Text 1

‘Ar-JIN-tina’- K-pop star sparks fan craze

in Buenos Aires
[https://www.thejakartapost.com/culture/2022/10/28/ar-jin-tina--k-pop-star-sparks-fan-
craze-in-buenos-aires-.html.]

Armelle Desmaison (AFP) Buenos Aires   ●   Fri, October 28, 2022

Buenos Aires has been gripped by "Jin" fever, with fans thronging to catch a glimpse of the
K-pop superstar from BTS making what could be his last public appearance in a while. Ahead
of signing on for military service in South Korea, 29-year-old singer-songwriter Jin is set to
make a guest appearance Friday with Coldplay on the Argentine leg of the British rock band's
tour. He is plugged to appear for just a single track—the first-ever live performance of "The
Astronaut" cowritten with Coldplay's Chris Martin.

The promise of one song was enough to set off a craze, and since news broke last week of
Jin's one-off appearance, hundreds of fans have set up camp outside the River Plate stadium
hosting 10 concerts by Coldplay, who tweeted on Thursday: "Jin is here!" More than a
thousand devotees flocked to the airport in the vain hope of catching a glimpse of Jin's
arrival earlier in the week, but he slipped out through a back exit.

"It [...] means a lot now that he is going to go to do military service," university student
Agustina Jenzi told AFP outside the stadium – among those who came with tents, yoga mats,
food and drink for the long wait. "It's nice for him to experience this. I don't know whether
he passed by here and saw us [...] he should know that there are a lot of people here."

The local branch of the global BTS Army hope to get as close to the stage as possible when
the gates open for Friday’s concert.  'To have him close' Ten days ago, the agency
representing BTS said the band's seven members would enlist in the military, putting an end
to a debate about whether they should be exempt from mandatory service of about two
years. The group, credited with generating billions for the South Korean economy, must sign
up by December. They have said they hope to reconvene by 2025.

Outside the stadium, the makeshift tent camp is decorated with shrine-like homages to Jin,
with photos of the singer on homemade placards, decorated phone covers, blankets and
scarves. Finding a room to rent in Buenos Aires, a city of 3 million, has become a test in
recent days. And social networks have exploded, with Jin occupying six of the top 10 trends
on Argentine Twitter with more than half-a-million tweets on Tuesday alone.

Popular hashtags include #Welcome to Arjintina. "When they announced he was coming, we

came here and started camping," Rocio Vega, 23, told AFP. "We are tent one. And then more
girls joined us. So far there are 18 tents" with about 40 ticket-holders sleeping in and around
each one. Vega and others care little that the concert will be broadcast on the screens of
3,500 cinemas in more than 75 countries.

Jin must be seen in flesh and blood.

"This will be his real sendoff," said Vega, who had bought tickets to see Coldplay on Oct. 25
and 29, and another for Friday when she learned Jin would be there.
 Zunilda Garcia, an 18-year-old student who smiles at the mere mention of Jin's name, said
sleeping in intermittent rain was a small price to pay for the chance of seeing her idol in real
life. "At night, we sit and talk about the possibility of seeing him [...]
It is a mix of emotions, between happiness, a lot of adrenaline, anxiety to be able to see
him, to have him close."
To kill the long hours until the concert, the BTS Army exchanges links, messages and videos
on social media, including a tantalizing teaser of Jin behind the scenes at Wednesday's
Coldplay performance, dancing to their song "My Universe”. The video, authenticated by
AFP Fact Check, had been viewed more than 1.5 million times by Thursday morning.

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No haj quota increase for Indonesia in 2023:

Saudi Arabia
[ https://www.thejakartapost.com/indonesia/2022/10/28/no-haj-quota-increase-for-indonesia-in-2023-saudi-arabia.html.]

Yvette Tanamal (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta   ●   Fri, October 28, 2022

Despite Saudi Arabia’s “ambitious” 2030 vision to “double the number” of Indonesian
tourists and haj pilgrims over the next few years, Saudi Haj and Umrah Minister Tawfiq Al-
Rabiah said this week that the 2023 quota for haj “remains the same” at a little over 100,000
people. Since the early days of COVID-19 in 2020, the haj quota for Indonesia has been
reduced by more than half from the original allocation of 218,150 visitors. Citing the ongoing
pandemic and security, Al-Rabiah said the quota could not be increased just yet, despite
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s appeal to expand the number of visitors allowed.
“Concerning the haj quota, it will remain as per the previous agreement. The [decision] was
made to ensure optimum services and for security reasons in controlling the high volume of
people,” he said on Monday.

As the country with the world’s largest Muslim population, the waiting list for Indonesians
seeking to make the pilgrimate could last up to decades. Data for 2022 from Databox
revealed that on average, haj-goers would have to wait 22 years before making the visit –
although the length of time changes drastically depending on the registrants’ residence.
South Sulawesi’s Bantaeng regency holds the country’s longest wait time, at 43 years.

On his first visit to Indonesia, Al-Rabiah met with Religious Affairs Minister Yaqut Cholil
Qoumas on Monday, where the haj minister said that “intensive communication” between
the two sides would continue in improving the quality of haj services. During the meeting,
Yaqut said that the visa for umrah (minor haj) pilgrims had now been bumped up to 90-days
from the previous 30-day allowance. “We talked about several things concerning the haj,
from quotas to the improvement of services for female pilgrims, since the number [of
women doing haj] is typically higher [than men],” said Yaqut.

In early August, the Saudi government gave Indonesia an “unlimited quota” for umrah, a
pilgrimage to the city of Mecca that can be done at any time of the year, unlike the
mandatory once-a-lifetime haj. In accordance with Saudi’s 2030 vision to significantly
increase its tourist income and rely less on oil sales, Indonesia has become one of Riyadh’s
primary target markets. “We have invested billions of dollars in tourism. Indonesia is one of
our key sources, with half a million tourists this year and 1.4 million visitors before the
pandemic,” said Alhasan Aldabbagh, APAC chief marketing officer for Nusuk, a state-owned
application for haj travels. “Our ambition is to double this number [over the next] few
years,” he said.

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TNI to deploy 18,000 personnel in Bali for G20

summit
[ https://www.thejakartapost.com/indonesia/2022/10/21/tni-to-deploy-18000-personnel-in-bali-for-g20-summit.html.]

News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta   ●   Fri, October 21, 2022
The Indonesian Military (TNI) plans to deploy a massive security operation in Bali next month
involving more than 18,000 personnel, 12 warships and four military jets, to secure the
Group of Twenty (G20) leaders’ summit. TNI commander Gen. Andika Perkasa said that he
would be directly in charge of the operation, which would see the deployment of 14,300 TNI
personnel, 3,200 police officers and 492 personnel from other institutions. Andika said that
the personnel deployed would be enough to cover protection for all members of
delegations, including VVIPs, from 42 countries joining the leaders’ summit in Nusa Dua, Bali
in mid-November.

The TNI commander also added that there would be a deployment of 12 Indonesia warships
in the waters around Bali island, which will join other military vessels dispatched by some
countries participating in the G20 summit. For securing the airspace around Bali, Andika said
the Air Force would deploy 2 F-16 and 2 Russian Sukhoi fighter jets, on top of 13 helicopters
dispatched by the Indonesian Army, Navy and Air Force. 

There would also be two Boeing reconnaissance aircrafts dispatched for the mission and
another Boeing aircraft for VVIP, Andika said, quoted by tempo.co.  

Text 4

What I’ve learned: Activist Tiza Mafira

[https://www.thejakartapost.com/culture/2022/10/10/what-ive-learned-presenter-and-activist-tiza-mafira.html.]

Zack Petersen (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta   ●   Tue, October 11, 2022

‘What I’ve learned’ is a new column that presents candid interviews with policymakers,
artists, activists and business people on facing challenges and making a difference. Tiza
Mafira is the star of Pulau Plastik (Plastic Island), a documentary on plastic pollution, and is
one of Indonesia’s leading environmental activists and the driving force behind some of the
country’s most consequential policies on single-use plastics.

The lawyer and mother of two shared what she learned from more than two decades of
fighting to save our planet. The following are excerpts from the interview. I haven't seen
myself on Netflix. I saw the movie in the theaters twice, but never on Netflix.

I got recognized once in Bali. I was walking down the street and this woman swerved and
stopped on her motorbike in front of me and asked, “Excuse me, excuse me. Are you Tiza
Mafira, from Pulau Plastik?” I was frozen. I probably came off as rude. But it was the first
time I had ever been recognized. And I was so shocked. The plastic crisis is the climate crisis.
They’re all intertwined.  Social behavior is shaped either by corporate marketing or
policy. And I don’t want to change the world through corporate marketing, so I am going to
change it through policy.

Once we got the plastic bag bans out in Jakarta, there was 80 percent compliance. Everyone
came to the supermarket one day and you couldn’t get a plastic bag anymore. They didn’t
have a choice. And guess what, nobody died. My kids push back a little. Whenever we go to
the supermarket, they want Kinder Joy. But I won’t buy it because it’s plastic. And when we
go out to dinner, sometimes the drinks come to the table with the straws already in them
and my 7-year old rolls her eyes and says, “Yes, I know […] we’re killing the turtles.” But she
also says stuff like, “Mommy, I like your job […]. You’re saving the world.” There are a million
things I could list. Don’t use single-use plastic, take the bus, don’t buy into fast fashion, but
none of them is going to change the system unless everyone taps into the set of skills they
already have. 

People always ask what they can do to save the planet and I always say the same thing:
Identify what you’re good at and use that to save the planet. I don’t want to give people an
easy way out. Because we could all be doing more. If you’re a lawyer, use those skills to help
the planet. Same thing if you are an accountant, use those skills.  You have to have the
courage to tell the truth.  People don’t care as much about the future as we think.

Despite our lively imaginations and our intellect, we aren't able to think about our
immediate future. Because money gives us the immediate things that we need in life.
Because the things required to save the environment now won’t give us immediate results.
We are killing the planet.  It doesn’t stop with the movie. The movie is just a tool toward a
bigger scope of campaigns.

We have bigger goals.  In terms of activism the hard road is upstream policy work. The world
that doesn't get seen is the boring stuff. The technical assistance to the government, all the
documents that get drafted, all the emails that get sent.  Downstream community
movement gives pressure for the upstream policy to change. You can’t separate them. Both
have risks. You have to do both. If you are only downstream, nothing will change upstream. 
I came into this work thinking what a lot of people think, which is if you want the world to
change people need to be making profit in order to change. I was a corporate lawyer. I tried
to help companies who said they were going to be sustainable or make money out of being
green.  We don’t do beach clean-ups. We do brand audits. It’s a network of communities
who pick up litter on the beach and we list what brand it is. The top 3 polluters are always
Coke and Pepsi and other beverage companies. 

Isn’t it sad that we are littering the world in the name of empty calories?   There's a thing
called “plastic credit”. All the fast-moving consumer goods companies can pay to get the
plastic cleaned off the beaches. You pick it up and weigh it and they pay you. They are paying
you to pick up their plastic. You pick it up and a plastics-producing company will pay for it.
And they get to claim that they’ve reduced plastic.  Maybe 16-year-old me would have
believed in stuff like plastic credit. Current me knows this doesn't solve the root of the
problem.

Companies should be thinking, “What can we do to prevent our products from ending up on
the beach in the first place.” The root of the problem is that you are producing and
effectively marketing something nobody needs, and you are littering the world in the
process. Policymakers and companies tend to blame the consumer, but I don’t think the
consumer is the problem. How is it that we can blame coastal communities whose beaches
are littered with plastic? There are all these communities upcycling, making handmade crafts
out of sachets. But every day there is more and more plastic produced. It won't end.   I’m not
discouraging people from changing. I want people to know they matter. And I want them to
realize they can change the system, not just themselves. 

People aren’t treating this with the urgency needed. We don’t have 30 years. I am being
asked about the plastic crisis. But this is a climate crisis. Plastic is embedded in the climate
crisis. This is a real issue. If we keep the petrochemistry running they are going to need oil
and gas and all of the emissions from that is going to contribute to the climate crisis. The
more we churn out products we don’t need, the more we are contributing to the climate
crisis. 

There’s a problem with capitalism in general. They’re asking you to consume more than
what you need.  Buy only what you need. But more importantly, you need to understand
what it is you need. People today are decoupled now from understanding what it is they
need and what it is they want.  Humans are really bad at differentiating from what they
really need. Animals are great at it.  We are intelligent enough to understand marketing, but
not smart enough to understand and see what is behind marketing. We think in order to
survive this depression, I need retail therapy. 

If you’ve stopped buying fast fashion, for example, you need to talk about it. It’s rare for
people to take that stand, so you should talk about it. In order to change the system. You
need to change and you need to take a stand. But you need to be vocal about taking a stand.
There is accountability in being vocal.  I don’t want to change people. I want to change the
system in which they live.  Some people will care about the environment and some won’t.
For me the goal is to build a system that makes change convenient to all people, whether
they care or not. 

make a conclusion in your book from each text by answering

these:

WHAT - WHO - WHEN - WHERE - WHY - HOW?