JAKARTA, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) — Indonesia’s budget airline Lion Air will open its new route to Hong Kong next month in the company’s ambition to expand businesses to regional level.
    Lion will use its new Boeing 737-900ER to serve the Hong Kong route once a day from the East Java capital of Surabaya.
    Lion spokesman Hasyim Arsal Alhabsi said the company has secured the licenses for its first overseas destination and built a representative office in Hong Kong.
    ”Our targeted passengers are hundreds of thousands of migrant workers and tourists,” he was quoted Monday by leading economic daily Bisnis Indonesia as saying.
    Lion Air said last month it would increase the purchase of Boeing 737-900 to 122 in a new deal to be signed in December from initial orders of 60, of which only a few already arrived.ÂÂ
Source: http://news.xinhuanet.com/
November 13th, 2007
BLITAR, Indonesia, Nov 12, 2007 (AFP) - Indonesian scientists Monday warned residents living on the slopes of a brewing volcano in East Java to keep their distance, after it spewed ash and lava despite a downgraded alert.
Authorities last Thursday modified a warning that Mount Kelut was about to erupt, after it appeared that the volcano was only experiencing a slow eruption and was unlikely to explode.
Volcanic activity is still high, however, with tremors continuing and a lava dome, created by lava oozing through cracks, emerging from the crater like an “island” and continuing to expand.
“Lava is constantly shooting out of the crater. We recommend people keep a distance since there is always the danger of lava material catapulting far from the crater,” volcanologist Agus Budianto told AFP.
“Amazing visuals can be seen from our CCTV (closed-circuit television)… The island is now 250 metres (yards) in diameter and stands 120 metres above the lake surface,” he added.
Residents are being warned to stay at least three kilometres (two miles) from the crater. The danger zone was a 10-kilometre radius around the crater when the volcano was on its top alert, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people who have since returned home.
Smoke plumed up to two kilometres out of Mount Kelut on Sunday afternoon and ash covered a number of villages around the volcano.
“We have not made our own observations, but we heard reports of ash rain in several surrounding villages,” volcanologist Jajang said from a monitoring post near the nearby town of Kediri.
Several volcanoes in Indonesia, which sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” where continental plates collide, have roared to life in recent weeks.
The archipelagic nation is home to about 130 active volcanoes, including 21 on Java.
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Source: http://www.reliefweb.int/
November 13th, 2007