Month: June 2022

Western leaders signaled confirmation of their attendance at the November summit of the Group of 20 in Bali, despite initial boycott threats, and the Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin could possibly participate virtually at the gathering.

In a call with reporters Thursday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said they would decide “at the necessary time” on whether Putin would attend in person.

Putin’s potential remote participation at the summit could solve a diplomatic headache for host country Indonesia, which has been under Western pressure to kick Moscow out of the gathering of the world’s 20 largest economies, with U.S. President Joe Biden and other Group of Seven leaders previously stating they would not attend unless Putin was excluded.

As this year’s G-20 chair, Indonesian President Joko Widodo has been on a diplomatic blitz trying to salvage the summit. He met Putin in Moscow on Thursday following his Wednesday meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, and with G-7 leaders in Germany earlier this week.

Jakarta announced in April that it had invited Russia, a G-20 member. It has since sought to bridge the gap between the West’s effort to isolate Putin at various global forums as punishment for the invasion of Ukraine, and the interest of middle-power members, including India, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico and Saudi Arabia, who want the summit’s agenda to center on post-pandemic recovery.

Zelenskyy to attend

Zelenskyy told Widodo on Wednesday that he would be attending the summit, depending on the status of the Russian invasion and the “composition of participants in the event.”

In April, Widodo invited Zelenskyy, despite Ukraine’s not being a member. Biden had pressed for Zelenskyy to be invited to the G-20 if other members chose not to expel Moscow.

No boycott

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau became the latest G-7 leader to say his country would take part in the gathering in November.

“It’s too important that we be there to counteract the voice and the lies that Russia will perhaps be putting forward,” he said Thursday.

Trudeau said he expected the other G-7 countries – the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Japan — to take part even if Russia remained a member of the G-20 group.

The White House has not responded to VOA’s request for confirmation on whether Biden will be attending.

Earlier this week, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged Western leaders not to boycott. He questioned the wisdom of Western leaders’ vacating their seats at the meeting and leaving “the whole argument to China, to Russia.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and G-7 host German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also indicated that they would attend. Scholz said Tuesday that there had been “great unity” at the G-7 leaders’ meeting and that “we do not want to drive the G-20 apart.”Italian view

Meanwhile, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi indicated that Jakarta had assured Western leaders they would not be seated at the same table as Putin.

“President Widodo rules it out,” Draghi told reporters at the end of the G-7 summit. “He was categorical, he [Putin] will not come.” Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov fired back, “Draghi does not decide this.”

Jakarta has not responded to VOA’s request to confirm Widodo’s statement on Putin’s plans.

Lucas Myers, Southeast Asia analyst at the Wilson Center, said Widodo has a chance to enhance his international prestige if he pulls off the balancing act.

“If successful in achieving a productive summit that manages to placate both Russia and the G-7, it will demonstrate Indonesia’s growing role internationally and Jakarta’s ability to balance the complex rivalries of an increasingly multipolar and tense world,” Myers told VOA.

Messenger

In a joint press conference with Putin after their meeting at the Kremlin Thursday, Widodo said via an interpreter that he had conveyed a message from Zelenskyy to Putin and had offered to play peace broker between the two.

Widodo did not provide details, and neither side said what the message entailed.

The Indonesian leader said Russia had agreed to open a sea route for Ukrainian wheat exports amid escalating concerns about global food shortages.

“I really appreciate President Putin, who has said he’ll provide security guarantees for food and fertilizer supplies from both Ukraine and Russia — this is good news,” Widodo said.

Widodo said he supported the U.N. proposal to open a Black Sea route for Ukrainian grain exports as well as Russian food and fertilizer exports. The U.N. has been in talks with both countries and Turkey, which has suggested that ships could be guided around sea mines by establishing safe corridors in the Black Sea.

Tens of millions of people across the world, including in Indonesia and other developing nations, are at risk of hunger as the conflict disrupted shipments of grain from Ukraine and fertilizer from Russia, both key producers.

Source: Voice of America

Indonesian President Joko Widodo, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the Group of 20 leading rich and developing nations, is visiting Ukraine and Russia for meetings with the leaders of the two warring nations after attending the Group of Seven summit in Germany.

Widodo has sought to maintain a neutral position since the start of the war, and he hopes his efforts will lead to a cease-fire and eventual direct talks between the two leaders.

What does Widodo hope to achieve?

Widodo said he wants to encourage Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to start a dialogue on ending the war, which has caused global food shortages and surges in commodity prices.

“My mission is to build peace, because the war must be stopped and (its effects) on the food supply chain must be lifted,” Widodo said, “I will invite President Putin to open a dialogue and, as soon as possible, to carry out a cease-fire and stop the war.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has choked global markets and contributed to higher prices of meat, dairy products, cereals, sugar and vegetable oils.

“These visits are not only important for Indonesians but also for other developing countries in order to prevent the people of developing and low-income countries from falling into extreme poverty and hunger,” Widodo said.

Why does the war in Ukraine matter to Widodo?

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said it’s important to achieve a resumption of grain exports from Ukraine and food and fertilizer exports from Russia to end shortages and reduce prices.

Rising costs of cooking oil prompted the Indonesian government to temporarily ban exports of palm oil products amid a series of student protests against skyrocketing food prices. Indonesia resumed exports of crude palm oil a month later.

Indonesia and Malaysia are the world’s largest exporters of palm oil, accounting for 85% of global production.

Why might Putin and Zelenskyy listen to Widodo?

As this year’s G-20 president, Indonesia has sought to remain neutral in dealing with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has been guarded in its comments.

Widodo has said he offered Indonesian support in peace efforts to both Putin and Zelenskyy, a move seen as an attempt to unite the G-20 forum divided by the ongoing conflict.

The United States and its allies in the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations — a subset of the G-20 — have sought to punish Putin in as many ways as possible, including by threatening a boycott of the G-20 summit to be held later this year in Bali unless Putin is removed from the forum.

Widodo has invited Zelenskyy to the summit along with Putin in hopes it will appease proponents of both Ukraine and Russia and limit any distraction from the forum’s other agenda items. Ukraine is not a member of the forum, but Russia is.

What are his chances of success?

Widodo will be the first Asian leader to visit the warring countries.

His efforts come weeks after Russia said it was looking over an Italian proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Talks between Russia and Ukraine to end the hostilities have essentially ground to a halt.

The Ukrainian and Russian foreign ministers met for inconclusive talks in Turkey in March, followed by a meeting of the delegations in Istanbul, which also failed to bring about concrete results.

Gilang Kembara, an international politics researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, an Indonesian think tank, is pessimistic that Putin will listen to Widodo to find a peaceful solution to the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.

“The chance for that is very slim,” said Kembara, “Indonesia does not have great experience as a peace broker outside the Southeast Asia region.”

Source: Voice of America

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is made up of 10 member-states: Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR), Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. While ASEAN’s purposes and goals touch on various sectors, such as economics, culture, academic research, and industry, its member-states have also declared that, as a regional grouping, they will promote regional peace, stability, mutual assistance, and collaboration. All of these underpin the ASEAN efforts to better respond to natural and manmade disasters and to mitigate disaster impacts through coordinated action.

The Indian Ocean (“Boxing Day”) Tsunami of December 2004 caused significant loss and damage to Southeast Asia. Although countries outside the region also suffered, the devastation in places like Indonesia and Thailand propelled these countries and their fellow ASEAN member-states into a process to formalize and institutionalize their individual and collective approaches to disaster management (DM). Of key importance was the swift completion of negotiations to formulate the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER), the legal basis for ASEAN regional DM. AADMER was signed in 2005 and came into force after ratification in 2009.

In the past 15 years, ASEAN has prioritized building capacity to address natural hazards such as floods, drought, and typhoons. Figure 1 displays a 10-year summary of disasters that have struck the ASEAN region. The ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre) classifies an event as a disaster if more than 100 persons in more than one sub-district were affected. Data from the AHA Centre’s ASEAN Disaster Information Network (ADINet) shows that 85% of disasters in the ASEAN region are caused by hydrometeorological hazards.

Floods, storms, and wind account for large proportions of displacement compared to other disasters. Floods are the most frequent type of disaster whereas wind-related disasters constitute the biggest losses in terms of economic damage, displacement, and number of affected people. ASEAN has succeeded in developing institutions not only for addressing the threat posed by natural hazards but also for building resilience into communities at risk.

ASEAN capacity is not simply static – formal agreements or summits – but, rather, it takes the form of ASEAN DM work programs and plans, regular emergency simulation exercises, and the establishment of the AHA Centre and Disaster Emergency Logistics System for ASEAN (DELSA). Although these developments have enabled ASEAN to be a central actor for addressing natural hazards, each member-state retains its own local and national processes and agencies, and it is in the coordination of these national processes that ASEAN plays a key role.

Despite progress on building common frameworks, policies, and plans for disaster risk reduction (DRR), mitigation, and response, as a whole ASEAN continues to address gaps. For example, during the response to the Coronavirus Disease – 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, many regional initiatives started out as ad hoc projects as there was no single regional entity tasked with responding to public health emergencies.

Nonetheless, as the pandemic wore on, evidence of coordinated efforts emerged. In February 2020, once it became clear that COVID-19 was going to become a significant problem, Vietnam (as ASEAN Chair) issued the Chairman’s Statement on ASEAN’s Collective Response to the Outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019. Shortly afterward, a Special ASEAN Coordinating Council (ACC) on COVID-19 was convened and established the ACC Working Group on Public Health Emergencies. During the Special ASEAN Summit on Coronavirus Disease 2019 in April 2020, there was a renewed push for increasing the mandate of the AHA Centre to cover public health emergencies, and the AHA Centre opened DELSA warehouses for utilization of relief stockpiles such as mobile storage units, hygiene kits, and prefabricated offices. In the end, while ASEAN solidarity was a critical component in the pandemic response, it was insufficient to overcome the deep material and technical shortfalls, and most assistance was bilateral with China, Singapore, the United States (U.S.), and Vietnam providing aid to ASEAN member-states directly. Given the successes and shortcomings observed in ASEAN’s collective DM actions in recent years, ASEAN member-states continue to invest in ASEAN capacity. Continuing efforts are focused on enhancing AHA Centre capacity, building training and certification programs for DM practitioners and professionals, and incorporating extra-regional and international partners in ASEAN planning and rehearsal processes to ensure ASEAN and its member states are integrated into the global humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) community of practice.

Source: Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance

Mr Yoshiaki Yoshida President and CEO of Advantest Corporation,

Mr Ricky Sim, Managing Director and CEO of Advantest Singapore,

Ms Jennifer Teong, Member, Board of Singapore Semiconductor Industry Association,

Ms Georgina Phua, Deputy Principal of Singapore Polytechnic,

Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

1. I am honoured to be here today to witness the launch of the Singapore Polytechnic-Advantest Test Engineering Centre, or SP-Advantest TEC in short.

Strengthening the Semiconductor Industry in Singapore

2. Singapore has developed as a key player in the semiconductor industry since the opening of its first semiconductor facility in 1968.

We are one of the most diverse semiconductor industries in Asia Pacific, developing products ranging from integrated circuits, disk media and storage devices to micro-electromechanical systems.

Singapore’s semiconductor industry accounts for about 5% of the world’s wafer fabrication capacity and manufactures a fifth of global semiconductor equipments.

3. For Singapore to continue as a key global player in the sector, we need to strengthen our semiconductor ecosystem. Developing a skilled and agile talent pool will be instrumental in driving innovation in production and supply chain management for this industry.

Deepening Strategic Partnerships with Industry

4. To ensure our workforce is well-equipped to meet the rapidly evolving demands of the sector, it is necessary for our training ecosystem to work closely with the industry partners.

5. Our polytechnics and the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) work with industry partners to offer practice-oriented curricula aimed at preparing their learners for the workplace. The curricula is regularly refreshed to equip learners with new skills needed for this industry.

For instance, SP’s School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering has an Advisory Committee comprising industry leads and champions. In addition to making recommendations and providing advice and support, the advisory committee ensures programmes offered are current and relevant to businesses, industry, labour and professional development practices.

Some examples of refreshed courses include the Microelectronics option offered in SP’s Diploma in Electrical & Electronic Engineering.

The Advisory Committee suggested to include equipment maintenance in the Microelectronics option as they observed that many graduates from the diploma were employed as equipment engineers in the wafer fab industry and needed the relevant skills to maintain equipment in the wafer fab process.

6. SP has a long history with the semiconductor sector and has developed close links with semiconductor companies since the mid-1980s.

I am encouraged that SP and Advantest (Singapore) Pte Ltd have come together as strategic partners to establish a Test Engineering Centre, or TEC, to train the semiconductor workforce in Singapore.

We have heard SP’s and Advantest’s plans to co-develop curricula and co-create authentic hands-on experiences, internships and job stint opportunities.

SP students are placed with semiconductor companies, such as Advantest, Globalfoundries Singapore and Infineon, for a 22-week internship.

Siva Meyiappan, a student in SP’s Diploma in Electrical & Electronic Engineering is currently an intern in Advantest as part of the SP-Advantest partnership. Siva has picked up essential skills in the semiconductor industry, such as data analysis and solution ideation.

He has also experienced the ways to ensure safety protection of electrostatic discharge on the production floor and equipment maintenance works on test handlers.

The SP-Advantest partnership will allow more students such as Siva to experience such hands-on experience within the SP campus.

Modules in SP’s semiconductor courses also comprise weekly practical sessions in their Wafer Fab Lab, IC Design Lab and in future, the new SP-Advantest TEC.

I understand that the TEC is equipped with an advanced and scalable system, with test handlers which are widely adopted by the semiconductor testing industry.

The SP-Advantest TEC will play an important role in developing a robust and adaptable talent pipeline for the semiconductor industry, further enriching our semiconductor ecosystem.

Supporting Adult Learners in the Semiconductor Industry

7. A strong training ecosystem for the semiconductor industry goes beyond ensuring students are equipped with relevant skills upon graduation.

It is important to also support adult learners in the semiconductor industry in their efforts to upskill, in the spirit of lifelong learning.

8. This is where a strong partnership between the IHLs and the Trade Associations and Chambers, or TACs, is key.

TACs play an important role in consolidating and communicating industry needs to the academia. They help initiate collaborations between companies and the IHLs on courses for workers to upgrade their skills, and also promote internship opportunities in the sector for IHL students.

Such collaborations help to ensure the semiconductor workforce remains industry relevant, in addition to keeping our fresh graduates industry-ready.

One TAC in the semiconductor industry is the Singapore Semiconductor Industry Association, or SSIA, with whom SP has been working very closely to conduct joint short courses for adult learners in the industry.

I am delighted to hear of SP’s partnership with SSIA and am eager to learn about the rich and diverse elements of the semiconductor industry in Singapore.

Conclusion

9. I congratulate SP and Advantest on this exciting collaboration and look forward to its contribution towards accelerating talent development and strengthening the local semiconductor ecosystem.

10. Thank you!

Source: Ministry of Education, Singapore