Amid seemingly unending local and international crises that continually threaten Bali’s main industry of tourism, that sector has nonetheless remained robust. Yet despite all the swirling negative news worrying travellers’ minds, there is a group of people in Bali that give the island bad international press time and again. We speak primarily of officials working [...]

By Hannah Black The Bali Times SILAKARANG ~ Childcare is a major issue for so many of my friends today. The price of childcare in the UK and the US takes up such a large percentage of people’s wages that I honestly I have no idea how anyone my age can afford to pay for [...]

By Lydia Wilson For The Bali Times KEROBOKAN ~ I was at one of my nieces’ wedding party 10 years ago when I met one of my brother-in-laws whom I hadn’t seen for quite a few years. The moment we greeted each other he straight away said to me: “You are a very lucky person!” [...]

Gearing Up to Face the Future AMERICAN journalism teacher Cliff Hahn tells us he had a really lovely time in Ubud last weekend, working with 35 local kids to introduce them to the principle and practice of journalism. It was a workshop sponsored by the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival – The Bali Times is [...]

By William J. Furney The Bali Times The naysayers are right: the blogosphere is full of horse manure. Never mind the Twittersphere. There’s a Jakarta-based blog I occasionally dip into, as it’s media-centered – whoops! Make that media-centred, as BT from this edition has swapped from US English to the Brit variety – but in [...]

By Dr. Robert Goldman For The Bali Times Longevity News and Review provides readers with the latest information in breakthroughs pertaining to the extension of the healthy human lifespan. These news summaries are compiled by the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M; www.worldhealth.net), a non-profit medical society composed of 22,000 physician and scientist members from [...]

By Elizabeth Henzell For The Bali Times UBUD ~ One of the writers coming to this year’s Ubud Writers & Readers Festival in October is New Zealander Lloyd Jones, who was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize with his novel Mr Pip. This extraordinary account of a young girl’s life during the civil war in [...]

By Paulo Coelho For The Bali Times The drunkard disciple A Zen master had hundreds of disciples. They all prayed at the right time – except one, who was always drunk. The master was growing old. Some of the more virtuous pupils began to wonder who would be the new leader of the group, the [...]

DENPASAR ~ Authorities in Bali were on high alert this week over the quickly spreading swine flu, which has claimed lives in Mexico and the United States, and took measures to prevent the virus entering the island. Chief of public health veterinarians Astiwati said the Farming, Fisheries and Marine Department was beginning to take preventative [...]

WASHINGTON ~ Astronomers have spied a gamma-ray burst from the universe’s infancy, making it the oldest event ever witnessed and shedding light on cosmic origins, US and British scientists said this week. “This is the most remote gamma-ray burst ever detected, and also the most distant object ever discovered – by some way,” said Nial [...]

DENPASAR/KEROBOKAN ~ American Mamie Kelley is raising money on Facebook to help her son, injured in a road accident in Bali, pay US$9,000 for his private hospital treatment. As of Thursday, at least US$3,500 had been pledged via Facebook and the PayPal system. Kelley Sean Crawford, 31, was riding home from an internet cafe at [...]

HONG KONG ~ Airports across the world have rushed to install thermal scanners in an effort to halt the spread of swine flu, but experts are raising doubts about the technology’s ability to spot infections. Indonesia, Cambodia, Singapore and Australia are among the countries that have introduced or stepped up the use of the scanners [...]