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Indonesian rescue services were on Wednesday trying to free a ferry with more than 800 people on board that ran aground on shoals off Indonesia’s southernmost province, one of their officials said.

The KM Sirimau has been stranded for two days with 784 passengers and 55 crew members on board following being stranded during a 184 km crossing in the province of the Lesser Sunda Islands (in Indonesian Nusa Tenggara East).

As the ferry does not appear to be regarding to sink, the rescue operation has so far consisted of trying to free it to allow it to continue its journey without carrying out evacuations. But efforts to dislodge the stuck ferry using a tugboat have so far failed, Maumere town search and rescue chief Mr Sudayana told Kompas TV.

The authorities are waiting for a tug sent by the public shipping company PT Pelni to arrive in the area on Thursday, and if these new attempts end in failure, all passengers will be evacuated, said Mr. Sudayana. “Towing can only take place at rising tide,” he added.

All passengers are doing well, he said.

Accidents at sea are frequent in Indonesia, an archipelago with more than 17,000 islands, whose population relies on ferries and other boats for travel despite insufficient safety standards.

In 2018, some 160 people died when a ferry sank in one of the world’s deepest lakes on the island of Sumatra.

More than 300 people drowned in the sinking of a ferry between Sulawesi and Borneo in 2009.

The World Bank announced on Wednesday that it would spend $12 billion on new projects over the next 15 months to address the global food crisis, which has been aggravated by the war in Ukraine.

The majority of the resources will go to countries in Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Central and South Asia, the institution said in a statement, adding that this should support their agriculture, “ social protection to cushion the effects of rising food prices”, and promote water supply and irrigation projects.

The World Bank also points out that it has 18.7 billion unused dollars which will also be able to be devoted to projects directly linked to food and nutritional security problems.

“In total, this represents more than 30 billion dollars available for the implementation of the fight once morest food insecurity over the next 15 months,” noted the World Bank.

“Rising food prices are having devastating effects on the poorest and most vulnerable,” World Bank President David Malpass said in the statement.

Concerted efforts

“To inform and stabilize markets, it is essential that countries make clear statements now on future production increases in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” he said.

It recommends that countries make “concerted efforts” not only to increase energy and fertilizer supplies, help farmers increase plantings and crop yields, but also to “remove policies that block exports and imports (…) or encourage unnecessary storage”.

In a separate statement, the US Treasury praised the collective action of international financial institutions (IFIs) including the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and development banks, stressing that they were working “quickly” to try to cope with growing food insecurity.

They announced a series of measures on Wednesday, stressing that they might use not only their funding but also their technical know-how.

“This includes taking advantage of existing tools and programs in an accelerated manner (…), reorienting current programs, (…) targeting work that meets immediate needs,” they explained in a press release.

War in Ukraine worsens food crisis

Among their priority objectives: alleviating shortages of fertilizers, supporting food production immediately, investing in agriculture that is resilient to climate change for the future or even promoting free trade.

Even before the war in Ukraine, food insecurity had been aggravated by conflicts, climatic crises and economic crises.

Last year, 193 million people in 53 countries were acutely food insecure, meaning they needed urgent help to survive, according to UN data .

The situation will worsen due to the Russian-Ukrainian war, warn the institutions, while Russia and Ukraine are respectively the first and fifth world exporters of wheat, representing alone 30% of the world supply.

And the worry grows as theIndehit by an exceptional heat wave, announced last Friday a general ban on the export of wheat to ensure food security for its 1.4 billion inhabitants.

Huaxin (1605) stainless steel and power cables have the same price and quantity in their own industries, and they will deploy new energy industries. Indonesia invests in the establishment of a matte nickel plant, and Kaohsiung Port builds a submarine cable plant. The car charging pile manufacturer cooperates to provide cables and has just been included in the MSCI Global Standard Index.

Jiao Youlun, chairman of Huaxin, said that Huaxin’s products are diversified, covering power, materials and raw materials. In response to the future new energy era, the investment layout focuses on the four fields of energy creation, energy storage, transportation energy and energy use, including submarine cables and smart grid cables. And electric vehicle charging pile, nickel matte and other fields.

Huaxin is optimistic that offshore wind power operators will attack the government’s third-stage offshore wind power block development, which requires submarine cables. Huaxin has just leased land in Kaohsiung Port from the Port Authority to build a submarine cable factory. It is expected to start construction in the second half of 2023, complete in 2025, and start trial production in 2026, with a total investment of more than 5 billion yuan.

Huaxin pointed out that the connection between submarine cable technology and certification, and sending it to Europe for certification will take a long time. Huaxin plans to complete the certification by 2027 and provide it for offshore wind turbine operators developing the third block of offshore wind power.

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