Indonesia is to tighten customs checks at small ports to crack down on the illegal import of second-hand shoes, the Ministry of Industry said yesterday, responding to a Reuters report that found footwear donated to a recycling scheme in Singapore was shipped to Indonesia.
A six-month Reuters investigation published on Feb. 25 found that 10 pairs of shoes the news agency donated to a recycling scheme run by US petrochemicals giant Dow and the Singaporean government were exported for resale in Indonesia.
Reuters reporters, using location trackers hidden inside the soles of shoes, recovered sneakers it donated in Singapore at second-hand goods markets in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, and on Batam, an island 19km south of Singapore.
Photo: Reuters
In 2015, Indonesia banned the import of second-hand clothing and footwear over concerns about hygiene, as well as to protect the local textile industry.
In a statement titled “dismantling the scandal of illegal imports of used shoes,” the ministry said that as a result of the Reuters story it would increase checks at ports to intercept any illegal second-hand shoe shipments.
“This incident shows that the illegal import of used shoes is carried out in an organized manner and misuses social projects,” Indonesian Minister of Industry Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita was quoted as saying in the statement.
“The practice of illegal importation of used shoes must be stopped, because it has a bad impact on the domestic footwear industry,” Kartasasmita said.
The ministry is also proposing new incentives for local footwear manufacturers importing raw materials for their businesses, and imposing tighter regulations on businesses importing textiles, the statement said.
In July 2021, Dow and Sport Singapore, a government agency, launched a program to grind down old shoes with rubberized soles into granules to be used to make new jogging tracks and playgrounds. The public donated tens of thousands of shoes to the scheme.
On Monday last week, two days after the Reuters story was published, Dow and Sport Singapore issued a statement apologizing to the public for a “lapse” in its supply chain, which had led to some shoes meant for recycling being shipped to Indonesia.
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
Through a basement door in southeastern Turkey lies a sprawling underground city — perhaps the country’s largest — which one historian believes dates back to the ninth century BC. Archeologists stumbled upon the city-under-a-city “almost by chance” after an excavation of house cellars in Midyat, near the Syrian border, led to the discovery of a vast labyrinth of caves in 2020. Workers have already cleared more than 50 subterranean rooms, all connected by 120m of tunnel carved out of the rock. However, that is only a fraction of the site’s estimated 900,000m2 area, which would make it the largest underground city in Turkey’s
As Paris hosts the Summer Olympics, undocumented Chinese sex worker Hua says increased police patrols are threatening her livelihood. “I really feel under pressure, I’m constantly scared. Every day, there are police checks,” the 55-year-old said, using a different name so as not to be recognized. “So I go out less and less to work.” About 40,000 people — the overwhelming majority women — sell or are exploited for sex in France, according to government and charity estimates. Under French law, selling sex is allowed, but it is illegal to exploit someone or pay for sex, placing the criminal responsibility on pimps and
‘RADICAL LEFT LUNATIC’: Trump earlier criticized Kamala Harris, his new opponent, calling her ‘the ultra-liberal driving force behind every single Biden catastrophe’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called on voters to defend the country’s democracy as he explained his decision to drop his bid for re-election and throw his support behind US Vice President Kamala Harris. As “the defense of democracy is more important than any title,” Biden said that he was stepping aside to deliver an implicit repudiation of former US president Donald Trump in his first public address since his announcement on Sunday that he would not be the Democratic candidate. He did not name Trump, whom he has called an existential threat to democracy. “Nothing, nothing can come in the