Trade Visit: British Prime Minister David Cameron inspects a guard of honour at the State Palace in Jakarta on Thursday. Ful story here

BANDA ACEH Five people died and at least seven were injured when massive earthquakes struck off Sumatra on Wednesday. Officials said they believed at least two people died of heart attacks and three others died of shock in the quakes. “Based on data collected on victims and damage, five people died, one person is critically [...]

JAKARTA British Prime Minister David Cameron held up Indonesia this week as a model for nations in transition after the Arab Spring, praising its moderate Islam and its transformation from dictatorship. He said democracy must not be undermined in the name of Islam in Egypt, and called on the world to oppose Syria’s President Bashar [...]

NEGARA High waves battered coastal communities in Jembrana last week, with many family homes inundated with sea water. The stormy seas that battered west Bali on Friday morning were particularly pronounced in Negara district. In Pengambengan Village around 20 households were flooded by seawater. Panicked residents fled inland and attempted to save their belongings from [...]

PRIGEN Scientists are celebrating after successfully cross-breeding the domesticated Bali cow with the wild Java banteng. The indigenous Bali cow is genetically close to its wild counterparts, which while extinct in Bali itself still survive in several national parks in neighbouring Java. The breeding experiment was conducted at the Taman Safari conservation park south of [...]

By Richard Boughton Given a perverse desire among the young women of Indonesia to experience rape at some point in life, as evidenced by a recalcitrant insistence on wearing short skirts, and thereby rendering their persons generally rape-able, Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali has come to the rescue of the weaker sex by issuing a call [...]

By Vyt Karazija My return flight to Bali on JQ35 was scheduled for 6.45pm. I should have realised that I was again about to be trapped in the Low Cost Carrier Vortex when I tried to increase my checked luggage allowance. I had already paid $40 to raise the ludicrously low limit to 25kg, but knowing [...]

By Jonathan Cainer Contrary to popular opinion, planets don’t turn ‘bad’ when they appear to move backwards. They just bring a phase where people tend to turn and review whatever they usually take for granted. Recently, for example, we had Mercury (communication and negotiation) retrograde at the same time as Mars (which rules power, passion [...]