Macron decorates Indonesia leader, announces cultural partnership

Macron decorates Indonesia leader, announces cultural partnership
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France's President Emmanuel Macron (L) and Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto speak during a visit at Borobudur Temple in Magelang, Central Java, on May 29, 2025. (Pool Photo via AP) 
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Updated 29 May 2025
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Macron decorates Indonesia leader, announces cultural partnership

Macron decorates Indonesia leader, announces cultural partnership
  • Says partnership would be based on cinema and fashion, video games, design and gastronomy
  • Macron’s trip to Indonesia is the second stop of a three-nation, six-day tour of Southeast Asia

MAGELANG, Indonesia: French President Emmanuel Macron bestowed Indonesia’s leader with France’s top award on Thursday, before announcing a new cultural partnership with Jakarta on a visit to the world’s largest Buddhist temple.

Macron’s trip to Indonesia is the second stop of a three-nation, six-day tour of Southeast Asia that began with Vietnam and concludes in Singapore.

After meeting for talks in the capital Jakarta, Macron and his counterpart Prabowo Subianto flew by helicopter on Thursday from Javan city Yogyakarta to a military academy in Magelang, a city surrounded by mountains in Central Java.

The pair attended a military parade and Macron gave Prabowo the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, France’s highest military or civil award.

Prabowo is an ex-general accused of rights abuses under dictator Suharto’s rule in the late 1990s. He was discharged from the military over his role in the abductions of democracy activists but denied the allegations and was never charged.

Macron rode in a jeep driven by Prabowo with the pair welcomed by a marching band and hundreds of students waving Indonesian flags.

Macron then visited Borobudur, a Buddhist temple built in the 9th century that is the world’s largest, where the pair announced they were boosting cultural ties.




Buddhist monks walk up Borobudur Temple on the day of a visit by Indonesia's President Prabowo Subianto and France's President Emmanuel Macron, in Magelang, Java, Indonesia, on May 29, 2025. (Pool via REUTERS)

“In front of this temple, we are taking an important step by launching a new cultural partnership,” said Macron.

“The first pillar is heritage and museum cooperation. The second pillar is cultural and creative industries,” he said.

Macron said the basis of the new partnership would be cinema and fashion, as well as video games, design and gastronomy.

The French leader will now depart for Singapore where he will deliver the opening address Friday at the Shangri-la Dialogue, Asia’s premier security forum.




France's President Emmanuel Macron, center, his wife Brigitte Macron and other official pose for a selfie during a visit to Borobudur Temple, in Magelang, Central Java, Thursday, May 29, 2025. (Yasuyoshi Chiba/Pool Photo via AP)

On Wednesday, the pair called for progress on “mutual recognition” between Israel and the Palestinians at a key meeting next month as Macron brought the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation into his diplomatic efforts.

“Indonesia has stated that once Israel recognizes Palestine, Indonesia is ready to recognize Israel and open the diplomatic relationship,” said Prabowo.

Indonesia has no formal ties with Israel and support for the Palestinian cause among Indonesians runs high.

The nations also signed a series of agreements on cooperation in a range of fields including defense, trade, agriculture, disaster management, culture and transport.


Investigators not ruling out sabotage in Air India crash

Police personnel inspect the crash site of Air India flight 171 at a residential area near the airport in Ahmedabad on June 15.
Police personnel inspect the crash site of Air India flight 171 at a residential area near the airport in Ahmedabad on June 15.
Updated 29 June 2025
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Investigators not ruling out sabotage in Air India crash

Police personnel inspect the crash site of Air India flight 171 at a residential area near the airport in Ahmedabad on June 15.
  • Air India’s Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed soon after take-off from Ahmedabad on June 12
  • Minister of state for civil aviation says probe materials include 30 days of city CCTV footage

NEW DELHI: Indian investigators are not ruling out sabotage in connection with the crash of the London-bound Air India flight that killed at least 260 people earlier this month, a minister has said, as officials began examining the plane’s black box.

The London-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed less than a minute after taking off from Ahmedabad airport in the western Indian state of Gujarat on June 12.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation has confirmed that investigators had recovered from the crash site both components of the black box — the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder — and brought them to the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau in New Delhi last week.

“Right now, the investigation is ongoing. But this is a rare incident. It has never happened before that both the engines got shut at the same time,” Murlidhar Mohol, minister of state for civil aviation, told the media on Saturday evening.

He did not dismiss the possibility of “sabotage” when New Delhi Television asked if it was being considered.

“We are investigating it from all angles to find out what was the cause of this accident,” Mohol said.

“We are looking at CCTV footage of Ahmedabad over the last 30 days, (of) those who came, those who went through screening, all the passports — we are probing it from all the angles.”

Data from the black box has been downloaded and the final report was expected in three months.

“Was it due to a bird strike, was there some technical issue with the engine, was there a fuel-supply issue, why both the engines shut down at the same time ... we will know only after the investigation,” the minister said, adding that the black box would be investigated domestically and “there is no need to send it abroad.”

The Air India flight was carrying 242 people — 230 passengers, two pilots and 10 crew members. Only one person, a British national sitting in an emergency exit seat, survived the crash.

It was initially unclear how many more people were killed on the ground as the aircraft fell on the B. J. Medical College and hostel for students and resident doctors of the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital.

After two weeks of DNA testing, authorities in Gujarat state announced on Saturday the final toll, saying they had recovered 260 bodies.

The number is lower than the initial number reported by the Junior Doctors’ Association at the B. J. College, whose president told the media a day after the crash that the hospital had received the bodies of 270 victims.


Bus crash blaze kills 38 in Tanzania

Bus crash blaze kills 38 in Tanzania
Updated 29 June 2025
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Bus crash blaze kills 38 in Tanzania

Bus crash blaze kills 38 in Tanzania

DAR ES SALAAM: A collision between a bus and minibus in Tanzania has killed 38 people after both vehicles were set on fire by the crash, the presidency said Sunday.
The accident in Sabasaba, in the Kilimanjaro region, on Saturday evening occurred after one of the bus’s tires punctured, causing the driver to lose control.
“A total of 38 people died in the crash, including two women,” a presidency statement said, adding that 28 others were wounded.
“However, due to the extent of the burns, 36 bodies remain unidentified,” the presidency said.
Six of the injured were still in hospital for treatment, it added.
Deadly crashes are frequent on Tanzania’s roads.
In a 2018 report, the World Health Organization estimated that 13,000 to 19,000 people in Tanzania were killed in traffic accidents in 2016, far higher than the government’s official toll of 3,256.


EU must be more assertive with Israel: Ex-foreign policy chief

The EU must adopt a more assertive posture against Israel over its violations of international law in Gaza, Josep Borrell, said.
The EU must adopt a more assertive posture against Israel over its violations of international law in Gaza, Josep Borrell, said.
Updated 29 June 2025
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EU must be more assertive with Israel: Ex-foreign policy chief

The EU must adopt a more assertive posture against Israel over its violations of international law in Gaza, Josep Borrell, said.
  • Josep Borrell: Europe has been ‘relegated to the sidelines’ in mediating conflict
  • Country ‘carrying out the largest ethnic-cleansing operation since end of Second World War’

LONDON: The EU must adopt a more assertive posture against Israel over its violations of international law in Gaza, Josep Borrell, the bloc’s former foreign policy chief, has said.

In an article for Foreign Affairs magazine, Borrell argued that the EU has a “duty” to intervene over the humanitarian catastrophe in the Palestinian enclave, The Guardian reported.

Rather than relying on the US to bring an end to the war, Europe must launch its own plan, he said.

The article was co-authored with Kalypso Nicolaidis, a Franco-Greek academic who has advised the EU.

“Europe can no longer afford to linger at the margin. The EU needs a concerted plan,” the two authors said.

“Not only is Europe’s own security at stake, but more important, European history imposes a duty on Europeans to intervene in response to Israel’s violations of international law.

“Europeans cannot stay the hapless fools in this tragic story, dishing out cash with their eyes closed.”

Borrell’s successor, Kaja Kallas, said last week that it was “very clear” Israel had breached its human rights commitments during its war on Gaza.

However, the “concrete question” remains the choice of action EU member states can agree on in response, she added.

Last month, 17 EU member states, in protest against Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza, triggered a review of the bloc’s association agreement with Israel, which covers trade and other cooperation.

Borrell last month accused Tel Aviv of “carrying out the largest ethnic-cleansing operation since the end of the Second World War.”

Europe’s inconsistent response to the humanitarian crisis can be partly explained by the reluctance of some countries — including Germany, Hungary and Austria — to take action against Israel for historical reasons, Borrell and Nicolaidis wrote.

Yet there are ways for other EU member states to take action without requiring a continent-wide consensus, they said, highlighting the EU’s financial leverage and the utility of European programs for Israel, including the Erasmus student exchange scheme.

EU member states could also invoke Article 20 of the EU’s treaty to “allow for at least nine member states to come together to utilize certain foreign policy tools not related to defense,” they wrote.

“Because such an action has never been taken before, those states would have to explore what (it) … would concretely allow them to do,” the Foreign Affairs article said.

The EU has been rendered ineffective in applying pressure due to disunity, the two authors said, arguing that the bloc should act as a powerful mediator in the Middle East.

“Some EU leaders cautiously backed the International Criminal Court’s investigations, while others, such as Austria and Germany, have declined to implement its arrest warrants against Israeli officials,” they wrote.

“And because EU member states, beginning with Germany and Hungary, could not agree on whether to revisit the union’s trade policy with Israel, the EU continues to be Israel’s largest trading partner.

“As a result, the EU, as a bloc, has been largely relegated to the sidelines, divided internally and overshadowed in ceasefire diplomacy by the US and regional actors such as Egypt and Qatar. Shouldn’t the EU also have acted as a mediator?”


Ukraine on track to withdraw from Ottawa anti-personnel mines treaty, lawmaker says

Ukraine on track to withdraw from Ottawa anti-personnel mines treaty, lawmaker says
Updated 29 June 2025
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Ukraine on track to withdraw from Ottawa anti-personnel mines treaty, lawmaker says

Ukraine on track to withdraw from Ottawa anti-personnel mines treaty, lawmaker says

KYIV: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has signed a decree on the country’s withdrawal from the Ottawa Convention, which bans the production and use of anti-personnel mines, a senior Ukrainian lawmaker said on Sunday.
Ukraine ratified the convention in 2005 and a parliamentary decision is needed to withdraw from the treaty.
The document is not yet available on the website of the president’s office.
“This is a step that the reality of war has long demanded. Russia is not a party to this Convention and is massively using mines against our military and civilians,” Roman Kostenko, secretary of the Ukraine parliament’s committee on national security, defense and intelligence, said on his Facebook page.
“We cannot remain tied down in an environment where the enemy has no restrictions,” he added, saying that the legislative decision must definitively restore Ukraine’s right to effectively defend its territory.
Russia has intensified its offensive operations in Ukraine in recent months, using significant superiority in manpower.
Kostenko did not say when the issue would be debated in parliament.


Germany seeks Israeli partnership on cyberdefense, plans ‘cyber dome’

Germany seeks Israeli partnership on cyberdefense, plans ‘cyber dome’
Updated 29 June 2025
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Germany seeks Israeli partnership on cyberdefense, plans ‘cyber dome’

Germany seeks Israeli partnership on cyberdefense, plans ‘cyber dome’

BERLIN: Germany is aiming to establish a joint German-Israeli cyber research center and deepen collaboration between the two countries’ intelligence and security agencies, German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said on Sunday.
Germany is among Israel’s closest allies in Europe, and Berlin has increasingly looked to draw upon Israel’s defense expertise as it boosts its military capabilities and contributions to NATO in the face of perceived growing threats from Russia and China.
“Military defense alone is not sufficient for this turning point in security. A significant upgrade in civil defense is also essential to strengthen our overall defensive capabilities,” Dobrindt said during a visit to Israel, as reported by Germany’s Bild newspaper.
Dobrindt, who was appointed by new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz last month, arrived in Israel on Saturday.
According to the Bild report, Dobrindt outlined a five-point plan aimed at establishing what he called a “Cyber Dome” for Germany, as part of its cyberdefense strategy.
Earlier on Sunday, Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Soeder called for the acquisition of 2,000 interceptor missiles to equip Germany with an “Iron Dome” system similar to Israel’s short-range missile defense technology.