World’s Best CBD View: Ubud this week formally accepted its award – by readers of the upmarket Condé Nast Traveler magazine – as best city in Asia 2009. The award, announced in October and based on readers’ votes, rated Ubud at 82.5 points based on several indicators, including atmosphere, ambience, art and culture, lodgings, restaurants, [...]

…because of its temples and ceremonies. Nyoman Suriati, 38, Karangasem, Bali BT/PCAR

‘Making the world a bit more just is my drive’ Begoña López, 47, is a social worker from Spain. She moved to Bali ten years ago and founded the Kupu-Kupu NGO, helping people with physical and mental disabilities to have a better life. She shared her day with Carla Albertí de la Rosa. Every morning [...]

From the perspective of Francisco Javier Bernal, 45, the owner of a boutique in Seminyak who comes from Madrid, Spain. What are we here for? To develop a philosophy that will explain our existence. To be able to understand why we’re really here. Do you believe in the Big Bang theory that the circa-13.7-billion-year-old universe [...]

NAME: Juliater Tarigan AGE: 33 OCCUPATION: Language teacher LOCATION: Sumatra How do you think the country is doing now? I don’t trust the government or the law and I hate how the administration works in this country. But I believe the situation will improve. Is the central government in Jakarta doing enough for the regions? [...]

Vyt Karazija I’ve been spoilt by the ease of getting a local SIM card for my mobile phone in Bali. And in Beijing, and Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur – and even in Lithuania. So when a trip to the Great South Land for Christmas was planned, I just assumed that the process would be [...]

An increasing number of former detainees from the US prison in Guantanamo have forged links to militant groups after their release, the Pentagon said this week. The precise number remained classified but was in keeping with a previous Defence Department report in April that said 14 percent of former inmates had engaged in or were [...]

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made an impassioned appeal for greater US international development aid, saying it was vital to US and global security at a time of growing extremist threats. Development is a “strategic, economic and moral imperative,” the top US diplomat said in a speech on Wednesday at the Peterson Institute [...]

WASHINGTON ~ A young Nigerian was charged this week with attempted murder and trying to use a weapon of mass destruction aboard a US plane, as under-fire security chiefs vowed to revamp intelligence services. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, was indicted on Wednesday on six counts arising out of the botched Christmas Day plot to blow [...]

By Michael Felsen As this new decade begins, many are still scratching their heads and wondering how US President Barack Obama, who has just escalated a distant war that quite possibly cannot be won, can have merited the esteemed Nobel Prize for peace. But if Obama can begin to lead the world into a new [...]

In the coming decades, countries including Vietnam and Indonesia will become increasingly important. By Charles E. Morrison For us at the East-West Center, the arrival of 2010 marks 50 years since our institution was founded to promote under-standing and cooperation between the peoples of the US and the Asia-Pacific region. While we will be celebrating [...]

MAKASSAR ~ The authorities have arrested a dozen Afghan and Vietnamese migrants who were trying to reach Australia, an official said at the weekend. The eight Afghans and four Vietnamese were arrested early last Thursday on a small island near Makassar, the provincial capital of South Sulawesi province. “They were stranded on Kodingareng island after [...]