Stranded: Efforts are under way to free a fuel ship off Sanur after it ran aground earlier this month. It is not known if the incident has caused any environmental impact in southern Bali waters. Captain and crew remain on board the vessel. Photograph: The Bali Times

Awakening: Increasing activity at Mt Bromo in East Java is causing flight disruptions as the highest alert level is engaged over a possible major eruption.

MALANG The authorities closed Malang airport for the week on Monday as Mt Bromo shot ash into the sky over East Java, posing a risk to planes, officials said. The airport, about 25 kilometres west of Bromo, will be closed until December 4, Transport Ministry spokesman Bambang Ervan said. Bromo, a popular tourist attraction, began [...]

JAKARTA People who drive cars made after 2005 won’t be able to buy fuel at the subsidised price from January, according to Coordinating Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa. “The owners are wealthy people, so they have to use unsubsidised fuel,” Hatta said. He also said the government was still working out how to implement the proposal. [...]

DENPASAR An East Java man has been sentenced to 20 years’ jail for a series of rapes of children in Bali earlier this year that shocked the island. Mochammad Suharto, 30, was found guilty by the Denpasar District Court on Wednesday of having raped five underage girls. Ancillary charges included kidnapping and abuse for which [...]

By Samiaji Bintang “To what extent does the media’s coverage of terrorism fuel terrorists?” a member of a mailing list group named jurnalisme that I subscribe to recently asked. Like the media practitioners, journalists, activists in non-governmental organisations and students in media and journalism on this mailing list, this is a question that has also [...]

By Muqtedar Khan The haj sermon this year – one of the highlights of the three-day pilgrimage that millions of Muslims make to Mecca every year – has received special attention in the media all over the Muslim world. Excerpts from the sermon, which condemns terrorism and extremism and advocates moderation, have been reproduced in [...]

It is perverse that a fortune in foreign money gifted to this country to protect its primordial rainforests may be used to speed up their annihilation. That was the warning this week from Greenpeace. The environmental campaigner said the US$1 billion forest-saving fund that Norway promised Indonesia earlier this year is at a two-pronged risk [...]

Garuda Indonesia’s embarrassing computer glitch that has stranded passengers and caused scenes in the past few days is another example of the national airline’s public service mentality and its inability, rhetoric aside, to meet the demands of the market of which it claims to be part. Computer failures are commonplace. No one is exempt, and [...]

By Hector This weekend The Diary is in Lombok. It’s a favourite place. We’re catching up with friends in Senggigi and spending a little time dangling the toes in the limpid waters surrounding Gili Trawangan. It’s not quite Robinson Crusoe territory, but the Gilis are a great getaway. And there will be a fun return [...]

It seems that everywhere you go in south Bali some environmental vandal has gouged out another chunk of the island’s fast-changing and fragile landscape. Often the gouging is accompanied by messy moving of tonnes of dirt and rock from one point to another, to heighten the natural level of part of a site to get [...]

By Novar Caine The air was stagnant and clumped in sticky clusters like lumpy gruel that had been forgotten about and left unstirred. In this sizable store in the nation’s capital, imported frocks and shoes and handbags that looked more like flappy suitcases on straps, all costing hundreds of millions of rupiah (thousands of US [...]