SINGARAJA The former regent of Buleleng, I Putu Bagiada, is under investigation for alleged involvement in corruption. The investigation was launched the Buleleng Prosecutor’s Office on Monday, just a few days after Bagiada stepped down from his post at the end of his term. Prosecutors allege that Bagiada and other regency officials embezzled a total [...]

NUSA DUA Bali will host another high-profile international summit next year, with the World Trade Organisation inter-ministerial conference slated to be held here in December 2013. The announcement was made during a WTO meeting in Geneva last month. WTO spokeswoman Elin Johansen said that the Indonesian authorities had approached the organisation with an offer to [...]

DENPASAR Controversy has raged around the case of a 77-year-old grandmother, on trial for fraud at Denpasar District Court, with NGOs and lawyers claiming her treatment is inhumane and a high-profile former minister taking up her case. Loena Kanginnadhi, who was allegedly involved in a fraudulent land deal, has been appearing in the courtroom in [...]

DENPASAR A Bali Police team has arrested a suspected smash-and-grab thief at his home in Gresik, East Java. The team had tracked Akri Hohakai, who is thought to be behind a string of thefts from cars in Denpasar, to Java, according to Bali Police spokesman Haryadi. Hariyadi said that Hohakai was arrested on Tuesday at [...]

SINGARAJA Bali’s second airport will be built in Kubutambahan in Buleleng, it has been announced. The announcement, made in local media this week, follows lengthy speculation since the plan for a second airport in the norther Buleleng regency was first announced by then Tourism Minister Jero Wacik in 2010. The new airport is intended to [...]

By Maria-Paz Lopez In June, at the 2nd Ibero-American Interreligious Summit in Barcelona, religious leaders from Latin America, Spain and Portugal exhorted member states “to admit the ethical origin of the present crisis and to support and respect the efforts of the religious communities in alleviating an increase in poverty as a result of the [...]

The intolerance and outright vigilantism displayed by a group of thugs in Jakarta last weekend, mostly youths, trying to stop people from enjoying themselves during the fasting month, has become all too rampant in this country, and it is not an understatement to say that such hardcore behaviour can morph into acts of deadly terrorism. [...]

KAMPALA Uganda’s president has banned all physical contact after a victim of a deadly outbreak of the Ebola virus was reported in the capital Kampala for the first time. “The Ministry of Health are tracing all the people who have had contact with the victims,” Yoweri Museveni said in a state broadcast on Monday, adding [...]