Australia welcomes arrest of alleged key Indonesian people smuggler

By Harry Pearl

SYDNEY, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Indonesian police have arrested an alleged key people smuggler who has targeted Australia since 1999, the Australian government said on Saturday.

Abraham Louhenapessy, also known as Captain Bram, was arrested in West Jakarta on Friday and will be transported to the Indonesian island of Rote to face court, said an Australian government statement.

"We know that Captain Bram is a key player in the people smuggling networks across Indonesia and we congratulate the Indonesian National Police on their determination to stop this criminal from risking the lives of anymore vulnerable people," Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said in the statement.

Louhenapessy was arrested over a failed attempt to send 65 mostly Sri Lankan asylum seekers to Australia from Indonesia in May 2015, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Australian Minister for Justice Michael Keenan said Louhenapessy could face up to 10 years in prison.

"We are extremely pleased this notorious people smuggler has been stopped... but we know there are more criminal people smugglers out there and we will continue to work with our regional partners to bring them to justice," Keenan said in the joint statement.

In its fight to stop people smugglers, Australia has adopted a tough asylum seeker policy which sees it intercept boats at sea and ship asylum seekers to Australian-funded detention camps in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. They are never eligible to be resettled in Australia.

The United Nations and human rights groups have called for the closure of the camps, which have been rocked by riots, deaths, self-harm by detainees and reports of sexual abuse.

(Reporting by Harry Pearl; Editing by Michael Perry)

North Korea feels global pressure but not completely ostracized

File photo of portraits of former leader Kim Jong-il and former president Kim Il-sung inside a North Korean flagged ship "Chong Chon Gang" docked at Manzanillo Container Terminal in Colon City Thomson Reuters By Ju-min Park SEOUL (Reuters) - From building statues and training police in Africa to trading with India and Thailand, North Korea is managing to maintain business ties and friendly diplomatic relations with a dwindling number of Cold War-era friends. That is despite being cut off from much of the world for conducting a decade of banned rocket and nuclear tests, including the launch of a rocket last weekend that North Korea says put a satellite into space. The United States and its allies saw the launch as a missile test. Indeed, Pyongyang has been squeezed by layers of U.N. sanctions since 2006 targeting its once-lucrative arms trade and the flow of money that financed its weapons program. China, North Korea's most important ally, as well as Russia have signed up to U.N. Security Council sanctions over the missile and nuclear tests.