Jakarta (Antara) - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ordered all ministries and relevant institutions to put out forest fires in Sumatra in one month. "The President has given us directives that hotspots and haze in Sumatra should be overcome immediately," Chief Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa told a press conference after a cabinet ministers' plenary meeting here on Thursday. Hatta said that the smokes which caused disturbance and reached neighboring countries should be overcome in one month. "Overcome the haze problem in one month," the President was quoted by Hatta as saying. Environment Minister Balthasar Kambuaya said that his side was trying to put out fires on peat land, adding that harder work must be done to extinguish fire on peat land than on other types of land. "Our team in the field is doing its job. Because they work on a peat land it takes them long time before they could overcome it. We have to use artificial rain to put it out because it happened on a 3 to 4 meter-thick peat," the minister said. He said that the relevant institutions were discussing efforts to produce man-made rain in the near future. "They are discussing that step now. They discussed it this morning," he said. Indonesia's foreign minister Marty Natalegawa said on Wednesday that the Singapore government had conveyed its concern over fires in Sumatra that had caused haze in that country. "Singapore's foreign minister (K. Shanmugam) has communicated with us and each of us has conveyed information about the impact of the cross-border problem and measures would be taken," he said. (*)

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Editor : Tunggul Susilo


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