KALIMANTAN, Nov 9: Thirteen people were killed Saturday when an Indonesian army helicopter carrying construction workers crashed in the jungles of Borneo as it came in to land, an official said. “Thirteen people died in the crash while the rest suffered burn injuries,” military spokesman Iskandar Sitompul told AFP. There were 21 people on board, he said. Earlier reports said nine people had been injured in ...

SAMARINDA, EAST KALIMANTAN, Nov 1: An anti drug national movement in the district of Paser, East Kalimantan, has urged the district administration to rule that all civil servants in the district undergo urine tests, Indonesia's Antara news agency reported. "The test is to make sure that all civil servants in the district are free from drug abuses," Antara quoted the movement chairman in Paser, Utuh Mahni, a ...

KALIMANTAN, Oct 26: While other provinces celebrate their anniversaries with lots of funfair, the country’s youngest province, North Kalimantan, will celebrate its first anniversary modestly. Only one festival will be organized, the North Kalimantan Art Festival, at Agathis Square from Nov. 1-8. It will feature traditional dances and other art performances. The head of Indonesian National Youth Committee (K ...

KALIMANTAN, Oct 30:  United Arab Emirates’ Mubadala Petroleum announced on Wednesday that the offshore Ruby Gas Field off of East Kalimantan had begun production. “This is a milestone for Mubadala Petroleum,” company chairman Suhail Al Mazrouei said in an official statement. “This project is the largest single investment in the energy sector in Indonesia by a company from the United Arab Emirates.” The newl ...

BALIKPAPAN, Oct 16: More than 90 percent of the more than 800 fire hot spots detected in East Kalimantan this year can be attributed to slash-and-burn forest clearing by local farmers, an official said on Monday. Firdaus Nantawadhana, the head of forest fire monitoring at the provincial forestry agency, said his office had detected 825 hot spots across the province this year using satellite imagery, nearly ...

BULUNGAN, NORTH KALIMANTAN: North Kalimantan’s Bulungan district plans to relocate two villages to make room for a $17 billion hydropower project with a capacity to generate up to seven gigawatts of electricity. The two villages, Long Peleban and Long Leju, are home to approximately 700 residents who will be displaced. But so far no alternative arrangements have been offered to the villagers, and the constr ...

EAST KALIMANTAN: A joint monitoring team, consisting the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Indonesia and West Kutai administration, discovered undisputable evidence of the presence of Sumatran rhinos in West Kutai, East Kalimantan, caught through video traps. “This physical evidence is important to the development of Indonesia’s rhino conservation efforts,” said Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan on Wednesday, as quo ...

KALIMANTAN: Wildcat miners searching for gold in the rivers lying deep in the heart of West Kalimantan are creating long-term chemical hazards that are threatening the water supply of nearby communities. “Gold mining continues to increase, generally in river stream areas,” Hendrikus Adam, a campaign manager for the provincial office of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Wahli), said. “Rivers actually ...

“Most Indonesian citizens are marginalized from the mainstream media,” journalist Harry Surjadi said at a recent discussion at the @america cultural center at Pacific Place in Kuningan, South Jakarta. Local residents in Kapuas, West Kalimantan where he worked “certainly don’t get any information from the outside,” Harry said. “Even the reputable newspapers don’t make it up the Kapuas River, whereas people a ...

An official says that West Kalimantan province will host four elections in four different regions that will be held simultaneously on Thursday. The regions are Pontianak city, Kubu Raya, Pontianak and Sanggau regencies. Pontianak General Elections Commission head Joni Rudwin said on Monday that 414,887 people were eligible to vote out of the municipality’s 600,000 population. “We recorded 30 percent abstain ...