Edisi 20 Januari 2015 | International Bali Post

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I N T E R N A T I O N A L

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Tuesday, January 20, 2015

‘American Sniper’ blasts competition at North American box office

in his battle for equal voting rights, was next, earning $8.3 million. The film was nominated this week for two Oscars, including “Best Picture.”

“The Imitation Game” was The war drama, based on the adaptation of the family classic true story of Navy SEAL Chris about a bear lost in the big city, in sixth with $7.2 million. The Kyle, set a new record for January opened in the third spot. The kids thriller about a code-cracking opening, US media reported, and comedy, starring British actor mathematician and logician durcomes after the film wracked up Hugh Bonneville of “Downton ing World War II was near the top six Oscar nominations, including Abbey” fame opposite the mar- of the Oscars nomination list, with best picture and best actor for star malade-loving bear, took in $19.3 eight nods including in several of the top categories.

Bradley Cooper. This was the film’s million in its US bow.

Disney’s “Into the Woods,” the first weekend in wide release.

Action sequel “Taken 3” fell to Well behind, but with another the fourth spot. The crime thriller star-studded big-screen adaptasolid debut, action comedy “The starring Liam Neeson in his third tion of the Stephen Sondheim Wedding Ringer” opened in stint as retired spy Bryan Mills, musical, came in seventh, adding second place with $21 million, who this time must clear his name $6.5 million to its three-week haul according to box office tracker of a ruthless murder, earned $14.1 of $114.5 million.

In eighth place was “The Exhibitor Relations. The critically million in its second weekend in Hobbit: The Battle of the Five panned flick stars Kevin Hart as theaters. a best-man-for-hire for a socially Historical drama “Selma,” Armies,” by Oscar-winning direcawkward groom. depicting the epic 1965 Alabama tor Peter Jackson, the last of six “Paddington,” a new big screen march led by Martin Luther King films adapted from J.R.R Tolkien’s books and the third and final installment based on the author’s novel “The Hobbit.”

It took in $4.9 million over the weekend, for a total of $244.5 million since its release five weeks ago.

Close behind in ninth with $4.3 million was “Unbroken,” the Angelina Jolie-directed drama about Louis Zamperini, an Olympic athlete taken captive by the Japanese during World War II. And rounding out the top ten with just over $4 million was “Blackhat,” a timely cyber-terrorism AP Photo/Warner Bros. Pictures, Keith Bernstein In this image released by Warner Bros. Pictures, Bradley Cooper appears in action flick starring Chris Hemsworth. (afp) a scene from “American Sniper.”

LOS ANGELES - Clint Eastwood’s “American Sniper” blasted into first place with a massive $90.2 million take, blowing away the competition at the American box office, industry estimates said Sunday.

Entertainment Oprah Winfrey locks arms with David Oyelowo, who portrays Martin Luther King Jr. in the movie “Selma” as they march to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in honor of Martin Luther King Jr., Sunday, Jan. 18, 2015, in Selma, Ala. AP Photo/Brynn Anderson

‘Selma’ stars, Oprah march in Alabama in honor of King SELMA, Alabama — Actors from the movie “Selma” marched with hundreds of people Sunday to recall one of the bloodiest chapters of the civil rights movement, while America prepared to mark the national holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. The remembrance comes after several incidents around the country in which unarmed black men were killed by police in recent months, leading to protests. In Ferguson, Missouri, the site of the most persistent protests, leading black members of Congress pressed for further reforms of the criminal justice system in the name of equality.

Eight members of the Congressional Black Caucus joined U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay in Ferguson as they took up King’s legacy in light of the recent deaths.

“We need to be outraged when local law enforcement and the justice system repeatedly allow young, unarmed black men to encounter police and then wind up dead with no consequences,” said Clay. “Not just in Ferguson, but over and over again across this country.”

In Selma, Alabama, Oprah Winfrey helped lead the march with “Selma” director Ava DuVernay, actor David Oyelowo, who portrayed King in the movie, and the rapper Common. They and others marched from Selma City Hall to Edmund Pettus Bridge, where civil rights protesters were beaten and tear-gassed by officers in 1965.

“Every single person who was on that bridge is a hero,” Winfrey told the

marchers.

The film chronicles the campaign leading up to the historic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, and the subsequent passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Law enforcement officers used clubs and tear gas on March 7, 1965 — “Bloody Sunday” — on marchers intent on seeking the right for blacks to register to vote. A new march, led by King, began two weeks later and arrived in Montgomery days later with the crowd swelling to 25,000.

McLinda Gilchrist, 63, said the movie should help a younger generation understand what life was like in the 1960s during the struggle to end racial discrimination. “They treated us worse than animals,” Gilchrist said.

For Monday’s federal holiday, people around the country were remembering King’s leadership, some in light of the fatal police shootings that had recently shaken the U.S., including the death of an unarmed black teen last year in Ferguson, Missouri.

Eight members of the Congressional Black Caucus joined U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay in Ferguson on Sunday as they invoked King’s legacy. They vowed to seek criminal justice reform.

“We need to be outraged when local law enforcement and the justice system repeatedly allow young, unarmed black men to encounter police and then wind up dead with no consequences,” the Democrat said. “Not just in Ferguson, but over and over again across this

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Tuesday, January 20, 2015 Rebels claim to control Donetsk airport after intense fight

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Ronaldo, Messi keep Real and Barca motoring

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US delegation to Cuba could meet with Raul Castro

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Menjangan Island

Undersea exoticism dazzles domestic, foreign travelers

IBP/Dewa Kusuma

Tourism sector in Buleleng County has developed quite rapidly. For instance, many travelers start to visit Menjangan Island. The tourist destination becomes more attractive as it offers a panoramic beauty of the undersea objects which certainly can amaze visitors.

SINGARAJA - Tourism sector in Buleleng County has developed quite rapidly. For instance, many travelers start to visit Menjangan Island. The tourist destination becomes more attractive as it offers a panoramic beauty of the undersea objects which certainly can amaze visitors.

To reach the Menjangan Island managed by the West Bali National Park (BTNBB), domestic and foreign travelers can hire a boat at Batu Ampar Port, in the tourist area of Pejarakan, Gerokgak, or alternatively from Gilimanuk, Jembrana.

Before departing to Menjangan Island, a number of guides will provide information for visitors who wish to enjoy underwater panorama. To that end, visitors are required to pay ticket of diving or snorkeling activity at IDR 25,000

each, while the rental of snorkeling equipment is IDR 60,000 per person.

Menjangan Island has its own allures, especially for professional divers that often enjoy the underwater beauty and want to find out more sensations of experience via snorkeling and diving in Menjangan Island. It is only 30 minutes voyage from the Batu Ampar Port.

Several tour packages have been attractively prepared by guides

to be offered to visitors, such as snorkeling, diving, mangrove and trekking. The four tour packages have their own appeal and interest for visitors. In mangrove package, for instance, visitors are invited to ride a boat and to get around the island for observing the tranquility and beauty in the mangrove areas.

While trekking package offers visitors to walk around the island, enjoy the beauty of the island and watch the deer and the open sea from a certain height.

“Travelers have a maximum of two hours to get around and enjoy the beauty of the mangrove. We do not need to explain too much considering the mangrove forest is very dense and visitors usually want to

enjoy tranquility of the atmosphere while traveling. Well, if diving, we give more explanation about the practice and knowledge when will perform diving activities,” said Rusli, one of the local guides.

Recent development indicates if it the increasing visit to Menjangan Island is dominated by domestic travelers. Presumably it happens due to holiday season and information from fellow travelers that had made a visit previously to the island. Rusli added while escorting visitors, he could earn IDR 150,000 and sometimes got more from visitors. “Local visitor shows an increase over the past year to Menjangan Island. Compared to previous year, visitors tended

to comprise guests from Europe, Australia, Korea and China,” he added.

Similar comment was given by Nengah Janta, where the peak occurred at yearend. This boat driver admitted the increasing trend of visitors happened to domestic travelers. However, he complained about the rubbish around the Menjangan Island, generally originating from visitors who just finished their activity. “In high season, we can get two trips. Here, there are totally 69 boats including the driver and 100 guides. Our constraint here is just the matter of rubbish. We just hope the awareness of visitors for not littering around the island,” he hoped. (kmb34)

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International

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Bali News

International

Activities

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

15

IBP/Courtesy of Ayana Resort

Farmers dismayed about apple snail attack on paddy plants

GIANYAR - Rice planting season, which coincides with the start of the rainy season has caused headaches to farmers in Sukawati. A ferocious attack of golden apple snails a few days ago, which threatened hectares of newly transplanted rice seedlings, is the cause of their dismay. The stems of some newly transplanted rice seedlings at Subak Sanga Sukawati, started being devoured by the apple snails, as witnessed by reporters on January 8th.

One local farmer, Made Pugra, said that the apple snails tend to attack newly planted rice seedlings. To prevent such an attack, this 40-year-old man admitted to have sprayed them with pesticides.

Unfortunately, such an effort was not able to eradicate the snails.

He said that despite being sprayed with pesticides, the apple snails did not die as the toxic liquid was prevented from entering their bodies by their shells. He then had no choice but to manually collected the apple snails one by one. “This apple snail cannot be eradicated by pesticides, so they have to be captured by hand”, he said.

He explained that apple snails, usually only come into the paddy fields at night and stay until about 9 am, when the water becomes too hot for their comfort. He went on

Celebrity nail artist introduce new treatments

to say that “apple snails usually come out when the environment is humid like now. By and large, they only devour the stems of young paddy plants (up until about 25 days old)”.

He added that the last attack of apple snail left the stems of many paddy plants damaged or devoured entirely. Of the 0.22 hectare of land cultivated, about 10 percent was damaged by the apple snails. To minimize losses, the dead paddy plants were replaced with the new ones. Reserve paddy plants were obtained from splitting the larger clusters that were not attacked by pests. “Now, we must diligently replace the dead paddy plants, so that losses can be reduced. I have also created a physical barrier so that the pest can no longer disturbs the plants”, he said. (kmb35)

JIMBARAN - From retro designs to bold color schemes and iconic imagery, the hottest nail art trends are now available for brides and holiday-makers at Ayana Resort and Spa Bali, courtesy of celebrity nail artist Daisuke Morimoto.

Jetting between New York, Tokyo and Bali to service his celebrity clientele – including Nicki Minaj and Miley Cyrus who wanted their talons prepped for autograph signing at album launches – Daisuke spent one month at Ayana to train 12 beauty therapists in the latest trends from Japan, the center of nail art design. He said demand is increasing for retro styles, bright color combinations and symmetrical lines.

There is also a shift towards hand-painting over other mediums like 3D, as clients The farmer shows the snail attacking his ricefield.

Tomato farmers in Jembrana lose out due to rainy season NEGARA - Tomato farmers in at Subak Budeng Putih, Budeng village Jembrana, lost much of their crops to rotting at the start of the rainy season.

Over the past two months, their crop harvests were diminished because the plants were unable to withstand weather conditions. With rainfall nearly everyday, many tomatoes simply rotted on the vine. Although not all plants were damaged, the selling price was still cut in half from what it was previously.

Ni Luh Darmi, a 45 year-old tomato farmer (Jan 18) said on

Sunday (Jan 8) that the selling price during rainy season was way down from what it was before Galungan and Kuningan. At that time, the price of tomato was still around IDR 7,000 per kilogram. However, in the last two months, the price has slumped drastically to IDR 4,000 per kilogram. “Due to weather factor, many fruits are rotten because the plants got too much water and were thus weakened”, she complained.

Other than having an impact on tomatoes themselves, the plants were also less likely

to survive. A single plot of p l a n t s t h a t w o u l d b e h a rvested 10 times under normal conditions, was now unable to survive, tending to quickly wither. This farmer from Budeng admitted that during the recent rainy season the fruits were harvested early.

However, the results were less satisfying and many fruits were rotten. As a result, buyers were reluctant to purchase at a high price. After just three harvests, many tomato plants were already beginning to wilt. (kmb26)

IBP/File

Alleged to have renal failure, a German traveler dies at bungalow TABANAN - After the death of a Spanish traveler at one of the villas at Mengesta village, Penebel, Tabanan on Satruday (Jan 17), another foreigner has passed away. The Chief of Tabanan Police, Komang Suartana confirmed that this time it was German national who was found in a lifeless condition at one of the bungalows at Yeh Gangga hamlet, Sudimara village, Tabanan, Sunday (Jan 18) around 5:00 p.m.

The German citizen who died was named Margaretta A.B. Falkenberg, 87.

Her death was suspected to be due to

renal failure after suffering from illness for long time. Based on information gathered, Margaretta had repeatedly been invited to consult a doctor for treatment, but continually refused.

Suartana, said that Tabanan Police authorities have Margaretta son Han about his mother’s death. The chief of police said that, even though he is currently in the United States, “Margaretta’s son arranged to have his mother’s body cremated”.

For the time being,Margaretta,s body has been temporarily entrusted to the Sanglah Hospital mortuary. (kmb24)

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prefer a flat, sleek design to suit every occasion from the office to the party.

“Under Daisuke-san’s guidance, our beauty therapists are now on top of the nail art trends, and we use shellac or bio gel polish to create any kind of image, even a guest’s own design,” said Michi Sonoda, Spa Director at Ayana Resort and Spa Bali. “Whether hand-painting, 3D, stickers, holograms, foils, acrylic or the use of stone art, our therapists are able to use a variety of different mediums to create

beautiful nail art.”

Michi said nail art treatments are often requested by brides getting married at AYANA’s chapels or its new cliff-edge venue SKY, while guests on holiday also enjoy having fashionable nails that will go the distance as they hop from pool to pool and soak up the resort’s private beach. Bio gel is the most durable, lasting up to 3-4 weeks, while shellac is recommended for guests who like to change their designs more frequently. (r)

Profile

Rhonda Lepsch

It’s all about responsibility and education

On your visit to Jet Set Dive and Marine Sport (JSD) in Benoa, you will be warmly welcomed by Rhonda’s great smile and some of her loyal pets. After a successful career in finance in America, her homecountry and Hong Kong, Rhonda left for Bali to support her husband, Nyoman in operating his water sport business.

Since the establishment in 2011, they exert all possible efforts to run JSD in a responsible way. Thus, a solid Sustainable Tourism policy has been developed.

“From the service, the products to the facilities, everything is about quality and security here,” she said. Regarding CSR initiatives, all employees are from Benoa area and educated in appropriate certification centers to improve their skills.

While, professionalizing step by step and providing a better service, they receive motivating remuneration to secure their future. “In JSD, as in all the projects I support, it is all about bringing people up, treating them with respect and teaching

about good behaviorsto take care of their environment. We hope they will take these habits back to the community,” mentioned Rhonda, also team leader for the Bali Hotels Association initiatives related with water usage reduction.

On this regard, a leading reef and beach clean-up is organized every year to empower the local community.

If staff deserve to be well-treated and educated, the same goes for the Bali dogs.

Rhonda went to great length to rescue and re-home Bali’s street dogs. This year, with the support of the Bali Dog Adoption and Rehabilitation Center (BARC) she made it possible for the village to get 115 of the dogs vaccinated free of charge.

Rhonda confessed that her forte is to build things, taking it from the beginning to the end. “Observing our employees happy is the best reward, my husband and I could expect from our efforts.” However, she cannot conceal her fear that those efforts might be affected by the reclamation

project. “Whatever happened, I cannot change things, I can just help and educate,” she said. (kmb)

IBP/kmb

Balinese Temple Ceremony Every Temple and Shrine has a special date for it annual Ceremony, or “ Odalan “, every 210 days according to Balinese calendar, including the smaller ancestral shrine which each family possesses. Because of this practically every few days a ceremony of festival of some kind takes place in some Village in Bali. There are also times when the entire island celebrated the same Holiday, such as at Galungan, Kuningan, Nyepi day, Saraswati day, Tumpek Landep day, Pagerwesi day, Tumpek Wayang day etc.

The dedication or inauguration day of a Temple is considered its birth day and celebration always takes place on the same day if the wuku or 210 day calendar is used. When new moon is used then the celebration always happens on new moon or full moon. The day of course can differ the religious celebration of a temple lasts at least one full day with some temple celebrating for three days while the celebration of Besakih temple, the Mother Temple, is never less than 7 days and most of the time it lasts for 11 days, depending on the importance of the occasion.

The celebration is very colorful. The shrine are dressed with pieces of cloths and sometimes with brocade, sailings, decorations of carved wood and sometimes painted with gold and Chinese coins, very beautifully arranged, are hung in the four corners of the shrine. In front of shrine are placed red, white or black umbrellas depending which Gods are worshipped in the shrines.

In front of important shrine one sees, besides these umbrellas soars, tridents and other weapons, the “umbulumbul”, long flags, all these are prerogatives or attributes of Holiness. In front of the Temple gate put up “Penjor”, long bamboo poles, decorated beautifully ornaments of young coconut leaves, rice and other products of the land.

Most beautiful to see are the girls in their colorful attire, carrying offerings, arrangements of all kinds fruits and colored cakes, to the Temple. Every visitor admires the grace with which the carry their load on their heads.

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Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Science

International

Astronauts close to moving into space station for year CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — An American astronaut and Russian cosmonaut are just two months from launching to the International Space Station for an entire year. Scientists already are clamoring for additional long-term subjects.

Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko will rocket into orbit in late March from Kazakhstan. It will be the first time NASA sends someone into space for 12 months.

Two people are not enough from a scientific perspective, NASA’s space station program scientist, Julie Robinson, said Thursday. The space agency wants to start collecting data from Kelly and Kornienko before making decisions on further one-year missions, she said.

Before committing to lengthy trips to Mars and elsewhere, NASA wants to learn how the body fares after a year in space. NASA space station stints typically last six months.

NASA and its partners — Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada — are considering as many as 12 one-year test subjects at the space station. All but Russia are new to such long orbital hauls.

Medical and technological break-

throughs since Russia’s yearlong missions from the 1980s and 1990s means even more will be learned this time around, according to Robinson. The two sides will collaborate on many of the experiments. Kelly will provide an especially unique set of data. His blood and urine samples, as well as other measurements, will be compared with those from his identical twin brother, Mark, a retired astronaut.

Last week, space station program manager Mike Suffredini said NASA may wait until commercially developed crew capsules are ready to launch astronauts from U.S. soil before building on Kelly and Kornienko’s flight.

That won’t happen before 2017 or 2018. SpaceX and Boeing are the two chosen contractors.

Since the retirement of the U.S. space shuttle fleet in 2011, Russian Soyuz spacecraft have served as the only means to ferry crew to and from the space station. (ap)

AP Photo/Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center via NASA

This combination of photos provided by the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center via NASA, shows NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, left, and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko. On Thursday, Jan. 15, 2015, NASA said the two are just two months shy of launching to the International Space Station for an entire year. Already, though, scientists are clamoring for additional longterm subjects.

Study: Sea level rise accelerating Offshore wind would boost jobs, energy more than oil: study more than once thought WASHINGTON — The world’s oceans are now rising far faster than they did in the past, a new study says. The study found that for much of the 20th century — until about 1990 — sea level was about 30 percent less than earlier research had figured. But that’s not good news, scientists say, because about 25 years ago the seas started rising faster and the acceleration in 1990 turns out to be more dramatic than previously calculated.

The current sea level rise rate — which started in 1990 — is 2.5 times faster than it was from 1900 to 1990, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Scientists say that faster pace of sea level rise is from melting ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica and shrinking glaciers, triggered by man-made global warming.

“We’re seeing a significant acceleration in the past few decades,” said study lead author Carling Hay, a geophysical researcher at Harvard University. “It’s concerning for cities along the U.S. East Coast” where water levels are rising even faster than the world average.

“It’s definitely something that can’t be ignored,” Hay said.

Previous research said that between 1900 and 1990, the seas rose about twothirds of an inch (20 millimeters) a decade.

The new study recalculates the 1900-1990 rate to less than half an inch a decade.

Old and new research both say that since 1990 seas are rising at about 1.2 inches (30 millimeters) a decade.

While hundreds of tide gauges around the world have been measuring sea levels since 1900, they have mostly been in Europe and North America with few in the polar regions or the middle of the oceans, Hay said. So past estimates of 20th century sea level rise gave an incomplete picture of the global effect, said study co-author Jerry Mitrovica, a geophysics professor at Harvard.

The new method uses statistical analysis and computer models to better simulate the areas in the gap, Mitrovica said.

Outside scientists praised the new study, but were still cautious about adopting the estimates until more studies could be done.

“The implications are troubling — accelerated ocean warming, ice sheet collapse and sea level rise — all point to more and more sea level rise in the future, perhaps at a faster rate than previously thought,” said Jonathan Overpeck, co-director of the Institute of the Environment at the University of Arizona. “This will make adaptation to climate change more difficult and costly.” (ap)

MIAMI - Developing offshore wind technology in the Atlantic Ocean would produce twice the energy and job growth as drilling for oil would, an environmental group said Wednesday.

The analysis by Oceana was released ahead of the US government’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s five-year plan for oil and gas leasing, which could involve seismic testing for potential reserves in the Atlantic.

“The main crux of the report is we don’t even need to consider offshore drilling when we consider the vast offshore wind resources we have in the Atlantic,” said Andrew Menaquale, report author and energy analyst at Oceana.

Menaquale said less than four percent of the United States’ oil and gas is found in the offshore Atlantic.

The group’s report said that “energy created by 20 years of offshore wind in the Atlantic would produce nearly twice as much energy, (five billion barrels of oil equivalents) than what would be created by all of the economically recoverable oil and gas.”

It also found that offshore wind in the Atlantic could lead to 91,000 more jobs in the next two decades than offshore drilling.

The group said the oil industry “exaggerated” its projections for growth by including “oil and gas resources that are not economically recoverable, thereby inflating the potential benefits.”

The administration of US President Barack Obama said last year it would consider proposals for the use of seismic airguns to probe for oil and gas deposits

below the ocean floor from Delaware to Florida, an area that had previously been off-limits.

Oceana opposes the use of seismic airguns because their loud sounds can pose dangers to marine life.

“Based on the government’s own estimates, seismic blasting in the Atlantic could harm fish populations while injuring as many as 138,000 marine mammals like whales and dolphins, disturbing the vital activities of as many as 13.5 million more,” said Menaquale.

While the United States does not yet have any operation offshore wind facilities, momentum is building in that area.

The first wind farm off Rhode Island is expected to be up and running the next year, and large areas off the coast of Massachusetts will be bid on later this month.

In the US, “offshore wind is sort of a foreign concept,” Menaquale told AFP. “If you were to talk to people in northern Europe their ability to generate offshore wind resources is well known. In east Asia, it is becoming highly developed as well.”

Menaquale said he is hopeful that, once offshore wind becomes better known in the United States, people will realize its clean energy potential.

“The upcoming proposed five-year plan for offshore oil and gas is coming up, and we really hope that places like the Atlantic are not included in that plan,” he added.

“And if they are included we hope they are removed at a later date.” (afp)

Bali News

International

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

3

Fuel prices just like roller coaster

Tourism businesspeople made confused BANGLI - The price of fuel is just like roller coaster that makes people and entrepreneurs of transportation services confused. One of them is the operator of Kedisan-Trunyan crossing transportation in Kintamani. The confusion arises after the increase in fuel prices some time ago.

According to the Chief of Kedisan-Trunyan Crossing Services, I Nengah Dester, other than making the officers confused, visitors were also made confused by the crossing rates. “We are so confused in charging the crossing tariff and so are travelers. They are confused because if we enforce the tariff set they will consider it expensive because the fuel price has gone down,” he said.

Currently the crossing tariff remains unchanged. The new tariff applying from January 1 is based on a Regent Decree where single (domestic) traveler is charged at IDR 505,000, while foreign travelers at IDR 520,000; two passengers (domestic) are charged at IDR 528,000; while foreign travelers at IDR 550,000; three passengers (domestic) are charged at IDR 540,000, while foreign travelers at IDR 580,000. Crossing for four (domestic) travelers will be charged at IDR 555,000, while foreign travelers at IDR 615,000. Crossing for five (domestic) travelers will be charged at IDR 570,000, while foreign travelers at IDR 645,000. Crossing for six (domestic) passengers will be charged at IDR 590,000, while foreign travelers at IDR 680,000. Crossing for seven passengers will be charged at IDR 605,000 while foreign travelers at IDR 710,000.

Dester also admitted that the ever-changing tariff as the impact of fuel price also caused the decrease in

Kedisan-Trunyan crossing transportation in Kintamani. tourist visit to Trunyan. “Due to tariff change during holidays in this January, tourist arrival declined approximately 20 percent. We could not do much because the tariff is beyond our authority,” he said.

For new tariff related to the reduction plan of fuel price on Monday, Dester had not determined it yet. Determination of the crossing tariff was still reviewed. Rise and fall of fuel prices certainly made travel agencies

IBP/Sosiawan

confused. Nevertheless, when the new tariff had been issued, his party admitted to immediately inform travel agencies and visitors. “If the new tariff has been issued, we’ll certainly inform,” he affirmed. (sos)

Shivaratri, a right moment to improve Bali DENPASAR - Monday (Jan 19) yesterday, all Hindu devotees celebrated the Shivaratri feast day.

Shivaratri day is a universal teaching that can be used from any life’s point of view. Based on references, the word Shivaratri is derived from the word shiva meaning ‘bright, clear and glowing.’ Meanwhile, ratri means ‘dark.’ Thus, Shivaratri is the light having become dark.

The moment of Shivaratri can be used as an introspection and selfevaluation to stop committing the untruth, either the community or government officials, especially the entrepreneurs who make a living in Bali. This momentous day can be used as a milestone to improve the current Bali increasingly exploited.

In the vision of Ida Pedanda Made Gunung, many people currently wanted to fulfill their worldly desires.

As a consequence, darkness would always encapsulate their heart. Sin occurred due to impurities of human mind. After impurities, it would result in darkness. Shivaratri was the day of contemplation for those who were undergoing darkness in attaining light, so that we could live the life in accordance with scriptural teachings.

“What to ponder is who exactly are we. What is the point of our life on

this mundane realm? Where will we go after this life? Once arriving there, what will be taken?” he said.

In the lifetime, humans have five senses. So, the desire to have many cars, wife and many houses is definitely allowed. However, when the atman (soul) has reunion with Brahman (God), can we bring them all?

He asserted that what to bring along in the afterlife was only the karma or deeds. To that end, it was better for us to do good deeds in this lifetime.

In other words, we devoted to God, ourselves and the environment.

In the devotion we should perceive that the earth in Bali was only a temporary surrogate. The existing motherland was not ours, but that of our next generation. To that end, those who lived in this era should preserve it. “How faithless we will be if Bali vanishes from our hands,” he said.

Any destructive behavior, in this Shivaratri moment, should become a reflection of how to maintain and repair Bali, especially for the entrepreneurs (investors) who are seeking profits in Bali. Although pursuant to business concept, in this case, they really looked for profit, do not forget to perform sacrifice or yajña as the business concept mentioned in the Vedas. People might not do the op-

posite or destroyed the place where we made a profit. “Doing business is okay, but, especially for Balinese, do not destroy Bali,” said Ida Pedanda.

Just like look milking a cow, when people want to get more milk, raise the cow properly instead of

killing it. To that end, anyone who lives and makes money, including the leaders of Bali in the bureaucracy, should begin to realize and stop committing bad deeds to nature of Bali. “The earth is not ours, the earth is a privilege given by God

IBP/File Photo

Hindus people prayed at Jagatnatha Temple during Shivaratri celebration that falled on Monday, January 19. Shivaratri day is a universal teaching that can be used from any life’s point of view. Based on references, the word Shivaratri is derived from the word shiva meaning ‘bright, clear and glowing.’

for the future of humanity itself,” he said. (dar)

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Pediatrics room at Negara Hospital fully occupied

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NEGARA - Cempaka Room intended for third class patients (using Bali Mandara Health Insurance—JKBM) at Negara Hospital is lately thronged by many patients. As a result, the treatment room especially the one earmarked for pediatric patients is fully occupied so that the other patients have to be treated in hallway. As information gathered, the number of patients treated last weekend continued to increase.

Particularly for third class patients, those with symptoms of high fever kept coming. As consequence, the availability of beds in the third class room diminished. Such condition lasted until Sunday (Jan 18). Pediatric patients looked to be treated in hallway of Cempaka Room. One of the high-fevered patients from Ketugtug, Loloan Timur, M. Roziki, 11, was temporarily treated in the hallway because the treatment room was fully occupied. Even, this patient had a seizure and was given oxygen aid. Mother of Roziki, Sumarwati, 45, who was waiting on her son, said that he checked in on Sunday morning after getting high fever to seizures the night before.

Due to fully occupied treatment room, he was forced to be treated in hallway. “Yes, treatment room is fully occupied and we cannot do much.

If taking first class room, we cannot afford,” said Sumarwati resignedly.

Her son who suffered from epilepsy had long been controlled and got free medication. On Saturday night, her son was recurrence beyond the usual ones so that he should be hospitalized. As the totally five treatment was already fully occupied on Saturday (Jan 17), three other patients had to be treated in hallway of Cempaka Room. A patient could just be treated

IBP/Olo

The patients in Negara Hospital must be treated in the hallway becuase the rooms are fully occupied.

in the room after the other patient already checked out.

Of the dozens of patients being treated, most of them had a high fever accompanied with seizures.

One of the patient family members, Suwarno, said even though the treatment room had been fully occupied, the services extended by doctors or nurses were quite satisfying.

“Treated in the hallway does not matter, provided that the patient is still controlled any time. Unfortunately the treatment room for third class is still limited,” he said.

Director of Negara Hospital, Made Dwipayana, when asked for his confirmation last Sunday justified that last weekend a number of pediatric patients in Cempaka Room were shortage of room. “If the hallway is still full, we will temporarily entrust them in the second class and if bed is still available,” said Dwipayana. Especially for the patient of third class, according to him, could also temporarily take Flamboyan Room (special for third class). However, they would mingle with adult patients and others using the JKBM facilities.

Dwipayana recognized if the number of treatment bed in pediatric room was still lacking, let alone there was a surge in the number of patients. However, so far he said to still initiate the construction of additional hospital buildings that could accommodate 50 rooms including pediatric room. (kmb26)

Fruit quality declines, farmers process coconut into copra

TABANAN - Prolonged dry season apparently has remarkable impact on coconut production in Pupuan region, Tabanan. Many premature coconuts falling down cause farmers to think hard of how to find the best solution for avoiding losses. One of the ways to do is processing the coconuts into copra. It can be widely seen where a lot of coconuts are dried along Pupuan area.

Chairman of the National Farmers Contact (KTNA) of Pupuan, Suardika, explained that fairly long dry season in 2014 caused fronds as a coconut buffer to wither prematurely. Such condition made the quality of coconut

decline because it already fell prematurely due to the absence of buffer. In addition, dry season had caused the coconut fibers to easily absorb water during rainy season so that coconut was unsalable. “At the same time, collectors do not want to buy coconut of farmers as the quality is declining,” he said.

To process coconut falling prematurely, added Suardika, farmers in Pupuan attempted to find out a solution. Farmers could process the coconut into copra or process it into oil. However, seeing the quality of young fruit, making coconut oil was not the right choice so that farmers finally chose to make copra. “When the

coconut is old enough, a liter of oil can be obtained by processing 3-4 coconuts. Since the coconuts are still young, it will need at least seven pieces or more. Certainly we will suffer a loss,” explained Suardika.

The option of making copra, according to Suardika, was the right measure for the time being.

Farmers usually did not directly sell their copra but stored it first.

They would only sell it when the price of coconut was expensive.

According to Suardika, currently the price of coconut was cheap namely IDR 2,000 each. When the price soared, it could reach IDR 5,000 each. By and large, when

the price was expensive, collectors even purchased coconut while it was still very young (when its shell has no flesh yet) on the tree.

“When the price of coconut is expensive, copra will usually be expensive. It is the right time for farmers to sell their copra,” said Suardika.

Quality of coconuts, according to Suardika, highly depended on the season. When dry coconut was kept too long, it would cause the quality to decrease. On that account, as his prediction, the quality of coconut in Pupuan would turn back around March or April.

“During January and February, rainy season is estimated to still

take place, while dry season will begin to fall in March. At that time, coconut will have good condition,” he said.

Nevertheless, his worries did not only lie in the weather but also in the interests of Balinese people that needed young coconut leaves for the making of ritual paraphernalia. “Balinese people in need of young coconut leaf will take a lot of young and old leaves. As a result, the coconut will not bear fruit,” he said. Coconut in Pupuan could bear fruit around 10-12 pieces per cluster. Certainly they would not bear fruit if the clusters were already taken for ceremonial purposes. (kmb24)

AP Photo/Desmond Boylan

A Cuban and U.S. miniature national flags decorate the inside of a classic American car used as a collective taxi passes the Capitol Building in Havana, Cuba, Friday, Jan. 16, 2015.

US delegation to Cuba could meet with Raul Castro HAVANA — A U.S. congressional delegation sits down with Cuban officials on Monday in meetings that may include President Raul Castro, making them the highest-level contacts between the two nations since the declaration of detente last month.

The U.S. delegation is led by Sen. Patrick Leahy, who played a key role in the release of American contractor Alan Gross as part of a prisoner exchange that paved the way for the move toward full diplomatic relations. Leahy has met with Castro on past trips to Cuba and was expected to do so again on Monday, two days before Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson arrives in Havana to negotiate the reopening of the U.S. Embassy.

Leahy and five other Democratic senators and representatives are trying to ease the reestablishment of full relations by conveying to Cuban officials that their actions in the coming months will influence Congressional openness to President Barack Obama’s reforms.

At the same time, they are trying to get a sense of the biggest mystery hanging over the new stage of U.S.Cuban relations: how will Castro’s government respond to the U.S. push to expand diplomatic relations and trade ties?

Cuba has so far offered a guardedly positive reception to Obama’s

loosening of the trade embargo on Cuba, saying it welcomes the full package of new economic ties on offer, from sales of telecommunications equipment to exports to the private business sector. But it insists it will maintain its oneparty political system and centrally planned economy.

It has released 53 prisoners on a list of dissidents the U.S. wanted freed, but said nothing about whether it will allow U.S. products to flow to Cuba without the staggering taxes and regulations that keep many other foreign products from reaching ordinary Cubans.

“We are seeing a remarkable change in relations between our countries and we want to talk to some of the Cubans to see what they think about it, to see what’s going to happen next,” Leahy said after arriving in Cuba. “Obviously we hope to have a lot more freedom of expression amongst Cubans, but also the ability for our own two countries to talk with each other, something long overdue.”

With formal diplomatic relations

highly restricted, some of the most significant U.S.-Cuban contacts in recent years have been carried out by Congressional delegations.

While Obama’s actions fall under executive authority and don’t require Congressional approval, legislators could hinder key measures including the removal of Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terror.

On Saturday, the delegation met with officials from Cuba’s Culture Ministry in order to discuss possible Cuban participation in the Smithsonian Institution’s Folklife Festival, a summer celebration of traditional art and culture on Washington’s National Mall. The senators met Sunday with more than a dozen dissidents including critics of the 18-month-old secret negotiations that led to last month’s announcement.

“It was a friendly meeting, they heard the different positions, but the senators are very much in favor of Obama’s measures and want to hear that we agree,” said Antonio Rodiles, who criticizes the Obama administration for failing to win enough guarantees of reform from Castro. “I said the process took place without transparency or taking the full range of opinions into account.” (ap)

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Pope leaves Manila after drawing record crowd of 6 million

MANILA — Pope Francis flew out of this Catholic bastion in Asia on Monday after a weeklong trip that included a visit to Sri Lanka and drew what Filipino officials says was a record crowd of 6 million faithful in a Manila park where he celebrated Mass.

President Benigno Aquino III, church leaders and 400 street children yelling “Pope Francis we love you,” saw him off at a Manila air base, where the pontiff, carrying a black travel bag, boarded a Philippine Airlines plane for a flight to Rome. Standing at the top of the stairs, the pope waved to the crowd, slightly bowed his head, then walked into the plane.

Hundreds of thousands of Filipinos lined Manila’s streets, with police keeping a close watch, to have their final glimpse of Francis, who smiled and waved aboard an open-sided, white popemobile. “He’s my No. 1 world leader,” said Rita Fernandez, a 63-year-old mother of four, who stood on a street near the Apostolic Nunciature in Manila where Francis stayed during his four-day visit.

“He rides on a bus. He flew to Tacloban to visit the typhoon survivors despite the storm and he stops to talk to the poor. He’s a living saint,” said Fernandez, who held a cellphone with a camera and wore a yellow shirt showing a smiling Francis.

A crowd estimated at a record 6 million people by officials poured into Manila’s rain-soaked streets and its biggest park Sunday as Pope Francis ended his Asian pilgrimage with an appeal for Filipinos to protect their young from sin and vice so they can become missionaries of the faith.

The crowd estimate, which could not be independently verified, included people who attended the pope’s final Mass in Rizal Park and surrounding areas, and lined his motorcade route, said the chairman of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, Francis Tolentino.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the Vatican had received the figure officially from local authorities and that it was a record, surpassing the 5 million who turned out for St. John Paul II’s final Mass in the same park in 1995.

Francis dedicated the final homily of his Asia trip to children, given that the Mass fell on an important feast day honoring the infant Jesus.

His focus was a reflection of the importance that the Vatican places on Asia as the future of the church since it’s one of the few places where Catholic numbers are growing — and on the Philippines as the largest Catholic nation in the region.

“We need to see each child as a gift to be welcomed, cherished and protected,” Francis said. “And we need to care for our young people, not allowing them to be robbed of hope and condemned to a life on the streets.” (ap)

AP Photo/Ron Soliman

Pope Francis waves to the crowd as he arrives at Quirino Grandstand to celebrate his final Papal Mass in Manila, Philippines, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2015.

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BUSINESS Euro weakens in Asia on ECB stimulus speculation TOKYO - The euro struggled in Asia Monday on growing expectations that the European Central Bank will announce a massive bond-buying scheme to buoy the eurozone’s struggling economy.

In Tokyo, the single currency slipped to $1.1556 and 135.42 yen, from $1.1566 and 135.87 yen on Friday in New York, where at one point it had dropped below $1.1500 for the first time since November 2003.

Investors have been moving out of the euro before the ECB meeting on Thursday. Analysts are forecasting it will see the introduction of sovereign bond purchases, known as quantitative easing (QE).

The scheme essentially entails the bank printing euros in order to boost lending and fight off deflation -- similar to the plan recently ended by the US Federal Reserve. However with more cash in circulation demand for the single currency weakens.

“Nothing could be clearer than the current economic and policy divide between the US and Europe,” said National Australia Bank.

“As the Fed ponders rate lift-off and US consumer sentiment hits its highest level for 11 years, the ECB last week has been putting together a QE plan that will get some sort of approval from Germany.”

The dollar weakened to 117.13 yen, against 117.46 yen in US trading, as jittery investors sought out safer assets following a plunge in Chinese stocks. The drop was sparked by regulators punishing several brokerages for violating margin trading rules, which fuelled an extended market rally.

“The slide in Shanghai stocks is leading to yen buying,” Yuji Saito, director of foreign exchange at Credit Agricole in Tokyo, told Bloomberg News.

“With risk sentiment deteriorating right now, anything obscure will lead to reducing positions.”

The Bank of Japan also holds a meeting this week, but few expect a further loosening of its monetary policy as it tries to counter a downturn in the world’s number three economy.

In other trading, the euro bought 1.0017 Swiss francs.

On Thursday the Swiss National Bank announced it was abandoning the minimum rate of 1.20 francs against the euro, a limit imposed three years ago during the eurozone debt crisis to stop the franc from appreciating too much.

The shock announcement was felt across the globe as the franc immediately strengthened by 30 percent against the euro.

The dollar was mixed against other AsiaPacific currencies. It strengthened to 1,077.00 South Korean won from 1,076.90 won on Friday, to Sg$1.3276 from Sg$1.3238, and to 12,600.30 Indonesian rupiah from 12,570.00 rupiah.

The dollar weakened to Tw$31.50 from Tw$31.57, to 32.55 Thai baht from 32.68 baht, and 61.67 Indian rupees from 61.92 rupees, while it was flat at 44.67 Philippine pesos.

The Australian dollar fell to 82.10 US cents from 82.35 cents, while the Chinese yuan fetched 18.83 yen against 18.74 yen. (afp)

Mapeed Tradition AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin

Sellers make a note as a woman selects her purchases at a food market in central Moscow, Russia, Friday, Jan. 16, 2015.

Faced with a crippling recession, Russian authorities are coming in for growing criticism from economic insiders concerned over a lack of clear policies to deal with the crisis.

Russian government takes flak as it fails to stem economic crisis MOSCOW - Faced with a crippling recession, Russian authorities are coming in for growing criticism from economic insiders concerned over a lack of clear policies to deal with the crisis.

After a year that saw growth slump and the ruble nosedive on the back of falling oil prices and Western sanctions over Ukraine, officials have predicted that Russia’s economy will contract by some five percent in 2015.

As government income shrinks, the overall rate of inflation also looks set to hit around 17 percent by spring.

And -- with the situation hitting the wallets of ordinary Russians -- alarm bells are ringing that the authorities under strongman President Vladimir Putin are floundering in their efforts to find a way out.

“I have read all of the government documents and I did not understand the aim of their economic policies,” said Herman Gref, head of Russia’s largest lender,

Sberbank.

Speaking at an economic forum in Moscow last week, Gref, a former economy minister and member of the Kremlin’s marginalised liberal clan, called for a “radical” shift in direction to restore global confidence in Russia’s battered economy.

But, for now, these appeals for a sharp change of tack seem to be having little impact.

Taking to the podium at the same event, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev promised increased assistance to pensioners and large families and insisted that Moscow had no intention of turning its back on globalisation or plans to transform the economy into a “Western model”.

Like Putin before him, however, he failed to announce a single concrete measure or reform, leaving his ministers to debate how best Moscow should be using its roughly $385 billion of reserves or whether the country needs to be tightening its belt.

“This is what I feared: the discussion focused on how much we should be spending and for how long. This is the worst model of economic policy,” responded Gref to the Kommersant newspaper.

Over the past month the Russian government has scrambled to put out the growing number of economic firestorms. It has stepped in to bail out struggling banks, supported faltering airlines and unblocked funds for infrastructure projects.

On Friday Medvedev announced a series of “crisis meetings” aimed at tackling the problems battering different sectors of the economy.

But the steps taken so far have left some experts scratching their heads.

Leading business daily Vedemosti this week denounced the “contradictory measures” between supporting some sectors and plans to slash spending for others.

“In a time of crisis, it is better to do nothing than to be all over the place,” the paper wrote. (afp)

IBP/File Photo

The cultural splendor of mepeed usually enlivened the odalan nadi or grandiose temple anniversary. Children, teenagers, and housewives of Sukawati subdistrict looked so elegant with modernly modified attires.

GIANYAR - The cultural splendor of mepeed usually enlivened the odalan nadi or grandiose temple anniversary. Children, teenagers, and housewives of Sukawati subdistrict looked so elegant with modernly modified attires.

Mepeed participants consisting of several hamlets in Sukawati showed the prettiest and the best. Colorful nuance and smile of mapeed participants successfully attracted the public attention. It drew many local and foreign photography lovers to immortalize the momentous moment.

Mapeed procession was getting more interesting when the dance creation accompanied with gamelan music was performed. The mapeed procession started coming down to road by covering a distance of about 1 kilometer. Meanwhile, hundreds of people watching the procession were clapping happily. The spectacle looked really wonderful!

The mapeed tradition was held annually or every odalan nadi. It was always watched by many spectators. The mapeed is aimed to accompany the procession of mendak tirtha (invoking holy water) to springs.

Mepeed is derived from the word peed meaning ‘to march like a parade.’ The tradition has already existed since the era of Sukawati Kingdom in 1711 AD. Today, it has become a cultural heritage from generation to generation. In the other regions in Bali, the mapeed tradition was often called deeng. Previously, the participants getting involved in the mapeed procession mostly dressed in white and yellow. However, due to the development of era and influence of globalization, the fashion in use in the procession has been more stylishly modified.

The mapeed was a sacred procession serving to enliven the grandiose temple anniversary carried out when invoking holy water. Beauty of the mepeed tradition was expected to become one of the icons in developing and introducing Balinese culture to international community. (kmb)

Tipat urab rich in nutrition

Have you ever tasted tipat urab? Wow ... it’s absolutely delicious. This kind of delicacy has become a staple food for the Hindu community in Bali. Apart from relieving the hunger, the tipat or rice bag is also commonly used for oblation to be offered to God as an expression of gratitude. Therefore, the Balinese people have various kinds of tipat adjusted to the ceremony held.

Some of examples of the tipat include the tipat nasi, tipat taluh, tipat kedis, tipat sari, tipat bagia, tipat gong and even tipat galeng. These kinds of tipat were first offered to God and after that they are consumed. Farmers usually enjoy it without side dish and additional special menus.

Today, the tipat is served with a variety of additional side dishes, so that it turns delectable. As consequence, its name is different in appropriate with the name of the additional side dishes. One of them is called tipat urab, where the tipat is served with mixed vegetables. This kind of serving is rich in vitamins and nutrients.

In Denpasar, the tipat urab serving is usually sold by traditional stalls. It is different from the rural community that ordinarily prepares it pursuant to their individual taste. Its ingredients consist of rice bag, vegetables and boiled eggs to increase the nutritional value. As the preparation, first of all, prepare the ingredients for seasoning of the mixed vegetables such as chili, onion, garlic, salt, shrimp paste and aromatic ginger. Finely ground these and then mix them with grated coconut.

The vegetable is composed of string bean and bean sprouts.

Boil them until cooked and then drain well. Furthermore, the spice batter is steamed until cooked as well. When the vegetable ingredients are ready, use the seasoning to smear the vegetables previously drained.

To serve it, put the rice bag on a plate to taste, sprinkle with the seasoning of the mixed vegetables, add boiled egg

and roasted peanuts. For topping and obtaining traditional impression, add fried sambal emba (consisting of fried onion, garlic, chili and salt). When the serving has been well arranged, add a slice of lime to enrich the flavor. Ultimately, it is ready to serve. (kmb)

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14 killed, thousands displaced by Madagascar tropical storm ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — At least 14 people were killed over the weekend when the island nation of Madagascar was battered by a tropical storm, officials said Monday. Tropical storm Chedza has displaced more than 36,000 Madagascans, said the National Office of Risk and Catastrophe Management. Most of the deaths were a result of landslides caused by heavy rain and building collapses as strong winds tore roofs from houses.

Flooding was especially severe in the capital Antananarivo, where more than 30,000 people have been displaced, said the national office.

The Madagascan government has set up temporary shelters in schools and

AP Photo/Manu Brabo

A woman walks through a residential area hit by the Ukrainian Army Artillery in Voroshilovsky area, center of Donetsk, Ukraine. Sunday, Jan. 18, 2015.

Rebels claim to control Donetsk airport after intense fight

DONETSK, Ukraine — Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine claimed Monday that they have seized control of the Donetsk airport after days of intense fighting. Ukrainian officials have not confirmed a retreat. “All attempts of the Ukrainian army to take the airport and to get revenge for the defeat of the last year... have failed,” rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko said at a press conference early Monday in Donetsk.

He accused Ukraine of using rocket and artillery fire with an intensity that rebel forces had “never experienced before.” The city of Donetsk, the separatist stronghold, was shaken by heavy outgoing and incoming artillery fire over the weekend as a battle raged for the air terminal and surrounding areas. Sporadic explosions could still be heard from the direction of the airport early Monday.

Reduced to rubble, the airport is of limited strategic importance in the short term, but has great symbolic value. In the longer term, the government fears that the separatists could use the airport to expand their control over eastern Ukraine and create an air supply route with Russia.

Ukrainian officials did not confirm a retreat. Military spokesman

Andriy Lysenko would say only that the situation remained tense. Yuriy Biryukov, an adviser to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, wrote on his official Facebook account early Monday that wounded soldiers had been evacuated from the air terminal overnight, but did not say how many troops had remained.

“We will not abandon our own, nobody has forgotten them,” he wrote. “Everything will be (ours), but just not right away. We are learning.” Three Ukrainian servicemen were killed and 66 wounded in the previous 24 hours, Lysenko said. He would not say how many of those casualties occurred at the airport. The U.N. estimates that more than 4,700 people have been killed in eastern Ukraine since April.

The separatists increased the stakes last week by successfully taking over large sections of the airport, where Ukrainian troops had remained despite coming under rocket attacks for months on end.

The Ukrainians then unleashed a counter-offensive, supported by a hasty reinforcement of troops and heavy armor.

Lysenko said that according to a cease-fire agreement reached in September, the airport was to be left under Ukrainian control. Russia and the separatists dispute this.

Russia and Ukraine both expressed willingness on Monday to work toward implementation of the cease-fire agreement, including a provision to pull back heavy weapons. But each side put the onus on the other for the lack of progress. (ap)

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other public buildings to house those forced from their homes.

Tropical storm Chedza passed over the island nation on Friday and Saturday and is continuing in a southeast direction, according to satellite images published by NASA. The tropical storm may intensify as it crosses the Indian Ocean toward Africa’s southeastern coast.

The southern African countries of Mozambique and Malawi have been affected by flooding caused by heavy rains. At least 176 people have died and about 200,000 are displaced in Malawi, while dozens have died and thousands displaced in Mozambique. (ap)

Police tear-gas school kids in demo over playground NAIROBI — Kenyan police Monday tear-gassed schoolchildren demonstrating against the removal of their school’s playground, which has been allegedly grabbed by a powerful politician, said a Kenyan human rights activist.

The students from Langata Road Primary School were in the front line of people pulling down a wall erected around the playground which has been acquired by a private developer said to be a powerful politician, said Boniface Mwangi. Primary school children in Kenya are usually between six and 13 years of age.

“The governor, the senator and other government officials are all scared of the politician, they cannot do anything to stop the playground from the being taken,” Mwangi said. Television footage showed children, some being carried away, writhing in pain, screaming and choking because of the tear-gas.

Police officers later brought dogs to the playground.

Police spokesman Masoud Mwinyi was not available for comment. Elijah Mwangi, who was in charge of the police officers at the school, said he was following orders. Opposition politician Eliud Owalo said last week that the playground had been grabbed to construct a parking lot for the politician’s hotel adjacent to the school.

“This is brutality beyond words and greed beyond description. It is difficult to believe that police can actually deploy against primary school children and lob tear gas at them to defend a land grabber. This image of a nation determined to steal forcefully from its own children cannot be what we aspire to. It cannot be the legacy we want to bequeath the children,” said opposition leader Raila Odinga. Allegations of land seizures by Kenyan officials has become a controversial issue in the country. (ap)

AP Photo

Shocked members of the Maximum Revival Ministries Church view the body of their assistant pastor George Karidhimba Muriki outside the church after he was shot dead by armed gunmen on a motor bike as he was entering into the Church for a Sunday service in Mombasa, Kenya, Sunday Jan. 11, 2015.

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INDONESIA Government to draft KPK begins commodity export questioning witnesses financing scheme in Budi Gunawan’s case JAKARTA - The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has begun questioning witnesses in connection with an alleged bribery case involving Commissioner General Budi Gunawan here on Monday.

The KPK summoned Brigadier General Herry Prastowo, who is the director of general crime investigation, and Senior Commissioner Ibnu Isticha, who is a senior lecturer of the Police Institute, to be questioned as witnesses over the case that day.

“The two are questioned for suspect BG (Budi Gunawan),” Priharsa Nugraha, the head of news and information, noted.

The KPK had earlier stated that the settlement of the case would be expedited to prevent unrest in the community.

The commissioner general, who is chief of the Institutions of Police, has recently been named the national police chief candidate, but his inauguration has been postponed after the KPK named him a suspect in a corruption case.

On Friday, President Joko Widodo ordered Deputy National Police Chief Commissioner General Badrodin Haiti to act as national police chief following the

dismissal of General Sutarman.

The KPK has, so far, barred Budi Gunawan, his son Muhammad Hervianto Widyatama, Budi’s assitant Iie Tiara, and Inspector General Syahtria Sitepu from travelling abroad to ease the questioning process.

In 2005, Hervianto, while he was still 19, received a loan in cash worth US$5.9 billion from PT Pacific Blue and Rp32 billion of the total loan amount was transferred to Budi Gunawan’s account. The transaction, however, has been checked and declared as a normal transaction by the Crime Investigation Agency.

Budi Gunawan was allegedly involved in suspicious transactions when he was the head of career development and the deputy for human resources between 2003 and 2006 and also held other positions.

The KPK has charged him of violating several articles in the corruption law carrying a sentence of 4-20 years in jail or life imprisonment. (ant)

REUTERS/Beawiharta

A man shoots video footage of part of the fuselage of crashed AirAsia Flight QZ8501 inside a storage facility at Kumai port in Pangkalan Bun, January 19, 2015. The airliner lost contact with air traffic control in bad weather on December 28, 2014, less than halfway into a two-hour flight from the city of Surabaya to Singapore. All 162 people on board were killed.

JAKARTA - The government is drafting a financing scheme to boost the exports of four major commodities with funds from banks or non bank financing institutions.

Deputy for Financing Sector at the Ministry of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Choirul Djamhari said here, Monday, his office was studying the right sources of fund to help boost exports of coffee, cacao, handicraft products and garments.

“We are preparing a draft for a special financing scheme for the producers of the four commodities or SMEs ,” Choirul said.

He said he wanted to call on banks, non bank financial institutions including venture capital companies , cooperative and operator of rolling funds to give greater loans to finance export of SMEs commodities.

In addition to weak competitiveness in quality , minimum access to market information and international markets have been among the major problems faced by SMEs, he said.

“With support from banks and non bank financial agencies, SMes are expected to be able to enter export market,” he said.

He said so far the SMEs commodities have entered international markets through a third party that they could not fully earn the real value of their products .

Data from Bank Indonesia (BI) 2013 showed financing by banks and non bank financial agencies for SMEs grew 15 percent from Rp480 trillion in 2011 to Rp640 trillion in 2013.

Medium scale enterprises accounted for 47 - 49 percent of the financing, small enterprises for 30-31 percent and micro businesses for 21-22 percent in 2013.

The sources of fund at present is the government through its LPDBKUMKM and forest development financing center (P3H), and banks such as people credit banks (BPR), Stock Market, venture capital, pawnshop and micro financial institution, cooperatives and angel investors. (ant)

SYDNEY - Canberra is pursuing efforts to save two convicted Australians from the firing squad in Indonesia, Foreign Minister Julia Bishop said Monday after Jakarta executed six drug offenders. “The prime minister (Tony Abbott) has written again to President (Joko) Widodo,” Bishop said.

“The Australian government will continue to make representations at the highest level.”

Brazil and the Netherlands recalled their ambassadors from Indonesia and expressed fury Sunday after Jakarta put to death two of their citizens along with four other drug offenders from Vietnam, Malawi, Nigeria and Indonesia.

The six were the first people executed under new President Widodo, who took office in October and has voiced strong support for capital punishment.

Widodo’s stance has raised fears for other foreigners sentenced to death, particularly two Australians who were part of the “Bali Nine” group caught trying to smuggle heroin out of Indonesia in 2005.

One of the pair, Myuran Sukumaran, had his clemency appeal rejected last month but authorities say he will be executed with fellow Australian

Andrew Chan as they committed their crime together.

Chan is still awaiting the outcome of his clemency appeal.

Bishop skirted round questions of Australia withdrawing diplomats from Jakarta, noting they were required to stay to plead with the government.

She said the foreign ministry had recently replied to her own letter “rejecting our representations on the basis that Indonesia claims it is facing a crisis in terms of drug trafficking and it believes that the death penalty should apply.”

“It is a long-standing position of Australian governments that we oppose the death penalty and we oppose the execution of Australian nationals by another country,” she said.

“I don’t believe executing people is the answer to solving the drug problem.

“However, this is Indonesian law and it is a sober reminder that drug related offences carry very, very heavy penalties in other countries, particularly in Indonesia.”

Widodo pledged in December there would be no pardons for drug traffickers on death row, including foreigners. (afp)

Australia pursues plea to spare drug smugglers on death row

10

Destination

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Sports

International

International

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

7

Federer routs Lu to reach Australian Open second round

Petang Village

AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Frank Gunn

IBP/File Photo

MANGUPURA - Petang Village is situated on an altitude of 800 meters above sea level, approximately 32 kilometers north of Denpasar. This village offers a countryside atmosphere remaining beautiful and original with horticultural plants that include various kinds of vegetable and fruit. Addition-

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named Campuhan. Then, the nearby waterfall makes the atmosphere of start point more naturally magnificent.

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New Orleans Pelicans guard Tyreke Evans (1) drives to the hoop against Toronto Raptors center Jonas Valanciunas during first-half NBA basketball game action in Toronto, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2015.

Tyreke Evans leads Pelicans past Raptors, 95-93

TORONTO — Tyreke Evans scored from a driving layup with 1.6 seconds left as the New Orleans Pelicans beat Toronto 95-93 on Sunday, their first victory in seven meetings with the Raptors. Evans scored 26 points, and Alexis Ajinca had 22 to help the Pelicans win without injured starters Anthony Davis and Jrue Holiday. Davis and Holiday sat out for the second straight game. Davis is sidelined by a sprained toe on his left foot, and Holiday has a sore right ankle.

Pelicans coach Monty Williams said Davis could return Monday night at New York against the Knicks, but said he won’t rush the former first overall pick back into the lineup because of how hard Davis plays. DeMar DeRozan led Toronto with 22 points. The Raptors have lost seven of their last nine games.

San Antonio’s Tiago Splitter scored 14 points, and Kawhi Leonard had 12 points and nine rebounds as the Spurs never trailed to beat the Jazz 89-69 while hold-

ing Utah to a season-low scoring total.

Tim Duncan added 11 points in 23 minutes for San Antonio, which has won three straight — including the last two with Leonard back in the lineup.

Rudy Gobert had 13 points and a season-high 18 rebounds and Gordon Hayward added 10 points for Utah. The Jazz shot 33 percent while also setting season lows in points by a San Antonio opponent for the game and in the first half (27). In Orlando, Florida, — Kevin

Durant had 21 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists as the Oklahoma City downed the Orlando Magic 127-99.

Russell Westbrook finished with 17 points and six assists.

Serge Ibaka and Dion Waiters each added 16 points. The Thunder never trailed, and led by as many as 38 on their way to snapping a four-game road losing streak. They also shot 57 percent in the first of five road games in nine nights. Victor Oladipo led Orlando with 23 points.

Elfrid Payton added 19 points and eight assists.

The Magic gave up a clubrecord 79 first-half points on their way dropping their second straight game. The Thunder were also the sixth consecutive opponent to score 100 or more points against them. (ap)

MELBOURNE - Cooling temperatures in the Melbourne evening forced Roger Federer to rethink his tactics in a clinical 6-4 6-2 7-5 rout of Taiwan’s Lu Yen-Hsun under the lights of Rod Laver Arena on Monday. In ominous form after winning the Brisbane International in the leadup, the 33-year-old Swiss was impenetrable on serve and charged around the court to preserve his unbeaten record in the first round at Melbourne Park in his 16th appearance.

As the game progressed into the evening, however, Federer found the Taiwanese got more and more into the match, giving him a decent first round workout despite the comparative ease with which the Swiss master managed to advance into the second round. “I thought I was playing very well through the first couple of sets, I was returning and able to dominate the plays from the back,” Federer told reporters.

“I think conditions slowed down a bit. Because of the coolness and the night coming in, I felt it was hard to generate stuff (and) it became a very interesting third set. “Instead of sort of just steamrolling through him he really made it tough for me.” The type of match was probably exactly what Federer needed in the first round of the season opening grand slam.

He continued with the things that were working well, like his serve, and worked on the aspects of his game that he may need to introduce more as he progresses through the tournament.

“I was holding my service games very comfortably,” he added.

“Until probably 5-2 in the second set was the first time he had any play on my service game. “I started to mix it up and trying out things because I had to towards the end of the third. “I adjusted to the conditions, because it did play different at 7:00 than it did at 8:30. A drastic change, in my opinion.”

The 47th-ranked Lu exploited the slowing pace of the balls to make the third set a contest, but lost serve in the 11th game before Federer sealed the match in less than two hours.

“Winning first round, it’s always a bit of a relief,” added Federer, who will play Italian Simone Bolelli in the next round. “I thought I played good.” (rtr)

REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Roger Federer of Switzerland reaches to hit a shot against Lu Yen-Hsun of Taiwan during their men’s singles first round match at the Australian Open 2015 tennis tournament in Melbourne January 19, 2015.

8

International

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

International

Sp rt

Ronaldo, Messi keep Real and Barca motoring MADRID - Real Madrid ensured top spot in La Liga at the midway point of the season when Cristiano Ronaldo struck twice in a 3-0 win at Getafe on Sunday before Lionel Messi’s hat-trick helped Barcelona to a 4-0 victory at Deportivo La Coruna. The world’s two best players were again in scintillating form but champions Atletico Madrid ensured they stayed in the hunt with a 2-0 success at home to bottom club Granada that lifted them back into third place. with a left-foot piledriver moments before the break.

Ronaldo, who beat Messi to win his third FIFA Ballon d’Or award on Monday, broke the deadlock in the 63rd minute, clipping the ball in from close range after good work from Karim Benzema.

Gareth Bale made it 2-0 four minutes later when he finished cleverly after a swift break and Ronaldo grabbed his second 11 minutes from time with a powerful header, the Portugal forward’s 28th goal of the campaign in his 17th appearance.

Getafe battled bravely against their glamorous city neighbours and almost pulled a goal back four minutes from time but a shot from Alvaro Vazquez bounced away off a post.

NO EXCUSES

Fatigue has been suggested as one reason for Real’s recent stutter but Iker Casillas insisted

Iran beats UAE 1-0 BRISBANE, Australia — Substitute Reza Ghoochannejhad scored a controversial injury-time goal to lift Iran to a 1-0 win over UAE and top spot in Group C at the Asian Cup on Monday.

Despite a free-flowing game, and a virtuoso performance by UAE playmaker Omar Abdulrahman, neither side could find a breakthrough until Ghoochannejhad’s late strike helped Asia’s

top-ranked team avoid a likely quarterfinal showdown with Japan.

Ghoochannejhad appeared to be offside when he pounced on a ball — that had ricocheted off team-mate Andranik Teymourian — and directed his header into the top corner from close range.

At Sydney, Bahrain beat Qatar 2-1 to finish third in Group C in a match between two already eliminated teams. (ap)

Ancelotti’s men were not feeling the effects of a packed calendar.

“We are not tired but after a week of holiday it is tough to get back to the routine,” the Spain keeper told Spanish TV. “Unfortunately we lost in the Cup, where we were the holders, but there are no excuses,” he added. “Now we can prepare better for the matches and train harder.

It’s been a good first half of the season.” Messi’s treble at the Riazor took his tally for the La Liga season to 19.

The Argentina forward’s opening goal in the 11th minute was a rare header and he made it 2-0 in the 33rd when he dinked the ball over Depor keeper Fabricio from close range.

He completed his 33rd career hat-trick, and his 22nd in La Liga one fewer than record holder Ronaldo - when he drifted in from the right wing in the 62nd minute and

PSG, Marseille scrap to laborious wins in French league

whipped a shot into the far corner.

Promoted Depor were completely outclassed and fell 4-0 behind when the ball ricocheted into the net off defender Sidnei in the 83rd minute.

“It was important to keep winning, wracking up three points each game, and that’s what we did,” Barca playmaker Andres

REUTERS/Sergio Perez

Real, who have a game in hand, have 45 points from 18 of 38 matches, with Barca on 44 and Atletico on 41 in third. Sevilla (39 points) climbed back into fourth above Valencia (38), 3-2 winners at home to Almeria on Saturday, thanks to a 2-0 win against Malaga in the Andalusian derby.

“We have performed very well in this first part of the league,” Real coach Carlo Ancelotti told a news conference. “We started with the odd problem but then we had a very good run,” added the Italian. “We are very well positioned and we have to carry on in the same way.”

Despite Ronaldo’s latest scoring feat, it was hardly a vintage performance from Real, who have stumbled at the start of 2015 and were dumped out of the King’s Cup by Atletico on Thursday. The European champions failed to score in the opening half of a La Liga game for the first time this season, although Toni Kroos came close when he rattled the crossbar

PARIS — Substitute Mario Lemina and France striker Andre-Pierre Gignac scored late in the second half as Marseille beat Guingamp 2-1 for its first win in a month while Paris Saint-Germain again struggled for inspiration in a scrappy 4-2 defeat of bottom side Evian on Sunday in the French league.

After starting the new year with back to back defeats and being knocked off the top of the standings

by Lyon, Marseille was made to work by a spirited and well-organized Guingamp team before Lemina headed home from close range six minutes from time to put the hosts in front.

Gignac then extended Marseille’s lead from Dimitri Payet’s pinpointed free kick five minutes later with another header into the side netting that left goalkeeper Jonas Lossl stranded.

Claudio Beauvue pulled one back from the penalty spot by sending Steve Mandanda the wrong way after Rod Fanni was sent off in added time.

Marseille moved within one point of Lyon while PSG’s win lifted the defending champions to third in the standings — four points behind the leaders — after fourth-place Saint-Etienne remained unbeaten in 12 league games but was held to a goalless draw at Rennes. “Since the start of the year we have been somewhat too AP Photo/Claude Paris

Iniesta told reporters. Barca host Atletico for their Cup quarter-final, first leg on Wednesday. (rtr) division soccer match at Colisseum Alfonso Perez stadium in Getafe, outside Madrid, January 18, 2015.

Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo (L) kicks the ball next to Getafe’s Roberto Lago during their Spanish first

Dortmund’s injury woes continue as season restart looms BERLIN - Struggling Borussia Dortmund’s injury woes this season show no signs of stopping with midfielder Sebastian Kehl and Kevin Grosskreutz injured on the last day of their training camp in Spain, the club said on Monday.

Grosskreutz suffered a partial ligament tear in his ankle and is expected to be out for about a week while Kehl

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

sustained a shoulder injury with a diagnosis expected later on Monday, the club said.

“Kevin will undergo special rehabilitation training in the coming days,” it said in a statement after the team’s return to Germany.

Dortmund, champions in 2011 and 2012, are currently in 17th place in the Bundesliga with the season resuming

on Jan. 30 after the winter break.

They have had a bad run with injuries this season, missing Marco Reus for some months along with Ilkay Guendogan, Jakub Blaszczykowski, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Nuri Sahin and Marcel Schmelzer among others.

Dortmund also face Juventus in the Champions League Round of 16 first leg next month. (rtr)

Marseille’s French midfielder Mario Lemina, left, celebrates after scoring against Guingamp with his teammate French forward AndrePierre Gignac, during the League One soccer match between Marseille and Guingamp, at the Velodrome Stadium, in Marseille, southern France, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2015.

complacent. We spoke a lot during this week and we felt some improvement in our game,” Payet said. “We’ll find our confidence back with victories like this one.”

After claiming just one point in its three previous matches, under-fire PSG coach Laurent Blanc needed a convincing win to erase the memory of a painful 4-2 loss in Bastia last weekend when his players threw away a 2-0 lead.

But his side was caught cold at the Parc des Princes, going behind in the 14th minute when Adrien Thomasson’s glanced header found Cedric Barbosa, who fired home with a halfvolley. Evian goalkeeper Benjamin Leroy then denied PSG’s handful of half chances and Blanc’s players relied on set pieces to turn things around.

“We let our opponents hurt us before we reacted,” said the PSG coach, before casting doubt on his future at the club. “I don’t know if I be PSG coach at the end of the season. But I have the feeling that we are improving. It’s been a while since we scored so many goals and created so many chances at the Parc. Our problem is that we played such beautiful football last year. Everyone expects us to be the same this year.”

David Luiz got the better of Barbosa and leveled at the half-hour mark from a corner with a powerful header that Leroy could only divert into his own net.

Marco Verratti then scored his first goal for the club eight minutes later after Evian defenders failed to clear a long free kick. First at the ball, Zlatan Ibrahimovic could not beat his marker but Verratti made no mistake from the rebound.

As PSG fans started to relax, Gregory van der Wiel’s comical own goal silenced the home crowd and brought the 18th-ranked visitors back into the game in the 64th minute, with the defender beating keeper Salvatore Sirigu from close range with a mishit header while under no pressure.

Javier Pastore concluded a neat collective move with a precise volley for only his second goal this season to restore the hosts’ lead and substitute Edinson Cavani sealed PSG’s win two minutes from time.

Cavani, who was jeered by PSG fans when he came on, and Ezequiel Lavezzi were brought back into Blanc’s squad this weekend after the South Americans were sanctioned for failing to show up at a training camp during the Christmas break.

Lavezzi also came on as a substitute in the 79th.

PSG played its first home match since the deadly assault on Charlie Hebdo magazine’s Paris office by Islamic extremists who killed 12 people. Fans paid a tribute to the victims with a minute of applause before kick-off. (ap)

9

REUTERS/Alessandro Garofalo

Atalanta’s German Denis celebrates after scoring against AC Milan during their Italian Serie A soccer match at San Siro stadium in Milan January 18, 2015.

Milan’s Inzaghi gets that sinking feeling

With a certain air of inevitability, AC Milan have slumped into a midseason crisis and coach Filippo Inzaghi is falling into the same trap as predecessors Massimiliano Allegri and Clarence Seedorf. Allegri and Seedorf were sacked last season, both victims of a combination of unrealistically high expectations at the seven-times European champions and a lacklustre squad.

Inzaghi, promoted from the under-19 team for his first senior coaching role, has found himself facing exactly the same problems.

Milan were jeered off the San Siro pitch on Sunday after a 1-0 home defeat by Atalanta, their second successive Serie A reverse at home to opposition from the lower half of the table.

Although Inzaghi’s side enjoyed some good performances before Christmas, including a 2-0 win over Napoli, they completed the first half of the season with six wins from 19 games and lie a modest eighth with 26 points.

On Monday, Italian media reported that chief executive Adriano Galliani would visit the Milanello training camp for crisis talks with Inzaghi although there was no suggestion that the coach’s future is at stake. “It’s only right that I am under observation, I have to try and make this team play like they were before the break,” said Inzaghi.

“The team is feeling the tension.”

Once-mighty Milan have been left standing by domestic and international rivals who have stronger youth programmes, better scouting and clearer philosophies of how to run their club.

At the end of the 2011/12 season, Milan came to the inevitable conclusion that, like the rest of Italian football, they could not longer compete with the financial firepower of clubs from England, Spain, France and Germany. After selling off the likes of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Thiago Silva, they promised to invest in youth, yet instead became a refuge for players looking to revive their careers such as Mario Balotelli, Kaka, Fernando Torres and Michael Essien.

Torres, initially signed on loan from Chelsea, managed only one goal in 10 league appearances before moving back to his first club Atletico Madrid in a loan swap for Alessio Cerci in January, another off-form striker. Cerci’s contribution on Sunday was limited to a row with team mate Ignazio Abate before being substituted at halftime.

“Nothing happened between Abate and Cerci. But when a side isn’t able to get a result, it can happen that the team gets angry,” said Inzaghi. “There is still the entire second part of the season to play.

Nothing is lost.”

8

International

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

International

Sp rt

Ronaldo, Messi keep Real and Barca motoring MADRID - Real Madrid ensured top spot in La Liga at the midway point of the season when Cristiano Ronaldo struck twice in a 3-0 win at Getafe on Sunday before Lionel Messi’s hat-trick helped Barcelona to a 4-0 victory at Deportivo La Coruna. The world’s two best players were again in scintillating form but champions Atletico Madrid ensured they stayed in the hunt with a 2-0 success at home to bottom club Granada that lifted them back into third place. with a left-foot piledriver moments before the break.

Ronaldo, who beat Messi to win his third FIFA Ballon d’Or award on Monday, broke the deadlock in the 63rd minute, clipping the ball in from close range after good work from Karim Benzema.

Gareth Bale made it 2-0 four minutes later when he finished cleverly after a swift break and Ronaldo grabbed his second 11 minutes from time with a powerful header, the Portugal forward’s 28th goal of the campaign in his 17th appearance.

Getafe battled bravely against their glamorous city neighbours and almost pulled a goal back four minutes from time but a shot from Alvaro Vazquez bounced away off a post.

NO EXCUSES

Fatigue has been suggested as one reason for Real’s recent stutter but Iker Casillas insisted

Iran beats UAE 1-0 BRISBANE, Australia — Substitute Reza Ghoochannejhad scored a controversial injury-time goal to lift Iran to a 1-0 win over UAE and top spot in Group C at the Asian Cup on Monday.

Despite a free-flowing game, and a virtuoso performance by UAE playmaker Omar Abdulrahman, neither side could find a breakthrough until Ghoochannejhad’s late strike helped Asia’s

top-ranked team avoid a likely quarterfinal showdown with Japan.

Ghoochannejhad appeared to be offside when he pounced on a ball — that had ricocheted off team-mate Andranik Teymourian — and directed his header into the top corner from close range.

At Sydney, Bahrain beat Qatar 2-1 to finish third in Group C in a match between two already eliminated teams. (ap)

Ancelotti’s men were not feeling the effects of a packed calendar.

“We are not tired but after a week of holiday it is tough to get back to the routine,” the Spain keeper told Spanish TV. “Unfortunately we lost in the Cup, where we were the holders, but there are no excuses,” he added. “Now we can prepare better for the matches and train harder.

It’s been a good first half of the season.” Messi’s treble at the Riazor took his tally for the La Liga season to 19.

The Argentina forward’s opening goal in the 11th minute was a rare header and he made it 2-0 in the 33rd when he dinked the ball over Depor keeper Fabricio from close range.

He completed his 33rd career hat-trick, and his 22nd in La Liga one fewer than record holder Ronaldo - when he drifted in from the right wing in the 62nd minute and

PSG, Marseille scrap to laborious wins in French league

whipped a shot into the far corner.

Promoted Depor were completely outclassed and fell 4-0 behind when the ball ricocheted into the net off defender Sidnei in the 83rd minute.

“It was important to keep winning, wracking up three points each game, and that’s what we did,” Barca playmaker Andres

REUTERS/Sergio Perez

Real, who have a game in hand, have 45 points from 18 of 38 matches, with Barca on 44 and Atletico on 41 in third. Sevilla (39 points) climbed back into fourth above Valencia (38), 3-2 winners at home to Almeria on Saturday, thanks to a 2-0 win against Malaga in the Andalusian derby.

“We have performed very well in this first part of the league,” Real coach Carlo Ancelotti told a news conference. “We started with the odd problem but then we had a very good run,” added the Italian. “We are very well positioned and we have to carry on in the same way.”

Despite Ronaldo’s latest scoring feat, it was hardly a vintage performance from Real, who have stumbled at the start of 2015 and were dumped out of the King’s Cup by Atletico on Thursday. The European champions failed to score in the opening half of a La Liga game for the first time this season, although Toni Kroos came close when he rattled the crossbar

PARIS — Substitute Mario Lemina and France striker Andre-Pierre Gignac scored late in the second half as Marseille beat Guingamp 2-1 for its first win in a month while Paris Saint-Germain again struggled for inspiration in a scrappy 4-2 defeat of bottom side Evian on Sunday in the French league.

After starting the new year with back to back defeats and being knocked off the top of the standings

by Lyon, Marseille was made to work by a spirited and well-organized Guingamp team before Lemina headed home from close range six minutes from time to put the hosts in front.

Gignac then extended Marseille’s lead from Dimitri Payet’s pinpointed free kick five minutes later with another header into the side netting that left goalkeeper Jonas Lossl stranded.

Claudio Beauvue pulled one back from the penalty spot by sending Steve Mandanda the wrong way after Rod Fanni was sent off in added time.

Marseille moved within one point of Lyon while PSG’s win lifted the defending champions to third in the standings — four points behind the leaders — after fourth-place Saint-Etienne remained unbeaten in 12 league games but was held to a goalless draw at Rennes. “Since the start of the year we have been somewhat too AP Photo/Claude Paris

Iniesta told reporters. Barca host Atletico for their Cup quarter-final, first leg on Wednesday. (rtr) division soccer match at Colisseum Alfonso Perez stadium in Getafe, outside Madrid, January 18, 2015.

Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo (L) kicks the ball next to Getafe’s Roberto Lago during their Spanish first

Dortmund’s injury woes continue as season restart looms BERLIN - Struggling Borussia Dortmund’s injury woes this season show no signs of stopping with midfielder Sebastian Kehl and Kevin Grosskreutz injured on the last day of their training camp in Spain, the club said on Monday.

Grosskreutz suffered a partial ligament tear in his ankle and is expected to be out for about a week while Kehl

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

sustained a shoulder injury with a diagnosis expected later on Monday, the club said.

“Kevin will undergo special rehabilitation training in the coming days,” it said in a statement after the team’s return to Germany.

Dortmund, champions in 2011 and 2012, are currently in 17th place in the Bundesliga with the season resuming

on Jan. 30 after the winter break.

They have had a bad run with injuries this season, missing Marco Reus for some months along with Ilkay Guendogan, Jakub Blaszczykowski, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Nuri Sahin and Marcel Schmelzer among others.

Dortmund also face Juventus in the Champions League Round of 16 first leg next month. (rtr)

Marseille’s French midfielder Mario Lemina, left, celebrates after scoring against Guingamp with his teammate French forward AndrePierre Gignac, during the League One soccer match between Marseille and Guingamp, at the Velodrome Stadium, in Marseille, southern France, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2015.

complacent. We spoke a lot during this week and we felt some improvement in our game,” Payet said. “We’ll find our confidence back with victories like this one.”

After claiming just one point in its three previous matches, under-fire PSG coach Laurent Blanc needed a convincing win to erase the memory of a painful 4-2 loss in Bastia last weekend when his players threw away a 2-0 lead.

But his side was caught cold at the Parc des Princes, going behind in the 14th minute when Adrien Thomasson’s glanced header found Cedric Barbosa, who fired home with a halfvolley. Evian goalkeeper Benjamin Leroy then denied PSG’s handful of half chances and Blanc’s players relied on set pieces to turn things around.

“We let our opponents hurt us before we reacted,” said the PSG coach, before casting doubt on his future at the club. “I don’t know if I be PSG coach at the end of the season. But I have the feeling that we are improving. It’s been a while since we scored so many goals and created so many chances at the Parc. Our problem is that we played such beautiful football last year. Everyone expects us to be the same this year.”

David Luiz got the better of Barbosa and leveled at the half-hour mark from a corner with a powerful header that Leroy could only divert into his own net.

Marco Verratti then scored his first goal for the club eight minutes later after Evian defenders failed to clear a long free kick. First at the ball, Zlatan Ibrahimovic could not beat his marker but Verratti made no mistake from the rebound.

As PSG fans started to relax, Gregory van der Wiel’s comical own goal silenced the home crowd and brought the 18th-ranked visitors back into the game in the 64th minute, with the defender beating keeper Salvatore Sirigu from close range with a mishit header while under no pressure.

Javier Pastore concluded a neat collective move with a precise volley for only his second goal this season to restore the hosts’ lead and substitute Edinson Cavani sealed PSG’s win two minutes from time.

Cavani, who was jeered by PSG fans when he came on, and Ezequiel Lavezzi were brought back into Blanc’s squad this weekend after the South Americans were sanctioned for failing to show up at a training camp during the Christmas break.

Lavezzi also came on as a substitute in the 79th.

PSG played its first home match since the deadly assault on Charlie Hebdo magazine’s Paris office by Islamic extremists who killed 12 people. Fans paid a tribute to the victims with a minute of applause before kick-off. (ap)

9

REUTERS/Alessandro Garofalo

Atalanta’s German Denis celebrates after scoring against AC Milan during their Italian Serie A soccer match at San Siro stadium in Milan January 18, 2015.

Milan’s Inzaghi gets that sinking feeling

With a certain air of inevitability, AC Milan have slumped into a midseason crisis and coach Filippo Inzaghi is falling into the same trap as predecessors Massimiliano Allegri and Clarence Seedorf. Allegri and Seedorf were sacked last season, both victims of a combination of unrealistically high expectations at the seven-times European champions and a lacklustre squad.

Inzaghi, promoted from the under-19 team for his first senior coaching role, has found himself facing exactly the same problems.

Milan were jeered off the San Siro pitch on Sunday after a 1-0 home defeat by Atalanta, their second successive Serie A reverse at home to opposition from the lower half of the table.

Although Inzaghi’s side enjoyed some good performances before Christmas, including a 2-0 win over Napoli, they completed the first half of the season with six wins from 19 games and lie a modest eighth with 26 points.

On Monday, Italian media reported that chief executive Adriano Galliani would visit the Milanello training camp for crisis talks with Inzaghi although there was no suggestion that the coach’s future is at stake. “It’s only right that I am under observation, I have to try and make this team play like they were before the break,” said Inzaghi.

“The team is feeling the tension.”

Once-mighty Milan have been left standing by domestic and international rivals who have stronger youth programmes, better scouting and clearer philosophies of how to run their club.

At the end of the 2011/12 season, Milan came to the inevitable conclusion that, like the rest of Italian football, they could not longer compete with the financial firepower of clubs from England, Spain, France and Germany. After selling off the likes of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Thiago Silva, they promised to invest in youth, yet instead became a refuge for players looking to revive their careers such as Mario Balotelli, Kaka, Fernando Torres and Michael Essien.

Torres, initially signed on loan from Chelsea, managed only one goal in 10 league appearances before moving back to his first club Atletico Madrid in a loan swap for Alessio Cerci in January, another off-form striker. Cerci’s contribution on Sunday was limited to a row with team mate Ignazio Abate before being substituted at halftime.

“Nothing happened between Abate and Cerci. But when a side isn’t able to get a result, it can happen that the team gets angry,” said Inzaghi. “There is still the entire second part of the season to play.

Nothing is lost.”

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Destination

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Sports

International

International

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

7

Federer routs Lu to reach Australian Open second round

Petang Village

AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Frank Gunn

IBP/File Photo

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named Campuhan. Then, the nearby waterfall makes the atmosphere of start point more naturally magnificent.

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New Orleans Pelicans guard Tyreke Evans (1) drives to the hoop against Toronto Raptors center Jonas Valanciunas during first-half NBA basketball game action in Toronto, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2015.

Tyreke Evans leads Pelicans past Raptors, 95-93

TORONTO — Tyreke Evans scored from a driving layup with 1.6 seconds left as the New Orleans Pelicans beat Toronto 95-93 on Sunday, their first victory in seven meetings with the Raptors. Evans scored 26 points, and Alexis Ajinca had 22 to help the Pelicans win without injured starters Anthony Davis and Jrue Holiday. Davis and Holiday sat out for the second straight game. Davis is sidelined by a sprained toe on his left foot, and Holiday has a sore right ankle.

Pelicans coach Monty Williams said Davis could return Monday night at New York against the Knicks, but said he won’t rush the former first overall pick back into the lineup because of how hard Davis plays. DeMar DeRozan led Toronto with 22 points. The Raptors have lost seven of their last nine games.

San Antonio’s Tiago Splitter scored 14 points, and Kawhi Leonard had 12 points and nine rebounds as the Spurs never trailed to beat the Jazz 89-69 while hold-

ing Utah to a season-low scoring total.

Tim Duncan added 11 points in 23 minutes for San Antonio, which has won three straight — including the last two with Leonard back in the lineup.

Rudy Gobert had 13 points and a season-high 18 rebounds and Gordon Hayward added 10 points for Utah. The Jazz shot 33 percent while also setting season lows in points by a San Antonio opponent for the game and in the first half (27). In Orlando, Florida, — Kevin

Durant had 21 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists as the Oklahoma City downed the Orlando Magic 127-99.

Russell Westbrook finished with 17 points and six assists.

Serge Ibaka and Dion Waiters each added 16 points. The Thunder never trailed, and led by as many as 38 on their way to snapping a four-game road losing streak. They also shot 57 percent in the first of five road games in nine nights. Victor Oladipo led Orlando with 23 points.

Elfrid Payton added 19 points and eight assists.

The Magic gave up a clubrecord 79 first-half points on their way dropping their second straight game. The Thunder were also the sixth consecutive opponent to score 100 or more points against them. (ap)

MELBOURNE - Cooling temperatures in the Melbourne evening forced Roger Federer to rethink his tactics in a clinical 6-4 6-2 7-5 rout of Taiwan’s Lu Yen-Hsun under the lights of Rod Laver Arena on Monday. In ominous form after winning the Brisbane International in the leadup, the 33-year-old Swiss was impenetrable on serve and charged around the court to preserve his unbeaten record in the first round at Melbourne Park in his 16th appearance.

As the game progressed into the evening, however, Federer found the Taiwanese got more and more into the match, giving him a decent first round workout despite the comparative ease with which the Swiss master managed to advance into the second round. “I thought I was playing very well through the first couple of sets, I was returning and able to dominate the plays from the back,” Federer told reporters.

“I think conditions slowed down a bit. Because of the coolness and the night coming in, I felt it was hard to generate stuff (and) it became a very interesting third set. “Instead of sort of just steamrolling through him he really made it tough for me.” The type of match was probably exactly what Federer needed in the first round of the season opening grand slam.

He continued with the things that were working well, like his serve, and worked on the aspects of his game that he may need to introduce more as he progresses through the tournament.

“I was holding my service games very comfortably,” he added.

“Until probably 5-2 in the second set was the first time he had any play on my service game. “I started to mix it up and trying out things because I had to towards the end of the third. “I adjusted to the conditions, because it did play different at 7:00 than it did at 8:30. A drastic change, in my opinion.”

The 47th-ranked Lu exploited the slowing pace of the balls to make the third set a contest, but lost serve in the 11th game before Federer sealed the match in less than two hours.

“Winning first round, it’s always a bit of a relief,” added Federer, who will play Italian Simone Bolelli in the next round. “I thought I played good.” (rtr)

REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Roger Federer of Switzerland reaches to hit a shot against Lu Yen-Hsun of Taiwan during their men’s singles first round match at the Australian Open 2015 tennis tournament in Melbourne January 19, 2015.

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14 killed, thousands displaced by Madagascar tropical storm ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — At least 14 people were killed over the weekend when the island nation of Madagascar was battered by a tropical storm, officials said Monday. Tropical storm Chedza has displaced more than 36,000 Madagascans, said the National Office of Risk and Catastrophe Management. Most of the deaths were a result of landslides caused by heavy rain and building collapses as strong winds tore roofs from houses.

Flooding was especially severe in the capital Antananarivo, where more than 30,000 people have been displaced, said the national office.

The Madagascan government has set up temporary shelters in schools and

AP Photo/Manu Brabo

A woman walks through a residential area hit by the Ukrainian Army Artillery in Voroshilovsky area, center of Donetsk, Ukraine. Sunday, Jan. 18, 2015.

Rebels claim to control Donetsk airport after intense fight

DONETSK, Ukraine — Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine claimed Monday that they have seized control of the Donetsk airport after days of intense fighting. Ukrainian officials have not confirmed a retreat. “All attempts of the Ukrainian army to take the airport and to get revenge for the defeat of the last year... have failed,” rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko said at a press conference early Monday in Donetsk.

He accused Ukraine of using rocket and artillery fire with an intensity that rebel forces had “never experienced before.” The city of Donetsk, the separatist stronghold, was shaken by heavy outgoing and incoming artillery fire over the weekend as a battle raged for the air terminal and surrounding areas. Sporadic explosions could still be heard from the direction of the airport early Monday.

Reduced to rubble, the airport is of limited strategic importance in the short term, but has great symbolic value. In the longer term, the government fears that the separatists could use the airport to expand their control over eastern Ukraine and create an air supply route with Russia.

Ukrainian officials did not confirm a retreat. Military spokesman

Andriy Lysenko would say only that the situation remained tense. Yuriy Biryukov, an adviser to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, wrote on his official Facebook account early Monday that wounded soldiers had been evacuated from the air terminal overnight, but did not say how many troops had remained.

“We will not abandon our own, nobody has forgotten them,” he wrote. “Everything will be (ours), but just not right away. We are learning.” Three Ukrainian servicemen were killed and 66 wounded in the previous 24 hours, Lysenko said. He would not say how many of those casualties occurred at the airport. The U.N. estimates that more than 4,700 people have been killed in eastern Ukraine since April.

The separatists increased the stakes last week by successfully taking over large sections of the airport, where Ukrainian troops had remained despite coming under rocket attacks for months on end.

The Ukrainians then unleashed a counter-offensive, supported by a hasty reinforcement of troops and heavy armor.

Lysenko said that according to a cease-fire agreement reached in September, the airport was to be left under Ukrainian control. Russia and the separatists dispute this.

Russia and Ukraine both expressed willingness on Monday to work toward implementation of the cease-fire agreement, including a provision to pull back heavy weapons. But each side put the onus on the other for the lack of progress. (ap)

International

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other public buildings to house those forced from their homes.

Tropical storm Chedza passed over the island nation on Friday and Saturday and is continuing in a southeast direction, according to satellite images published by NASA. The tropical storm may intensify as it crosses the Indian Ocean toward Africa’s southeastern coast.

The southern African countries of Mozambique and Malawi have been affected by flooding caused by heavy rains. At least 176 people have died and about 200,000 are displaced in Malawi, while dozens have died and thousands displaced in Mozambique. (ap)

Police tear-gas school kids in demo over playground NAIROBI — Kenyan police Monday tear-gassed schoolchildren demonstrating against the removal of their school’s playground, which has been allegedly grabbed by a powerful politician, said a Kenyan human rights activist.

The students from Langata Road Primary School were in the front line of people pulling down a wall erected around the playground which has been acquired by a private developer said to be a powerful politician, said Boniface Mwangi. Primary school children in Kenya are usually between six and 13 years of age.

“The governor, the senator and other government officials are all scared of the politician, they cannot do anything to stop the playground from the being taken,” Mwangi said. Television footage showed children, some being carried away, writhing in pain, screaming and choking because of the tear-gas.

Police officers later brought dogs to the playground.

Police spokesman Masoud Mwinyi was not available for comment. Elijah Mwangi, who was in charge of the police officers at the school, said he was following orders. Opposition politician Eliud Owalo said last week that the playground had been grabbed to construct a parking lot for the politician’s hotel adjacent to the school.

“This is brutality beyond words and greed beyond description. It is difficult to believe that police can actually deploy against primary school children and lob tear gas at them to defend a land grabber. This image of a nation determined to steal forcefully from its own children cannot be what we aspire to. It cannot be the legacy we want to bequeath the children,” said opposition leader Raila Odinga. Allegations of land seizures by Kenyan officials has become a controversial issue in the country. (ap)

AP Photo

Shocked members of the Maximum Revival Ministries Church view the body of their assistant pastor George Karidhimba Muriki outside the church after he was shot dead by armed gunmen on a motor bike as he was entering into the Church for a Sunday service in Mombasa, Kenya, Sunday Jan. 11, 2015.

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INDONESIA Government to draft KPK begins commodity export questioning witnesses financing scheme in Budi Gunawan’s case JAKARTA - The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has begun questioning witnesses in connection with an alleged bribery case involving Commissioner General Budi Gunawan here on Monday.

The KPK summoned Brigadier General Herry Prastowo, who is the director of general crime investigation, and Senior Commissioner Ibnu Isticha, who is a senior lecturer of the Police Institute, to be questioned as witnesses over the case that day.

“The two are questioned for suspect BG (Budi Gunawan),” Priharsa Nugraha, the head of news and information, noted.

The KPK had earlier stated that the settlement of the case would be expedited to prevent unrest in the community.

The commissioner general, who is chief of the Institutions of Police, has recently been named the national police chief candidate, but his inauguration has been postponed after the KPK named him a suspect in a corruption case.

On Friday, President Joko Widodo ordered Deputy National Police Chief Commissioner General Badrodin Haiti to act as national police chief following the

dismissal of General Sutarman.

The KPK has, so far, barred Budi Gunawan, his son Muhammad Hervianto Widyatama, Budi’s assitant Iie Tiara, and Inspector General Syahtria Sitepu from travelling abroad to ease the questioning process.

In 2005, Hervianto, while he was still 19, received a loan in cash worth US$5.9 billion from PT Pacific Blue and Rp32 billion of the total loan amount was transferred to Budi Gunawan’s account. The transaction, however, has been checked and declared as a normal transaction by the Crime Investigation Agency.

Budi Gunawan was allegedly involved in suspicious transactions when he was the head of career development and the deputy for human resources between 2003 and 2006 and also held other positions.

The KPK has charged him of violating several articles in the corruption law carrying a sentence of 4-20 years in jail or life imprisonment. (ant)

REUTERS/Beawiharta

A man shoots video footage of part of the fuselage of crashed AirAsia Flight QZ8501 inside a storage facility at Kumai port in Pangkalan Bun, January 19, 2015. The airliner lost contact with air traffic control in bad weather on December 28, 2014, less than halfway into a two-hour flight from the city of Surabaya to Singapore. All 162 people on board were killed.

JAKARTA - The government is drafting a financing scheme to boost the exports of four major commodities with funds from banks or non bank financing institutions.

Deputy for Financing Sector at the Ministry of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Choirul Djamhari said here, Monday, his office was studying the right sources of fund to help boost exports of coffee, cacao, handicraft products and garments.

“We are preparing a draft for a special financing scheme for the producers of the four commodities or SMEs ,” Choirul said.

He said he wanted to call on banks, non bank financial institutions including venture capital companies , cooperative and operator of rolling funds to give greater loans to finance export of SMEs commodities.

In addition to weak competitiveness in quality , minimum access to market information and international markets have been among the major problems faced by SMEs, he said.

“With support from banks and non bank financial agencies, SMes are expected to be able to enter export market,” he said.

He said so far the SMEs commodities have entered international markets through a third party that they could not fully earn the real value of their products .

Data from Bank Indonesia (BI) 2013 showed financing by banks and non bank financial agencies for SMEs grew 15 percent from Rp480 trillion in 2011 to Rp640 trillion in 2013.

Medium scale enterprises accounted for 47 - 49 percent of the financing, small enterprises for 30-31 percent and micro businesses for 21-22 percent in 2013.

The sources of fund at present is the government through its LPDBKUMKM and forest development financing center (P3H), and banks such as people credit banks (BPR), Stock Market, venture capital, pawnshop and micro financial institution, cooperatives and angel investors. (ant)

SYDNEY - Canberra is pursuing efforts to save two convicted Australians from the firing squad in Indonesia, Foreign Minister Julia Bishop said Monday after Jakarta executed six drug offenders. “The prime minister (Tony Abbott) has written again to President (Joko) Widodo,” Bishop said.

“The Australian government will continue to make representations at the highest level.”

Brazil and the Netherlands recalled their ambassadors from Indonesia and expressed fury Sunday after Jakarta put to death two of their citizens along with four other drug offenders from Vietnam, Malawi, Nigeria and Indonesia.

The six were the first people executed under new President Widodo, who took office in October and has voiced strong support for capital punishment.

Widodo’s stance has raised fears for other foreigners sentenced to death, particularly two Australians who were part of the “Bali Nine” group caught trying to smuggle heroin out of Indonesia in 2005.

One of the pair, Myuran Sukumaran, had his clemency appeal rejected last month but authorities say he will be executed with fellow Australian

Andrew Chan as they committed their crime together.

Chan is still awaiting the outcome of his clemency appeal.

Bishop skirted round questions of Australia withdrawing diplomats from Jakarta, noting they were required to stay to plead with the government.

She said the foreign ministry had recently replied to her own letter “rejecting our representations on the basis that Indonesia claims it is facing a crisis in terms of drug trafficking and it believes that the death penalty should apply.”

“It is a long-standing position of Australian governments that we oppose the death penalty and we oppose the execution of Australian nationals by another country,” she said.

“I don’t believe executing people is the answer to solving the drug problem.

“However, this is Indonesian law and it is a sober reminder that drug related offences carry very, very heavy penalties in other countries, particularly in Indonesia.”

Widodo pledged in December there would be no pardons for drug traffickers on death row, including foreigners. (afp)

Australia pursues plea to spare drug smugglers on death row

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Bali News

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

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BUSINESS Euro weakens in Asia on ECB stimulus speculation TOKYO - The euro struggled in Asia Monday on growing expectations that the European Central Bank will announce a massive bond-buying scheme to buoy the eurozone’s struggling economy.

In Tokyo, the single currency slipped to $1.1556 and 135.42 yen, from $1.1566 and 135.87 yen on Friday in New York, where at one point it had dropped below $1.1500 for the first time since November 2003.

Investors have been moving out of the euro before the ECB meeting on Thursday. Analysts are forecasting it will see the introduction of sovereign bond purchases, known as quantitative easing (QE).

The scheme essentially entails the bank printing euros in order to boost lending and fight off deflation -- similar to the plan recently ended by the US Federal Reserve. However with more cash in circulation demand for the single currency weakens.

“Nothing could be clearer than the current economic and policy divide between the US and Europe,” said National Australia Bank.

“As the Fed ponders rate lift-off and US consumer sentiment hits its highest level for 11 years, the ECB last week has been putting together a QE plan that will get some sort of approval from Germany.”

The dollar weakened to 117.13 yen, against 117.46 yen in US trading, as jittery investors sought out safer assets following a plunge in Chinese stocks. The drop was sparked by regulators punishing several brokerages for violating margin trading rules, which fuelled an extended market rally.

“The slide in Shanghai stocks is leading to yen buying,” Yuji Saito, director of foreign exchange at Credit Agricole in Tokyo, told Bloomberg News.

“With risk sentiment deteriorating right now, anything obscure will lead to reducing positions.”

The Bank of Japan also holds a meeting this week, but few expect a further loosening of its monetary policy as it tries to counter a downturn in the world’s number three economy.

In other trading, the euro bought 1.0017 Swiss francs.

On Thursday the Swiss National Bank announced it was abandoning the minimum rate of 1.20 francs against the euro, a limit imposed three years ago during the eurozone debt crisis to stop the franc from appreciating too much.

The shock announcement was felt across the globe as the franc immediately strengthened by 30 percent against the euro.

The dollar was mixed against other AsiaPacific currencies. It strengthened to 1,077.00 South Korean won from 1,076.90 won on Friday, to Sg$1.3276 from Sg$1.3238, and to 12,600.30 Indonesian rupiah from 12,570.00 rupiah.

The dollar weakened to Tw$31.50 from Tw$31.57, to 32.55 Thai baht from 32.68 baht, and 61.67 Indian rupees from 61.92 rupees, while it was flat at 44.67 Philippine pesos.

The Australian dollar fell to 82.10 US cents from 82.35 cents, while the Chinese yuan fetched 18.83 yen against 18.74 yen. (afp)

Mapeed Tradition AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin

Sellers make a note as a woman selects her purchases at a food market in central Moscow, Russia, Friday, Jan. 16, 2015.

Faced with a crippling recession, Russian authorities are coming in for growing criticism from economic insiders concerned over a lack of clear policies to deal with the crisis.

Russian government takes flak as it fails to stem economic crisis MOSCOW - Faced with a crippling recession, Russian authorities are coming in for growing criticism from economic insiders concerned over a lack of clear policies to deal with the crisis.

After a year that saw growth slump and the ruble nosedive on the back of falling oil prices and Western sanctions over Ukraine, officials have predicted that Russia’s economy will contract by some five percent in 2015.

As government income shrinks, the overall rate of inflation also looks set to hit around 17 percent by spring.

And -- with the situation hitting the wallets of ordinary Russians -- alarm bells are ringing that the authorities under strongman President Vladimir Putin are floundering in their efforts to find a way out.

“I have read all of the government documents and I did not understand the aim of their economic policies,” said Herman Gref, head of Russia’s largest lender,

Sberbank.

Speaking at an economic forum in Moscow last week, Gref, a former economy minister and member of the Kremlin’s marginalised liberal clan, called for a “radical” shift in direction to restore global confidence in Russia’s battered economy.

But, for now, these appeals for a sharp change of tack seem to be having little impact.

Taking to the podium at the same event, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev promised increased assistance to pensioners and large families and insisted that Moscow had no intention of turning its back on globalisation or plans to transform the economy into a “Western model”.

Like Putin before him, however, he failed to announce a single concrete measure or reform, leaving his ministers to debate how best Moscow should be using its roughly $385 billion of reserves or whether the country needs to be tightening its belt.

“This is what I feared: the discussion focused on how much we should be spending and for how long. This is the worst model of economic policy,” responded Gref to the Kommersant newspaper.

Over the past month the Russian government has scrambled to put out the growing number of economic firestorms. It has stepped in to bail out struggling banks, supported faltering airlines and unblocked funds for infrastructure projects.

On Friday Medvedev announced a series of “crisis meetings” aimed at tackling the problems battering different sectors of the economy.

But the steps taken so far have left some experts scratching their heads.

Leading business daily Vedemosti this week denounced the “contradictory measures” between supporting some sectors and plans to slash spending for others.

“In a time of crisis, it is better to do nothing than to be all over the place,” the paper wrote. (afp)

IBP/File Photo

The cultural splendor of mepeed usually enlivened the odalan nadi or grandiose temple anniversary. Children, teenagers, and housewives of Sukawati subdistrict looked so elegant with modernly modified attires.

GIANYAR - The cultural splendor of mepeed usually enlivened the odalan nadi or grandiose temple anniversary. Children, teenagers, and housewives of Sukawati subdistrict looked so elegant with modernly modified attires.

Mepeed participants consisting of several hamlets in Sukawati showed the prettiest and the best. Colorful nuance and smile of mapeed participants successfully attracted the public attention. It drew many local and foreign photography lovers to immortalize the momentous moment.

Mapeed procession was getting more interesting when the dance creation accompanied with gamelan music was performed. The mapeed procession started coming down to road by covering a distance of about 1 kilometer. Meanwhile, hundreds of people watching the procession were clapping happily. The spectacle looked really wonderful!

The mapeed tradition was held annually or every odalan nadi. It was always watched by many spectators. The mapeed is aimed to accompany the procession of mendak tirtha (invoking holy water) to springs.

Mepeed is derived from the word peed meaning ‘to march like a parade.’ The tradition has already existed since the era of Sukawati Kingdom in 1711 AD. Today, it has become a cultural heritage from generation to generation. In the other regions in Bali, the mapeed tradition was often called deeng. Previously, the participants getting involved in the mapeed procession mostly dressed in white and yellow. However, due to the development of era and influence of globalization, the fashion in use in the procession has been more stylishly modified.

The mapeed was a sacred procession serving to enliven the grandiose temple anniversary carried out when invoking holy water. Beauty of the mepeed tradition was expected to become one of the icons in developing and introducing Balinese culture to international community. (kmb)

Tipat urab rich in nutrition

Have you ever tasted tipat urab? Wow ... it’s absolutely delicious. This kind of delicacy has become a staple food for the Hindu community in Bali. Apart from relieving the hunger, the tipat or rice bag is also commonly used for oblation to be offered to God as an expression of gratitude. Therefore, the Balinese people have various kinds of tipat adjusted to the ceremony held.

Some of examples of the tipat include the tipat nasi, tipat taluh, tipat kedis, tipat sari, tipat bagia, tipat gong and even tipat galeng. These kinds of tipat were first offered to God and after that they are consumed. Farmers usually enjoy it without side dish and additional special menus.

Today, the tipat is served with a variety of additional side dishes, so that it turns delectable. As consequence, its name is different in appropriate with the name of the additional side dishes. One of them is called tipat urab, where the tipat is served with mixed vegetables. This kind of serving is rich in vitamins and nutrients.

In Denpasar, the tipat urab serving is usually sold by traditional stalls. It is different from the rural community that ordinarily prepares it pursuant to their individual taste. Its ingredients consist of rice bag, vegetables and boiled eggs to increase the nutritional value. As the preparation, first of all, prepare the ingredients for seasoning of the mixed vegetables such as chili, onion, garlic, salt, shrimp paste and aromatic ginger. Finely ground these and then mix them with grated coconut.

The vegetable is composed of string bean and bean sprouts.

Boil them until cooked and then drain well. Furthermore, the spice batter is steamed until cooked as well. When the vegetable ingredients are ready, use the seasoning to smear the vegetables previously drained.

To serve it, put the rice bag on a plate to taste, sprinkle with the seasoning of the mixed vegetables, add boiled egg

and roasted peanuts. For topping and obtaining traditional impression, add fried sambal emba (consisting of fried onion, garlic, chili and salt). When the serving has been well arranged, add a slice of lime to enrich the flavor. Ultimately, it is ready to serve. (kmb)

IBP/File Photo

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Pediatrics room at Negara Hospital fully occupied

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NEGARA - Cempaka Room intended for third class patients (using Bali Mandara Health Insurance—JKBM) at Negara Hospital is lately thronged by many patients. As a result, the treatment room especially the one earmarked for pediatric patients is fully occupied so that the other patients have to be treated in hallway. As information gathered, the number of patients treated last weekend continued to increase.

Particularly for third class patients, those with symptoms of high fever kept coming. As consequence, the availability of beds in the third class room diminished. Such condition lasted until Sunday (Jan 18). Pediatric patients looked to be treated in hallway of Cempaka Room. One of the high-fevered patients from Ketugtug, Loloan Timur, M. Roziki, 11, was temporarily treated in the hallway because the treatment room was fully occupied. Even, this patient had a seizure and was given oxygen aid. Mother of Roziki, Sumarwati, 45, who was waiting on her son, said that he checked in on Sunday morning after getting high fever to seizures the night before.

Due to fully occupied treatment room, he was forced to be treated in hallway. “Yes, treatment room is fully occupied and we cannot do much.

If taking first class room, we cannot afford,” said Sumarwati resignedly.

Her son who suffered from epilepsy had long been controlled and got free medication. On Saturday night, her son was recurrence beyond the usual ones so that he should be hospitalized. As the totally five treatment was already fully occupied on Saturday (Jan 17), three other patients had to be treated in hallway of Cempaka Room. A patient could just be treated

IBP/Olo

The patients in Negara Hospital must be treated in the hallway becuase the rooms are fully occupied.

in the room after the other patient already checked out.

Of the dozens of patients being treated, most of them had a high fever accompanied with seizures.

One of the patient family members, Suwarno, said even though the treatment room had been fully occupied, the services extended by doctors or nurses were quite satisfying.

“Treated in the hallway does not matter, provided that the patient is still controlled any time. Unfortunately the treatment room for third class is still limited,” he said.

Director of Negara Hospital, Made Dwipayana, when asked for his confirmation last Sunday justified that last weekend a number of pediatric patients in Cempaka Room were shortage of room. “If the hallway is still full, we will temporarily entrust them in the second class and if bed is still available,” said Dwipayana. Especially for the patient of third class, according to him, could also temporarily take Flamboyan Room (special for third class). However, they would mingle with adult patients and others using the JKBM facilities.

Dwipayana recognized if the number of treatment bed in pediatric room was still lacking, let alone there was a surge in the number of patients. However, so far he said to still initiate the construction of additional hospital buildings that could accommodate 50 rooms including pediatric room. (kmb26)

Fruit quality declines, farmers process coconut into copra

TABANAN - Prolonged dry season apparently has remarkable impact on coconut production in Pupuan region, Tabanan. Many premature coconuts falling down cause farmers to think hard of how to find the best solution for avoiding losses. One of the ways to do is processing the coconuts into copra. It can be widely seen where a lot of coconuts are dried along Pupuan area.

Chairman of the National Farmers Contact (KTNA) of Pupuan, Suardika, explained that fairly long dry season in 2014 caused fronds as a coconut buffer to wither prematurely. Such condition made the quality of coconut

decline because it already fell prematurely due to the absence of buffer. In addition, dry season had caused the coconut fibers to easily absorb water during rainy season so that coconut was unsalable. “At the same time, collectors do not want to buy coconut of farmers as the quality is declining,” he said.

To process coconut falling prematurely, added Suardika, farmers in Pupuan attempted to find out a solution. Farmers could process the coconut into copra or process it into oil. However, seeing the quality of young fruit, making coconut oil was not the right choice so that farmers finally chose to make copra. “When the

coconut is old enough, a liter of oil can be obtained by processing 3-4 coconuts. Since the coconuts are still young, it will need at least seven pieces or more. Certainly we will suffer a loss,” explained Suardika.

The option of making copra, according to Suardika, was the right measure for the time being.

Farmers usually did not directly sell their copra but stored it first.

They would only sell it when the price of coconut was expensive.

According to Suardika, currently the price of coconut was cheap namely IDR 2,000 each. When the price soared, it could reach IDR 5,000 each. By and large, when

the price was expensive, collectors even purchased coconut while it was still very young (when its shell has no flesh yet) on the tree.

“When the price of coconut is expensive, copra will usually be expensive. It is the right time for farmers to sell their copra,” said Suardika.

Quality of coconuts, according to Suardika, highly depended on the season. When dry coconut was kept too long, it would cause the quality to decrease. On that account, as his prediction, the quality of coconut in Pupuan would turn back around March or April.

“During January and February, rainy season is estimated to still

take place, while dry season will begin to fall in March. At that time, coconut will have good condition,” he said.

Nevertheless, his worries did not only lie in the weather but also in the interests of Balinese people that needed young coconut leaves for the making of ritual paraphernalia. “Balinese people in need of young coconut leaf will take a lot of young and old leaves. As a result, the coconut will not bear fruit,” he said. Coconut in Pupuan could bear fruit around 10-12 pieces per cluster. Certainly they would not bear fruit if the clusters were already taken for ceremonial purposes. (kmb24)

AP Photo/Desmond Boylan

A Cuban and U.S. miniature national flags decorate the inside of a classic American car used as a collective taxi passes the Capitol Building in Havana, Cuba, Friday, Jan. 16, 2015.

US delegation to Cuba could meet with Raul Castro HAVANA — A U.S. congressional delegation sits down with Cuban officials on Monday in meetings that may include President Raul Castro, making them the highest-level contacts between the two nations since the declaration of detente last month.

The U.S. delegation is led by Sen. Patrick Leahy, who played a key role in the release of American contractor Alan Gross as part of a prisoner exchange that paved the way for the move toward full diplomatic relations. Leahy has met with Castro on past trips to Cuba and was expected to do so again on Monday, two days before Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson arrives in Havana to negotiate the reopening of the U.S. Embassy.

Leahy and five other Democratic senators and representatives are trying to ease the reestablishment of full relations by conveying to Cuban officials that their actions in the coming months will influence Congressional openness to President Barack Obama’s reforms.

At the same time, they are trying to get a sense of the biggest mystery hanging over the new stage of U.S.Cuban relations: how will Castro’s government respond to the U.S. push to expand diplomatic relations and trade ties?

Cuba has so far offered a guardedly positive reception to Obama’s

loosening of the trade embargo on Cuba, saying it welcomes the full package of new economic ties on offer, from sales of telecommunications equipment to exports to the private business sector. But it insists it will maintain its oneparty political system and centrally planned economy.

It has released 53 prisoners on a list of dissidents the U.S. wanted freed, but said nothing about whether it will allow U.S. products to flow to Cuba without the staggering taxes and regulations that keep many other foreign products from reaching ordinary Cubans.

“We are seeing a remarkable change in relations between our countries and we want to talk to some of the Cubans to see what they think about it, to see what’s going to happen next,” Leahy said after arriving in Cuba. “Obviously we hope to have a lot more freedom of expression amongst Cubans, but also the ability for our own two countries to talk with each other, something long overdue.”

With formal diplomatic relations

highly restricted, some of the most significant U.S.-Cuban contacts in recent years have been carried out by Congressional delegations.

While Obama’s actions fall under executive authority and don’t require Congressional approval, legislators could hinder key measures including the removal of Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terror.

On Saturday, the delegation met with officials from Cuba’s Culture Ministry in order to discuss possible Cuban participation in the Smithsonian Institution’s Folklife Festival, a summer celebration of traditional art and culture on Washington’s National Mall. The senators met Sunday with more than a dozen dissidents including critics of the 18-month-old secret negotiations that led to last month’s announcement.

“It was a friendly meeting, they heard the different positions, but the senators are very much in favor of Obama’s measures and want to hear that we agree,” said Antonio Rodiles, who criticizes the Obama administration for failing to win enough guarantees of reform from Castro. “I said the process took place without transparency or taking the full range of opinions into account.” (ap)

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

13

Pope leaves Manila after drawing record crowd of 6 million

MANILA — Pope Francis flew out of this Catholic bastion in Asia on Monday after a weeklong trip that included a visit to Sri Lanka and drew what Filipino officials says was a record crowd of 6 million faithful in a Manila park where he celebrated Mass.

President Benigno Aquino III, church leaders and 400 street children yelling “Pope Francis we love you,” saw him off at a Manila air base, where the pontiff, carrying a black travel bag, boarded a Philippine Airlines plane for a flight to Rome. Standing at the top of the stairs, the pope waved to the crowd, slightly bowed his head, then walked into the plane.

Hundreds of thousands of Filipinos lined Manila’s streets, with police keeping a close watch, to have their final glimpse of Francis, who smiled and waved aboard an open-sided, white popemobile. “He’s my No. 1 world leader,” said Rita Fernandez, a 63-year-old mother of four, who stood on a street near the Apostolic Nunciature in Manila where Francis stayed during his four-day visit.

“He rides on a bus. He flew to Tacloban to visit the typhoon survivors despite the storm and he stops to talk to the poor. He’s a living saint,” said Fernandez, who held a cellphone with a camera and wore a yellow shirt showing a smiling Francis.

A crowd estimated at a record 6 million people by officials poured into Manila’s rain-soaked streets and its biggest park Sunday as Pope Francis ended his Asian pilgrimage with an appeal for Filipinos to protect their young from sin and vice so they can become missionaries of the faith.

The crowd estimate, which could not be independently verified, included people who attended the pope’s final Mass in Rizal Park and surrounding areas, and lined his motorcade route, said the chairman of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, Francis Tolentino.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the Vatican had received the figure officially from local authorities and that it was a record, surpassing the 5 million who turned out for St. John Paul II’s final Mass in the same park in 1995.

Francis dedicated the final homily of his Asia trip to children, given that the Mass fell on an important feast day honoring the infant Jesus.

His focus was a reflection of the importance that the Vatican places on Asia as the future of the church since it’s one of the few places where Catholic numbers are growing — and on the Philippines as the largest Catholic nation in the region.

“We need to see each child as a gift to be welcomed, cherished and protected,” Francis said. “And we need to care for our young people, not allowing them to be robbed of hope and condemned to a life on the streets.” (ap)

AP Photo/Ron Soliman

Pope Francis waves to the crowd as he arrives at Quirino Grandstand to celebrate his final Papal Mass in Manila, Philippines, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2015.

14

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Science

International

Astronauts close to moving into space station for year CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — An American astronaut and Russian cosmonaut are just two months from launching to the International Space Station for an entire year. Scientists already are clamoring for additional long-term subjects.

Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko will rocket into orbit in late March from Kazakhstan. It will be the first time NASA sends someone into space for 12 months.

Two people are not enough from a scientific perspective, NASA’s space station program scientist, Julie Robinson, said Thursday. The space agency wants to start collecting data from Kelly and Kornienko before making decisions on further one-year missions, she said.

Before committing to lengthy trips to Mars and elsewhere, NASA wants to learn how the body fares after a year in space. NASA space station stints typically last six months.

NASA and its partners — Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada — are considering as many as 12 one-year test subjects at the space station. All but Russia are new to such long orbital hauls.

Medical and technological break-

throughs since Russia’s yearlong missions from the 1980s and 1990s means even more will be learned this time around, according to Robinson. The two sides will collaborate on many of the experiments. Kelly will provide an especially unique set of data. His blood and urine samples, as well as other measurements, will be compared with those from his identical twin brother, Mark, a retired astronaut.

Last week, space station program manager Mike Suffredini said NASA may wait until commercially developed crew capsules are ready to launch astronauts from U.S. soil before building on Kelly and Kornienko’s flight.

That won’t happen before 2017 or 2018. SpaceX and Boeing are the two chosen contractors.

Since the retirement of the U.S. space shuttle fleet in 2011, Russian Soyuz spacecraft have served as the only means to ferry crew to and from the space station. (ap)

AP Photo/Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center via NASA

This combination of photos provided by the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center via NASA, shows NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, left, and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko. On Thursday, Jan. 15, 2015, NASA said the two are just two months shy of launching to the International Space Station for an entire year. Already, though, scientists are clamoring for additional longterm subjects.

Study: Sea level rise accelerating Offshore wind would boost jobs, energy more than oil: study more than once thought WASHINGTON — The world’s oceans are now rising far faster than they did in the past, a new study says. The study found that for much of the 20th century — until about 1990 — sea level was about 30 percent less than earlier research had figured. But that’s not good news, scientists say, because about 25 years ago the seas started rising faster and the acceleration in 1990 turns out to be more dramatic than previously calculated.

The current sea level rise rate — which started in 1990 — is 2.5 times faster than it was from 1900 to 1990, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Scientists say that faster pace of sea level rise is from melting ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica and shrinking glaciers, triggered by man-made global warming.

“We’re seeing a significant acceleration in the past few decades,” said study lead author Carling Hay, a geophysical researcher at Harvard University. “It’s concerning for cities along the U.S. East Coast” where water levels are rising even faster than the world average.

“It’s definitely something that can’t be ignored,” Hay said.

Previous research said that between 1900 and 1990, the seas rose about twothirds of an inch (20 millimeters) a decade.

The new study recalculates the 1900-1990 rate to less than half an inch a decade.

Old and new research both say that since 1990 seas are rising at about 1.2 inches (30 millimeters) a decade.

While hundreds of tide gauges around the world have been measuring sea levels since 1900, they have mostly been in Europe and North America with few in the polar regions or the middle of the oceans, Hay said. So past estimates of 20th century sea level rise gave an incomplete picture of the global effect, said study co-author Jerry Mitrovica, a geophysics professor at Harvard.

The new method uses statistical analysis and computer models to better simulate the areas in the gap, Mitrovica said.

Outside scientists praised the new study, but were still cautious about adopting the estimates until more studies could be done.

“The implications are troubling — accelerated ocean warming, ice sheet collapse and sea level rise — all point to more and more sea level rise in the future, perhaps at a faster rate than previously thought,” said Jonathan Overpeck, co-director of the Institute of the Environment at the University of Arizona. “This will make adaptation to climate change more difficult and costly.” (ap)

MIAMI - Developing offshore wind technology in the Atlantic Ocean would produce twice the energy and job growth as drilling for oil would, an environmental group said Wednesday.

The analysis by Oceana was released ahead of the US government’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s five-year plan for oil and gas leasing, which could involve seismic testing for potential reserves in the Atlantic.

“The main crux of the report is we don’t even need to consider offshore drilling when we consider the vast offshore wind resources we have in the Atlantic,” said Andrew Menaquale, report author and energy analyst at Oceana.

Menaquale said less than four percent of the United States’ oil and gas is found in the offshore Atlantic.

The group’s report said that “energy created by 20 years of offshore wind in the Atlantic would produce nearly twice as much energy, (five billion barrels of oil equivalents) than what would be created by all of the economically recoverable oil and gas.”

It also found that offshore wind in the Atlantic could lead to 91,000 more jobs in the next two decades than offshore drilling.

The group said the oil industry “exaggerated” its projections for growth by including “oil and gas resources that are not economically recoverable, thereby inflating the potential benefits.”

The administration of US President Barack Obama said last year it would consider proposals for the use of seismic airguns to probe for oil and gas deposits

below the ocean floor from Delaware to Florida, an area that had previously been off-limits.

Oceana opposes the use of seismic airguns because their loud sounds can pose dangers to marine life.

“Based on the government’s own estimates, seismic blasting in the Atlantic could harm fish populations while injuring as many as 138,000 marine mammals like whales and dolphins, disturbing the vital activities of as many as 13.5 million more,” said Menaquale.

While the United States does not yet have any operation offshore wind facilities, momentum is building in that area.

The first wind farm off Rhode Island is expected to be up and running the next year, and large areas off the coast of Massachusetts will be bid on later this month.

In the US, “offshore wind is sort of a foreign concept,” Menaquale told AFP. “If you were to talk to people in northern Europe their ability to generate offshore wind resources is well known. In east Asia, it is becoming highly developed as well.”

Menaquale said he is hopeful that, once offshore wind becomes better known in the United States, people will realize its clean energy potential.

“The upcoming proposed five-year plan for offshore oil and gas is coming up, and we really hope that places like the Atlantic are not included in that plan,” he added.

“And if they are included we hope they are removed at a later date.” (afp)

Bali News

International

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

3

Fuel prices just like roller coaster

Tourism businesspeople made confused BANGLI - The price of fuel is just like roller coaster that makes people and entrepreneurs of transportation services confused. One of them is the operator of Kedisan-Trunyan crossing transportation in Kintamani. The confusion arises after the increase in fuel prices some time ago.

According to the Chief of Kedisan-Trunyan Crossing Services, I Nengah Dester, other than making the officers confused, visitors were also made confused by the crossing rates. “We are so confused in charging the crossing tariff and so are travelers. They are confused because if we enforce the tariff set they will consider it expensive because the fuel price has gone down,” he said.

Currently the crossing tariff remains unchanged. The new tariff applying from January 1 is based on a Regent Decree where single (domestic) traveler is charged at IDR 505,000, while foreign travelers at IDR 520,000; two passengers (domestic) are charged at IDR 528,000; while foreign travelers at IDR 550,000; three passengers (domestic) are charged at IDR 540,000, while foreign travelers at IDR 580,000. Crossing for four (domestic) travelers will be charged at IDR 555,000, while foreign travelers at IDR 615,000. Crossing for five (domestic) travelers will be charged at IDR 570,000, while foreign travelers at IDR 645,000. Crossing for six (domestic) passengers will be charged at IDR 590,000, while foreign travelers at IDR 680,000. Crossing for seven passengers will be charged at IDR 605,000 while foreign travelers at IDR 710,000.

Dester also admitted that the ever-changing tariff as the impact of fuel price also caused the decrease in

Kedisan-Trunyan crossing transportation in Kintamani. tourist visit to Trunyan. “Due to tariff change during holidays in this January, tourist arrival declined approximately 20 percent. We could not do much because the tariff is beyond our authority,” he said.

For new tariff related to the reduction plan of fuel price on Monday, Dester had not determined it yet. Determination of the crossing tariff was still reviewed. Rise and fall of fuel prices certainly made travel agencies

IBP/Sosiawan

confused. Nevertheless, when the new tariff had been issued, his party admitted to immediately inform travel agencies and visitors. “If the new tariff has been issued, we’ll certainly inform,” he affirmed. (sos)

Shivaratri, a right moment to improve Bali DENPASAR - Monday (Jan 19) yesterday, all Hindu devotees celebrated the Shivaratri feast day.

Shivaratri day is a universal teaching that can be used from any life’s point of view. Based on references, the word Shivaratri is derived from the word shiva meaning ‘bright, clear and glowing.’ Meanwhile, ratri means ‘dark.’ Thus, Shivaratri is the light having become dark.

The moment of Shivaratri can be used as an introspection and selfevaluation to stop committing the untruth, either the community or government officials, especially the entrepreneurs who make a living in Bali. This momentous day can be used as a milestone to improve the current Bali increasingly exploited.

In the vision of Ida Pedanda Made Gunung, many people currently wanted to fulfill their worldly desires.

As a consequence, darkness would always encapsulate their heart. Sin occurred due to impurities of human mind. After impurities, it would result in darkness. Shivaratri was the day of contemplation for those who were undergoing darkness in attaining light, so that we could live the life in accordance with scriptural teachings.

“What to ponder is who exactly are we. What is the point of our life on

this mundane realm? Where will we go after this life? Once arriving there, what will be taken?” he said.

In the lifetime, humans have five senses. So, the desire to have many cars, wife and many houses is definitely allowed. However, when the atman (soul) has reunion with Brahman (God), can we bring them all?

He asserted that what to bring along in the afterlife was only the karma or deeds. To that end, it was better for us to do good deeds in this lifetime.

In other words, we devoted to God, ourselves and the environment.

In the devotion we should perceive that the earth in Bali was only a temporary surrogate. The existing motherland was not ours, but that of our next generation. To that end, those who lived in this era should preserve it. “How faithless we will be if Bali vanishes from our hands,” he said.

Any destructive behavior, in this Shivaratri moment, should become a reflection of how to maintain and repair Bali, especially for the entrepreneurs (investors) who are seeking profits in Bali. Although pursuant to business concept, in this case, they really looked for profit, do not forget to perform sacrifice or yajña as the business concept mentioned in the Vedas. People might not do the op-

posite or destroyed the place where we made a profit. “Doing business is okay, but, especially for Balinese, do not destroy Bali,” said Ida Pedanda.

Just like look milking a cow, when people want to get more milk, raise the cow properly instead of

killing it. To that end, anyone who lives and makes money, including the leaders of Bali in the bureaucracy, should begin to realize and stop committing bad deeds to nature of Bali. “The earth is not ours, the earth is a privilege given by God

IBP/File Photo

Hindus people prayed at Jagatnatha Temple during Shivaratri celebration that falled on Monday, January 19. Shivaratri day is a universal teaching that can be used from any life’s point of view. Based on references, the word Shivaratri is derived from the word shiva meaning ‘bright, clear and glowing.’

for the future of humanity itself,” he said. (dar)

2

International

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Bali News

International

Activities

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

15

IBP/Courtesy of Ayana Resort

Farmers dismayed about apple snail attack on paddy plants

GIANYAR - Rice planting season, which coincides with the start of the rainy season has caused headaches to farmers in Sukawati. A ferocious attack of golden apple snails a few days ago, which threatened hectares of newly transplanted rice seedlings, is the cause of their dismay. The stems of some newly transplanted rice seedlings at Subak Sanga Sukawati, started being devoured by the apple snails, as witnessed by reporters on January 8th.

One local farmer, Made Pugra, said that the apple snails tend to attack newly planted rice seedlings. To prevent such an attack, this 40-year-old man admitted to have sprayed them with pesticides.

Unfortunately, such an effort was not able to eradicate the snails.

He said that despite being sprayed with pesticides, the apple snails did not die as the toxic liquid was prevented from entering their bodies by their shells. He then had no choice but to manually collected the apple snails one by one. “This apple snail cannot be eradicated by pesticides, so they have to be captured by hand”, he said.

He explained that apple snails, usually only come into the paddy fields at night and stay until about 9 am, when the water becomes too hot for their comfort. He went on

Celebrity nail artist introduce new treatments

to say that “apple snails usually come out when the environment is humid like now. By and large, they only devour the stems of young paddy plants (up until about 25 days old)”.

He added that the last attack of apple snail left the stems of many paddy plants damaged or devoured entirely. Of the 0.22 hectare of land cultivated, about 10 percent was damaged by the apple snails. To minimize losses, the dead paddy plants were replaced with the new ones. Reserve paddy plants were obtained from splitting the larger clusters that were not attacked by pests. “Now, we must diligently replace the dead paddy plants, so that losses can be reduced. I have also created a physical barrier so that the pest can no longer disturbs the plants”, he said. (kmb35)

JIMBARAN - From retro designs to bold color schemes and iconic imagery, the hottest nail art trends are now available for brides and holiday-makers at Ayana Resort and Spa Bali, courtesy of celebrity nail artist Daisuke Morimoto.

Jetting between New York, Tokyo and Bali to service his celebrity clientele – including Nicki Minaj and Miley Cyrus who wanted their talons prepped for autograph signing at album launches – Daisuke spent one month at Ayana to train 12 beauty therapists in the latest trends from Japan, the center of nail art design. He said demand is increasing for retro styles, bright color combinations and symmetrical lines.

There is also a shift towards hand-painting over other mediums like 3D, as clients The farmer shows the snail attacking his ricefield.

Tomato farmers in Jembrana lose out due to rainy season NEGARA - Tomato farmers in at Subak Budeng Putih, Budeng village Jembrana, lost much of their crops to rotting at the start of the rainy season.

Over the past two months, their crop harvests were diminished because the plants were unable to withstand weather conditions. With rainfall nearly everyday, many tomatoes simply rotted on the vine. Although not all plants were damaged, the selling price was still cut in half from what it was previously.

Ni Luh Darmi, a 45 year-old tomato farmer (Jan 18) said on

Sunday (Jan 8) that the selling price during rainy season was way down from what it was before Galungan and Kuningan. At that time, the price of tomato was still around IDR 7,000 per kilogram. However, in the last two months, the price has slumped drastically to IDR 4,000 per kilogram. “Due to weather factor, many fruits are rotten because the plants got too much water and were thus weakened”, she complained.

Other than having an impact on tomatoes themselves, the plants were also less likely

to survive. A single plot of p l a n t s t h a t w o u l d b e h a rvested 10 times under normal conditions, was now unable to survive, tending to quickly wither. This farmer from Budeng admitted that during the recent rainy season the fruits were harvested early.

However, the results were less satisfying and many fruits were rotten. As a result, buyers were reluctant to purchase at a high price. After just three harvests, many tomato plants were already beginning to wilt. (kmb26)

IBP/File

Alleged to have renal failure, a German traveler dies at bungalow TABANAN - After the death of a Spanish traveler at one of the villas at Mengesta village, Penebel, Tabanan on Satruday (Jan 17), another foreigner has passed away. The Chief of Tabanan Police, Komang Suartana confirmed that this time it was German national who was found in a lifeless condition at one of the bungalows at Yeh Gangga hamlet, Sudimara village, Tabanan, Sunday (Jan 18) around 5:00 p.m.

The German citizen who died was named Margaretta A.B. Falkenberg, 87.

Her death was suspected to be due to

renal failure after suffering from illness for long time. Based on information gathered, Margaretta had repeatedly been invited to consult a doctor for treatment, but continually refused.

Suartana, said that Tabanan Police authorities have Margaretta son Han about his mother’s death. The chief of police said that, even though he is currently in the United States, “Margaretta’s son arranged to have his mother’s body cremated”.

For the time being,Margaretta,s body has been temporarily entrusted to the Sanglah Hospital mortuary. (kmb24)

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prefer a flat, sleek design to suit every occasion from the office to the party.

“Under Daisuke-san’s guidance, our beauty therapists are now on top of the nail art trends, and we use shellac or bio gel polish to create any kind of image, even a guest’s own design,” said Michi Sonoda, Spa Director at Ayana Resort and Spa Bali. “Whether hand-painting, 3D, stickers, holograms, foils, acrylic or the use of stone art, our therapists are able to use a variety of different mediums to create

beautiful nail art.”

Michi said nail art treatments are often requested by brides getting married at AYANA’s chapels or its new cliff-edge venue SKY, while guests on holiday also enjoy having fashionable nails that will go the distance as they hop from pool to pool and soak up the resort’s private beach. Bio gel is the most durable, lasting up to 3-4 weeks, while shellac is recommended for guests who like to change their designs more frequently. (r)

Profile

Rhonda Lepsch

It’s all about responsibility and education

On your visit to Jet Set Dive and Marine Sport (JSD) in Benoa, you will be warmly welcomed by Rhonda’s great smile and some of her loyal pets. After a successful career in finance in America, her homecountry and Hong Kong, Rhonda left for Bali to support her husband, Nyoman in operating his water sport business.

Since the establishment in 2011, they exert all possible efforts to run JSD in a responsible way. Thus, a solid Sustainable Tourism policy has been developed.

“From the service, the products to the facilities, everything is about quality and security here,” she said. Regarding CSR initiatives, all employees are from Benoa area and educated in appropriate certification centers to improve their skills.

While, professionalizing step by step and providing a better service, they receive motivating remuneration to secure their future. “In JSD, as in all the projects I support, it is all about bringing people up, treating them with respect and teaching

about good behaviorsto take care of their environment. We hope they will take these habits back to the community,” mentioned Rhonda, also team leader for the Bali Hotels Association initiatives related with water usage reduction.

On this regard, a leading reef and beach clean-up is organized every year to empower the local community.

If staff deserve to be well-treated and educated, the same goes for the Bali dogs.

Rhonda went to great length to rescue and re-home Bali’s street dogs. This year, with the support of the Bali Dog Adoption and Rehabilitation Center (BARC) she made it possible for the village to get 115 of the dogs vaccinated free of charge.

Rhonda confessed that her forte is to build things, taking it from the beginning to the end. “Observing our employees happy is the best reward, my husband and I could expect from our efforts.” However, she cannot conceal her fear that those efforts might be affected by the reclamation

project. “Whatever happened, I cannot change things, I can just help and educate,” she said. (kmb)

IBP/kmb

Balinese Temple Ceremony Every Temple and Shrine has a special date for it annual Ceremony, or “ Odalan “, every 210 days according to Balinese calendar, including the smaller ancestral shrine which each family possesses. Because of this practically every few days a ceremony of festival of some kind takes place in some Village in Bali. There are also times when the entire island celebrated the same Holiday, such as at Galungan, Kuningan, Nyepi day, Saraswati day, Tumpek Landep day, Pagerwesi day, Tumpek Wayang day etc.

The dedication or inauguration day of a Temple is considered its birth day and celebration always takes place on the same day if the wuku or 210 day calendar is used. When new moon is used then the celebration always happens on new moon or full moon. The day of course can differ the religious celebration of a temple lasts at least one full day with some temple celebrating for three days while the celebration of Besakih temple, the Mother Temple, is never less than 7 days and most of the time it lasts for 11 days, depending on the importance of the occasion.

The celebration is very colorful. The shrine are dressed with pieces of cloths and sometimes with brocade, sailings, decorations of carved wood and sometimes painted with gold and Chinese coins, very beautifully arranged, are hung in the four corners of the shrine. In front of shrine are placed red, white or black umbrellas depending which Gods are worshipped in the shrines.

In front of important shrine one sees, besides these umbrellas soars, tridents and other weapons, the “umbulumbul”, long flags, all these are prerogatives or attributes of Holiness. In front of the Temple gate put up “Penjor”, long bamboo poles, decorated beautifully ornaments of young coconut leaves, rice and other products of the land.

Most beautiful to see are the girls in their colorful attire, carrying offerings, arrangements of all kinds fruits and colored cakes, to the Temple. Every visitor admires the grace with which the carry their load on their heads.

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Tuesday, January 20, 2015

‘American Sniper’ blasts competition at North American box office

in his battle for equal voting rights, was next, earning $8.3 million. The film was nominated this week for two Oscars, including “Best Picture.”

“The Imitation Game” was The war drama, based on the adaptation of the family classic true story of Navy SEAL Chris about a bear lost in the big city, in sixth with $7.2 million. The Kyle, set a new record for January opened in the third spot. The kids thriller about a code-cracking opening, US media reported, and comedy, starring British actor mathematician and logician durcomes after the film wracked up Hugh Bonneville of “Downton ing World War II was near the top six Oscar nominations, including Abbey” fame opposite the mar- of the Oscars nomination list, with best picture and best actor for star malade-loving bear, took in $19.3 eight nods including in several of the top categories.

Bradley Cooper. This was the film’s million in its US bow.

Disney’s “Into the Woods,” the first weekend in wide release.

Action sequel “Taken 3” fell to Well behind, but with another the fourth spot. The crime thriller star-studded big-screen adaptasolid debut, action comedy “The starring Liam Neeson in his third tion of the Stephen Sondheim Wedding Ringer” opened in stint as retired spy Bryan Mills, musical, came in seventh, adding second place with $21 million, who this time must clear his name $6.5 million to its three-week haul according to box office tracker of a ruthless murder, earned $14.1 of $114.5 million.

In eighth place was “The Exhibitor Relations. The critically million in its second weekend in Hobbit: The Battle of the Five panned flick stars Kevin Hart as theaters. a best-man-for-hire for a socially Historical drama “Selma,” Armies,” by Oscar-winning direcawkward groom. depicting the epic 1965 Alabama tor Peter Jackson, the last of six “Paddington,” a new big screen march led by Martin Luther King films adapted from J.R.R Tolkien’s books and the third and final installment based on the author’s novel “The Hobbit.”

It took in $4.9 million over the weekend, for a total of $244.5 million since its release five weeks ago.

Close behind in ninth with $4.3 million was “Unbroken,” the Angelina Jolie-directed drama about Louis Zamperini, an Olympic athlete taken captive by the Japanese during World War II. And rounding out the top ten with just over $4 million was “Blackhat,” a timely cyber-terrorism AP Photo/Warner Bros. Pictures, Keith Bernstein In this image released by Warner Bros. Pictures, Bradley Cooper appears in action flick starring Chris Hemsworth. (afp) a scene from “American Sniper.”

LOS ANGELES - Clint Eastwood’s “American Sniper” blasted into first place with a massive $90.2 million take, blowing away the competition at the American box office, industry estimates said Sunday.

Entertainment Oprah Winfrey locks arms with David Oyelowo, who portrays Martin Luther King Jr. in the movie “Selma” as they march to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in honor of Martin Luther King Jr., Sunday, Jan. 18, 2015, in Selma, Ala. AP Photo/Brynn Anderson

‘Selma’ stars, Oprah march in Alabama in honor of King SELMA, Alabama — Actors from the movie “Selma” marched with hundreds of people Sunday to recall one of the bloodiest chapters of the civil rights movement, while America prepared to mark the national holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. The remembrance comes after several incidents around the country in which unarmed black men were killed by police in recent months, leading to protests. In Ferguson, Missouri, the site of the most persistent protests, leading black members of Congress pressed for further reforms of the criminal justice system in the name of equality.

Eight members of the Congressional Black Caucus joined U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay in Ferguson as they took up King’s legacy in light of the recent deaths.

“We need to be outraged when local law enforcement and the justice system repeatedly allow young, unarmed black men to encounter police and then wind up dead with no consequences,” said Clay. “Not just in Ferguson, but over and over again across this country.”

In Selma, Alabama, Oprah Winfrey helped lead the march with “Selma” director Ava DuVernay, actor David Oyelowo, who portrayed King in the movie, and the rapper Common. They and others marched from Selma City Hall to Edmund Pettus Bridge, where civil rights protesters were beaten and tear-gassed by officers in 1965.

“Every single person who was on that bridge is a hero,” Winfrey told the

marchers.

The film chronicles the campaign leading up to the historic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, and the subsequent passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Law enforcement officers used clubs and tear gas on March 7, 1965 — “Bloody Sunday” — on marchers intent on seeking the right for blacks to register to vote. A new march, led by King, began two weeks later and arrived in Montgomery days later with the crowd swelling to 25,000.

McLinda Gilchrist, 63, said the movie should help a younger generation understand what life was like in the 1960s during the struggle to end racial discrimination. “They treated us worse than animals,” Gilchrist said.

For Monday’s federal holiday, people around the country were remembering King’s leadership, some in light of the fatal police shootings that had recently shaken the U.S., including the death of an unarmed black teen last year in Ferguson, Missouri.

Eight members of the Congressional Black Caucus joined U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay in Ferguson on Sunday as they invoked King’s legacy. They vowed to seek criminal justice reform.

“We need to be outraged when local law enforcement and the justice system repeatedly allow young, unarmed black men to encounter police and then wind up dead with no consequences,” the Democrat said. “Not just in Ferguson, but over and over again across this

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Menjangan Island

Undersea exoticism dazzles domestic, foreign travelers

IBP/Dewa Kusuma

Tourism sector in Buleleng County has developed quite rapidly. For instance, many travelers start to visit Menjangan Island. The tourist destination becomes more attractive as it offers a panoramic beauty of the undersea objects which certainly can amaze visitors.

SINGARAJA - Tourism sector in Buleleng County has developed quite rapidly. For instance, many travelers start to visit Menjangan Island. The tourist destination becomes more attractive as it offers a panoramic beauty of the undersea objects which certainly can amaze visitors.

To reach the Menjangan Island managed by the West Bali National Park (BTNBB), domestic and foreign travelers can hire a boat at Batu Ampar Port, in the tourist area of Pejarakan, Gerokgak, or alternatively from Gilimanuk, Jembrana.

Before departing to Menjangan Island, a number of guides will provide information for visitors who wish to enjoy underwater panorama. To that end, visitors are required to pay ticket of diving or snorkeling activity at IDR 25,000

each, while the rental of snorkeling equipment is IDR 60,000 per person.

Menjangan Island has its own allures, especially for professional divers that often enjoy the underwater beauty and want to find out more sensations of experience via snorkeling and diving in Menjangan Island. It is only 30 minutes voyage from the Batu Ampar Port.

Several tour packages have been attractively prepared by guides

to be offered to visitors, such as snorkeling, diving, mangrove and trekking. The four tour packages have their own appeal and interest for visitors. In mangrove package, for instance, visitors are invited to ride a boat and to get around the island for observing the tranquility and beauty in the mangrove areas.

While trekking package offers visitors to walk around the island, enjoy the beauty of the island and watch the deer and the open sea from a certain height.

“Travelers have a maximum of two hours to get around and enjoy the beauty of the mangrove. We do not need to explain too much considering the mangrove forest is very dense and visitors usually want to

enjoy tranquility of the atmosphere while traveling. Well, if diving, we give more explanation about the practice and knowledge when will perform diving activities,” said Rusli, one of the local guides.

Recent development indicates if it the increasing visit to Menjangan Island is dominated by domestic travelers. Presumably it happens due to holiday season and information from fellow travelers that had made a visit previously to the island. Rusli added while escorting visitors, he could earn IDR 150,000 and sometimes got more from visitors. “Local visitor shows an increase over the past year to Menjangan Island. Compared to previous year, visitors tended

to comprise guests from Europe, Australia, Korea and China,” he added.

Similar comment was given by Nengah Janta, where the peak occurred at yearend. This boat driver admitted the increasing trend of visitors happened to domestic travelers. However, he complained about the rubbish around the Menjangan Island, generally originating from visitors who just finished their activity. “In high season, we can get two trips. Here, there are totally 69 boats including the driver and 100 guides. Our constraint here is just the matter of rubbish. We just hope the awareness of visitors for not littering around the island,” he hoped. (kmb34)