JAKARTA – Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Wednesday approved a law prescribing the death penalty as the maximum sentence for child rapists, after several brutal gang rapes sparked public outrage.

Sexual violence is prevalent in Southeast Asia’s most populous country, but gang rape is unusual.

Social media erupted in calls for harsher punishment following a case early this month, in which a group of men was charged with raping and killing a schoolgirl in Bengkulu in the western island of Sumatra.

The case prompted rights groups to accuse the government of not doing enough to protect women and children, and provoked a tweet by Widodo himself seeking punishment of the perpetrators, although his call came more than a month after the event.

On Wednesday, Widodo said those responsible for sexual abuse of children, as well as repeat sex offenders, could also face chemical castration and be tagged with an electronic chip to track their movements, citing the law he signed.

“Sexual violence against children is an extraordinary crime,” Widodo told a news conference at the presidential palace. “This regulation is meant to overcome (such) incidents, in which we have seen a significant rise.” Data on the number of child sex abuse cases was not immediately available.

Rights activists warned against the decision to permit capital punishment and the use of chemical castration, however. “In most cases the perpetrators know the victims, and these punishments are so severe that it may discourage victims from reporting the rapes,” said Andreas Harsono of New York-based Human Rights Watch. “On their own, these punishments don’t address the need to protect children through a well-functioning welfare system.” Widodo’s government drew international condemnation last year for its execution by firing squad of several drug traffickers, mostly foreigners, despite repeated pleas for mercy from other governments and activists.

“On their own, these punishments don’t address the need to protect children through a well-functioning welfare system.” Widodo’s government drew international condemnation last year for its execution by firing squad of several drug traffickers, mostly foreigners, despite repeated pleas for mercy from other governments and activists.

After a year-long hiatus, Indonesia is set to resume executions this year, but authorities have given no details.

BEIJING – U.S President Barack Obama’s visit to Hiroshima has generally been welcomed in Japan, but it is drawing different reactions in China, where many suffered under Japanese occupation in World War II.

“The suffering of Japanese people who were innocent does deserve our sympathy,” said Hong Lei, a foreign ministry spokesperson at a press conference in Beijing on May 19.

But Beijing’s main message was to emphasise that China was the real victim and to urge others not to forget that Japan was the aggressor.

“We hope that by inviting leaders or political figures of other countries to visit Hiroshima, Japan is telling the world that it will never tread on the path of militarism again, as it once brought unspeakable suffering to its people and people of Asia,” said Hong.

Over 70 years have passed since the end of the war, but there still exists a wide gap on the interpretation and handling of pre-1945 history between China and Japan. Time after time, Beijing has reminded Tokyo about this and kept it as a powerful diplomatic card.

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KUALA LUMPUR – Relatives of passengers who were onboard a Malaysia Airlines jet that disappeared more than two years ago have pleaded with the Australian, Chinese and Malaysian governments to keep looking for the missing aircraft.

The relatives’ concerns were raised after the head of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which was leading the underwater search for MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean, said there was no indication that the search would be continued beyond August after the designated 120,000 sq. km of ocean had been combed through.

“We are gravely concerned about the impending completion of the search in the current targeted area,” the Voice370 group told Agence France-Presse. Voice370 is made up of the families of the 239 people onboard on the plane, which was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8 2014 when it disappeared. Voice370 aims “to seek the truth about the incident and find our loved ones onboard MH370,” according to the group’s Facebook page.

ATSB Chief Executive Martin Dolan said on May 20 that there was a “diminishing level of confidence we will find the aircraft,” but added that “the remaining 13,000 sq. km is still a lot of territory and it’s still entirely possible the aircraft is there.”

The authorities’ increasing pessimism marks a change from past statements that the search would be a success. Dolan said in July 2015 that MH370 “will be found within the next year.” Malaysia’s Minister of Defence Hishammuddin Hussein was similarly confident in October 2014 when he said: “We are looking in the right place, we’re talking about 99.9 per cent.”

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AFP, Reuters, Courtesy of Blaine Gibson

AUCKLAND, New Zealand – A race to harvest one of the world’s oddest looking marine delicacies is causing concern about environmental damage inflicted in the South Pacific.

Soaring demand for the sea cucumber, a seabed dwelling invertebrate also known as bêche-de-mer and trepang, is driving record prices in China’s luxury food market. One species, the Pacific sandfish, was selling recently in Hong Kong for US$1,668 (S$2301) a kilo, while the Japanese spiky sea cucumber can go for US$2,950 a kilo. Other species sell for between US$15 and US$385 a kilo, depending on size and condition.

Harvesting these lucrative but unappealing animals is becoming more difficult as stocks decline, prompting claims that overfishing is causing environmental damage and that divers’ lives are being put at risk. A controversial commercial contract with a Chinese company recently sparked protests on Pohnpei, part of the usually sleepy Federated States of Micronesia.

Steven Purcell, a sea cucumber expert at Australia’s Southern Cross University, said Pacific stocks had “all declined considerably” over a decade. Purcell and six other scientists said in a recent article in the academic journal Fish and Fisheries that sea cucumber stocks may have “succumbed to pandemic overfishing.”

There are around 1,700 species of sea cucumber, of which 66 are used for food. Boiled and dried, the animal becomes known by its French name, bêche-de-mer — a dish rich in protein, minerals and fatty acids. In China the animal is a traditional remedy for hypertension, asthma, rheumatism, cuts and burns, impotence and constipation.

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JAKARTA – Basuki Tjahaja Purnama has earned plaudits in his two years as governor of Jakarta for his efforts to transform the capital into an orderly and modern metropolis. However, his support for property developers seeking to create luxury islands in Jakarta Bay has landed the governor in a political and legal mess.

The Jakarta Bay reclamation project in North Jakarta calls for 17 artificial islands, mainly to house high-end residential and commercial facilities. Eight are already under construction.

But the project is surrounded by controversy. It was first broached in 1995 when the Jakarta government proposed to then-President Suharto that building the islands would be a good way to expand the city’s land area.

Although Suharto quickly issued a presidential decree approving the project it was strongly opposed by the environment and forestry ministry, which argued that reclamation would harm the environment. Over the next 20 years the issue became a subject of fierce conflict within the government and the courts. The environment ministry and the Jakarta city administration have refused to back down and have appealed every court ruling.

After suffering a setback with an unfavorable ruling by the Supreme Court in 2009, developers were buoyed by the arrival of Basuki as Jakarta governor. Basuki has openly supported the reclamation project, which includes 16 artificial islands owned by the developers and one by Pelindo II, a state port operator, which plans to use it to expand Tanjung Priok port.

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