DENPASAR With this year’s Nyepi celebrations still two weeks away professional ogoh-ogoh makers have been reporting a flood of orders for the demonic wood and papier-mâché statues traditionally paraded through the streets of Bali the night before the Hindu Day of Silence. While some communities prepare their own ogoh-ogoh, many turn to professionals like Mangku [...]

DENPASAR Denpasar Police have arrested a 32-year-old babysitter suspected of stealing jewellery to fund administrative costs for a failed attempt to seek work overseas. Laili Apriliana, originally from Lombok, was detained following a complaint from Nyoman Master of Jl Gunung Andakasa, Denpasar. Master had employed Apriliana to look after her children on January26. Master later [...]

DENPASAR Bali police working with their counterparts in neighbouring East Java province have arrested a man suspected of involvement in a recent spate of service-station robberies. The man, identified by his initials, YS, was seized by a team of officers from Bali at his home in East Java. A police spokesman said that the suspect [...]

NEGARA A carefully planned robbery attempt on a computer store in Negara in the early hours of February 11 was thwarted by a watchful security guard, with one of the three would-be robbers shot in the thigh by police during the subsequent pursuit. Ketut Tulis, owner of the shop on Jl Danau Buyan, told reporters [...]

SINGARAJA A fire in a villa belonging to a Dutch citizen in Ambengan in the Banjar district of Buleleng was probably caused by an electrical fault, according to officials. The villa in the Villa Banjar Beach development — which was vacant at the time — went up in flames at around 8am on February 13. [...]

NEGARA Illegal sand mining from a Jembrana beach is threatening to destroy a coastal road, and is causing tensions amongst local residents. Villagers in Pasar Yehembang near Negara have complained to regency authorities that repeated gathering of sand from local beaches for use in construction work has caused increased erosion along the banks of the [...]

SINGARAJA A group of senior high school students from Singaraja had a lucky escape after a tire blow-out left their bus teetering on the brink of a deep ravine in Candikuning. The bus was one of 12 carrying teenagers from Senior High School 1 in Singaraja back from an organised outing to Denpasar. The bus [...]

DENPASAR The head of the Denpasar Manpower, Transmigration and Social Department has warned jobseekers in Bali that those employed by illegal and unregistered companies can receive no protection from the authorities. Speaking to the media in the Bali capital, Made Erwin Suryadarma said that the government could only enforce employment regulations on properly licensed companies, [...]

KUTA Officials from the Health Department in Badung have announced ambitious plans to build a 500-bed “tourism hospital” with international accreditation in southern Bali, with funding of Rp40 billion (US$4.5 million) earmarked for the project. After a meeting with Badung regent A.A. Gde Agung and director-general of the Health Department Dr Supriyanto, Badung planning chief [...]

Celebration: The red-and-white was raised at a ceremony in Denpasar on Monday morning to mark the 91st birthday of Bali’s capital and administrative centre. Juliyusman Sine/The Bali Times

Pretending to be obnoxious rock stars in the belief their band would never get noticed only became a problem for Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser when they suddenly became famous. For the two core members of the psychedelic New York-based band MGMT, sharp and fast fame brought by the success of their 2007 debut album [...]

Internet retail giant Amazon launched a movie streaming service this week that competes directly with internet film star Netflix. The Seattle-based Amazon bundled access to the movie service with Amazon Prime, which costs US$79 a year and gives Amazon customers unlimited free shipping of books and other items. Movies and TV shows included with Amazon [...]