By Vyt Karazija So there I am, trapped for more than 10 long minutes in a huge gridlock on Eat Street, with traffic banked up to Ku De Ta in one direction and Jl Drupadi in the other. Everyone’s patience is wearing thin, and a cacophony of shrill beeps breaks out every 60 seconds before [...]

By Hannah Black The past week I’ve hardly seen my husband, Ongky. Ceremonies, his work and my newly rediscovered social life (since I finished work) have kept us away from each other for whole days at a time. A wedding next door had him up and out at 6am one morning and 3am the next. [...]

In parts of Indonesia there are groups who seek to forcibly impose their view, ideology and creed upon their neighbours – or expel them from the community. They reject any notion of pluralism, deeming their way the only way, even though that fine concept is a tenet of the constitution. In Java recently one such [...]

Mark Thirlwell argues that the G20, which meets this weekend in Toronto, Canda, is a beneficial element in global economic management but risks broadening scope for argument When G-20 leaders meet this weekend there will be plenty of scope for debate. China’s decision to move on the RMB has defused one potentially contentious issue, at [...]

By Daniel Moses What turns out to have long-term impact doesn’t always make the headlines at first. This past month I was part of an ALLMEP (Alliance for Middle East Peace) delegation. As an umbrella for over seventy member organisations, ALLMEP advocates for a wide range of people-to-people peace building efforts that encourage meaningful contact [...]

JAKARTA A strong earthquake struck off Java on Saturday but there were no immediate reports of damage and no tsunami warning was issued, seismologists said. The quake struck at 4:50pm, 118 kilometres south west of Tasikmalaya, West Java, at a depth of 34 kilometres, the Geophysics and Meteorological Agency said. The agency measured the quake [...]

GIANYAR A spot inspection of schools in the Chedi area by Gianyar Regent Tjokorda Oka Sukawati Artha Ardhana, legislative chairman Agus Mahayastra and top civil servant Gusti Ngurah Wijana this week found many of them in disrepair. They found schools ranging from kindergartens to junior high schools had leaking roofs and some that suffered flooding [...]

DENPASAR Accused serial child rapist Mochammad Suharto David, also known as The Invisible Codet, has tested sane in psychiatric and psychological examinations ordered by the police when he claimed after his arrest in May that he had been forced to commit the acts through witchcraft. Chief investigator Arief Sugiarto said: “From the results of psychological [...]

With so many commercial banks in Bali, competition among the smaller ones can be fierce. And now the island has a new bank, BPR Legian, a people’s credit bank headed by Medan native and Bali resident Christopher Wilaras, who says it will focus on areas not currently the focus of the banking sector: farming, small [...]

Bali’s New Banker: Medan native Christopher Wilaras has opened Bali’s newest bank, BPR Legian, with a focus on small businesses and farmers. It was a process, he says, that involved deep oversight from Bank Indonesia, the central bank. Read our interview below. (Photo: The Bali Times)

JAKARTA President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono welcomed new Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Thursday after she ousted Kevin Rudd in a party leadership challenge. “President Yudhoyono has known new Prime Minister Julia Gillard since he visited Australia (in March). The president will continue to work with the new prime minister,” Yudhoyono’s spokesman told reporters. “We’re [...]

TUBAN A training aircraft belonging to the Indonesian military crashed during a multi-plane flyover at Ngurah Rai International Airport on Thursday but the pilot and passenger had ejected to safety. The small, single-propeller craft appeared to malfunction as it passed over the airport, and pulled upwards and out of formation before its occupants ejected and [...]