A small plane with five people on board went missing yesterday in Indonesia’s easternmost province of Papua, officials said. The PT Associated Mission Aviation plane went missing on a short flight from Wamena, the capital of the mountainous district of Jayawijaya, to Derakma in neighboring Nduga district. A search by helicopter and a similar plane from AMA was hampered by bad weather. Rescue teams from the army and police were deployed to search on the ground. The plane was carrying two pilots — one Indonesian and one from the Netherlands — and three Indonesian passengers. Indonesia has been plagued by transportation accidents because of overcrowding on ferries, aging infrastructure and poorly enforced safety standards. Flying is the only practical way of accessing many areas in the mountainous and jungle-clad easternmost provinces of Papua and West Papua.
Thai body wants social media regulations
A policy-writing body advising Thailand’s military government has suggested imposing stringent restrictions on internet usage, intended in part to identify the posters of all content on services such as Facebook and YouTube. The package of wide-ranging measures, if adopted, could put Thailand’s restrictions closer to those of nations such as China and Iran, which try to tightly control citizens’ access to information. The proposal suggests initial steps including requiring that all cellphone numbers be registered with not only Thai users’ 13-digit citizen identification numbers — as is already the case — but also their fingerprints and facial recognition data.
