The Immigration Director General Ronny F. Sompie said it would implement the new policy starting this year.

“If we can do it this year, we will implement it, since all we have to do is change the validity period; we’re currently still studying the implication of such a policy,” said Ronny in Batam, Riau Islands, on Wednesday during his visit to the immigration counter at the Public Service Mall (MPP).

Read also: Japan passport overtakes Singapore’s as world’s most powerful

Ronny said the 10-year passport validity offered a solution when the high demand for passports from the public no longer matched the capability of the Immigration Directorate General.

There are currently 125 immigration offices across Indonesia and several counters at MPPs and immigration working units that issue new passports, said Ronny, who did not elaborate on the demand.

“The Law and Human Rights Ministry’s Research and Development Agency is currently helping us to study [the impact] of extending the validity period to 10 years,” said Ronny, adding that the number of passport pages would not change.

The accident occurred near the Hyatt Regency Sydney in the city centre on Thursday (May 31).

The valet was trying to park the Porsche when, instead of reversing, the car reportedly accelerated into the back of the Subaru SUV and ended up underneath, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

The authorities had to cut the driver out of the car as a large crowd watched during the morning rush hour, Australian Broadcasting Corp online said.

“Obviously the staff member was embarrassed and a little bit shocked, it kind of scooped the other car up, but the main thing is that he’s OK.”

A witness told the ABC: “I heard this revving and this bang and turned around and the Porsche was literally underneath this other car. It was crazy.”

Another witness, Jonathon Bayle, said: “When I first saw this, I thought it was being shot for a TV show or a movie, but apparently it’s real.”

    Onlookers gasped and applauded as Arkady Babchenko re-appeared on Wednesday, introduced by the head of Ukraine’s security service, who said the murder had been staged in order to foil an attempt on his life by Moscow.

Less than 24 hours earlier, Ukraine said the reporter had died from three gunshots to the back in the stairwell of his apartment building in a contract-style killing in a case that provoked an outpouring of grief and a diplomatic spat.

“Thanks to this operation we were able to foil a cynical plot and document how the Russian security service was planning for this crime,” security service head Vasyl Grytsak said at the press conference.

Grytsak announced authorities had arrested the alleged mastermind of the plot, saying a Ukrainian citizen named only by the initial G. had offered to pay a hitman to carry out the killing after being recruited by Russian special forces and paid $40,000.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko later met Babchenko and wrote triumphantly on Facebook that “millions of people are celebrating” the journalist’s new lease of life.

The planned attack was “organised from Russian territory” with the aim of “destabilising the situation in Ukraine” and “killing one whom Russia fears most of all”, he said.

“Thanks to Arkady and the Ukrainian security chiefs, for not allowing this scenario to be carried out in our country.”

Anton Guerachtchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, likened the plot to a story from a crime novel, saying on Facebook that “Sherlock Holmes successfully used the method of staging his own death to efficiently solve complicated crimes”.

But Moscow, later Wednesday, condemned the plot, with the foreign ministry saying “now the true motives are beginning to be revealed for this staging, which is totally obviously yet another anti-Russian provocation”.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said it was “great news” that Babchenko was alive but on Twitter she slammed the “propagandistic effect” of the set-up.

– Put wife through ‘hell’ –

Grytsak, during his press conference, thanked Babchenko and his family, who he said were in the loop about the secret operation.

The reporter, however, apologised to his wife for putting her through “this hell she had to live through for three days…but there was no other option”.

He later defiantly promised on Twitter to “die at 96 after dancing on Putin’s grave”.

“God, it got so boring being dead,” he wrote. “Good morning.”

News of the “death” of the prominent Russian war correspondent and former soldier set off a series of recriminations between Kiev and Moscow, and pictures and flowers were laid by mourners at the Russian embassy in Kiev.

Ukrainian officials led by Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman accused Russia of being behind the killing of the Kremlin critic, a charge that Moscow batted back.

– ‘Pathetic stunt’ –

Reporters Without Borders also condemned the faked death.

“It is pathetic and regrettable that the Ukrainian police have played with the truth, whatever their motive… for the stunt,” Christophe Deloire, the head of the Paris-based media watchdog, told AFP.

And Russian investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov, a former colleague of Babchenko, also questioned the value of the operation.

“To me, it’s crossing a line big time. Babchenko is a journalist not a policeman, for Christ sake, and part of our job is trust, whatever Trump & Putin say about fake news,” he wrote on Twitter.

“I’m glad he is alive, but he undermined even further the credibility of journalists and the media,” he added.

– ‘Repeated death threats’ –

A number of Kremlin critics have been killed in Ukraine in recent years, with one gunned down on a Kiev street in broad daylight and another whose car exploded.

Babchenko fought in Russia’s two Chechen campaigns in the 1990s and early 2000s before becoming a war correspondent and author. He repeatedly said he faced death threats.

He has contributed to a number of media outlets including top opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta and is an avid blogger, accusing Russian authorities of killing Kremlin critics and unleashing wars in Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere.

He wrote about his experience as a young soldier in the Chechen campaigns in a book published in English under the title “One Soldier’s War”.

Babchenko left Russia in February 2017 after receiving threats, living first in the Czech Republic, then in Israel, before moving to Kiev.

He has hosted a programme on the Crimean Tatar TV station ATR for the past year.

Babchenko made a name for himself with his poignant reportages from the frontlines, including the conflict in eastern Ukraine that has killed more than 10,000 people.

In recent years his increasingly bombastic posts pushed the boundaries of good taste and some of his colleagues and followers stopped reading him on Facebook.

“Hawaiian Volcano Observatory reports that lava from several fissures continues to advance toward the Kapoho area,” a Civil Defense message said, referencing an area that was devastated during a 1960 eruption.

“Residents of Kapoho Beach Lots and Vacationland are advised to evacuate. You are at risk of being isolated due to possible lava inundation,” the message added.

Authorities had earlier advised that lava flow from Fissure 8 had blocked a major highway and caused an electricity blackout, and recommended evacuations of other nearby areas as telephone communications were cut.

Meanwhile, a 4.5 magnitude earthquake with an epicenter at Kilauea itself was recorded on Wednesday at 11:00 am (0000 GMT). Although it was felt strongly in the area, authorities dismissed the possibility of a tsunami.

Local authorities could not confirm to AFP how many people would be evacuated. Around 2,000 residents have already abandoned their homes as a result of the eruption, which has destroyed 71 houses so far.

The lava has engulfed an area of approximately 9.5 square kilometers, with the majority ending up in the ocean, creating so-called “laze” — acid fumes created when lava meets water.

Kilauea is one of five volcanoes on Hawaii’s Big Island.

Scientists believe that volcanic activity can be a precursor to a major eruption, similar to the Kilauea eruption in the mid-1920s.

The four-month expedition in the Antarctic ended in March after the fleet killed 333 minke whales, according to a report submitted by Japanese authorities to the International Whaling Commission last month.

Of those, 122 were pregnant, according to the Japanese report, with dozens more immature whales among those killed.

Humane Society International, a conservationist group, called the figures “a shocking statistic and sad indictment on the cruelty of Japan’s whale hunt.”

“It is further demonstration, if needed, of the truly gruesome and unnecessary nature of whaling operations, especially when non-lethal surveys have been shown to be sufficient for scientific needs,” said the group’s senior program manager, Alexia Wellbelove.

Japan is a signatory to the International Whaling Commission, which has maintained a moratorium on hunting whales since 1986.

But Tokyo exploits a loophole allowing whales to be killed for “scientific research” and claims it is trying to prove the population is large enough to sustain a return to commercial hunting.

It makes no secret of the fact that whale meat ends up on dinner tables.

Japan has hunted whales for centuries, and their meat was a key source of protein in the immediate post-World War II years when the country was desperately poor.

But consumption has declined significantly in recent decades, with much of the population saying they rarely or never eat whale meat.

In 2014, the International Court of Justice ordered Tokyo to end the Antarctic hunt, saying it found permits issued by Japan were “not for purposes of scientific research”.

Tokyo cancelled the hunt the following year, but resumed it in 2016, also killing around 300 minke whales.

“It’s going to be a big event. When you see me on the news, you’ll know who I am,” Cruz said, filming with his cellphone.

“My name is Nik, and I’m going to be the next school shooter of 2018,” said the 19-year-old, in clips apparently in part filmed on February 14, the day of the shooting, which killed 17 students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

“My goal is at least 20 people,” he added, speaking in a calm, nonchalant voice in an outdoor setting.

“You’re all going to die. Pew pew pew pew pew. Ah yeah. Can’t wait.”

Cruz explained his plan to take an Uber taxi, armed with his semi-automatic AR-15 rifle, to his old school. The video also revealed he initially intended to shoot down at students in a courtyard.

“All the kids in school will run in fear and hide. From the wrath of my power they will know who I am,” Cruz said.

“I am nothing, I am no one, my life is nothing and meaningless,” added the shooter, who was arrested soon after the massacre.

“I hate everyone and everything. With the power of my AR, you will all know who I am.”

Cruz faces the death penalty if he is convicted of first-degree murder.