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 Hannah Black For The Bali Times SILAKARANG ~ My adopted home village of Silakarang was at its buzzing best for the anniversary of the village youth organization, which happened to coincide with the run-up to Indonesia’s Independence Day. There was a volleyball tournament, a birthday-cake fight, a four-village walk and – the highlight of [...]

By Chris Erskine Los Angeles Times LOS ANGELES ~ Several large IKEA bags rest outside the little girl’s bedroom door. She is leaving for college soon. By all estimates, she will barely sleep her freshman year, yet she seems to need $300 in bedding. So be it. I try to pick my battles. The other [...]

HYANNIS PORT ~ Edward Kennedy, the last of the storied band of brothers whose triumphs and tragedies dominated a generation of US politics, died this week after losing his battle with brain cancer. The “liberal lion” of the US Senate, once seen as an heir to his slain elder brother, president John F. Kennedy, died [...]

EDINBURGH ~ As the dust settles from a political row sparked by Scotland’s release of the Lockerbie bomber, the country is nervously bracing for potentially more damaging fallout from a threatened US boycott. A website, www.boycottscotland.com, is urging Americans to avoid travelling to Scotland or buying British and Scottish products in revenge for the release [...]

OAK BLUFFS ~ It was fitting that President Barack Obama was in Edward Kennedy’s beloved home state when the senator died, given the Democratic giant’s vital role in getting him elected. Kennedy, who succumbed to cancer at 77, symbolically passed his family’s torch of idealism to Obama at a tense point in his primary duel [...]

By Elizabeth Henzell For The Bali Times UBUD ~ The Doorman looks at me with bemusement, then asks: “How about a coffee, old son?” The voice of the dog in Markus Zusak’s latest novel, The Messenger, is a real treat. Zusak, the author of the international bestseller The Book Thief has this stinky, coffee-drinking dog, [...]

By Elizabeth Henzell For The Bali Times UBUD ~ The Doorman looks at me with bemusement, then asks: “How about a coffee, old son?” The voice of the dog in Markus Zusak’s latest novel, The Messenger, is a real treat. Zusak, the author of the international bestseller The Book Thief has this stinky, coffee-drinking dog, [...]

By Matt Crook Agence France-Presse DILI ~ Ten years after East Timor’s historic independence referendum, victims are still waiting for justice for crimes and rights abuses committed during Indonesia’s brutal 24-year occupation. Up to 200,000 people in the tiny half-island were killed either directly by Indonesian troops or as a result of the occupation, and [...]

By Arlina Arshad Agence France-Presse JAKARTA ~ Powerful earthquakes that have jolted Asia recently do not presage a disaster, although it is only a matter of time before the next catastrophe befalls the quake-prone region, seismologists say. From India to Japan, Indonesia and as far south as New Zealand, the region has been rattled by [...]

PARIS ~ People who die after getting swine flu are 100 times more likely, compared to seasonal flu, to have been killed by the virus itself rather than secondary causes, a top French researcher said this week. The findings – published on a research-sharing platform, PLoS Currents: Influenza, vetted by flu experts – could help [...]

TODAY many things are so easily accessible – facilitated by a worldwide have-now culture underpinned by the internet – that boundaries are often crossed and cultures meshed. At times, it can morph into a complex, almost incompre-hensible, confection where it is not at all clear who owns what, who said what; or where the truth, [...]