Indonesia’s president says country intends to join TPP trade deal

GE’s spending over the next 5 years will target critical areas important to the economy and cover power generation, oil and gas, and healthcare.

For almost two months, thousands of fires caused by slash-and-burn farming in Indonesia have choked vast expanses of Southeast Asia, forcing schools to close and scores of flights and a few worldwide events to be canceled.

“Obviously I have a very personal interest in Indonesia, given the fact that I spent a bit of time there as a child and have relatives who are Indonesian”, Obama said. Fire emissions have already passed Japan’s annual greenhouse gas emissions and by the end of the year, the fires could account for up to 3 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions from all human activities.

In an attempt to stop the forest fires, Indonesian President Joko Widodo has ordered deployment of 30 aircraft and 22,000 troops to fight fires on the ground.

The disaster management agency of Indonesia said on Monday that the haze had started to drift towards the island of Java, home to over half of the Indonesian population.

The Indonesian Navy (TNI AL) have previously said that nine warships will be stationed to evacuated the haze victims across Sumatra and Kalimantan – each with different functions and use.

However, President Widodo, a former furniture entrepreneur, emphasized that Indonesia, a G20 member and the largest economy in Southeast Asia, is open to foreign investment. A related, unexpected issue should also be on their radar: massive forest and land fires that have turned into a national, regional, and now global crisis for the new Indonesian administration. “What will happen in the future, what the issue would cost us”, she said.

When the peat fires, nearly all of which are intentionally set to clear forests for palm oil plantations, began this year, the president broke with past leadership, expressed his dismay and threatened to sanction palm oil company PT Tempirai Palm Resources after he paid a surprise visit to its land concession in South Sumatra where fires are raging (ClimateWire, September 14). Since 2010, both countries have established partnership called comprehensive partnership. The document also contains pledges that the government will pursue criminal charges against companies that allow fires to occur in their concessions and prohibit them from conducting an initial public offering in Indonesia. The Silicon Valley visit was originally planned as the final leg of his three-day visit to the United States under the invitation of President Barack Obama. Indonesia is not a claimant in the South China Sea but is concerned about China’s expansive maritime claims that may infringe on the territorial waters of the Natuna Islands, which are part of the Indonesian archipelago.