World

Indonesia will lift its ban on palm oil exports next week, President Joko Widodo said Thursday, relieving pressure on the global vegetable oil market after prices spiked because of the suspension and the war in Ukraine.

The archipelago nation issued the ban last month to secure supplies of the commodity, used in a range of goods from chocolate spreads to cosmetics, in the face of a domestic shortage.

“Based on the supply… of cooking oil and considering there are 17 million people in the palm oil industry — farmers and other supporting workers — I decided that cooking oil exports will reopen on Monday, May 23,” Widodo told an online briefing.

“The government will still be monitoring everything strictly to ensure the demand will be met with affordable prices,” he said.

Authorities had rigorously enforced the export ban, with the Indonesian navy seizing a tanker carrying palm oil out of the country in violation of the order earlier this month.

After the ban came into force, Widodo said supplying the country’s 270 million people was the “highest priority” of his government.ere are yo

But Jakarta came under pressure for further saddling prices that were already skyrocketing after Russia’s invasion of agricultural powerhouse Ukraine.

Palm oil producers staged protests last week in the centre of Jakarta and several towns in Indonesia complaining that the prices for palm oil fruits had dropped dramatically.

– ‘Return to normal’ –

The Indonesian leader said he was reversing the suspension because the domestic supply and price of cooking oil had improved since the ban came into effect on April 28.

Widodo said prices had fallen from 19,800 rupiah ($1.35) per litre to about 17,200 rupiah ($1.17) since the ban.

Domestic supplies of cooking oil also tripled after the ban from 64,500 tonnes per month to 211,000 tonnes, he said.

Industry figures hailed the decision to resume exports.

Eddy Martono, secretary general of the Indonesian Palm Oil Association (GAPKI), said the organisation “is very grateful to the government, especially to the president” for lifting the ban.

“It is a fact that the condition on the ground is very difficult because the tanks have been all full. We hope with the export reopening, the palm oil production can return to normal.”

Oil Palm Farmers Association chairman Gulat Manurung thanked Widodo and said oil palm farmers would repay his decision by boosting domestic supplies. 

“We, oil palm farmers, pledge to help ensure that domestic supplies of cooking oil will be available,” he told AFP.

Palm oil is the most widely used vegetable oil in Indonesia and, despite being the world’s biggest producer, the country has been facing a cooking oil shortage for months because of poor regulation and producers reluctant to sell at home.

The shortages have in some cases forced consumers to spend hours in queues at distribution centres.

Indonesia produces about 60 percent of the world’s palm oil, with one-third consumed by its domestic market. India, China, the European Union and Pakistan are among its major export customers.

Russia said Thursday that 1,730 Ukrainian soldiers had surrendered this week at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, showing some emerging on crutches after an all-out battle that has become emblematic of the nearly three-month-old war.

The number included 80 who were wounded and taken to a hospital in Russia-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine, the defence ministry in Moscow said.

The ministry released a video appearing to show the surrendered soldiers hobbling out of the sprawling plant after it was besieged for weeks. Russian troops patted them down and inspected their bags as they exited.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it had registered “hundreds of Ukrainian prisoners of war” from the plant in Mariupol, a port city levelled by Russian shelling.

Ukraine accuses Moscow’s forces of war crimes against civilians in Mariupol and elsewhere, and has begun the first prosecution of a Russian soldier. 

Vadim Shishimarin, a shaven-headed Russian sergeant from Irkutsk in Siberia, pleaded guilty to a war crime and faces a life sentence.

He admitted to shooting dead Oleksandr Shelipov, an unarmed 62-year-old man, in Ukraine’s Sumy region on February 28 — four days into the invasion. 

Shishimarin was remorseful as he took the dock for a second day on Thursday.

“I know that you will not be able to forgive me, but nevertheless I ask you for forgiveness,” he said, addressing Shelipov’s wife in the cramped courtroom in Kyiv.

– Folk celebration –

But while Mariupol has fallen, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said the wider invasion was an “absolute failure” as he marked “Vyshyvanka Day”, an annual celebration of Ukrainian folk traditions.

Wearing an embroidered shirt instead of his usual military khaki top, Zelensky said on the Telegram social media platform that his people remained “strong, unbreakable, brave and free”.

Zelensky’s defiance, and his army’s dogged resistance, have earned the West’s admiration and a steady flow of military support. G7 finance ministers were meeting in Germany to thrash out more cash support.

G7 partners have to “assure Ukraine’s solvency within the next days, few weeks”, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner told the newspaper Die Welt.

But German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said there could be “no shortcuts” to membership of the European Union for Ukraine. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba condemned the “second-class treatment” of his country.

– Famine warning –

Russia’s actions are already redrawing the security map of Europe. 

US President Joe Biden was to host the leaders of Finland and Sweden later Thursday to discuss their bids to join NATO, after the Nordic neighbours decided to abandon decades of military non-alignment.

“I warmly welcome and strongly support the historic applications from Finland and Sweden for membership in NATO,” Biden said, offering US support against any “aggression” while their bids are considered.

Beyond Europe, the invasion also threatens to bring famine, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

“Malnutrition, mass hunger and famine” could follow “in a crisis that could last for years,” Guterres warned, urging Russia to release grain exports from occupied Ukraine.

Russia and Ukraine produce 30 percent of the global wheat supply, and the war has already sent food prices surging around the world.

– ‘Time to run’ –

Despite their last-ditch resistance in places such as Mariupol, and the successful defence of Kyiv, Ukrainian forces are retreating in the east.

The losses often come after weeks of battles over towns and small cities that are pulverised by the time the Russians surround them in a slow-moving wave.

“I tell everyone that there is no reason to worry when the banging is from outgoing fire,” Volodymyr Netymenko said as he packed up his sister’s belongings before evacuating her from the burning village of Sydorove in eastern Ukraine.

“But when it is incoming, it is time to run. And things have been flying at us pretty hard for the past two or three days.”

In the Russian region of Kursk, one person died and others were injured in an attack on a village on the border with Ukraine, the local governor said.

– War crimes trials –

A second war crimes trial was due to open in Ukraine Thursday.

The International Criminal Court is deploying its largest-ever field team to Ukraine, with 42 investigators, forensic experts and support staff to gather evidence of alleged war crimes.

Ukrainian civilians are bearing the brunt of incessant Russia mortar fire raining down on the eastern city of Severodonetsk.

Nella Kashkina sat in the basement next to an oil lamp and prayed.

“I do not know how long we can last,” the 65-year-old former city worker said.

“We have no medicine left and a lot of sick people — sick women — need medicine. There is simply no medicine left at all.”

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An Indonesian ferry carrying more than 800 people that had run aground was dislodged on Thursday and taken safely to dock at a nearby port, officials said.

KM Sirimau, carrying 784 passengers and 55 crew members, became stuck on Tuesday in shallow waters in East Nusa Tenggara province.

Efforts to free the boat succeeded and it was dislodged at noon after a tugboat sent by state-owned shipping company PT Pelni arrived to help, the head of local naval base Dwi Yoga told AFP. 

The ferry docked in Lewoleba port on the island of Lembata for checks two hours after it was freed, local search and rescue chief Putu Sudayana said.

“All passengers are in good health,” he told AFP.

Once the ferry was dislodged, relieved and tired passengers erupted in cheers, passenger Itha Tating said.

“We all shouted in joy when we found out the boat was free, the passengers and crew all started to clap happily,” Tating told AFP by phone.

The ship will later leave the port to continue its journey to the town of Maumere on the island of Flores, the final destination of most passengers. 

Passengers became worried after being stuck on the boat for two days, Tating said, with one woman panicking because she ran out of milk formula for her five-month-old baby.

“The waves were very strong this morning. I got scared and very dizzy from seasickness,” Tating said, adding that she would not travel on ferries soon because she is still traumatised.

The military boarded the ship on Thursday morning to distribute water and snacks to the passengers, including children and the elderly.

Rescuers waited for the tide to rise before they towed the ferry, Yoga added.

Marine accidents are common in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, where people rely on ferries and other boats to travel despite poor safety standards. 

In 2018, about 160 people drowned when a ferry sank into the depths of one of the world’s deepest lakes on Sumatra island.

North Korea is poised to conduct a nuclear test, Seoul said Thursday, as the United States warned it could come as President Joe Biden visits South Korea this week.

The visits to Seoul, followed by Tokyo, are being touted as proof that Washington is seeking to cement its years-long pivot to Asia, where rising Chinese commercial and military power is undercutting decades of US dominance.

However, Biden’s first trip as president to the region looks set to be overshadowed by an increasingly belligerent North Korea.

Despite a spiralling Covid outbreak, Pyongyang’s “preparations for a nuclear test have been completed and they are only looking for the right time”, South Korean lawmaker Ha Tae-keung said after being briefed by Seoul’s spy agency.

US intelligence says there is a “genuine possibility” that North Korea’s Kim Jong Un could stage this “provocation” after Biden arrives in Seoul late Friday, his administration said.

This could mean “further missile tests, long-range missile tests or a nuclear test, or frankly both” around the time of Biden’s trip, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said.

Satellite imagery indicates North Korea is preparing to conduct what would be its seventh nuclear test — which would cap a record-breaking blitz of launches this year, including intercontinental ballistic missiles.

“North Korea will want to attract global attention by conducting a nuclear test during President Biden’s visit,” Cheong Seong-chang of the Center for North Korea Studies at the Sejong Institute told AFP.

– Military adjustments –

Biden, who will visit some of the nearly 30,000 US troops stationed in South Korea, is ready to make “adjustments” to the US military posture in the region, and Seoul’s hawkish new President Yoon Suk-yeol is eager for stronger ties.

Both Biden and Yoon have said they’re open for talks with Pyongyang but they expect to see real progress on denuclearisation — which analysts say is anathema to Kim and will stall talks.

“Biden judges that the North Korean issue can’t be resolved through impromptu meetings between the leaders as Trump did,” said Woo Jung-yeop, a researcher at the Sejong Institute.

North Korea will be watching the outcome of the Yoon-Biden meeting Saturday very closely, said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies.

“Depending on the result, North Korea will decide on whether it will speed up or slow down its ICBM and nuclear tests,” Yang said.

Sullivan said the security situation regarding North Korea was being “closely” coordinated with South Korea and Japan and that he had also spoken about the issue with his Chinese counterpart on Wednesday.

It is likely that Kim is still debating what to do, in particular due to this US pressure on Beijing — Kim’s sole major ally — to help rein in Pyongyang’s nuclear and ICBM tests, the Sejong Institute’s Cheong said.

Kim is also well aware of the gridlock at the UN Security Council after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — so it is “highly likely” a nuke or ICBM test will come during Biden’s Asia tour, Cheong added.

Moscow would likely block any attempt at the UN to impose further sanctions on Pyongyang over a weapons test.

– Strategic neglect? –

After Seoul, Biden heads to Japan on Sunday for talks with Tokyo’s top leaders, before joining a Quad summit — a grouping of Australia, India, Japan, and the United States.

Sullivan said Biden is bound for Asia with “the wind at our back” after successful US leadership in the Western response to President Vladimir Putin’s now almost three-month-long invasion of Ukraine.

The high military, diplomatic and economic cost imposed on Russia is seen in Washington as a cautionary tale for China, given its stated ambitions to gain control over democratic-ruled Taiwan, even if that means going to war.

But the fact he arrives in Asia under the shadow of a possible North Korean nuclear test is partly due to his “strategic neglect” of the region since he took office, said Park Won-gon, a professor at Ewha University.

Talks between Washington and Pyongyang have been stalled for years, after an extraordinary show of diplomacy between then US president Donald Trump and Kim — brokered by Yoon’s predecessor Moon Jae-in — ultimately ended in failure.

Trump held three headline-grabbing meetings with Kim and claimed that the two were “in love”, but analysts say little to no progress was made in dismantling the North’s nuclear programmes.

At a vast military parade in Pyongyang recently, Kim said he was strengthening his nuclear arsenal “at the fastest possible speed”.

“In terms of denuclearisation and US-North Korea ties, we have returned to a situation where it’s difficult to find any progress,” Park said.

“There is no way to really stop North Korea now.”

Cyprus police said Thursday they had arrested one man a day after farmers set hay bales ablaze outside the presidential palace to protest against high input prices and a milk glut.

The goat and sheep farmers also emptied milk churns at the gates of the palace and police say they have issued arrest warrants for two other people who took part in the 300-strong demonstration. 

The farmers face a unique squeeze driven in part by the war in Ukraine, which has propelled the cost of wheat and fuel higher, making it more expensive to feed and transport their animals. 

On top of that, farmers have been unable to sell all their sheep and goat milk because, they complain, producers of the Mediterranean island’s renowned halloumi cheese are opting largely in favour of cow milk, a cheaper alternative.

Halloumi exports earned Cyprus 266.5 million euros ($279 million) in 2020 and last year won Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status from the European Union, giving the country a monopoly on producing halloumi branded cheese.

The PDO status is also meant to ensure minimum quotas for the use of goat and sheep milk in the production process, but the farmers accuse halloumi makers of flouting that. 

Police spokesperson Christos Andreou told state broadcaster CyBC that video footage of Wednesday’s protest was being reviewed and suspects face charges of reckless behaviour and conspiracy to commit a crime.

The one man arrested so far is 42 and has been charged in writing and released to appear in court at a later date. 

Agriculture Minister Costas Kadis said goat and sheep farmers’ anger was “justified” and pledged more financial support.