By Chris Erskine Los Angeles Times LONDON ~ This was my first trip to this city of lords and chimney sweeps. As I was raising four children, everyone else seemed to slip away to London except me. The London I finally discovered was as rumpled and comfy as old corduroy (which I like) and as [...]

Re: Kantor Kita Boss Reported over $1m Land Fraud I refer to my letter published in The Bali Times Correspondence column on June 12, 2009. My words were never intended for the general public. They were intended for the attorneys who would soon be handling my case about Julie Edmond and for the gentleman who [...]

By Richard Laidlaw UNGASAN, Bali ~ The Eagles sang about them – ugly boxes – in a slightly different context, in their now vintage and ironical anthem to greed, avarice, blind vision and moral lapse, Hotel California. It’s an irony too that its strains still echo through the many establishments that employ local minstrels who, [...]

By Robin Wright How ironic. A regime that came to power through a brutal revolution, in a country suspected of secretly developing a nuclear weapon, is now facing its biggest challenge from peaceful civil disobedience. The largely silent street demonstrations by day and haunting chants echoing across rooftops by night are not – so far [...]

By Tim Rutten Twenty years ago, the world was transfixed by an image of courageous resistance – a lone young man standing in the road before a column of Chinese army tanks moving into Tiananmen Square to crush the students and others who’d gone there to demonstrate for reform. Since Saturday, the global community has [...]

JAKARTA ~ Indonesian police commonly beat and torture people in custody and offer better treatment in exchange for money and sex, Amnesty International said in a report released this week. The human rights organisation demanded the government acknowledge the problem and end the culture of impunity that allows police to act as if they are [...]

TIMIKA ~ A crack paramilitary policeman was shot dead in an ambush by unidentified attackers in the highlands of remote Papua province on Wednesday, police said. The policeman was shot at midday as he travelled in a convoy of the elite Mobile Brigade to oversee preparations for July 8 presidential elections in Puncak Senyum village, [...]

TANGERANG ~ An Indonesian mother-of-two was cleared on Thursday of defamation charges after emails she wrote about poor treatment at a local hospital appeared on social-networking website Facebook. In a case that provoked outrage across the mainly Muslim nation, Prita Mulyasari, 32, was facing six years’ jail for defamation under the criminal code and had [...]

By Hannah Black The Bali Times SILAKARANG ~ Readers who live in Bali may have noticed a pretty steep rise in their water bills recently, an issue which has been in the news and also a hot topic of conversation around where I live. The near doubling of water prices has hit a lot of [...]

TEHRAN ~ President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned his US counterpart Barack Obama on Thursday to stop meddling in Iran’s affairs as the regime clamped down further on the opposition despite growing global concern. His blunt message came as a top dissident cleric warned Iran’s rulers that their suppression of protests over the disputed election that returned [...]

SEOUL ~ North Korea warned on Thursday that “dark clouds of nuclear war” were gathering over the peninsula and vowed to strengthen its atomic arsenal as it marked the anniversary of the 1950-1953 conflict. Rodong Sinmun, newspaper of the ruling communist party, accused the United States and its ally South Korea of trying to provoke [...]

GENEVA ~ Airlines need to tackle a “dramatic” plunge in revenues in the industry’s “worst” crisis ever, IATA said on Thursday as international air travel continued to drop in May partly due to swine flu. Despite signs that the slump in passenger traffic since late last year may be tailing off, the International Air Transport [...]