JAKARTA The justice ministry has recommended granting clemency to Australian drug trafficker Schapelle Corby, whose lawyers argue she went insane after being jailed at Kerobokan Prison. Corby, 34, was convicted in 2005 of smuggling 4.1 kilograms of marijuana into Bali and is serving a 20-year jail sentence at the overcrowded prison. The prison houses murderers [...]

JAKARTA Australian and US survivors of the 2002 Bali attacks have relived the horror of seeing burning victims and their friends killed as they testified in the trial of the alleged bombmaker. Prosecutors accuse Umar Patek, who was arrested last year in the same Pakistani town where US commandos later killed Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin [...]

UBUD Tycoon and entrepreneur Richard Branson has bought a luxury hideaway in Bali. Branson, a British citizen and the founder of the Virgin business empire, recently announced that he had bought the Panchoran Retreat in Nyuh Kuning near Ubud. The property was previously owned by Irish designer Linda Garland, who ran it as a holiday [...]

By Richard Boughton Nyepi went by quietly at my house, and quickly too somehow. It lacked the traditional tedium that had always attended it in the past, that sense of hours elongated to the point of rending like a string of overwhelmed taffy. It lacked the customary numbness that assails the mind in the face of [...]

By Vyt Karazija I’m not supposed to be here at my computer. It’s 11.05 pm on a Thursday, and I’m supposed to be on Jetstar flight JQ36, lifting off from Denpasar airport at this very moment, enjoying my comfortable StarClass window seat and settling in for the haul to Melbourne to see my family for [...]

By Jonathan Cainer Officially, the Moon has now ‘peaked’. But it is still pretty full and it may be few more days before recent tensions, dramas and passions calm down a little. This week, both Mars and Pluto stand still in the zodiac. Celestial bodies do this just before or after they appear to change [...]

By Ben Lynfield With international attention distracted by Iran and Syria, Israel’s fateful entanglement in the West Bank hardly gets a mention in the news these days. Over the years, much has been written about the now 45-year-old Occupation’s deleterious effect on Palestinians. But in a significant new book, The Unmaking of Israel, launched recently [...]

By Sadia Ashraf A motley crew of diverse Arab, Persian and American comedians is making audiences laugh and unravelling stereotypes at the same time. With their own comedy brand, sold-out worldwide tours, documentaries and frequent appearances as commentators on major news outlets, Aron Kader, Maz Jobrani, Maysoon Zayid and Dean Obeidallah have built transnational bridges [...]