President Leaves For Bali

Jakarta, June 25 (Antara) - In the company of First Lady Ani Yudhoyono, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his entourage left Jakarta on Tuesday for Denpasar for a two-day working visit to Bali until Wednesday. The president left Halim Perdanakusuma airport at 11.45 am before taking a few minutes of his time to give directive to a joint team of 1,400 personnel from the Indonesian military, Police and the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), assigned to put out forest fires at several areas in Sumatra. "The joint team is assigned to put out fires in several areas, such as Bengkalis, Dumai, Pelalawan, Rokan Hilir, Siak, Rokan Hulu and Pekanbaru," BNPB Chief Syamsul Maarif said here on Tuesday when seeing off the team. He said more than 200 standard-size hot spots were detected across Sumatra. The central government has planned to send a total of 2,252 personnel to put out the fires in Sumatra. They comprise 600 officers from the Army, 600 from the Marine, 630 from the Special Forces Corps, 320 from the Police`s Mobile Brigade, and 102 from the BNPB and the forestry ministry. Seven Hercules planes, one C-295 and CN-235 are deployed to help the fire control operation.