Edisi 29 Januari 2016 | International Bali Post

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Friday, January 29, 2016

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Rihanna releases long-awaited album in streaming exclusive

NEW YORK - R&B superstar Rihanna late Wednesday released her long-awaited eighth album “Anti” as she offered exclusive early access through commercial tie-ups.

“Anti,” Rihanna’s first album since 2012, had been announced late last year but the timing of the release was a surprise and came hours after she put out the first single.

Tidal, the streaming service led by rap mogul Jay Z in which Rihanna is a partner, premiered “Anti” and said it would not appear elsewhere for the first week.

Rihanna signed a deal reported to be worth $25 million with South Korean electronics giant Samsung, which set up an “Anti” interactive website accessible on its smartphones.

Tidal said that Samsung users who used the website would be able to download “Anti” and receive a two-month free trial of the streaming service.

The release marks the latest effort by an upstart streaming companies to challenge the dominance of streaming leader Spotify through exclusive releases.

Prince put out his two last albums on Tidal while pop superstar Taylor Swift released a tour video only on Apple Music.

Streaming services, which offer on-demand access online, have grown rapidly in recent years and become a key part of the music industry’s commercial strategies.

Rihanna earlier Wednesday put out a first single from “Anti” that features chart-topping rapper Drake.

Entitled “Work,” the song is set to tropical house, the light-feeling electronic genre that has become

increasingly popular in the past year.

The song returns to Rihanna’s familiar theme of feeling taken advantage of in a relationship, while Drake in his verse raps of his struggle finding intimacy.

“Anti” starts off with the track “Consideration,” a collaboration with SZA, an R&B singer who has come to prominence more recently.

“Anti” does not include “FourFiveSeconds,” a song that Rihanna released a year ago in a collaboration with Paul McCartney and Kanye West.

Rihanna quickly became one of the 21st century’s top-selling art-

ists after releasing her debut album in 2005, but the Barbados-born singer’s prolific output stopped after a seven-year stretch.

The two-month delay between the launch of the Samsung website and the album triggered speculation among fans who wondered if there were disagreements behind the scenes. Some music industry observers suspected that Rihanna did not want to compete with British ballad singer Adele, whose album “25” broke first-week sales records in November.

However, it is unclear how Rihanna will fare on the charts as her album is not available for conventional purchase. Rihanna has already announced a world tour to promote “Anti,” which will begin on February 26 in San Diego. (afp)

IBP/Net

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Friday, January 29, 2016 Iran: European airlines set to resume flights to Tehran Page 6

Communism better than democracy, says Vietnam party boss

Atletico anxious to rediscover scoring touch at Barca Page 8

Page 13

Kuta and Kedonganan village reject reclamation plan

Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File

Joseph Fiennes to play Michael Jackson in TV drama

LONDON — Joseph Fiennes will star as Michael Jackson in a one-off TV comedy set to broadcast later this year — a casting decision that has added fuel to a raging debate about opportunities for nonwhite actors in movies and TV. The white British star of “Shakespeare in Love” plays the black King of Pop in “Elizabeth, Michael & Marlon,” alongside Stockard Channing as Elizabeth Taylor and Brian Cox as Marlon Brando.

The script is based on a — possibly fictitious — road trip the three stars are rumored to have made in an attempt to leave New York after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Sky Arts, which commissioned the drama, confirmed the casting and said Wednesday that the show is in post-production and is due to air in 2016. The channel said it was “part of a series of comedies about unlikely stories from arts and cultural history.”

Jackson had vitiligo, a condi-

tion that causes patchy loss of skin pigmentation, and his complexion lightened dramatically as he grew older. He died in 2009 aged 50.

The casting news comes amid a debate about lack of diversity in Hollywood, sparked by an all-white slate of Academy Awards acting nominees.

Iranian-British comedian Shappi Khorsandi tweeted: “Joseph Fiennes is playing Michael Jackson?

Fab. Now we can all shut up about lack of diversity.”

Sky said the network “puts the integrity of the creative vision at the heart of all its original commissions.”

“We believe in giving producers the creative freedom to cast roles as they wish, within the diversity framework which we have set,” Sky said in a statement released by a spokeswoman.

Fiennes’ agent did not immediately respond to a request for comment. (ap)

IBP/File Photo

People held demonstration rejecting Benoa Bay reclamation plan. Sesetan customary village is one of the villages that would be affected by the realization of the Benao Bay reclamation plan.

KUTA customary village held a meeting on Saturday (Jan 23) at Kuta’s Penataran Khayangan Temple that involved some 13 customary hamlets authorities and other members of the community.

The meeting, explained customary village chief, I Wayan Swasra, was held to discuss the matter of the reclamation of Benoa Bay. “We have decided to reject the Benoa Bay reclamation plan. Based on the decision of our meeting, we will also send a letter to President Jokowi and attend the meeting for the sake of environmental impact assessment (EIA) test on January 29,” he said.

The 13 hamlet of Kuta customary village decided to reject the reclamation plan was base on their desire to preserve sacred areas, including the seas, mountains, estuaries, confluences that fall into the territory of their village.

Kuta customary village authorities will be delivering the results of their meeting during the upcoming dialogue initiated by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. “We intend to take measurable steps to ensure that our decision in respected. We certainly hope that the president and his staff will hear the voice of the Kuta customary villagers,” said Swarsa. Kuta is not the only village that rejects the reclamation plan. Kedonganan and other nearby villages have also rejected the plan to reclaim Benoa Bay.

Affected by Benoa Bay reclamation plan

Continue to page 2 Decision ...

Sesetan village not invited to attend Amdal test meeting

DENPASAR - Sesetan customary village is one of the villages that would be affected by the realization of the Benao Bay reclamation plan. And yet, the most populous village in Denpasar has not been invited to attend the environmental impact analysis AKA Amdal test meeting that will be held on January 29th at Wiswa Sabha the Governor’s Office.

Sesetan village has in fact never been privy to the dissemination of information or other relevant activities related the the Benao Bay reclamation plan. “We at Sesetan customary village have not been invited (to the Amdal test meeting—Ed). Actually, we are are amongst the villages that will be most affected should the reclamation plan go through. Sesetan, Suwung and Sidakarya lie to the north, Serangan to the south, and

Kedonganan, Kelan, and Jimbaran, to the west,” said Chief of Sesetan customary village, I Ketut Suparjaya on Wednesday (Jan. 27).

Suparjaya explained that Sesetan would mainly be affected in terms of traffic congestion given that Jalan Raya Sesetan is one of the main roads that would connect the reclaimed islands to the Bali Mandara toll road. Traffic congestion in Sesetan is already remarkable.

Furthermore Hindus in Sesetan invariably need to be able use the sea-shore to perform their religious activities.

“On January 23, we held our plenary meeting in which all the customary hamlets decided that Sesetan village as whole stands in rejection of the Benoa Bay reclamation plan,” said the Sestan village chief.

Suparjaya added that on January 8th, 2016, Sesetan customary village held a rally to voice their rejection of the reclamation plan. The recent plenary session meeting further demonstrates the integrity of Sesetan customary village in terms of their rejection of the plan to reclaim Benoa Bay, he said. “We have no

political interest but simply want to show that this is the shared opinion of our village,” he explained.

Secretary of Sesetan customary village, I Wayan Dudik Mahendra, said that a peaceful rally will be held at the border between Sesetan and Serangan on Thursday. This location proves that Sesetan is in fact close to the proposed site for the reclamation plan. However despite their geographic proximity to Benoa Bay, Sesetan customary village has never been involved in the dissemination of information relate to the reclamation plan nor in Amdal test.

Mahendra added that communities along the coast that are at risk from the impacts of reclamation plan

have been taking action. Will they not be heard? Are these actions still considered unclear demonstrations by a bunch of kids just going “rahrah”? “Communities all along the coast share the same attitude towards the reclamation projects, and almost all of them have stated their official opposition to the reclamation plan,” said Mahendra. (kmb32) News can also be heard in “Bali Image” at Global Radio FM 96.5 from 9.30 until 10.00 am. Listen to Global Radio FM at http:// globalfmbali.listen2myradio.com or live video streaming at http://radioglobalfmbali.com and http:// ustream.tv/channel/global-fm-bali.

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International

Friday, January 29, 2016

International

COVER STORY Decision ...

From page 1

Local community leader, Graha Wicaksana, said that the decision made by the customary village in Kuta, shows that the community is aware about the need to maintain Bali’s natural environment.

From a standpoint of customs, the customary villagers are urging the government to maintain Benoa Bay as a sacred area. “We will continue to monitor the results of this meeting. We very much appreciate any efforts to rescue Bali’s natural environment from destruction, so that all can live in peace on the island,” he said.

Swarsa also explained that the decision taken by 13 customary hamlets in Kuta recently, will be delivered by Chief of Kuta customary village, Chief of the Kuta Community Empowerment Agency, coordinator of customary village chief, hamlet chief forum and other elements of the community during the EIA test meeting to be held on January 29th.

Kedonganan

Kedonganan customary village located in the area of Benoa Bay has also declared its rejection of the reclamation plan. Kedonganan is one of the villages that would be directly affected by the implementation of the reclamation of the bay. Many other customary villages have also officially rejected the reclamation plan, these include: Kuta, Kelan, Pemogan, Kepaon, Tanjung Benoa and Sesetan customary villages.

Ketut Madra, Chief of LPD Kedonganan, said on Tuesday that Kedonganan customary vil-

lage through its apparatuses is determined to stand up against the reclamation plan. “We have already organized a meeting and customary village authorities have all agreed to reject the Benoa Bay reclamation,” affirmed Ketut Madra via telephone.

This Kedonganan community leader gave several reasons for why the people of Kedonganan have rejected the reclamation plan. Firstly, he said, they want Benoa Bay to be restored -not to be reclaimed, because Benoa Bay is a sacred area that should be maintained in its integrity. Secondly, he explained that the Benao reclamation plan would harm people economically, as many people in Kedonganan use the bay to earn a living. “The majority of our residents are fishermen. They earn a living in Benoa Bay,” he said.

Similar opinions were expressed

by Chief of LPM Kedonganan, I Ketut Budana, who said that the hamlet community of Kedonganan rejected the plan a long time ago but only officially declared their decision last Monday.

Budana explained the three reasons that they stand in rejection of the plan. Firstly, Benoa Bay is a sacred area, where the customary community regularly holds sacred ceremonies. Secondly, topography and seawater at Kedonganan lies one meter below the ground surface. If the Benoa Bay is backfilled, seawater will overflow.

Thirdly, Kedonganan has long developed cultural custom-based tourism. If Benoa Bay is turned to purely capitalist interests, tourIBP/File Photo ism based on our customs will be eliminated and so thus will many Kedonganan customary village located around the Benoa Bay has declared its rejection against local businesses, explained Bu- the reclamation plan. Kedonganan is one of the villages directly affected if the reclamation is dana. (dir/ira) implemented.

Residents of Tanjung Benoa will continue to struggle

THE COMMITMENT of Tanjung Benoa residents to reject the plan to reclaim Benoa Bay has -and will not, subside. In fact the four hamlets of this village are prepared struggle allout to protect the sacred area of Benoa Bay. “Our commitment remains the same as ever (rejecting the reclamation). Nothing has changed. This has been the decision of the four hamlets, we will keep the sacredness of Benoa Bay safe from harm,” said chief of Tanjung Benoa customary village, I Made Wijaya.

The four hamlets at Tanjung Benoa, said Wijaya, having offi-

cially rejected the reclamation plan, are; the Anyar, Kertha Pascima,

Purwa Santi and Tengah hamlets.

The four hamlets amount to 800 registered households.

“I’ve come down to the community to check with the respective hamlets, and they maintain their commitment to reject the reclamation plan. We will bring the results of the agreement made by the four hamlets to the meeting tomorrow (Jan. 27),” he said.

The aspirations of the Tanjung

Benoa community will also be submitted to the elected regent and deputy regent of Badung. “We will demand that Mr. Giri Prasta express how far he is committed to maintaining the sanctity of Benoa Bay. We ask that he make the same commitment as Mr. Gde Agung,” said Wijaya.

Despite the change in zoning of Benoa Bay from a sacred area

to a utilization area, former Regent of Badung, A.A. Gde Agung maintained his commitment to maintaining Benoa Bay as a sacred area throughout his term as Regent.

“I agree with the attitude of Mr. Giri Prasta who has rejected the reclamation plan due to the abrasion that it would cause. Hopefully, his commitment will not change,” said Agung. (par)

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Activities

Friday, January 29, 2016

15

The Mulia unveils new wedding packages

IBP/Courtesy of The Mulia

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.

NUSA DUA - The Mulia, Mulia Resort & Villas – Nusa Dua, Bali has played host to some of high society’s grandest weddings and events as well as the smaller and more intimate affairs.

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The resort’s selection of exotic wedding venues with three wedding chapels, seven dining venues and a grand ballroom lends itself to an intimate and elegant ambiance to ensure couples have their dream wedding come true.

A choice of romantic and stylish ceremony venues is offered where your wedding vows can take place. Harmony - the infinity ocean facing chapel by the beach or Eternity - a floating glass chapel with serene lake view, will offer once-in-a-lifetime memories for a truly special day. With seating of up to 250 guests, the packages include fully air-conditioned venue hire; elegant flower arrangement, use of a bride and groom preparation room, refreshments and commemorative

wedding certificate.

The highlight of the most important day for the Bride and Groom follows with a wedding celebration - from the intimate 10 person dinner by the sea “Mulia Romance”, to the signature beachfront dining experience at Soleil overlooking the pool and ocean, among many other options.

A choice of seven romantic and grand dining venues is offered, from live Japanese Teppanyaki performance at Edogin, exploring the rich variety of Chinese cuisine at Table8 to International selections at The Cafe. For an outdoor celebration – Sky is the perfect spot to enjoy concocted cocktails and tapas with warm Indian Ocean breeze or party at ZJ’s indoor and outdoor

venue, set by Mulia lakeside.

For a grand celebration, the Grand Ballroom and Violet Ballroom will set the grand stage of a memorable wedding celebration, comfortably accommodating up to 1,080 guests in sit-down dinner setting or 2,000 guests in cocktail setting. Elegantly designed with the highest quality crystal chandeliers, marble and custom carpets, where Mulia’s culinary team will indulge every palate.

Allow their team to take care of every aspect of your wedding celebration from tiered wedding cake designs by Mulia Deli, to an elegant floral decoration by Mulia Blossoms as well as professional hairstylist’s and makeup artists by Mulia Hair Salon to ensure that everything is simply perfect for your special day.

Start planning your wedding at the ‘Number One Beach Resort in the World’ and the ‘Top Three Hotels & Resorts in the World’ by 2014 Condé Nast Traveler USA Edition.

IBP/Courtesy of The Mulia

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Friday, January 29, 2016

Fashion

International

Jean Paul Gaultier parties down on Paris catwalk

PARIS - Flamboyant showman Jean Paul Gaultier showed he still knows how to party Wednesday with a fashion collection celebrating one of the French capital’s mythic hang outs.

The 63-year-old designer’s latest haute collection burst onto the catwalk with models sashaying through a replica of the swinging doors of Le Palace, the long defunct club that once gathered artists, musicians and the intelligentsia.

Big hair, skinny ties, swish, glamorous pyjamas and bell hop hats all conjured up the feel of the hotspot’s late 1970s to early-1980s lifespan.

But the show didn’t just wallow in nostalgia for a lost era of hedonism, it was also in memory of one of the club’s late doyennes.

“It’s an hommage to Edwige Belmore, the queen of the French punks and also Le Palace’s bouncer from 1978-79 and 1983-84,” Gaultier told reporters after the Paris Fashion Week show.

Belmore died last year aged 58 after a life in which she had been model, muse and friend to the stars from Gaultier and Bianca Jagger to Andy Warhol and Yves Saint Laurent.

“Edwige was an androgynous woman who could be masculine because of her height and tattoos,” the designer said.

“But at the same time she was very feminine in black trousers, a Chanel jacket -- it was a fake -- with a bra beneath it,” he added.

In the wake of the terror attacks that ravaged Paris in 2015, Gaultier also offered a reminder of the need to go on living.

“Paris is still a party,” he said. “You have to go out, you must not stay stuck at home. That’s the worst thing to do.” (afp)

Bali News

International

Friday, January 29, 2016

Ten platinum buyers confirm participation at BTF

DENPASAR - Ten prospective buyers belonging to the platinum category have confirmed their participation at the Bali Beyond and Travel Fair (BBTF) to be held on June 22-26, 2016.

“The number of platinum buyers will likely increase as the registration is still open,” Chairman of the BBTF Organizing Committee Ketut Ardana stated on Wednesday.

Platinum buyers are world-class travel bureaus that could send more than 10 thousand foreign tourists to Bali annually.

He said that 17 platinum buyers had taken part in the second BBTF in 2015.

For this year’s event, some 30 domestic and 110 foreign buyers from European, American and Asian countries have registered for the fair.

He invited Indonesian businessmen engaged in hotels, restaurants, and MICE (meeting, incentive, con-

ference and exhibition) activities to take part in the fair and showcase their potential to the buyers.

The fair is expected to support the government to achieve the set target to attract 20 million tourists annually by 2019.

The BBTF is expected to expand the tourist markets in Southeast Asian countries in addition to other potential markets.

“We will continue to target the ASEAN market through the BBTF to promote Indonesia’s tourism,”

Ardana affirmed.

According to the BBTF chairman, this year, China, Australia, India, and the Middle East countries have been identified as some of the potential markets besides European countries and the United States.

In recent years, the number of tourists from Southeast Asian countries has increased.

The Bali Central Statistics Agency noted that during the JanuaryNovember 2015 period, tourists from Singapore and Malaysia were

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among the top ten visitors to Bali.

During the same period, Malaysia came fourth, with 168,273 people visiting Bali. Meanwhile, Singapore was ranked seventh, with the number of visitors reaching 125,910.

Both countries contributed 8.1 percent, or 3,631,195 people, to the overall number of foreign tourists, up by 6.2 percent compared to that recorded in the same period last year.

The annual BBTF was held for the first time in June 2014. (ant)

Singaraja deports 22 foreigners

SINGARAJA - The immigration office of Singaraja, Buleleng District, Bali, said it deported 22 foreign citizens for immigration offenses in 2015.

Among the offenses included overstay, head of the immigration office Muhammad Hanif Rozariyanto, said on Wednesday.

Hanif said currently the immigration

office has tighten control such as through application of data of foreign citizens.

The data taking system is integrated with the information system of immigration management, he added.

The system is a breakthrough in facilitating access for operators of hotels and other accommodation facilities in reporting data

about their foreign guests, he said.

Foreign citizens living and staying in the three districts in Bali -- Buleleng, Karangasem and Jembrana total 3,314 persons. They include 566 holding permit for temporary stay, and 182 holding permit for permanent stay . Those extending Visa on Arrival (VoA) total 982 and those extending

permit for visit stay total 1,738 persons.

The foreign visitors to Bali include holidaymakers, students, expatriates, and old people wanting to stay permanently in the tourist island. Hanif also said that in 2015, the Singaraja immigration office issued passports for 3,300 Indonesians to visit various countries in the world. (ant)

Middlemen play with strawberry prices

AP Photo/Francois Mori

Model wear creation for Jean Paul Gaultier’s Spring-Summer 2016 Haute Couture fashion collection presented in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016.

Ex-top model holds fashion world to account on anorexia

PARIS - It was the stuff of dreams: walking down a Paris street one day to walking the runway as a top 20 model in the world’s fashion capital.

That’s exactly what happened to Victoire Macon Dauxerre at 18 as she prepared to graduate from high school in 2011. But that dream was short-lived.

In just a few months Dauxerre was battling anorexia, eating three apples a day and sipping diet colas in an effort to maintain her elite model status.

“No one actually told me you have to lose weight,” she remem-

bered. “But they said to me, ‘In September, you’re starting Fashion Week. Sizes will be 32-34 (2-4 US) and you’ll have to be able to fit into them.’”

“That’s when I should have left,” Dauxerre said.

As Paris plays host to the spring summer haute couture shows, Dauxerre is warning the world about how insidious a disorder anorexia really is.

In her memoir, “Never Skinny Enough: the Diary of a Top Model” (“Jamais assez maigre: Journal d’un top model”) she recounts the pressures of such high-stakes dieting.

This is not the first time that a French model has sounded the alarm on the pressure to be thin on the catwalk. After writing her own book highly critical of the fashion industry, Isabelle Caro posed for a shocking anti-anorexia billboard campaign during Milan fashion week in 2007 before dying from the disease three years later at the age of 28.

For Dauxerre, besides apples and Diet Cokes, she allowed herself one small piece of fish or chicken once a week.

A healthy 56 kilos (123 lbs) at 1.78 metres (5 feet 9 inches)

when she was spotted, Dauxerre went down four dress sizes to 47 kilos (103 lbs) in just a couple of months.

She then embarked on her whirlwind career, modelling for such famed houses as Alexander McQueen, Celine and Miu Miu in Paris, New York and Milan.

With her flowing brown hair and electric blue eyes, she became one of the most sought-after faces.

Eight months later, bulimic and suicidal, she quit.

“No one understood,” Dauxerre said, now 23. “Everybody was telling me I had a dream life, but I had

never been so miserable.”

In the book, she tells of life backstage where models would nibble on food in front of cameras then race to the bathroom to throw it all up once journalists were gone.

She recalls shoots where only the photographers had catering.

Dauxerre was so starved and exhausted at one point she fainted in the streets of New York during one fashion week.

Dauxerre’s memoir comes a month after French MPs voted through a law banning ultra-thin models. (afp)

SINGARAJA - Middlmen have been playing with the price of strawberries for years. Buying from famers at very low prices, and lower still when harvests yields, famers feel like they have no choice but to sell their crops for very little.

Farmers on lake Bunyan Buyan lakeside, Dasong hamlet, Pancasari, have been cultivating strawberries for many years. Sometimes farmers grow these berries on their own land but they also sharecrop lands of others, in which case their profits are halved.

Farmers with moderate capital can cultivate strawberries in greenhouses but those with less capital cover their strawberry plants with plastic roofs. Both to these methods allow farmers to continue cultivating strawberries during the rainy season.

Strawberries take 5 months to harvest. Once the fruit are ready to be picked, farmers harvest them twice a week with fruits ranging in quality from low to high. Middlemen tend to buy all these berries for the same price, regardless of differences in quality. Farmers are therefore not able to make more profits when their berries are better.

Local farmer, 50 year old I Wayan Suparta, when met with in his garden in Sari Kauh, Pancasari, Sukasada confirmed that wholesale prices apply to the whole range of quality of the strawberries, with an average selling price of IDR 12,000 per kilogram. Strawberry buyers

then sort the fruit and sell the good berries for as much IDR 50,000 per kilogram. Medium quality berries are sold for about IDR 13,000 per kilogram, while the lowest quality berries are sold by middlemen for IDR 10,000 per kilogram. “This is a classic and long standing problem; middlemen play with the price of strawberries so that we sell them the berries for cheap and they resell them for much more. They sometimes even sell the low quality berries for inflated prices,” he said.

Suparta explained that middlemen playing with prices is very detrimental to farmers. The problem, he said, is that if famers wait to get a better price, they run the risk of having their fruit perish on the vine. Things are even worse in good seasons when strawberries are abundant, because middlemen offer even lower prices. If farmers do not agree with the price offered, middlemen will buy strawberries elsewhere. To overcome this situation, Suparta is requesting that the local government intervene to establish strawberry prices that are based on the quality of the strawberries.

As Suparta explained, farmers should make more profits on high quality berries because they are the most rare. “Our bargaining position is very bad while middlemen are making huge profits. We hope that the government can help us, particularly in terms of price and distinguishing the quality of strawberries,” said Suparta. (kmb38)

IBP/File Photo

The photo shows a woman picking a strawberry in Pancasari Hamlet, Buleleng Regency. Middlmen have been playing with the price of strawberries for years. Buying from famers at very low prices, and lower still when harvests yields, famers feel like they have no choice but to sell their crops for very little.

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Friday, January 29, 2016

Bali News

Illegal parking in Penelokan still rampant

BANGLI - Even though there has been repeated disciplinary measures taken against illegally parked vehicles at the Penelokan tourist attraction in Kintamani, the road continues to be annexed by parked motor vehicles. Despite the very clear ‘no stopping’ and ‘no parking’ signs that have been put up in the area, road users remain disobedient and continue to park haphazardly on the road. In fact the signs have even been moved to be more visible, site but to no avail.

Head of the Bangli Transportation Agency, Gede Arta, when asked for his confirmation last Sunday said that his agency, in collaboration with the Bangli Trafific Police Affairs, have taken such extreme measures as removing illegally parked vehicles from the site and bringing them to the police station. “However, it is impossible for us to do this every day,” he said.

Arta added that since the traffic signs are now clearly visible, all they can do now is appeal to people to obey the law. “Let us maintain orderliness and traffic smoothness together. I hope people will obey the traffic signs. Do not just act obediently when there are police officers present,” he pleaded.

On a separate occasion, Chief of Bangli Police Traffic Affairs, Ketut Mastra Budaya, promised that the Bangli Police will expressly crack down on stubborn road users because the no parking and no stopping signs have been clearly installed at the location. The Transportation Agency has moved the ‘no parking’ and ‘no stopping’ signs so they are now clearly visible.

Formerly, road users argued they could not see the traffic signs. Now, they have so excuse,” said Budaya. (kmb40)

13

Communism better than democracy, says Vietnam party boss

HANOI — One-party rule in communist Vietnam is a far better alternative to authoritarianism disguised as democracy, the 71-year-old ideologue who was reelected as party chief and consequently the country’s leader said Thursday.

The illegal parking is still rampant in Penelokan area.

IBP/Suasrina

Rain and wind hit Denpasar

Avalanche haunts SDN 6 Ubung Fallen tree topples over a car, home and school DENPASAR - Location of the SDN 6 Ubung elementary school at riverside is now beginning to cause a concern.

Cliff of the river has avalanched for several times after Denpasar was flushed by rain in the past few days.

Moreover, the Denpasar Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) together with the Denpasar Public Works already paid attention to the erosion of the bank of the Mertagangga River at Ubung Kaja; North Denpasar considering the building of the SDN 6 Ubung on Jalan Kertangganga, Gang VI, Anyar-Anyar hamlet, Ubung Kaja is very close to the cliff edge. Small avalanches on the adequately high cliff still looked new.

Moreover, the avalanche area increasingly expanded. “A few days ago, the cliff avalanched. Some plants such as bananas got eroded. I am concerned if the avalanche occurs again because the school is very close,” said a local resident.

He is also worried about the activities of passing people taking advantage

Friday, January 29, 2016

International

International

of the bridge over the dam connecting to road access. “This lane (Gang VI) directly connects to Ubung. People usually pass through this bridge,” he said.

The Irrigation Subdivision Head at the Denpasar Public Works Agency, Ngurah Putra Sanjaya, justified the cliff avalanche. “It has happened from two weeks ago. It is the authority of Bali Public Works. So, as soon as getting the report, we have directly made coordination with the province. However, there has been no handling so far,” said Sanjaya.

Related to the school located close to the cliff, his division with the BPBD team continues to pay attention by conducting regular monitoring. He worried if a greater avalanche occurs, the elementary school building will get eroded. “We keep an eye on the condition. Hopefully, there will be no more massive avalanche. It’s quite alarming especially if the weather conditions continue like this (monsoon rains),” he said. (kmb12)

DENPASAR - Rain and strong winds occurred on Wednesday (Jan. 27) caused a number of fallen trees in some places. Aside from fallen trees, a cable of street light also emitted sparks at Renon. Besides, a tree uprooted at Renon and toppled over a car. Similarly, at Peguyangan a tree collapsed and toppled over a roof of the home and school. The house belonged to Kadek Sugiantara and the roof to SDN 8 Peguyangan elementary school.

Kadek Sugiantara said the damage of the house is not too severe because the fallen tree did not touch the ground. In other words, it was still restrained, so that it just slanted. “The damage only happened to corner roof. Likewise, the next school also faced the same. Thus, the damage is not too severe,” he said.

He said that the officer of the Denpasar Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) already handled them by cutting the fallen trees. “Now, they have been handled by the BPBD officers,” he said.

Based on information obtained from the

BPBD Denpasar, the rain and strong winds also caused a number of shade trees and privately owned trees to uproot. They included the trees on Jalan Tukad Bilok, Sanur, Jalan Kartini, in the area of Lumintang City Park as well as at Monang-Maning.

Fallen trees did not only happen on Wednesday, but also the day before, namely Tuesday (Jan. 26), where two greening trees also collapsed. They respectively occurred on Jalan Raya Puputan, Jalan Kusuma Bangsa and Jalan Raya Puputan where a geloka tree uprooted.

On the other hand, on Jalan Kusuma Atmaja, exactly in front of the Bali House of Representatives, an acacia tree uprooted, while on Jalan Danau Tamblingan, Sanur, a branch of golden shower tree was broken.

The Division Head of Sanitation and Landscaping at the DKP Denpasar, I.B. Eka Jayana, justified the fallen tree. “The three trees at Sanur underwent broken branch, but they have been handled by the officers. As a result, they did not disturb the traffic,” he said. (kmb12)

“A country without discipline would be chaotic and unstable ... we need to balance democracy and law and order,” said General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (pronounced noo-YEN’ FOO’ CHONG’).

Trong was re-elected Wednesday as head of the Communist Party and the leader of a 19-member Politburo that will govern Vietnam for the next five years, after squashing a short-lived challenge for the top post by his No. 2, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung (pronounced noo-YEN’ TAN’ ZOONG’).

The Communist Party has been in power since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, and every five years elects a new leadership. The party has 4.5 million members in a country of 93 million people, who have no direct say in how their leaders are elected. People do elect a National Assembly, but it is considered a largely rubber stamp body whose members are vetted by the Communist Party before they can contest.

The renewal of the leadership means little change for Vietnam, where the people have no direct role in selecting the party leaders.

“I very much hope the new faces in the Politburo will push with reforms and bring the country forward, but I don’t know whether they can do that,” said Tran Thi Tram, selling lotteries on the sidewalk in central Hanoi.

“They will also have to really tackle the corruption problem, Otherwise the people would be the ones to suffer most.”

Trong cited the National Assembly and the thousands of party organizations at grassroots as representing the voice of the people.

“Vietnam’s Communist Party is one-party

rule but we also have principles of democracy and accountability of the leaders. Otherwise, good deeds would be credited to individuals while failure would be blamed on the group and no one would be disciplined,” he said.

He said that the party “can never become authoritarian” unlike some democracies.

“It is not proper to name them, but in a number of countries, in the name of democracy, all decisions are made by one person.

So which is more democratic?” There is no organized movement in Vietnam calling for multi-party system.

Dissidents, who are active on social media, are quickly crushed. The biggest organized group that’s vocal against the one-party system is based in the United States, and is branded a terrorist group by the government.

U.S. officials have said Vietnam has shown greater restraint in arrests and prosecution of dissent last year, but stressed it needs to do more to improve its human rights records. According to U.S. officials, there were about 100 prisoners of conscience in 2015, down from more than 160 in 2013. International human rights groups and the U.S. government has criticized Vietnam for using vague security laws to silence dissidents, but Hanoi has said only law breakers were put behind bars.

Trong is expected to continue to push the economic reforms led by Prime Minister Dung during his 10 years in office. Dung will be replaced by Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc after his appointment is endorsed by the National Assembly later this year.

Trong’s camp has accused Dung of cor-

Hoang Dinh Nam/Pool Photo via AP

Newly re-elected Vietnam Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, center left in front, flanked by Politburo members Tran Dai Quang, front left, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, center right in front, and Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, claps as he poses with the new party’s central committee members at the closing ceremony the national congress of the party in Hanoi, Vietnam Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016 . ruption and mismanagement, but analysts believe that the accusations were an excuse for the widespread corruption that seeps through the system and is not likely to vanish overnight with Dung’s departure.

Addressing that question, Trong said there was a need to “particularly sustain the accountability and responsibility of the leaders and supervise power to ensure corruption and wastefulness are brought under control.”

Despite having a reputation for being proChina, Trong is not likely to be totally subservient to Beijing as that would risk massive anger from ordinary Vietnamese who harbor a deep dislike and historical suspicion of China.

Tensions have spiked recently over overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea, where Beijing’s massive construction of man-made islands has pushed the Philippines and Vietnam closer to the U.S.(ap)

Taiwan president visits island in disputed South China Sea

AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying

Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou speaks to the media during a briefing following his visit to Taiping island, also known as Itu Aba, in Taipei, Taiwan, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016.

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan’s president, defying a rare dose of criticism from key ally the United States, visited an island in the disputed South China Sea on Thursday and called for peaceful development in the increasingly tense region.

Accompanied by about 30 staff members, Ma Ying-jeou (MAH YEENG JOH) left the capital Taipei early in the morning aboard an air force C-130 cargo plane bound for Taiping Island, also known as Itu Aba. Taiping lies in the Spratly island group, an area where Taiwan shares overlapping claims with China, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines.

The city state of Brunei also claims a part of the South China Sea. After arriving, Ma spoke at a national monument on the islet and reiterated his call made last year for peaceful coexistence and joint development. He cited infrastructure

developments on the islet, including a 10-bed hospital and a lighthouse, saying they reinforced Taiwan’s claim of sovereignty and granted it rights over the surrounding waters.

Taiwan is spending more than $100 million to upgrade the island’s airstrip and build a wharf capable of allowing its 3,000-ton coast guard cutters to dock.

“All this evidence fully demonstrates that Taiping Island is able to sustain human habitation and an economic life of its own. Taiping Island is categorically not a rock, but an island,” Ma said. Roughly 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) south of Taiwan and 46 hectares (110 acres) in size, Taiping is the largest naturally occurring island in the area.

It has recently been eclipsed in size, however, by man-made islands created by China out of reefs and shoals.

China has built housing, ports, airstrips

and other infrastructure on the newly created islands, drawing accusations from the U.S. and others that it is exacerbating tensions in the strategically vital region. Taiwan stations about 200 coast guard personnel, scientists and medical workers on Taiping. It occupies a number of other islets in the South China Sea, including the Pratas island group to the north.

There was no immediate response to Ma’s visit from China, although a spokesman for the Cabinet’s Taiwan Affairs Office on Wednesday repeated Beijing’s claim to “indisputable sovereignty” over the South China Sea islands.

“Safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity and the overall interests of the Chinese nation are the common responsibility and obligation of compatriots on both sides” of the Taiwan Strait, Ma Xiaoguang said at a biweekly news briefing.(ap)

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Friday, January 29, 2016

Bali News

International

BUSINESS

Friday, January 29, 2016

5

Fed voices concern about global economic pressures

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve sounded a note of concern Wednesday about how global pressures could affect a slowing U.S. economy, while keeping a key interest rate unchanged.

Six weeks after it raised rates from record lows, the Fed took stock of a more perilous international picture that could alter its plans for further raising rates.

Fed officials issued a statement after their latest policy meeting that suggested they might reduce the pace of future rate hikes if market losses and global weakness persist.

But stock investors were disappointed that the Fed did not commit outright to delaying its pace of rate increases. The Dow Jones industrial average closed down about 223 points, or 1.4 percent. The Dow had been up slightly before the Fed issued its statement.

Sam Stovall, U.S. equity strategist at S&P Capital IQ, said investors had been hoping for a “clear signal” that the Fed would raise rates more gradually for the rest of 2016 and felt discouraged when they didn’t get it.

Many point to the Fed’s December rate hike as a key factor in the stock market’s tumble in recent weeks. The move amounted to only a small rise in the Fed’s still-extremely low target rate for overnight bank lending. But it signaled that a seven-year period of near-zero rates was ending

and that while borrowing costs wouldn’t be rising fast, they would be headed up.

The Fed’s new statement said it’s studying “global economic and financial developments and is assessing their implications for the labor market and inflation.”

“This is intended to lull us into lower expectations as to when the next move is going to come,” said Patrick O’Keefe, director of economic research at the consulting firm CohnReznick.

Since the Fed raised rates Dec. 16, stocks have plunged, oil prices have skidded and China’s leaders have struggled to manage a slowdown in the world’s second-biggest economy. The Fed’s statement Wednesday noted that U.S. economic growth has also slowed.

Some economists say they now expect just two modest Fed rate increases during 2016, rather than the three or four they had foreseen when the year began. But no one is sure.

The Fed’s signal in December that it would raise rates four times this year “has become less plausible as we’ve gotten a little bit into the year,” O’Keefe said. “Reality has refused to cooperate.”

In a key change to the statement,

The letter which was made by two high school students in Denpasar.

Claiming as ISIS and sticking leaflet

Two students of SMAN 1 Denpasar secured by police

AP Photo/Richard Drew

A television screen on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange shows the rate decision of the Federal Reserve, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. The Federal Reserve is keeping a key interest rate unchanged while pledging to closely monitor developments in the global economy and financial markets. the Fed dropped language it had used in December that it was “reasonably confident” that inflation would reach the Fed’s 2 percent target over the next few years.

By dropping this language, the Fed appeared to signal concern

that inflation has fallen further as a result of a further drop in oil prices and a stronger dollar. Chair Janet Yellen and other Fed officials have stressed the importance of higher inflation. A key inflation gauge has run below the 2 percent

target for more than three years.

The Fed’s policymakers left their benchmark rate unchanged in a range of 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent. For seven years until December, they had kept that rate at record lows near zero. (ap)

Samsung, tech suppliers sink on smartphone woes but Asia stocks gain HONG KONG - Shares in tech suppliers sank in Asia Thursday as South Korean giant Samsung Electronics posted a huge fall in profit, a day after rival Apple recorded its weakest ever rise in iPhone sales.

The 40 percent fall in Samsung’s net profit and Apple’s report fuelled fears about the saturated smartphone market and the impact on smaller firms that rely on their ongoing popularity.

Adding to the concerns, Samsung said it expected 2016 to throw up continued challenges, which was in line with a warning from Apple

that it saw year-on-year sales of the iPhone falling for the first time this quarter. Apple dived 6.5 percent in US trade.

Samsung tumbled 2.6 percent in the morning in Seoul. Among regional suppliers, Tokyo-listed Alps Electric -- which Wednesday cut its profit forecast because of weak smartphone sales -- collapsed more than 17 percent. Japan Display lost 6.7 percent and TDK 6.4 percent.

LG Display in Seoul was 2.6 percent off.

Volatility returned to Asian markets, with three of the region’s major bourses turning lower after

IBP/Ken

seeing swings from negative to positive. The losses followed a sell-off on Wall Street after the Federal Reserve left investors to speculate about another interest rate hike.

After concluding its first meeting since lifting rates in December, the US central bank kept rates unchanged and said growth in the world’s number one economy slowed late last year and was concerned about ongoing global weaknesses.

But despite the turmoil that has wracked world markets so far this year, policymakers added that

they expected inflation -- softened by falling oil prices -- would rise toward its 2.0 percent target in the medium term. The comment was seen as keeping the Fed’s option open for another hike in March.

“With investor sentiment quite poor and fixated on the negatives, they’ll likely latch onto the Fed’s focus over global risks,” Mitsushige Akino, an executive officer at Ichiyoshi Asset Management, told Bloomberg News.

“However, rather than a hawkish statement, I think we got one that was market friendly. And that should impact stocks over the lon-

ger run.”

Tokyo’s Nikkei index shed 0.7 percent, while Hong Kong slipped 0.1 percent and Shanghai ended 2.9 percent down, with ongoing worries about the domestic economy continuing to play on investors’ minds.

Mainland Chinese investors seemed unmoved by the central bank’s decision to pump $52 billion into financial markets to ease liquidity problems leading up to the Lunar New Year break. The Shanghai market plunged more than six percent Tuesday despite an injection of $67 billion. (afp)

DENPASAR - SMAN 1 (Smansa) Denpasar high school located on Jalan Kamboja, East Denpasar, was scandalized with leaflet attached to the wall near the teacher room, Wednesday (Jan. 27). After being investigated, police confiscated two students of accelerated third grade of natural sciences (IPA 8) with the initials ATK (female) and CM (male). ATK made the leaflet and the CM attached it on the wall.

Title of the leaflet is written in Arabic script, “We ISIS have already been at SMANSA ready to ravage your event. We are not afraid of dying, Allahu Akbar!”

Director of General Criminal

Investigation at Bali Police, Bambang Yugisworo, when asked for his confirmation justified the incident. Both students underwent an intensive investigation at Sub-directorate I of the General

Criminal Investigation.

“That’s right. Both students are committing it for fun. They did not realize if their act disturb the public. We have time 7x24 hours to examine the perpetrators,” he affirmed. Is this case processed?

“Yes, it’s still being processed and examined,” he said.

Whether their action belongs to terror or not, according to Bambang, remains to be studied. Police are also still further investigating the process of making the leaflet

and motives.

According to a resource person at the Bali Police, the leaflet was discovered around 10:00 in the morning. The threat that will be devastating the favorite school was first encountered by local school teacher, I Ketut Sarjana, 53. Further, Sarjana reported the case to his superior, and followed up to the East Denpasar Police, including to the Bali Police.

A few minutes later, police came to the scene and immediately

tracked down the perpetrators.

In relatively short time, police managed to find a hint that the leaflet is made on a piece of paper with letterhead of the Computer-Based National Examination (UNBK) tryout. “After that, police officer summoned all students of the third grade of natural sciences (IPA 8).

Finally, both students admitted their act. Police officers then took them to Bali Police Headquarters,” said the source asking for anonymity. (kmb36)

Fallen tree topples over a car, motorcycle, rice barn and garage

One victim rushed to hospital MANGUPURA - A tornado uprooted some trees in Badung district, Wednesday (Jan. 27). The trees toppled over car, motorcycle, rice barn and garage. Moreover, a tree also toppled over a motorist.

On Jalan Raya Kerobokan, North Kuta, a Tahitian chestnut tree in front of Lio Collection collapsed and toppled over a motorist and two cars. Rider of Honda Vario motorcycle, I Made Dedek Juliantara, 23, was then immediately rushed to Badung Hospital.

As information of the Badung Police officer, it happened at 14:30 when it rained and was accompanied by strong winds. A staff of Lio Collection, Arimbawa, 45, told the

officer that at first he sat in front of his workplace. At that time, he saw the Tahitian chestnut tree spinning as hoofed by winds. The man living at Perum Gria Alam Fajar, Angantaka, Badung, immediately moved the car of his boss.

“At that time, the witness (Arimbawa—Ed) saw the motorist (Dedek Juliantara) passing at the location and was then toppled over by the tree,” said the police officer that requested anonymity.

A driver of Toyota Avanza, Joko Lasmono, 49, said that at 13:30, he drove tourists to shop at Lio Collection. After parking in front of the store, Joko living on Jalan Teuku Umar Barat, Denpasar saw the Ta-

hitian chestnut tree was shaking and then collapsed and toppled over his car. While a Mitsubishi car driver, Sandi, 26, said that at that time he saw the tree rocking due to high wind.

Sandi from Banyuwangi, East Java, rushed out of the car. A few minutes later, the tree toppled over his car.

After receiving the report of the incident, Chief of North Kuta Police, Aris Purwanto, arrived at the scene. With some personnel, the police chief arranged the traffic. To avoid severe congestion, the traffic was diverted to Jalan Petitenget.

The Badung Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) officers arrived at the scene and immediately cut the Tahitian chestnut tree using three

chainsaws. After that, the cuts of the tree were transported by the Badung Sanitation and Landscaping Agency (DKP). The officers also cleaned up the debris of the tree.

Chief of the Badung Police Traffic Affairs, Nengah Subangsawan, when asked for his confirmation said that traffic has been back to normal condition. Severe congestion could be prevented due to the alertness of North Kuta police and related agencies cleaning up the fallen tree.

At different location namely Mambal village, Abiansemal a fallen tree toppled over a garage, car and rice barn. Then, at Penarungan village a tree collapsed onto highway.

A severe adverse incident occurred at Lebah Sari, Mambal village. The strong winds accompanied with rains damaged a rice barn (jineng) belonging to I Wayan Kamar, 53. Other than destroying rice barn, a Toyota Yaris car was also damaged by fallen tree around the house. As the garage was toppled over by tree, the car inside suffered damages to the roof and shattered the windshield.

Subdistrict head of Abiansemal, Putu Thomas Yuniartha, said that the incident occurred in the afternoon around 15:15. No casualties were reported in the incident. So far, the BPBD Badung is still making data collection. (kmb36/eka)

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Friday, January 29, 2016

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International

RLD

Iran: European airlines set to resume flights to Tehran

TEHRAN, Iran — Several European airlines aim to resume their flights to Iran following a landmark nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, the state-owned IRAN daily reported on Thursday.

The newspaper quoted Mohammad Khodakarami, deputy head of Iran’s civil aviation authority, as saying British Airways officials visited Tehran on Tuesday to discuss resumption of flights. He did not elaborate.

Khodakarami also said both Air France and Dutch flagship KLM have already expressed their readiness to resume flights to Tehran.

Air France said last month it would resume flights to Tehran for the first time in more than seven years starting in April.

A KLM spokesman said the carrier always looks for opportunities for new destinations but has not yet make a decision about resuming flights that were suspended in

2013.

“At this moment there are no concrete plans to open Tehran.

KLM follows the current situation concerning the lifting of sanctions against Iran closely,” spokesman Joost Ruempol said.

BA also has not announced any firm plans to return to Iran, though Willie Walsh, the chief executive of its parent International Airlines Group, reportedly told a recent conference the airline is interested in flying to Tehran soon.

European carriers stopped their flights to Iran after the West imposed sanctions on Iran over its nuclear ambitions. Currently Iran’s national carrier, Iran Air, has three weekly flights to London as well

as two weekly flights each to Paris and Amsterdam.

Earlier this week, Iran said it is also considering direct flights to the United States. Direct flights stopped between the two countries more than three decades ago. Iran and the United States severed air links when Washington broke relations in 1979 after Iranian militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held the occupants hostage.

Tehran has also expressed interest in buying scores of new airplanes from American aircraft manufacturer Boeing. Iranian officials have already discussed buying 114 airplanes from European consortium Airbus.

About 1 million Iranians live in the United States, mostly in California. Thousands fly to Iran every year, often changing planes in London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Istanbul and Dubai. (ap)

REUTERS/Remo Casilli

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi gestures as he speaks at the Senate in Rome, January 27, 2016.

Germany, France can’t solve refugee issue without me - Italy PM

FILE - In this Dec. 22, 2014 file photo, an Iranian oil worker rides his bicycle at the Tehran’s oil refinery south of the capital Tehran, Iran. With a historic nuclear deal between Iran, the U.S. and five other world powers set into place this weekend, a European oil embargo on the world’s seventh-largest oil producer will end.

Angela to first call Hollande and then EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, and that I learn of the result in the press,” he added.

More than one million migrants have reached Europe over the past year, many of them fleeing conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Africa and elsewhere.

The crisis has strained relations between EU member states and tested their commitment to Europe’s openborders Schengen agreement.

Renzi recently rejected calls by Juncker, the head of the bloc’s executive, to tone down his criticism of EU policies on migration and also on banking and the budget.

In a more positive signal for bilateral relations between Berlin and Rome, Renzi said he supported an idea floated by German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel to cut development aid to north African countries that are not willing to take back citizens whose asylum applications were rejected. “Those that do not do so don’t get money from the international community,” Renzi said. (ap)

JOHANNESBURG — A referee and two athletes participating in a South African triathlon dived into the ocean to rescue two stricken men who were being swept out to sea. After pushing the men to shore, the athletes finished the grueling race a little later than they had planned.

Athletes Martin Potgieter and Dylan Hartwig said Thursday that

calm them. Hartwig, meanwhile, started to cramp in the cold water.

The athletes had already been competing for between five and six hours.

“There was only so much I could do because I was cramping,” said Hartwig, a 21-year-old accounting student who focused on helping one of the men. “I was trying to push him onto a wave.”

Delayed by 15 to 20 minutes, the athletes put their shoes back on, chatted for a bit while running and finished — Potgieter in six hours and 50 minutes and Hartwig in seven hours and 15 minutes. Matt Trautman of South Africa won the men’s event in just over four hours.

South Africa’s Ironman 70.3 race includes swimming, cycling and running. (ap)

South African athletes rescue men at sea, then finish race they were running the last miles (kilometers) of the contest when they stopped to help the men, who were struggling to stay afloat off the East London coast.

“We managed to push them little by little, just to get them to shore,” said Potgieter, who headed into the sea after referee Ross Murray jumped over a wall, ran to the beach, discarded some clothes and

started swimming to the panicked men.

One concern was that the men in trouble on Sunday would grab and pull down the referee and athletes in their effort to survive, according to 37-year-old Potgieter, who works in the coal distribution business.

He said the rescuers spoke “a few hard words” to the men to

Friday, January 29, 2016

Hundreds of members of sect evacuated after clashes

BERLIN - It is unacceptable for German Chancellor Angela Merkel to cut deals on Europe’s refugee crisis with French President Francois Hollande and the head of the European Commission without involving Italy, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said.

Renzi, whose country is on the frontline of Europe’s refugee crisis, has stepped up his criticism of the EU on several fronts as he wrestles with Italy’s stubbornly low economic growth after three years of recession.

Speaking ahead of a meeting with Merkel in Berlin on Friday, Renzi told Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily he would be delighted if the German chancellor and Hollande could solve all Europe’s problems.

“But that is generally not the case,” he said in an interview published in the paper’s Thursday edition.

“If we’re looking for a joint European strategy to solve the refugee question, it can’t be sufficient for

AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File

International

JAKARTA - Indonesian security forces on Wednesday evacuated hundreds of members of a group authorities have called a deviant religious organisation to the capital, Jakarta, after sectarian violence drove them from their homes in West Kalimantan province.

Indonesia has the world’s largest population of Muslims, the majority of whom adhere to moderate Sunni beliefs, and it recognises six religions including Hinduism, Catholicism and Buddhism, but minorities, even within Islam, have faced rising intolerance in recent years.

Men, women and children associated with a group called Gafatar, which the country’s highest Islamic council considers a deviant sect, were attacked last week by other West Kalimantan residents who oppose their beliefs.

The attackers burned houses and cars, media reported, but there were no reports of any deaths.

More than 700 people arrived on a navy vessel at Jakarta’s main port. They will be housed in government shelters before being relocated, officials said.

One of the evacuees, Ateng, 42, who arrived in the capital with his wife and six children, denounced the violence against them.

“This is a violation of democracy,” he told Reuters.

“The law guarantees the right to assemble and organise.”

Authorities consider Gafatar’s teachings “dangerous” and the group was outlawed last year. People associated with the group say it is social organisation and not a religious one.

Kalimantan, the resource-rich Indonesian part of Borneo island, has seen outbreaks of similar violence in the past.

Several hundred migrants from Java and Madura islands were killed in attacks by indigenous Dayak people there in 2001.

About 2,000 more people affiliated with Gafatar remained in West Kalimantan and would be relocated soon for their safety, officials said. (rtr)

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Indonesia telecoms firm blocks Netflix over local laws, censorship

JAKARTA - Indonesia said Thursday a decision by the country’s biggest telecoms provider to block Netflix could be reversed if the global video-streaming giant obeyed local laws, particularly on “porn” and “radicalism”.

The decision Wednesday to bar access to Netflix came just weeks after the California-based firm announced it was expanding its Internet TV services to 130 new markets, including Indonesia.

State-owned Telekomunikasi Indonesia, or Telkom, said Netflix had not met existing regulations such as obtaining a local business licence and opening an in-country office, complaints echoed by officials.

Concerns that films provided

by Netflix could evade scrutiny by Indonesia’s Film Censorship Board also appear to have been a driving force behind the ban.

Ismail Cawidu, a spokesman for the ministry, said online companies were forbidden from broadcasting content that went against the “public interest”, and Netflix was no exception.

“They must follow the rules. No

porn, no radicalism and no copyright infringement,” he told AFP. “We informed them a while ago, and we are still waiting for Netflix’s response.”

All films screened in Indonesia are approved first by the Film Censorship Board, with offending sections removed.

Pornographic websites are also blocked, and blogs and other online content deemed either extremist or inappropriate are routinely shut down by the communications ministry.

Netflix is not the first Internet-based company to run into regulatory obstacles in Indonesia, with video-sharing website Vimeo banned, and ride-sharing service Uber struggling to set up in Southeast Asia’s largest economy.

But it is a blow for the streaming pioneer, which boasts 70 million

subscribers and just this month heralded its expansion into 130 new markets as the birth of a new global Internet TV network.

Telkom and government officials insist the block is only temporary, and would be lifted if Netflix obtained the required permits and agreed to censorship requirements.

“Just comply and we will reopen access,” Telkom spokesman Arif Prabowo told AFP. “We are not talking about the business, this is just a matter of abiding by the law.”

Netflix could not be immediately reached for comment.

Some Telkom competitors were capitalising on the ban Thursday, promoting their Netflix packages in a bid to lure Telkom customers angered by the move.

“I felt cheated,” Devi Asmarani, a Jakarta-based writer, told AFP after buying a new TV a fortnight ago specifically to enjoy Netflix.

“It was fun for two weeks then it suddenly stopped.” (afp)

Laoly issues decree recognizing Bakrie-led Golkar faction for six months

JAKARTA - Justice and Human Rights Minister Yasona Laoly has issued a decree granting legal recognition for a period of six months to the Golkar leadership under Aburizal Bakrie elected during a Riau congress.

Minister Laoly announced here on Thursday that he had decided to revive the decree of the Justice and Human Rights Minister No. M.HH-21.

AH.11.01 of 2012 dated December 4, 2012, which legally recognized the Golkar leadership elected at the Riau congress held in 2009.

The new Decree No. M.HH21.AH.11.01 of 2016, valid for a period of six months, provides an opportunity to the Golkar Party to make preparations for another congress or an extraordinary congress,

which is democratic, fair, and will lead to reconciliation, the minister pointed out.

Bakrie, who had been the Golkar Party’s chairman for the 2009-2014 term, was reelected as general chairman for the 2014-2019 period by acclamation in a congress held in Bali on Dec. 3, 2014.

Laksono had later organized a congress in Ancol on December 6-8, 2014, which elected him as the rival chairman of Golkar, leading to a split in the party.

The justice minister in a decree only recognized the Laksono-led Golkar leadership, but in late December 2015, he revoked the decree after the Supreme Court gave a verdict in favor of the Bakrie-led Golkar faction. (ant)

AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara

Workers arrange large incense sticks prepared for Lunar New Year celebration in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. Ethnic Chinese in the world’s most populous Muslim country are preparing to celebrate the Chinese New Year of the Monkey on Feb. 8.

10

Destination

Friday, January 29, 2016

International

Friday, January 29, 2016

International

Williams within 1 win of 7th Australian Open title MELBOURNE — Serena Williams is one win away from another Grand Slam milestone after beating Agnieszka Radwanska 6-0, 6-4 in an Australian Open semifinal that was almost a non-contest between the players who’ll be Nos. 1 and 3 in the next women’s rankings.

Amed Beach AMLAPURA - Amed Beach is located in the eastern end of this island, precisely at Amed village, Abang, Karangasem County. Main livelihood of local community is working as fisherman. Rural atmosphere is so intense and pristine and the local traditions have not been affected by foreign culture, hospitality is still strong and beautiful sunrise in the morning will accompany while enjoying breakfast. Of course, this will add to the exotic atmosphere during the holidays.

With black sandy beach, the state of water looks very clear with diverse beauties of marine life, well-preserved coral reef life and constant warmth of water. Then, snorkeling and diving here are in great demand by the domestic and foreign travelers. Now, the beauty of Amed has become an excellence for travelers, especially European travelers such as from Germany, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands and other countries who have a hobby of watching the underwater thrill and tranquility of holiday resort.

AP Photo/Andrew Brownbill

Serena Williams of the United States celebrates after defeating Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland in their semifinal match at the Australian Open tennis championships in Melbourne, Australia, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016.

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didn’t think I would do this well this fast. “I’m really excited to be in the final — it just kind of blows my mind right now.”

Kerber ended Sydney-born British player Johanna Konta’s surprising run with a 7-5, 6-2 semifinal win to reach her first Grand Slam final. Konta was the first British woman since 1983 to reach a major semifinal.

Kerber has one win in six matches against Williams — in 2012. Graf was the last German player to win the women’s title in Australia, in 1994, and Kerber is asking for some advice. “So Steffi, write me please,” she said, laughing with the crowd on Rod Laver Arena.

Williams’ win over fourthseeded Radwanska provided another yet reminder of her dominance in the women’s game. She has won 39 of her last 40 Grand Slam matches across six major tournaments.

Williams hasn’t played a lefthander so far this tournament and said that, combined with Kerber’s

LeBron says criticism he undermines coaches is unfair IBP/File Photo

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If Williams wins Saturday’s final against No. 7-seeded Angelique Kerber, she’ll equal Steffi Graf’s record of 22 Grand Slam singles title, a record in the Open era, and the second-most in history behind Margaret Court’s 24.

Williams is the overwhelming favorite, and not just based on recent form. She continued her perfect streak in Australian Open semifinals, and she has won all six finals she’s contested at Melbourne Park.

“I definitely block it out,” Williams replied to a question about equaling Graf’s mark. “I was one off last year, too! “If I don’t win on Saturday, I’ll still be one off.”

Despite all her success, it is a loss that is inspiring Williams in this tournament. She was two matches away from a calendar-year Grand Slam in 2015 when she lost to Roberta Vinci in the U.S. Open semifinals.

“Physically I’m feeling a lot better, mentally I needed that break after the Open,” she said, but “I

win over two-time champion Victoria Azarenka in the quarterfinals, were making her wary.

“She took out a really tough opponent in Victoria. You can’t underestimate Kerber,” Williams said. “She’s beaten me before, too, and pretty good. I know that she brings a lot to the game.”

The first set of the semifinals was over in 20 minutes, with Williams hitting 18 winners and Radwanska, in her fifth major semifinal, registering one — in the fourth game.

The second set was closer, with Radwanska holding serve three times and breaking Serena’s powerful serve once. But the 34-year-old Williams lifted again to finish it off, winning the last eight points and closing with three aces and a big forehand winner.

Williams remains unbeaten in nine matches against Radwanska, whom she beat in the 2012 Wimbledon final.

“She goes on court and she just wants to kill it. Going like full power for everything,” Radwanska said. “So I don’t think anyone can really play on that kind of level at all. She started unbelievable, with such a power and speed. I was just standing there kind of watching her playing.”(ap)

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INDEPENDENCE, Ohio — LeBron James disdains the notion he’s a coach killer. Widely criticized in NBA circles for a perception that he pushed for Cleveland’s front office to fire David Blatt last week, James said the criticism that he undercuts coaches was unfair.

“But what can I do about it?” he said on Wednesday. “I’ve never, in my time since I picked up a basketball, ever undermined a coach, ever disrespected a coach,” he said.

“You ask any of my little league coaches, my high school coaches, coaches I’ve played for in tournaments, camps, my NBA coaches, I’ve always respected what they wanted to do.”

Blatt was fired last Friday midway through his second season despite having them atop the Eastern Conference standings and leading the team to the NBA Finals last season.

Blatt’s dismissal — he’s the third coach fired on a team James has played on — led to some condemnation of the four-time league MVP. On Tuesday, a limited partner

with the Miami Heat said during an interview on Israeli radio that James tried to get Erik Spoelstra fired in Miami. Ranaan Katz later retracted his statement to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Blatt was replaced by Tyronn Lue, his top assistant and a former NBA player who has known James since he was a 17-year-old high school phenomenon.

For many, Lue’s ascension was the result of James not wanting Blatt around. There was an obvious disconnect between James and Blatt, who was wildly successful in Europe and hired by Cleveland before James decided to return to the Cavaliers as a free agent in 2014.

The James-Blatt relationship was scrutinized during both seasons and when it finally collapsed, the LeBron-got-him-fired narrative gained traction.

Although James insists that he didn’t do anything to weaken Blatt’s authority, there were incidents over the past 18 months that illustrate how he didn’t do his former coach any favors. James usually referred

to Blatt simply as “Blatt,” and often ignored Blatt during games, preferring to discuss strategy with Lue during timeouts. James also famously changed a play designed

by Blatt during the playoffs last season before hitting a game-winning jumper to beat Chicago.

James said his willingness to speak his mind has led to the criticism that he’s not always on the same page with his coaches.

“I’m not the owner of a team, I’m not the GM of a team, I’m the player of a team,” James said. “People get it so misconstrued because I’m a smart basketball player and I’ve voiced my opinion about certain things, which I did when I was here my first stint with Paul Silas and Mike Brown.

Which I did in Miami with Coach Spo. Which I did with Blatt, and I’ll do with T. Lue,” he said. “And at the end of the day, they’ll still have their final call. But, I don’t know. What do you guys want me to do, turn my brain off because I have a huge basketball IQ? If that’s what they want me to do, I’m not going to do it because I’ve got so much to give

AP Photo/Michael Perez, File

FILE - In this Nov. 2, 2015, file photo, Cleveland Cavaliers coach David Blatt pats LeBron James on the chest at the end of an NBA basketball game against the Philadelphia 76ers in Philadelphia. to the game.

“There’s no difference for me telling my teammates or telling guys how to get better with their

game. If I feel I got something that will help our team, ultimately, I like to give it. It helped me get two titles.”(ap)

8

Friday, January 29, 2016

Sp rt

Action Images via Reuters / Carl Recine

Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal

Van Gaal under scrutiny as Man United go to Derby

LONDON - All eyes will be on Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal when he takes his team to Derby County for an FA Cup fourth-round tie on Friday with the fans’ boos from their home defeat by Southampton still ringing in his ears.

Frustrated supporters roared for the Dutchman to be sacked after Saturday’s 1-0 loss at Old Trafford, but he still holds the reins despite media speculation he had offered to resign .

That may change if second tier Derby knock United out of the Cup, especially given mounting speculation that the club have lined up Jose Mourinho as their next manager after the Portuguese was sacked by Chelsea last month.

Derby were riding high in the Championship at the end of last year but Paul Clement’s men have recently lost their way.

Their only win in five matches in 2016 was a 2-1 victory over Hartlepool in the last round of the Cup. However, United captain Wayne Rooney, who scored a stoppage- time penalty to squeeze past third tier Sheffield United in the third round, knows the 11-times Cup winners cannot afford to be as erratic as they have been in the Premier League, in which they lie fifth.

“Derby have nothing to lose.

No-one is expecting them to win and they will try to cause an upset. We know that and have to be ready for that,” Rooney told

MUTV. Milton Keynes Dons are another Championship side facing elite opponents as they take on Chelsea on Sunday for a place in the fifth round.

With Chelsea playing catch up after a poor start to the season -- they are in 13th place in the Premier League and their League Cup title defence ended in the fourth round -- their only chance of salvaging silverware on home soil is the FA Cup. Since Guus Hiddink took charge over a month ago following Mourinho’s sacking, Chelsea are unbeaten in all competitions.

“We have to try to win the games we have left in the league, we are working very hard and I think it shows on the pitch,” goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois told Chelsea’s website (www. chelseafc.com).

Champions Arsenal will take on second tier Burnley on Saturday as they try to take another step towards becoming the first club since Blackburn Rovers in 1886 to win the FA Cup three years in a row.

A packed Saturday schedule will also feature three all-Premier League ties, Aston Villa v Manchester City, Crystal Palace v Stoke City and Liverpool v West Ham United.

Third-round giant-killers Oxford United will be eager to build on their win over Swansea City when they host second tier Blackburn Rovers. (rtr)

Friday, January 29, 2016

Atletico anxious to rediscover scoring touch at Barca

BARCELONA - After suffering two setbacks in the space of a week, Atletico Madrid will be looking to avoid a third when they travel to La Liga leaders Barcelona for Saturday’s top-of-the-table clash at the Nou Camp. Atletico, who won the title at the stadium two years ago, surrendered top spot in La Liga to the Catalan side last weekend and were then eliminated from the King’s Cup quarter-finals by Celta Vigo on Wednesday.

Beating Barcelona would send Atletico back on top but the goals have not been flowing of late. Diego Simeone’s side failed to find the net against Sevilla last weekend, with only four shots on target out of a total 21, and must now face Barcelona’s devastating trio of Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez.

“It is clear that the more efficient teams in front of goal win games and our number one aim now is to improve this,” Atletico midfielder Gabi Fernandez told reporters. “It is a blow to have been knocked out of the cup as our aim is to battle for all the trophies and hopefully this will

not affect us for the league game now with Barcelona.

“We will go out to win and it is the type of massive occasion that anyone would want to play in,” he added. Atletico’s 0-0 draw at home to Sevilla allowed Barcelona, who won away to Malaga, to move ahead on goal difference with a game in hand.

At home to an efficient Celta Vigo in Wednesday night’s cup second leg, Atletico created few chances and crashed 3-2 despite having plenty of possession.

They have been overly dependent on Antoine Griezmann, who hit his

Atletico Madrid’s Antoine Griezmann celebrates scoring.

19th goal of the campaign against Celta, and the main disappointment has been over Jackson Martinez who has struggled to settle in and not scored in his last 10 games.

While Barca have not been at their sparkling best, they can rely on their attacking aces to get them out of trouble when necessary.

Messi hit the winner in a below par performance away to Malaga last Saturday while Neymar and Suarez were both on target as Barca came from behind to beat Athletic Bilbao in the cup on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the honeymoon period is over for Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane after they were held 1-1 away to Real Betis.

Real are four points off the pace in third place ahead of their home game against Barcelona’s city rivals Espanyol on Sunday but with a great chance to close the gap on at least one of the teams above them. (rtr)

REUTERS/Susana Vera

9

Hellas Verona approaching unwanted winless record

AP Photo/Hasan Jamali, file

FILE - In this Thursday, April 30, 2015 file photo, Asian Football Confederation President Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim al Khalifa leaves the AFC Congress in Manama, Bahrain.

Unofficial campaigns already starting for Asia’s top job

Seoul — The position is not yet vacant, and may not become so, but already the contenders for the presidency of the Asian Football Confederation are beginning their undeclared campaigns.

The incumbent, Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, is in the race to become head of the world governing body FIFA, and if he succeeds, the AFC job will be available.

Dr Hafez Al Medlej, a candidate in the 2013 AFC presidential election when Salman was first elected, said it would be a wide-open race.

“Sheikh Salman has a good chance of winning the FIFA election,” Al Medlej told The Associated Press. “As soon as it happens then the AFC will start moving.

When you look at the AFC Executive Committee then you can see so many candidates.”

According to the Saudi Arabian, the three most likely are Sheikh Ahmad AlFahad Al-sabah from Kuwait, Malaysia’s Tengku Abdullah and Kohzo Tashima of Japan. The trio were elected onto FIFA’s powerful Executive Committee in 2015.

Sheikh Ahmad, the president of the Olympic Council of Asia, is a powerful figure in sports politics. His support of Sheikh Salman was crucial as the Bahraini took the AFC presidency and is just as important as he looks towards FIFA. “Sheikh Ahmed wants to be the president (of the AFC),” said Al Medlej. “He didn’t enter the FIFA Executive Committee without an interest in football and the AFC would likely be a target, and Abdullah is well-known all around Asia.”

Abdullah recently resigned as head of Football Association of Malaysia, ostensibly due to the country’s poor results in qualification for the 2018 World Cup though his allies perceived he was giving himself time to concentrate on his AFC and FIFA ambitions.

A key issue in the election will be the master rights deal the AFC signed in 2009 with sports marketing company World Sports Group — now known as Lagardere sports — that runs from 2013-2020.

During an audit of the AFC in 2012, published by British newspaper The Sunday Times, consultancy group PricewaterhouseCoopers raised questions about the $1 billion deal and recommended that the AFC seek legal advice on whether it could be renegotiated or even canceled.

Sheikh Salman, elected on a promise of transparency, has seemingly done little to act on the issue.

Prince Ali bin Al-Hussein has raised questions about the rights deal. The Jordanian ran against long-term FIFA president Sepp Blatter in 2015, winning one third of the vote. Al Hussein is again a candidate in the FIFA election but sources say it is unlikely he would be interested in the Asian job.

Another possible candidate is former president of the United Arab Emirates Football Association, Mohammed Khalfan Al Romaithi, while Qatar, host of the 2022 World Cup, would be expected to join any race. Chong Mong-gyu, the president of the Korea Football Association, could also be a contender.

If Chong stays out of the race, then Tashima, who defeated Chong in the FIFA Executive Committee election in 2015, would almost certainly be east Asia’s only candidate.

According to Al Medlej, the vicepresident of the Japan Football Association (JFA) has plenty of work to do.

“Tashima does not have a wide relationship outside Japan and east Asia. If he is to win, he needs the support of strong leaders like Sheikh Ahmad and Abdullah but they may be running against him.”

Tashima will contest an election in Tokyo on January 31 to become president of the JFA. A defeat at the hands of Hiromi Hara would be a blow to his continental chances.

Sheikh Ahmad, a member of Kuwait’s ruling family, also has domestic problems to resolve. He has been accused of responsibility for the country’s suspension from FIFA and the International Olympic Committee due to political interference in the running of these sports. (ap)

MILAN — Hellas Verona is rapidly approaching a record it would rather not have. The Serie A side has not won in its 21 matches this season and is the only team in Europe’s main leagues without a victory. The longest winless run in the Italian top flight is 28, with Varese losing 17 matches and drawing another 11 in 1971-72 and Ancona losing 21 and drawing seven in 2003-04.

Verona has already beaten its own club record, back in November. Its worst negative streak before this year was 13 matches without a win in 1989-90.

But there are signs things are improving, with four draws in its past six matches, including at AC Milan and Roma.

Verona should also be boosted by the return of Italy 2006 World Cup winner Luca Toni from injury when it visits Torino on Sunday.

“Unfortunately we can’t manage to win, and that’s the worst thing,” said Toni, who was last season’s joint top goalscorer. “We’re having good performances, there are still many matches and now we have to try to win as many as possible, starting Sunday. Only the three points will do.”

Verona is 13 points from Sampdoria, which occupies the last position of safety. Also Sunday it’s the Milan derby where Inter Milan will be hoping to get back to winning ways to keep up the pressure on Serie A leader Napoli, which hosts Empoli.

Juventus is two points behind Napoli and seeking a 12th consecutive league win when it visits Chievo Verona.

Also this weekend it’s: Bologna vs. Sampdoria; Genoa vs.

Fiorentina; Udinese vs. Lazio; Carpi vs. Palermo; Atalanta vs.

Sassuolo; and Roma vs. Frosinone. (ap)

AP Photo/Riccardo De Luca

Hellas Verona’s Giampaolo Pazzini, right, scores on a penalty kick during a Serie A soccer match between Roma and Hellas Verona at Rome’s Olympic stadium, Sunday, Jan. 17, 2016.

League Cup win can be a catalyst for Liverpool, says Milner

Liverpool’s transition under Juergen Klopp will become easier if the team can win the League Cup title, according to midfielder James Milner. England’s second most successful football club have won just one trophy in the last nine years, the League Cup in 2012, and will face Manchester City in the Feb. 28 final.

Milner said the change of manager, from Brendan Rodgers to Klopp, has been difficult but believes the Merseyside club can lay foundations for further success by winning the Wembly contest against his former club.

“This club is built on success - they’re used to winning trophies. It’s always tough changing managers,” Milner told British media.

“We can win a trophy and be in the hunt for others during a transition season when it’s easy to say: ‘There’s been a lot of changes - let’s see how we do; do the best we can and go again next year’.

“Hopefully we can do both: the transition with the new manager and keep improving - get a few players back as well. At times we haven’t performed with the quality we want but the bottom line is

we’re still in every competition.”

Milner remains optimistic about Liverpool’s hopes of qualifying for the Champions League.

Klopp’s men are currently seventh in the league with 34 points after 23 games, eight points behind fourth-placed Tottenham Hotspur.

“We’re not a million miles off in the league. With a few more points and a few more goals, we’ll be closer (to the top four),” the England international said.

“With a strong finish, we can be in a reasonable position.

There’s definitely a lot more to come from this squad.” (rtr)

8

Friday, January 29, 2016

Sp rt

Action Images via Reuters / Carl Recine

Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal

Van Gaal under scrutiny as Man United go to Derby

LONDON - All eyes will be on Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal when he takes his team to Derby County for an FA Cup fourth-round tie on Friday with the fans’ boos from their home defeat by Southampton still ringing in his ears.

Frustrated supporters roared for the Dutchman to be sacked after Saturday’s 1-0 loss at Old Trafford, but he still holds the reins despite media speculation he had offered to resign .

That may change if second tier Derby knock United out of the Cup, especially given mounting speculation that the club have lined up Jose Mourinho as their next manager after the Portuguese was sacked by Chelsea last month.

Derby were riding high in the Championship at the end of last year but Paul Clement’s men have recently lost their way.

Their only win in five matches in 2016 was a 2-1 victory over Hartlepool in the last round of the Cup. However, United captain Wayne Rooney, who scored a stoppage- time penalty to squeeze past third tier Sheffield United in the third round, knows the 11-times Cup winners cannot afford to be as erratic as they have been in the Premier League, in which they lie fifth.

“Derby have nothing to lose.

No-one is expecting them to win and they will try to cause an upset. We know that and have to be ready for that,” Rooney told

MUTV. Milton Keynes Dons are another Championship side facing elite opponents as they take on Chelsea on Sunday for a place in the fifth round.

With Chelsea playing catch up after a poor start to the season -- they are in 13th place in the Premier League and their League Cup title defence ended in the fourth round -- their only chance of salvaging silverware on home soil is the FA Cup. Since Guus Hiddink took charge over a month ago following Mourinho’s sacking, Chelsea are unbeaten in all competitions.

“We have to try to win the games we have left in the league, we are working very hard and I think it shows on the pitch,” goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois told Chelsea’s website (www. chelseafc.com).

Champions Arsenal will take on second tier Burnley on Saturday as they try to take another step towards becoming the first club since Blackburn Rovers in 1886 to win the FA Cup three years in a row.

A packed Saturday schedule will also feature three all-Premier League ties, Aston Villa v Manchester City, Crystal Palace v Stoke City and Liverpool v West Ham United.

Third-round giant-killers Oxford United will be eager to build on their win over Swansea City when they host second tier Blackburn Rovers. (rtr)

Friday, January 29, 2016

Atletico anxious to rediscover scoring touch at Barca

BARCELONA - After suffering two setbacks in the space of a week, Atletico Madrid will be looking to avoid a third when they travel to La Liga leaders Barcelona for Saturday’s top-of-the-table clash at the Nou Camp. Atletico, who won the title at the stadium two years ago, surrendered top spot in La Liga to the Catalan side last weekend and were then eliminated from the King’s Cup quarter-finals by Celta Vigo on Wednesday.

Beating Barcelona would send Atletico back on top but the goals have not been flowing of late. Diego Simeone’s side failed to find the net against Sevilla last weekend, with only four shots on target out of a total 21, and must now face Barcelona’s devastating trio of Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez.

“It is clear that the more efficient teams in front of goal win games and our number one aim now is to improve this,” Atletico midfielder Gabi Fernandez told reporters. “It is a blow to have been knocked out of the cup as our aim is to battle for all the trophies and hopefully this will

not affect us for the league game now with Barcelona.

“We will go out to win and it is the type of massive occasion that anyone would want to play in,” he added. Atletico’s 0-0 draw at home to Sevilla allowed Barcelona, who won away to Malaga, to move ahead on goal difference with a game in hand.

At home to an efficient Celta Vigo in Wednesday night’s cup second leg, Atletico created few chances and crashed 3-2 despite having plenty of possession.

They have been overly dependent on Antoine Griezmann, who hit his

Atletico Madrid’s Antoine Griezmann celebrates scoring.

19th goal of the campaign against Celta, and the main disappointment has been over Jackson Martinez who has struggled to settle in and not scored in his last 10 games.

While Barca have not been at their sparkling best, they can rely on their attacking aces to get them out of trouble when necessary.

Messi hit the winner in a below par performance away to Malaga last Saturday while Neymar and Suarez were both on target as Barca came from behind to beat Athletic Bilbao in the cup on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the honeymoon period is over for Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane after they were held 1-1 away to Real Betis.

Real are four points off the pace in third place ahead of their home game against Barcelona’s city rivals Espanyol on Sunday but with a great chance to close the gap on at least one of the teams above them. (rtr)

REUTERS/Susana Vera

9

Hellas Verona approaching unwanted winless record

AP Photo/Hasan Jamali, file

FILE - In this Thursday, April 30, 2015 file photo, Asian Football Confederation President Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim al Khalifa leaves the AFC Congress in Manama, Bahrain.

Unofficial campaigns already starting for Asia’s top job

Seoul — The position is not yet vacant, and may not become so, but already the contenders for the presidency of the Asian Football Confederation are beginning their undeclared campaigns.

The incumbent, Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, is in the race to become head of the world governing body FIFA, and if he succeeds, the AFC job will be available.

Dr Hafez Al Medlej, a candidate in the 2013 AFC presidential election when Salman was first elected, said it would be a wide-open race.

“Sheikh Salman has a good chance of winning the FIFA election,” Al Medlej told The Associated Press. “As soon as it happens then the AFC will start moving.

When you look at the AFC Executive Committee then you can see so many candidates.”

According to the Saudi Arabian, the three most likely are Sheikh Ahmad AlFahad Al-sabah from Kuwait, Malaysia’s Tengku Abdullah and Kohzo Tashima of Japan. The trio were elected onto FIFA’s powerful Executive Committee in 2015.

Sheikh Ahmad, the president of the Olympic Council of Asia, is a powerful figure in sports politics. His support of Sheikh Salman was crucial as the Bahraini took the AFC presidency and is just as important as he looks towards FIFA. “Sheikh Ahmed wants to be the president (of the AFC),” said Al Medlej. “He didn’t enter the FIFA Executive Committee without an interest in football and the AFC would likely be a target, and Abdullah is well-known all around Asia.”

Abdullah recently resigned as head of Football Association of Malaysia, ostensibly due to the country’s poor results in qualification for the 2018 World Cup though his allies perceived he was giving himself time to concentrate on his AFC and FIFA ambitions.

A key issue in the election will be the master rights deal the AFC signed in 2009 with sports marketing company World Sports Group — now known as Lagardere sports — that runs from 2013-2020.

During an audit of the AFC in 2012, published by British newspaper The Sunday Times, consultancy group PricewaterhouseCoopers raised questions about the $1 billion deal and recommended that the AFC seek legal advice on whether it could be renegotiated or even canceled.

Sheikh Salman, elected on a promise of transparency, has seemingly done little to act on the issue.

Prince Ali bin Al-Hussein has raised questions about the rights deal. The Jordanian ran against long-term FIFA president Sepp Blatter in 2015, winning one third of the vote. Al Hussein is again a candidate in the FIFA election but sources say it is unlikely he would be interested in the Asian job.

Another possible candidate is former president of the United Arab Emirates Football Association, Mohammed Khalfan Al Romaithi, while Qatar, host of the 2022 World Cup, would be expected to join any race. Chong Mong-gyu, the president of the Korea Football Association, could also be a contender.

If Chong stays out of the race, then Tashima, who defeated Chong in the FIFA Executive Committee election in 2015, would almost certainly be east Asia’s only candidate.

According to Al Medlej, the vicepresident of the Japan Football Association (JFA) has plenty of work to do.

“Tashima does not have a wide relationship outside Japan and east Asia. If he is to win, he needs the support of strong leaders like Sheikh Ahmad and Abdullah but they may be running against him.”

Tashima will contest an election in Tokyo on January 31 to become president of the JFA. A defeat at the hands of Hiromi Hara would be a blow to his continental chances.

Sheikh Ahmad, a member of Kuwait’s ruling family, also has domestic problems to resolve. He has been accused of responsibility for the country’s suspension from FIFA and the International Olympic Committee due to political interference in the running of these sports. (ap)

MILAN — Hellas Verona is rapidly approaching a record it would rather not have. The Serie A side has not won in its 21 matches this season and is the only team in Europe’s main leagues without a victory. The longest winless run in the Italian top flight is 28, with Varese losing 17 matches and drawing another 11 in 1971-72 and Ancona losing 21 and drawing seven in 2003-04.

Verona has already beaten its own club record, back in November. Its worst negative streak before this year was 13 matches without a win in 1989-90.

But there are signs things are improving, with four draws in its past six matches, including at AC Milan and Roma.

Verona should also be boosted by the return of Italy 2006 World Cup winner Luca Toni from injury when it visits Torino on Sunday.

“Unfortunately we can’t manage to win, and that’s the worst thing,” said Toni, who was last season’s joint top goalscorer. “We’re having good performances, there are still many matches and now we have to try to win as many as possible, starting Sunday. Only the three points will do.”

Verona is 13 points from Sampdoria, which occupies the last position of safety. Also Sunday it’s the Milan derby where Inter Milan will be hoping to get back to winning ways to keep up the pressure on Serie A leader Napoli, which hosts Empoli.

Juventus is two points behind Napoli and seeking a 12th consecutive league win when it visits Chievo Verona.

Also this weekend it’s: Bologna vs. Sampdoria; Genoa vs.

Fiorentina; Udinese vs. Lazio; Carpi vs. Palermo; Atalanta vs.

Sassuolo; and Roma vs. Frosinone. (ap)

AP Photo/Riccardo De Luca

Hellas Verona’s Giampaolo Pazzini, right, scores on a penalty kick during a Serie A soccer match between Roma and Hellas Verona at Rome’s Olympic stadium, Sunday, Jan. 17, 2016.

League Cup win can be a catalyst for Liverpool, says Milner

Liverpool’s transition under Juergen Klopp will become easier if the team can win the League Cup title, according to midfielder James Milner. England’s second most successful football club have won just one trophy in the last nine years, the League Cup in 2012, and will face Manchester City in the Feb. 28 final.

Milner said the change of manager, from Brendan Rodgers to Klopp, has been difficult but believes the Merseyside club can lay foundations for further success by winning the Wembly contest against his former club.

“This club is built on success - they’re used to winning trophies. It’s always tough changing managers,” Milner told British media.

“We can win a trophy and be in the hunt for others during a transition season when it’s easy to say: ‘There’s been a lot of changes - let’s see how we do; do the best we can and go again next year’.

“Hopefully we can do both: the transition with the new manager and keep improving - get a few players back as well. At times we haven’t performed with the quality we want but the bottom line is

we’re still in every competition.”

Milner remains optimistic about Liverpool’s hopes of qualifying for the Champions League.

Klopp’s men are currently seventh in the league with 34 points after 23 games, eight points behind fourth-placed Tottenham Hotspur.

“We’re not a million miles off in the league. With a few more points and a few more goals, we’ll be closer (to the top four),” the England international said.

“With a strong finish, we can be in a reasonable position.

There’s definitely a lot more to come from this squad.” (rtr)

10

Destination

Friday, January 29, 2016

International

Friday, January 29, 2016

International

Williams within 1 win of 7th Australian Open title MELBOURNE — Serena Williams is one win away from another Grand Slam milestone after beating Agnieszka Radwanska 6-0, 6-4 in an Australian Open semifinal that was almost a non-contest between the players who’ll be Nos. 1 and 3 in the next women’s rankings.

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AP Photo/Andrew Brownbill

Serena Williams of the United States celebrates after defeating Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland in their semifinal match at the Australian Open tennis championships in Melbourne, Australia, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016.

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Kerber ended Sydney-born British player Johanna Konta’s surprising run with a 7-5, 6-2 semifinal win to reach her first Grand Slam final. Konta was the first British woman since 1983 to reach a major semifinal.

Kerber has one win in six matches against Williams — in 2012. Graf was the last German player to win the women’s title in Australia, in 1994, and Kerber is asking for some advice. “So Steffi, write me please,” she said, laughing with the crowd on Rod Laver Arena.

Williams’ win over fourthseeded Radwanska provided another yet reminder of her dominance in the women’s game. She has won 39 of her last 40 Grand Slam matches across six major tournaments.

Williams hasn’t played a lefthander so far this tournament and said that, combined with Kerber’s

LeBron says criticism he undermines coaches is unfair IBP/File Photo

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If Williams wins Saturday’s final against No. 7-seeded Angelique Kerber, she’ll equal Steffi Graf’s record of 22 Grand Slam singles title, a record in the Open era, and the second-most in history behind Margaret Court’s 24.

Williams is the overwhelming favorite, and not just based on recent form. She continued her perfect streak in Australian Open semifinals, and she has won all six finals she’s contested at Melbourne Park.

“I definitely block it out,” Williams replied to a question about equaling Graf’s mark. “I was one off last year, too! “If I don’t win on Saturday, I’ll still be one off.”

Despite all her success, it is a loss that is inspiring Williams in this tournament. She was two matches away from a calendar-year Grand Slam in 2015 when she lost to Roberta Vinci in the U.S. Open semifinals.

“Physically I’m feeling a lot better, mentally I needed that break after the Open,” she said, but “I

win over two-time champion Victoria Azarenka in the quarterfinals, were making her wary.

“She took out a really tough opponent in Victoria. You can’t underestimate Kerber,” Williams said. “She’s beaten me before, too, and pretty good. I know that she brings a lot to the game.”

The first set of the semifinals was over in 20 minutes, with Williams hitting 18 winners and Radwanska, in her fifth major semifinal, registering one — in the fourth game.

The second set was closer, with Radwanska holding serve three times and breaking Serena’s powerful serve once. But the 34-year-old Williams lifted again to finish it off, winning the last eight points and closing with three aces and a big forehand winner.

Williams remains unbeaten in nine matches against Radwanska, whom she beat in the 2012 Wimbledon final.

“She goes on court and she just wants to kill it. Going like full power for everything,” Radwanska said. “So I don’t think anyone can really play on that kind of level at all. She started unbelievable, with such a power and speed. I was just standing there kind of watching her playing.”(ap)

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INDEPENDENCE, Ohio — LeBron James disdains the notion he’s a coach killer. Widely criticized in NBA circles for a perception that he pushed for Cleveland’s front office to fire David Blatt last week, James said the criticism that he undercuts coaches was unfair.

“But what can I do about it?” he said on Wednesday. “I’ve never, in my time since I picked up a basketball, ever undermined a coach, ever disrespected a coach,” he said.

“You ask any of my little league coaches, my high school coaches, coaches I’ve played for in tournaments, camps, my NBA coaches, I’ve always respected what they wanted to do.”

Blatt was fired last Friday midway through his second season despite having them atop the Eastern Conference standings and leading the team to the NBA Finals last season.

Blatt’s dismissal — he’s the third coach fired on a team James has played on — led to some condemnation of the four-time league MVP. On Tuesday, a limited partner

with the Miami Heat said during an interview on Israeli radio that James tried to get Erik Spoelstra fired in Miami. Ranaan Katz later retracted his statement to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Blatt was replaced by Tyronn Lue, his top assistant and a former NBA player who has known James since he was a 17-year-old high school phenomenon.

For many, Lue’s ascension was the result of James not wanting Blatt around. There was an obvious disconnect between James and Blatt, who was wildly successful in Europe and hired by Cleveland before James decided to return to the Cavaliers as a free agent in 2014.

The James-Blatt relationship was scrutinized during both seasons and when it finally collapsed, the LeBron-got-him-fired narrative gained traction.

Although James insists that he didn’t do anything to weaken Blatt’s authority, there were incidents over the past 18 months that illustrate how he didn’t do his former coach any favors. James usually referred

to Blatt simply as “Blatt,” and often ignored Blatt during games, preferring to discuss strategy with Lue during timeouts. James also famously changed a play designed

by Blatt during the playoffs last season before hitting a game-winning jumper to beat Chicago.

James said his willingness to speak his mind has led to the criticism that he’s not always on the same page with his coaches.

“I’m not the owner of a team, I’m not the GM of a team, I’m the player of a team,” James said. “People get it so misconstrued because I’m a smart basketball player and I’ve voiced my opinion about certain things, which I did when I was here my first stint with Paul Silas and Mike Brown.

Which I did in Miami with Coach Spo. Which I did with Blatt, and I’ll do with T. Lue,” he said. “And at the end of the day, they’ll still have their final call. But, I don’t know. What do you guys want me to do, turn my brain off because I have a huge basketball IQ? If that’s what they want me to do, I’m not going to do it because I’ve got so much to give

AP Photo/Michael Perez, File

FILE - In this Nov. 2, 2015, file photo, Cleveland Cavaliers coach David Blatt pats LeBron James on the chest at the end of an NBA basketball game against the Philadelphia 76ers in Philadelphia. to the game.

“There’s no difference for me telling my teammates or telling guys how to get better with their

game. If I feel I got something that will help our team, ultimately, I like to give it. It helped me get two titles.”(ap)

6

Friday, January 29, 2016

W

International

RLD

Iran: European airlines set to resume flights to Tehran

TEHRAN, Iran — Several European airlines aim to resume their flights to Iran following a landmark nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, the state-owned IRAN daily reported on Thursday.

The newspaper quoted Mohammad Khodakarami, deputy head of Iran’s civil aviation authority, as saying British Airways officials visited Tehran on Tuesday to discuss resumption of flights. He did not elaborate.

Khodakarami also said both Air France and Dutch flagship KLM have already expressed their readiness to resume flights to Tehran.

Air France said last month it would resume flights to Tehran for the first time in more than seven years starting in April.

A KLM spokesman said the carrier always looks for opportunities for new destinations but has not yet make a decision about resuming flights that were suspended in

2013.

“At this moment there are no concrete plans to open Tehran.

KLM follows the current situation concerning the lifting of sanctions against Iran closely,” spokesman Joost Ruempol said.

BA also has not announced any firm plans to return to Iran, though Willie Walsh, the chief executive of its parent International Airlines Group, reportedly told a recent conference the airline is interested in flying to Tehran soon.

European carriers stopped their flights to Iran after the West imposed sanctions on Iran over its nuclear ambitions. Currently Iran’s national carrier, Iran Air, has three weekly flights to London as well

as two weekly flights each to Paris and Amsterdam.

Earlier this week, Iran said it is also considering direct flights to the United States. Direct flights stopped between the two countries more than three decades ago. Iran and the United States severed air links when Washington broke relations in 1979 after Iranian militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held the occupants hostage.

Tehran has also expressed interest in buying scores of new airplanes from American aircraft manufacturer Boeing. Iranian officials have already discussed buying 114 airplanes from European consortium Airbus.

About 1 million Iranians live in the United States, mostly in California. Thousands fly to Iran every year, often changing planes in London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Istanbul and Dubai. (ap)

REUTERS/Remo Casilli

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi gestures as he speaks at the Senate in Rome, January 27, 2016.

Germany, France can’t solve refugee issue without me - Italy PM

FILE - In this Dec. 22, 2014 file photo, an Iranian oil worker rides his bicycle at the Tehran’s oil refinery south of the capital Tehran, Iran. With a historic nuclear deal between Iran, the U.S. and five other world powers set into place this weekend, a European oil embargo on the world’s seventh-largest oil producer will end.

Angela to first call Hollande and then EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, and that I learn of the result in the press,” he added.

More than one million migrants have reached Europe over the past year, many of them fleeing conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Africa and elsewhere.

The crisis has strained relations between EU member states and tested their commitment to Europe’s openborders Schengen agreement.

Renzi recently rejected calls by Juncker, the head of the bloc’s executive, to tone down his criticism of EU policies on migration and also on banking and the budget.

In a more positive signal for bilateral relations between Berlin and Rome, Renzi said he supported an idea floated by German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel to cut development aid to north African countries that are not willing to take back citizens whose asylum applications were rejected. “Those that do not do so don’t get money from the international community,” Renzi said. (ap)

JOHANNESBURG — A referee and two athletes participating in a South African triathlon dived into the ocean to rescue two stricken men who were being swept out to sea. After pushing the men to shore, the athletes finished the grueling race a little later than they had planned.

Athletes Martin Potgieter and Dylan Hartwig said Thursday that

calm them. Hartwig, meanwhile, started to cramp in the cold water.

The athletes had already been competing for between five and six hours.

“There was only so much I could do because I was cramping,” said Hartwig, a 21-year-old accounting student who focused on helping one of the men. “I was trying to push him onto a wave.”

Delayed by 15 to 20 minutes, the athletes put their shoes back on, chatted for a bit while running and finished — Potgieter in six hours and 50 minutes and Hartwig in seven hours and 15 minutes. Matt Trautman of South Africa won the men’s event in just over four hours.

South Africa’s Ironman 70.3 race includes swimming, cycling and running. (ap)

South African athletes rescue men at sea, then finish race they were running the last miles (kilometers) of the contest when they stopped to help the men, who were struggling to stay afloat off the East London coast.

“We managed to push them little by little, just to get them to shore,” said Potgieter, who headed into the sea after referee Ross Murray jumped over a wall, ran to the beach, discarded some clothes and

started swimming to the panicked men.

One concern was that the men in trouble on Sunday would grab and pull down the referee and athletes in their effort to survive, according to 37-year-old Potgieter, who works in the coal distribution business.

He said the rescuers spoke “a few hard words” to the men to

Friday, January 29, 2016

Hundreds of members of sect evacuated after clashes

BERLIN - It is unacceptable for German Chancellor Angela Merkel to cut deals on Europe’s refugee crisis with French President Francois Hollande and the head of the European Commission without involving Italy, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said.

Renzi, whose country is on the frontline of Europe’s refugee crisis, has stepped up his criticism of the EU on several fronts as he wrestles with Italy’s stubbornly low economic growth after three years of recession.

Speaking ahead of a meeting with Merkel in Berlin on Friday, Renzi told Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily he would be delighted if the German chancellor and Hollande could solve all Europe’s problems.

“But that is generally not the case,” he said in an interview published in the paper’s Thursday edition.

“If we’re looking for a joint European strategy to solve the refugee question, it can’t be sufficient for

AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File

International

JAKARTA - Indonesian security forces on Wednesday evacuated hundreds of members of a group authorities have called a deviant religious organisation to the capital, Jakarta, after sectarian violence drove them from their homes in West Kalimantan province.

Indonesia has the world’s largest population of Muslims, the majority of whom adhere to moderate Sunni beliefs, and it recognises six religions including Hinduism, Catholicism and Buddhism, but minorities, even within Islam, have faced rising intolerance in recent years.

Men, women and children associated with a group called Gafatar, which the country’s highest Islamic council considers a deviant sect, were attacked last week by other West Kalimantan residents who oppose their beliefs.

The attackers burned houses and cars, media reported, but there were no reports of any deaths.

More than 700 people arrived on a navy vessel at Jakarta’s main port. They will be housed in government shelters before being relocated, officials said.

One of the evacuees, Ateng, 42, who arrived in the capital with his wife and six children, denounced the violence against them.

“This is a violation of democracy,” he told Reuters.

“The law guarantees the right to assemble and organise.”

Authorities consider Gafatar’s teachings “dangerous” and the group was outlawed last year. People associated with the group say it is social organisation and not a religious one.

Kalimantan, the resource-rich Indonesian part of Borneo island, has seen outbreaks of similar violence in the past.

Several hundred migrants from Java and Madura islands were killed in attacks by indigenous Dayak people there in 2001.

About 2,000 more people affiliated with Gafatar remained in West Kalimantan and would be relocated soon for their safety, officials said. (rtr)

11

Indonesia telecoms firm blocks Netflix over local laws, censorship

JAKARTA - Indonesia said Thursday a decision by the country’s biggest telecoms provider to block Netflix could be reversed if the global video-streaming giant obeyed local laws, particularly on “porn” and “radicalism”.

The decision Wednesday to bar access to Netflix came just weeks after the California-based firm announced it was expanding its Internet TV services to 130 new markets, including Indonesia.

State-owned Telekomunikasi Indonesia, or Telkom, said Netflix had not met existing regulations such as obtaining a local business licence and opening an in-country office, complaints echoed by officials.

Concerns that films provided

by Netflix could evade scrutiny by Indonesia’s Film Censorship Board also appear to have been a driving force behind the ban.

Ismail Cawidu, a spokesman for the ministry, said online companies were forbidden from broadcasting content that went against the “public interest”, and Netflix was no exception.

“They must follow the rules. No

porn, no radicalism and no copyright infringement,” he told AFP. “We informed them a while ago, and we are still waiting for Netflix’s response.”

All films screened in Indonesia are approved first by the Film Censorship Board, with offending sections removed.

Pornographic websites are also blocked, and blogs and other online content deemed either extremist or inappropriate are routinely shut down by the communications ministry.

Netflix is not the first Internet-based company to run into regulatory obstacles in Indonesia, with video-sharing website Vimeo banned, and ride-sharing service Uber struggling to set up in Southeast Asia’s largest economy.

But it is a blow for the streaming pioneer, which boasts 70 million

subscribers and just this month heralded its expansion into 130 new markets as the birth of a new global Internet TV network.

Telkom and government officials insist the block is only temporary, and would be lifted if Netflix obtained the required permits and agreed to censorship requirements.

“Just comply and we will reopen access,” Telkom spokesman Arif Prabowo told AFP. “We are not talking about the business, this is just a matter of abiding by the law.”

Netflix could not be immediately reached for comment.

Some Telkom competitors were capitalising on the ban Thursday, promoting their Netflix packages in a bid to lure Telkom customers angered by the move.

“I felt cheated,” Devi Asmarani, a Jakarta-based writer, told AFP after buying a new TV a fortnight ago specifically to enjoy Netflix.

“It was fun for two weeks then it suddenly stopped.” (afp)

Laoly issues decree recognizing Bakrie-led Golkar faction for six months

JAKARTA - Justice and Human Rights Minister Yasona Laoly has issued a decree granting legal recognition for a period of six months to the Golkar leadership under Aburizal Bakrie elected during a Riau congress.

Minister Laoly announced here on Thursday that he had decided to revive the decree of the Justice and Human Rights Minister No. M.HH-21.

AH.11.01 of 2012 dated December 4, 2012, which legally recognized the Golkar leadership elected at the Riau congress held in 2009.

The new Decree No. M.HH21.AH.11.01 of 2016, valid for a period of six months, provides an opportunity to the Golkar Party to make preparations for another congress or an extraordinary congress,

which is democratic, fair, and will lead to reconciliation, the minister pointed out.

Bakrie, who had been the Golkar Party’s chairman for the 2009-2014 term, was reelected as general chairman for the 2014-2019 period by acclamation in a congress held in Bali on Dec. 3, 2014.

Laksono had later organized a congress in Ancol on December 6-8, 2014, which elected him as the rival chairman of Golkar, leading to a split in the party.

The justice minister in a decree only recognized the Laksono-led Golkar leadership, but in late December 2015, he revoked the decree after the Supreme Court gave a verdict in favor of the Bakrie-led Golkar faction. (ant)

AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara

Workers arrange large incense sticks prepared for Lunar New Year celebration in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. Ethnic Chinese in the world’s most populous Muslim country are preparing to celebrate the Chinese New Year of the Monkey on Feb. 8.

12

International

Friday, January 29, 2016

Bali News

International

BUSINESS

Friday, January 29, 2016

5

Fed voices concern about global economic pressures

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve sounded a note of concern Wednesday about how global pressures could affect a slowing U.S. economy, while keeping a key interest rate unchanged.

Six weeks after it raised rates from record lows, the Fed took stock of a more perilous international picture that could alter its plans for further raising rates.

Fed officials issued a statement after their latest policy meeting that suggested they might reduce the pace of future rate hikes if market losses and global weakness persist.

But stock investors were disappointed that the Fed did not commit outright to delaying its pace of rate increases. The Dow Jones industrial average closed down about 223 points, or 1.4 percent. The Dow had been up slightly before the Fed issued its statement.

Sam Stovall, U.S. equity strategist at S&P Capital IQ, said investors had been hoping for a “clear signal” that the Fed would raise rates more gradually for the rest of 2016 and felt discouraged when they didn’t get it.

Many point to the Fed’s December rate hike as a key factor in the stock market’s tumble in recent weeks. The move amounted to only a small rise in the Fed’s still-extremely low target rate for overnight bank lending. But it signaled that a seven-year period of near-zero rates was ending

and that while borrowing costs wouldn’t be rising fast, they would be headed up.

The Fed’s new statement said it’s studying “global economic and financial developments and is assessing their implications for the labor market and inflation.”

“This is intended to lull us into lower expectations as to when the next move is going to come,” said Patrick O’Keefe, director of economic research at the consulting firm CohnReznick.

Since the Fed raised rates Dec. 16, stocks have plunged, oil prices have skidded and China’s leaders have struggled to manage a slowdown in the world’s second-biggest economy. The Fed’s statement Wednesday noted that U.S. economic growth has also slowed.

Some economists say they now expect just two modest Fed rate increases during 2016, rather than the three or four they had foreseen when the year began. But no one is sure.

The Fed’s signal in December that it would raise rates four times this year “has become less plausible as we’ve gotten a little bit into the year,” O’Keefe said. “Reality has refused to cooperate.”

In a key change to the statement,

The letter which was made by two high school students in Denpasar.

Claiming as ISIS and sticking leaflet

Two students of SMAN 1 Denpasar secured by police

AP Photo/Richard Drew

A television screen on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange shows the rate decision of the Federal Reserve, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. The Federal Reserve is keeping a key interest rate unchanged while pledging to closely monitor developments in the global economy and financial markets. the Fed dropped language it had used in December that it was “reasonably confident” that inflation would reach the Fed’s 2 percent target over the next few years.

By dropping this language, the Fed appeared to signal concern

that inflation has fallen further as a result of a further drop in oil prices and a stronger dollar. Chair Janet Yellen and other Fed officials have stressed the importance of higher inflation. A key inflation gauge has run below the 2 percent

target for more than three years.

The Fed’s policymakers left their benchmark rate unchanged in a range of 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent. For seven years until December, they had kept that rate at record lows near zero. (ap)

Samsung, tech suppliers sink on smartphone woes but Asia stocks gain HONG KONG - Shares in tech suppliers sank in Asia Thursday as South Korean giant Samsung Electronics posted a huge fall in profit, a day after rival Apple recorded its weakest ever rise in iPhone sales.

The 40 percent fall in Samsung’s net profit and Apple’s report fuelled fears about the saturated smartphone market and the impact on smaller firms that rely on their ongoing popularity.

Adding to the concerns, Samsung said it expected 2016 to throw up continued challenges, which was in line with a warning from Apple

that it saw year-on-year sales of the iPhone falling for the first time this quarter. Apple dived 6.5 percent in US trade.

Samsung tumbled 2.6 percent in the morning in Seoul. Among regional suppliers, Tokyo-listed Alps Electric -- which Wednesday cut its profit forecast because of weak smartphone sales -- collapsed more than 17 percent. Japan Display lost 6.7 percent and TDK 6.4 percent.

LG Display in Seoul was 2.6 percent off.

Volatility returned to Asian markets, with three of the region’s major bourses turning lower after

IBP/Ken

seeing swings from negative to positive. The losses followed a sell-off on Wall Street after the Federal Reserve left investors to speculate about another interest rate hike.

After concluding its first meeting since lifting rates in December, the US central bank kept rates unchanged and said growth in the world’s number one economy slowed late last year and was concerned about ongoing global weaknesses.

But despite the turmoil that has wracked world markets so far this year, policymakers added that

they expected inflation -- softened by falling oil prices -- would rise toward its 2.0 percent target in the medium term. The comment was seen as keeping the Fed’s option open for another hike in March.

“With investor sentiment quite poor and fixated on the negatives, they’ll likely latch onto the Fed’s focus over global risks,” Mitsushige Akino, an executive officer at Ichiyoshi Asset Management, told Bloomberg News.

“However, rather than a hawkish statement, I think we got one that was market friendly. And that should impact stocks over the lon-

ger run.”

Tokyo’s Nikkei index shed 0.7 percent, while Hong Kong slipped 0.1 percent and Shanghai ended 2.9 percent down, with ongoing worries about the domestic economy continuing to play on investors’ minds.

Mainland Chinese investors seemed unmoved by the central bank’s decision to pump $52 billion into financial markets to ease liquidity problems leading up to the Lunar New Year break. The Shanghai market plunged more than six percent Tuesday despite an injection of $67 billion. (afp)

DENPASAR - SMAN 1 (Smansa) Denpasar high school located on Jalan Kamboja, East Denpasar, was scandalized with leaflet attached to the wall near the teacher room, Wednesday (Jan. 27). After being investigated, police confiscated two students of accelerated third grade of natural sciences (IPA 8) with the initials ATK (female) and CM (male). ATK made the leaflet and the CM attached it on the wall.

Title of the leaflet is written in Arabic script, “We ISIS have already been at SMANSA ready to ravage your event. We are not afraid of dying, Allahu Akbar!”

Director of General Criminal

Investigation at Bali Police, Bambang Yugisworo, when asked for his confirmation justified the incident. Both students underwent an intensive investigation at Sub-directorate I of the General

Criminal Investigation.

“That’s right. Both students are committing it for fun. They did not realize if their act disturb the public. We have time 7x24 hours to examine the perpetrators,” he affirmed. Is this case processed?

“Yes, it’s still being processed and examined,” he said.

Whether their action belongs to terror or not, according to Bambang, remains to be studied. Police are also still further investigating the process of making the leaflet

and motives.

According to a resource person at the Bali Police, the leaflet was discovered around 10:00 in the morning. The threat that will be devastating the favorite school was first encountered by local school teacher, I Ketut Sarjana, 53. Further, Sarjana reported the case to his superior, and followed up to the East Denpasar Police, including to the Bali Police.

A few minutes later, police came to the scene and immediately

tracked down the perpetrators.

In relatively short time, police managed to find a hint that the leaflet is made on a piece of paper with letterhead of the Computer-Based National Examination (UNBK) tryout. “After that, police officer summoned all students of the third grade of natural sciences (IPA 8).

Finally, both students admitted their act. Police officers then took them to Bali Police Headquarters,” said the source asking for anonymity. (kmb36)

Fallen tree topples over a car, motorcycle, rice barn and garage

One victim rushed to hospital MANGUPURA - A tornado uprooted some trees in Badung district, Wednesday (Jan. 27). The trees toppled over car, motorcycle, rice barn and garage. Moreover, a tree also toppled over a motorist.

On Jalan Raya Kerobokan, North Kuta, a Tahitian chestnut tree in front of Lio Collection collapsed and toppled over a motorist and two cars. Rider of Honda Vario motorcycle, I Made Dedek Juliantara, 23, was then immediately rushed to Badung Hospital.

As information of the Badung Police officer, it happened at 14:30 when it rained and was accompanied by strong winds. A staff of Lio Collection, Arimbawa, 45, told the

officer that at first he sat in front of his workplace. At that time, he saw the Tahitian chestnut tree spinning as hoofed by winds. The man living at Perum Gria Alam Fajar, Angantaka, Badung, immediately moved the car of his boss.

“At that time, the witness (Arimbawa—Ed) saw the motorist (Dedek Juliantara) passing at the location and was then toppled over by the tree,” said the police officer that requested anonymity.

A driver of Toyota Avanza, Joko Lasmono, 49, said that at 13:30, he drove tourists to shop at Lio Collection. After parking in front of the store, Joko living on Jalan Teuku Umar Barat, Denpasar saw the Ta-

hitian chestnut tree was shaking and then collapsed and toppled over his car. While a Mitsubishi car driver, Sandi, 26, said that at that time he saw the tree rocking due to high wind.

Sandi from Banyuwangi, East Java, rushed out of the car. A few minutes later, the tree toppled over his car.

After receiving the report of the incident, Chief of North Kuta Police, Aris Purwanto, arrived at the scene. With some personnel, the police chief arranged the traffic. To avoid severe congestion, the traffic was diverted to Jalan Petitenget.

The Badung Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) officers arrived at the scene and immediately cut the Tahitian chestnut tree using three

chainsaws. After that, the cuts of the tree were transported by the Badung Sanitation and Landscaping Agency (DKP). The officers also cleaned up the debris of the tree.

Chief of the Badung Police Traffic Affairs, Nengah Subangsawan, when asked for his confirmation said that traffic has been back to normal condition. Severe congestion could be prevented due to the alertness of North Kuta police and related agencies cleaning up the fallen tree.

At different location namely Mambal village, Abiansemal a fallen tree toppled over a garage, car and rice barn. Then, at Penarungan village a tree collapsed onto highway.

A severe adverse incident occurred at Lebah Sari, Mambal village. The strong winds accompanied with rains damaged a rice barn (jineng) belonging to I Wayan Kamar, 53. Other than destroying rice barn, a Toyota Yaris car was also damaged by fallen tree around the house. As the garage was toppled over by tree, the car inside suffered damages to the roof and shattered the windshield.

Subdistrict head of Abiansemal, Putu Thomas Yuniartha, said that the incident occurred in the afternoon around 15:15. No casualties were reported in the incident. So far, the BPBD Badung is still making data collection. (kmb36/eka)

4

Friday, January 29, 2016

Bali News

Illegal parking in Penelokan still rampant

BANGLI - Even though there has been repeated disciplinary measures taken against illegally parked vehicles at the Penelokan tourist attraction in Kintamani, the road continues to be annexed by parked motor vehicles. Despite the very clear ‘no stopping’ and ‘no parking’ signs that have been put up in the area, road users remain disobedient and continue to park haphazardly on the road. In fact the signs have even been moved to be more visible, site but to no avail.

Head of the Bangli Transportation Agency, Gede Arta, when asked for his confirmation last Sunday said that his agency, in collaboration with the Bangli Trafific Police Affairs, have taken such extreme measures as removing illegally parked vehicles from the site and bringing them to the police station. “However, it is impossible for us to do this every day,” he said.

Arta added that since the traffic signs are now clearly visible, all they can do now is appeal to people to obey the law. “Let us maintain orderliness and traffic smoothness together. I hope people will obey the traffic signs. Do not just act obediently when there are police officers present,” he pleaded.

On a separate occasion, Chief of Bangli Police Traffic Affairs, Ketut Mastra Budaya, promised that the Bangli Police will expressly crack down on stubborn road users because the no parking and no stopping signs have been clearly installed at the location. The Transportation Agency has moved the ‘no parking’ and ‘no stopping’ signs so they are now clearly visible.

Formerly, road users argued they could not see the traffic signs. Now, they have so excuse,” said Budaya. (kmb40)

13

Communism better than democracy, says Vietnam party boss

HANOI — One-party rule in communist Vietnam is a far better alternative to authoritarianism disguised as democracy, the 71-year-old ideologue who was reelected as party chief and consequently the country’s leader said Thursday.

The illegal parking is still rampant in Penelokan area.

IBP/Suasrina

Rain and wind hit Denpasar

Avalanche haunts SDN 6 Ubung Fallen tree topples over a car, home and school DENPASAR - Location of the SDN 6 Ubung elementary school at riverside is now beginning to cause a concern.

Cliff of the river has avalanched for several times after Denpasar was flushed by rain in the past few days.

Moreover, the Denpasar Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) together with the Denpasar Public Works already paid attention to the erosion of the bank of the Mertagangga River at Ubung Kaja; North Denpasar considering the building of the SDN 6 Ubung on Jalan Kertangganga, Gang VI, Anyar-Anyar hamlet, Ubung Kaja is very close to the cliff edge. Small avalanches on the adequately high cliff still looked new.

Moreover, the avalanche area increasingly expanded. “A few days ago, the cliff avalanched. Some plants such as bananas got eroded. I am concerned if the avalanche occurs again because the school is very close,” said a local resident.

He is also worried about the activities of passing people taking advantage

Friday, January 29, 2016

International

International

of the bridge over the dam connecting to road access. “This lane (Gang VI) directly connects to Ubung. People usually pass through this bridge,” he said.

The Irrigation Subdivision Head at the Denpasar Public Works Agency, Ngurah Putra Sanjaya, justified the cliff avalanche. “It has happened from two weeks ago. It is the authority of Bali Public Works. So, as soon as getting the report, we have directly made coordination with the province. However, there has been no handling so far,” said Sanjaya.

Related to the school located close to the cliff, his division with the BPBD team continues to pay attention by conducting regular monitoring. He worried if a greater avalanche occurs, the elementary school building will get eroded. “We keep an eye on the condition. Hopefully, there will be no more massive avalanche. It’s quite alarming especially if the weather conditions continue like this (monsoon rains),” he said. (kmb12)

DENPASAR - Rain and strong winds occurred on Wednesday (Jan. 27) caused a number of fallen trees in some places. Aside from fallen trees, a cable of street light also emitted sparks at Renon. Besides, a tree uprooted at Renon and toppled over a car. Similarly, at Peguyangan a tree collapsed and toppled over a roof of the home and school. The house belonged to Kadek Sugiantara and the roof to SDN 8 Peguyangan elementary school.

Kadek Sugiantara said the damage of the house is not too severe because the fallen tree did not touch the ground. In other words, it was still restrained, so that it just slanted. “The damage only happened to corner roof. Likewise, the next school also faced the same. Thus, the damage is not too severe,” he said.

He said that the officer of the Denpasar Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) already handled them by cutting the fallen trees. “Now, they have been handled by the BPBD officers,” he said.

Based on information obtained from the

BPBD Denpasar, the rain and strong winds also caused a number of shade trees and privately owned trees to uproot. They included the trees on Jalan Tukad Bilok, Sanur, Jalan Kartini, in the area of Lumintang City Park as well as at Monang-Maning.

Fallen trees did not only happen on Wednesday, but also the day before, namely Tuesday (Jan. 26), where two greening trees also collapsed. They respectively occurred on Jalan Raya Puputan, Jalan Kusuma Bangsa and Jalan Raya Puputan where a geloka tree uprooted.

On the other hand, on Jalan Kusuma Atmaja, exactly in front of the Bali House of Representatives, an acacia tree uprooted, while on Jalan Danau Tamblingan, Sanur, a branch of golden shower tree was broken.

The Division Head of Sanitation and Landscaping at the DKP Denpasar, I.B. Eka Jayana, justified the fallen tree. “The three trees at Sanur underwent broken branch, but they have been handled by the officers. As a result, they did not disturb the traffic,” he said. (kmb12)

“A country without discipline would be chaotic and unstable ... we need to balance democracy and law and order,” said General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (pronounced noo-YEN’ FOO’ CHONG’).

Trong was re-elected Wednesday as head of the Communist Party and the leader of a 19-member Politburo that will govern Vietnam for the next five years, after squashing a short-lived challenge for the top post by his No. 2, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung (pronounced noo-YEN’ TAN’ ZOONG’).

The Communist Party has been in power since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, and every five years elects a new leadership. The party has 4.5 million members in a country of 93 million people, who have no direct say in how their leaders are elected. People do elect a National Assembly, but it is considered a largely rubber stamp body whose members are vetted by the Communist Party before they can contest.

The renewal of the leadership means little change for Vietnam, where the people have no direct role in selecting the party leaders.

“I very much hope the new faces in the Politburo will push with reforms and bring the country forward, but I don’t know whether they can do that,” said Tran Thi Tram, selling lotteries on the sidewalk in central Hanoi.

“They will also have to really tackle the corruption problem, Otherwise the people would be the ones to suffer most.”

Trong cited the National Assembly and the thousands of party organizations at grassroots as representing the voice of the people.

“Vietnam’s Communist Party is one-party

rule but we also have principles of democracy and accountability of the leaders. Otherwise, good deeds would be credited to individuals while failure would be blamed on the group and no one would be disciplined,” he said.

He said that the party “can never become authoritarian” unlike some democracies.

“It is not proper to name them, but in a number of countries, in the name of democracy, all decisions are made by one person.

So which is more democratic?” There is no organized movement in Vietnam calling for multi-party system.

Dissidents, who are active on social media, are quickly crushed. The biggest organized group that’s vocal against the one-party system is based in the United States, and is branded a terrorist group by the government.

U.S. officials have said Vietnam has shown greater restraint in arrests and prosecution of dissent last year, but stressed it needs to do more to improve its human rights records. According to U.S. officials, there were about 100 prisoners of conscience in 2015, down from more than 160 in 2013. International human rights groups and the U.S. government has criticized Vietnam for using vague security laws to silence dissidents, but Hanoi has said only law breakers were put behind bars.

Trong is expected to continue to push the economic reforms led by Prime Minister Dung during his 10 years in office. Dung will be replaced by Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc after his appointment is endorsed by the National Assembly later this year.

Trong’s camp has accused Dung of cor-

Hoang Dinh Nam/Pool Photo via AP

Newly re-elected Vietnam Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, center left in front, flanked by Politburo members Tran Dai Quang, front left, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, center right in front, and Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, claps as he poses with the new party’s central committee members at the closing ceremony the national congress of the party in Hanoi, Vietnam Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016 . ruption and mismanagement, but analysts believe that the accusations were an excuse for the widespread corruption that seeps through the system and is not likely to vanish overnight with Dung’s departure.

Addressing that question, Trong said there was a need to “particularly sustain the accountability and responsibility of the leaders and supervise power to ensure corruption and wastefulness are brought under control.”

Despite having a reputation for being proChina, Trong is not likely to be totally subservient to Beijing as that would risk massive anger from ordinary Vietnamese who harbor a deep dislike and historical suspicion of China.

Tensions have spiked recently over overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea, where Beijing’s massive construction of man-made islands has pushed the Philippines and Vietnam closer to the U.S.(ap)

Taiwan president visits island in disputed South China Sea

AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying

Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou speaks to the media during a briefing following his visit to Taiping island, also known as Itu Aba, in Taipei, Taiwan, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016.

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan’s president, defying a rare dose of criticism from key ally the United States, visited an island in the disputed South China Sea on Thursday and called for peaceful development in the increasingly tense region.

Accompanied by about 30 staff members, Ma Ying-jeou (MAH YEENG JOH) left the capital Taipei early in the morning aboard an air force C-130 cargo plane bound for Taiping Island, also known as Itu Aba. Taiping lies in the Spratly island group, an area where Taiwan shares overlapping claims with China, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines.

The city state of Brunei also claims a part of the South China Sea. After arriving, Ma spoke at a national monument on the islet and reiterated his call made last year for peaceful coexistence and joint development. He cited infrastructure

developments on the islet, including a 10-bed hospital and a lighthouse, saying they reinforced Taiwan’s claim of sovereignty and granted it rights over the surrounding waters.

Taiwan is spending more than $100 million to upgrade the island’s airstrip and build a wharf capable of allowing its 3,000-ton coast guard cutters to dock.

“All this evidence fully demonstrates that Taiping Island is able to sustain human habitation and an economic life of its own. Taiping Island is categorically not a rock, but an island,” Ma said. Roughly 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) south of Taiwan and 46 hectares (110 acres) in size, Taiping is the largest naturally occurring island in the area.

It has recently been eclipsed in size, however, by man-made islands created by China out of reefs and shoals.

China has built housing, ports, airstrips

and other infrastructure on the newly created islands, drawing accusations from the U.S. and others that it is exacerbating tensions in the strategically vital region. Taiwan stations about 200 coast guard personnel, scientists and medical workers on Taiping. It occupies a number of other islets in the South China Sea, including the Pratas island group to the north.

There was no immediate response to Ma’s visit from China, although a spokesman for the Cabinet’s Taiwan Affairs Office on Wednesday repeated Beijing’s claim to “indisputable sovereignty” over the South China Sea islands.

“Safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity and the overall interests of the Chinese nation are the common responsibility and obligation of compatriots on both sides” of the Taiwan Strait, Ma Xiaoguang said at a biweekly news briefing.(ap)

14

Friday, January 29, 2016

Fashion

International

Jean Paul Gaultier parties down on Paris catwalk

PARIS - Flamboyant showman Jean Paul Gaultier showed he still knows how to party Wednesday with a fashion collection celebrating one of the French capital’s mythic hang outs.

The 63-year-old designer’s latest haute collection burst onto the catwalk with models sashaying through a replica of the swinging doors of Le Palace, the long defunct club that once gathered artists, musicians and the intelligentsia.

Big hair, skinny ties, swish, glamorous pyjamas and bell hop hats all conjured up the feel of the hotspot’s late 1970s to early-1980s lifespan.

But the show didn’t just wallow in nostalgia for a lost era of hedonism, it was also in memory of one of the club’s late doyennes.

“It’s an hommage to Edwige Belmore, the queen of the French punks and also Le Palace’s bouncer from 1978-79 and 1983-84,” Gaultier told reporters after the Paris Fashion Week show.

Belmore died last year aged 58 after a life in which she had been model, muse and friend to the stars from Gaultier and Bianca Jagger to Andy Warhol and Yves Saint Laurent.

“Edwige was an androgynous woman who could be masculine because of her height and tattoos,” the designer said.

“But at the same time she was very feminine in black trousers, a Chanel jacket -- it was a fake -- with a bra beneath it,” he added.

In the wake of the terror attacks that ravaged Paris in 2015, Gaultier also offered a reminder of the need to go on living.

“Paris is still a party,” he said. “You have to go out, you must not stay stuck at home. That’s the worst thing to do.” (afp)

Bali News

International

Friday, January 29, 2016

Ten platinum buyers confirm participation at BTF

DENPASAR - Ten prospective buyers belonging to the platinum category have confirmed their participation at the Bali Beyond and Travel Fair (BBTF) to be held on June 22-26, 2016.

“The number of platinum buyers will likely increase as the registration is still open,” Chairman of the BBTF Organizing Committee Ketut Ardana stated on Wednesday.

Platinum buyers are world-class travel bureaus that could send more than 10 thousand foreign tourists to Bali annually.

He said that 17 platinum buyers had taken part in the second BBTF in 2015.

For this year’s event, some 30 domestic and 110 foreign buyers from European, American and Asian countries have registered for the fair.

He invited Indonesian businessmen engaged in hotels, restaurants, and MICE (meeting, incentive, con-

ference and exhibition) activities to take part in the fair and showcase their potential to the buyers.

The fair is expected to support the government to achieve the set target to attract 20 million tourists annually by 2019.

The BBTF is expected to expand the tourist markets in Southeast Asian countries in addition to other potential markets.

“We will continue to target the ASEAN market through the BBTF to promote Indonesia’s tourism,”

Ardana affirmed.

According to the BBTF chairman, this year, China, Australia, India, and the Middle East countries have been identified as some of the potential markets besides European countries and the United States.

In recent years, the number of tourists from Southeast Asian countries has increased.

The Bali Central Statistics Agency noted that during the JanuaryNovember 2015 period, tourists from Singapore and Malaysia were

3

among the top ten visitors to Bali.

During the same period, Malaysia came fourth, with 168,273 people visiting Bali. Meanwhile, Singapore was ranked seventh, with the number of visitors reaching 125,910.

Both countries contributed 8.1 percent, or 3,631,195 people, to the overall number of foreign tourists, up by 6.2 percent compared to that recorded in the same period last year.

The annual BBTF was held for the first time in June 2014. (ant)

Singaraja deports 22 foreigners

SINGARAJA - The immigration office of Singaraja, Buleleng District, Bali, said it deported 22 foreign citizens for immigration offenses in 2015.

Among the offenses included overstay, head of the immigration office Muhammad Hanif Rozariyanto, said on Wednesday.

Hanif said currently the immigration

office has tighten control such as through application of data of foreign citizens.

The data taking system is integrated with the information system of immigration management, he added.

The system is a breakthrough in facilitating access for operators of hotels and other accommodation facilities in reporting data

about their foreign guests, he said.

Foreign citizens living and staying in the three districts in Bali -- Buleleng, Karangasem and Jembrana total 3,314 persons. They include 566 holding permit for temporary stay, and 182 holding permit for permanent stay . Those extending Visa on Arrival (VoA) total 982 and those extending

permit for visit stay total 1,738 persons.

The foreign visitors to Bali include holidaymakers, students, expatriates, and old people wanting to stay permanently in the tourist island. Hanif also said that in 2015, the Singaraja immigration office issued passports for 3,300 Indonesians to visit various countries in the world. (ant)

Middlemen play with strawberry prices

AP Photo/Francois Mori

Model wear creation for Jean Paul Gaultier’s Spring-Summer 2016 Haute Couture fashion collection presented in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016.

Ex-top model holds fashion world to account on anorexia

PARIS - It was the stuff of dreams: walking down a Paris street one day to walking the runway as a top 20 model in the world’s fashion capital.

That’s exactly what happened to Victoire Macon Dauxerre at 18 as she prepared to graduate from high school in 2011. But that dream was short-lived.

In just a few months Dauxerre was battling anorexia, eating three apples a day and sipping diet colas in an effort to maintain her elite model status.

“No one actually told me you have to lose weight,” she remem-

bered. “But they said to me, ‘In September, you’re starting Fashion Week. Sizes will be 32-34 (2-4 US) and you’ll have to be able to fit into them.’”

“That’s when I should have left,” Dauxerre said.

As Paris plays host to the spring summer haute couture shows, Dauxerre is warning the world about how insidious a disorder anorexia really is.

In her memoir, “Never Skinny Enough: the Diary of a Top Model” (“Jamais assez maigre: Journal d’un top model”) she recounts the pressures of such high-stakes dieting.

This is not the first time that a French model has sounded the alarm on the pressure to be thin on the catwalk. After writing her own book highly critical of the fashion industry, Isabelle Caro posed for a shocking anti-anorexia billboard campaign during Milan fashion week in 2007 before dying from the disease three years later at the age of 28.

For Dauxerre, besides apples and Diet Cokes, she allowed herself one small piece of fish or chicken once a week.

A healthy 56 kilos (123 lbs) at 1.78 metres (5 feet 9 inches)

when she was spotted, Dauxerre went down four dress sizes to 47 kilos (103 lbs) in just a couple of months.

She then embarked on her whirlwind career, modelling for such famed houses as Alexander McQueen, Celine and Miu Miu in Paris, New York and Milan.

With her flowing brown hair and electric blue eyes, she became one of the most sought-after faces.

Eight months later, bulimic and suicidal, she quit.

“No one understood,” Dauxerre said, now 23. “Everybody was telling me I had a dream life, but I had

never been so miserable.”

In the book, she tells of life backstage where models would nibble on food in front of cameras then race to the bathroom to throw it all up once journalists were gone.

She recalls shoots where only the photographers had catering.

Dauxerre was so starved and exhausted at one point she fainted in the streets of New York during one fashion week.

Dauxerre’s memoir comes a month after French MPs voted through a law banning ultra-thin models. (afp)

SINGARAJA - Middlmen have been playing with the price of strawberries for years. Buying from famers at very low prices, and lower still when harvests yields, famers feel like they have no choice but to sell their crops for very little.

Farmers on lake Bunyan Buyan lakeside, Dasong hamlet, Pancasari, have been cultivating strawberries for many years. Sometimes farmers grow these berries on their own land but they also sharecrop lands of others, in which case their profits are halved.

Farmers with moderate capital can cultivate strawberries in greenhouses but those with less capital cover their strawberry plants with plastic roofs. Both to these methods allow farmers to continue cultivating strawberries during the rainy season.

Strawberries take 5 months to harvest. Once the fruit are ready to be picked, farmers harvest them twice a week with fruits ranging in quality from low to high. Middlemen tend to buy all these berries for the same price, regardless of differences in quality. Farmers are therefore not able to make more profits when their berries are better.

Local farmer, 50 year old I Wayan Suparta, when met with in his garden in Sari Kauh, Pancasari, Sukasada confirmed that wholesale prices apply to the whole range of quality of the strawberries, with an average selling price of IDR 12,000 per kilogram. Strawberry buyers

then sort the fruit and sell the good berries for as much IDR 50,000 per kilogram. Medium quality berries are sold for about IDR 13,000 per kilogram, while the lowest quality berries are sold by middlemen for IDR 10,000 per kilogram. “This is a classic and long standing problem; middlemen play with the price of strawberries so that we sell them the berries for cheap and they resell them for much more. They sometimes even sell the low quality berries for inflated prices,” he said.

Suparta explained that middlemen playing with prices is very detrimental to farmers. The problem, he said, is that if famers wait to get a better price, they run the risk of having their fruit perish on the vine. Things are even worse in good seasons when strawberries are abundant, because middlemen offer even lower prices. If farmers do not agree with the price offered, middlemen will buy strawberries elsewhere. To overcome this situation, Suparta is requesting that the local government intervene to establish strawberry prices that are based on the quality of the strawberries.

As Suparta explained, farmers should make more profits on high quality berries because they are the most rare. “Our bargaining position is very bad while middlemen are making huge profits. We hope that the government can help us, particularly in terms of price and distinguishing the quality of strawberries,” said Suparta. (kmb38)

IBP/File Photo

The photo shows a woman picking a strawberry in Pancasari Hamlet, Buleleng Regency. Middlmen have been playing with the price of strawberries for years. Buying from famers at very low prices, and lower still when harvests yields, famers feel like they have no choice but to sell their crops for very little.

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International

Friday, January 29, 2016

International

COVER STORY Decision ...

From page 1

Local community leader, Graha Wicaksana, said that the decision made by the customary village in Kuta, shows that the community is aware about the need to maintain Bali’s natural environment.

From a standpoint of customs, the customary villagers are urging the government to maintain Benoa Bay as a sacred area. “We will continue to monitor the results of this meeting. We very much appreciate any efforts to rescue Bali’s natural environment from destruction, so that all can live in peace on the island,” he said.

Swarsa also explained that the decision taken by 13 customary hamlets in Kuta recently, will be delivered by Chief of Kuta customary village, Chief of the Kuta Community Empowerment Agency, coordinator of customary village chief, hamlet chief forum and other elements of the community during the EIA test meeting to be held on January 29th.

Kedonganan

Kedonganan customary village located in the area of Benoa Bay has also declared its rejection of the reclamation plan. Kedonganan is one of the villages that would be directly affected by the implementation of the reclamation of the bay. Many other customary villages have also officially rejected the reclamation plan, these include: Kuta, Kelan, Pemogan, Kepaon, Tanjung Benoa and Sesetan customary villages.

Ketut Madra, Chief of LPD Kedonganan, said on Tuesday that Kedonganan customary vil-

lage through its apparatuses is determined to stand up against the reclamation plan. “We have already organized a meeting and customary village authorities have all agreed to reject the Benoa Bay reclamation,” affirmed Ketut Madra via telephone.

This Kedonganan community leader gave several reasons for why the people of Kedonganan have rejected the reclamation plan. Firstly, he said, they want Benoa Bay to be restored -not to be reclaimed, because Benoa Bay is a sacred area that should be maintained in its integrity. Secondly, he explained that the Benao reclamation plan would harm people economically, as many people in Kedonganan use the bay to earn a living. “The majority of our residents are fishermen. They earn a living in Benoa Bay,” he said.

Similar opinions were expressed

by Chief of LPM Kedonganan, I Ketut Budana, who said that the hamlet community of Kedonganan rejected the plan a long time ago but only officially declared their decision last Monday.

Budana explained the three reasons that they stand in rejection of the plan. Firstly, Benoa Bay is a sacred area, where the customary community regularly holds sacred ceremonies. Secondly, topography and seawater at Kedonganan lies one meter below the ground surface. If the Benoa Bay is backfilled, seawater will overflow.

Thirdly, Kedonganan has long developed cultural custom-based tourism. If Benoa Bay is turned to purely capitalist interests, tourIBP/File Photo ism based on our customs will be eliminated and so thus will many Kedonganan customary village located around the Benoa Bay has declared its rejection against local businesses, explained Bu- the reclamation plan. Kedonganan is one of the villages directly affected if the reclamation is dana. (dir/ira) implemented.

Residents of Tanjung Benoa will continue to struggle

THE COMMITMENT of Tanjung Benoa residents to reject the plan to reclaim Benoa Bay has -and will not, subside. In fact the four hamlets of this village are prepared struggle allout to protect the sacred area of Benoa Bay. “Our commitment remains the same as ever (rejecting the reclamation). Nothing has changed. This has been the decision of the four hamlets, we will keep the sacredness of Benoa Bay safe from harm,” said chief of Tanjung Benoa customary village, I Made Wijaya.

The four hamlets at Tanjung Benoa, said Wijaya, having offi-

cially rejected the reclamation plan, are; the Anyar, Kertha Pascima,

Purwa Santi and Tengah hamlets.

The four hamlets amount to 800 registered households.

“I’ve come down to the community to check with the respective hamlets, and they maintain their commitment to reject the reclamation plan. We will bring the results of the agreement made by the four hamlets to the meeting tomorrow (Jan. 27),” he said.

The aspirations of the Tanjung

Benoa community will also be submitted to the elected regent and deputy regent of Badung. “We will demand that Mr. Giri Prasta express how far he is committed to maintaining the sanctity of Benoa Bay. We ask that he make the same commitment as Mr. Gde Agung,” said Wijaya.

Despite the change in zoning of Benoa Bay from a sacred area

to a utilization area, former Regent of Badung, A.A. Gde Agung maintained his commitment to maintaining Benoa Bay as a sacred area throughout his term as Regent.

“I agree with the attitude of Mr. Giri Prasta who has rejected the reclamation plan due to the abrasion that it would cause. Hopefully, his commitment will not change,” said Agung. (par)

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Activities

Friday, January 29, 2016

15

The Mulia unveils new wedding packages

IBP/Courtesy of The Mulia

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.

NUSA DUA - The Mulia, Mulia Resort & Villas – Nusa Dua, Bali has played host to some of high society’s grandest weddings and events as well as the smaller and more intimate affairs.

Couples planning their weddings in Bali will find new packages for intimate and private nuptials and blessings, to large-scale flamboyant wedding celebrations.

The resort’s selection of exotic wedding venues with three wedding chapels, seven dining venues and a grand ballroom lends itself to an intimate and elegant ambiance to ensure couples have their dream wedding come true.

A choice of romantic and stylish ceremony venues is offered where your wedding vows can take place. Harmony - the infinity ocean facing chapel by the beach or Eternity - a floating glass chapel with serene lake view, will offer once-in-a-lifetime memories for a truly special day. With seating of up to 250 guests, the packages include fully air-conditioned venue hire; elegant flower arrangement, use of a bride and groom preparation room, refreshments and commemorative

wedding certificate.

The highlight of the most important day for the Bride and Groom follows with a wedding celebration - from the intimate 10 person dinner by the sea “Mulia Romance”, to the signature beachfront dining experience at Soleil overlooking the pool and ocean, among many other options.

A choice of seven romantic and grand dining venues is offered, from live Japanese Teppanyaki performance at Edogin, exploring the rich variety of Chinese cuisine at Table8 to International selections at The Cafe. For an outdoor celebration – Sky is the perfect spot to enjoy concocted cocktails and tapas with warm Indian Ocean breeze or party at ZJ’s indoor and outdoor

venue, set by Mulia lakeside.

For a grand celebration, the Grand Ballroom and Violet Ballroom will set the grand stage of a memorable wedding celebration, comfortably accommodating up to 1,080 guests in sit-down dinner setting or 2,000 guests in cocktail setting. Elegantly designed with the highest quality crystal chandeliers, marble and custom carpets, where Mulia’s culinary team will indulge every palate.

Allow their team to take care of every aspect of your wedding celebration from tiered wedding cake designs by Mulia Deli, to an elegant floral decoration by Mulia Blossoms as well as professional hairstylist’s and makeup artists by Mulia Hair Salon to ensure that everything is simply perfect for your special day.

Start planning your wedding at the ‘Number One Beach Resort in the World’ and the ‘Top Three Hotels & Resorts in the World’ by 2014 Condé Nast Traveler USA Edition.

IBP/Courtesy of The Mulia

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

Price: Rp 3.000,-

Friday, January 29, 2016

WEATHER FORECAST 23 - 32 Dps

Rihanna releases long-awaited album in streaming exclusive

NEW YORK - R&B superstar Rihanna late Wednesday released her long-awaited eighth album “Anti” as she offered exclusive early access through commercial tie-ups.

“Anti,” Rihanna’s first album since 2012, had been announced late last year but the timing of the release was a surprise and came hours after she put out the first single.

Tidal, the streaming service led by rap mogul Jay Z in which Rihanna is a partner, premiered “Anti” and said it would not appear elsewhere for the first week.

Rihanna signed a deal reported to be worth $25 million with South Korean electronics giant Samsung, which set up an “Anti” interactive website accessible on its smartphones.

Tidal said that Samsung users who used the website would be able to download “Anti” and receive a two-month free trial of the streaming service.

The release marks the latest effort by an upstart streaming companies to challenge the dominance of streaming leader Spotify through exclusive releases.

Prince put out his two last albums on Tidal while pop superstar Taylor Swift released a tour video only on Apple Music.

Streaming services, which offer on-demand access online, have grown rapidly in recent years and become a key part of the music industry’s commercial strategies.

Rihanna earlier Wednesday put out a first single from “Anti” that features chart-topping rapper Drake.

Entitled “Work,” the song is set to tropical house, the light-feeling electronic genre that has become

increasingly popular in the past year.

The song returns to Rihanna’s familiar theme of feeling taken advantage of in a relationship, while Drake in his verse raps of his struggle finding intimacy.

“Anti” starts off with the track “Consideration,” a collaboration with SZA, an R&B singer who has come to prominence more recently.

“Anti” does not include “FourFiveSeconds,” a song that Rihanna released a year ago in a collaboration with Paul McCartney and Kanye West.

Rihanna quickly became one of the 21st century’s top-selling art-

ists after releasing her debut album in 2005, but the Barbados-born singer’s prolific output stopped after a seven-year stretch.

The two-month delay between the launch of the Samsung website and the album triggered speculation among fans who wondered if there were disagreements behind the scenes. Some music industry observers suspected that Rihanna did not want to compete with British ballad singer Adele, whose album “25” broke first-week sales records in November.

However, it is unclear how Rihanna will fare on the charts as her album is not available for conventional purchase. Rihanna has already announced a world tour to promote “Anti,” which will begin on February 26 in San Diego. (afp)

IBP/Net

e-mail: info_ibp@balipost.co.id online: http://www.internationalbalipost.com. http://epaper.internationalbalipost.com.

Friday, January 29, 2016 Iran: European airlines set to resume flights to Tehran Page 6

Communism better than democracy, says Vietnam party boss

Atletico anxious to rediscover scoring touch at Barca Page 8

Page 13

Kuta and Kedonganan village reject reclamation plan

Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File

Joseph Fiennes to play Michael Jackson in TV drama

LONDON — Joseph Fiennes will star as Michael Jackson in a one-off TV comedy set to broadcast later this year — a casting decision that has added fuel to a raging debate about opportunities for nonwhite actors in movies and TV. The white British star of “Shakespeare in Love” plays the black King of Pop in “Elizabeth, Michael & Marlon,” alongside Stockard Channing as Elizabeth Taylor and Brian Cox as Marlon Brando.

The script is based on a — possibly fictitious — road trip the three stars are rumored to have made in an attempt to leave New York after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Sky Arts, which commissioned the drama, confirmed the casting and said Wednesday that the show is in post-production and is due to air in 2016. The channel said it was “part of a series of comedies about unlikely stories from arts and cultural history.”

Jackson had vitiligo, a condi-

tion that causes patchy loss of skin pigmentation, and his complexion lightened dramatically as he grew older. He died in 2009 aged 50.

The casting news comes amid a debate about lack of diversity in Hollywood, sparked by an all-white slate of Academy Awards acting nominees.

Iranian-British comedian Shappi Khorsandi tweeted: “Joseph Fiennes is playing Michael Jackson?

Fab. Now we can all shut up about lack of diversity.”

Sky said the network “puts the integrity of the creative vision at the heart of all its original commissions.”

“We believe in giving producers the creative freedom to cast roles as they wish, within the diversity framework which we have set,” Sky said in a statement released by a spokeswoman.

Fiennes’ agent did not immediately respond to a request for comment. (ap)

IBP/File Photo

People held demonstration rejecting Benoa Bay reclamation plan. Sesetan customary village is one of the villages that would be affected by the realization of the Benao Bay reclamation plan.

KUTA customary village held a meeting on Saturday (Jan 23) at Kuta’s Penataran Khayangan Temple that involved some 13 customary hamlets authorities and other members of the community.

The meeting, explained customary village chief, I Wayan Swasra, was held to discuss the matter of the reclamation of Benoa Bay. “We have decided to reject the Benoa Bay reclamation plan. Based on the decision of our meeting, we will also send a letter to President Jokowi and attend the meeting for the sake of environmental impact assessment (EIA) test on January 29,” he said.

The 13 hamlet of Kuta customary village decided to reject the reclamation plan was base on their desire to preserve sacred areas, including the seas, mountains, estuaries, confluences that fall into the territory of their village.

Kuta customary village authorities will be delivering the results of their meeting during the upcoming dialogue initiated by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. “We intend to take measurable steps to ensure that our decision in respected. We certainly hope that the president and his staff will hear the voice of the Kuta customary villagers,” said Swarsa. Kuta is not the only village that rejects the reclamation plan. Kedonganan and other nearby villages have also rejected the plan to reclaim Benoa Bay.

Affected by Benoa Bay reclamation plan

Continue to page 2 Decision ...

Sesetan village not invited to attend Amdal test meeting

DENPASAR - Sesetan customary village is one of the villages that would be affected by the realization of the Benao Bay reclamation plan. And yet, the most populous village in Denpasar has not been invited to attend the environmental impact analysis AKA Amdal test meeting that will be held on January 29th at Wiswa Sabha the Governor’s Office.

Sesetan village has in fact never been privy to the dissemination of information or other relevant activities related the the Benao Bay reclamation plan. “We at Sesetan customary village have not been invited (to the Amdal test meeting—Ed). Actually, we are are amongst the villages that will be most affected should the reclamation plan go through. Sesetan, Suwung and Sidakarya lie to the north, Serangan to the south, and

Kedonganan, Kelan, and Jimbaran, to the west,” said Chief of Sesetan customary village, I Ketut Suparjaya on Wednesday (Jan. 27).

Suparjaya explained that Sesetan would mainly be affected in terms of traffic congestion given that Jalan Raya Sesetan is one of the main roads that would connect the reclaimed islands to the Bali Mandara toll road. Traffic congestion in Sesetan is already remarkable.

Furthermore Hindus in Sesetan invariably need to be able use the sea-shore to perform their religious activities.

“On January 23, we held our plenary meeting in which all the customary hamlets decided that Sesetan village as whole stands in rejection of the Benoa Bay reclamation plan,” said the Sestan village chief.

Suparjaya added that on January 8th, 2016, Sesetan customary village held a rally to voice their rejection of the reclamation plan. The recent plenary session meeting further demonstrates the integrity of Sesetan customary village in terms of their rejection of the plan to reclaim Benoa Bay, he said. “We have no

political interest but simply want to show that this is the shared opinion of our village,” he explained.

Secretary of Sesetan customary village, I Wayan Dudik Mahendra, said that a peaceful rally will be held at the border between Sesetan and Serangan on Thursday. This location proves that Sesetan is in fact close to the proposed site for the reclamation plan. However despite their geographic proximity to Benoa Bay, Sesetan customary village has never been involved in the dissemination of information relate to the reclamation plan nor in Amdal test.

Mahendra added that communities along the coast that are at risk from the impacts of reclamation plan

have been taking action. Will they not be heard? Are these actions still considered unclear demonstrations by a bunch of kids just going “rahrah”? “Communities all along the coast share the same attitude towards the reclamation projects, and almost all of them have stated their official opposition to the reclamation plan,” said Mahendra. (kmb32) News can also be heard in “Bali Image” at Global Radio FM 96.5 from 9.30 until 10.00 am. Listen to Global Radio FM at http:// globalfmbali.listen2myradio.com or live video streaming at http://radioglobalfmbali.com and http:// ustream.tv/channel/global-fm-bali.