GILIMANUK ~ Freight and passenger services on the Java-Bali crossing between Ketapang and Gilimanuk have been badly hit by the withdrawal from service of four ferries in need of repair. Long lines of freight trucks have built up at both ferry ports and both bus passengers and travellers with their own vehicles face waits of [...]

By William J. Furney The Bali Times I’m fiddling with a trinket at the Ananda Krishna spiritual centre while waiting for the man himself. It is in the gift shop – the centre is just off Sunset Road, down a lane beside the hefty Sushi Tei restaurant – and the bauble is a necklace with [...]

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 ~ A year in a child’s life seems an eternity, but a year for me flies by in a wink of a kitten’s eye. It was a little over a year ago that Putu started coming to BAWA – the Bali Animal Welfare Association – with me [...]

By Paulo Coelho For The Bali Times In one of his rare writings, the Sufi wise man Hafik comments that the path of human beings on earth is filled with contradictions and challenges that can only be overcome to the extent that each of us accepts sole responsibility for his decisions: “Only the ignorant try [...]

KUALA LUMPUR ~ Maid abuse has become the latest irritant in a diplomatic spat between Malaysia and Indonesia, as labour groups press for better protection for vulnerable migrant workers. Pictures of Indonesian domestic worker Siti Hajar with horrific scars all over her body were splashed across newspapers recently after she was reportedly tortured by her [...]

DILI ~ Police in East Timor intervened on Thursday to prevent an elderly German man accused of sexually abusing an 11-year-old boy from leaving on a flight to Bali following his arrest at the weekend. Erich Steiner, 80, was stopped at Presidente Nicolau Lobato International Airport and escorted to the back seat of a waiting [...]

FIRST TAKE: Esti Yuliani with her then husband, Alvin Edmond, at a party in June 2007. The couple have since divorced. DENPASAR ~ Kantor Kita boss Esti Yuliani – also known as Julie Edmond – is known to have scammed at least Rp102 billion (US$10.2 million) but many victims have not reported losses and the [...]

TUBAN ~ Upgraded thermal sensors have been installed at Ngurah Rai International Airport to help ensure detection of passengers arriving from declared swine flu areas – including Australia – who might have the disease. The announcement came as Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari released new figures in Jakarta that show six Indonesians have contracted the [...]

Care to Dance?: A couple perform a Balinese dance during the ongoing, month-long Bali Arts Festival. The annual showcase features arts and crafts from Bali and all over the country and concludes on July 11.

SIGNS OF OUR TIMES: So that’s why the traffic’s snarled. On Being Alert But Not (Necessarily) Alarmed IT can have escaped few regular readers of The Diary that we are from time to time a tad antsy – such a lovely word, and it sounds so much more polite than “pissed off” – over the [...]

By Chris Erskine Los Angeles Times LOS ANGELES ~ School can only do so much for you. To this day, I always have to look up the spelling of Anne Boleyn’s name, and I am constantly spelling “magnificent” as “magnificient.” There are dead zones in my head – that’s the only explanation, despite the fact [...]