport," the minister said.
The immigration office, he said, has already coordinated with its representative offices abroad to anticipate the possibility of Neneng using the passport to move to other countries. Unlike Nazaruddin who has used other person’s passport to travel abroad Neneng is still using her own passport.
"Foreign representative offices will be informed about it," he said. Neneng has been named suspect in a corruption case linked to procurement at a solar power project in the ministry of manpower and transmigration in 2008.
"We will chase all that have been able to flee abroad," he said here on Saturday.
He said the government would hunt for not only Neneng Sri Wahyuni but also others that have fled and "we have instructed the Directorate General to set up a team to hunt for Neneng Sri Wahyuni and other wanted corrupters."
He said to find graft suspect Neneng, who is also the wife of graft suspect Nazaruddin, he would cooperate with the police and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) as well as the foreign ministry.
"The four institutions are currently still studying the possibility of working together in a joint team like they did when they caught Nazaruddin," he said.
He said the hunt for Neneng Sri Wahyuni would be done like when arresting Nazaruddin abroad recently. "We believe Neneng Sri Wahyuni and her children are now still in Malaysia," he said.
He said the immigration office had not detected Neneng moving to other countries after July 25, 2011. "It is very likely that Neneng Sri Wahyuni is now still in Malaysia," he said.
He said he had held her passport after she was officially declared an Interpol wanted person. Neneng has been banned from traveling abroad since May 31, 2011 and named suspect.
"She has been given a travel ban and this includes the revocation of her passport," the minister said.
The immigration office, he said, has already coordinated with its representative offices abroad to anticipate the possibility of Neneng using the passport to move to other countries. Unlike Nazaruddin who has used other person’s passport to travel abroad Neneng is still using her own passport.
"Foreign representative offices will be informed about it," he said. Neneng has been named suspect in a corruption case linked to procurement at a solar power project in the ministry of manpower and transmigration in 2008.
Explosions, Gunfire Rock Tripoli as Rebels Advance
Explosions and gunfire rocked Tripoli overnight, after days of battlefield defeats left Muammar Gaddafi’s government and troops penned ever more tightly in the besieged capital by a rebel advance. Rebels said the fighting marked a final push in an uprising against the long-time leader that has raged in the North African oil-producing nation for six months, while Gaddafi dismissed it as an ill-fated attempt by “rats”.
“Those rats ... were attacked by the masses tonight and we eliminated them,” Gaddafi said in a live audio message over state television. “I know that there are air bombardments but the fireworks were louder than the sound of the bombs thrown by the aircraft.”
An official at the rebel National Transitional Council said the fighting was the beginning of the end for Gaddafi. “The zero hour has started. The rebels in Tripoli have risen up,” Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, vice-chairman of the rebel National Transitional Council, based in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, told Reuters.
The clashes inside the city triggered celebrations among Gaddafi opponents elsewhere in the country and in the capital of neighbouring Tunisia, and fed widespread speculation Gaddafi’s 41-year rule was sliding towards collapse. Gaddafi’s information minister said the rebel incursion into Tripoli had been quickly put down, though sounds of gunfire and explosions continued into the early morning.
Fighting was still raging after midnight around Mitiga airbase in Tripoli’s Tajourah district, an area said to be under rebel control, an opposition activist told a Reuters journalist outside Libya. The gunbattles had left a number of rebels dead in the suburb of Qadah and elsewhere, along with at least three pro-Gaddafi soldiers in the Zawiyat al-Dahmania district of Tripoli, he said.
A Tripoli resident told Reuters that imams, or Muslim clerics, in parts of Tripoli called on people to rise up, using the loudspeakers on minarets. The resident said the call went out around the time people were breaking their Ramadan fast.
Earlier on Saturday evening, residents told Reuters of gunfire and street protests in several parts of Tripoli. “We can hear shooting in different places,” one residents said.
“Most of the regions of the city have gone out, mostly young people ... it’s the uprising... They went out after breaking the (Ramadan) fast.”
“They are shouting religious slogans: ’God is greatest!’" This week’s rebel advances on Tripoli have transformed the war by cutting the capital off from its main road link to the outside world and putting unprecedented pressure on Gaddafi.
Defections
Washington says his days are numbered, and reports have emerged of more defections from his ranks. President Barack Obama, on vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, was receiving regular updates on Libya, a senior White House official said.
“If Tripoli eventually falls to the rebels, Gaddafi’s already limited options become even more limited. Pressure on him and his shrinking circle of loyalists has to be taking a serious toll,” a senior White House official said.
The six-month-old war came close to the Tunisian frontier after rebels suddenly seized the coastal city of Zawiyah just 50 km (30 miles) west of Tripoli, surrounding the heavily fortified capital and severing its vital supply routes. In Tunisia, security sources said their forces had intercepted Libyan men in vehicles with weapons and fought them through the night in the desert.
They reported several casualties, but did not say whether the fighters were Libyan rebels or pro-Gaddafi soldiers cut off from Tripoli. Residents of the southern Tunisian desert town of Douz told Reuters by telephone that helicopters were swooping overhead and troops had been summoned from nearby towns to subdue the infiltrators, who rode in vehicles without number plates.
The imposition of a siege around Tripoli has trapped its residents and cut it off from fuel and food supplies. The International Organisation for Migration said on Friday it would organise a rescue operation to evacuate thousands of foreign workers, probably by sea.
Intense fighting continued in Zawiyah, home to an important oil refinery, on Saturday and rebels occupying the centre of the city said pro-Gaddafi forces showed no sign of retreat. “Gaddafi will try to take back Zawiyah at any price. He will keep shelling the hospital,” a rebel fighter said as he prepared for midday prayers in the mosque of Bir Hawisa, a nearby village where many civilians are sheltering.
“We will not let that happen. We will fight.”
East of Tripoli, fighting has been bloodier and rebel advances far slower. On Friday, opposition forces fought street battles in the city of Zlitan but suffered heavy casualties, a Reuters reporter said. A rebel spokesman said 32 rebel fighters were killed and 150 wounded.
NATO bombings
NATO warplanes have hammered Gaddafi military targets since March under a U.N. mandate to protect civilians. Gaddafi’s government has said the bombs have killed scores of innocent people, including 27 during a raid on Tripoli this week.
On Saturday, Libyan Prime Minister Al Baghdadi Ali Al-Mahmoudi spoke to U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki-moon by telephone requesting an investigation into alleged abuses by NATO, Libyan state news agency JANA reported. JANA said Ban had promised to study the proposal.
In another potential blow to Gaddafi, a Tunisian source said Libya’s top oil official, Omran Abukraa, had arrived in Tunisia after deciding not to return to Tripoli from a trip to Italy. If confirmed, it would be the third apparent defection of a senior Gaddafi associate this week. A senior security official arrived in Rome on Monday, and rebels said on Friday that Gaddafi’s estranged former deputy Abdel Salam Jalloud had joined their side in the western mountains.
The siege of Tripoli and the prospect of a battle for the capital have added urgency to the question of Gaddafi’s fate. The leader repeatedly has vowed never to leave the country and rebels say they will not stop fighting until he is gone.
A senior U.S. official said on Saturday that the opposition must prepare to take over power soon. The United States is among more than 30 nations that have recognised the rebels’ National Transitional Council (NTC) as Libya’s legitimate authority.
“It is clear that the situation is moving against Gaddafi,” U.S. assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman told a news conference after meeting Libyan rebel leaders at their headquarters in Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi. “The opposition continues to make substantial gains on the ground while his forces grow weaker.”
“Those rats ... were attacked by the masses tonight and we eliminated them,” Gaddafi said in a live audio message over state television. “I know that there are air bombardments but the fireworks were louder than the sound of the bombs thrown by the aircraft.”
An official at the rebel National Transitional Council said the fighting was the beginning of the end for Gaddafi. “The zero hour has started. The rebels in Tripoli have risen up,” Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, vice-chairman of the rebel National Transitional Council, based in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, told Reuters.
The clashes inside the city triggered celebrations among Gaddafi opponents elsewhere in the country and in the capital of neighbouring Tunisia, and fed widespread speculation Gaddafi’s 41-year rule was sliding towards collapse. Gaddafi’s information minister said the rebel incursion into Tripoli had been quickly put down, though sounds of gunfire and explosions continued into the early morning.
Fighting was still raging after midnight around Mitiga airbase in Tripoli’s Tajourah district, an area said to be under rebel control, an opposition activist told a Reuters journalist outside Libya. The gunbattles had left a number of rebels dead in the suburb of Qadah and elsewhere, along with at least three pro-Gaddafi soldiers in the Zawiyat al-Dahmania district of Tripoli, he said.
A Tripoli resident told Reuters that imams, or Muslim clerics, in parts of Tripoli called on people to rise up, using the loudspeakers on minarets. The resident said the call went out around the time people were breaking their Ramadan fast.
Earlier on Saturday evening, residents told Reuters of gunfire and street protests in several parts of Tripoli. “We can hear shooting in different places,” one residents said.
“Most of the regions of the city have gone out, mostly young people ... it’s the uprising... They went out after breaking the (Ramadan) fast.”
“They are shouting religious slogans: ’God is greatest!’" This week’s rebel advances on Tripoli have transformed the war by cutting the capital off from its main road link to the outside world and putting unprecedented pressure on Gaddafi.
Defections
Washington says his days are numbered, and reports have emerged of more defections from his ranks. President Barack Obama, on vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, was receiving regular updates on Libya, a senior White House official said.
“If Tripoli eventually falls to the rebels, Gaddafi’s already limited options become even more limited. Pressure on him and his shrinking circle of loyalists has to be taking a serious toll,” a senior White House official said.
The six-month-old war came close to the Tunisian frontier after rebels suddenly seized the coastal city of Zawiyah just 50 km (30 miles) west of Tripoli, surrounding the heavily fortified capital and severing its vital supply routes. In Tunisia, security sources said their forces had intercepted Libyan men in vehicles with weapons and fought them through the night in the desert.
They reported several casualties, but did not say whether the fighters were Libyan rebels or pro-Gaddafi soldiers cut off from Tripoli. Residents of the southern Tunisian desert town of Douz told Reuters by telephone that helicopters were swooping overhead and troops had been summoned from nearby towns to subdue the infiltrators, who rode in vehicles without number plates.
The imposition of a siege around Tripoli has trapped its residents and cut it off from fuel and food supplies. The International Organisation for Migration said on Friday it would organise a rescue operation to evacuate thousands of foreign workers, probably by sea.
Intense fighting continued in Zawiyah, home to an important oil refinery, on Saturday and rebels occupying the centre of the city said pro-Gaddafi forces showed no sign of retreat. “Gaddafi will try to take back Zawiyah at any price. He will keep shelling the hospital,” a rebel fighter said as he prepared for midday prayers in the mosque of Bir Hawisa, a nearby village where many civilians are sheltering.
“We will not let that happen. We will fight.”
East of Tripoli, fighting has been bloodier and rebel advances far slower. On Friday, opposition forces fought street battles in the city of Zlitan but suffered heavy casualties, a Reuters reporter said. A rebel spokesman said 32 rebel fighters were killed and 150 wounded.
NATO bombings
NATO warplanes have hammered Gaddafi military targets since March under a U.N. mandate to protect civilians. Gaddafi’s government has said the bombs have killed scores of innocent people, including 27 during a raid on Tripoli this week.
On Saturday, Libyan Prime Minister Al Baghdadi Ali Al-Mahmoudi spoke to U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki-moon by telephone requesting an investigation into alleged abuses by NATO, Libyan state news agency JANA reported. JANA said Ban had promised to study the proposal.
In another potential blow to Gaddafi, a Tunisian source said Libya’s top oil official, Omran Abukraa, had arrived in Tunisia after deciding not to return to Tripoli from a trip to Italy. If confirmed, it would be the third apparent defection of a senior Gaddafi associate this week. A senior security official arrived in Rome on Monday, and rebels said on Friday that Gaddafi’s estranged former deputy Abdel Salam Jalloud had joined their side in the western mountains.
The siege of Tripoli and the prospect of a battle for the capital have added urgency to the question of Gaddafi’s fate. The leader repeatedly has vowed never to leave the country and rebels say they will not stop fighting until he is gone.
A senior U.S. official said on Saturday that the opposition must prepare to take over power soon. The United States is among more than 30 nations that have recognised the rebels’ National Transitional Council (NTC) as Libya’s legitimate authority.
“It is clear that the situation is moving against Gaddafi,” U.S. assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman told a news conference after meeting Libyan rebel leaders at their headquarters in Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi. “The opposition continues to make substantial gains on the ground while his forces grow weaker.”
12 Dead in Plane Crash in Canadian Arctic
Twelve people were killed and three others injured Saturday when a passenger jet crashed in the Canadian Arctic, federal police said. A Boeing 737 operated by First Air with 15 people on board, four of them crew members, crashed a few kilometers (miles) from Resolute Bay in the Arctic territory of Nunavut, shortly before 1:00 pm (1800 GMT), police said.
The plane was en route from Yellowknife to Resolute Bay when it crashed. The jet was then scheduled to travel on to Grise Fiord on the southern tip of Ellesmere Island.
Doctors arrived quickly at the scene, according to emergency services at the Trenton military base in Ontario. “Our investigators are already working there. The black boxes have been located,” Transportation Safety Board of Canada spokesman Chris Krepski told AFP.
Investigators have so far refrained from speculating about the causes of the accident. Reports indicated there was fog in the area when the plane crashed.
Police and local officials in Resolute Bay — home to about 200 people — were not immediately available for comment on what may have caused the deadly crash or the identities of the victims. There was also no new information about the condition of the three people injured.
First Air links about 25 communities in Canada’s far north to major cities such as Ottawa, Montreal and Edmonton. The doomed plane was made in 1975, and purchased by First Air in 1989, according to Radio Canada.
Hundreds of military personnel were in the Resolute Bay area participating in military exercises codenamed “Operation Nanook.” Prime Minister Stephen Harper was expected there Monday as part of his annual trip to the Arctic, which coincides with the drills. Governor General David Johnston was also due in the area over the weekend.
The plane was en route from Yellowknife to Resolute Bay when it crashed. The jet was then scheduled to travel on to Grise Fiord on the southern tip of Ellesmere Island.
Doctors arrived quickly at the scene, according to emergency services at the Trenton military base in Ontario. “Our investigators are already working there. The black boxes have been located,” Transportation Safety Board of Canada spokesman Chris Krepski told AFP.
Investigators have so far refrained from speculating about the causes of the accident. Reports indicated there was fog in the area when the plane crashed.
Police and local officials in Resolute Bay — home to about 200 people — were not immediately available for comment on what may have caused the deadly crash or the identities of the victims. There was also no new information about the condition of the three people injured.
First Air links about 25 communities in Canada’s far north to major cities such as Ottawa, Montreal and Edmonton. The doomed plane was made in 1975, and purchased by First Air in 1989, according to Radio Canada.
Hundreds of military personnel were in the Resolute Bay area participating in military exercises codenamed “Operation Nanook.” Prime Minister Stephen Harper was expected there Monday as part of his annual trip to the Arctic, which coincides with the drills. Governor General David Johnston was also due in the area over the weekend.
Powerful Quakes Hit Near Vanuatu in South Pacific
A series of earthquakes struck off the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu on Sunday, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage and no tsunami warning was issued.
The U.S. Geological Survey said a magnitude-7.1 quake struck at 3:55 a.m. (1655 GMT Saturday) at a depth of 25.2 miles (40.6 kilometers). Its epicenter was 39 miles (63 kilometers) south-southwest of Vanuatu's capital, Port-Vila.
The temblor was followed by several aftershocks, including a magnitude-7.0 quake that struck at 5:19 a.m. (1819 GMT) at a depth of 17.7 miles (28.5 kilometers). Its epicenter was 42 miles (69 kilometers) south-southwest of Port-Vila. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said no tsunami warning was issued.
Vanuatu, a chain of 83 islands, lies just over 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) northeast of Sydney. It is part of the Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones stretching from South America through Alaska and down through the South Pacific.
A magnitude-7.3 quake struck near Vanuatu on Dec. 26, causing a tsunami a few inches high but no damage.
The U.S. Geological Survey said a magnitude-7.1 quake struck at 3:55 a.m. (1655 GMT Saturday) at a depth of 25.2 miles (40.6 kilometers). Its epicenter was 39 miles (63 kilometers) south-southwest of Vanuatu's capital, Port-Vila.
The temblor was followed by several aftershocks, including a magnitude-7.0 quake that struck at 5:19 a.m. (1819 GMT) at a depth of 17.7 miles (28.5 kilometers). Its epicenter was 42 miles (69 kilometers) south-southwest of Port-Vila. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said no tsunami warning was issued.
Vanuatu, a chain of 83 islands, lies just over 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) northeast of Sydney. It is part of the Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones stretching from South America through Alaska and down through the South Pacific.
A magnitude-7.3 quake struck near Vanuatu on Dec. 26, causing a tsunami a few inches high but no damage.