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Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Mystery of ‘Salvator Mundi’, the world’s most costly painting

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Tuesday, April 30, 2019

PARIS - Later this year, the Louvre in Paris will host an exhibition of masterpieces by the Italian painter Leonardo da Vinci to mark his death 500 years ago in France.

But the work that in recent months has been the intense focus of scrutiny by the media and da Vinci specialists, may not be on show.

In 2017, “Salvator Mundi” was sold at auction by Christie’s as a work by da Vinci for a record $450 million. But it has not been displayed in public since, triggering doubts about its ownership, its whereabouts and its authenticity.

The painting, a portrait of Jesus, was to go on display at the Louvre Abu Dhabi in September last year.

But its unveiling was postponed by the museum without any explanation.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi has kept

tight-lipped about the identity of the buyer, saying only that the emirate’s Department of Culture and Tourism had “acquired” it.

And the mystery has further deepened ahead of a visit by Italian President Sergio Mattarella who will join France’s President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday on a trip to the Loire Valley to mark the anniversary of da Vinci’s death there in 1519, at the age of 67.

“The Louvre has asked the Department of Culture and Tourism in Abu Dhabi for the painting to be given on loan,” a Louvre spokesperson told AFP. “But we have not yet had any reply.” (afp)

In this file photo taken on October 24, 2017 Christie’s employees pose in front of a painting entitled Salvator Mundi

by Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci at a photocall at Christie’s auction house in central London ahead of its sale at Christie’s New York on November 15, 2017.

Handout / INDONESIAN NAVY / AFP

Hollywood school to keep Michael Jackson’s name on auditorium

Frederic J. BROWN / AFP

Pedestrians walk past the Michael Jackson Auditorium at Gardner Street Elementary school in Hollywood, California on April 25, 2019.

LOS ANGELES - Michael Jackson’s elementary school in Hollywood, California will keep his name on its auditorium despite the damaging allegations of pedophilia made against the late pop superstar in a widely viewed documentary.

Parents and staff members of Gardner Street Elementary School, which Jackson attended in 1969, have voted to leave his name in place after an impassioned debate, school officials announced Saturday.

“A majority of those who par-

ticipated voted to maintain the current name as the Michael Jackson Auditorium,” said a statement from the school district.

The future “king of pop” attended the school for several months at the age of 11; his family moved away, and he was homeschooled, following the breakout success of the Jackson Five’s first single, “I Want You Back,” and other songs.

But after cable network HBO recently aired the shock documentary “Leaving Neverland,” the presence of Jackson’s name

in large letters on an outer wall of the Hollywood school became a lightning rod for several angry parents.

In the movie -- which Jackson’s heirs have sharply contested -- two men now in their 30s, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, say the singer sexually abused them while they were still children.

Jackson, who died on June 25, 2009 of an overdose of prescription drugs, had faced several allegations of pedophilia during his life, but was never convicted. (afp)

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This screen grab taken from handout video on April 27, 2019 and released on April 29 by the Indonesian Navy shows members of the Indonesian Navy (R) watching as a Vietnamese coastguard ship (L) approaches and apparently rams their vessel, off the coast of Borneo in the South China Sea.

Indonesia detains Vietnamese fishermen after high seas clash

JAKARTA - Indonesia has accused the Vietnamese coastguard of ramming one of its vessels to block the interception of a boat fishing illegally, as a senior minister announced a return to sinking foreign trawlers.

The clash in the South China Sea at the weekend saw Jakarta summon Vietnam’s ambassador on Monday, after the navy detained a dozen Vietnamese fishermen.

“The actions taken by the Vietnamese coast guard ship endangered the lives of officers from both countries and is not in accordance with international law or the spirit of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations),” Indonesia’s foreign ministry said.

Jakarta claims the area in the southernmost reaches of the South China Sea as its exclusive economic zone -- waters where a state

has the right to exploit resources.

The navy said two Vietnamese coast guard ships tried to prevent the apprehension of an illegal fishing boat by ramming its vessel.

The fishing boat sank possibly due to an accidental collision, Indonesian authorities said without elaborating.

A dozen fishermen were detained and remain in Indonesian custody.

Two others escaped detention by jumping into the water. They were picked by the Vietnamese coast guard, which then fled, the navy said.

Video circulating on social

media purported to show a Vietnamese patrol boat ramming the left side of the Indonesian vessel as the armed navy crew shouted expletives.

Indonesia, the world’s biggest archipelago nation, has been trying to stop foreign vessels fishing illegally in its territory, claiming it costs the economy billions of dollars annually.

It turned to a campaign of blowing up captured foreign boats as a deterrent.

Hundreds of detained foreign fishing vessels have been sunk, including many Vietnamese boats -- after the crews were removed -- since 2014, with some blown up

in spectacular public displays.

The practice was suspended for several months, but Indonesian fisheries minister Susi Pudjiastuti announced on Monday that it would resume this weekend.

“On the 4th (of May) we will be sinking 51 boats, mostly from Vietnam!”

She did not say if it was in retaliation for the latest diplomatic clash with Vietnam.

Two years ago, Indonesia

changed the name of the southern part of the South China Sea to the North Natuna Sea in a bid to show its sovereignty.

More recently, it inaugurated a new military base in the chain of several hundred small islands to beef up its border defence.

The moves have prompted criticism from Beijing whose claims in the sea overlap Indonesia’s around the remote Natuna Islands. (afp)

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2

Bali News

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

International

Activities

International

BI encourages Bali’s sustainable and inclusive economy

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

15

YOGYAKARTA — Bank Indonesia of Bali Representative Office encourages regional governments to look for new economic sources. The source of Bali’s economy is currently very dependent on tourism. On that account, it needs another economic source, so that Bali’s economy is more sustainable and inclusive. The potential to be developed is agriculture in the broadest sense.

This was conveyed by the Head of the Bank Indonesia of Bali Representative Office, Causa Iman Karana, accompanied by its Deputy Director, Sapto Widyatmiko, in the BI of Bali Representative Office Public Relations Workshop on April 26-28, 2019 in Yogyakarta.

For this reason, BI seeks to increase the production and capacity of the MSMEs having the potential to export or support the tourism sector. One of them is the development of ant sugar in Jembrana and Tampaksiring tourism village in Gianyar.

On that account, BI of Bali Representative Office began to identify the development of ant sugar at Pendem village, Jembrana. Then, BI has the Sari Mawar Farmer Group under its guidance to produce export-quality ant sugar.

Results of the coaching are expected to be

able to co-exist with the downstreaming of chocolate and coffee products having been developed as well as the coffee variety of Kintamani.

In addition to ant sugar, BI of Bali Representative Office will also develop Tampaksiring tourism village in Gianyar.

Tampaksiring is chosen because of its great potential and located not far from the Subak Pulagan rice cluster which is also becoming its target.

Tampaksiring has tourist attractions such as the Tirta Empul Temple and the Presidential Palace. Tampaksiring has a strong potential for art, custom and culture. Coupled with the potential of natural resources, it can develop the potential for export-quality crafts. Then, Tampaksiring tourism village will be integrated with Pulagan agro tourism. (kmb42)

Causa Iman Karana

4th Semarapura Festival

Kris Exhibition displays 100 historic kris daggers

IBP/kmb31

Regent of Klungkung Suwirta and his Deputy Regent Kasta are looking at kris dagger on display at the Semarajaya Museum.

SEMARAPURA — The 4th Semarapura Festival for the first time is filled with kris exhibition. The exhibition was opened right at the commemoration of the 111th anniversary of Puputan Klungkung Day, Sunday (Apr. 28) as part of the heroic memory of the Balinese people in Klungkung. Centered at the Semarajaya Museum, the exhibition featured around 100 historic kris daggers.

Moreover, two of them have high historical values.

Head of the Klungkung Culture Agency, Nyoman Mudarta, said the kris exhibition showcases 100 pieces of kris namely consisting of 68 old ones and 32 new ones. Each has a long history in relation to the important moments of the struggle of Balinese people, where at that time Klungkung was the center of kingdom in Bali.

From the entire collections, there are two special kris daggers.

The first kris belongs to AA Ngurah Puspayoga. It is in the form of Angon Angon Adikara form with Pamor Keleng (Wulung). Curator of the exhibition, Bakrin, said the kris is one of the historic ones

in Bali, made around the 1800s.

The existence of this kris attracts the attention of visitors, including Regent of Klungkung Nyoman Suwirta and Deputy Regent Made Kasta, who saw it closely, after opening the exhibition.

Another kris is the new one in the form of Kala Wisesa Leser. This kris has patterned watermelon skin and was made in 2005. This rare kris is owned by Tjokorda Surya and made by Mpu KRT Rudi Hartono Diningrat. This duplicate is rare named the Pajenengan kris of the Klungkung Palace and owned

by Ida Dewa Agung Gde Oka Geg. Today, the kris is maintained

by Tjokorda Surya, the son of the late Tjokorda Anom Putra, the first Regent of Klungkung.

Head of the Klungkung Culture Agency, Nyoman Mudarta, stated the kris exhibition is predicted to be able to attract the attention of visitors during the opening until May 2. Surely, the existence of the kris is in line with the long history of Klungkung as the center of royal era civilization in Bali at that time. “This keris exhibition is a series of cultural events held

Lebaran Gateway

IBP/kmb

by the Semarajaya Museum held for the first time. In addition to the kris exhibition, it is graced with traditional cuisine and beverage exhibition, folk games, traditional weaving demonstrations and Baris Jangkang Dance show,” he said.

Regent of Klungkung, Nyoman Suwirta, said the assets in the form of art and culture must be promoted well. Festival is the right moment to promote the art and cultural assets owned by Klungkung. In the future, the office of the Culture Agency will be put together with the Public Service Mall that will be built soon by the Public Works and Settlement Agency. Thus, the Semarajaya Museum, now partly used as the office of Cultural Agency, will entirely function as a museum.

“The Semarajaya Museum must improve and be more innovative.

In the future, the museum must be managed more professionally. So, the collections and historical heritage assets currently stored in the central government can be taken to be exhibited in the museum or at least its duplicates can be used,” he said. (kmb31)

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14

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Science

International

‘An Elegant Defense’ explores the immune system’s softer side

NEW YORK - We like to think of the immune system as our own personal military, ready to attack foreign invaders.

Slice your finger, and immune cells rush in to destroy rogue pathogens.

But it’s misleading to think of the immune system as solely a war machine. It must also keep the peace, assessing each threat and, in many cases, deciding to stand down. (This often-overlooked peacekeeping role is what allows the microbiome, the collection of microorganisms that live in and on the body, to thrive.) In An Elegant Defense, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Matt Richtel argues that it is this ability — to differentiate friend from foe (or neutral party) and act accordingly — that makes the immune system so powerful and so elegant.

“It is a system precisely and delicately tailored to stay in balance, keep the peace and do as little damage as possible to us and our surroundings,” he writes. And that balance is central to our health.

An Elegant Defense offers a sweeping overview of immunology’s history, from Élie Metchnikoff’s observations in the 1800s of immune cells swarming splinters in starfish larvae to recent discoveries underpinning cancer immunotherapy. Richtel explains all of this science through the stories of four individuals deeply affected by their immune systems.

Richtel’s childhood friend Jason Greenstein is battling a stubborn form of Hodgkin’s disease that seems to be invisible to his immune response. Bob Hoff contracted HIV in 1977, but his immune system managed to keep the virus in check. And the lives of Linda Segre and Merredith Branscombe have been radically altered by their overactive immune systems.

Richtel, who covers science and technology for the New York Times, once joked that the paper’s writing will always remain “dry and lifeless.” But that’s not Richtel’s style.

The prose in An Elegant Defense is vibrant, conversational, direct and often funny. He introduces one story like this: “A Dane, an Argentinian Jew and a German walk into a research lab…”

But Richtel seems to presume that readers will find too much science tedious. Describing how the body can make hundreds of millions of different antibodies, he offers readers a “pep talk” and implores them to “Soldier on!”

At times he glosses over experimental details in ways guaranteed to make scientists cringe. “This is one of those experiments that is too technical to describe,” he writes, adding

IBP/net

White blood cells known as neutrophils (one shown in red with staph bacteria in yellow) are the immune system’s frontline defenders against pathogens. “first there were some mixtures, or assays, and then the data was crunched digitally and the results came over the computer.” Even more frustrating, the book fails to provide references, an omission that makes it difficult for readers who do care about technical details to do their own research.

Yet Richtel’s refusal to get bogged down in minutiae also helps the book feel lighter than it otherwise might.

The science isn’t a slog. And although it seems to jump haphazardly through time — Richtel returns to the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s again and again — the content is captivating and useful. For example, Richtel examines how we’re sabotaging our immune systems with too little sleep and too much stress, and explains why supplements designed to boost immunity are a waste of money.

But it’s when Richtel delves into the lives of Bob, Linda, Merredith and especially Jason that the writing shines. “Never was he happier than when he was driving, a dip of Skoal Fine Cut packed in his lip, rocking out to Springsteen or to a local station on the dial with some new town on the horizon,” Richtel writes about Jason.

“He was a genuine American dreamer and the van his covered wagon.” (net)

people could talk, researchers could record brain activity as participants spoke sentences. The team then mapped the brain signals that control the lips, tongue, jaw and larynx to the actual movements of the vocal tract as these people spoke. That allowed the scientists to create a unique virtual vocal tract for each person.

Next, the researchers translated the virtual movements of participants’ artificial vocal tracts into sounds. Using this virtual tool “enhanced the speech and made it sound more natural,” Chartier says. About 70 percent of these reconstructed words were understandable by listeners who were asked to choose the words that they heard from a list of possibilities. For instance, when the synthesized voice said, “Get a calico cat to keep the rodents away,” a listener heard, “The calico cat to keep the rabbits away.” Overall, some sounds came out well, such as “sh.”

Others, such as “buh” and “puh,” sounded mushier.

To work, the technique depended on knowing how a person moves the vocal tract. But those movements

won’t exist in many people who are unable to talk, such as those with a brain stem stroke, vocal tract injuries or Lou Gehrig’s disease.

“By far, the biggest hurdle is how are you going to build a decoder in the first place when you don’t have any example speech to build it on?” says Marc Slutzky, a neurologist and neural engineer at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

In some tests, the researchers found that the algorithms used in the second stage of the process — translating the virtual vocal tract movements into sounds — were similar enough from person to person that they could be reused across different people, possibly even those who can’t talk.

But so far, the first step of the process — mapping brain activity to a person’s vocal tract movements — seems to be more idiosyncratic. Finding a way to relate those personalized brain signals to their desired vocal tract movements will be a challenge in people unable to move, the scientists say. (afp)

A neural implant can translate brain activity into sentences

SAN FRANCISCO - To communicate, people unable to talk often rely on small eye movements to spell out words, a painstakingly slow process. Now, using signals picked up by a brain implant, scientists have pulled entire sentences from the brain.

Some of these reconstructed words, spoken aloud by a virtual vocal cord, are a little garbled. But overall, the sentences are understandable, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco report in the April 25 Nature.

Creating the audible synthetic sentences required years of analysis after brain signals were recorded, and the technique is not ready to be used outside of a lab. Still, the work shows “that just using the brain, it is possible to decode speech,” says UCSF speech scientist Gopala Anumanchipalli.

The technology described in the new study holds promise for ultimately restoring people’s abilities to speak fluently, says Frank Guenther, a speech neuroscientist at Boston University. “It’s hard to overstate the importance of that to these people….

IBP/net

Scientists have transformed brain signals, captured by this grid of electrodes designed to record brain activity, into synthesized sentences. The technique could one day help people who can’t speak communicate.

It’s incredibly isolating and practically nightmarish to not be able to communicate needs or socially connect.”

Existing speech aids that rely on spelling words are tedious, often producing about 10 words a minute.

Earlier studies have used brain signals to decode smaller bits of speech,

such as vowels or words, but with a more limited vocabulary than the current work.

Along with neurosurgeon Edward Chang and bioengineer Josh Chartier, Anumanchipalli studied five people who had grids of electrodes temporarily implanted in the brain as part of epilepsy treatments. Because these

Bali News

International

3

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Bali glanced at being a spiritual tourism destination

MANGUPURA — Bali is not only known for its natural beauty, but also as spiritual tourist destination. This happens because many tourists come to Bali to perform meditation activities.As seen at the Garuda Wisnu Kencana (GWK) area on Friday (Apr. 26), hundreds of foreign tourists did meditation to pray for the World Peace and Prosperity. Aside from being known as an object of tourist attraction, the presence of the largest Garuda Wisnu Kencana statue in the world even makes it known as a Cultural and Spiritual Park.

According to Rup Gurbani, Chairman of the Indonesian Living Arts Foundation, hundreds of tourists attended to take part in a series of Bliss in Bali Spiritual Festival, an annual spiritual program from The Art of Living Foundation. Participants from all over the world came together, meditated and celebrated peace and happiness in the presence of His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

The event is one of the agendas for meditation in Bali organized every year entitled the Bliss in Bali.

The event began in 1996 and has

been organized for ten years and has become the mark of Bliss in Bali. Last time, the event was held in Bali and the biggest at GWK in 2007. At that time, there were 600 international and 200 local residents.

Besides, four Indian priests and 30 priests from Bali were also present.

“We carry out this activity for the peace of the earth. A total of 25 countries have registered to participate, but this is smaller when compared to the first event. Usually we meditate together for 4 days in certain places, like at hotels,” he explained. (kmb23)

Meditation activities are followed by hundreds of foreign tourists.

IBP/kmb

Preparing Bali to be a center for civilizations and creative industries

BALI must move quickly to anticipate the dynamics of the world. As the center for civilization and culture, Bali must make a major breakthrough. Thinking smart, creative and innovative must be accustomed.

Don’t get caught up in polemics. To

realize the dream of Bali as the center for world civilization, the synergy and empowerment of existing potential must be optimized.

This view was expressed by the statue maestro from Bali, Nyoman Nuarta, when a group of mass media

The statue maestro from Bali, Nyoman Nuarta (L).

IBP/dir

and the Bali Provincial Bureau of Public Relations and Protocol visited NuArt Sculpture Park, the Museum and Art Gallery at the Setra Duta Complex, Ciwaruga, North Bandung, Wednesday (Apr. 24).

In his conversation with Bali Post while walking in his museum, Nyoman Nuarta told the breakthrough made by the Governor of Bali Wayan Koster in fortifying Balinese culture should be responded with an accommodating attitude. This idea deserves to be understood as a big dream of building Bali. Nuarta, the architect of Garuda Wisnu Kencana (GWK), is ready to serve and dedicate his works to Bali. He advised that Bali must immediately make a major breakthrough if wishing to become the center for the world civilization.

“Do not associate everything with popularity and politics. An idea is a window to success. Do not hamper the ideas with thoughts tending to degrade a big step to build and guard Bali,” said Nyoman Nuarta.

He stated that to accommodate the dynamics of the era and the development of creative industry today, it is natural for Bali to have a holistic cultural center. This will become a space for all artists and creative industries to grow. This thinking certainly must be supported together without having to contradict it with non-strategic interests.

When President Joko Widodo appreciated to the construction of the Bali cultural center in Gunaksa (Klungkung), Bali must optimize

this support. “Don’t continue to be trapped in political barriers, especially if there is an effort to degrade this thought and program,” he advised.

To Bali Post, Nyoman Nuarta claimed to have had a low flight in the former sand mining area. That was long before there is an idea of making this area into a cultural center. He said the thousands of hectares of land in this area are currently pockmarked and full of holes. From the perspective of artists, this nature is very exotic, especially being close to the sea.

He ensured that with technological approach, a scientific approach and artistic touch to organize this land, Gunaksa can grow and develop into a strategic tourist center in Bali. “This is called creative breakthrough and big dream amid the development of technology and science,” said the man born in Tabanan.

Nuarta admitting to have been settling more than 30 years in Bandung said that in the future, Bali must also educate young people to pursue creative industries. Business opportunities and living opportunities to be successful artists in this field are very open. “Don’t be afraid to dream of being an artist. Artists can live happily and adequately if they are engaged seriously. Being a sculptor can also be an option,” he said.

Accompanied by his wife Cynthia Laksmi, Nuarta who is now entrusted to work on mega projects in a number of countries and provinces in Indonesia hoped that young Balinese are not afraid to become artists. He also

shared his stories and fighting spirit, so that he could become a statue maestro like he is now. “Artists must be able to build originality because it is the key to having an identity,” he said.

Build your identity and don’t become a plagiarist artist.

As an illustration, the NuArt Sculpture Park, Museum and Art Gallery owned by this statue maestro from Bali, Nyoman Nuarta, is built on 3.5 hectares of land. A number of important people, including ministers, Jokowi’s Working Cabinet minister often visited and shared inspirations here. On this beautiful land, there is also showroom displaying the works of Nyoman Nuarta, an exhibition room for painters and workshops.

There are approximately 250 workers involved. Nuarta also manages an eco-friendly restaurant in the area.

Prior to making a visit to the Nuart, owned by Nyoman Nuarta, a group of mass media leaders and the Bali Provincial Public Relations and Protocol Bureau were received by the Public Relations and Protocol Bureau of West Java Province. In West Java, the entourage explored more about the strategies of Governor Ridwan Kamil who empowered the public relations bureau to establish communication with its citizens, including opening fast reaction services to social and public problems. The entourage led

by Assistant III of Bali Provincial Government I Wayan Suarjana was received by the Head of West Java Public Relations and Protocol Bureau, Hemransyah. (dir)

4

Bali News

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

International

Falling down from clove tree

Widower of three children suffers physical and economic disability

NEGARA - Endless disasters and obstacles were experienced by Made Merta, 50, a widower of three children from Bungbungan hamlet, Yehembang, Mendoyo, Jembrana. His wife died of illness when his third child was still small. As consequence, Made Merta must be the head of the family and take over his wife’s role.

IBP/wit

Made Merta is paralyzed after falling incident from a clove tree a year ago. Now, his economy is also paralyzed, while his wife has died. Thus, he must bear two children remaining to attend elementary school.

His job as climbing worker and farmer as well as living poverty life makes him always work hard. Unexpectedly, another disaster hit him again. When climbing a tree and will pick cloves, he was suddenly unconscious in the tree on August 7, 2018. Unavoidably, he fell down from the clove tree whereas Merta had just enjoyed the refurbishment home assistance.

As a result of the incident, Merta suffered broken tailbone and caused him paralyzed. More seriously, he must urinate by using a hose.

Initially Merta and his three children lived in the refurbished house in the east side of the road.

However, a few months ago his first daughter who takes care of him got married so that no one else takes care of him there.

In accordance with the agreement of the family, Merta was moved to his younger brother’s house in the west of the road and located in a lower area. To get to Ketut Suwentra’s house, Made Merta’s younger brother, one has to go through a small concrete steep and slippery road. Now Merta is

being cared for by his younger brother, Ketut Suwentra, and his sister-in-law, Murniasih.

The life of his younger brother is also the same as his inability and lack. Moreover, the house they currently occupy is also very simple and even there is a room walled with plaited bamboo which is now occupied by his younger brother and his wife.

His younger brother also works as a laborer, while his sister-in-law makes ritual oblations every day.

Now, the family’s economy is truly paralyzed. “Thankfully, my two children can still attend school.

My younger brother and sister-inlaw are very good at taking care of me. Even before I was at the refurbished house I could not get up but since living at my younger brother’s house, sometimes after getting therapy I can start sitting for a while,” said Merta on Sunday (Apr. 28).

To get therapy and get out of the house with such steep terrain, Merta is frequently carried by his younger brother or ride a motorcycle with a high risk because of having to pass

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

International

through a very steep grade.

Merta claimed to have received PKH assistance and was helped by hamlet chief of Bungbungan to propose the application. “Thank God I am still able to live and eat. I have troubled many people. Hopefully, I can recover,” he hoped.

However, so far Merta has not been able to be free from the use of hose when urinating because his stomach has a problem after falling down.

Merta added that at this time he cannot do much and can only pray so that the families who cared for him would always be healthy and get fortune. Then, the two children who are still attending elementary school can continue their education.

“Hopefully, I can recover so that I can return to work,” he hoped.

Meanwhile, hamlet chief of Bungbungan, Yehembang, Ketut Sutama, when asked for his confirmation, justified that Made Merta is a citizen included in the list of poor red book family. Merta also received PKH assistance. “We have routinely arranged for the PKH assistance,” he affirmed. (kmb)

Abascal, busting Spain’s ‘traitors’ to resurrect far-right

MADRID - Raging against the “traitors of Spain” and the “cowardly right-wing”, Santiago Abascal has managed to resurrect the far-right that had been relegated to the margins of politics since the death of dictator Francisco Franco.

His far-right party Vox came fifth in Spain’s elections on Sunday -- below expectations -- winning 10.3 percent of votes and 24 seats out of 350 in a dramatic entrance to the national parliament.

“Welcome to the resistance!,” the 43-year-old, with his impeccably trimmed beard and piercing eyes, told supporters gathered at a central Madrid square, adding the 24 Vox lawmakers “represented the pride of being Spanish”.

Abascal founded Vox five years ago with other former members of the Popular Party (PP), fuelled by disillusion with a party they accused of having “betrayed (their) values and ideas.”

But it was small-fry, attracting just a smattering of voters -- until last December when it took close to 11 percent of the votes in regional elections in southern Andalusia.

Since then, Vox has generated a buzz in traditional and social media, causing outrage upon outrage with its ultra-conservative proposals.

Banning separatist parties, taking direct control of the semiautonomous region of Catalonia to stop secession, repealing a law that fights gender violence...

The party also fiercely defends traditional family values, even if Abascal is divorced, with two children from a first marriage and two others from his current wife, an Instagram influencer.

In rallies, he has railed against the leftist “liberal dictatorship” and the “enemies of Spain” that are Catalan and Basque nationalists.

His party’s far-out social media posts have his supporters delighted, and his critics pulling their hair out.

One of them before the Andalusia elections, for instance, showed a video of Abascal riding a horse cowboy-style to music from “The Lord of the Rings” and the message: “The Reconquista starts in Andalusian lands.”

The Reconquista refers to the long series of medieval wars waged to recapture territory from the Muslims who occupied most of the Iberian Peninsula in the early 8th century. (afp)

ally it is meant to prevent rabies transmission.

Division Head of Animal Health and Veterinary Public Health at the Jembrana Agriculture and Food Office, I Wayan Widarsa, said the statement made is based on Republic of Indonesia Law No. 18/2009 concerning Animal Husbandry and Animal Health, Government Regulation No. 47/2014 concerning Animal Control and Disease and Bali Provincial Regulations No. 15/2009 concerning Rabies Mitigation.

The letter is intended for HPR owners that refuse the vaccination. Throughout April, the Agriculture and Food Service targeted 13,733 rabies carrier animals at 16 villages in Jembrana belonging to the red rabies zone. Then, in the second stage it targeted beyond the red zone, namely 174 hamlets at 35 villages targeting 25,773

rabies carrier animals.

The obligation of HPR owners is to pay attention to the health and welfare of their animals. Other than vaccinating their animals on a regular basis, they should have a vaccination card and raise animals in the house or yard and holds or bind the animals. So, the animals do not roam the streets. If violating this obligation, the pet owners can be threatened with a sentence of 6 months imprisonment and / or a fine of up to IDR 50 million.

The sanctions set forth in the statement mention that if the unvaccinated animals bite, the owner has the obligation to finance all costs of the bite victim when taking medical treatment. The costs also include all the expenses incurred when impacting humans (death).

To ensure the statement, it is also known to be the head of the local territory. (kmb26)

OSCAR DEL POZO / AFP

IBP/kmb

One of the reasons is that residents are fear if their pets will get sick after getting rabies vaccination. When such conditions happen, the officers cannot force.

Theodore LIM / AFP

This picture taken on April 7, 2019 shows Live Turtle and Tortoise Museum owner Connie Tan posing for a photo with a sulcata tortoise in Singapore.

Crawling to extinction: Singapore turtle haven fights for life

SINGAPORE - Hundreds of turtles and tortoises, including rare and endangered species, face an uncertain future after their Singapore sanctuary -- a Guinness World Record holder -- was forced to relocate due to government redevelopment plans.

Many citizens still refuse rabies vaccination

NEGARA — Although the vaccination program for Rabies Carrier Animal (HPR) to anticipate the development of rabies in Bali, in the field the officers often face obstacles from residents. One of the reasons is that residents are fear if their pets will get sick after getting rabies vaccination. When such conditions happen, the officers cannot force. However, pet owners are asked to sign a statement of the vaccination refusal.

The statement letter contains sanctions for HPR owners who are not registered and vaccinated as well as the obligations of pet owners.

Section Head of Animal Health, Rai Mulyawan, stated that many people still refuse to face the rabies mass vaccination in the field. They fear if their animals will get sick after being vaccinated even though it actually prevents rabies. Actu-

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Spanish far-right VOX party leader and candidate for prime minister Santiago Abascal delivers a speech during an election night rally in Madrid after Spain held general elections on April 28, 2019.

At its peak around 1,000 of the creatures were housed at The Live Turtle and Tortoise Museum, which opened in 2001 at popular tourist spot Chinese Gardens. It also showcased specimens and memorabilia such as figurines and stuffed toys.

While the venture built up a loyal following, there had been criticism online of the conditions the reptiles were kept in.

Authorities decided to repurpose the area, and evicted them -- leaving owner Connie Tan scrambling to find and finance a new location.

“I gave up quite a lot for this, and it’s tough. My son’s university education fees have gone into keeping this place alive,” explains Tan, whose father created the original museum, securing the Guinness World Record for the “largest collection of tortoise and turtle items”.

She spent Sg$250,000 ($185,000) on the new venue but

was only able to secure a short two-year lease and conceded the venture is running low on funds -- a situation that has raised concerns about the long-term future for the turtles and tortoises.

Tan has battled hard to keep the museum going, even seeking out help from Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on social media when she needed more time to find a suitable location.

- Endangered species During the move, she closed her event management business to house the turtles and tortoises at her office, leaving her temporarily without an income.

Today there are around 700 turtles at the new site in Yishun, a residential area far from Singapore’s main leisure and tourism hotspots.

The collection of animals has been amassed by the Tan family for more than 40 years. Many of the reptiles were pets that were

rescued after the owners abandoned them.

“Tortoises may not react to you as much as how dogs can do, but they do have the ability to communicate with you if you pay attention to them. So, those people who’d like to buy turtles and tortoises, you must be ready to accept them for who they are,” she explains.

Tan says there are around 50 different species including some that are facing extinction such as the Reeves’ Turtle, which is used in Chinese Traditional Medicine and has been overhunted in the wild.

It is classed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s “Red List of Threatened Species”.

The museum also houses African spurred tortoises and Indian star tortoises -- often taken from the wild for the exotic pet trade -- both are classed by the IUCN as “vulnerable”. (afp)

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Bali News

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BUSINESS

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

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INA FASSBENDER / AFP

An aerial picture taken on April 29, 2019 shows workers harvesting asparagus in a field at the “Beller Hof” farm in Cologne, western Germany.

EU launches billion-euro loan plan for young farmers

BRUSSELS - The European Union on Monday launched a plan to give up to one billion euros in cheaper loans to young farmers, who are often turned away by banks.

The European Commission, the EU’S executive arm, and the European Investment Bank want banks to match the loans, bringing the total to two billion euros ($2.2 billion).

“Access to finance is crucial and too often an obstacle for young people wanting to join the profession,” Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan said.

“With 11 percent of European farmers under the age of 40 years old, supporting young farmers in the sector is a priority for the European Commission.”

Banks rejected 27 percent of the loan applications submitted by young EU farmers in 2017, compared to only nine percent for older applicants.

Those under 40 years old accounted for 11 percent of the EU’s 10.3 million farmers in 2016, while the over 65s represented 32 percent, according to Eurostat.

Young farmers are especially rare

in Cyprus (3.3 percent), in Portugal (4.2 percent) and in the United Kingdom (5.3 percent).

They are better represented in Austria (22.2 percent), in Poland (20.3 percent) and in Slovakia (19 percent).

The EU’s 28 countries will offer young farmers lower interest rates, a five-year moratorium on repayments

and then up to 15 years to pay back the whole loan.

The scheme also allows for flexibility in tougher times by offering grace periods of several months.

Senior EIB official Andrew McDowell said agriculture “is the backbone of the EU economy,” producing healthy food and protecting the environment. (afp)

Asian markets mixed as attention returns to China-US talks

HONG KONG - Asian markets were mixed Monday as investors struggled to track another record lead from Wall Street that was fuelled by more strong earnings and a jump in US economic growth, while China-US trade talks come back into focus.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq in New York chalked up all-time highs Friday helped by a forecastbeating report from Ford and Amazon revealing that quarterly profits had more than doubled.

The earnings were the latest in a long line of strong performances from some of the world’s biggest firms that have surprised many observers, who had been preparing for a tepid announcements season.

Adding to the upward momentum was data showing the world’s

biggest economy expanded 3.2 percent in January-March, well up from forecasts and sharply higher than the 2.2 percent seen at the end of 2018.

“Friday’s better-than-expected US first-quarter GDP reading... was mainly supported on strong trade and inventory data, but the key takeaway remains the underlying economy is well and is not nearing a recession anytime soon,” said OANDA senior market analyst Edward Moya.

However, observers warned that while the reading was good, the underlying data pointed to some weaknesses that could see growth ease later in the year.

Hong Kong rose one percent, while Singapore added 1.3 percent, Seoul put on 1.7 percent and Wel-

lington edged up 0.2 percent.

But Shanghai slipped 0.8 percent, with trade weighed by concerns that Chinese authorities will wind back on recent market-boosting monetary easing measures.

Sydney slipped 0.4 percent, while Taipei and Jakarta also fell.

Tokyo is closed all week.

London, Paris and Frankfurt all rose 0.1 percent.

- Oil extends losses Eyes now turn to Beijing where top US negotiators will return for another round of trade talks with their Chinese counterparts, with the White House saying issues to be covered include intellectual property, forced technology transfer, agriculture and enforcement.

While the general consensus

is for the two to eventually reach a deal to end their long-running trade war there are still a number of sticking points, and Trump has warned he is willing to walk away from talks of he is not happy with their progress.

Both main oil contracts extended losses after falling three percent Friday after Donald Trump said Saudi Arabia and others in OPEC had agreed to his request to boost production.

After touching six-month highs last week on a US decision to end waivers for countries buying from sanctions-hit Iran, crude tanked after Trump tweeted: “Spoke to Saudi Arabia and others about increasing oil flow. All are in agreement.”

However, Stephen Innes at SPI Asset Management said he still saw prices rising.

“We still think OPEC will be careful not to signal a rapid supply response to the Iran waivers, having a preference -- regardless of President Trump’s consternation -- to let prices drift higher until demand side pressure starts to mount,” he wrote in a note.

“The market has been tunnel (visioned) on Iran sanctions waivers, but we should not lose sight of the swamp in Venezuela nor the tenuous state of affairs in Libya as both these hotspots should continue to support oil prices.”

On currency markets the dollar was down against the pound and euro on slightly improved risk appetite, while other higher-yielding units including the Australian dollar, South African rand and Indonesian rupiah also enjoyed support.

The Semarapura Festival IV will be held on April 28 to May 2.

Take a Note: Semarapura Festival IV Lasts on April 28 – May 2

SEMARAPURA - Regent of Klungkung, I Nyoman Suwirta, accompanied by Deputy Regent I Made Kasta attended the preparation meeting of the Semarapura Festival IV in the Praja Mandala Meeting Room at the office of Klungkung regent recently. Regent Suwirta wanted to finalize the preparation so that later on the implementation can run smoothly and beneficially.

Head of the Klungkung Tourism Office, I Nengah Sukasta, conveyed the Semarapura Festival is a festival held by the Klungkung district government with a greater target for community empowerment coalesced into the MSMEs (Micro, Small and Medium

Enterprises). Besides, it is also meant to maximize the promotion of tourist destinations and city tour programs as one of the prominent program of the Klungkung district government.

The Semarapura Festival IV will be held on April 28 to May 2. On

that occasion, Regent Suwirta hoped that by the end of March the preparation for the Semarapura Festival can have been completed. Information about this festival must also be disseminated both through electronic media and print media.

Meanwhile, Regent Suwirta asked the Klungkung Education Agency to also display Gong Kebyar that will later be staged at the Bali Arts Festival. By that way, the Gong Kebyar of Klungkung envoy can be corrected earlier. He also requested the Jegeg-Bagus Klungkung beauty pageant held at the Semarapura IV Festival can be added with one more category namely Entrepreneur Ambassador. He hoped the Entrepreneur

Ambassador can be the mascot of Klungkung entrepreneur.

Semarapura Festival IV will feature the Telek Jumpai Dance presented by students in Klungkung district. Telek Dance will be danced by junior high and high school students, in collaboration with the Bali provincial government. Regent Suwirta requested that in the performance of the Telek dance can be accompanied barong in four directions. (IBP/net)

Unique Ngaben Tradition at Tegal Ambengan, Tabanan

IBP/kmb

People carrying the bade tower (to hold the corpse) must cross the local river.

TABANAN - Procession of the Ngaben (cremation) ceremony held by residents of Tegal Ambengan customary hamlet, Sudimara, Tabanan, is quite unique. People carrying the bade tower (to hold the corpse) must cross the local river. Meanwhile, cemetery of Tegal Ambengan is located near a tributary (meeting point of two rivers). Precisely, it sits in the east

of Yeh Nu River and in the west of Yeh Empas River that empties out into the area right in front of the cemetery area or the entrance into the cemetery.

Such ceremonial procession has been a local tradition that is remarkably different from other regions in Bali. With the accompaniment of baleganjur music, all residents carrying the bade

tower become wet. Unavoidably, they are soaking wet because they plunge themselves into the river. When arriving at the location, they are very excited while splashing water towards other residents. Local residents claim that the Ngaben procession having to cross the river has been a tradition already passed down through generations. (IBP/net)

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Benin voters boycott polls with only one choice

PORTO-NOVO - People in Benin on Sunday boycotted in large numbers parliamentary polls with no opposition candidate to choose from, as rights groups warned of a crackdown on basic freedoms.

As national radio stations pleaded for voters to “fulfil their duty as citizens” and elect 83 new members of parliament -- choosing from two parties both allied to President Patrice Talon -- the internet was cut.

The small West African state was long held up as a model for democracy, but the country’s main opposition parties were effectively barred from fielding candidates by tough new eligibility rules.

Instead, they asked their supporters to protest by boycotting the polls.

Many of the five million registered voters seemed to stay away, with voting booths in the economic capital Cotonou quiet, streets empty and shops closed all day.

GOH Chai Hin / AFP

In this file photo taken on December 10, 2005, a Chinese giant salamander, the largest in the world, which can grow up to 1,8 meters in length, lies in a glass enclosure during the China International Conservation festival in Zhangjiajie, central China’s Hunan province.

Cute or creepy: why humans love some species, loathe others

PARIS - The Chinese giant salamander, the largest amphibian in the world, is not cute.

Weighing as much as an adult human, it has slimy brown skin, a giant mouth curled to a gormless grin, and puny, mistrustful eyes.

It is also one of the world’s most endangered species.

And yet, unlike its compatriot the giant panda, the giant salamander rarely makes the news.

Why do some animals strike a chord with humans, prompting them to donate millions towards their conservation, while others draw little more than disgust?

And is a sad-eyed panda really worth saving more than a slimy salamander?

Size, intelligence, behaviour, rarity, how closely an animal resembles the human form -- all play a part in our reaction to various endangered creatures.

“One of the biggest factors is ‘cuteness’: physical characteristics such as big eyes and soft features that elicit our parental instincts because they remind us of human infants,” Hal Herzog, emeritus professor at West Carolina University’s Department of Psychology, told AFP. An expert in human-animal relationships, Herzog said the dark rings around pandas’ eyes triggered humans nurturing instincts.

“Compare that to the Chinese giant salamander,” he said. “Google it. It looks like a six-foot-long, 150-pound bag of brown slime with beady little eyes.”

The salamanders are a vital part of their ecosystem, just as worms

are essential to soil health around the steams and lakes they live in -- which is just about everywhere.

Yet, like maggots, rats and snakes, the main instinct they inspire in humans is revulsion.

- ‘Learned’ disgust According to Graham Davey, a specialist in phobias from the University of Sussex’s School of Psychology, we learn to revile certain creatures at a young age.

“Disgust is a learned emotion.

Babies are not born with it... it’s probably transmitted socially, culturally and within families,” he said.

Some animals are reviled due to their resemblance to “primary disgusting things” such as mucus or faeces, Davey said, while others are perceived -- rightly or wrongly -- to pose a direct danger to the beholder.

“In terms of threat to humankind, disease and illness are bigger than being attacked by an animal,” he said.

This might explain why most of us don’t find lions and bears repellant -- they are covered with the same type of soft fur that coat cuddly toys for children, even if it might be better to avoid one in real life.

- An orca by any other name As with most things, popular culture has a huge effect on how

society perceives animals.

Whereas the movie “Free Willy” prompted a wave of sympathy for the protection of endangered orcas, “Arachnophobia” hardly helped spiders’ cause.

See also: “Jaws” for sharks.

Even the depiction of fictional creatures can have a knock-on effect on public perception towards certain animals.

Take the main being in “Alien”, for example.

“Seeing the one from the first film that had that mucus-y drawl dripping from the alien’s mouth... sensitises people to disgusting things,” Davey said.

Nor is it just the public at large who are liable to “speciesism”, or discrimination against other species in favour of our own.

A study in 2017 found a strong correlation between society’s preferred animals and those most studied in scientific research.

“Maybe that’s because it’s easier to get money” to study well-known animals, said Frederic Legendre, a researcher at France’s National History Museum.

And popular species make money in return, according to Christo Fabricius from WWF -- a conservation group indelibly linked to its panda logo.

“Reptiles, for example, are not very marketable,” he said. (afp)

- Internet shutdowns In 10 polling stations visited by AFP in the largely opposition area of Seme-Podji, no more than 35 voters had cast their ballots out of the more than 400 people registered. The situation seemed similar in other parts of Benin visited by AFP reporters.

“We have never seen such a thing,” one election commission official said. “The people have not come out.”

In the run up to polling, protests were broken up by force. Internet access was initially tightly restricted with blocks on the main social media and messaging apps.

Amnesty International called the internet shutdown a “blunt violation of the right to freedom of expression.”

Then later in the day, internet access was shut down entirely.

“It is effectively silencing human rights defenders, journalists and bloggers who are monitoring contested parliamentary elections without opposition candidates,” Amnesty said in a statement.

- ‘Going too far’ Even supporters of the president did not vote.

“I’m not a fierce opponent, I actually support President Talon,” said Wilfrid Pokini, a trader in the capital Porto Novo. “But I do not support this election -- an unopposed election, what is that? It is going too far.”

People say they are “stunned” and “shocked” by the situation, but blanket bans on demonstrations ahead of voting has kept people off the streets.

“The wave of arbitrary arrests of political activists and journalists, and the crackdown on peaceful protests, have reached an alarming level,” Amnesty International researcher Francois Patuel said.

Before 1991, Benin struggled under decades of authoritarian rule. The transition to democracy brought a flowering of political competition -- five years ago, voters could chose from 20 parties for the 83 seats in parliament.

But this year, lawmakers from the ruling party pushed through a new electoral code. (afp)

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

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Many call to conduct comprehensive assessment of Indonesia’s elections

JAKARTA - Indonesia’s simultaneous legislative and presidential elections were not only the largest single-day democratic exercise but also resulted in unexpected martyrs -- 253 polling officers, 55 election supervisors, and 18 police officers -- dying of exhaustion.

The elections, held on Apr 17, added complexity and increased the burden on over 192 eligible voters, who had to decide on their president, vice president, members of the House of Representatives (DPR), senators of the Regional Representative Council (DPD), members of Provincial Legislative Council (DPR I), and members of the District/Municipality Legislative Council (DPRD II).

Indonesia’s foremost simultaneous legislative and presidential elections were chiefly held to save time, reduce energy, and curtail costs, but in reality, the contrary took place, with the execution being frenzied, costly, and siphoning off the lives of 326 executors.

Different parties have vehemently called for conducting a complete and comprehensive assessment of the elections organized in over 810 thousand polling stations across Indonesia and overseas.

“We should hold a total evaluation.

We will ready a format to prioritize electoral efficiency, albeit involving multi-stage execution,” Chairman of Gerindra Party’s Executive Board Ahmad Riza Patria noted in a recent statement.

Patria confirmed that his side had called to conduct an absolute assessment of the elections, with a reported voter turnout of some 80 percent.

“We will conduct an assessment in the Commission II of the House of

Representatives (DPR), along with the Government, General Election Commission (KPU), and Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu), and call for legislative and presidential elections to be held separately next time,” he remarked.

Adopting a similar stance, DPR Speaker Bambang Soesatyo had put forth a formal request to the Indonesian government and KPU to hold a joint assessment of the execution of the 2019 Election.

“This specifically pertains to the call for immediately applying an electoral system that is not financially burdensome, effective, and far from complicated in addition to ensuring that large number of martyrs, in terms of the election organizers, supervisors, and security forces, do not have to pay the ultimate price for the world’s most complicated democratic party,” he remarked, calling on the need to no longer follow the concept of the 2019 elections in future.

Soesatyo opined that the electoral process can be streamlined by putting in place an e-voting system, thus making it redundant for several organizing committees, supervisors, witnesses, and extensive security to procure voting booths, ballot boxes, ballots, and ink.

To this end, the speaker believes that the electoral process can be simplified and expedited, in terms of calculation and recapitulation of

IBP/ant

Yulin Datau, a member of the election committee in Boliyohuto Sub-district in Gorontalo District, keeps working despite her condition that has been hospitalized at the Ainun Habibie Hospital on Monday, April 29, 2019. votes, by the application of an e-voting executors exposes the grim reality long hours, from dawn until 10 p.m. system and also not mean literal death that they were unprepared to execute local time and also extending until the for several of the executors. such a colossal event on a single day,” next morning to continue the ballot “Hence, following the declaration Anggalana, University of Bandarlam- counting process,” he pointed out. of election results on May 22, I appeal pung’s political scientist, stated.

In addition, the KPU should into the KPU to prepare facilities and Anggalana viewed that theoretical- crease the number of polling stations, infrastructure along with conducting ly, the Commission should have been so that on-field officers are not overa comprehensive study of the planned able to execute the elections without burdened on the polling day, he stated. execution of elections and polling any glitches, but those on field were “It is common knowledge that with the application of an e-voting overwhelmed by the tasks at hand. fatigue primarily resulted in the deaths system,” he remarked.

The observer pointed out that of officers,” he remarked.

Soesatyo further appealed to fac- the stress, fatigue, and lack of sleep Anggalana drew attention to the tions in the Indonesian Parliament, while fulfilling their electoral duties fact that a polling station handled 200as an extension of political parties, in the face of time restraints arising 300 eligible voters during the day of to ascertain that the presidential and from adopting the single-day elec- the 2019 concurrent election, when it legislative elections are executed akin tion approach ultimately took toll of should have ideally been serving no to earlier elections. their lives, so henceforth, the ballot more than 100-120 voters to ensure In the meantime, a political ob- counting and polling should be held efficient workflow. server noted that officers, tasked with on separate days.

He also suggested organizing the implementing the elections, were “With over a day in hand, officers next elections digitally if Indonesia ill-prepared to fulfill mammoth tasks will be able to take a break. In the re- would hold another simultaneous entailed in these elections. cently concluded elections, the organiz- election subsequently, with close to “The fatal end of so many election ers literally broke their backs, slogging seven different ballot cards. (ant)

Government discusses plan to move capital

Yanick Folly / AFP

A polling official empties the ballot box at the end of the vote at a polling station during the elections for a new parliament in Cotonou on April 28, 2019.

JAKARTA - The Indonesian government discussed a plan to move capital of the country from Jakarta to other provinces on Monday.

“As a large nation, we should not merely think of short-term and narrow-scope interests but also broader interests for the benefit of the nation and state, as well as visionary interests in the face of global competition,” President Joko Widodo said in his address to a limited meeting on the “Follow up to the Plan to Move the Capital” at the Presidential Office in Jakarta on Monday.

He said the idea of moving the capital of the Republic of Indonesia has been in motion since the era of founding President Soekarno, but the discourse has often seen confusion because it was never decided and implemented in a well-planned and mature way, he said.

He said several countries including Australia, Ma-

laysia, Brazil and South Korea have moved their seats of government.

“To move the capital, we need detailed preparations in terms of selecting an appropriate location by taking into account geopolitics, geostrategy, supporting infrastructure and funding,” he said.

The head of state believed that if preparations were in place, the plan to move the capital could be realized.

Also present at the meeting were Minister of National Development Planning/Head of the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) Bambang Brodjonegoro, Minister of Public Works and Housing Basuki Hadimuljono, Minister of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Syafrudin, Minister of the Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya, Minister of State Enterprises Rini Soemarno, and Minister of Trade Enggartiasto Lukita. (afp)

IBP/ant

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Tuesday, April 30, 2019

International

Warriors edge Rockets, Celtics baffle Bucks in NBA playoffs

Kamasan Village

Traditional Painting Community in Klungkung SEMARAPURA - Kamasan Village is a traditional painting community in Klungkung, East Bali. It is renowned as the place where one of Bali’s famous painting styles originated. Throughout the village you can visit many different painting galleries and family-run workshops. Here, artistic skills have been passed down through generations.

Although works will vary subtly , the Kamasan style is prevalent throughout, featuring visual narratives in the form of wayang (shadow puppet) figures inspired by episodes from favourite Hindu epics, such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

The Kamasan Village of Balinese Painters While Kamasan Village refers to a small community

It is for Job Vacancy, Property, Selling or Buying Please contact

Alexander NEMENOV / AFP

Winner Mercedes’ Finnish driver Valtteri Bottas and third placed Ferrari’s German driver Sebastian Vettel celebrate on the podium after the Formula One Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku on April 28, 2019.

Gloves are off in F1 free-for-all for Bottas, Hamilton

BAKU - Mercedes team chief Toto Wolff has confirmed that the victorious Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton are free to fight for success without the restraints of team orders, as they showed in their scrap to win the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

of painters, it holds a place of great significance in the history and culture of the kingdom of Klungkung, dating back to times when the painters were commissioned by the royal courts. Much of the oldest Kamasan style paintings can be seen adorning the ceilings and walls of the Kerta Gosa ‘hall of justice’ in the centre of Semarapura town. The artform has persisted until today, with much of the detailed lines and shadings in natural dyes of red and ochre applied onto cloth, bark, and more recently, canvas. A unique aspect of Kamasan paintings in public installations is that they are painted collaboratively, hence are anonymous. The production of these works also follow strict rules, such as when to start a project, what to feature and how to depict certain episodes, since they all carry religious significace. You can also witness the creation of more contemporary art pieces at various studios throughout the village and even take up a brush and learn some strokes yourself.

A fine quality, 1-meter scroll of Kamasan art sells from around IDR 2.5 million apiece. (IBP/net)

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WASHINGTON - Kevin Durant scored 35 points to lead the defending champion Golden State Warriors over Houston 104-100 Sunday while Boston ripped Milwaukee in the openers of their NBA second-round playoff matchups.

Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, each playing despite right ankle injuries, scored 18 and 13 points respectively while Andre Iguodala and Draymond Green each added 14 as the Warriors jumped ahead in the best-of-seven Western Conference playoff series.

James Harden led Houston with 35 points while Eric Gordon added 27 and Chris Paul contributed 17 in a losing cause, the Rockets hitting only 41.9 percent from the floor.

“We just made them shoot tough shots,” Durant said. “I think our defense won this game.”

At Milwaukee, Kyrie Irving and Al Horford sparked the Boston Celtics to a 112-90 victory. Irving had game highs of 26 points and 11 assists while Horford scored 20 points, grabbed 11 rebounds and blocked three shots.

The Warriors had lost their two prior playoff home games to the Los Angeles Clippers before escaping the first round, but hung on down the stretch to halt that unwanted streak.

Curry sank a 3-pointer to give the Warriors a five-point lead with 25 seconds remaining, but Harden answered with a dunk with lift the Rockets within 103-100 with 21 seconds remaining.

Houston forced a turnover but Harden missed a 3-pointer and Paul got the rebound but then made a turnover and was ejected after a technical foul with four seconds remaining, Curry sinking a free throw to create the final victory margin.

“Just getting more opportunities,” Durant said of his performance.

“We’ve got to win every matchup. We’ll bring the focus again Tuesday (for game two).” (afp)

Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images/AFP

Kevin Durant #35 of the Golden State Warriors drives to the basket on Iman Shumpert #1 of the Houston Rockets during Game One of the Second Round of the 2019 NBA Western Conference Playoffs at ORACLE Arena on April 28, 2019 in Oakland, California.

The pair battled wheel to wheel on the opening lap on Sunday and were fighting hard again in the closing stages when defending champion Hamilton put Bottas under pressure as they closed out an unprecedented fourth consecutive season-opening one-two triumph.

In contrast to Ferrari, where team orders have been used frequently this season, Mercedes have handed responsibility to the drivers and not felt any need to ask them to hold positions.

“We let them race,” said Wolff. “They are experienced.

They know that the racing must be clean. Lap one was very clean –- and this is a track where we mustn’t take crazy risks because you could lose both cars.

“When we talk to them, it’s always open and everyone can hear them, but then, obviously, you have the intercom too which is only an internal line.

“But I was not talking to the drivers. If I push the driver button, I know it myself –- so I am not giving myself permission to talk to them because I get emotional and then, sometimes, regret what I say.”

Instead, said Wolff, his pitwall team hold a discussion about their strategy and how the race is unfolding.

“We acknowledged that it could get a little bit racy at the end, but we didn’t talk to them.”

- Amazing Mercedes’ success on the streets of Baku made them the first team in modern times to reel off four season-opening one-twos.

Ferrari had six consecutive one-twos in 1952 when the world championship included, officially, the Indianapolis 500, which they did not enter as it was run under different regulations.

The American event was the second race of the calendar and predictably was dominated by American teams and drivers who took no part in the rest of the series.

The modern Mercedes team enjoyed 12 one-twos overall in 2015, but were beaten by Sebastian Vettel in a Ferrari at the second race held in Malaysia.

“It’s amazing that we can break a record now in our sixth

year, trying to push the boundaries, but also trying to keep both feet on the ground and not to be too self-confident,” said Wolff.

“It’s fantastic.”

After four races this season, Bottas and Hamilton have two wins apiece with the Finn ahead by one point courtesy of the fastest lap he clocked at the seasonopening Australian Grand Prix.

Hamilton admitted he faced a much stronger team-mate this year than last after Sunday’s race.

“Valtteri has really stepped up this year,” he said. “He is happy in the car and he is driving fantastically well. It is going to take a really great performance to out-perform him.”

His words echoed the feelings of Ferrari team chief Mattia Binotto.

After seeing Vettel finish third behind the Mercedes men, he conceded: “Four races into the season, obviously they are very strong – no wins for Ferrari and four for Mercedes...

“But I think that the gap is not as big as the points suggest. Certainly, they have a slightly better car, but the positions don’t really show our true potential.” (afp)

8

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Angry Zidane apologises after Madrid lose to struggling Rayo MADRID - Zinedine Zidane apologised and said he wished Real Madrid’s miserable season would end now after they were beaten by 19th-placed Rayo Vallecano on Sunday.

Madrid’s response to Barcelona winning the title on Saturday night was to slip to a 1-0 defeat at Vallecas and fall 18 points behind La Liga’s newlycrowned champions.

Zidane took over knowi n g M a d r i d ’s t i t l e challenge was

all-but extinguished but the difference on Barca then was 12 points while catching Atletico Madrid, now nine ahead, seemed achievable.

Adri Embarba’s penalty, given after consultation with VAR, was enough for Rayo, who move to within six points of survival, with three games left to play.

“Today we did nothing,” Zidane said. “From minute one until the end, at all levels. Sometimes you cannot score but today we did not even create chances, did not play at all.

“We must be very angry. I am angry, because the image we gave off today was bad. I am responsible for this as well, not just the players.

But we have to apologise for our performance today, all of us.”

The gap widens between them and Barcelona, whose players had been dancing on the pitch at Camp Nou the night before and posing for photos with their children after wrapping up a fourth La Liga title in five years.

Asked if he would like the season to end now, Zidane said: “Yes, but we have to play these three games and do something different.

We cannot end like this.

“It is about me as well, today what I did in the shape of the team, it didn’t work at all.

We must respect football and what this club represents.”

Not since March 31 has anyone except Karim Benzema, out with a hamstring injury,

scored for Madrid, who created precious few chances against a Rayo side that have conceded 62 goals this term. No side in the division has shipped more.

Zidane said last week that the league would be the club’s first priority from August but, even with new signings and fresh motivation, it could prove difficult to flick the switch. Madrid’s winning habit has long-been lost.

Rayo’s last victory over Real at Vallecas was in 1997, by the same scoreline, and this time they were without their top scorer too, Raul de Tomas, who is on loan from Madrid and ineligible to face his parent club.

Zidane handed Gareth Bale another chance but he struggled to impress while Thibaut Courtois made his first start under the Frenchman, in ahead of Keylor Navas.

Rayo won their penalty in the 23rd minue as referee Pablo Gonzalez took advice from VAR before judging Jesus Vallejo to have hauled down Javi Guerra in the box. Embarba made no mistake.

Madrid wanted their own spot-kick when Mariano Diaz took a tumble from a corner but Gonzalez was unmoved, and the second half was surprisingly comfortable for Rayo.

Bale’s free-kick was palmed away by Garcia while Zidane threw on Brahim Diaz, Lucas Vazquez and Isco in search of some inspiration.

It never came. (afp)

Torino beat Milan for first time since 2001 as Mertens equals Maradona

ROME - Torino claimed a first Serie A victory over AC Milan in 18 years on Sunday as the race for Champions League places in Italy took a dramatic twist.

Goals from Andrea Belotti and Alex Berenguer gave Torino the three points in a game which also saw Milan defender Alessio Romagnoli sent-off late on.

Torino moved into sixth place in the table, two points behind Roma who occupy the fourth and final Champions League qualifying spot.

Defeat for Milan meant they have slipped to seventh, currently out of even the Europa League spots.

Belotti put Torino in front from the penalty spot in the 58th minute after a foul by Milan’s Ivory Coast midfielder Franck Kessie on Armando Izzo.

Spanish winger Berenguer added the second after 69 minutes with a right-foot shot from the side of the penalty area.

Lazio kept their hopes of Champions League football alive

after Felipe Caicedo’s early brace saw them to a 2-1 win at Sampdoria, while Dries Mertens moved level with Diego Maradona in Napoli’s all-time Serie A scoring list after bagging his 81st league strike in their 2-0 win at Frosinone.

Simone Inzaghi’s Lazio are in eighth but one of six teams contesting the final two Champions League spots, and they moved to within three points of the top four after an action-packed clash in Genoa which also saw veteran striker Fabio Quagliarella extend his lead at the top of the scoring charts.

Caicedo opened the scoring in the third minute with a smart finish after beating Omar Colley and made it two in 16 minutes later with a deft header from Romulo’s cross.

That second goal proved just about enough for the away side, who survived a eventful second half in which Quagliarella crashed home his 23rd league goal of the season.

The win means that Lazio closed the gap on local rivals Roma, who despite a wildly inconsistent season currently occupy the final Champions League spot following Saturday’s comfortable 3-0 home win over Cagliari, their best display since interim coach Claudio Ranieri took over from sacked Eusebio Di Francesco in March.

They are just four points behind Inter Milan, who drew 1-1 with newly-crowned champions Juventus on Saturday.

- Mertens joins Maradona After the win Ranieri said that he would be “super happy” for Antonio Conte to succeed him amid speculation the club have lined up a three-year contract worth 9.5 million euros ($10.6 million) a season to tempt the former Juventus, Chelsea and Italy manager to the Italian capital.

The 67-year-old later told reporters that he would “pick him up at the airport” if Conte decided to sign for Roma, Ranieri’s boyhood club.

MARCO BERTORELLO / AFP

AC Milan’s forward Patrick Cutrone (L) vies for the ball with Torino’s Italian defender Lorenzo De Silvestri during the Italian Serie A football match between Torino and AC Milan on April 28, 2019 at the Grande Torino stadium in Turin.

Second-placed Napoli closed in on next season’s Champions League thanks to Mertens’ smart 19th-minute free-kick -- making the Belgian Napoli’s joint third-highest

Serie A scorer alongside Maradona -- and Amin Younes’ simple finish three minutes after the break, which pushed Frosinone to the brink of relegation. (afp)

9

Lille close on Champions League return with Nimes thrashing

PARIS - Lille moved closer to a return to the Champions League group stage for the first time since 2012 as Christophe Galtier’s side produced a fine second-half display to thrash Nimes 5-0 on Sunday.

Five different players scored after the break as Lille moved six points clear of third-placed Lyon, who they face next weekend, in Ligue 1. The top two in France qualify directly for the Champions League.

“We’re averaging two points a game,” said Galtier. “We’ve had a magnificent season, we must make it exceptional by producing a big performance in Lyon next Sunday.”

Former Chelsea forward Loic Remy broke the deadlock six minutes after half-time at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy.

Jonathan Bamba made it two with a magnificent header 13 minutes later.

Turkish full-back Zeki Celik lobbed in the third with 20 minutes to play and Nicolas Pepe tapped in his 20th Ligue 1 goal of the season 10 minutes later.

Substitute Rui Fonte to drilled home an injury-time fifth, leaving Lille on the brink of Europe’s top table.

Oli SCARFF / AFP

Manchester City’s Spanish manager Pep Guardiola (R) shakes hands with Burnley’s English manager Sean Dyche (L) at the end of the English Premier League football match between Burnley and Manchester City at Turf Moor in Burnley, north west England on April 28, 2019.

Guardiola hails ‘legend’ Aguero as Man City inch closer to title

BURNLEY - Pep Guardiola declared Sergio Aguero “a legend” after the forward became the first player since Thierry Henry to score 20 Premier League goals in five successive seasons.

Aguero struck in the 63rd minute to secure Manchester City’s 1-0 win away to Burnley at Turf Moor on Sunday that saw the English champions return to the top of the table.

City’s 12th successive league victory took them to 92 points, one clear of second-placed Liverpool with both clubs still having two league matches each to play this season.

Aguero has managed 230 goals in eight years with City, making him far and away the club’s all-time top scorer, and the 30-year-old Argentina striker has played a key role in the three league titles they have won during that period.

“He is a legend; he does that all the time, score important goals for us,” Guardiola said.

“He is an incredible player.”

City remain on course to finish the season with an unprecedented domestic treble; having won the League Cup in February, they return to Wembley to play Watford in the FA Cup final on May 18.

Failure to defeat Burnley

would have handed Liverpool the initiative in the title race, but City overcame spirited opposition to keep matters in their own hands.

Aguero, who had seen an earlier chance blocked by Tom Heaton, scored after turning on to Bernardo Silva’s low cross and fashioning a shot that Matt Lowton looked to have blocked, only for the ball to loop up off the defender’s chest and cross the line before he could clear it -- although goal-line technology was needed before the goal was awarded.

City were denied a second by a superb goal-line clearance from Ben Mee, who stretched to clear off the line after substitute Gabriel Jesus had rounded Heaton.

Guardiola was delighted with the solidity of his team, who won without their key midfielder Fernandinho and the creativity of Kevin de Bruyne.

“Here in the most typical English stadium, we didn’t concede one corner,” Guardiola said.

“It is not easy, especially after our (Champions League) defeat against Tottenham, but our reaction has been outstanding, without Kevin, without Fernandinho, to come here and play the way we played.”

The former Barcelona and Bay-

ern Munich boss added: “There are just two games left. It is tough for Liverpool, it is tough for us -– with 91, 92 points, still not champions.”

Guardiola suggested that City’s task at Turf Moor was made tougher by the dryness of the pitch, although he made clear this was not a complaint.

“In the first half, the pitch was so dry and we had problems moving the ball because the grass was so high,” Guardiola explained.

“But when the opponents come to the Etihad Stadium, we put the stadium like we want. When we go away, they do what they want. That is why I like the Premier League.”

Burnley had little more than 30 percent possession, yet still had the best first-half chance, with Chris Wood failing to control Jeff Hendrick’s through ball and allowing goalkeeper Ederson off his line to smother.

City, who piled intense pressure on Burnley’s goal in the first 20 minutes of the second half, did sit off to protect their lead after that -- a source of pride for Burnley boss Sean Dyche.

“In the closing minutes, I heard Pep Guardiola screaming ‘get it in the corner’,” said Dyche.

“Even the best sides have to do it. I thought it was refreshing to hear a top manager scream that to his players.” (afp)

- Saint-Etienne keep pressure on Lyon Elsewhere, fourth-placed Saint-Etienne kept the pressure on Lyon in the race for a Champions League qualifying-round spot, as Robert Beric’s early double secured a 2-0 win over Toulouse.

The Slovenian striker diverted in Pierre-Yves Polomat’s low cross to put Les Verts ahead in only the second minute.

Beric slotted in his second only eight minutes later as Wahbi Khazri unselfishly squared the ball.

Saint-Etienne are only three points adrift of Lyon with four games of the season remaining, while Marseille sit five points further back in fifth place.

Marseille’s Champions League hopes all but came to an end, though, as Rudi Garcia’s men slipped to a 2-1 home defeat by Nantes later on Sunday despite Mario Balotelli’s sixth goal in seven games at the Stade Velodrome for the club.

Samuel Moutoussamy curled Nantes into a 22nd-minute lead, but Balotelli headed home Lucas Ocampos’ excellent right-wing cross to level only three minutes later.

Brazilian Andrei Girotto, who had been sent off three times in his previous four league games, made some amends for those dismissals by bundling in the winner for Nantes less than five minutes after half-time.

Marseille remain eight points adrift of Lyon, and now face an uphill battle just to reach the Europa League.

Balotelli called on his teammates to keep fighting, but stopped short of fully committing his future to Marseille, despite only joining the club in January.

“Nothing is lost. I was champion of England in the last minute (with Manchester City in 2012),” said Balotelli, who was substituted in the 68th minute.

“We must believe until the end. I must finish the championship first before talking about my future.”

Algerian Youcef Atal scored a hat-trick as Patrick Vieira’s Nice beat bottom club Guingamp 3-0 to keep their hopes of reaching the Europa League alive. (afp)

PHILIPPE HUGUEN / AFP

Lille’s Ivorian forward Nicolas Pepe (L) celebrates after scoring a goal during the French L1 football match between Lille (LOSC) and Nimes Olympique at the Pierre-Mauroy Stadium in Villenueve d’Ascq, northern France on April 28, 2019.

8

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Angry Zidane apologises after Madrid lose to struggling Rayo MADRID - Zinedine Zidane apologised and said he wished Real Madrid’s miserable season would end now after they were beaten by 19th-placed Rayo Vallecano on Sunday.

Madrid’s response to Barcelona winning the title on Saturday night was to slip to a 1-0 defeat at Vallecas and fall 18 points behind La Liga’s newlycrowned champions.

Zidane took over knowi n g M a d r i d ’s t i t l e challenge was

all-but extinguished but the difference on Barca then was 12 points while catching Atletico Madrid, now nine ahead, seemed achievable.

Adri Embarba’s penalty, given after consultation with VAR, was enough for Rayo, who move to within six points of survival, with three games left to play.

“Today we did nothing,” Zidane said. “From minute one until the end, at all levels. Sometimes you cannot score but today we did not even create chances, did not play at all.

“We must be very angry. I am angry, because the image we gave off today was bad. I am responsible for this as well, not just the players.

But we have to apologise for our performance today, all of us.”

The gap widens between them and Barcelona, whose players had been dancing on the pitch at Camp Nou the night before and posing for photos with their children after wrapping up a fourth La Liga title in five years.

Asked if he would like the season to end now, Zidane said: “Yes, but we have to play these three games and do something different.

We cannot end like this.

“It is about me as well, today what I did in the shape of the team, it didn’t work at all.

We must respect football and what this club represents.”

Not since March 31 has anyone except Karim Benzema, out with a hamstring injury,

scored for Madrid, who created precious few chances against a Rayo side that have conceded 62 goals this term. No side in the division has shipped more.

Zidane said last week that the league would be the club’s first priority from August but, even with new signings and fresh motivation, it could prove difficult to flick the switch. Madrid’s winning habit has long-been lost.

Rayo’s last victory over Real at Vallecas was in 1997, by the same scoreline, and this time they were without their top scorer too, Raul de Tomas, who is on loan from Madrid and ineligible to face his parent club.

Zidane handed Gareth Bale another chance but he struggled to impress while Thibaut Courtois made his first start under the Frenchman, in ahead of Keylor Navas.

Rayo won their penalty in the 23rd minue as referee Pablo Gonzalez took advice from VAR before judging Jesus Vallejo to have hauled down Javi Guerra in the box. Embarba made no mistake.

Madrid wanted their own spot-kick when Mariano Diaz took a tumble from a corner but Gonzalez was unmoved, and the second half was surprisingly comfortable for Rayo.

Bale’s free-kick was palmed away by Garcia while Zidane threw on Brahim Diaz, Lucas Vazquez and Isco in search of some inspiration.

It never came. (afp)

Torino beat Milan for first time since 2001 as Mertens equals Maradona

ROME - Torino claimed a first Serie A victory over AC Milan in 18 years on Sunday as the race for Champions League places in Italy took a dramatic twist.

Goals from Andrea Belotti and Alex Berenguer gave Torino the three points in a game which also saw Milan defender Alessio Romagnoli sent-off late on.

Torino moved into sixth place in the table, two points behind Roma who occupy the fourth and final Champions League qualifying spot.

Defeat for Milan meant they have slipped to seventh, currently out of even the Europa League spots.

Belotti put Torino in front from the penalty spot in the 58th minute after a foul by Milan’s Ivory Coast midfielder Franck Kessie on Armando Izzo.

Spanish winger Berenguer added the second after 69 minutes with a right-foot shot from the side of the penalty area.

Lazio kept their hopes of Champions League football alive

after Felipe Caicedo’s early brace saw them to a 2-1 win at Sampdoria, while Dries Mertens moved level with Diego Maradona in Napoli’s all-time Serie A scoring list after bagging his 81st league strike in their 2-0 win at Frosinone.

Simone Inzaghi’s Lazio are in eighth but one of six teams contesting the final two Champions League spots, and they moved to within three points of the top four after an action-packed clash in Genoa which also saw veteran striker Fabio Quagliarella extend his lead at the top of the scoring charts.

Caicedo opened the scoring in the third minute with a smart finish after beating Omar Colley and made it two in 16 minutes later with a deft header from Romulo’s cross.

That second goal proved just about enough for the away side, who survived a eventful second half in which Quagliarella crashed home his 23rd league goal of the season.

The win means that Lazio closed the gap on local rivals Roma, who despite a wildly inconsistent season currently occupy the final Champions League spot following Saturday’s comfortable 3-0 home win over Cagliari, their best display since interim coach Claudio Ranieri took over from sacked Eusebio Di Francesco in March.

They are just four points behind Inter Milan, who drew 1-1 with newly-crowned champions Juventus on Saturday.

- Mertens joins Maradona After the win Ranieri said that he would be “super happy” for Antonio Conte to succeed him amid speculation the club have lined up a three-year contract worth 9.5 million euros ($10.6 million) a season to tempt the former Juventus, Chelsea and Italy manager to the Italian capital.

The 67-year-old later told reporters that he would “pick him up at the airport” if Conte decided to sign for Roma, Ranieri’s boyhood club.

MARCO BERTORELLO / AFP

AC Milan’s forward Patrick Cutrone (L) vies for the ball with Torino’s Italian defender Lorenzo De Silvestri during the Italian Serie A football match between Torino and AC Milan on April 28, 2019 at the Grande Torino stadium in Turin.

Second-placed Napoli closed in on next season’s Champions League thanks to Mertens’ smart 19th-minute free-kick -- making the Belgian Napoli’s joint third-highest

Serie A scorer alongside Maradona -- and Amin Younes’ simple finish three minutes after the break, which pushed Frosinone to the brink of relegation. (afp)

9

Lille close on Champions League return with Nimes thrashing

PARIS - Lille moved closer to a return to the Champions League group stage for the first time since 2012 as Christophe Galtier’s side produced a fine second-half display to thrash Nimes 5-0 on Sunday.

Five different players scored after the break as Lille moved six points clear of third-placed Lyon, who they face next weekend, in Ligue 1. The top two in France qualify directly for the Champions League.

“We’re averaging two points a game,” said Galtier. “We’ve had a magnificent season, we must make it exceptional by producing a big performance in Lyon next Sunday.”

Former Chelsea forward Loic Remy broke the deadlock six minutes after half-time at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy.

Jonathan Bamba made it two with a magnificent header 13 minutes later.

Turkish full-back Zeki Celik lobbed in the third with 20 minutes to play and Nicolas Pepe tapped in his 20th Ligue 1 goal of the season 10 minutes later.

Substitute Rui Fonte to drilled home an injury-time fifth, leaving Lille on the brink of Europe’s top table.

Oli SCARFF / AFP

Manchester City’s Spanish manager Pep Guardiola (R) shakes hands with Burnley’s English manager Sean Dyche (L) at the end of the English Premier League football match between Burnley and Manchester City at Turf Moor in Burnley, north west England on April 28, 2019.

Guardiola hails ‘legend’ Aguero as Man City inch closer to title

BURNLEY - Pep Guardiola declared Sergio Aguero “a legend” after the forward became the first player since Thierry Henry to score 20 Premier League goals in five successive seasons.

Aguero struck in the 63rd minute to secure Manchester City’s 1-0 win away to Burnley at Turf Moor on Sunday that saw the English champions return to the top of the table.

City’s 12th successive league victory took them to 92 points, one clear of second-placed Liverpool with both clubs still having two league matches each to play this season.

Aguero has managed 230 goals in eight years with City, making him far and away the club’s all-time top scorer, and the 30-year-old Argentina striker has played a key role in the three league titles they have won during that period.

“He is a legend; he does that all the time, score important goals for us,” Guardiola said.

“He is an incredible player.”

City remain on course to finish the season with an unprecedented domestic treble; having won the League Cup in February, they return to Wembley to play Watford in the FA Cup final on May 18.

Failure to defeat Burnley

would have handed Liverpool the initiative in the title race, but City overcame spirited opposition to keep matters in their own hands.

Aguero, who had seen an earlier chance blocked by Tom Heaton, scored after turning on to Bernardo Silva’s low cross and fashioning a shot that Matt Lowton looked to have blocked, only for the ball to loop up off the defender’s chest and cross the line before he could clear it -- although goal-line technology was needed before the goal was awarded.

City were denied a second by a superb goal-line clearance from Ben Mee, who stretched to clear off the line after substitute Gabriel Jesus had rounded Heaton.

Guardiola was delighted with the solidity of his team, who won without their key midfielder Fernandinho and the creativity of Kevin de Bruyne.

“Here in the most typical English stadium, we didn’t concede one corner,” Guardiola said.

“It is not easy, especially after our (Champions League) defeat against Tottenham, but our reaction has been outstanding, without Kevin, without Fernandinho, to come here and play the way we played.”

The former Barcelona and Bay-

ern Munich boss added: “There are just two games left. It is tough for Liverpool, it is tough for us -– with 91, 92 points, still not champions.”

Guardiola suggested that City’s task at Turf Moor was made tougher by the dryness of the pitch, although he made clear this was not a complaint.

“In the first half, the pitch was so dry and we had problems moving the ball because the grass was so high,” Guardiola explained.

“But when the opponents come to the Etihad Stadium, we put the stadium like we want. When we go away, they do what they want. That is why I like the Premier League.”

Burnley had little more than 30 percent possession, yet still had the best first-half chance, with Chris Wood failing to control Jeff Hendrick’s through ball and allowing goalkeeper Ederson off his line to smother.

City, who piled intense pressure on Burnley’s goal in the first 20 minutes of the second half, did sit off to protect their lead after that -- a source of pride for Burnley boss Sean Dyche.

“In the closing minutes, I heard Pep Guardiola screaming ‘get it in the corner’,” said Dyche.

“Even the best sides have to do it. I thought it was refreshing to hear a top manager scream that to his players.” (afp)

- Saint-Etienne keep pressure on Lyon Elsewhere, fourth-placed Saint-Etienne kept the pressure on Lyon in the race for a Champions League qualifying-round spot, as Robert Beric’s early double secured a 2-0 win over Toulouse.

The Slovenian striker diverted in Pierre-Yves Polomat’s low cross to put Les Verts ahead in only the second minute.

Beric slotted in his second only eight minutes later as Wahbi Khazri unselfishly squared the ball.

Saint-Etienne are only three points adrift of Lyon with four games of the season remaining, while Marseille sit five points further back in fifth place.

Marseille’s Champions League hopes all but came to an end, though, as Rudi Garcia’s men slipped to a 2-1 home defeat by Nantes later on Sunday despite Mario Balotelli’s sixth goal in seven games at the Stade Velodrome for the club.

Samuel Moutoussamy curled Nantes into a 22nd-minute lead, but Balotelli headed home Lucas Ocampos’ excellent right-wing cross to level only three minutes later.

Brazilian Andrei Girotto, who had been sent off three times in his previous four league games, made some amends for those dismissals by bundling in the winner for Nantes less than five minutes after half-time.

Marseille remain eight points adrift of Lyon, and now face an uphill battle just to reach the Europa League.

Balotelli called on his teammates to keep fighting, but stopped short of fully committing his future to Marseille, despite only joining the club in January.

“Nothing is lost. I was champion of England in the last minute (with Manchester City in 2012),” said Balotelli, who was substituted in the 68th minute.

“We must believe until the end. I must finish the championship first before talking about my future.”

Algerian Youcef Atal scored a hat-trick as Patrick Vieira’s Nice beat bottom club Guingamp 3-0 to keep their hopes of reaching the Europa League alive. (afp)

PHILIPPE HUGUEN / AFP

Lille’s Ivorian forward Nicolas Pepe (L) celebrates after scoring a goal during the French L1 football match between Lille (LOSC) and Nimes Olympique at the Pierre-Mauroy Stadium in Villenueve d’Ascq, northern France on April 28, 2019.

10

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Destination

International

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

International

Warriors edge Rockets, Celtics baffle Bucks in NBA playoffs

Kamasan Village

Traditional Painting Community in Klungkung SEMARAPURA - Kamasan Village is a traditional painting community in Klungkung, East Bali. It is renowned as the place where one of Bali’s famous painting styles originated. Throughout the village you can visit many different painting galleries and family-run workshops. Here, artistic skills have been passed down through generations.

Although works will vary subtly , the Kamasan style is prevalent throughout, featuring visual narratives in the form of wayang (shadow puppet) figures inspired by episodes from favourite Hindu epics, such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

The Kamasan Village of Balinese Painters While Kamasan Village refers to a small community

It is for Job Vacancy, Property, Selling or Buying Please contact

Alexander NEMENOV / AFP

Winner Mercedes’ Finnish driver Valtteri Bottas and third placed Ferrari’s German driver Sebastian Vettel celebrate on the podium after the Formula One Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku on April 28, 2019.

Gloves are off in F1 free-for-all for Bottas, Hamilton

BAKU - Mercedes team chief Toto Wolff has confirmed that the victorious Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton are free to fight for success without the restraints of team orders, as they showed in their scrap to win the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

of painters, it holds a place of great significance in the history and culture of the kingdom of Klungkung, dating back to times when the painters were commissioned by the royal courts. Much of the oldest Kamasan style paintings can be seen adorning the ceilings and walls of the Kerta Gosa ‘hall of justice’ in the centre of Semarapura town. The artform has persisted until today, with much of the detailed lines and shadings in natural dyes of red and ochre applied onto cloth, bark, and more recently, canvas. A unique aspect of Kamasan paintings in public installations is that they are painted collaboratively, hence are anonymous. The production of these works also follow strict rules, such as when to start a project, what to feature and how to depict certain episodes, since they all carry religious significace. You can also witness the creation of more contemporary art pieces at various studios throughout the village and even take up a brush and learn some strokes yourself.

A fine quality, 1-meter scroll of Kamasan art sells from around IDR 2.5 million apiece. (IBP/net)

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WASHINGTON - Kevin Durant scored 35 points to lead the defending champion Golden State Warriors over Houston 104-100 Sunday while Boston ripped Milwaukee in the openers of their NBA second-round playoff matchups.

Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, each playing despite right ankle injuries, scored 18 and 13 points respectively while Andre Iguodala and Draymond Green each added 14 as the Warriors jumped ahead in the best-of-seven Western Conference playoff series.

James Harden led Houston with 35 points while Eric Gordon added 27 and Chris Paul contributed 17 in a losing cause, the Rockets hitting only 41.9 percent from the floor.

“We just made them shoot tough shots,” Durant said. “I think our defense won this game.”

At Milwaukee, Kyrie Irving and Al Horford sparked the Boston Celtics to a 112-90 victory. Irving had game highs of 26 points and 11 assists while Horford scored 20 points, grabbed 11 rebounds and blocked three shots.

The Warriors had lost their two prior playoff home games to the Los Angeles Clippers before escaping the first round, but hung on down the stretch to halt that unwanted streak.

Curry sank a 3-pointer to give the Warriors a five-point lead with 25 seconds remaining, but Harden answered with a dunk with lift the Rockets within 103-100 with 21 seconds remaining.

Houston forced a turnover but Harden missed a 3-pointer and Paul got the rebound but then made a turnover and was ejected after a technical foul with four seconds remaining, Curry sinking a free throw to create the final victory margin.

“Just getting more opportunities,” Durant said of his performance.

“We’ve got to win every matchup. We’ll bring the focus again Tuesday (for game two).” (afp)

Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images/AFP

Kevin Durant #35 of the Golden State Warriors drives to the basket on Iman Shumpert #1 of the Houston Rockets during Game One of the Second Round of the 2019 NBA Western Conference Playoffs at ORACLE Arena on April 28, 2019 in Oakland, California.

The pair battled wheel to wheel on the opening lap on Sunday and were fighting hard again in the closing stages when defending champion Hamilton put Bottas under pressure as they closed out an unprecedented fourth consecutive season-opening one-two triumph.

In contrast to Ferrari, where team orders have been used frequently this season, Mercedes have handed responsibility to the drivers and not felt any need to ask them to hold positions.

“We let them race,” said Wolff. “They are experienced.

They know that the racing must be clean. Lap one was very clean –- and this is a track where we mustn’t take crazy risks because you could lose both cars.

“When we talk to them, it’s always open and everyone can hear them, but then, obviously, you have the intercom too which is only an internal line.

“But I was not talking to the drivers. If I push the driver button, I know it myself –- so I am not giving myself permission to talk to them because I get emotional and then, sometimes, regret what I say.”

Instead, said Wolff, his pitwall team hold a discussion about their strategy and how the race is unfolding.

“We acknowledged that it could get a little bit racy at the end, but we didn’t talk to them.”

- Amazing Mercedes’ success on the streets of Baku made them the first team in modern times to reel off four season-opening one-twos.

Ferrari had six consecutive one-twos in 1952 when the world championship included, officially, the Indianapolis 500, which they did not enter as it was run under different regulations.

The American event was the second race of the calendar and predictably was dominated by American teams and drivers who took no part in the rest of the series.

The modern Mercedes team enjoyed 12 one-twos overall in 2015, but were beaten by Sebastian Vettel in a Ferrari at the second race held in Malaysia.

“It’s amazing that we can break a record now in our sixth

year, trying to push the boundaries, but also trying to keep both feet on the ground and not to be too self-confident,” said Wolff.

“It’s fantastic.”

After four races this season, Bottas and Hamilton have two wins apiece with the Finn ahead by one point courtesy of the fastest lap he clocked at the seasonopening Australian Grand Prix.

Hamilton admitted he faced a much stronger team-mate this year than last after Sunday’s race.

“Valtteri has really stepped up this year,” he said. “He is happy in the car and he is driving fantastically well. It is going to take a really great performance to out-perform him.”

His words echoed the feelings of Ferrari team chief Mattia Binotto.

After seeing Vettel finish third behind the Mercedes men, he conceded: “Four races into the season, obviously they are very strong – no wins for Ferrari and four for Mercedes...

“But I think that the gap is not as big as the points suggest. Certainly, they have a slightly better car, but the positions don’t really show our true potential.” (afp)

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International

International

Benin voters boycott polls with only one choice

PORTO-NOVO - People in Benin on Sunday boycotted in large numbers parliamentary polls with no opposition candidate to choose from, as rights groups warned of a crackdown on basic freedoms.

As national radio stations pleaded for voters to “fulfil their duty as citizens” and elect 83 new members of parliament -- choosing from two parties both allied to President Patrice Talon -- the internet was cut.

The small West African state was long held up as a model for democracy, but the country’s main opposition parties were effectively barred from fielding candidates by tough new eligibility rules.

Instead, they asked their supporters to protest by boycotting the polls.

Many of the five million registered voters seemed to stay away, with voting booths in the economic capital Cotonou quiet, streets empty and shops closed all day.

GOH Chai Hin / AFP

In this file photo taken on December 10, 2005, a Chinese giant salamander, the largest in the world, which can grow up to 1,8 meters in length, lies in a glass enclosure during the China International Conservation festival in Zhangjiajie, central China’s Hunan province.

Cute or creepy: why humans love some species, loathe others

PARIS - The Chinese giant salamander, the largest amphibian in the world, is not cute.

Weighing as much as an adult human, it has slimy brown skin, a giant mouth curled to a gormless grin, and puny, mistrustful eyes.

It is also one of the world’s most endangered species.

And yet, unlike its compatriot the giant panda, the giant salamander rarely makes the news.

Why do some animals strike a chord with humans, prompting them to donate millions towards their conservation, while others draw little more than disgust?

And is a sad-eyed panda really worth saving more than a slimy salamander?

Size, intelligence, behaviour, rarity, how closely an animal resembles the human form -- all play a part in our reaction to various endangered creatures.

“One of the biggest factors is ‘cuteness’: physical characteristics such as big eyes and soft features that elicit our parental instincts because they remind us of human infants,” Hal Herzog, emeritus professor at West Carolina University’s Department of Psychology, told AFP. An expert in human-animal relationships, Herzog said the dark rings around pandas’ eyes triggered humans nurturing instincts.

“Compare that to the Chinese giant salamander,” he said. “Google it. It looks like a six-foot-long, 150-pound bag of brown slime with beady little eyes.”

The salamanders are a vital part of their ecosystem, just as worms

are essential to soil health around the steams and lakes they live in -- which is just about everywhere.

Yet, like maggots, rats and snakes, the main instinct they inspire in humans is revulsion.

- ‘Learned’ disgust According to Graham Davey, a specialist in phobias from the University of Sussex’s School of Psychology, we learn to revile certain creatures at a young age.

“Disgust is a learned emotion.

Babies are not born with it... it’s probably transmitted socially, culturally and within families,” he said.

Some animals are reviled due to their resemblance to “primary disgusting things” such as mucus or faeces, Davey said, while others are perceived -- rightly or wrongly -- to pose a direct danger to the beholder.

“In terms of threat to humankind, disease and illness are bigger than being attacked by an animal,” he said.

This might explain why most of us don’t find lions and bears repellant -- they are covered with the same type of soft fur that coat cuddly toys for children, even if it might be better to avoid one in real life.

- An orca by any other name As with most things, popular culture has a huge effect on how

society perceives animals.

Whereas the movie “Free Willy” prompted a wave of sympathy for the protection of endangered orcas, “Arachnophobia” hardly helped spiders’ cause.

See also: “Jaws” for sharks.

Even the depiction of fictional creatures can have a knock-on effect on public perception towards certain animals.

Take the main being in “Alien”, for example.

“Seeing the one from the first film that had that mucus-y drawl dripping from the alien’s mouth... sensitises people to disgusting things,” Davey said.

Nor is it just the public at large who are liable to “speciesism”, or discrimination against other species in favour of our own.

A study in 2017 found a strong correlation between society’s preferred animals and those most studied in scientific research.

“Maybe that’s because it’s easier to get money” to study well-known animals, said Frederic Legendre, a researcher at France’s National History Museum.

And popular species make money in return, according to Christo Fabricius from WWF -- a conservation group indelibly linked to its panda logo.

“Reptiles, for example, are not very marketable,” he said. (afp)

- Internet shutdowns In 10 polling stations visited by AFP in the largely opposition area of Seme-Podji, no more than 35 voters had cast their ballots out of the more than 400 people registered. The situation seemed similar in other parts of Benin visited by AFP reporters.

“We have never seen such a thing,” one election commission official said. “The people have not come out.”

In the run up to polling, protests were broken up by force. Internet access was initially tightly restricted with blocks on the main social media and messaging apps.

Amnesty International called the internet shutdown a “blunt violation of the right to freedom of expression.”

Then later in the day, internet access was shut down entirely.

“It is effectively silencing human rights defenders, journalists and bloggers who are monitoring contested parliamentary elections without opposition candidates,” Amnesty said in a statement.

- ‘Going too far’ Even supporters of the president did not vote.

“I’m not a fierce opponent, I actually support President Talon,” said Wilfrid Pokini, a trader in the capital Porto Novo. “But I do not support this election -- an unopposed election, what is that? It is going too far.”

People say they are “stunned” and “shocked” by the situation, but blanket bans on demonstrations ahead of voting has kept people off the streets.

“The wave of arbitrary arrests of political activists and journalists, and the crackdown on peaceful protests, have reached an alarming level,” Amnesty International researcher Francois Patuel said.

Before 1991, Benin struggled under decades of authoritarian rule. The transition to democracy brought a flowering of political competition -- five years ago, voters could chose from 20 parties for the 83 seats in parliament.

But this year, lawmakers from the ruling party pushed through a new electoral code. (afp)

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

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Many call to conduct comprehensive assessment of Indonesia’s elections

JAKARTA - Indonesia’s simultaneous legislative and presidential elections were not only the largest single-day democratic exercise but also resulted in unexpected martyrs -- 253 polling officers, 55 election supervisors, and 18 police officers -- dying of exhaustion.

The elections, held on Apr 17, added complexity and increased the burden on over 192 eligible voters, who had to decide on their president, vice president, members of the House of Representatives (DPR), senators of the Regional Representative Council (DPD), members of Provincial Legislative Council (DPR I), and members of the District/Municipality Legislative Council (DPRD II).

Indonesia’s foremost simultaneous legislative and presidential elections were chiefly held to save time, reduce energy, and curtail costs, but in reality, the contrary took place, with the execution being frenzied, costly, and siphoning off the lives of 326 executors.

Different parties have vehemently called for conducting a complete and comprehensive assessment of the elections organized in over 810 thousand polling stations across Indonesia and overseas.

“We should hold a total evaluation.

We will ready a format to prioritize electoral efficiency, albeit involving multi-stage execution,” Chairman of Gerindra Party’s Executive Board Ahmad Riza Patria noted in a recent statement.

Patria confirmed that his side had called to conduct an absolute assessment of the elections, with a reported voter turnout of some 80 percent.

“We will conduct an assessment in the Commission II of the House of

Representatives (DPR), along with the Government, General Election Commission (KPU), and Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu), and call for legislative and presidential elections to be held separately next time,” he remarked.

Adopting a similar stance, DPR Speaker Bambang Soesatyo had put forth a formal request to the Indonesian government and KPU to hold a joint assessment of the execution of the 2019 Election.

“This specifically pertains to the call for immediately applying an electoral system that is not financially burdensome, effective, and far from complicated in addition to ensuring that large number of martyrs, in terms of the election organizers, supervisors, and security forces, do not have to pay the ultimate price for the world’s most complicated democratic party,” he remarked, calling on the need to no longer follow the concept of the 2019 elections in future.

Soesatyo opined that the electoral process can be streamlined by putting in place an e-voting system, thus making it redundant for several organizing committees, supervisors, witnesses, and extensive security to procure voting booths, ballot boxes, ballots, and ink.

To this end, the speaker believes that the electoral process can be simplified and expedited, in terms of calculation and recapitulation of

IBP/ant

Yulin Datau, a member of the election committee in Boliyohuto Sub-district in Gorontalo District, keeps working despite her condition that has been hospitalized at the Ainun Habibie Hospital on Monday, April 29, 2019. votes, by the application of an e-voting executors exposes the grim reality long hours, from dawn until 10 p.m. system and also not mean literal death that they were unprepared to execute local time and also extending until the for several of the executors. such a colossal event on a single day,” next morning to continue the ballot “Hence, following the declaration Anggalana, University of Bandarlam- counting process,” he pointed out. of election results on May 22, I appeal pung’s political scientist, stated.

In addition, the KPU should into the KPU to prepare facilities and Anggalana viewed that theoretical- crease the number of polling stations, infrastructure along with conducting ly, the Commission should have been so that on-field officers are not overa comprehensive study of the planned able to execute the elections without burdened on the polling day, he stated. execution of elections and polling any glitches, but those on field were “It is common knowledge that with the application of an e-voting overwhelmed by the tasks at hand. fatigue primarily resulted in the deaths system,” he remarked.

The observer pointed out that of officers,” he remarked.

Soesatyo further appealed to fac- the stress, fatigue, and lack of sleep Anggalana drew attention to the tions in the Indonesian Parliament, while fulfilling their electoral duties fact that a polling station handled 200as an extension of political parties, in the face of time restraints arising 300 eligible voters during the day of to ascertain that the presidential and from adopting the single-day elec- the 2019 concurrent election, when it legislative elections are executed akin tion approach ultimately took toll of should have ideally been serving no to earlier elections. their lives, so henceforth, the ballot more than 100-120 voters to ensure In the meantime, a political ob- counting and polling should be held efficient workflow. server noted that officers, tasked with on separate days.

He also suggested organizing the implementing the elections, were “With over a day in hand, officers next elections digitally if Indonesia ill-prepared to fulfill mammoth tasks will be able to take a break. In the re- would hold another simultaneous entailed in these elections. cently concluded elections, the organiz- election subsequently, with close to “The fatal end of so many election ers literally broke their backs, slogging seven different ballot cards. (ant)

Government discusses plan to move capital

Yanick Folly / AFP

A polling official empties the ballot box at the end of the vote at a polling station during the elections for a new parliament in Cotonou on April 28, 2019.

JAKARTA - The Indonesian government discussed a plan to move capital of the country from Jakarta to other provinces on Monday.

“As a large nation, we should not merely think of short-term and narrow-scope interests but also broader interests for the benefit of the nation and state, as well as visionary interests in the face of global competition,” President Joko Widodo said in his address to a limited meeting on the “Follow up to the Plan to Move the Capital” at the Presidential Office in Jakarta on Monday.

He said the idea of moving the capital of the Republic of Indonesia has been in motion since the era of founding President Soekarno, but the discourse has often seen confusion because it was never decided and implemented in a well-planned and mature way, he said.

He said several countries including Australia, Ma-

laysia, Brazil and South Korea have moved their seats of government.

“To move the capital, we need detailed preparations in terms of selecting an appropriate location by taking into account geopolitics, geostrategy, supporting infrastructure and funding,” he said.

The head of state believed that if preparations were in place, the plan to move the capital could be realized.

Also present at the meeting were Minister of National Development Planning/Head of the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) Bambang Brodjonegoro, Minister of Public Works and Housing Basuki Hadimuljono, Minister of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Syafrudin, Minister of the Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya, Minister of State Enterprises Rini Soemarno, and Minister of Trade Enggartiasto Lukita. (afp)

IBP/ant

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Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Bali News

International

BUSINESS

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

5

INA FASSBENDER / AFP

An aerial picture taken on April 29, 2019 shows workers harvesting asparagus in a field at the “Beller Hof” farm in Cologne, western Germany.

EU launches billion-euro loan plan for young farmers

BRUSSELS - The European Union on Monday launched a plan to give up to one billion euros in cheaper loans to young farmers, who are often turned away by banks.

The European Commission, the EU’S executive arm, and the European Investment Bank want banks to match the loans, bringing the total to two billion euros ($2.2 billion).

“Access to finance is crucial and too often an obstacle for young people wanting to join the profession,” Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan said.

“With 11 percent of European farmers under the age of 40 years old, supporting young farmers in the sector is a priority for the European Commission.”

Banks rejected 27 percent of the loan applications submitted by young EU farmers in 2017, compared to only nine percent for older applicants.

Those under 40 years old accounted for 11 percent of the EU’s 10.3 million farmers in 2016, while the over 65s represented 32 percent, according to Eurostat.

Young farmers are especially rare

in Cyprus (3.3 percent), in Portugal (4.2 percent) and in the United Kingdom (5.3 percent).

They are better represented in Austria (22.2 percent), in Poland (20.3 percent) and in Slovakia (19 percent).

The EU’s 28 countries will offer young farmers lower interest rates, a five-year moratorium on repayments

and then up to 15 years to pay back the whole loan.

The scheme also allows for flexibility in tougher times by offering grace periods of several months.

Senior EIB official Andrew McDowell said agriculture “is the backbone of the EU economy,” producing healthy food and protecting the environment. (afp)

Asian markets mixed as attention returns to China-US talks

HONG KONG - Asian markets were mixed Monday as investors struggled to track another record lead from Wall Street that was fuelled by more strong earnings and a jump in US economic growth, while China-US trade talks come back into focus.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq in New York chalked up all-time highs Friday helped by a forecastbeating report from Ford and Amazon revealing that quarterly profits had more than doubled.

The earnings were the latest in a long line of strong performances from some of the world’s biggest firms that have surprised many observers, who had been preparing for a tepid announcements season.

Adding to the upward momentum was data showing the world’s

biggest economy expanded 3.2 percent in January-March, well up from forecasts and sharply higher than the 2.2 percent seen at the end of 2018.

“Friday’s better-than-expected US first-quarter GDP reading... was mainly supported on strong trade and inventory data, but the key takeaway remains the underlying economy is well and is not nearing a recession anytime soon,” said OANDA senior market analyst Edward Moya.

However, observers warned that while the reading was good, the underlying data pointed to some weaknesses that could see growth ease later in the year.

Hong Kong rose one percent, while Singapore added 1.3 percent, Seoul put on 1.7 percent and Wel-

lington edged up 0.2 percent.

But Shanghai slipped 0.8 percent, with trade weighed by concerns that Chinese authorities will wind back on recent market-boosting monetary easing measures.

Sydney slipped 0.4 percent, while Taipei and Jakarta also fell.

Tokyo is closed all week.

London, Paris and Frankfurt all rose 0.1 percent.

- Oil extends losses Eyes now turn to Beijing where top US negotiators will return for another round of trade talks with their Chinese counterparts, with the White House saying issues to be covered include intellectual property, forced technology transfer, agriculture and enforcement.

While the general consensus

is for the two to eventually reach a deal to end their long-running trade war there are still a number of sticking points, and Trump has warned he is willing to walk away from talks of he is not happy with their progress.

Both main oil contracts extended losses after falling three percent Friday after Donald Trump said Saudi Arabia and others in OPEC had agreed to his request to boost production.

After touching six-month highs last week on a US decision to end waivers for countries buying from sanctions-hit Iran, crude tanked after Trump tweeted: “Spoke to Saudi Arabia and others about increasing oil flow. All are in agreement.”

However, Stephen Innes at SPI Asset Management said he still saw prices rising.

“We still think OPEC will be careful not to signal a rapid supply response to the Iran waivers, having a preference -- regardless of President Trump’s consternation -- to let prices drift higher until demand side pressure starts to mount,” he wrote in a note.

“The market has been tunnel (visioned) on Iran sanctions waivers, but we should not lose sight of the swamp in Venezuela nor the tenuous state of affairs in Libya as both these hotspots should continue to support oil prices.”

On currency markets the dollar was down against the pound and euro on slightly improved risk appetite, while other higher-yielding units including the Australian dollar, South African rand and Indonesian rupiah also enjoyed support.

The Semarapura Festival IV will be held on April 28 to May 2.

Take a Note: Semarapura Festival IV Lasts on April 28 – May 2

SEMARAPURA - Regent of Klungkung, I Nyoman Suwirta, accompanied by Deputy Regent I Made Kasta attended the preparation meeting of the Semarapura Festival IV in the Praja Mandala Meeting Room at the office of Klungkung regent recently. Regent Suwirta wanted to finalize the preparation so that later on the implementation can run smoothly and beneficially.

Head of the Klungkung Tourism Office, I Nengah Sukasta, conveyed the Semarapura Festival is a festival held by the Klungkung district government with a greater target for community empowerment coalesced into the MSMEs (Micro, Small and Medium

Enterprises). Besides, it is also meant to maximize the promotion of tourist destinations and city tour programs as one of the prominent program of the Klungkung district government.

The Semarapura Festival IV will be held on April 28 to May 2. On

that occasion, Regent Suwirta hoped that by the end of March the preparation for the Semarapura Festival can have been completed. Information about this festival must also be disseminated both through electronic media and print media.

Meanwhile, Regent Suwirta asked the Klungkung Education Agency to also display Gong Kebyar that will later be staged at the Bali Arts Festival. By that way, the Gong Kebyar of Klungkung envoy can be corrected earlier. He also requested the Jegeg-Bagus Klungkung beauty pageant held at the Semarapura IV Festival can be added with one more category namely Entrepreneur Ambassador. He hoped the Entrepreneur

Ambassador can be the mascot of Klungkung entrepreneur.

Semarapura Festival IV will feature the Telek Jumpai Dance presented by students in Klungkung district. Telek Dance will be danced by junior high and high school students, in collaboration with the Bali provincial government. Regent Suwirta requested that in the performance of the Telek dance can be accompanied barong in four directions. (IBP/net)

Unique Ngaben Tradition at Tegal Ambengan, Tabanan

IBP/kmb

People carrying the bade tower (to hold the corpse) must cross the local river.

TABANAN - Procession of the Ngaben (cremation) ceremony held by residents of Tegal Ambengan customary hamlet, Sudimara, Tabanan, is quite unique. People carrying the bade tower (to hold the corpse) must cross the local river. Meanwhile, cemetery of Tegal Ambengan is located near a tributary (meeting point of two rivers). Precisely, it sits in the east

of Yeh Nu River and in the west of Yeh Empas River that empties out into the area right in front of the cemetery area or the entrance into the cemetery.

Such ceremonial procession has been a local tradition that is remarkably different from other regions in Bali. With the accompaniment of baleganjur music, all residents carrying the bade

tower become wet. Unavoidably, they are soaking wet because they plunge themselves into the river. When arriving at the location, they are very excited while splashing water towards other residents. Local residents claim that the Ngaben procession having to cross the river has been a tradition already passed down through generations. (IBP/net)

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Bali News

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

International

Falling down from clove tree

Widower of three children suffers physical and economic disability

NEGARA - Endless disasters and obstacles were experienced by Made Merta, 50, a widower of three children from Bungbungan hamlet, Yehembang, Mendoyo, Jembrana. His wife died of illness when his third child was still small. As consequence, Made Merta must be the head of the family and take over his wife’s role.

IBP/wit

Made Merta is paralyzed after falling incident from a clove tree a year ago. Now, his economy is also paralyzed, while his wife has died. Thus, he must bear two children remaining to attend elementary school.

His job as climbing worker and farmer as well as living poverty life makes him always work hard. Unexpectedly, another disaster hit him again. When climbing a tree and will pick cloves, he was suddenly unconscious in the tree on August 7, 2018. Unavoidably, he fell down from the clove tree whereas Merta had just enjoyed the refurbishment home assistance.

As a result of the incident, Merta suffered broken tailbone and caused him paralyzed. More seriously, he must urinate by using a hose.

Initially Merta and his three children lived in the refurbished house in the east side of the road.

However, a few months ago his first daughter who takes care of him got married so that no one else takes care of him there.

In accordance with the agreement of the family, Merta was moved to his younger brother’s house in the west of the road and located in a lower area. To get to Ketut Suwentra’s house, Made Merta’s younger brother, one has to go through a small concrete steep and slippery road. Now Merta is

being cared for by his younger brother, Ketut Suwentra, and his sister-in-law, Murniasih.

The life of his younger brother is also the same as his inability and lack. Moreover, the house they currently occupy is also very simple and even there is a room walled with plaited bamboo which is now occupied by his younger brother and his wife.

His younger brother also works as a laborer, while his sister-in-law makes ritual oblations every day.

Now, the family’s economy is truly paralyzed. “Thankfully, my two children can still attend school.

My younger brother and sister-inlaw are very good at taking care of me. Even before I was at the refurbished house I could not get up but since living at my younger brother’s house, sometimes after getting therapy I can start sitting for a while,” said Merta on Sunday (Apr. 28).

To get therapy and get out of the house with such steep terrain, Merta is frequently carried by his younger brother or ride a motorcycle with a high risk because of having to pass

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

International

through a very steep grade.

Merta claimed to have received PKH assistance and was helped by hamlet chief of Bungbungan to propose the application. “Thank God I am still able to live and eat. I have troubled many people. Hopefully, I can recover,” he hoped.

However, so far Merta has not been able to be free from the use of hose when urinating because his stomach has a problem after falling down.

Merta added that at this time he cannot do much and can only pray so that the families who cared for him would always be healthy and get fortune. Then, the two children who are still attending elementary school can continue their education.

“Hopefully, I can recover so that I can return to work,” he hoped.

Meanwhile, hamlet chief of Bungbungan, Yehembang, Ketut Sutama, when asked for his confirmation, justified that Made Merta is a citizen included in the list of poor red book family. Merta also received PKH assistance. “We have routinely arranged for the PKH assistance,” he affirmed. (kmb)

Abascal, busting Spain’s ‘traitors’ to resurrect far-right

MADRID - Raging against the “traitors of Spain” and the “cowardly right-wing”, Santiago Abascal has managed to resurrect the far-right that had been relegated to the margins of politics since the death of dictator Francisco Franco.

His far-right party Vox came fifth in Spain’s elections on Sunday -- below expectations -- winning 10.3 percent of votes and 24 seats out of 350 in a dramatic entrance to the national parliament.

“Welcome to the resistance!,” the 43-year-old, with his impeccably trimmed beard and piercing eyes, told supporters gathered at a central Madrid square, adding the 24 Vox lawmakers “represented the pride of being Spanish”.

Abascal founded Vox five years ago with other former members of the Popular Party (PP), fuelled by disillusion with a party they accused of having “betrayed (their) values and ideas.”

But it was small-fry, attracting just a smattering of voters -- until last December when it took close to 11 percent of the votes in regional elections in southern Andalusia.

Since then, Vox has generated a buzz in traditional and social media, causing outrage upon outrage with its ultra-conservative proposals.

Banning separatist parties, taking direct control of the semiautonomous region of Catalonia to stop secession, repealing a law that fights gender violence...

The party also fiercely defends traditional family values, even if Abascal is divorced, with two children from a first marriage and two others from his current wife, an Instagram influencer.

In rallies, he has railed against the leftist “liberal dictatorship” and the “enemies of Spain” that are Catalan and Basque nationalists.

His party’s far-out social media posts have his supporters delighted, and his critics pulling their hair out.

One of them before the Andalusia elections, for instance, showed a video of Abascal riding a horse cowboy-style to music from “The Lord of the Rings” and the message: “The Reconquista starts in Andalusian lands.”

The Reconquista refers to the long series of medieval wars waged to recapture territory from the Muslims who occupied most of the Iberian Peninsula in the early 8th century. (afp)

ally it is meant to prevent rabies transmission.

Division Head of Animal Health and Veterinary Public Health at the Jembrana Agriculture and Food Office, I Wayan Widarsa, said the statement made is based on Republic of Indonesia Law No. 18/2009 concerning Animal Husbandry and Animal Health, Government Regulation No. 47/2014 concerning Animal Control and Disease and Bali Provincial Regulations No. 15/2009 concerning Rabies Mitigation.

The letter is intended for HPR owners that refuse the vaccination. Throughout April, the Agriculture and Food Service targeted 13,733 rabies carrier animals at 16 villages in Jembrana belonging to the red rabies zone. Then, in the second stage it targeted beyond the red zone, namely 174 hamlets at 35 villages targeting 25,773

rabies carrier animals.

The obligation of HPR owners is to pay attention to the health and welfare of their animals. Other than vaccinating their animals on a regular basis, they should have a vaccination card and raise animals in the house or yard and holds or bind the animals. So, the animals do not roam the streets. If violating this obligation, the pet owners can be threatened with a sentence of 6 months imprisonment and / or a fine of up to IDR 50 million.

The sanctions set forth in the statement mention that if the unvaccinated animals bite, the owner has the obligation to finance all costs of the bite victim when taking medical treatment. The costs also include all the expenses incurred when impacting humans (death).

To ensure the statement, it is also known to be the head of the local territory. (kmb26)

OSCAR DEL POZO / AFP

IBP/kmb

One of the reasons is that residents are fear if their pets will get sick after getting rabies vaccination. When such conditions happen, the officers cannot force.

Theodore LIM / AFP

This picture taken on April 7, 2019 shows Live Turtle and Tortoise Museum owner Connie Tan posing for a photo with a sulcata tortoise in Singapore.

Crawling to extinction: Singapore turtle haven fights for life

SINGAPORE - Hundreds of turtles and tortoises, including rare and endangered species, face an uncertain future after their Singapore sanctuary -- a Guinness World Record holder -- was forced to relocate due to government redevelopment plans.

Many citizens still refuse rabies vaccination

NEGARA — Although the vaccination program for Rabies Carrier Animal (HPR) to anticipate the development of rabies in Bali, in the field the officers often face obstacles from residents. One of the reasons is that residents are fear if their pets will get sick after getting rabies vaccination. When such conditions happen, the officers cannot force. However, pet owners are asked to sign a statement of the vaccination refusal.

The statement letter contains sanctions for HPR owners who are not registered and vaccinated as well as the obligations of pet owners.

Section Head of Animal Health, Rai Mulyawan, stated that many people still refuse to face the rabies mass vaccination in the field. They fear if their animals will get sick after being vaccinated even though it actually prevents rabies. Actu-

13

Spanish far-right VOX party leader and candidate for prime minister Santiago Abascal delivers a speech during an election night rally in Madrid after Spain held general elections on April 28, 2019.

At its peak around 1,000 of the creatures were housed at The Live Turtle and Tortoise Museum, which opened in 2001 at popular tourist spot Chinese Gardens. It also showcased specimens and memorabilia such as figurines and stuffed toys.

While the venture built up a loyal following, there had been criticism online of the conditions the reptiles were kept in.

Authorities decided to repurpose the area, and evicted them -- leaving owner Connie Tan scrambling to find and finance a new location.

“I gave up quite a lot for this, and it’s tough. My son’s university education fees have gone into keeping this place alive,” explains Tan, whose father created the original museum, securing the Guinness World Record for the “largest collection of tortoise and turtle items”.

She spent Sg$250,000 ($185,000) on the new venue but

was only able to secure a short two-year lease and conceded the venture is running low on funds -- a situation that has raised concerns about the long-term future for the turtles and tortoises.

Tan has battled hard to keep the museum going, even seeking out help from Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on social media when she needed more time to find a suitable location.

- Endangered species During the move, she closed her event management business to house the turtles and tortoises at her office, leaving her temporarily without an income.

Today there are around 700 turtles at the new site in Yishun, a residential area far from Singapore’s main leisure and tourism hotspots.

The collection of animals has been amassed by the Tan family for more than 40 years. Many of the reptiles were pets that were

rescued after the owners abandoned them.

“Tortoises may not react to you as much as how dogs can do, but they do have the ability to communicate with you if you pay attention to them. So, those people who’d like to buy turtles and tortoises, you must be ready to accept them for who they are,” she explains.

Tan says there are around 50 different species including some that are facing extinction such as the Reeves’ Turtle, which is used in Chinese Traditional Medicine and has been overhunted in the wild.

It is classed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s “Red List of Threatened Species”.

The museum also houses African spurred tortoises and Indian star tortoises -- often taken from the wild for the exotic pet trade -- both are classed by the IUCN as “vulnerable”. (afp)

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Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Science

International

‘An Elegant Defense’ explores the immune system’s softer side

NEW YORK - We like to think of the immune system as our own personal military, ready to attack foreign invaders.

Slice your finger, and immune cells rush in to destroy rogue pathogens.

But it’s misleading to think of the immune system as solely a war machine. It must also keep the peace, assessing each threat and, in many cases, deciding to stand down. (This often-overlooked peacekeeping role is what allows the microbiome, the collection of microorganisms that live in and on the body, to thrive.) In An Elegant Defense, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Matt Richtel argues that it is this ability — to differentiate friend from foe (or neutral party) and act accordingly — that makes the immune system so powerful and so elegant.

“It is a system precisely and delicately tailored to stay in balance, keep the peace and do as little damage as possible to us and our surroundings,” he writes. And that balance is central to our health.

An Elegant Defense offers a sweeping overview of immunology’s history, from Élie Metchnikoff’s observations in the 1800s of immune cells swarming splinters in starfish larvae to recent discoveries underpinning cancer immunotherapy. Richtel explains all of this science through the stories of four individuals deeply affected by their immune systems.

Richtel’s childhood friend Jason Greenstein is battling a stubborn form of Hodgkin’s disease that seems to be invisible to his immune response. Bob Hoff contracted HIV in 1977, but his immune system managed to keep the virus in check. And the lives of Linda Segre and Merredith Branscombe have been radically altered by their overactive immune systems.

Richtel, who covers science and technology for the New York Times, once joked that the paper’s writing will always remain “dry and lifeless.” But that’s not Richtel’s style.

The prose in An Elegant Defense is vibrant, conversational, direct and often funny. He introduces one story like this: “A Dane, an Argentinian Jew and a German walk into a research lab…”

But Richtel seems to presume that readers will find too much science tedious. Describing how the body can make hundreds of millions of different antibodies, he offers readers a “pep talk” and implores them to “Soldier on!”

At times he glosses over experimental details in ways guaranteed to make scientists cringe. “This is one of those experiments that is too technical to describe,” he writes, adding

IBP/net

White blood cells known as neutrophils (one shown in red with staph bacteria in yellow) are the immune system’s frontline defenders against pathogens. “first there were some mixtures, or assays, and then the data was crunched digitally and the results came over the computer.” Even more frustrating, the book fails to provide references, an omission that makes it difficult for readers who do care about technical details to do their own research.

Yet Richtel’s refusal to get bogged down in minutiae also helps the book feel lighter than it otherwise might.

The science isn’t a slog. And although it seems to jump haphazardly through time — Richtel returns to the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s again and again — the content is captivating and useful. For example, Richtel examines how we’re sabotaging our immune systems with too little sleep and too much stress, and explains why supplements designed to boost immunity are a waste of money.

But it’s when Richtel delves into the lives of Bob, Linda, Merredith and especially Jason that the writing shines. “Never was he happier than when he was driving, a dip of Skoal Fine Cut packed in his lip, rocking out to Springsteen or to a local station on the dial with some new town on the horizon,” Richtel writes about Jason.

“He was a genuine American dreamer and the van his covered wagon.” (net)

people could talk, researchers could record brain activity as participants spoke sentences. The team then mapped the brain signals that control the lips, tongue, jaw and larynx to the actual movements of the vocal tract as these people spoke. That allowed the scientists to create a unique virtual vocal tract for each person.

Next, the researchers translated the virtual movements of participants’ artificial vocal tracts into sounds. Using this virtual tool “enhanced the speech and made it sound more natural,” Chartier says. About 70 percent of these reconstructed words were understandable by listeners who were asked to choose the words that they heard from a list of possibilities. For instance, when the synthesized voice said, “Get a calico cat to keep the rodents away,” a listener heard, “The calico cat to keep the rabbits away.” Overall, some sounds came out well, such as “sh.”

Others, such as “buh” and “puh,” sounded mushier.

To work, the technique depended on knowing how a person moves the vocal tract. But those movements

won’t exist in many people who are unable to talk, such as those with a brain stem stroke, vocal tract injuries or Lou Gehrig’s disease.

“By far, the biggest hurdle is how are you going to build a decoder in the first place when you don’t have any example speech to build it on?” says Marc Slutzky, a neurologist and neural engineer at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

In some tests, the researchers found that the algorithms used in the second stage of the process — translating the virtual vocal tract movements into sounds — were similar enough from person to person that they could be reused across different people, possibly even those who can’t talk.

But so far, the first step of the process — mapping brain activity to a person’s vocal tract movements — seems to be more idiosyncratic. Finding a way to relate those personalized brain signals to their desired vocal tract movements will be a challenge in people unable to move, the scientists say. (afp)

A neural implant can translate brain activity into sentences

SAN FRANCISCO - To communicate, people unable to talk often rely on small eye movements to spell out words, a painstakingly slow process. Now, using signals picked up by a brain implant, scientists have pulled entire sentences from the brain.

Some of these reconstructed words, spoken aloud by a virtual vocal cord, are a little garbled. But overall, the sentences are understandable, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco report in the April 25 Nature.

Creating the audible synthetic sentences required years of analysis after brain signals were recorded, and the technique is not ready to be used outside of a lab. Still, the work shows “that just using the brain, it is possible to decode speech,” says UCSF speech scientist Gopala Anumanchipalli.

The technology described in the new study holds promise for ultimately restoring people’s abilities to speak fluently, says Frank Guenther, a speech neuroscientist at Boston University. “It’s hard to overstate the importance of that to these people….

IBP/net

Scientists have transformed brain signals, captured by this grid of electrodes designed to record brain activity, into synthesized sentences. The technique could one day help people who can’t speak communicate.

It’s incredibly isolating and practically nightmarish to not be able to communicate needs or socially connect.”

Existing speech aids that rely on spelling words are tedious, often producing about 10 words a minute.

Earlier studies have used brain signals to decode smaller bits of speech,

such as vowels or words, but with a more limited vocabulary than the current work.

Along with neurosurgeon Edward Chang and bioengineer Josh Chartier, Anumanchipalli studied five people who had grids of electrodes temporarily implanted in the brain as part of epilepsy treatments. Because these

Bali News

International

3

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Bali glanced at being a spiritual tourism destination

MANGUPURA — Bali is not only known for its natural beauty, but also as spiritual tourist destination. This happens because many tourists come to Bali to perform meditation activities.As seen at the Garuda Wisnu Kencana (GWK) area on Friday (Apr. 26), hundreds of foreign tourists did meditation to pray for the World Peace and Prosperity. Aside from being known as an object of tourist attraction, the presence of the largest Garuda Wisnu Kencana statue in the world even makes it known as a Cultural and Spiritual Park.

According to Rup Gurbani, Chairman of the Indonesian Living Arts Foundation, hundreds of tourists attended to take part in a series of Bliss in Bali Spiritual Festival, an annual spiritual program from The Art of Living Foundation. Participants from all over the world came together, meditated and celebrated peace and happiness in the presence of His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

The event is one of the agendas for meditation in Bali organized every year entitled the Bliss in Bali.

The event began in 1996 and has

been organized for ten years and has become the mark of Bliss in Bali. Last time, the event was held in Bali and the biggest at GWK in 2007. At that time, there were 600 international and 200 local residents.

Besides, four Indian priests and 30 priests from Bali were also present.

“We carry out this activity for the peace of the earth. A total of 25 countries have registered to participate, but this is smaller when compared to the first event. Usually we meditate together for 4 days in certain places, like at hotels,” he explained. (kmb23)

Meditation activities are followed by hundreds of foreign tourists.

IBP/kmb

Preparing Bali to be a center for civilizations and creative industries

BALI must move quickly to anticipate the dynamics of the world. As the center for civilization and culture, Bali must make a major breakthrough. Thinking smart, creative and innovative must be accustomed.

Don’t get caught up in polemics. To

realize the dream of Bali as the center for world civilization, the synergy and empowerment of existing potential must be optimized.

This view was expressed by the statue maestro from Bali, Nyoman Nuarta, when a group of mass media

The statue maestro from Bali, Nyoman Nuarta (L).

IBP/dir

and the Bali Provincial Bureau of Public Relations and Protocol visited NuArt Sculpture Park, the Museum and Art Gallery at the Setra Duta Complex, Ciwaruga, North Bandung, Wednesday (Apr. 24).

In his conversation with Bali Post while walking in his museum, Nyoman Nuarta told the breakthrough made by the Governor of Bali Wayan Koster in fortifying Balinese culture should be responded with an accommodating attitude. This idea deserves to be understood as a big dream of building Bali. Nuarta, the architect of Garuda Wisnu Kencana (GWK), is ready to serve and dedicate his works to Bali. He advised that Bali must immediately make a major breakthrough if wishing to become the center for the world civilization.

“Do not associate everything with popularity and politics. An idea is a window to success. Do not hamper the ideas with thoughts tending to degrade a big step to build and guard Bali,” said Nyoman Nuarta.

He stated that to accommodate the dynamics of the era and the development of creative industry today, it is natural for Bali to have a holistic cultural center. This will become a space for all artists and creative industries to grow. This thinking certainly must be supported together without having to contradict it with non-strategic interests.

When President Joko Widodo appreciated to the construction of the Bali cultural center in Gunaksa (Klungkung), Bali must optimize

this support. “Don’t continue to be trapped in political barriers, especially if there is an effort to degrade this thought and program,” he advised.

To Bali Post, Nyoman Nuarta claimed to have had a low flight in the former sand mining area. That was long before there is an idea of making this area into a cultural center. He said the thousands of hectares of land in this area are currently pockmarked and full of holes. From the perspective of artists, this nature is very exotic, especially being close to the sea.

He ensured that with technological approach, a scientific approach and artistic touch to organize this land, Gunaksa can grow and develop into a strategic tourist center in Bali. “This is called creative breakthrough and big dream amid the development of technology and science,” said the man born in Tabanan.

Nuarta admitting to have been settling more than 30 years in Bandung said that in the future, Bali must also educate young people to pursue creative industries. Business opportunities and living opportunities to be successful artists in this field are very open. “Don’t be afraid to dream of being an artist. Artists can live happily and adequately if they are engaged seriously. Being a sculptor can also be an option,” he said.

Accompanied by his wife Cynthia Laksmi, Nuarta who is now entrusted to work on mega projects in a number of countries and provinces in Indonesia hoped that young Balinese are not afraid to become artists. He also

shared his stories and fighting spirit, so that he could become a statue maestro like he is now. “Artists must be able to build originality because it is the key to having an identity,” he said.

Build your identity and don’t become a plagiarist artist.

As an illustration, the NuArt Sculpture Park, Museum and Art Gallery owned by this statue maestro from Bali, Nyoman Nuarta, is built on 3.5 hectares of land. A number of important people, including ministers, Jokowi’s Working Cabinet minister often visited and shared inspirations here. On this beautiful land, there is also showroom displaying the works of Nyoman Nuarta, an exhibition room for painters and workshops.

There are approximately 250 workers involved. Nuarta also manages an eco-friendly restaurant in the area.

Prior to making a visit to the Nuart, owned by Nyoman Nuarta, a group of mass media leaders and the Bali Provincial Public Relations and Protocol Bureau were received by the Public Relations and Protocol Bureau of West Java Province. In West Java, the entourage explored more about the strategies of Governor Ridwan Kamil who empowered the public relations bureau to establish communication with its citizens, including opening fast reaction services to social and public problems. The entourage led

by Assistant III of Bali Provincial Government I Wayan Suarjana was received by the Head of West Java Public Relations and Protocol Bureau, Hemransyah. (dir)

2

Bali News

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

International

Activities

International

BI encourages Bali’s sustainable and inclusive economy

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

15

YOGYAKARTA — Bank Indonesia of Bali Representative Office encourages regional governments to look for new economic sources. The source of Bali’s economy is currently very dependent on tourism. On that account, it needs another economic source, so that Bali’s economy is more sustainable and inclusive. The potential to be developed is agriculture in the broadest sense.

This was conveyed by the Head of the Bank Indonesia of Bali Representative Office, Causa Iman Karana, accompanied by its Deputy Director, Sapto Widyatmiko, in the BI of Bali Representative Office Public Relations Workshop on April 26-28, 2019 in Yogyakarta.

For this reason, BI seeks to increase the production and capacity of the MSMEs having the potential to export or support the tourism sector. One of them is the development of ant sugar in Jembrana and Tampaksiring tourism village in Gianyar.

On that account, BI of Bali Representative Office began to identify the development of ant sugar at Pendem village, Jembrana. Then, BI has the Sari Mawar Farmer Group under its guidance to produce export-quality ant sugar.

Results of the coaching are expected to be

able to co-exist with the downstreaming of chocolate and coffee products having been developed as well as the coffee variety of Kintamani.

In addition to ant sugar, BI of Bali Representative Office will also develop Tampaksiring tourism village in Gianyar.

Tampaksiring is chosen because of its great potential and located not far from the Subak Pulagan rice cluster which is also becoming its target.

Tampaksiring has tourist attractions such as the Tirta Empul Temple and the Presidential Palace. Tampaksiring has a strong potential for art, custom and culture. Coupled with the potential of natural resources, it can develop the potential for export-quality crafts. Then, Tampaksiring tourism village will be integrated with Pulagan agro tourism. (kmb42)

Causa Iman Karana

4th Semarapura Festival

Kris Exhibition displays 100 historic kris daggers

IBP/kmb31

Regent of Klungkung Suwirta and his Deputy Regent Kasta are looking at kris dagger on display at the Semarajaya Museum.

SEMARAPURA — The 4th Semarapura Festival for the first time is filled with kris exhibition. The exhibition was opened right at the commemoration of the 111th anniversary of Puputan Klungkung Day, Sunday (Apr. 28) as part of the heroic memory of the Balinese people in Klungkung. Centered at the Semarajaya Museum, the exhibition featured around 100 historic kris daggers.

Moreover, two of them have high historical values.

Head of the Klungkung Culture Agency, Nyoman Mudarta, said the kris exhibition showcases 100 pieces of kris namely consisting of 68 old ones and 32 new ones. Each has a long history in relation to the important moments of the struggle of Balinese people, where at that time Klungkung was the center of kingdom in Bali.

From the entire collections, there are two special kris daggers.

The first kris belongs to AA Ngurah Puspayoga. It is in the form of Angon Angon Adikara form with Pamor Keleng (Wulung). Curator of the exhibition, Bakrin, said the kris is one of the historic ones

in Bali, made around the 1800s.

The existence of this kris attracts the attention of visitors, including Regent of Klungkung Nyoman Suwirta and Deputy Regent Made Kasta, who saw it closely, after opening the exhibition.

Another kris is the new one in the form of Kala Wisesa Leser. This kris has patterned watermelon skin and was made in 2005. This rare kris is owned by Tjokorda Surya and made by Mpu KRT Rudi Hartono Diningrat. This duplicate is rare named the Pajenengan kris of the Klungkung Palace and owned

by Ida Dewa Agung Gde Oka Geg. Today, the kris is maintained

by Tjokorda Surya, the son of the late Tjokorda Anom Putra, the first Regent of Klungkung.

Head of the Klungkung Culture Agency, Nyoman Mudarta, stated the kris exhibition is predicted to be able to attract the attention of visitors during the opening until May 2. Surely, the existence of the kris is in line with the long history of Klungkung as the center of royal era civilization in Bali at that time. “This keris exhibition is a series of cultural events held

Lebaran Gateway

IBP/kmb

by the Semarajaya Museum held for the first time. In addition to the kris exhibition, it is graced with traditional cuisine and beverage exhibition, folk games, traditional weaving demonstrations and Baris Jangkang Dance show,” he said.

Regent of Klungkung, Nyoman Suwirta, said the assets in the form of art and culture must be promoted well. Festival is the right moment to promote the art and cultural assets owned by Klungkung. In the future, the office of the Culture Agency will be put together with the Public Service Mall that will be built soon by the Public Works and Settlement Agency. Thus, the Semarajaya Museum, now partly used as the office of Cultural Agency, will entirely function as a museum.

“The Semarajaya Museum must improve and be more innovative.

In the future, the museum must be managed more professionally. So, the collections and historical heritage assets currently stored in the central government can be taken to be exhibited in the museum or at least its duplicates can be used,” he said. (kmb31)

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Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Mystery of ‘Salvator Mundi’, the world’s most costly painting

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

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

PARIS - Later this year, the Louvre in Paris will host an exhibition of masterpieces by the Italian painter Leonardo da Vinci to mark his death 500 years ago in France.

But the work that in recent months has been the intense focus of scrutiny by the media and da Vinci specialists, may not be on show.

In 2017, “Salvator Mundi” was sold at auction by Christie’s as a work by da Vinci for a record $450 million. But it has not been displayed in public since, triggering doubts about its ownership, its whereabouts and its authenticity.

The painting, a portrait of Jesus, was to go on display at the Louvre Abu Dhabi in September last year.

But its unveiling was postponed by the museum without any explanation.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi has kept

tight-lipped about the identity of the buyer, saying only that the emirate’s Department of Culture and Tourism had “acquired” it.

And the mystery has further deepened ahead of a visit by Italian President Sergio Mattarella who will join France’s President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday on a trip to the Loire Valley to mark the anniversary of da Vinci’s death there in 1519, at the age of 67.

“The Louvre has asked the Department of Culture and Tourism in Abu Dhabi for the painting to be given on loan,” a Louvre spokesperson told AFP. “But we have not yet had any reply.” (afp)

In this file photo taken on October 24, 2017 Christie’s employees pose in front of a painting entitled Salvator Mundi

by Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci at a photocall at Christie’s auction house in central London ahead of its sale at Christie’s New York on November 15, 2017.

Handout / INDONESIAN NAVY / AFP

Hollywood school to keep Michael Jackson’s name on auditorium

Frederic J. BROWN / AFP

Pedestrians walk past the Michael Jackson Auditorium at Gardner Street Elementary school in Hollywood, California on April 25, 2019.

LOS ANGELES - Michael Jackson’s elementary school in Hollywood, California will keep his name on its auditorium despite the damaging allegations of pedophilia made against the late pop superstar in a widely viewed documentary.

Parents and staff members of Gardner Street Elementary School, which Jackson attended in 1969, have voted to leave his name in place after an impassioned debate, school officials announced Saturday.

“A majority of those who par-

ticipated voted to maintain the current name as the Michael Jackson Auditorium,” said a statement from the school district.

The future “king of pop” attended the school for several months at the age of 11; his family moved away, and he was homeschooled, following the breakout success of the Jackson Five’s first single, “I Want You Back,” and other songs.

But after cable network HBO recently aired the shock documentary “Leaving Neverland,” the presence of Jackson’s name

in large letters on an outer wall of the Hollywood school became a lightning rod for several angry parents.

In the movie -- which Jackson’s heirs have sharply contested -- two men now in their 30s, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, say the singer sexually abused them while they were still children.

Jackson, who died on June 25, 2009 of an overdose of prescription drugs, had faced several allegations of pedophilia during his life, but was never convicted. (afp)

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This screen grab taken from handout video on April 27, 2019 and released on April 29 by the Indonesian Navy shows members of the Indonesian Navy (R) watching as a Vietnamese coastguard ship (L) approaches and apparently rams their vessel, off the coast of Borneo in the South China Sea.

Indonesia detains Vietnamese fishermen after high seas clash

JAKARTA - Indonesia has accused the Vietnamese coastguard of ramming one of its vessels to block the interception of a boat fishing illegally, as a senior minister announced a return to sinking foreign trawlers.

The clash in the South China Sea at the weekend saw Jakarta summon Vietnam’s ambassador on Monday, after the navy detained a dozen Vietnamese fishermen.

“The actions taken by the Vietnamese coast guard ship endangered the lives of officers from both countries and is not in accordance with international law or the spirit of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations),” Indonesia’s foreign ministry said.

Jakarta claims the area in the southernmost reaches of the South China Sea as its exclusive economic zone -- waters where a state

has the right to exploit resources.

The navy said two Vietnamese coast guard ships tried to prevent the apprehension of an illegal fishing boat by ramming its vessel.

The fishing boat sank possibly due to an accidental collision, Indonesian authorities said without elaborating.

A dozen fishermen were detained and remain in Indonesian custody.

Two others escaped detention by jumping into the water. They were picked by the Vietnamese coast guard, which then fled, the navy said.

Video circulating on social

media purported to show a Vietnamese patrol boat ramming the left side of the Indonesian vessel as the armed navy crew shouted expletives.

Indonesia, the world’s biggest archipelago nation, has been trying to stop foreign vessels fishing illegally in its territory, claiming it costs the economy billions of dollars annually.

It turned to a campaign of blowing up captured foreign boats as a deterrent.

Hundreds of detained foreign fishing vessels have been sunk, including many Vietnamese boats -- after the crews were removed -- since 2014, with some blown up

in spectacular public displays.

The practice was suspended for several months, but Indonesian fisheries minister Susi Pudjiastuti announced on Monday that it would resume this weekend.

“On the 4th (of May) we will be sinking 51 boats, mostly from Vietnam!”

She did not say if it was in retaliation for the latest diplomatic clash with Vietnam.

Two years ago, Indonesia

changed the name of the southern part of the South China Sea to the North Natuna Sea in a bid to show its sovereignty.

More recently, it inaugurated a new military base in the chain of several hundred small islands to beef up its border defence.

The moves have prompted criticism from Beijing whose claims in the sea overlap Indonesia’s around the remote Natuna Islands. (afp)

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