Indonesia’s president orders fast efforts to overcome haze

Under criticism from its neighbors, the government has investigated more than 200 companies and ordered four to suspend operations for allegedly causing forest fires as it scrambles to control blazes on Sumatra and Kalimantan islands.

APP managing director of sustainability Aida Greenbury said forest fires within concession areas did not mean that it was the company that had started the fire.

Even though the company has a zero burning policy, a few 10,000 hectares of land in Jambi and Riau belonging to its supplier are now on fire.

Malaysia and Singapore have offered to help put out peat fires in Sumatera but Jakarta has declined and has mobilised thousands of soldiers in fire-fighting efforts.

Major General Suharto (at right, foreground) attends a funeral for the assassinated generals on October 5, 1965 Indonesia must do more to provide justice for victims of a 1960s anti-communist purge and their families, Amnesty global urged Wednesday, September 30, 50 years on from events that triggered one of the worst mass killings of the 20th century.

Schools in Johor remain closed today as the air pollution index was still at the unhealthy level.

Indonesia has struggled for years to contain forest fires and the resulting haze despite repeatedly promising to punish perpetrators.

The haze has caused health problems, flight delays and school closures across Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore in what has become an annual ordeal that has defied attempts by governments, businesses and green groups to tackle it.

“My daughter keeps having to go to the doctor for her wheezing and blocked nose”, said C.S. Ebenezer, 46, a resident of Singapore, where many have been forced to wear face masks.

A gauge of tiny air-pollution particles reached 989 in Palangkaraya in Kalimantan, and 950 in Palembang on Sumatra, nearly three times the 350 level considered hazardous, the country’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency said on its website.

She said the majority of the fires were perpetrated by individuals who wanted to clear land cheaply and quickly for subsistence farming, agriculture and other purposes.

“The problem is, most of the fires were happening outside of known (land) concession boundaries”, said WRI research analyst Andika Putraditama.

It was building water reserves in the forest and canals to get water to the hotspots, he said, while also making progress to enforce laws against forest-burning.

Indonesia will announce later on Tuesday the second installment of a stimulus package aimed at supporting the rupiah and reviving growth in Southeast Asia’s largest economy, Chief economics minister Darmin Nasution said. The firm has said it will cooperate.

Separately, environmental group Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) is calling on all of the people affected by the haze to carry out a class action lawsuit against the government.