#Indonesia to import 75,000 tons of salt from #Australia

The government has issued an import permit for state-owned salt producer PT Garam to import 75,000 tons of raw salt material from Australia. The salt will enter Indonesia through three ports on Aug. 10.

"In 2016, we allocated 226,000 tons of salt imports, so we still have room. When the harvest returns to normal, we will stop importing," the Trade Ministry's foreign trade director general, Oke Nurwan, said in Jakarta on Friday.

He further said that the government would decide the price of table salt in the retailer market next week.

The ministry hopes that after the import is realized in August, the domestic supply of salt will gradually return to normal.

The Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry’s director general for territorial sea management, Brahmantya Satyamurti, said the amount of domestic salt production was currently far from the normal production of 166,000 tons a month.

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“From May to July, salt farmers only managed to produce 6,200 tons, which is far from normal,” he said.

The Trade Ministry has ensured that salt distribution in the market will be tightly monitored by a food stability task force, which includes personnel from the police, the Business Competition Supervisory Commission (KPPU) and the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry.

Salt imports are regulated under the Law No. 7/2016 on the protection and empowerment of fishermen, fishers and salt farmers. It stipulates that import permits issued to PT Garam by the Trade Ministry requires a recommendation letter from the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry.

 

Source - TheJakartaPost

Facebook awaits court orders

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Prime minister says ‘no authority’ to suspend social media operations after deadline lapses

THE MINISTRY of Digital Economy and Society staff has said it expects social media giant Facebook to block access to all 131 web addresses deemed illegal by authorities by the end of the month.

Facebook, meanwhile, was waiting for official court orders regarding the content in question.

Somsak Kaosuwan, deputy permanent secretary of the ministry, said yesterday that his agency expected that the URLs with content deemed illegal would be blocked this month. 

He said the ministry had sent 24 official court orders in English to Facebook – each one focusing on a single web address – in order to support its request for the company to block the URLs, adding that blockage could be done within a single day. 

The remaining 107 official court orders will be sent as soon as they are available, he said.

 The ministry was waiting for official court orders from the Criminal Court.

Earlier, authorities gave Facebook until late yesterday morning to make the web pages inaccessible in Thailand while threatening legal action. However, none of the URLs were blocked after the deadline passed. 

The 131 web addresses in question were deemed to have content insulting to the monarchy, threatening national security, depicting pornography or being involved in fraud.

With more than 40 million users, Thailand is among the world’s most active countries on Facebook. 

Takorn Tantasith, secretary-general |of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), said yesterday that his agency had through local Internet service providers (ISPs) sent copies of 34 court orders to block URLs with illegal content.

In response, Facebook requested an official English version of the court orders before it proceeded with blocking the addresses in Thailand.

“Facebook is cooperating with Thailand,” Takorn told reporters yesterday after the 10am deadline passed.

Morragot Kulatumyotin, president of the Thai Internet Service Provider Association (TISPA), said yesterday that in response to the ISPs’ request to block URLs, Facebook asked for official court orders to prove that the content was considered illegal under Thai law. She said Facebook noted this was in line with international standards.

Facebook yesterday again referred to its stated policy in response to the authorities’ request.

“When governments believe that something on the Internet violates their laws, they may contact companies like Facebook and ask us to restrict access to that content. When we receive such a request, we review it to determine if it puts us on notice of unlawful content. “If we determine that it does, then we make it unavailable in the relevant country or territory and notify people who try to access it why it is restricted,” a Facebook spokesperson said.

He was responding to a question from The Nation as to whether Facebook |would block access as requested by the NBTC.

Under its policy, Facebook will comply with a country’s request to remove content if it receives a valid court order, AFP reported yesterday.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha admitted yesterday that his government did not have the authority to suspend Facebook’s operations in Thailand following its refusal to immediately block the URLs.

Prayut said the only thing the government could do was to seek court orders addressing specific URLs and have social media providers cooperate by blocking those web addresses.

“All we can do is ask for cooperation from foreign countries, the private sector and Internet service providers,” the premier said. “It’s because we have no better options.”

He told reporters yesterday that 6,000 web pages had been blocked recently by foreign social media platforms and search engines following government requests.

“We are now trying to work on the remaining ones and we must continue to work by asking for cooperation from foreign governments, the private sector and local website administrators,” he said.

Source - TheNation

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#Thailand - Prayut tells nurses to stop protesting over poor pay and working conditions

About 300 nurses gather in the yard in front of Phumin Temple in Nan province yesterday to press their demand that the government recruit more nurses as permanent civil servants. 

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PRIME MINISTER General Prayut Chan-o-cha responded yesterday to ongoing protests by nurses, saying the allocation of civil service posts that they are demanding must comply with the workforce reformation plan every five to 10 years.

Prayut said every ministry had to follow the rules in enrolling new workers and had to manage their vacant positions first before asking for more staff.

He also urged the nurses not to protest and make the issue political.

Nurses have pledged to continue their protest amid complaints about understaffing, tough working conditions and unfair salaries. The Public Health Ministry has asked them to be patient, stating that nursing positions are being allocated.

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Hundreds of nurses in Nan demonstrated yesterday to show solidarity with government-employed nurses campaigning for more permanent civil servant positions and fairer benefits.

Pattanaphong Wongbunyanuwej, a representative of the Nan nurses, said the group gathered in a symbolic gesture to raise their voices to the government, urging it to allocate more civil servant positions and improve the working conditions and benefits for nurses. “We want the government to understand the hardship of nurses, as we are working extraordinarily long hours with unfair remuneration, so we gather today to show our demands,” Pattanaphong said.

Meanwhile, the Temporary Employee Professional Nurse Network fan page on Facebook invited temporary nurses to fill in a questionnaire to survey the number who intend to resign if the proposal to increase civil servant position for nurses is rejected by the government.

Dr Tassana Boontong, president of the Thailand Nursing and Midwifery Council, stressed that the civil servant position is very important for a nurse, as it can guarantee career stability and provide proper health benefits for their family.

“This problem [the nurses unable to be enrolled as civil servants] causes 48 per cent of new nurses to resign after the first year at work. In the second year, 25 per cent of those remaining follow suit. How can we have enough nurses in the system, as we cannot save them in the system in the first place?” Tassana said.

“Our research showed that the nurses worked up to 37 shifts per month, but their payment is low compared to the doctors. There is also not enough welfare for the nurses if they are injured or die due to their work.”

She said that the performance-based pay for nurses was almost 28 times lower than for doctors, even though they work harder. In case of an accident, nurses receive very little benefits to compensate for their loss. “This is a good time for the policy makers to understand nurses’ hardship. They give up their energy, time and personal lives to take care of the patients and look after our health, so they should have job security and better welfare in return,” she said.

Tassana said the Nursing and Midwifery Council had proposed 10,992 civil servant positions for nurses over three years. This meant that only 3,662 positions were sought from the government per year, which was not a large amount.

However, she said she understood that the Public Health Ministry was working hard to manage the vacant positions for nurses to meet the proposed positions and asked fellow nurses to be patient during this allocation.

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Source - TheNation

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