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

DPs 23 - 32WEATHER FORECAsT

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

News can also be heard in “Bali Image” at Global Radio FM 96.5 from 9.30 until 10.00 am. Listen to Global Radio FM at http://globalfmbali.listen2my-

radio.com or live video streaming at http://radioglobalfmbali.com and http://ustream.tv/channel/global-fm-bali.

Vietnam PM makes last-minute comeback in leadership battle

Page 8 Page 13

Juventus beats Roma 1-0 to keep up pressure on Napoli

East Coast, emerging from blizzard, faces difficult commute

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

NEW YORK — Tina Fey returned to “Saturday Night Live” to reprise her impression of Sarah Palin and give a rambling, sometimes-rhyming endorsement to Donald Trump.

The sketch kicked off the cold open to “SNL” on Saturday, with Fey and Darrell Hammond skewering the former Alaska governor’s endorse-ment speech in Iowa on Tuesday. As Palin, Fey said she had come to Iowa to break from “my full-time career of writing things on Facebook.”

“SNL” also parodied this year’s all-white Oscar nominees in a mock award show that nominated white actors playing bit roles in African-American dramas. Last week, the only Oscar nominations that the “Rocky” sequel “Creed” and the N.W.A biopic “Straight Outta Compton” received were for white people: Sylvester Stallone for “Creed,” and “Compton” writers Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff.

In the sketch, an award was given

to “all the white guys” in predomi-nantly black films modeled after “Creed,” ‘’Compton” and “Beasts of No Nation.” The roles were barely cameos, like: “White Man With Camera” and “Unseen Voice On Phone.”

“Saturday Night Live,” however, has also been much-criticized in the past about its own diversity. Fol-lowing an uproar in 2013, it added Sasheer Zamata, Leslie Jones and writer LaKendra Tookes. (ap)

She said Sunday she’s using the intense attention she got after that controversy to focus on her causes like fighting HIV and AIDS. “I’m using the attention to talk about my causes. Now, I have everybody’s atten-tion,” she said.

She told a news conference that she plans to be tested for HIV publicly in New York to encourage other people to be tested, including in the Philippines, where HIV cases have risen alarmingly in recent years.

Asked about her plans after her reign, Wurtzbach said she would

consider possible job offers in the United States, adding: “I might be the next Bond girl, who knows? So, we’ll see, that’s the next dream.”

Many international ac-tresses have been cast

alongside actors playing British agent James Bond and are popularly known as “Bond girls.”

Wurtzbach, 26, has worked as an actress and model in the Philippines before winning the crown. The Miss Universe pageant is a big deal in the Philippines, where two other women have brought home the crown before her, with the last one winning in 1973.

On Monday, Wurtzbach will meet Presi-dent Benigno Aquino III, a bachelor who is rumored to have gone on a date with her be-fore. She’ll receive a citation from the Senate for her victory then join a motorcade around Manila that will end with a fireworks show.

Wurtzbach told reporters she was so over-whelmed with her triumph that she constantly checked on her crown in the initial days and even took a nap beside it but decided not to do that again because she might break it. (ap)

PARK CITY, Utah — Actor Matt Damon and Gary White, co-founders of the nonprofit Water.org, came to the Sundance Film Festival on Saturday to call attention to the desperate need for clean water in impoverished regions around the world. He said the water contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan, is something millions of people across the globe experience every day.

“Imagine this outrage we feel about Flint — this justified out-rage, I should say, because that should never happen in the United States of America, ever,” Damon said in an interview with The Associated Press. “But there are people for whom life is such a desperate struggle, that they’re faced every day with the choice of giving their children dirty water or no water at all.”

Damon and White appeared alongside Todd Allen of Stella Artois to discuss the global water crisis and to announce their “Buy a Lady a Drink” campaign — so named because water shortages disproportionately affect women, who spend hours each day searching for water for their families.

The beer maker is introducing a limited-edition collection of decorated glass chalices representing water-poor countries such as Ethiopia, Haiti, India and Honduras. The sale of each $13 goblet will provide a woman in one of these countries with five years of clean water.

The water crisis in Flint shows how heartbreaking and hor-rifying life without clean water is, Damon said. He recalled a trip to Ethiopia several years ago where he witnessed schoolchildren filling bottles with water “the color of chocolate milk.” Their par-ents knew the water would make the children sick, but without it, they would have nothing to drink. “I have four daughters,” Damon said. “When you start having kids, it’s hard not to see other kids as your own ... It’s incumbent upon me to do whatever I can within my sphere of influence” to help. (ap)

Matt Damon brings call for clean water for all to Sundance

Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

Water.org co-founders Matt Damon, left, and Gary White take part in a panel discussion on the global water crisis at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival on Saturday, Jan. 23, 2016, in Park City, Utah.

Miss Universe winner says next dream is to be a Bond girl

MANILA — The reigning Miss Universe has her eyes set on her next big dream: being a Bond girl. Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach returned home to the Philippines for the first time since her crowning — and that awkward moment when host Steve Harvey mistakenly announced Miss Colombia as the winner instead of her.

AP Photo/Bullit Marquez

Tina Fey returns as Sarah Palin on ‘SNL,’ Oscars parodied

THE FATE of arrak makers in Sidemen subdistrict, Karangasem, looks increas-ingly uncertain. Not only are they fre-quently raided by police, but lack of rain is interfering with the growth of coconut trees. Although the long dry season has

ended and it does rain occasionally, there has not been enough rainfall to restore the

coconut trees of the arrack makers. A number of arrack makers in Tri Eka Bhuana village,

Sidemen, are extremely distraught. I Nyoman Masta, for example, said that he and his relatives are usually able to produce 14 bottles of arrak (containing 10 liters) every three days. However, over the past three months, produc-tion has become erratic as raw coconut has become hard to come by. “The coconuts cannot grow when the weather is this hot for this long,” said Masta.

Tri Eka Bhuana village is the largest arrak produc-ing village in Karangasem, so the village’s economy is greatly affected by such conditions. About 95 percent of the 600 families (approximately 2,193 persons) rely on arrak sales to earn a living.

Continue to page 2Generations ...

AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim

An Indonesian Muslim woman holds a poster outside a Starbucks cafe where Thursday’s attack took place, in Jakarta, Indonesia, Sunday, Jan. 17, 2016. Indonesian extremist groups received international financing from Australia and Syria, the country’s security minister said Monday, adding to fears that jihadists are targeting the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

Luhut Panjaitan was speaking at a defence forum in Singapore less than two weeks after coordinated gun and bomb attacks in Jakarta left four civilians dead.

He said about $800,000 were found last week to have been sent to Indonesian extremist groups.

The Islamic State group (IS) has claimed responsibility for the Janu-ary 14 attacks, spurring concerns it is getting a foothold in southeast Asia.

“We are tracing right now...

how do they (Indonesian extrem-ist groups) get finance,” Panjaitan said.

He said about $100,000 came from the Syrian city of Raqa, the capital of IS’s self-styled caliphate, to support extremist activities in Indonesia, and about $700,000 came from Australia.

He said it was not known where the money had come from in Aus-tralia.

“Right now our agencies are working very hard, trying to moni-

tor this financing support, because without financing I don’t think they can move more aggressively,” Pan-jaitan said.

He did not give other details about the funds.

Panjaitan stressed the need for greater international cooperation, saying no country could fight the threat alone.

He cited information shared by Australia with Indonesia on the flow of funds, in addition to a com-munication hotline with Singapore as examples of “good cooperation” between countries.

Panjaitan also said the weapons used in the Jakarta attacks were smuggled from the southern Phil-

ippine island of Mindanao to the Indonesian town of Poso.

Panjaitan and Singaporean De-fence Minister Ng Eng Hen said financing and logistics support from overseas were evidence that terror groups in the region were improving their coordination.

“There is an international financ-ing network which you must try to strangle and choke to cut off the flow of funds,” Ng told reporters at a joint news conference with Panjaitan.

“The more we cooperate the stronger we become. This is a fight that may last many decades, we need many partners in this,” Ng said.

Singapore last week disclosed it had arrested 27 Bangladeshi

construction workers last year for supporting “the armed jihad ideol-ogy” of militant groups like IS and deported 26 of them.

Officials said that while the work-ers were being groomed to carry out attacks in their home country and elsewhere, they could have easily turned against Singapore. (afp)

Indonesian extremist groups getting international financing

SINGAPORE - Indonesian extremist groups received in-ternational financing from Australia and Syria, the country’s security minister said Monday, adding to fears that jihadists are targeting the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

Arrak producers ‘dying off’

Local people have been pro-ducing arrak for generations. The local community is facing major challenges, with some people being forced to work harder at farming and others have migrated to cities to find work. “Many ar-rak makers have taken loans to keep their businesses going, but with the prolonged dry season, many have been unable to pay back their debts. They are dis-traught and many feel like their dying. To make matters even worse, there are less people buy-ing arrack than before,” mourned Masta, former headman of Tri Eka Bhuana village who served for two periods.

Arrack maker, I Komang Budi-ana, also shared his concerns about the situation, explaining that the scarcity of array has been exploited by certain unscrupulous people in

Bali, to produce adulterated arrak. Customers, who are used to drink-ing genuine arrak from Sideman are put into jeopardy with this ‘fake arrak’.

What is more, this fake arrak made this product the target of the Minister of Trade Regulation No.06/M-DAG/PER /1/2015 on the control and supervision of the procurement, distribution and sale of alcoholic beverages. This regulation poses a threat to arrak makers.

Even without this regulation, Krangasem arrak makers are al-ready having hard time making ends meet and these regulation force them to sell their product on the sly. So far, there is no special market for the sale of arrak.

According to Presidential Reg-ulation No.39/2014 regarding fields of business that are open to investment, arrak makers are banned, although they continue to produce arrak. In light of such regulations, Masta and other arrak

makers in Tri Eka Bhuana village hope that the local government

can come up with some solutions for the residents of Sideman -

most of whom rely on arrak mak-ing for their livelihood. (gie)

International2 15International Activities

Founder : K.Nadha, General Manager :Palgunadi Chief Editor: Diah Dewi Juniarti Editors: Gugiek Savindra, Daniel Fajry, Mawa, Sueca, Sugiartha, Yudi Winanto Denpasar: Dira Arsana, Giriana Saputra, Subrata, Sumatika, Asmara Putra. Bangli: Suasrina, Buleleng: Dewa kusuma, Gianyar: Manik Astajaya, Karangasem: Budana, Klungkung: Dewa Farendra. Jakarta: Nikson, Hardianto, Ade Irawan. NTB: Agus Talino, Izzul Khairi, Raka Akriyani. Surabaya: Bambang Wilianto. Office: Jalan Kepundung 67 A Denpasar 80232. Telephone (0361)225764, Facsimile: 227418, P.O.Box: 3010 Denpasar 80001. Bali Post Jakarta, Advertizing: Jl.Palmerah Barat 21F. Telp 021-5357602, Facsimile: 021-5357605 Jakarta Pusat. NTB: Jalam Bangau No. 15 Cakranegara Telp. (0370) 639543, Facsimile: (0370) 628257. Publisher: PT Bali Post

Tuesday, January 26, 2016Tuesday, January 26, 2016

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

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

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

In front of important shrine one sees, besides these umbrellas soars, tridents and other weapons, the “umbul-umbul”, long flags, all these are prerogatives or attributes of Holiness. In front of the Temple gate put up “Penjor”, long bamboo poles, decorated beautifully ornaments of young coconut leaves, rice and other products of the land. Most beautiful to see are the girls in their colorful attire, carry-ing offerings, arrangements of all kinds fruits and colored cakes, to the Temple. Every visitor admires the grace with which the carry their load on their heads.

Balinese Temple Ceremony

COVER STORYFrom page 1Generations ...

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modation theme to choose, services and facilities that will be suitable for family travelers or couples. Circus-Themed Kid’s Club, Resort Center, Spa, Outdoor Pools, NUDI Beach Bar and Lounge are some of the facilities that can be chosen during the stay at the resort. Besides that, guests also can stroll along

the white sand beach or choose adventurous water sport activities to fulfill their activity at the resort.

Executive Assistant Manager of the Holiday Inn Resort Bali Benoa, Nyoman Sapta, said, “We

are very excited and delighted to receive such recognition from eTN. It has been a great start for us here at the Holiday Inn Resort Bali Benoa.” Thanks to the fan-tastic team effort and hard work,

Holiday Inn Resort Bali Benoa has continuously maintained the posi-tion as one of the top 3 hotels in Tanjung Benoa on TripAdvisor and continuously receiving wonderful guest feedback.

Holiday Inn Resort Bali Benoa awarded the eTN Honest Travel Award

IBP/Courtesy of Holiday Inn

TANJUNG BENOA - After only nine short months since opening Holiday Inn resort Bali Benoa has been awarded the eTN Honest Travel Awards. The eTN Honest Travel Awards is awarded to properties for superb experiences and responses, and is in recognition of how much something is appreciated or dif-ferent and all about personal experiences and special moments. It is not about rating how “luxurious” something is. Juergen T. Steinmetz, eTN Publisher, said, “We’re always looking for unique customer feedback when we issue this award, and it seems like this resort is a complete success after its opening in April of last year.”

IBP/Courtesy of Holiday Inn

Head of the Karangasem In-dustry and Trade Agency, Gusti Ngurah Suarta, when contacted recently, said that Karagasem ar-rak production has been a leading home industry in the area for years and that it is the main source of income for most people n the area. Approximately 7,600 people in the sub-districts of Manggis, Sidemen, Abang and Kubu are involved in arrak production. In total, this home industry is capable of producing 220,000 per month (2.65 million bottles per year).

Although there are thousands of people producing arrack, currently there are only a few arrak busi-nesses that are licensed to do so. Amongst those who are licensed are: UD Putrajaya, Dukuh Lestari and Saka Bali. “People need to realize that arrak a an alcoholic beverage, is included on the list of negative investments accord-ing to Presidential Regulation No. 39/2014. It is forbidden to produce arrak,” he said.

The Industry and Trade Agency have made various efforts to ad-dress the situation including trying

to convince arrak makers to instead become plam sugar producers. At first the coaching given to residents of Ban village and Tianyar village in Kubu was quite successful, and residents gradually followed the local governments advice to switch to palm sugar production. Special devices and were provided to the villagers to start their new business.

However, thousands of arrak makers in Sidemen and Abang re-fused to switch over to palm sugar making. Suarta explained that man residents refused to change profes-sions because it would mean that they could no longer support their families and pay for their children’s tuition. They also argued that arrak production is more practical and easier to sell than palm sugar.

Arrak makers do not want to take a chance on the plan sugar business when their families depend on them to survive. “Producing palm sugar takes longer and earns them less money, so it is is hard to ask people to shift to plan sugar production. We need to make people aware of the issues,” explained Suarta adding

that the government is still looking for other solutions.

According to existing data,in Manggis there are 800 arrack makers with a total production of

250,000 bottles per year. In Side-men there are 3,700 arrak producers with total production of 1,250,000 bottles per year; Abang subdistrict has 2,500 arrak makers with a total

production of 980,000 bottles per year; and 600 people in Kubu sub-district produce 240,000 bottles per year. Suarta hopes to resolve this issue as soon as possible. (gie)

IBP/Bagiarta

The fate of arrak makers in Sidemen subdistrict, Karangasem, looks increasingly uncertain. Not only are they frequently raided by police, but lack of rain is interfering with the growth of coconut trees.

Palm sugar making will not do

IBP/Bagiarta

Arrak maker showed the process to produce arrak. Karagasem arrak production has been a leading home industry in the area for years and that it is the main source of income for most people n the area. Approximately 7,600 people in the sub-districts of Manggis, Sidemen, Abang and Kubu are involved in arrak production.

KArANGASEM’s local government has been trying to convince local arrak makers to change their profession and become producers of plan sugar. This suggestion has however been rejected on the grounds that making plan sugar takes long er and yields less profits that arrak making does.

14 InternationalScienceTuesday, January 26, 2016 3International Bali News Tuesday, January 26, 2016

The team, of 10 mainly German and Indian archaeologists and re-searchers, dug up the fossils during excavations in Gujarat’s marshy coastal district of Kutch, Gaurav Chauhan said.

“We have found three portions of hip bones of (a) dinosaur,” Chauhan, a geologist from Gu-jarat’s Kutch University and a member of the excavation team, told AFP.

“We have been working on this site since (the) last 10 days or so,” he said.

Chauhan said carbon-dating tests would need to be carried out to try to determine the age of the bones, while more examina-tions were needed to identify the type.

Gujarat, sometimes dubbed In-

dia’s Jurassic Park, is home to one of the world’s largest collections of dinosaur remains.

In 2003, a National Geographic team discovered a new dinosaur species in Gujarat after examining fossils found scattered along the Narmada River.

The dinosaur was named “Raja-saurus Narmadensis” or the regal

reptile from Narmada, which was a 30-foot-long, carnivorous and stocky animal, with an unusual head crest.

And a large dinosaur egg hatch-ery has been discovered in the town of Balasinor, some 90 ki-lometres (55 miles) south of the state’s main city of Ahmedabad. (afp)

NEW YORK — Scientists have found grisly evidence of a massacre in Kenya about 10,000 years ago, providing rare evidence of violence between groups in ancient hunter-gatherer societies.

Researchers said the discovery casts light on the poorly understood roots of warfare.

Evidence of violence appeared in 10 of 12 relatively complete fossil skeletons the scientists found by what used to be the edge of a lagoon. That included five or six cases of apparent arrow wounds to the head or neck, and five cases where the head was smashed with something like a club. One skull had a sharpened stone still embedded.

The researchers said the wounds would have been fatal immediately or soon thereafter.

Two skeletons didn’t show evi-dence of violence but the position of

the hands suggested they might have been tied up at the time of death. One was a woman who was pregnant or had recently given birth.

The 12 bodies were adults, and at least four were female. The site also revealed partial remains of at least 15 other people.

The 2012 discovery, made west of Lake Turkana, was reported by scientists at Cambridge University and elsewhere. Writing in a paper released Wednesday by the journal Nature, they said it’s one of the clearest cases of violence between groups among prehistoric hunter-gatherers.

The reason for the violence is not clear. The victims may have been raided for resources, like territory or food stored in pots, the research-ers said. Or the violence may have resulted from antagonism between two groups, they said. (ap)

PHNOM PENH — The head of a Hindu deity’s statue from the 7th century was returned by France and reattached to its body Thursday for display at a museum, more than 130 years after it was spirited away.

The stone sculpture is of Hari-hara, a deity that combines aspects

of Vishnu and Shiva, the two most important gods in the Hindu pan-theon who represent the creation of the universe and its destruction. It was taken from the Phnom Da temple in southern Takeo province by French researchers in 1882 or 1883 and was displayed at France’s

Guimet Museum.About 200 government officials,

representatives of foreign govern-ments, ambassadors and officials from the Guimet Museum attended the ceremony to reattach the head at the National Museum.

“After it was separated 130 years ago, we are welcoming the reunification of the head and the torso of Harihara,” Deputy Prime Minister Sok An said at the cer-emony. “According to our Khmer culture, the reunion is symbolic of prosperity.”

He appealed to other countries that hold Cambodian artifacts to return them.

A 1993 Cambodian law prohibits the removal of cultural artifacts without government permission. Pieces taken after that date have stronger legal standing to compel their owners abroad to return them. But there is also general agree-ment in the art world that pieces are deemed to be acquired illegiti-mately if they were exported with-out clear and valid documentation after 1970 — the year of a United Nations cultural agreement target-ing trafficking in antiquities.

In October, Cambodia welcomed the return of two stone statues from the Angkor period that were looted during the country’s civil war and taken to Europe, where they spent the past three decades. The sculp-tures — a 9th century head of Shiva and a late 12th to early 13th century male divinity head — were formally handed over by Norwegian collec-tor Morten Bosterud.

Also in June 2014, three 1,000-year-old statues depicting Hindu mythology were brought back to Cambodia. They were also looted from a temple and put in Western art collections.

Cambodia was ruled by Hindu kings for centuries, and it was the main religion of the country before Buddhism took over. More than 90 percent of Cambodians today are Buddhists. (ap)

Geologist says dinosaur fossils found in western IndiaAHMEDABAD, India - A geologist said Saturday his team has

discovered what it believes are dinosaur fossils in the western Indian state of Gujarat that could be millions of years old.

Grisly fossils from Kenya reveal a 10,000-year-

old massacre

Marta Mirazon Lahr via AP

In this August 2012 photo provided by Marta Mirazon Lahr, researcher Frances Rivera, right, Michael Emsugut, left, and Tot Ekulukum excavate a human skeleton at the site of Nataruk, West Turkana, Kenya. Writing in a paper released Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2016, by the journal Nature, scientists said it’s one of the clearest cases of violence between groups among prehis-toric hunter-gatherers.

France returns head of Hindu statue taken 130 years ago

AP Photo/Sopheng Cheang

The head of a stone sculpture of Harihara, a Hindu deity, is displayed on a table before a ceremony to reattach it to its body at the National Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Thursday, Jan. 21, 2016. The head of a Hindu deity’s statue from the 7th century was returned by France and reattached to its body Thursday for display at a museum, more than 130 years after it was spirited away.

Rector of the State Hindu Dhar-ma Institute (IHDN) Denpasar Prof. Dr. I Nengah Duija on the sidelines of an on-campus event in Bangli on January 23rd, explained that Bali-nese language is one of the pillars of Balinese culture. Unlike say agriculture, he explained, language includes many cultural elements and although many people still speak Balinese, the younger genera-tion is at risk of loosing their mother tongue. “Balinese language is very

important, especially in terms of its cultural elements, which is why I insist on its importance,” he said.

Duija added that if Balinese is not properly learned by the younger generation, there will certainly be some radical shifts across the cultural landscape. Therefore, Balinese very much needs to be maintained.

When asked about efforts to maintain the language, Duija said that the provincial government is

taking very real steps including serious discussions about training Balinese language extension officers to work in villages. On the other hand, he considered that the district government has not been fully con-tributing to this effort beyond very temporary means such as by holding competitions. “Encouraging young people to learn Balinese needs to be undertaken by on all fronts. At the moment the district governments only conduct activities that are tem-porary in nature,” he said.

This Udayana University alum-nus also said that maintaining the Balinese language is not be difficult to do, provided the effort is supported by a serious vision.

The younger generation need to be seriously targeted in this effort. “We must not let this potential go untapped, young people need to be given a chance to learn Balinese,” he said.

Duija also added that local gov-ernment should be utilizing existing spaces according to their function. For example, the Culture Agency’s personnel should have knowledge and understanding about culture, including language. In fact a certain percentage of their personnel should be Balinese Language Departement graduates. “This matter needs to get serious attention if the govern-ment does not want our culture to become eroded,” he said.

Duija also expressed his hope that amid the complexity of the issues that undermine the continu-ation of the Balinese language, that students and alumni do not despair. As long as there is a commitment on the part of the Balinese community to maintain their language, Balinese will continue to flourish.

He added that studying Balinese in university can lead to job op-portunities. Language skills can be used as capital to compete for jobs - not just as language teachers but in other fields as well. “We continue to take steps to ensure that Balinese continues to live on. Obviously, this needs serious support from the gov-ernment,” he concluded. (kmb45)

The National Police Headquar-ters recently ‘intervened’ in reveal-ing a number of criminal cases in Bali, giving rise to questions about why the Bali Police or Denpasar po-lice were not left to deal with these cases themselves.

Lawyer, Pande Made Sugiarta, stated that some of these cases - like the LPG and gambling cases should have been handled by local police authorities.

“An arrest can be made by any police. The National Headquarters serve as a command centre, criminal cases are under the authority of the provincial police, but smaller cases can be nailed by the city police.” he said. Gambling cases, said Sugiarta can easily be handled by the provin-cial or city police.

“It would appear that the Na-tional Police Headquarters had some doubts about the provincial police’s ability to handle the case,” he said.

Sugiarta went on to explain that there needs to be coordination between different levels of police in the disco sure of cases because the provincial and district police have the authority to make arrests. “Although conceded, I think that the provincial police or city police are able to uncover such cases but some-times they need to wait for the right moment to take action,” he said.

Sugiarta argues that He argued that to uncovering cases like gam-bling or LPG (suspected of illegal gas refilling) should be entrusted to local police.

Laywyer, Agus Putra Gunawan, however argued that it does not matter if the National Police Head-quarters intervene in revealing such cases in Bali, especially given that Bali has become the target of international drug syndicates and possible terrorism.

In Gunawan’s opinion it is natural that the National Police Headquarters should intervene - even in cases like the ones pre-viously stated, as it is their right to do so and does not indicate an intention to override the Bali Police or the Denpasar Police. He added that the National Po-lice likely intervened after hav-ing received reports about these crimes. “It’s the public’s right to report crimes and each commu-nity can asses how to deal with reports. For me, it seems quite natural that the National Police Headquarters should intervene in criminal cases and make arrests, though it should indeed be down in coordination with local police if the cases can in fact be handled by local police,” he said.

Similar opinions were shared by lawyer, I Gede Jelantik Purwaka who said that as long as a crime takes place within the jurisdiction of Indonesia, the National Police Headquarters have the authority to make arrests.

Some of the criminal cases that took place in Bali and that were revealed and in which arrests were made directly by the National Police Headquarters include: ding-dong gambling at Studio Zone in the Puri Alit commercial shopping complex at Jabe Jero hamlet, Kuta, gambling at Game Laskar Zone Sony located on Jalan Setiabudi and gambling at Benoa Square. The raids of these locations also involved police of-ficers in Bali.

The National Police Headquar-ters also raided an LPG warehouse alleged to be committing illegal refilling at PT Geha Pratama Sukses on Jalan Pulau Belitung. The raid of the warehouse was made following reports from the public about alleged

illegal refilling. The criminal investigation con-

ducted by the National Police Head-quarters secured evidences consist-ing of five vehicles (trucks, pick-ups) as well as 700 filled cylinders of 3-kg LPG, 80 empty 3-kg cylinders,

2,000 filled 12-kg cylinders, 1,250 filled 50-kg cylinder and 300 empty cylinders.

The arrests made by the Na-tional Police Headquarters in these cases became a hot issue as it brought up the question of why

it was necessary for the National Police to intervene. Previsouly the National Police Headquarters have only given attention to large-scale cases such as terrorism, drug-trafficking and other trans-national crimes. (asa)

Maintaining Balinese language

District actions considered temporaryBANGLI - Many people consider that government efforts

to encourage young people to learn Balinese are still lacking. Plans to instate 1,000 Balinese language instructors in villages across Bali is still only happening on a temporary basis, like for example in the district of Bangli.

IBP/Eka Adhiyasa

The criminal investigation conducted by the National Police Headquarters secured evidences consisting of five vehicles (trucks, pick-ups) as well as 700 filled cylinders of 3-kg LPG, 80 empty 3-kg cylinders, 2,000 filled 12-kg cylinders, 1,250 filled 50-kg cylinder and 300 empty cylinders.

Small criminal cases in BaliNational Police Headquarters ‘intervene’

Bali News International4 Tuesday, January 26, 2016 13InternationalTuesday, January 26, 2016

Authorities cautioned against unnecessary driving, airline sched-ules were in disarray and commuter trains will be delayed or canceled for many as the work week be-gins after a storm that dumped near record snows on the densely populated Washington, D.C. to New York City corridor.

The last flakes fell just before midnight Saturday, but crews raced the clock all day Sunday to clear streets and sidewalks devoid of their usual bustle.

Ice chunks plunging from the roofs of tall buildings menaced people who ventured out in Phila-delphia and New York. High winds on Manhattan’s Upper West Side kept the snow from entirely swal-lowing the tiny Mini Cooper of Daniel Bardman, who nervously

watched for falling icicles as he dug out.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio encouraged people to leave their plowed-in cars covered with snow all week after a one-day record of 26.6 inches (67.6 centimeters) fell in Central Park.

Treacherous conditions remained as people recovered from a storm that dropped snow from the Gulf Coast to New England. At least 30 deaths were blamed on the weather, with shoveling snow and breath-ing carbon monoxide collectively claiming almost as many lives as car crashes.

Broadway reopened after go-ing dark at the last minute during the snowstorm, but museums remained closed in Washington, and the House of Representatives

postponed votes until February, citing the storm’s impact on travel.

Flying remained particularly messy after nearly 12,000 week-end flights were canceled. Air-ports resumed limited service in New York City, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, which said it got an entire winter’s snow in two days. Washington-area airports remained closed Sunday after the punishing blizzard.

Major airlines also canceled hun-dreds of flights for Monday. Along with clearing snow and ice from facilities and equipment, the op-erators of airlines, train and transit systems had to figure out how to get snowbound employees to work.

Overall snowfall of 26.8 inches (68 centimeters) in Central Park made it New York’s second biggest winter storm since records began in 1869, and Saturday’s 26.6 inches (67.6 centimeters) made for a single-day record in the city. (ap)

BANGKOK — A large chunk of metal that could be from an aircraft washed ashore in southern Thailand, but Malaysian authorities have cautioned against speculation of a link to a Malaysia Airlines flight missing almost two years.

The location on the eastern side of Thailand where the debris was found also means it is highly unlikely that the material is from the missing plane.

Flight 370 lost communications and made a sharp turn away from its Beijing destination before disappearing in March 2014. It is presumed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean, and only one piece of debris has been identified as coming from the plane, a slab of wing that washed ashore on Reunion Island in the western Indian Ocean last July.

Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said he instructed Malaysian civil aviation officials to contact Thailand about the newly found wreckage, a curved piece of metal measuring about 2 meters by 3 meters (6 ½ feet by 10 feet) with electrical wires hanging from it and numbers stamped on it in several places.

“I urge the media and the public not to speculate because it will give undue pressure to the loved ones of the victims of MH370,” he said. Thailand’s Transportation Ministry said four Malaysian officials and two Thai experts will visit the site Monday.

The debris was found on the eastern coast of southern Thailand’s Nakkon Si Thammarat province, about 370 miles (600 kilometers) south of Bangkok on the Gulf of Thailand.

While debris can drift thousands of miles (kilometers) on ocean cur-rents, that location would be a surprise based on the data from Flight 370. The presumed crash site in the Indian Ocean and the fact the wing piece was found on Reunion Island mean it would be highly unlikely any current could have carried a piece of the missing plane to Thailand’s eastern coast. Liow said the search for the missing jet, which carried 239 people, is ongoing in the southern Indian Ocean and that its second phase is expected to be completed by June. Australia has led a multinational search that has so far cost more than $120 million.

Australian Transport Safety Bureau spokesman Dan O’Malley said the agency was awaiting results of an official examination of the debris.

The bureau announced Monday that the search of 120 square kilome-ters (46,000 square miles) of seabed where the Boeing 777 is thought to have crashed had been set back after a ship lost its sonar equipment.

The Fugro Discovery, one of three ships conducting the search, towed its side-scan sonar into a mud volcano that rose 2,200 meters (7,200 feet) from the sea floor on Sunday, the bureau said in a statement.

The ship lost the sonar plus 4.5 kilometers (14,800 feet) of cable. The ship was now making a six-day journey to the Australian port of Fremantle to collect new cable and would continue the search with spare sonar equipment.

The plane was tracked by radar flying over the South China Sea then making a sharp turn west for unknown reasons. It crossed the Malay Peninsula and Straits of Malacca, which would put it off Thailand’s west coast. (ap)

Large metal chunk investigated after washing onto Thai beach

AP Photo

Thai people look at a large chunk of metal found on a beach in Nakhon Si Thammarat province, Thailand, Sunday, Jan. 24, 2016. The debris that could be from an aircraft has washed ashore in southern Thailand, but Malaysian authori-ties on Sunday cautioned against speculation of a link to a Malaysia Airlines flight missing almost two years.

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

A man bounces at the bottom as he sleds down the snow-covered steps of the Lincoln Memo-rial, Sunday, Jan. 24, 2016 in Washington. Millions of Americans began digging out Sunday from a mammoth blizzard that set a new single-day snowfall record in Washington and New York City.

East Coast, emerging from blizzard, faces difficult commute

NEW YORK — The blizzard-blanketed Eastern U.S. will confront a Monday commute slowed by slick roads, damaged transit lines and endless mounds of snow, after a weekend of sledding, snowboarding and staying put.

TABANAN - Prolonged dry sea-son in 2015 did not only have an impact on the rice production but also on horticultural production. This can be seen from the farmers developing horticultural crops such as chili and garlic where they avoid planting dur-ing dry season because their plants wither when the temperature is too hot and lack for water. With this reason, many farmers then choose to start planting during rainy season. Of course this matter leads to a decrease in production and a shortage of stock when rainy season arrives and has an impact on high prices.

The Horticultural Production De-velopment Division Head at the Ta-banan Agriculture Agency, Gusti Putu Wiadnyana, said on Sunday (Jan. 24) that in the normal dry season farmers are rarely willing to grow crops such as chili for fear of crop failure let alone in extreme drought as occurred in 2015. He explained that chili cultivation also has a dependency on the availability of water although it is not as much as needed by paddy plants.

To boost chili production in the mar-ket, the government rolled out chili and

shallot planting program in dry season. It aims to enable farmers to do cultiva-tion in dry season and can be harvested in rainy season. As a result, the so high price increase can be avoided.

“Unfortunately, the program ex-perienced many obstacles where they are not separated from hot weather, shortage of water and pest attack,” he said. With the prolonged dry season coupled hot enough weather, it is not appropriate for the cultivation of small plants. These conditions cause small plants dominated by horticultural plants to wither. Due to such condi-tion, added Wiadnyana, production of horticultural crops in Tabanan decreased when compared to previ-ous year, but the condition is not too significant.

According to him, planting chilies in dry season does have a fairly high risk of failure. However, on the other hand, if the cultivation is successful farmers will enjoy huge profits in the following rainy season. At that time, many farmers have just started plant-ing and chili stock at the market is very limited, so that the price becomes expensive. (kmb24)

Kariana explained that Bali in general and Bangli in particular have enormous potential when it comes to the agricultural sector. Un-fortunately few -if any, local farmlands have been registered, despite the importance of doing so. “So far, no farmers have registered their farmland. But it is essential to do so with the AEC,” said KAriana, who explained that famers will have have a much easier time marketing their products to ASEAN countries if they have registered their farmlands. He also said that there are standard operating procedures for the pro-duction of specific crops.

“The area and location of farmlands needs to be included in the registration so that everything is clear.”

In addition to farmland registration, Karina pointed to independent seed production as an important step that local farmers need to take so as to diminish the amount of seeds that come from other countries. In fact, Kariana said that he hopes that Bangli can become a seed producer for other areas. “Harvest yields should not all be sold off. Some seeds need to be kept aside so that farmers can be independent,” he added.

Acting Head of the Bangli Agriculture, Plantation and Forestry Agency, Ni Wayan Manik, stated that she will follow it up immediately on the needs of farmers in face of the AEC. According to Manik, farm-land registration is indeed very important not only in terms of the AEC market place but also in terms of clarifying the ownership of farmlands. “We will follow up on this input immediately,” she said.

Manik explained that the government has been aggressively training farmers through field schools, where farmers are given information that they are then asked to share with other farmers. “Field schools have been established to share agricultural science with farmers, with the hope that it helps farmers face AEC competition,” she concluded in the presence of Food Division Head, I Wayan Tagel Sujana. (kmb45)

NEGARA - The bridge that con-nects Denpasar-Gilimanuk road and Dangin Tukaya village partly col-lapsed on Saturday night (Jan 23) after being eroded by river water. As a result, traffic on Denpasar-Gilimanuk road was paralyzed for several hours before smaller vehicles were diverted to a village road. Heavy trucks serving the Java-Bali cargo were forced to stop until Sunday afternoon (Jan 24).

According to information gath-ered on Saturday, heavy rains fell from noon into the nigt causing several rivers in Jembrana to over-flow. Dangin Tukadaya’s overflow allegedly putting enough pressure on the bridges pillars, that the bridge started shifting and around 21:00 started to crack.“This bridge is quite old and has been worked on a few times, but only to widen the roadway,” said a local resident named Mawa.

Fortunately, there were no ve-hicles on the bridge at the time and a local resident was able to report the incident to authorities. Traffic in both directions was immedi-ately stopped. The bridge collapsed

shortly thereafter. Traffic on the national road was paralyzed for several hours.

Police diverted private vehicles to the small village street from the west past Keladian Dauhwaru and through Sebual, Dangin Tukadaya village. Then, traffic from the east was diverted from Sangkaragung through Dauhwaru. Severe traffic congestion resulted from the large number of trucks and buses that were trying to use this small road.

Until Sunday night, a number of trucks were parked around Jalan Sudirman, in Negara. Truck drivers from Java explained that could not continue their journey because the small road could not support their heavy loads. Police also diverted the path of large trucks and buses from Cekik to Buleleng, while trucks and buses from Denpasar were directed to Buleleng from Tabanan.

In 2012, the bridge, that is nearly 40 years old, was widened and each end of the bridge was repaired. However the middle section of asphalt, running along about 25 meters, was not repaired at the time. On Saturday night, this section of

the bridge collapsed under pressure from the swollen river.

Regent of Jembrana, I Putu Artha, inspected the condition of the collapsed bridge on Sunday. He called for car, motorcycles and other vehicles weighing under 5 tons, that are coming from the west, to use lanes to the north. “Now, the most important thing is to prepare alter-native routes. Hopefully, relevant authorities can immediately make repair the bridge,” said Artha.

The regent also asked relevant authorities to immediately put directional signs, indicating the need to use alternative routes, at every intersection and to remove trucks that are presently parked on the road.

Earlier, the entire regional leader-ship council, the Chief of Jembrana Police Joni Widodo, the Command-er of the 1617/Jembrana Military District, Sansan Iskandar, and the Deputy Regent of Jembrana, I Made Kembang Hartawan also inspected the location of the collapsed bridge. Barriers and police lines have been placed on the road at each end of the bridge. (kmb26)

Drought, horticultural products diminishes

Dangin Tukadaya Bridge breaks downDenpasar-Gilimanuk road paralyzed

Facing AEC

Farmland should be registeredBANGLI - Preparations to face the ASEAN Economic

Community (AEC) are not only being made in the industrial and tourism sectors, but also in the agricultural sector. “In the face of stiff competition, farmers need to register their farmlands,” said Horticulture Section Head at the Bali Ag-riculture Agency, Putu Kariana.

IBP/File

Farmland is very important to the life of Balinese so it also must be registered

Bali News Tuesday, January 26, 2016 5InternationalTuesday, January 26, 201612 International

BUSINESS

TOKYO - The yen held steady in Asia on Monday as Japan’s top central banker moved to temper specu-lation it will unveil more monetary stimulus when it meets this week.

A report in the leading Nikkei business daily on Friday raised hopes the Bank of Japan would widen its already vast easing programme to counter weakness in the world’s number three economy.

The report, which came a day after the head of the European Central Bank had pledged more action, helped send global markets rallying and pushed the yen lower against the dollar and euro.

But in a weekend interview with Bloomberg in Davos, Switzerland, BoJ governor Haruhiko Kuroda showed little sign the bank would announce immediate easing measures, although he said it was ready to act “if the underlying inflation trend is seriously affected”.

Last month, policymakers announced an unex-pected tweak to the BoJ’s vast stimulus programme but refused to expand the 80 trillion yen annual asset-buying scheme -- which effectively prints money to spur lending.

In midday trade, the dollar edged down to 118.67 yen from 118.76 yen in New York -- but it is still well up from the 117.66 yen on Thursday, before the Nikkei report. The euro rose to 128.35 yen from 128.23 yen and is also much higher than the 127.99 yen Thursday.

The single currency ticked up to $1.0813 from $1.0797 in New York.

Japan’s December inflation and other key indicators are due Friday as the central bank wraps up its first meeting of the year.

Global financial markets went into a freefall at the start of the year, hammered by fears about the global economy, especially China, and a crash in oil prices.

The fear factor has benefited the yen, which inves-tors tend to buy as a safe haven in times of turmoil and uncertainty.

More BoJ easing measures would tend to weaken the unit. “The BoJ meets Friday with its decision due hot on the heels of the latest (December inflation), retail sales and industrial production data,” National Australia Bank said in a commentary. (afp)

At the same time, a majority of economists surveyed by the Na-tional Association for Business Economics said their firms plan to raise wages in the January-March quarter. That is the largest propor-tion that expects to raise pay since mid-2014.

Aside from the planned pay rise, the survey paints a mostly gloomy view of the economy at the start of 2016. Fewer than half the econo-mists expect sales at their firms to rise in the first quarter, the smallest proportion since January 2015. And nearly 20 percent expect profits to

fall, the most in more than a year.For the first time in three years,

more than 25 percent of the econo-mists forecast that growth will slip below 2 percent over the next year. As recently as April, 30 percent ex-pected growth would top 3 percent in the following 12 months. That figure fell to just 4 percent in the current survey.

The survey was conducted from Dec. 17 through Jan. 5, mostly be-

fore the big stock market drops that have occurred since the year began, and 148 economists responded.

There were some positive signs in the results. In addition to the planned wage increases for the first quarter, nearly half of the econo-mists said their firms had already raised pay in the final three months of 2015. That’s the highest percent-age in more than a decade.

And one-third of respondents

said their firms planned to add jobs in the next three months, up from 29 percent in the fall. The number planning to cut jobs also rose, to 15 percent. A solid majority, 62 percent, of the economists say that the Federal Reserve’s interest rate increase announced Dec. 1 will have no impact on their company.

Just 16 percent expect a negative effect and almost a quarter expect a positive one. (ap)

SINGAPORE - Oil prices extended their rally in Asia Monday buoyed by hopes of extra stimulus measures in the eurozone and Japan that could help boost demand in the face of a global supply glut.

Prices ended on a buoyant note Friday, with the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for March de-livery soaring nine percent to $32.19 a barrel, while Brent soared 10 percent to $32.18.

The upward momentum continued in Asia on Monday, with WTI up 46 cents, or 1.43 percent, at $32.65 and Brent 56 cents, or 1.74 percent, higher at $32.74 by 0650 GMT.

Michael McCarthy, chief market strategist at CMC Markets Australia, said a report showing that private sec-tor business activity in the eurozone continued to expand in January boosted hopes for oil demand catching up with the oversupply. Data monitoring company Markit said its closely watched composite Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) fell to 53.5 points in January from 54.3 in December. While the figure was an 11-month low it was still well above the 50-point level that separates growth and contraction in the 19-nation bloc.

On Thursday European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi signalled further stimulus measures for the region, while a report in the respected Nikkei business daily Friday said the Bank of Japan is also considering extra measures.

“The demand side of the situation was what was wor-rying us. Now that we’ve seen evidence to support that, we’ve had a lot of short-term interests in the market having to cover. It’s a good old-fashioned scramble,” he told AFP from Sydney.

“Combined with a strong economy in the US, the de-mand side of the equation remains on track to catch up with supply about 12 months out.”

Sanjeev Gupta, head of the oil and gas practice at profes-sional services firm EY, said prices also got a boost from the severe snowstorm that battered the US East Coast over the weekend as demand for heating oil rose.

However, some analysts remain wary of calling a bot-tom, especially with Iranian crude poised to return to the market within months following the lifting of western eco-nomic sanctions linked to its nuclear programme. (afp)

Business economists expect slower sales, economic growth

WASHINGTON — Business economists are more pessimistic about their firms’ future sales and profits than they were last fall, and more predict slower economic growth, a survey found.

Oil prices extend rise above $32 in Asia on demand hopes

AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko

A man stands in front of an electronic stock board of a securities firm in Tokyo, Thursday, Jan. 7, 2016. The yen held steady in Asia on Monday as Japan’s top central banker moved to temper speculation it will unveil more monetary stimulus when it meets this week.

Yen steady as BoJ chief tempers hopes for more easing

MANGUPURA - Terrorist threats have made police in Bali work harder to secure areas that are likely to be targeted. Chief of the Badung Police, Tony Binsar, has assessed that the area of Petitenget in North Kuta is vulner-able to be targeted by terrorists because of the culinary delights on offer here, that draw large numbers of tourists.

“Badung Police remain on the alert and in the area of Petitenget, security is tightened and armed patrols have been increased,” affirmed the police chief after holding an “Alarm Stell-ing” (extraordinary call) in the parking lot ofon Petitenget Temple, Friday (Jan. 22).

All police forces, added the police chief, are stationed every day beyond their regular tasks -especially in the area of Petitenget. Police Chief Binsar, added that the exercise outside

the temple, involved personnel from the North Kuta Police, the Badung Police and a mobile brigade mobile from the Mengwi unit.

The police personnel were specifically being trained in rapid response and strategic crowd control in the cases of an emergency. Binsar also asked the public to “Please give the right of way if they see armed officers, so that that they can respond quickly to any situ-ation that requires their attention,” he said.

Such training exercises will continue to take place. “By frequently exercising the of-ficers, they will become more accustomed to dealing with situations like the tragedy that occurred in Sarinah, Jakarta. “Whether there is an incident of not, it is important to have our officers well trained. So far, response times are pretty good,” he said. (kmb36)

It was mentioned by a number of grilled fish merchants in Amlapura, Sunday (Jan. 24). Small fresh fish is currently sold for IDR 7,000 from

around IDR 1,500 each. This condi-tion happened because fishermen rarely get fish.

Fishermen on Ujung Beach

also get difficulty to look for tuna. Restaurants providing a menu of grilled tuna must look for this kind of fish to fishermen at Seraya. During famine season of this fish, fishermen are distraught because they often suffer losses when go-ing to sea. It happened because of expensive fuel and they spend a lot of fuel, but the sales of fish are not

enough to buy fuel.On the other hand, the corn crops

of farmers at this barren village look infertile. It happens because some areas of the village do not get continuous rain, so there are corn plants wilting and their leaves are turning curl.

Related to these issues, a leg-islator of the Karangasem House

of Representatives, Gede Dauh Suprapta, asked the executive in charge of social welfare to alert and monitor the public. He ex-pected that in case of crop failure, there has been anticipation from the beginning, so as not to lead to food shortages, especially in poor communities in remote rural areas. (013)

IBP/Yudi Karnaedi

The small “ogoh-ogoh” is attracting the attention of the children in Den-pasar. Near the Nyepi Day, “ogoh-ogoh” is started to be made by the Hindus throughout the island.

Security in Petitenget tightened in anticipation of acts of terror

IBP/Eka Adhiyasa

The fisherman’s boats are seen on the picture. The fishermen cannot go to the sea due to bad weather.

Bad weather

Fish famines, fishermen ditherAMLAPURA - Lately ahead of the eighth month of Balinese

calendar (Jan-Feb) adverse weather occurred at sea. Therefore, the fish chiefly tuna is suspected of having migrated, so that fishermen go through fish famine. Fishermen often suffer losses because of spending a lot of fuel, but only get a few fish catch.

6 International

W RLDTuesday, January 26, 2016 11Tuesday, January 26, 2016International

Using a loophole in party rules, supporters of Prime Minister Nguy-en Tan Dung on Sunday proposed that his name be added to the list of candidates who can contest for membership to the Central Com-mittee, one of the two pillars of the ruling establishment.

If Dung makes it, he will stand a good chance to be elected to the committee, and then would be in a position to challenge his rival, General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, for his job. The party gen-eral secretary is the de facto No. 1 leader in the collective leadership that governs Vietnam.

“Dung is a skilled and deter-mined infighter and most people agreed there was still a remote chance that he would try to mount

some sort of comeback,” said Murray Hiebert, a Southeast Asian expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Wash-ington.

Trong has for years been trying unsuccessfully to sideline Dung, and while contests for the top post are not unheard of, they are usually settled well before the party con-gress, which take place once every five years to choose new leaders.

This year, the rivalry between Dung and Trong has gone down to the wire into the party congress that began last Thursday and will end this Thursday. But regardless of who wins, the fundamental makeup of the government or its policies will not change radically, according to analysts.

Dung has built a reputation for promoting economic reforms, and being bold enough to confront China in its territorial aggression in the South China Sea. But even if Trong, a stolid party apparatchik with closer leanings toward China, manages to sideline Dung eventu-ally, it doesn’t mean the economic reforms would stall or Vietnam will capitulate to Chinese maritime aggression in Vietnamese waters, according to observers.

“Ideologically, there isn’t a yawning gap between Trong and Dung, although most people be-lieve that the pace of economic reform might slow a bit if Trong remains at the helm and Dung is ousted,” Hiebert told The Associ-ated Press. For now, the road to the top is paved with hurdles for Dung. He faces the first one later Monday on the floor of the Com-munist Party congress that is being attended by 1,510 delegates behind closed doors.

The delegates will pick 234 can-didates for an election to the 180-member Central Committee. Of these, 199 people endorsed by the outgoing committee are guaranteed to be picked. The remaining 35 will be chosen from the 62 politicians proposed by some of the delegates, which includes Dung’s name.

If he does get chosen, he will still need to win an endorsement from the floor to make it to the final 180 in an election on Tuesday. After that, they will elect at least 16 mem-bers to the all-powerful Politburo, which handles the day to day gov-ernance of Vietnam. It is possible that the Politburo will be expanded to 18 members this year.

Of the Politburo members, one will be chosen the general secretary, the country’s top leader. Three oth-ers will be chosen, in respective or-der of seniority: the prime minister, the president and the chairman of the national assembly.

Dung, who has risen through the ranks of the party and has held senior positions, is a two-term prime minister. This means he can’t be the prime minster for a third term, leaving only the general-secretary’s post as a viable option. His economic re-forms in the country have helped Vietnam attract a flood of foreign investment and helped triple the per capita GDP to $2,100 over the past 10 years. (ap)

ST. JOHN’S, Newfoundland — Seven people were taken to hospital after an American Airlines plane from Miami to Milan made an emergency landing in Newfound-land after the jet briefly encountered severe turbulence.

The aircraft landed safely in the East Coast Canadian province late Sunday, where it was met by paramedics.

American Airlines spokesman Ross Feinstein said three flight at-tendants and four passengers were transported to hospital for further evaluation. He said none of the injuries are life threatening.

The seat belt light was on when

the Boeing 767 carrying 192 pas-sengers and 11 crew members encountered turbulence.

At least four ambulances and a fire truck were seen on the tarmac in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Para-medics rushed toward the plane with stretchers and what appeared to be a backboard.

An hour after the plane landed, one ambulance remained. Feinstein said they are working on next steps to get the uninjured passengers to Milan.

Sara Norris, a spokeswoman for St. John’s airport, said the plane will stay in St. John’s over-night. (ap)

TAIPEI, Taiwan — An unusu-ally cold weather front that caused sudden drops in temperatures has been blamed for killing as many as 57 people in Taiwan’s greater Taipei area.

The Taipei government said the cold wave that pushed temperatures to a 16-year record low of 4 degrees Celsius (39.2 degrees Fahrenheit) in the capital was suspected in the

deaths of 40 people in the capital from Friday through Sunday. A city official says the sudden drop in tem-peratures caused heart troubles and shortness of breath for the mostly elderly people who died in Taipei.

Neighboring New Taipei City, where temperatures were slightly lower, reported that another 17 people had died because of the cold weather. (ap)

AP Photo/Andrew Taylor, File

FILE - In this Wednesday, March, 18, 2015 file photo, Viet-namese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung speaks at a news conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia. Sup-porters of Vietnam’s prime minister have nominated him for a key Communist Party panel, a necessary step to contesting the post of the party chief, in a last-minute maneuver to secure the top job in the country.

Vietnam PM makes last-minute comeback

in leadership battleHANOI — Vietnam’s pro-business prime minister, who

last week appeared to have lost a power struggle in the ruling Communist Party, has made a last-minute comeback and will know Monday if he can re-enter the contest for the top job in the country.

Dozens of deaths blamed on rare cold

snap in Taiwan

Paul Daly/The Canadian Press via AP

An ambulance departs St. John’s International Airport on Sunday, Jan. 24, 2016, in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Several people were taken to hospital after an American Airlines plane from Miami to Milan made an emergency landing after the jet briefly encountered severe turbulence.

7 hurt on American Airlines jet; plane diverts to Canada

The move by Bangka-Belitung, made up of two main islands off South Sumatra, is the latest in a series in which religious minorities including Christians and Shi’ite Muslims have faced harassment and complained of a lack of pro-tection.

“The Ahmadiyah have a right to live in Bangka,” Fery Insani, a senior official in the local govern-ment, told Reuters. “In a meet-ing with community leaders and religious figures, all of us have agreed that it is forbidden for them to conduct activities like spreading

their faith.”Indonesia has the world’s largest

population of Muslims, the majority of whom adhere to moderate Sunni beliefs. But hardline Indonesian Muslims accuse Ahmadiyah and other Muslim minorities of apos-tasy.

Around 1,000 members of a group called Gafatar were evacu-ated from their homes following violence in West Kalimantan last week, media said. Authorities

have outlawed the organisation which they describe as radical and dangerous.

Members of the tiny Ahmadiyah community on the tin-rich Bangka island said they had faced intimida-tion and official pressure to leave their homes, according to rights groups.

“We hope the police can guar-antee security for the Ahmadiyah people in Bangka and that the local government guarantee our

rights as citizens,” said Yendra Budiana, a Jakarta-based spokes-man for the Indonesia Ahmadiyah Community.

A spokesman for the religious af-fairs ministry declined to comment on the issue.

Hundreds of hardline Muslims forced the local government to tear down several churches in the con-servative province of Aceh last last year, claiming they lacked proper building permits. (rtr)

BARELY a few days old, perched on a nest of twigs in-side an incubator, a newborn Indonesian songbird -- cher-ished for its melodious chirp

-- tweets weakly as a tiny metallic ring is attached to its leg. The tag shows potential buyers the chick was bred in captivity. It’s an important symbol, which shows it was not trapped in the wild and smuggled, an illegal trade which sees birds packed in their thousands in shipping crates or stuffed in plastic bottles before being sold in

giant avian markets in Indo-nesia’s major cities.

The hatchling was born at Mega-nanda Daryono’s vast aviary in Bo-gor, a city on the island of Java, where he runs a breeding programme that is a sustainable alternative to the roaring trade in birds caught in the wild.

“I realised the birds being caught in the forest would one day be gone for good,” Daryono told AFP at the site, now a cornucopia of exotic ma-

caws, brilliant parrots and vulnerable songbirds.

He is among a small number try-ing to turn the tide in a country where once-common bird species are being driven to the brink of extinction, as an obsession for bird-keeping and even avian singing contests fuels unprec-edented demand.

The jungles of the archipelago are home to 131 threatened bird species, according to wildlife trade watchdog TRAFFIC, more than any other country except Brazil. There are a dizzying array of exotic species, from the Sumatran Laughingthrush, to the Chattering Lory and the Black-winged Myna.

At an emergency meeting con-vened in Singapore to discuss the cri-sis last year, wildlife experts declared Indonesia’s rampant bird trade more of a threat to many native species than habitat loss, and called for urgent intervention to stop the plunder.

“The scale is massive. It involves millions and millions of birds every year,” TRAFFIC’s Chris Shepherd told AFP.

“It’s just really reaching a point now, a critical point, where it’s now or never for a lot of these species.”

Caged birds have been kept as pets for centuries in Indonesia but the evolution of songbird contests from small, localised events to a nationwide craze known as “chirp-ing mania” is in particular blamed for the rapid dwindling of songbirds in the wild.

There are entire fan clubs dedi-cated to certain species of canaries, “chirping” organisations boasting thousands of members, and cham-pions who go on tour across the archipelago to compete for big prize money -- and glory -- at national gala events.

It’s serious business, as one cham-pion Johan explained at a recent contest in central Jakarta, as men screamed, whistled and clucked at their birds, encouraging them to keep singing as stony-faced judges awarded points for melody, duration and volume.

“This isn’t a beauty pageant, it’s a chirping contest. It’s chirping mania,” Johan, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told AFP.

Calls from some quarters for these popular contests to be banned or heavily regulated have met stiff resistance, with many defending them

as uniquely Indonesian and blaming the trade -- not the competitions themselves -- for the crisis unfolding in jungles far away.

However efforts are being made to distance the contests from the illegal trade and unsightly bird markets like Pramuka -- an overcrowded, filthy emporium in Jakarta known to sell critically-endangered and vulner-able birds.

Changing attitudesThe Indonesian Bird Society

(PBI), which sanctions and judges one major songbird league, has pledged to phase out all wild birds and replace them entirely with song-birds bred in captivity. So far three species must be captive-bred and bear the tell-tale ring to compete in PBI contests, with a fourth to be added next year.

But former PBI chairman Made Sri Prana, who helped usher in the regulations, said a full transition would take time and outside PBI-sanctioned contests, “there’s no real obligations” for other songbird as-sociations to follow suit.

Capturing any native birds from the wild -- whether they are protected

or not -- is illegal in Indonesia but law enforcement is lax, with fines and jail terms rarely handed out to traffickers or vendors at big markets, Shepherd said.

But there are some positive signs. There are now estimated to be hun-dreds of breeding programmes like Daryono’s across the country, and authorities have made a number of high-profile seizures of illegally caught birds.

In addition, conservationists working with the government hope in 2016 to update the list of birds protected under Indonesian law, which is many years out of date.

Raising public awareness is a longer game. Indonesian President Joko Widodo tried to do just that this month when he released 200 caged birds into the wild -- but was criticised when it emerged the ani-mals had been bought in Pramuka, a symbol of the country’s illegal wildlife trade.

Ria Saryanthi from Burung Indonesia, a local conservation group working for better protection of birds, said it would take time to alter old habits: “You cannot change people’s minds easily.” (afp)

Indonesian birds on the brink as forests plundered

Indonesia province bans small Islamic sect from “spreading faith”

JAKARTA - A tiny Indonesian province has banned a mi-nority Islamic sect from conducting religious activities, a move activists say raises concerns over intolerance in the Muslim-majority nation.

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) and First Lady Iriana are scheduled to pay a state visit to Timor Leste on Tuesday.

It will be President Jokowi’s first state visit to Timor Leste, the foreign ministry noted in a statement, here, Monday.

The head of state will be ac-

companied by the coordinating minister for economic affairs, foreign affairs minister, cabinet secretary, and youth and sports minister.

The visit is aimed at strength-ening bilateral relations, reaffirm-ing Indonesia’s commitment to becoming a major development

partner of Timor Leste.Jokowi is scheduled to hold

bilateral meetings with Timor Leste President Taur Matan Ruak and Prime Minister Maria De Araujo.

They will discuss issues and efforts to step up cooperation in trade, investment, energy, and in-

frastructure development, among several others.

The two countries’ leaders will also reiterate their joint commitment to accelerating solutions to land and maritime border issues.

They will also witness the signing of five memoranda of

understanding on cooperation in: youth and sports, archives, cli-matology and geophysics, search and rescue (SAR), and energy and mineral resources.

Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi is cur-rently in Dili to finalize the prepa-rations for the state visit. (ant)

President to visit Timor Leste

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DENPASAR - The name of Taman Puputan Badung is a dedication to memorize of the war on 20th September 1906 in which the Balinese people King Badung/Denpasar fought bravely against the Dutch who invaded theh land. That date is always commemorated every year, and a monument called Taman Puputan Monument has been erected for the important event. This monument stands of northern part of the Puputan Square. This Square is visited by many local people every afternoon for recreation; and every Sunday there activities particularly organized for children.

IBP/Net

Puputan Badung Square

The two-time Australian Open champion had just beaten Bar-baro Strycova 6-2, 6-4 in the fourth round on Monday — continuing a three-year sequence of wins against the Czech player that started in the second round in 2013 and included the third round last year — when she wanted to know the result of the AFC title game.

“Can somebody please tell me, did Broncos win?” she said, taking over her on-court TV interview. When she heard the Denver Bron-

cos had beaten the New England Pa-triots 20-18, she shouted “Yesss!!” — stepping back and raising both arms, “I’m so happy now.”

“I was so nervous the whole morning, I didn’t watch. I didn’t want to know the result,” she said. “As you can see I’m a crazy sports fanatic, so I understand you guys when you get all nervous and stuff, because I felt that.”

Peyton Manning’s Broncos will face Cam Newton’s Carolina Panthers in the 50th Super Bowl. Azarenka has already shown some allegiance to Newton and the Pan-thers, doing her version of the “dab” in her victory celebrations.

Told of the Panthers’ win over the Cardinals in the NFC decider, Azarenka said “Well then, it’s going to be my dream final, I can’t wait to see that.” Azarenka is coming off two injury-interrupted seasons,

but is returning to the kind of form that took her to the No. 1-ranked and back-to-back Australian Open titles in 2012 and ‘13.

She won the Brisbane Interna-tional leading into the first major of the season, and dropped only five games in her first three rounds at Melbourne Park.

Next up she faces No. 7 An-gelique Kerber, who beat fellow German Annika Beck 6-4, 6-0 in the preceding match on Rod Laver Arena.

Kerber, who saved match point in her first-round win over Misaki Doi, is into the quarterfinals for the first time in nine trips to Melbourne Park.

In later fourth-round matches on Rod Laver fourth-seeded Stan Wawrinka, the French Open and 2014 Australian Open champion, was playing big-serving Cana-dian Milos Raonic and No. 2 Andy Murray, a four-time finalist at Mel-bourne Park, was set to face No. 16 Bernard Tomic, the last Australian in the draw. (ap)

Negotiations for a MotoGP race in Finland for the first time in over three decades in 2017 or ‘18 are ongoing, with construction about to start on the KymiRing circuit. Final planning approval has now come through for the venue, which is located approximately 100 miles north-east of Helsinki, near Kou-vola.

The KymiRing would include a 2.9-mile internationally-certified racetrack, with the organiser eye-ing a MotoGP round as its flagship event.

“We have a good understanding with Dorna,” project manager Timo Pohjola told Autosport. “We are going to have a meeting in Febru-ary, they are visiting in Finland once again and we will discuss the timetable.

“We are really pleased with everything they have done so far.” Finland hosted world motorcycle grands prix between 1962 and ‘82, initially with two at the Tampere circuit before moving to Imatra.

Pohjola indicated it was “too ear-ly at the moment to say”, whether the circuit would be ready to host MotoGP in 2017 or ‘18, should an

agreement be struck.The circuit plan received final

approval last week, paving the way for construction to begin, however meaningful work is likely to be a couple of months away, due to a harsh Finnish winter.

“We have a preliminary time schedule from our constructor and he says it is about 12 to 13 months,” Pohjola explained.

“At the moment, the first thing we can continue is the forest cut-ting, so that is going to be the next stage, and then also we are starting some earthworks. “The earth is frozen at the moment, the depth is about two metres that it is frozen.

“We have to wait a little so it melts, then it is a lot easier and cheaper to work on. “We have about five months every year when it is not very wise to start earthworks.”

Winter will again be a factor later in the circuit’s construction, based on the first layer of the racing sur-face needing a winter to cure, before a second can be applied.

“We don’t know what is going to be the timetable at the end of this year,” Pohjola said. “It is a little bit too early to tell.

“We only want to speak facts, because this winter is much, much harder than we expected, much.”

When complete, the KymiRing’s FIM Grade A certification will be accompanied by Grade 2 on the

FIA’s motorsport scale. Car racing, including championships such as the DTM and World Touring Cars, is also on the venue’s radar.

“The [Finnish] car federation has had some serious talks with the FIA

and to other promoters,” Pohjola confirmed.

“So there are a lot of things under negotiation. “I can tell you that we can expect some results or state-ments before summer.” (rtr)

Azarenka, in form, and into Australian Open quarterfinals

MELBOURNE, Australia — Victoria Azarenka couldn’t get off court quickly enough to check the score after reaching the Australian Open quarterfinals. To her excitement, it was a Broncos win.

Victoria Azarenka of Belarus reacts after defeating Barbo-ra Strycova of the Czech Re-public in their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championships in Mel-bourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 25, 2016.AP Photo/Vincent Thian

KymiRing in MotoGP race talks for 2017 or ‘18

98 Tuesday, January 26, 2016 Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Sp rt

“We played with character and had a great game technically, and at the end that gave us the win,” Paul Pogba said. “When we play like this it’s a pleasure.” Serie A’s top goalscorer Gonzalo Higuain was also on target again to set Napoli on its way. Lorenzo Insigne netted a penalty before goals from Marek Hamsik and Dries Mertens sealed the victory.

“With hard work, in life you can do anything,” Napoli coach Maurizio Sarri said. “There are still 17 matches left and at this point there’s no advantage that gives you a guarantee. Now we are happy, but we don’t yet know if we have the strength to remain at these levels especially because we are a new group.”

Inter is now six points off the pace after a last-minute equalizer by 10-man Carpi held it to a 1-1 draw. Fiorentina is above Inter on

goal difference after Josip Ilicic and Gonzalo Rodriguez secured a 2-0 win over Torino.

Elsewhere, Sassuolo lost 2-0 against Bologna while Lazio came from behind to beat Chievo Verona 4-1 in a match that saw both sides finish with 10 men and the visitors miss a penalty. Palermo also won 4-1, against Udinese, and Hellas Verona drew 1-1 against Genoa.

Juventus needed a win to cut the deficit back after Napoli’s earlier victory, but Roma — play-ing in only its second game under Luciano Spalletti following Rudi Garcia’s dismissal — was desper-ate to get back to winning ways.

Roma put in a good defensive performance but, with the match seemingly destined for a draw, Dybala broke the deadlock in the 77th minute. The Argentina for-ward raced onto Pogba’s through ball and fired across into the bot-

tom right corner for his 12th goal of the season.

Edin Dzeko thought he had equalized, but play had already been stopped for his nudge on Andrea Barzagli. Roma fell 12 points behind Napoli. “We had a good game, we conceded little but we should have been more daring,” Spalletti said. “At the moment we’re not being helped by the mo-rale — which is on the ground — and tired legs. “We did something positive, but too little.”

Juventus needs just two more victories to match the club record of most consecutive league wins. It won 13 from the 32nd match of the 2013-14 season to the sixth match of 2014-15. Its most successive wins in a single season was 12, in 2013-14. The record winning streak in Serie A is Inter’s 17-match run in 2006-07.

Higuain had been in good form with 20 goals in as many league matches this season and, although he missed an early chance, he got Napoli off to the perfect start in the ninth minute, pouncing onto Edgar Barreto’s woeful backpass and fir-ing into the bottom left corner.

Matters went from bad to worse for Barreto in the 17th minute when he barged over Raul Albiol and Insigne converted the resulting pen-alty. Joaquin Correa got Sampdoria back into the game on the stroke of halftime but the home side went down to 10 men shortly before the hour mark when Mattia Cassani was sent off for a second booking.

Napoli made the most of the man advantage as Hamsik immediately scored after a slalom run between two defenders. Samp got back into the match again in the 73rd with a glancing header from an Eder cor-ner, but substitute Mertens sealed the result 10 minutes from time.

Inter was eager to get back to winning ways in the league follow-ing a defeat and a draw, which had seen it fall from top spot.

Rodrigo Palacio broke the dead-lock shortly before halftime, tap-ping into an empty net after Ivan Perisic’s shot was deflected into his path. And Inter appeared assured of the three points when Lorenzo Pasciuti was sent off following a second yellow card, seven minutes from time.

But Kevin Lasagna stunned the San Siro crowd with a stoppage-time equalizer after dodging the offside trap to run onto Raffaele Bianco’s through ball. (ap)

LONDON - Any doubts Dele Alli is the kind of player to take Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham Hotspur to another level were dispelled this weekend.

The 19-year-old unlocked a tight match at Crystal Palace on Saturday with a sublime goal which put Spurs ahead late in their 3-1 win to consolidate their fourth place in the Premier League.

Pochettino, reflecting on Spurs’ good fortune to have landed Alli when he might have moved to Liverpool from MK Dons, cited Lionel Messi almost joining Espanyol in 2004 as an example of near misses in football.

“It was true and how it changed (Messi’s) life to stay at Barcelona, because it was nearly done, a centimetre (from happen-ing), unbelievable,” said former Espanyol centre back and coach Pochettino.

“Maybe Dele Alli (about to

go to Liverpool) wasn’t true but this was true. Messi was 17 years old, playing in the (Barcelona) under 18s and was very close to signing for Espanyol,” he told reporters.

When asked about the chances of signing Messi for Spurs, Pochettino said with a grin: “Last week it was (Gareth) Bale, this week Messi.

“This is football, anything can happen, it’s always if, if, if... but football is about reality, it’s not about maybe, what could have happened.”

Pochettino said Alli had the right mix of talent and attitude to make the grade as a world class player having slotted natu-rally into the England team last October.

“It’s impossible to (succeed when you) have enough quality but not have a good mentality, it’s that combination that makes a player a great player, like Dele Alli.” (rtr)

LONDON - Graeme Souness would love to see Liverpool meet and beat Everton in an all-Merseyside Capi-tal One (League) Cup final at Wembley next month but he does not expect it to happen. That is because the former Liverpool skipper, now 62, suspects old rivals Everton will be out of the running after this week’s semi-final second legs.

Although both sides hold one goal leads, over Stoke City and Manchester City respectively, Souness can see only the Reds progressing.

“It would be great for the city obvi-ously, but as much as I would love it, I can’t see it happening,” he told Reuters in an interview when asked whether history might repeat itself. “I think Manchester City have the best group of players and City will be happy going back to the Etihad with a 2-1 deficit after the first leg at Goodison.”

Liverpool have won the cup a record eight times and, in 1984, it was Souness who scored in a 1-0 final replay vic-tory over Everton that brought a fourth successive triumph in the competition. Speaking on behalf of the Football League and sponsors Capital One, Sou-

ness said Liverpool had a great chance at Anfield because Stoke had failed to take advantage of Liverpool’s injuries at the back in the first leg.

Only when they brought on Peter Crouch late in the game -- “a big man challenging the makeshift central de-fence of Lucas Leiva and Kolo Toure” -- did anything change.

“I don’t think it will be a formal-ity for Liverpool because they are still missing their injured defenders and Stoke are a good team this year,” said Souness.

“But I think if there was a night for going longer, a bit more direct than their “pass it, pass it” game, it was that night for Stoke. If they go long at Anfield on Tuesday they could still cause Liver-pool a lot of problems, but Liverpool are in a great position.”

Liverpool’s defensive frailties were shown up at Norwich City on Saturday where they conceded four times but still won a crazy game 5-4 thanks to a stoppage time winner from Adam Lallana. Speaking before the match, Souness’s analysis of Liverpool was almost prophetic.

“They have been hit and miss all

season and given too many daft goals away. But saying that they’re playing for a place in a cup final, just one game away, 1-0 up at Anfield. It’s a fantastic opportunity and I think they can do it.” The form of Manchester City, his tip at the start of the season, has only reaffirmed his belief that they will provide the opposition at Wembley on Feb.28.

“I chose them because they have the best group of players and can handle injuries better than anyone else because they are so strong,” he said. City had also shown “a weakness and a vulner-ability at times I didn’t think was there and lost some games they shouldn’t have lost”, he added, but that was to be expected.

“Generally big teams will have one game a season when they get rolled over and that’s a wake-up call for them: ‘hey we are not as good as we think we are’ and they kick on from there,” he said.

“City have had several of those wake-up calls this year, losing at home to West Ham, getting thumped at Tottenham, but I think they will be too strong for Everton to handle on Wednesday.” (rtr)

BERNE - An unlucky own goal by Maritimo goalkeeper Romain Salin gave Porto a 1-0 win and a winning start to their new coach Jose Peseiro on Sunday.

Porto broke the deadlock in the 22nd minute when Andre Andre’s shot hit the underside of the crossbar, bounced down without crossing the line and then ricocheted off Salin and into the net.

Luck was also against Maritimo when Dyego Sousa headed against the crossbar on the counterattack be-fore halftime. Porto stayed third, five

points behind leaders Sporting.“I’m sure the team can produce

more and this win will give us the confidence we need to improve,” Peseiro told reporters.

The much-travelled Peseiro, has coached 12 teams in Portugal, Greece, Romania, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Egypt, has replaced Julen Lopetegui who was sacked earlier this month after 18 months in charge.

Sporting (48 points) won 3-1 at Pacos de Ferreira on Saturday when

second-placed Benfica (46) beat Arouca by the same score.

Egypt striker Ahmed Hassan scored twice in the first 10 minutes, but did not celebrate against his former club, to set fourth-placed Braga on the way to a 5-1 win over Rio Ave.

The highlight was Rafa Silva’s fourth goal for the hosts, when he won the ball just inside the Rio Ave half, sprinted clear of one challenge, squeezed between two defenders and slotted the ball into the net. (rtr)

Serie AStandings P W D L F A Pts 1 Napoli 21 14 5 2 45 18 47 2 Juventus 21 14 3 4 38 15 45 3 Fiorentina 21 13 2 6 39 21 41 4 Inter Milan 21 12 5 4 26 14 41 5 AS Roma 21 9 8 4 37 24 35 6 AC Milan 21 9 6 6 29 25 33 7 Sassuolo 21 8 8 5 25 23 32 8 Empoli 21 9 5 7 27 26 32 9 Lazio 21 9 4 8 29 30 31 10 Chievo Verona 21 7 6 8 27 26 27 11 Torino 21 7 5 9 27 28 26 12 Bologna 21 8 2 11 24 27 26 13 Atalanta Bergamo 21 7 5 9 21 24 26 14 Palermo 21 7 3 11 23 34 24 15 Udinese 21 7 3 11 19 35 24 16 Genoa 21 6 5 10 24 27 23 17 Sampdoria 21 6 5 10 31 36 23 18 Carpi 21 4 6 11 20 36 18 19 Frosinone 21 4 4 13 22 45 16 20 Verona 21 0 10 11 14 33 10

La LigaStandings P W D L F A Pts 1 Barcelona 20 15 3 2 52 16 48 2 Atletico Madrid 21 15 3 3 30 8 48 3 Real Madrid 21 13 5 3 58 20 44 4 Villarreal 21 12 5 4 28 18 41 5 Celta Vigo 21 10 4 7 32 33 34 6 Eibar 21 9 6 6 34 26 33 7 Sevilla 21 9 6 6 28 22 33 8 Athletic Club 21 9 4 8 32 30 31 9 Deportivo Coruna 21 6 11 4 28 25 29 10 Getafe 21 7 5 9 26 31 26 11 Valencia 21 5 10 6 26 22 25 12 Malaga 21 6 6 9 16 19 24 13 Espanyol 21 6 4 11 20 35 22 14 Real Betis 21 5 7 9 14 29 22 15 Real Sociedad 21 5 6 10 24 33 21 16 Granada CF 21 5 5 11 24 43 20 17 Rayo Vallecano 21 5 4 12 26 45 19 18 Las Palmas 20 4 6 10 19 30 18 19 Sporting Gijon 20 5 3 12 22 35 18 20 Levante 20 3 5 12 17 36 14 REUTERS/Giorgio Perottino

Juventus’ Paulo Dybala in action against AS Roma.

Juventus beats Roma 1-0 to keep up pressure on Napoli

MILAN — Juventus closed in on another record as it beat Roma 1-0 in Serie A on Sunday to keep the pressure on leader Napoli, which won 4-2 at 10-man Sampdoria. Paulo Dybala struck again to help Juventus secure an 11th successive league win and remain two points behind Napoli, while Inter Milan’s woes continued.

Action Images via Reuters / Matthew Childs

Tottenham’s Dele Alli warms up before the match

Who needs Messi when you have Alli?

Souness fears City will end hopes of Merseyside final

Unlucky own goal gives Porto’s new coach winning start

IBP/net

98 Tuesday, January 26, 2016 Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Sp rt

“We played with character and had a great game technically, and at the end that gave us the win,” Paul Pogba said. “When we play like this it’s a pleasure.” Serie A’s top goalscorer Gonzalo Higuain was also on target again to set Napoli on its way. Lorenzo Insigne netted a penalty before goals from Marek Hamsik and Dries Mertens sealed the victory.

“With hard work, in life you can do anything,” Napoli coach Maurizio Sarri said. “There are still 17 matches left and at this point there’s no advantage that gives you a guarantee. Now we are happy, but we don’t yet know if we have the strength to remain at these levels especially because we are a new group.”

Inter is now six points off the pace after a last-minute equalizer by 10-man Carpi held it to a 1-1 draw. Fiorentina is above Inter on

goal difference after Josip Ilicic and Gonzalo Rodriguez secured a 2-0 win over Torino.

Elsewhere, Sassuolo lost 2-0 against Bologna while Lazio came from behind to beat Chievo Verona 4-1 in a match that saw both sides finish with 10 men and the visitors miss a penalty. Palermo also won 4-1, against Udinese, and Hellas Verona drew 1-1 against Genoa.

Juventus needed a win to cut the deficit back after Napoli’s earlier victory, but Roma — play-ing in only its second game under Luciano Spalletti following Rudi Garcia’s dismissal — was desper-ate to get back to winning ways.

Roma put in a good defensive performance but, with the match seemingly destined for a draw, Dybala broke the deadlock in the 77th minute. The Argentina for-ward raced onto Pogba’s through ball and fired across into the bot-

tom right corner for his 12th goal of the season.

Edin Dzeko thought he had equalized, but play had already been stopped for his nudge on Andrea Barzagli. Roma fell 12 points behind Napoli. “We had a good game, we conceded little but we should have been more daring,” Spalletti said. “At the moment we’re not being helped by the mo-rale — which is on the ground — and tired legs. “We did something positive, but too little.”

Juventus needs just two more victories to match the club record of most consecutive league wins. It won 13 from the 32nd match of the 2013-14 season to the sixth match of 2014-15. Its most successive wins in a single season was 12, in 2013-14. The record winning streak in Serie A is Inter’s 17-match run in 2006-07.

Higuain had been in good form with 20 goals in as many league matches this season and, although he missed an early chance, he got Napoli off to the perfect start in the ninth minute, pouncing onto Edgar Barreto’s woeful backpass and fir-ing into the bottom left corner.

Matters went from bad to worse for Barreto in the 17th minute when he barged over Raul Albiol and Insigne converted the resulting pen-alty. Joaquin Correa got Sampdoria back into the game on the stroke of halftime but the home side went down to 10 men shortly before the hour mark when Mattia Cassani was sent off for a second booking.

Napoli made the most of the man advantage as Hamsik immediately scored after a slalom run between two defenders. Samp got back into the match again in the 73rd with a glancing header from an Eder cor-ner, but substitute Mertens sealed the result 10 minutes from time.

Inter was eager to get back to winning ways in the league follow-ing a defeat and a draw, which had seen it fall from top spot.

Rodrigo Palacio broke the dead-lock shortly before halftime, tap-ping into an empty net after Ivan Perisic’s shot was deflected into his path. And Inter appeared assured of the three points when Lorenzo Pasciuti was sent off following a second yellow card, seven minutes from time.

But Kevin Lasagna stunned the San Siro crowd with a stoppage-time equalizer after dodging the offside trap to run onto Raffaele Bianco’s through ball. (ap)

LONDON - Any doubts Dele Alli is the kind of player to take Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham Hotspur to another level were dispelled this weekend.

The 19-year-old unlocked a tight match at Crystal Palace on Saturday with a sublime goal which put Spurs ahead late in their 3-1 win to consolidate their fourth place in the Premier League.

Pochettino, reflecting on Spurs’ good fortune to have landed Alli when he might have moved to Liverpool from MK Dons, cited Lionel Messi almost joining Espanyol in 2004 as an example of near misses in football.

“It was true and how it changed (Messi’s) life to stay at Barcelona, because it was nearly done, a centimetre (from happen-ing), unbelievable,” said former Espanyol centre back and coach Pochettino.

“Maybe Dele Alli (about to

go to Liverpool) wasn’t true but this was true. Messi was 17 years old, playing in the (Barcelona) under 18s and was very close to signing for Espanyol,” he told reporters.

When asked about the chances of signing Messi for Spurs, Pochettino said with a grin: “Last week it was (Gareth) Bale, this week Messi.

“This is football, anything can happen, it’s always if, if, if... but football is about reality, it’s not about maybe, what could have happened.”

Pochettino said Alli had the right mix of talent and attitude to make the grade as a world class player having slotted natu-rally into the England team last October.

“It’s impossible to (succeed when you) have enough quality but not have a good mentality, it’s that combination that makes a player a great player, like Dele Alli.” (rtr)

LONDON - Graeme Souness would love to see Liverpool meet and beat Everton in an all-Merseyside Capi-tal One (League) Cup final at Wembley next month but he does not expect it to happen. That is because the former Liverpool skipper, now 62, suspects old rivals Everton will be out of the running after this week’s semi-final second legs.

Although both sides hold one goal leads, over Stoke City and Manchester City respectively, Souness can see only the Reds progressing.

“It would be great for the city obvi-ously, but as much as I would love it, I can’t see it happening,” he told Reuters in an interview when asked whether history might repeat itself. “I think Manchester City have the best group of players and City will be happy going back to the Etihad with a 2-1 deficit after the first leg at Goodison.”

Liverpool have won the cup a record eight times and, in 1984, it was Souness who scored in a 1-0 final replay vic-tory over Everton that brought a fourth successive triumph in the competition. Speaking on behalf of the Football League and sponsors Capital One, Sou-

ness said Liverpool had a great chance at Anfield because Stoke had failed to take advantage of Liverpool’s injuries at the back in the first leg.

Only when they brought on Peter Crouch late in the game -- “a big man challenging the makeshift central de-fence of Lucas Leiva and Kolo Toure” -- did anything change.

“I don’t think it will be a formal-ity for Liverpool because they are still missing their injured defenders and Stoke are a good team this year,” said Souness.

“But I think if there was a night for going longer, a bit more direct than their “pass it, pass it” game, it was that night for Stoke. If they go long at Anfield on Tuesday they could still cause Liver-pool a lot of problems, but Liverpool are in a great position.”

Liverpool’s defensive frailties were shown up at Norwich City on Saturday where they conceded four times but still won a crazy game 5-4 thanks to a stoppage time winner from Adam Lallana. Speaking before the match, Souness’s analysis of Liverpool was almost prophetic.

“They have been hit and miss all

season and given too many daft goals away. But saying that they’re playing for a place in a cup final, just one game away, 1-0 up at Anfield. It’s a fantastic opportunity and I think they can do it.” The form of Manchester City, his tip at the start of the season, has only reaffirmed his belief that they will provide the opposition at Wembley on Feb.28.

“I chose them because they have the best group of players and can handle injuries better than anyone else because they are so strong,” he said. City had also shown “a weakness and a vulner-ability at times I didn’t think was there and lost some games they shouldn’t have lost”, he added, but that was to be expected.

“Generally big teams will have one game a season when they get rolled over and that’s a wake-up call for them: ‘hey we are not as good as we think we are’ and they kick on from there,” he said.

“City have had several of those wake-up calls this year, losing at home to West Ham, getting thumped at Tottenham, but I think they will be too strong for Everton to handle on Wednesday.” (rtr)

BERNE - An unlucky own goal by Maritimo goalkeeper Romain Salin gave Porto a 1-0 win and a winning start to their new coach Jose Peseiro on Sunday.

Porto broke the deadlock in the 22nd minute when Andre Andre’s shot hit the underside of the crossbar, bounced down without crossing the line and then ricocheted off Salin and into the net.

Luck was also against Maritimo when Dyego Sousa headed against the crossbar on the counterattack be-fore halftime. Porto stayed third, five

points behind leaders Sporting.“I’m sure the team can produce

more and this win will give us the confidence we need to improve,” Peseiro told reporters.

The much-travelled Peseiro, has coached 12 teams in Portugal, Greece, Romania, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Egypt, has replaced Julen Lopetegui who was sacked earlier this month after 18 months in charge.

Sporting (48 points) won 3-1 at Pacos de Ferreira on Saturday when

second-placed Benfica (46) beat Arouca by the same score.

Egypt striker Ahmed Hassan scored twice in the first 10 minutes, but did not celebrate against his former club, to set fourth-placed Braga on the way to a 5-1 win over Rio Ave.

The highlight was Rafa Silva’s fourth goal for the hosts, when he won the ball just inside the Rio Ave half, sprinted clear of one challenge, squeezed between two defenders and slotted the ball into the net. (rtr)

Serie AStandings P W D L F A Pts 1 Napoli 21 14 5 2 45 18 47 2 Juventus 21 14 3 4 38 15 45 3 Fiorentina 21 13 2 6 39 21 41 4 Inter Milan 21 12 5 4 26 14 41 5 AS Roma 21 9 8 4 37 24 35 6 AC Milan 21 9 6 6 29 25 33 7 Sassuolo 21 8 8 5 25 23 32 8 Empoli 21 9 5 7 27 26 32 9 Lazio 21 9 4 8 29 30 31 10 Chievo Verona 21 7 6 8 27 26 27 11 Torino 21 7 5 9 27 28 26 12 Bologna 21 8 2 11 24 27 26 13 Atalanta Bergamo 21 7 5 9 21 24 26 14 Palermo 21 7 3 11 23 34 24 15 Udinese 21 7 3 11 19 35 24 16 Genoa 21 6 5 10 24 27 23 17 Sampdoria 21 6 5 10 31 36 23 18 Carpi 21 4 6 11 20 36 18 19 Frosinone 21 4 4 13 22 45 16 20 Verona 21 0 10 11 14 33 10

La LigaStandings P W D L F A Pts 1 Barcelona 20 15 3 2 52 16 48 2 Atletico Madrid 21 15 3 3 30 8 48 3 Real Madrid 21 13 5 3 58 20 44 4 Villarreal 21 12 5 4 28 18 41 5 Celta Vigo 21 10 4 7 32 33 34 6 Eibar 21 9 6 6 34 26 33 7 Sevilla 21 9 6 6 28 22 33 8 Athletic Club 21 9 4 8 32 30 31 9 Deportivo Coruna 21 6 11 4 28 25 29 10 Getafe 21 7 5 9 26 31 26 11 Valencia 21 5 10 6 26 22 25 12 Malaga 21 6 6 9 16 19 24 13 Espanyol 21 6 4 11 20 35 22 14 Real Betis 21 5 7 9 14 29 22 15 Real Sociedad 21 5 6 10 24 33 21 16 Granada CF 21 5 5 11 24 43 20 17 Rayo Vallecano 21 5 4 12 26 45 19 18 Las Palmas 20 4 6 10 19 30 18 19 Sporting Gijon 20 5 3 12 22 35 18 20 Levante 20 3 5 12 17 36 14 REUTERS/Giorgio Perottino

Juventus’ Paulo Dybala in action against AS Roma.

Juventus beats Roma 1-0 to keep up pressure on Napoli

MILAN — Juventus closed in on another record as it beat Roma 1-0 in Serie A on Sunday to keep the pressure on leader Napoli, which won 4-2 at 10-man Sampdoria. Paulo Dybala struck again to help Juventus secure an 11th successive league win and remain two points behind Napoli, while Inter Milan’s woes continued.

Action Images via Reuters / Matthew Childs

Tottenham’s Dele Alli warms up before the match

Who needs Messi when you have Alli?

Souness fears City will end hopes of Merseyside final

Unlucky own goal gives Porto’s new coach winning start

IBP/net

Tuesday, January 26, 2016DestinationTuesday, January 26, 201610 InternationalInternational

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DENPASAR - The name of Taman Puputan Badung is a dedication to memorize of the war on 20th September 1906 in which the Balinese people King Badung/Denpasar fought bravely against the Dutch who invaded theh land. That date is always commemorated every year, and a monument called Taman Puputan Monument has been erected for the important event. This monument stands of northern part of the Puputan Square. This Square is visited by many local people every afternoon for recreation; and every Sunday there activities particularly organized for children.

IBP/Net

Puputan Badung Square

The two-time Australian Open champion had just beaten Bar-baro Strycova 6-2, 6-4 in the fourth round on Monday — continuing a three-year sequence of wins against the Czech player that started in the second round in 2013 and included the third round last year — when she wanted to know the result of the AFC title game.

“Can somebody please tell me, did Broncos win?” she said, taking over her on-court TV interview. When she heard the Denver Bron-

cos had beaten the New England Pa-triots 20-18, she shouted “Yesss!!” — stepping back and raising both arms, “I’m so happy now.”

“I was so nervous the whole morning, I didn’t watch. I didn’t want to know the result,” she said. “As you can see I’m a crazy sports fanatic, so I understand you guys when you get all nervous and stuff, because I felt that.”

Peyton Manning’s Broncos will face Cam Newton’s Carolina Panthers in the 50th Super Bowl. Azarenka has already shown some allegiance to Newton and the Pan-thers, doing her version of the “dab” in her victory celebrations.

Told of the Panthers’ win over the Cardinals in the NFC decider, Azarenka said “Well then, it’s going to be my dream final, I can’t wait to see that.” Azarenka is coming off two injury-interrupted seasons,

but is returning to the kind of form that took her to the No. 1-ranked and back-to-back Australian Open titles in 2012 and ‘13.

She won the Brisbane Interna-tional leading into the first major of the season, and dropped only five games in her first three rounds at Melbourne Park.

Next up she faces No. 7 An-gelique Kerber, who beat fellow German Annika Beck 6-4, 6-0 in the preceding match on Rod Laver Arena.

Kerber, who saved match point in her first-round win over Misaki Doi, is into the quarterfinals for the first time in nine trips to Melbourne Park.

In later fourth-round matches on Rod Laver fourth-seeded Stan Wawrinka, the French Open and 2014 Australian Open champion, was playing big-serving Cana-dian Milos Raonic and No. 2 Andy Murray, a four-time finalist at Mel-bourne Park, was set to face No. 16 Bernard Tomic, the last Australian in the draw. (ap)

Negotiations for a MotoGP race in Finland for the first time in over three decades in 2017 or ‘18 are ongoing, with construction about to start on the KymiRing circuit. Final planning approval has now come through for the venue, which is located approximately 100 miles north-east of Helsinki, near Kou-vola.

The KymiRing would include a 2.9-mile internationally-certified racetrack, with the organiser eye-ing a MotoGP round as its flagship event.

“We have a good understanding with Dorna,” project manager Timo Pohjola told Autosport. “We are going to have a meeting in Febru-ary, they are visiting in Finland once again and we will discuss the timetable.

“We are really pleased with everything they have done so far.” Finland hosted world motorcycle grands prix between 1962 and ‘82, initially with two at the Tampere circuit before moving to Imatra.

Pohjola indicated it was “too ear-ly at the moment to say”, whether the circuit would be ready to host MotoGP in 2017 or ‘18, should an

agreement be struck.The circuit plan received final

approval last week, paving the way for construction to begin, however meaningful work is likely to be a couple of months away, due to a harsh Finnish winter.

“We have a preliminary time schedule from our constructor and he says it is about 12 to 13 months,” Pohjola explained.

“At the moment, the first thing we can continue is the forest cut-ting, so that is going to be the next stage, and then also we are starting some earthworks. “The earth is frozen at the moment, the depth is about two metres that it is frozen.

“We have to wait a little so it melts, then it is a lot easier and cheaper to work on. “We have about five months every year when it is not very wise to start earthworks.”

Winter will again be a factor later in the circuit’s construction, based on the first layer of the racing sur-face needing a winter to cure, before a second can be applied.

“We don’t know what is going to be the timetable at the end of this year,” Pohjola said. “It is a little bit too early to tell.

“We only want to speak facts, because this winter is much, much harder than we expected, much.”

When complete, the KymiRing’s FIM Grade A certification will be accompanied by Grade 2 on the

FIA’s motorsport scale. Car racing, including championships such as the DTM and World Touring Cars, is also on the venue’s radar.

“The [Finnish] car federation has had some serious talks with the FIA

and to other promoters,” Pohjola confirmed.

“So there are a lot of things under negotiation. “I can tell you that we can expect some results or state-ments before summer.” (rtr)

Azarenka, in form, and into Australian Open quarterfinals

MELBOURNE, Australia — Victoria Azarenka couldn’t get off court quickly enough to check the score after reaching the Australian Open quarterfinals. To her excitement, it was a Broncos win.

Victoria Azarenka of Belarus reacts after defeating Barbo-ra Strycova of the Czech Re-public in their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championships in Mel-bourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 25, 2016.AP Photo/Vincent Thian

KymiRing in MotoGP race talks for 2017 or ‘18

6 International

W RLDTuesday, January 26, 2016 11Tuesday, January 26, 2016International

Using a loophole in party rules, supporters of Prime Minister Nguy-en Tan Dung on Sunday proposed that his name be added to the list of candidates who can contest for membership to the Central Com-mittee, one of the two pillars of the ruling establishment.

If Dung makes it, he will stand a good chance to be elected to the committee, and then would be in a position to challenge his rival, General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, for his job. The party gen-eral secretary is the de facto No. 1 leader in the collective leadership that governs Vietnam.

“Dung is a skilled and deter-mined infighter and most people agreed there was still a remote chance that he would try to mount

some sort of comeback,” said Murray Hiebert, a Southeast Asian expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Wash-ington.

Trong has for years been trying unsuccessfully to sideline Dung, and while contests for the top post are not unheard of, they are usually settled well before the party con-gress, which take place once every five years to choose new leaders.

This year, the rivalry between Dung and Trong has gone down to the wire into the party congress that began last Thursday and will end this Thursday. But regardless of who wins, the fundamental makeup of the government or its policies will not change radically, according to analysts.

Dung has built a reputation for promoting economic reforms, and being bold enough to confront China in its territorial aggression in the South China Sea. But even if Trong, a stolid party apparatchik with closer leanings toward China, manages to sideline Dung eventu-ally, it doesn’t mean the economic reforms would stall or Vietnam will capitulate to Chinese maritime aggression in Vietnamese waters, according to observers.

“Ideologically, there isn’t a yawning gap between Trong and Dung, although most people be-lieve that the pace of economic reform might slow a bit if Trong remains at the helm and Dung is ousted,” Hiebert told The Associ-ated Press. For now, the road to the top is paved with hurdles for Dung. He faces the first one later Monday on the floor of the Com-munist Party congress that is being attended by 1,510 delegates behind closed doors.

The delegates will pick 234 can-didates for an election to the 180-member Central Committee. Of these, 199 people endorsed by the outgoing committee are guaranteed to be picked. The remaining 35 will be chosen from the 62 politicians proposed by some of the delegates, which includes Dung’s name.

If he does get chosen, he will still need to win an endorsement from the floor to make it to the final 180 in an election on Tuesday. After that, they will elect at least 16 mem-bers to the all-powerful Politburo, which handles the day to day gov-ernance of Vietnam. It is possible that the Politburo will be expanded to 18 members this year.

Of the Politburo members, one will be chosen the general secretary, the country’s top leader. Three oth-ers will be chosen, in respective or-der of seniority: the prime minister, the president and the chairman of the national assembly.

Dung, who has risen through the ranks of the party and has held senior positions, is a two-term prime minister. This means he can’t be the prime minster for a third term, leaving only the general-secretary’s post as a viable option. His economic re-forms in the country have helped Vietnam attract a flood of foreign investment and helped triple the per capita GDP to $2,100 over the past 10 years. (ap)

ST. JOHN’S, Newfoundland — Seven people were taken to hospital after an American Airlines plane from Miami to Milan made an emergency landing in Newfound-land after the jet briefly encountered severe turbulence.

The aircraft landed safely in the East Coast Canadian province late Sunday, where it was met by paramedics.

American Airlines spokesman Ross Feinstein said three flight at-tendants and four passengers were transported to hospital for further evaluation. He said none of the injuries are life threatening.

The seat belt light was on when

the Boeing 767 carrying 192 pas-sengers and 11 crew members encountered turbulence.

At least four ambulances and a fire truck were seen on the tarmac in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Para-medics rushed toward the plane with stretchers and what appeared to be a backboard.

An hour after the plane landed, one ambulance remained. Feinstein said they are working on next steps to get the uninjured passengers to Milan.

Sara Norris, a spokeswoman for St. John’s airport, said the plane will stay in St. John’s over-night. (ap)

TAIPEI, Taiwan — An unusu-ally cold weather front that caused sudden drops in temperatures has been blamed for killing as many as 57 people in Taiwan’s greater Taipei area.

The Taipei government said the cold wave that pushed temperatures to a 16-year record low of 4 degrees Celsius (39.2 degrees Fahrenheit) in the capital was suspected in the

deaths of 40 people in the capital from Friday through Sunday. A city official says the sudden drop in tem-peratures caused heart troubles and shortness of breath for the mostly elderly people who died in Taipei.

Neighboring New Taipei City, where temperatures were slightly lower, reported that another 17 people had died because of the cold weather. (ap)

AP Photo/Andrew Taylor, File

FILE - In this Wednesday, March, 18, 2015 file photo, Viet-namese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung speaks at a news conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia. Sup-porters of Vietnam’s prime minister have nominated him for a key Communist Party panel, a necessary step to contesting the post of the party chief, in a last-minute maneuver to secure the top job in the country.

Vietnam PM makes last-minute comeback

in leadership battleHANOI — Vietnam’s pro-business prime minister, who

last week appeared to have lost a power struggle in the ruling Communist Party, has made a last-minute comeback and will know Monday if he can re-enter the contest for the top job in the country.

Dozens of deaths blamed on rare cold

snap in Taiwan

Paul Daly/The Canadian Press via AP

An ambulance departs St. John’s International Airport on Sunday, Jan. 24, 2016, in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Several people were taken to hospital after an American Airlines plane from Miami to Milan made an emergency landing after the jet briefly encountered severe turbulence.

7 hurt on American Airlines jet; plane diverts to Canada

The move by Bangka-Belitung, made up of two main islands off South Sumatra, is the latest in a series in which religious minorities including Christians and Shi’ite Muslims have faced harassment and complained of a lack of pro-tection.

“The Ahmadiyah have a right to live in Bangka,” Fery Insani, a senior official in the local govern-ment, told Reuters. “In a meet-ing with community leaders and religious figures, all of us have agreed that it is forbidden for them to conduct activities like spreading

their faith.”Indonesia has the world’s largest

population of Muslims, the majority of whom adhere to moderate Sunni beliefs. But hardline Indonesian Muslims accuse Ahmadiyah and other Muslim minorities of apos-tasy.

Around 1,000 members of a group called Gafatar were evacu-ated from their homes following violence in West Kalimantan last week, media said. Authorities

have outlawed the organisation which they describe as radical and dangerous.

Members of the tiny Ahmadiyah community on the tin-rich Bangka island said they had faced intimida-tion and official pressure to leave their homes, according to rights groups.

“We hope the police can guar-antee security for the Ahmadiyah people in Bangka and that the local government guarantee our

rights as citizens,” said Yendra Budiana, a Jakarta-based spokes-man for the Indonesia Ahmadiyah Community.

A spokesman for the religious af-fairs ministry declined to comment on the issue.

Hundreds of hardline Muslims forced the local government to tear down several churches in the con-servative province of Aceh last last year, claiming they lacked proper building permits. (rtr)

BARELY a few days old, perched on a nest of twigs in-side an incubator, a newborn Indonesian songbird -- cher-ished for its melodious chirp

-- tweets weakly as a tiny metallic ring is attached to its leg. The tag shows potential buyers the chick was bred in captivity. It’s an important symbol, which shows it was not trapped in the wild and smuggled, an illegal trade which sees birds packed in their thousands in shipping crates or stuffed in plastic bottles before being sold in

giant avian markets in Indo-nesia’s major cities.

The hatchling was born at Mega-nanda Daryono’s vast aviary in Bo-gor, a city on the island of Java, where he runs a breeding programme that is a sustainable alternative to the roaring trade in birds caught in the wild.

“I realised the birds being caught in the forest would one day be gone for good,” Daryono told AFP at the site, now a cornucopia of exotic ma-

caws, brilliant parrots and vulnerable songbirds.

He is among a small number try-ing to turn the tide in a country where once-common bird species are being driven to the brink of extinction, as an obsession for bird-keeping and even avian singing contests fuels unprec-edented demand.

The jungles of the archipelago are home to 131 threatened bird species, according to wildlife trade watchdog TRAFFIC, more than any other country except Brazil. There are a dizzying array of exotic species, from the Sumatran Laughingthrush, to the Chattering Lory and the Black-winged Myna.

At an emergency meeting con-vened in Singapore to discuss the cri-sis last year, wildlife experts declared Indonesia’s rampant bird trade more of a threat to many native species than habitat loss, and called for urgent intervention to stop the plunder.

“The scale is massive. It involves millions and millions of birds every year,” TRAFFIC’s Chris Shepherd told AFP.

“It’s just really reaching a point now, a critical point, where it’s now or never for a lot of these species.”

Caged birds have been kept as pets for centuries in Indonesia but the evolution of songbird contests from small, localised events to a nationwide craze known as “chirp-ing mania” is in particular blamed for the rapid dwindling of songbirds in the wild.

There are entire fan clubs dedi-cated to certain species of canaries, “chirping” organisations boasting thousands of members, and cham-pions who go on tour across the archipelago to compete for big prize money -- and glory -- at national gala events.

It’s serious business, as one cham-pion Johan explained at a recent contest in central Jakarta, as men screamed, whistled and clucked at their birds, encouraging them to keep singing as stony-faced judges awarded points for melody, duration and volume.

“This isn’t a beauty pageant, it’s a chirping contest. It’s chirping mania,” Johan, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told AFP.

Calls from some quarters for these popular contests to be banned or heavily regulated have met stiff resistance, with many defending them

as uniquely Indonesian and blaming the trade -- not the competitions themselves -- for the crisis unfolding in jungles far away.

However efforts are being made to distance the contests from the illegal trade and unsightly bird markets like Pramuka -- an overcrowded, filthy emporium in Jakarta known to sell critically-endangered and vulner-able birds.

Changing attitudesThe Indonesian Bird Society

(PBI), which sanctions and judges one major songbird league, has pledged to phase out all wild birds and replace them entirely with song-birds bred in captivity. So far three species must be captive-bred and bear the tell-tale ring to compete in PBI contests, with a fourth to be added next year.

But former PBI chairman Made Sri Prana, who helped usher in the regulations, said a full transition would take time and outside PBI-sanctioned contests, “there’s no real obligations” for other songbird as-sociations to follow suit.

Capturing any native birds from the wild -- whether they are protected

or not -- is illegal in Indonesia but law enforcement is lax, with fines and jail terms rarely handed out to traffickers or vendors at big markets, Shepherd said.

But there are some positive signs. There are now estimated to be hun-dreds of breeding programmes like Daryono’s across the country, and authorities have made a number of high-profile seizures of illegally caught birds.

In addition, conservationists working with the government hope in 2016 to update the list of birds protected under Indonesian law, which is many years out of date.

Raising public awareness is a longer game. Indonesian President Joko Widodo tried to do just that this month when he released 200 caged birds into the wild -- but was criticised when it emerged the ani-mals had been bought in Pramuka, a symbol of the country’s illegal wildlife trade.

Ria Saryanthi from Burung Indonesia, a local conservation group working for better protection of birds, said it would take time to alter old habits: “You cannot change people’s minds easily.” (afp)

Indonesian birds on the brink as forests plundered

Indonesia province bans small Islamic sect from “spreading faith”

JAKARTA - A tiny Indonesian province has banned a mi-nority Islamic sect from conducting religious activities, a move activists say raises concerns over intolerance in the Muslim-majority nation.

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) and First Lady Iriana are scheduled to pay a state visit to Timor Leste on Tuesday.

It will be President Jokowi’s first state visit to Timor Leste, the foreign ministry noted in a statement, here, Monday.

The head of state will be ac-

companied by the coordinating minister for economic affairs, foreign affairs minister, cabinet secretary, and youth and sports minister.

The visit is aimed at strength-ening bilateral relations, reaffirm-ing Indonesia’s commitment to becoming a major development

partner of Timor Leste.Jokowi is scheduled to hold

bilateral meetings with Timor Leste President Taur Matan Ruak and Prime Minister Maria De Araujo.

They will discuss issues and efforts to step up cooperation in trade, investment, energy, and in-

frastructure development, among several others.

The two countries’ leaders will also reiterate their joint commitment to accelerating solutions to land and maritime border issues.

They will also witness the signing of five memoranda of

understanding on cooperation in: youth and sports, archives, cli-matology and geophysics, search and rescue (SAR), and energy and mineral resources.

Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi is cur-rently in Dili to finalize the prepa-rations for the state visit. (ant)

President to visit Timor Leste

Bali News Tuesday, January 26, 2016 5InternationalTuesday, January 26, 201612 International

BUSINESS

TOKYO - The yen held steady in Asia on Monday as Japan’s top central banker moved to temper specu-lation it will unveil more monetary stimulus when it meets this week.

A report in the leading Nikkei business daily on Friday raised hopes the Bank of Japan would widen its already vast easing programme to counter weakness in the world’s number three economy.

The report, which came a day after the head of the European Central Bank had pledged more action, helped send global markets rallying and pushed the yen lower against the dollar and euro.

But in a weekend interview with Bloomberg in Davos, Switzerland, BoJ governor Haruhiko Kuroda showed little sign the bank would announce immediate easing measures, although he said it was ready to act “if the underlying inflation trend is seriously affected”.

Last month, policymakers announced an unex-pected tweak to the BoJ’s vast stimulus programme but refused to expand the 80 trillion yen annual asset-buying scheme -- which effectively prints money to spur lending.

In midday trade, the dollar edged down to 118.67 yen from 118.76 yen in New York -- but it is still well up from the 117.66 yen on Thursday, before the Nikkei report. The euro rose to 128.35 yen from 128.23 yen and is also much higher than the 127.99 yen Thursday.

The single currency ticked up to $1.0813 from $1.0797 in New York.

Japan’s December inflation and other key indicators are due Friday as the central bank wraps up its first meeting of the year.

Global financial markets went into a freefall at the start of the year, hammered by fears about the global economy, especially China, and a crash in oil prices.

The fear factor has benefited the yen, which inves-tors tend to buy as a safe haven in times of turmoil and uncertainty.

More BoJ easing measures would tend to weaken the unit. “The BoJ meets Friday with its decision due hot on the heels of the latest (December inflation), retail sales and industrial production data,” National Australia Bank said in a commentary. (afp)

At the same time, a majority of economists surveyed by the Na-tional Association for Business Economics said their firms plan to raise wages in the January-March quarter. That is the largest propor-tion that expects to raise pay since mid-2014.

Aside from the planned pay rise, the survey paints a mostly gloomy view of the economy at the start of 2016. Fewer than half the econo-mists expect sales at their firms to rise in the first quarter, the smallest proportion since January 2015. And nearly 20 percent expect profits to

fall, the most in more than a year.For the first time in three years,

more than 25 percent of the econo-mists forecast that growth will slip below 2 percent over the next year. As recently as April, 30 percent ex-pected growth would top 3 percent in the following 12 months. That figure fell to just 4 percent in the current survey.

The survey was conducted from Dec. 17 through Jan. 5, mostly be-

fore the big stock market drops that have occurred since the year began, and 148 economists responded.

There were some positive signs in the results. In addition to the planned wage increases for the first quarter, nearly half of the econo-mists said their firms had already raised pay in the final three months of 2015. That’s the highest percent-age in more than a decade.

And one-third of respondents

said their firms planned to add jobs in the next three months, up from 29 percent in the fall. The number planning to cut jobs also rose, to 15 percent. A solid majority, 62 percent, of the economists say that the Federal Reserve’s interest rate increase announced Dec. 1 will have no impact on their company.

Just 16 percent expect a negative effect and almost a quarter expect a positive one. (ap)

SINGAPORE - Oil prices extended their rally in Asia Monday buoyed by hopes of extra stimulus measures in the eurozone and Japan that could help boost demand in the face of a global supply glut.

Prices ended on a buoyant note Friday, with the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for March de-livery soaring nine percent to $32.19 a barrel, while Brent soared 10 percent to $32.18.

The upward momentum continued in Asia on Monday, with WTI up 46 cents, or 1.43 percent, at $32.65 and Brent 56 cents, or 1.74 percent, higher at $32.74 by 0650 GMT.

Michael McCarthy, chief market strategist at CMC Markets Australia, said a report showing that private sec-tor business activity in the eurozone continued to expand in January boosted hopes for oil demand catching up with the oversupply. Data monitoring company Markit said its closely watched composite Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) fell to 53.5 points in January from 54.3 in December. While the figure was an 11-month low it was still well above the 50-point level that separates growth and contraction in the 19-nation bloc.

On Thursday European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi signalled further stimulus measures for the region, while a report in the respected Nikkei business daily Friday said the Bank of Japan is also considering extra measures.

“The demand side of the situation was what was wor-rying us. Now that we’ve seen evidence to support that, we’ve had a lot of short-term interests in the market having to cover. It’s a good old-fashioned scramble,” he told AFP from Sydney.

“Combined with a strong economy in the US, the de-mand side of the equation remains on track to catch up with supply about 12 months out.”

Sanjeev Gupta, head of the oil and gas practice at profes-sional services firm EY, said prices also got a boost from the severe snowstorm that battered the US East Coast over the weekend as demand for heating oil rose.

However, some analysts remain wary of calling a bot-tom, especially with Iranian crude poised to return to the market within months following the lifting of western eco-nomic sanctions linked to its nuclear programme. (afp)

Business economists expect slower sales, economic growth

WASHINGTON — Business economists are more pessimistic about their firms’ future sales and profits than they were last fall, and more predict slower economic growth, a survey found.

Oil prices extend rise above $32 in Asia on demand hopes

AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko

A man stands in front of an electronic stock board of a securities firm in Tokyo, Thursday, Jan. 7, 2016. The yen held steady in Asia on Monday as Japan’s top central banker moved to temper speculation it will unveil more monetary stimulus when it meets this week.

Yen steady as BoJ chief tempers hopes for more easing

MANGUPURA - Terrorist threats have made police in Bali work harder to secure areas that are likely to be targeted. Chief of the Badung Police, Tony Binsar, has assessed that the area of Petitenget in North Kuta is vulner-able to be targeted by terrorists because of the culinary delights on offer here, that draw large numbers of tourists.

“Badung Police remain on the alert and in the area of Petitenget, security is tightened and armed patrols have been increased,” affirmed the police chief after holding an “Alarm Stell-ing” (extraordinary call) in the parking lot ofon Petitenget Temple, Friday (Jan. 22).

All police forces, added the police chief, are stationed every day beyond their regular tasks -especially in the area of Petitenget. Police Chief Binsar, added that the exercise outside

the temple, involved personnel from the North Kuta Police, the Badung Police and a mobile brigade mobile from the Mengwi unit.

The police personnel were specifically being trained in rapid response and strategic crowd control in the cases of an emergency. Binsar also asked the public to “Please give the right of way if they see armed officers, so that that they can respond quickly to any situ-ation that requires their attention,” he said.

Such training exercises will continue to take place. “By frequently exercising the of-ficers, they will become more accustomed to dealing with situations like the tragedy that occurred in Sarinah, Jakarta. “Whether there is an incident of not, it is important to have our officers well trained. So far, response times are pretty good,” he said. (kmb36)

It was mentioned by a number of grilled fish merchants in Amlapura, Sunday (Jan. 24). Small fresh fish is currently sold for IDR 7,000 from

around IDR 1,500 each. This condi-tion happened because fishermen rarely get fish.

Fishermen on Ujung Beach

also get difficulty to look for tuna. Restaurants providing a menu of grilled tuna must look for this kind of fish to fishermen at Seraya. During famine season of this fish, fishermen are distraught because they often suffer losses when go-ing to sea. It happened because of expensive fuel and they spend a lot of fuel, but the sales of fish are not

enough to buy fuel.On the other hand, the corn crops

of farmers at this barren village look infertile. It happens because some areas of the village do not get continuous rain, so there are corn plants wilting and their leaves are turning curl.

Related to these issues, a leg-islator of the Karangasem House

of Representatives, Gede Dauh Suprapta, asked the executive in charge of social welfare to alert and monitor the public. He ex-pected that in case of crop failure, there has been anticipation from the beginning, so as not to lead to food shortages, especially in poor communities in remote rural areas. (013)

IBP/Yudi Karnaedi

The small “ogoh-ogoh” is attracting the attention of the children in Den-pasar. Near the Nyepi Day, “ogoh-ogoh” is started to be made by the Hindus throughout the island.

Security in Petitenget tightened in anticipation of acts of terror

IBP/Eka Adhiyasa

The fisherman’s boats are seen on the picture. The fishermen cannot go to the sea due to bad weather.

Bad weather

Fish famines, fishermen ditherAMLAPURA - Lately ahead of the eighth month of Balinese

calendar (Jan-Feb) adverse weather occurred at sea. Therefore, the fish chiefly tuna is suspected of having migrated, so that fishermen go through fish famine. Fishermen often suffer losses because of spending a lot of fuel, but only get a few fish catch.

Bali News International4 Tuesday, January 26, 2016 13InternationalTuesday, January 26, 2016

Authorities cautioned against unnecessary driving, airline sched-ules were in disarray and commuter trains will be delayed or canceled for many as the work week be-gins after a storm that dumped near record snows on the densely populated Washington, D.C. to New York City corridor.

The last flakes fell just before midnight Saturday, but crews raced the clock all day Sunday to clear streets and sidewalks devoid of their usual bustle.

Ice chunks plunging from the roofs of tall buildings menaced people who ventured out in Phila-delphia and New York. High winds on Manhattan’s Upper West Side kept the snow from entirely swal-lowing the tiny Mini Cooper of Daniel Bardman, who nervously

watched for falling icicles as he dug out.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio encouraged people to leave their plowed-in cars covered with snow all week after a one-day record of 26.6 inches (67.6 centimeters) fell in Central Park.

Treacherous conditions remained as people recovered from a storm that dropped snow from the Gulf Coast to New England. At least 30 deaths were blamed on the weather, with shoveling snow and breath-ing carbon monoxide collectively claiming almost as many lives as car crashes.

Broadway reopened after go-ing dark at the last minute during the snowstorm, but museums remained closed in Washington, and the House of Representatives

postponed votes until February, citing the storm’s impact on travel.

Flying remained particularly messy after nearly 12,000 week-end flights were canceled. Air-ports resumed limited service in New York City, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, which said it got an entire winter’s snow in two days. Washington-area airports remained closed Sunday after the punishing blizzard.

Major airlines also canceled hun-dreds of flights for Monday. Along with clearing snow and ice from facilities and equipment, the op-erators of airlines, train and transit systems had to figure out how to get snowbound employees to work.

Overall snowfall of 26.8 inches (68 centimeters) in Central Park made it New York’s second biggest winter storm since records began in 1869, and Saturday’s 26.6 inches (67.6 centimeters) made for a single-day record in the city. (ap)

BANGKOK — A large chunk of metal that could be from an aircraft washed ashore in southern Thailand, but Malaysian authorities have cautioned against speculation of a link to a Malaysia Airlines flight missing almost two years.

The location on the eastern side of Thailand where the debris was found also means it is highly unlikely that the material is from the missing plane.

Flight 370 lost communications and made a sharp turn away from its Beijing destination before disappearing in March 2014. It is presumed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean, and only one piece of debris has been identified as coming from the plane, a slab of wing that washed ashore on Reunion Island in the western Indian Ocean last July.

Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said he instructed Malaysian civil aviation officials to contact Thailand about the newly found wreckage, a curved piece of metal measuring about 2 meters by 3 meters (6 ½ feet by 10 feet) with electrical wires hanging from it and numbers stamped on it in several places.

“I urge the media and the public not to speculate because it will give undue pressure to the loved ones of the victims of MH370,” he said. Thailand’s Transportation Ministry said four Malaysian officials and two Thai experts will visit the site Monday.

The debris was found on the eastern coast of southern Thailand’s Nakkon Si Thammarat province, about 370 miles (600 kilometers) south of Bangkok on the Gulf of Thailand.

While debris can drift thousands of miles (kilometers) on ocean cur-rents, that location would be a surprise based on the data from Flight 370. The presumed crash site in the Indian Ocean and the fact the wing piece was found on Reunion Island mean it would be highly unlikely any current could have carried a piece of the missing plane to Thailand’s eastern coast. Liow said the search for the missing jet, which carried 239 people, is ongoing in the southern Indian Ocean and that its second phase is expected to be completed by June. Australia has led a multinational search that has so far cost more than $120 million.

Australian Transport Safety Bureau spokesman Dan O’Malley said the agency was awaiting results of an official examination of the debris.

The bureau announced Monday that the search of 120 square kilome-ters (46,000 square miles) of seabed where the Boeing 777 is thought to have crashed had been set back after a ship lost its sonar equipment.

The Fugro Discovery, one of three ships conducting the search, towed its side-scan sonar into a mud volcano that rose 2,200 meters (7,200 feet) from the sea floor on Sunday, the bureau said in a statement.

The ship lost the sonar plus 4.5 kilometers (14,800 feet) of cable. The ship was now making a six-day journey to the Australian port of Fremantle to collect new cable and would continue the search with spare sonar equipment.

The plane was tracked by radar flying over the South China Sea then making a sharp turn west for unknown reasons. It crossed the Malay Peninsula and Straits of Malacca, which would put it off Thailand’s west coast. (ap)

Large metal chunk investigated after washing onto Thai beach

AP Photo

Thai people look at a large chunk of metal found on a beach in Nakhon Si Thammarat province, Thailand, Sunday, Jan. 24, 2016. The debris that could be from an aircraft has washed ashore in southern Thailand, but Malaysian authori-ties on Sunday cautioned against speculation of a link to a Malaysia Airlines flight missing almost two years.

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

A man bounces at the bottom as he sleds down the snow-covered steps of the Lincoln Memo-rial, Sunday, Jan. 24, 2016 in Washington. Millions of Americans began digging out Sunday from a mammoth blizzard that set a new single-day snowfall record in Washington and New York City.

East Coast, emerging from blizzard, faces difficult commute

NEW YORK — The blizzard-blanketed Eastern U.S. will confront a Monday commute slowed by slick roads, damaged transit lines and endless mounds of snow, after a weekend of sledding, snowboarding and staying put.

TABANAN - Prolonged dry sea-son in 2015 did not only have an impact on the rice production but also on horticultural production. This can be seen from the farmers developing horticultural crops such as chili and garlic where they avoid planting dur-ing dry season because their plants wither when the temperature is too hot and lack for water. With this reason, many farmers then choose to start planting during rainy season. Of course this matter leads to a decrease in production and a shortage of stock when rainy season arrives and has an impact on high prices.

The Horticultural Production De-velopment Division Head at the Ta-banan Agriculture Agency, Gusti Putu Wiadnyana, said on Sunday (Jan. 24) that in the normal dry season farmers are rarely willing to grow crops such as chili for fear of crop failure let alone in extreme drought as occurred in 2015. He explained that chili cultivation also has a dependency on the availability of water although it is not as much as needed by paddy plants.

To boost chili production in the mar-ket, the government rolled out chili and

shallot planting program in dry season. It aims to enable farmers to do cultiva-tion in dry season and can be harvested in rainy season. As a result, the so high price increase can be avoided.

“Unfortunately, the program ex-perienced many obstacles where they are not separated from hot weather, shortage of water and pest attack,” he said. With the prolonged dry season coupled hot enough weather, it is not appropriate for the cultivation of small plants. These conditions cause small plants dominated by horticultural plants to wither. Due to such condi-tion, added Wiadnyana, production of horticultural crops in Tabanan decreased when compared to previ-ous year, but the condition is not too significant.

According to him, planting chilies in dry season does have a fairly high risk of failure. However, on the other hand, if the cultivation is successful farmers will enjoy huge profits in the following rainy season. At that time, many farmers have just started plant-ing and chili stock at the market is very limited, so that the price becomes expensive. (kmb24)

Kariana explained that Bali in general and Bangli in particular have enormous potential when it comes to the agricultural sector. Un-fortunately few -if any, local farmlands have been registered, despite the importance of doing so. “So far, no farmers have registered their farmland. But it is essential to do so with the AEC,” said KAriana, who explained that famers will have have a much easier time marketing their products to ASEAN countries if they have registered their farmlands. He also said that there are standard operating procedures for the pro-duction of specific crops.

“The area and location of farmlands needs to be included in the registration so that everything is clear.”

In addition to farmland registration, Karina pointed to independent seed production as an important step that local farmers need to take so as to diminish the amount of seeds that come from other countries. In fact, Kariana said that he hopes that Bangli can become a seed producer for other areas. “Harvest yields should not all be sold off. Some seeds need to be kept aside so that farmers can be independent,” he added.

Acting Head of the Bangli Agriculture, Plantation and Forestry Agency, Ni Wayan Manik, stated that she will follow it up immediately on the needs of farmers in face of the AEC. According to Manik, farm-land registration is indeed very important not only in terms of the AEC market place but also in terms of clarifying the ownership of farmlands. “We will follow up on this input immediately,” she said.

Manik explained that the government has been aggressively training farmers through field schools, where farmers are given information that they are then asked to share with other farmers. “Field schools have been established to share agricultural science with farmers, with the hope that it helps farmers face AEC competition,” she concluded in the presence of Food Division Head, I Wayan Tagel Sujana. (kmb45)

NEGARA - The bridge that con-nects Denpasar-Gilimanuk road and Dangin Tukaya village partly col-lapsed on Saturday night (Jan 23) after being eroded by river water. As a result, traffic on Denpasar-Gilimanuk road was paralyzed for several hours before smaller vehicles were diverted to a village road. Heavy trucks serving the Java-Bali cargo were forced to stop until Sunday afternoon (Jan 24).

According to information gath-ered on Saturday, heavy rains fell from noon into the nigt causing several rivers in Jembrana to over-flow. Dangin Tukadaya’s overflow allegedly putting enough pressure on the bridges pillars, that the bridge started shifting and around 21:00 started to crack.“This bridge is quite old and has been worked on a few times, but only to widen the roadway,” said a local resident named Mawa.

Fortunately, there were no ve-hicles on the bridge at the time and a local resident was able to report the incident to authorities. Traffic in both directions was immedi-ately stopped. The bridge collapsed

shortly thereafter. Traffic on the national road was paralyzed for several hours.

Police diverted private vehicles to the small village street from the west past Keladian Dauhwaru and through Sebual, Dangin Tukadaya village. Then, traffic from the east was diverted from Sangkaragung through Dauhwaru. Severe traffic congestion resulted from the large number of trucks and buses that were trying to use this small road.

Until Sunday night, a number of trucks were parked around Jalan Sudirman, in Negara. Truck drivers from Java explained that could not continue their journey because the small road could not support their heavy loads. Police also diverted the path of large trucks and buses from Cekik to Buleleng, while trucks and buses from Denpasar were directed to Buleleng from Tabanan.

In 2012, the bridge, that is nearly 40 years old, was widened and each end of the bridge was repaired. However the middle section of asphalt, running along about 25 meters, was not repaired at the time. On Saturday night, this section of

the bridge collapsed under pressure from the swollen river.

Regent of Jembrana, I Putu Artha, inspected the condition of the collapsed bridge on Sunday. He called for car, motorcycles and other vehicles weighing under 5 tons, that are coming from the west, to use lanes to the north. “Now, the most important thing is to prepare alter-native routes. Hopefully, relevant authorities can immediately make repair the bridge,” said Artha.

The regent also asked relevant authorities to immediately put directional signs, indicating the need to use alternative routes, at every intersection and to remove trucks that are presently parked on the road.

Earlier, the entire regional leader-ship council, the Chief of Jembrana Police Joni Widodo, the Command-er of the 1617/Jembrana Military District, Sansan Iskandar, and the Deputy Regent of Jembrana, I Made Kembang Hartawan also inspected the location of the collapsed bridge. Barriers and police lines have been placed on the road at each end of the bridge. (kmb26)

Drought, horticultural products diminishes

Dangin Tukadaya Bridge breaks downDenpasar-Gilimanuk road paralyzed

Facing AEC

Farmland should be registeredBANGLI - Preparations to face the ASEAN Economic

Community (AEC) are not only being made in the industrial and tourism sectors, but also in the agricultural sector. “In the face of stiff competition, farmers need to register their farmlands,” said Horticulture Section Head at the Bali Ag-riculture Agency, Putu Kariana.

IBP/File

Farmland is very important to the life of Balinese so it also must be registered

14 InternationalScienceTuesday, January 26, 2016 3International Bali News Tuesday, January 26, 2016

The team, of 10 mainly German and Indian archaeologists and re-searchers, dug up the fossils during excavations in Gujarat’s marshy coastal district of Kutch, Gaurav Chauhan said.

“We have found three portions of hip bones of (a) dinosaur,” Chauhan, a geologist from Gu-jarat’s Kutch University and a member of the excavation team, told AFP.

“We have been working on this site since (the) last 10 days or so,” he said.

Chauhan said carbon-dating tests would need to be carried out to try to determine the age of the bones, while more examina-tions were needed to identify the type.

Gujarat, sometimes dubbed In-

dia’s Jurassic Park, is home to one of the world’s largest collections of dinosaur remains.

In 2003, a National Geographic team discovered a new dinosaur species in Gujarat after examining fossils found scattered along the Narmada River.

The dinosaur was named “Raja-saurus Narmadensis” or the regal

reptile from Narmada, which was a 30-foot-long, carnivorous and stocky animal, with an unusual head crest.

And a large dinosaur egg hatch-ery has been discovered in the town of Balasinor, some 90 ki-lometres (55 miles) south of the state’s main city of Ahmedabad. (afp)

NEW YORK — Scientists have found grisly evidence of a massacre in Kenya about 10,000 years ago, providing rare evidence of violence between groups in ancient hunter-gatherer societies.

Researchers said the discovery casts light on the poorly understood roots of warfare.

Evidence of violence appeared in 10 of 12 relatively complete fossil skeletons the scientists found by what used to be the edge of a lagoon. That included five or six cases of apparent arrow wounds to the head or neck, and five cases where the head was smashed with something like a club. One skull had a sharpened stone still embedded.

The researchers said the wounds would have been fatal immediately or soon thereafter.

Two skeletons didn’t show evi-dence of violence but the position of

the hands suggested they might have been tied up at the time of death. One was a woman who was pregnant or had recently given birth.

The 12 bodies were adults, and at least four were female. The site also revealed partial remains of at least 15 other people.

The 2012 discovery, made west of Lake Turkana, was reported by scientists at Cambridge University and elsewhere. Writing in a paper released Wednesday by the journal Nature, they said it’s one of the clearest cases of violence between groups among prehistoric hunter-gatherers.

The reason for the violence is not clear. The victims may have been raided for resources, like territory or food stored in pots, the research-ers said. Or the violence may have resulted from antagonism between two groups, they said. (ap)

PHNOM PENH — The head of a Hindu deity’s statue from the 7th century was returned by France and reattached to its body Thursday for display at a museum, more than 130 years after it was spirited away.

The stone sculpture is of Hari-hara, a deity that combines aspects

of Vishnu and Shiva, the two most important gods in the Hindu pan-theon who represent the creation of the universe and its destruction. It was taken from the Phnom Da temple in southern Takeo province by French researchers in 1882 or 1883 and was displayed at France’s

Guimet Museum.About 200 government officials,

representatives of foreign govern-ments, ambassadors and officials from the Guimet Museum attended the ceremony to reattach the head at the National Museum.

“After it was separated 130 years ago, we are welcoming the reunification of the head and the torso of Harihara,” Deputy Prime Minister Sok An said at the cer-emony. “According to our Khmer culture, the reunion is symbolic of prosperity.”

He appealed to other countries that hold Cambodian artifacts to return them.

A 1993 Cambodian law prohibits the removal of cultural artifacts without government permission. Pieces taken after that date have stronger legal standing to compel their owners abroad to return them. But there is also general agree-ment in the art world that pieces are deemed to be acquired illegiti-mately if they were exported with-out clear and valid documentation after 1970 — the year of a United Nations cultural agreement target-ing trafficking in antiquities.

In October, Cambodia welcomed the return of two stone statues from the Angkor period that were looted during the country’s civil war and taken to Europe, where they spent the past three decades. The sculp-tures — a 9th century head of Shiva and a late 12th to early 13th century male divinity head — were formally handed over by Norwegian collec-tor Morten Bosterud.

Also in June 2014, three 1,000-year-old statues depicting Hindu mythology were brought back to Cambodia. They were also looted from a temple and put in Western art collections.

Cambodia was ruled by Hindu kings for centuries, and it was the main religion of the country before Buddhism took over. More than 90 percent of Cambodians today are Buddhists. (ap)

Geologist says dinosaur fossils found in western IndiaAHMEDABAD, India - A geologist said Saturday his team has

discovered what it believes are dinosaur fossils in the western Indian state of Gujarat that could be millions of years old.

Grisly fossils from Kenya reveal a 10,000-year-

old massacre

Marta Mirazon Lahr via AP

In this August 2012 photo provided by Marta Mirazon Lahr, researcher Frances Rivera, right, Michael Emsugut, left, and Tot Ekulukum excavate a human skeleton at the site of Nataruk, West Turkana, Kenya. Writing in a paper released Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2016, by the journal Nature, scientists said it’s one of the clearest cases of violence between groups among prehis-toric hunter-gatherers.

France returns head of Hindu statue taken 130 years ago

AP Photo/Sopheng Cheang

The head of a stone sculpture of Harihara, a Hindu deity, is displayed on a table before a ceremony to reattach it to its body at the National Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Thursday, Jan. 21, 2016. The head of a Hindu deity’s statue from the 7th century was returned by France and reattached to its body Thursday for display at a museum, more than 130 years after it was spirited away.

Rector of the State Hindu Dhar-ma Institute (IHDN) Denpasar Prof. Dr. I Nengah Duija on the sidelines of an on-campus event in Bangli on January 23rd, explained that Bali-nese language is one of the pillars of Balinese culture. Unlike say agriculture, he explained, language includes many cultural elements and although many people still speak Balinese, the younger genera-tion is at risk of loosing their mother tongue. “Balinese language is very

important, especially in terms of its cultural elements, which is why I insist on its importance,” he said.

Duija added that if Balinese is not properly learned by the younger generation, there will certainly be some radical shifts across the cultural landscape. Therefore, Balinese very much needs to be maintained.

When asked about efforts to maintain the language, Duija said that the provincial government is

taking very real steps including serious discussions about training Balinese language extension officers to work in villages. On the other hand, he considered that the district government has not been fully con-tributing to this effort beyond very temporary means such as by holding competitions. “Encouraging young people to learn Balinese needs to be undertaken by on all fronts. At the moment the district governments only conduct activities that are tem-porary in nature,” he said.

This Udayana University alum-nus also said that maintaining the Balinese language is not be difficult to do, provided the effort is supported by a serious vision.

The younger generation need to be seriously targeted in this effort. “We must not let this potential go untapped, young people need to be given a chance to learn Balinese,” he said.

Duija also added that local gov-ernment should be utilizing existing spaces according to their function. For example, the Culture Agency’s personnel should have knowledge and understanding about culture, including language. In fact a certain percentage of their personnel should be Balinese Language Departement graduates. “This matter needs to get serious attention if the govern-ment does not want our culture to become eroded,” he said.

Duija also expressed his hope that amid the complexity of the issues that undermine the continu-ation of the Balinese language, that students and alumni do not despair. As long as there is a commitment on the part of the Balinese community to maintain their language, Balinese will continue to flourish.

He added that studying Balinese in university can lead to job op-portunities. Language skills can be used as capital to compete for jobs - not just as language teachers but in other fields as well. “We continue to take steps to ensure that Balinese continues to live on. Obviously, this needs serious support from the gov-ernment,” he concluded. (kmb45)

The National Police Headquar-ters recently ‘intervened’ in reveal-ing a number of criminal cases in Bali, giving rise to questions about why the Bali Police or Denpasar po-lice were not left to deal with these cases themselves.

Lawyer, Pande Made Sugiarta, stated that some of these cases - like the LPG and gambling cases should have been handled by local police authorities.

“An arrest can be made by any police. The National Headquarters serve as a command centre, criminal cases are under the authority of the provincial police, but smaller cases can be nailed by the city police.” he said. Gambling cases, said Sugiarta can easily be handled by the provin-cial or city police.

“It would appear that the Na-tional Police Headquarters had some doubts about the provincial police’s ability to handle the case,” he said.

Sugiarta went on to explain that there needs to be coordination between different levels of police in the disco sure of cases because the provincial and district police have the authority to make arrests. “Although conceded, I think that the provincial police or city police are able to uncover such cases but some-times they need to wait for the right moment to take action,” he said.

Sugiarta argues that He argued that to uncovering cases like gam-bling or LPG (suspected of illegal gas refilling) should be entrusted to local police.

Laywyer, Agus Putra Gunawan, however argued that it does not matter if the National Police Head-quarters intervene in revealing such cases in Bali, especially given that Bali has become the target of international drug syndicates and possible terrorism.

In Gunawan’s opinion it is natural that the National Police Headquarters should intervene - even in cases like the ones pre-viously stated, as it is their right to do so and does not indicate an intention to override the Bali Police or the Denpasar Police. He added that the National Po-lice likely intervened after hav-ing received reports about these crimes. “It’s the public’s right to report crimes and each commu-nity can asses how to deal with reports. For me, it seems quite natural that the National Police Headquarters should intervene in criminal cases and make arrests, though it should indeed be down in coordination with local police if the cases can in fact be handled by local police,” he said.

Similar opinions were shared by lawyer, I Gede Jelantik Purwaka who said that as long as a crime takes place within the jurisdiction of Indonesia, the National Police Headquarters have the authority to make arrests.

Some of the criminal cases that took place in Bali and that were revealed and in which arrests were made directly by the National Police Headquarters include: ding-dong gambling at Studio Zone in the Puri Alit commercial shopping complex at Jabe Jero hamlet, Kuta, gambling at Game Laskar Zone Sony located on Jalan Setiabudi and gambling at Benoa Square. The raids of these locations also involved police of-ficers in Bali.

The National Police Headquar-ters also raided an LPG warehouse alleged to be committing illegal refilling at PT Geha Pratama Sukses on Jalan Pulau Belitung. The raid of the warehouse was made following reports from the public about alleged

illegal refilling. The criminal investigation con-

ducted by the National Police Head-quarters secured evidences consist-ing of five vehicles (trucks, pick-ups) as well as 700 filled cylinders of 3-kg LPG, 80 empty 3-kg cylinders,

2,000 filled 12-kg cylinders, 1,250 filled 50-kg cylinder and 300 empty cylinders.

The arrests made by the Na-tional Police Headquarters in these cases became a hot issue as it brought up the question of why

it was necessary for the National Police to intervene. Previsouly the National Police Headquarters have only given attention to large-scale cases such as terrorism, drug-trafficking and other trans-national crimes. (asa)

Maintaining Balinese language

District actions considered temporaryBANGLI - Many people consider that government efforts

to encourage young people to learn Balinese are still lacking. Plans to instate 1,000 Balinese language instructors in villages across Bali is still only happening on a temporary basis, like for example in the district of Bangli.

IBP/Eka Adhiyasa

The criminal investigation conducted by the National Police Headquarters secured evidences consisting of five vehicles (trucks, pick-ups) as well as 700 filled cylinders of 3-kg LPG, 80 empty 3-kg cylinders, 2,000 filled 12-kg cylinders, 1,250 filled 50-kg cylinder and 300 empty cylinders.

Small criminal cases in BaliNational Police Headquarters ‘intervene’

Local people have been pro-ducing arrak for generations. The local community is facing major challenges, with some people being forced to work harder at farming and others have migrated to cities to find work. “Many ar-rak makers have taken loans to keep their businesses going, but with the prolonged dry season, many have been unable to pay back their debts. They are dis-traught and many feel like their dying. To make matters even worse, there are less people buy-ing arrack than before,” mourned Masta, former headman of Tri Eka Bhuana village who served for two periods.

Arrack maker, I Komang Budi-ana, also shared his concerns about the situation, explaining that the scarcity of array has been exploited by certain unscrupulous people in

Bali, to produce adulterated arrak. Customers, who are used to drink-ing genuine arrak from Sideman are put into jeopardy with this ‘fake arrak’.

What is more, this fake arrak made this product the target of the Minister of Trade Regulation No.06/M-DAG/PER /1/2015 on the control and supervision of the procurement, distribution and sale of alcoholic beverages. This regulation poses a threat to arrak makers.

Even without this regulation, Krangasem arrak makers are al-ready having hard time making ends meet and these regulation force them to sell their product on the sly. So far, there is no special market for the sale of arrak.

According to Presidential Reg-ulation No.39/2014 regarding fields of business that are open to investment, arrak makers are banned, although they continue to produce arrak. In light of such regulations, Masta and other arrak

makers in Tri Eka Bhuana village hope that the local government

can come up with some solutions for the residents of Sideman -

most of whom rely on arrak mak-ing for their livelihood. (gie)

International2 15International Activities

Founder : K.Nadha, General Manager :Palgunadi Chief Editor: Diah Dewi Juniarti Editors: Gugiek Savindra, Daniel Fajry, Mawa, Sueca, Sugiartha, Yudi Winanto Denpasar: Dira Arsana, Giriana Saputra, Subrata, Sumatika, Asmara Putra. Bangli: Suasrina, Buleleng: Dewa kusuma, Gianyar: Manik Astajaya, Karangasem: Budana, Klungkung: Dewa Farendra. Jakarta: Nikson, Hardianto, Ade Irawan. NTB: Agus Talino, Izzul Khairi, Raka Akriyani. Surabaya: Bambang Wilianto. Office: Jalan Kepundung 67 A Denpasar 80232. Telephone (0361)225764, Facsimile: 227418, P.O.Box: 3010 Denpasar 80001. Bali Post Jakarta, Advertizing: Jl.Palmerah Barat 21F. Telp 021-5357602, Facsimile: 021-5357605 Jakarta Pusat. NTB: Jalam Bangau No. 15 Cakranegara Telp. (0370) 639543, Facsimile: (0370) 628257. Publisher: PT Bali Post

Tuesday, January 26, 2016Tuesday, January 26, 2016

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

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

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

In front of important shrine one sees, besides these umbrellas soars, tridents and other weapons, the “umbul-umbul”, long flags, all these are prerogatives or attributes of Holiness. In front of the Temple gate put up “Penjor”, long bamboo poles, decorated beautifully ornaments of young coconut leaves, rice and other products of the land. Most beautiful to see are the girls in their colorful attire, carry-ing offerings, arrangements of all kinds fruits and colored cakes, to the Temple. Every visitor admires the grace with which the carry their load on their heads.

Balinese Temple Ceremony

COVER STORYFrom page 1Generations ...

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modation theme to choose, services and facilities that will be suitable for family travelers or couples. Circus-Themed Kid’s Club, Resort Center, Spa, Outdoor Pools, NUDI Beach Bar and Lounge are some of the facilities that can be chosen during the stay at the resort. Besides that, guests also can stroll along

the white sand beach or choose adventurous water sport activities to fulfill their activity at the resort.

Executive Assistant Manager of the Holiday Inn Resort Bali Benoa, Nyoman Sapta, said, “We

are very excited and delighted to receive such recognition from eTN. It has been a great start for us here at the Holiday Inn Resort Bali Benoa.” Thanks to the fan-tastic team effort and hard work,

Holiday Inn Resort Bali Benoa has continuously maintained the posi-tion as one of the top 3 hotels in Tanjung Benoa on TripAdvisor and continuously receiving wonderful guest feedback.

Holiday Inn Resort Bali Benoa awarded the eTN Honest Travel Award

IBP/Courtesy of Holiday Inn

TANJUNG BENOA - After only nine short months since opening Holiday Inn resort Bali Benoa has been awarded the eTN Honest Travel Awards. The eTN Honest Travel Awards is awarded to properties for superb experiences and responses, and is in recognition of how much something is appreciated or dif-ferent and all about personal experiences and special moments. It is not about rating how “luxurious” something is. Juergen T. Steinmetz, eTN Publisher, said, “We’re always looking for unique customer feedback when we issue this award, and it seems like this resort is a complete success after its opening in April of last year.”

IBP/Courtesy of Holiday Inn

Head of the Karangasem In-dustry and Trade Agency, Gusti Ngurah Suarta, when contacted recently, said that Karagasem ar-rak production has been a leading home industry in the area for years and that it is the main source of income for most people n the area. Approximately 7,600 people in the sub-districts of Manggis, Sidemen, Abang and Kubu are involved in arrak production. In total, this home industry is capable of producing 220,000 per month (2.65 million bottles per year).

Although there are thousands of people producing arrack, currently there are only a few arrak busi-nesses that are licensed to do so. Amongst those who are licensed are: UD Putrajaya, Dukuh Lestari and Saka Bali. “People need to realize that arrak a an alcoholic beverage, is included on the list of negative investments accord-ing to Presidential Regulation No. 39/2014. It is forbidden to produce arrak,” he said.

The Industry and Trade Agency have made various efforts to ad-dress the situation including trying

to convince arrak makers to instead become plam sugar producers. At first the coaching given to residents of Ban village and Tianyar village in Kubu was quite successful, and residents gradually followed the local governments advice to switch to palm sugar production. Special devices and were provided to the villagers to start their new business.

However, thousands of arrak makers in Sidemen and Abang re-fused to switch over to palm sugar making. Suarta explained that man residents refused to change profes-sions because it would mean that they could no longer support their families and pay for their children’s tuition. They also argued that arrak production is more practical and easier to sell than palm sugar.

Arrak makers do not want to take a chance on the plan sugar business when their families depend on them to survive. “Producing palm sugar takes longer and earns them less money, so it is is hard to ask people to shift to plan sugar production. We need to make people aware of the issues,” explained Suarta adding

that the government is still looking for other solutions.

According to existing data,in Manggis there are 800 arrack makers with a total production of

250,000 bottles per year. In Side-men there are 3,700 arrak producers with total production of 1,250,000 bottles per year; Abang subdistrict has 2,500 arrak makers with a total

production of 980,000 bottles per year; and 600 people in Kubu sub-district produce 240,000 bottles per year. Suarta hopes to resolve this issue as soon as possible. (gie)

IBP/Bagiarta

The fate of arrak makers in Sidemen subdistrict, Karangasem, looks increasingly uncertain. Not only are they frequently raided by police, but lack of rain is interfering with the growth of coconut trees.

Palm sugar making will not do

IBP/Bagiarta

Arrak maker showed the process to produce arrak. Karagasem arrak production has been a leading home industry in the area for years and that it is the main source of income for most people n the area. Approximately 7,600 people in the sub-districts of Manggis, Sidemen, Abang and Kubu are involved in arrak production.

KArANGASEM’s local government has been trying to convince local arrak makers to change their profession and become producers of plan sugar. This suggestion has however been rejected on the grounds that making plan sugar takes long er and yields less profits that arrak making does.

Page 6

I N T E R N A T I O N A L 16 Pages Number 228th year

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

Price: Rp 3.000,-

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

DPs 23 - 32WEATHER FORECAsT

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

News can also be heard in “Bali Image” at Global Radio FM 96.5 from 9.30 until 10.00 am. Listen to Global Radio FM at http://globalfmbali.listen2my-

radio.com or live video streaming at http://radioglobalfmbali.com and http://ustream.tv/channel/global-fm-bali.

Vietnam PM makes last-minute comeback in leadership battle

Page 8 Page 13

Juventus beats Roma 1-0 to keep up pressure on Napoli

East Coast, emerging from blizzard, faces difficult commute

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

NEW YORK — Tina Fey returned to “Saturday Night Live” to reprise her impression of Sarah Palin and give a rambling, sometimes-rhyming endorsement to Donald Trump.

The sketch kicked off the cold open to “SNL” on Saturday, with Fey and Darrell Hammond skewering the former Alaska governor’s endorse-ment speech in Iowa on Tuesday. As Palin, Fey said she had come to Iowa to break from “my full-time career of writing things on Facebook.”

“SNL” also parodied this year’s all-white Oscar nominees in a mock award show that nominated white actors playing bit roles in African-American dramas. Last week, the only Oscar nominations that the “Rocky” sequel “Creed” and the N.W.A biopic “Straight Outta Compton” received were for white people: Sylvester Stallone for “Creed,” and “Compton” writers Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff.

In the sketch, an award was given

to “all the white guys” in predomi-nantly black films modeled after “Creed,” ‘’Compton” and “Beasts of No Nation.” The roles were barely cameos, like: “White Man With Camera” and “Unseen Voice On Phone.”

“Saturday Night Live,” however, has also been much-criticized in the past about its own diversity. Fol-lowing an uproar in 2013, it added Sasheer Zamata, Leslie Jones and writer LaKendra Tookes. (ap)

She said Sunday she’s using the intense attention she got after that controversy to focus on her causes like fighting HIV and AIDS. “I’m using the attention to talk about my causes. Now, I have everybody’s atten-tion,” she said.

She told a news conference that she plans to be tested for HIV publicly in New York to encourage other people to be tested, including in the Philippines, where HIV cases have risen alarmingly in recent years.

Asked about her plans after her reign, Wurtzbach said she would

consider possible job offers in the United States, adding: “I might be the next Bond girl, who knows? So, we’ll see, that’s the next dream.”

Many international ac-tresses have been cast

alongside actors playing British agent James Bond and are popularly known as “Bond girls.”

Wurtzbach, 26, has worked as an actress and model in the Philippines before winning the crown. The Miss Universe pageant is a big deal in the Philippines, where two other women have brought home the crown before her, with the last one winning in 1973.

On Monday, Wurtzbach will meet Presi-dent Benigno Aquino III, a bachelor who is rumored to have gone on a date with her be-fore. She’ll receive a citation from the Senate for her victory then join a motorcade around Manila that will end with a fireworks show.

Wurtzbach told reporters she was so over-whelmed with her triumph that she constantly checked on her crown in the initial days and even took a nap beside it but decided not to do that again because she might break it. (ap)

PARK CITY, Utah — Actor Matt Damon and Gary White, co-founders of the nonprofit Water.org, came to the Sundance Film Festival on Saturday to call attention to the desperate need for clean water in impoverished regions around the world. He said the water contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan, is something millions of people across the globe experience every day.

“Imagine this outrage we feel about Flint — this justified out-rage, I should say, because that should never happen in the United States of America, ever,” Damon said in an interview with The Associated Press. “But there are people for whom life is such a desperate struggle, that they’re faced every day with the choice of giving their children dirty water or no water at all.”

Damon and White appeared alongside Todd Allen of Stella Artois to discuss the global water crisis and to announce their “Buy a Lady a Drink” campaign — so named because water shortages disproportionately affect women, who spend hours each day searching for water for their families.

The beer maker is introducing a limited-edition collection of decorated glass chalices representing water-poor countries such as Ethiopia, Haiti, India and Honduras. The sale of each $13 goblet will provide a woman in one of these countries with five years of clean water.

The water crisis in Flint shows how heartbreaking and hor-rifying life without clean water is, Damon said. He recalled a trip to Ethiopia several years ago where he witnessed schoolchildren filling bottles with water “the color of chocolate milk.” Their par-ents knew the water would make the children sick, but without it, they would have nothing to drink. “I have four daughters,” Damon said. “When you start having kids, it’s hard not to see other kids as your own ... It’s incumbent upon me to do whatever I can within my sphere of influence” to help. (ap)

Matt Damon brings call for clean water for all to Sundance

Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

Water.org co-founders Matt Damon, left, and Gary White take part in a panel discussion on the global water crisis at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival on Saturday, Jan. 23, 2016, in Park City, Utah.

Miss Universe winner says next dream is to be a Bond girl

MANILA — The reigning Miss Universe has her eyes set on her next big dream: being a Bond girl. Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach returned home to the Philippines for the first time since her crowning — and that awkward moment when host Steve Harvey mistakenly announced Miss Colombia as the winner instead of her.

AP Photo/Bullit Marquez

Tina Fey returns as Sarah Palin on ‘SNL,’ Oscars parodied

THE FATE of arrak makers in Sidemen subdistrict, Karangasem, looks increas-ingly uncertain. Not only are they fre-quently raided by police, but lack of rain is interfering with the growth of coconut trees. Although the long dry season has

ended and it does rain occasionally, there has not been enough rainfall to restore the

coconut trees of the arrack makers. A number of arrack makers in Tri Eka Bhuana village,

Sidemen, are extremely distraught. I Nyoman Masta, for example, said that he and his relatives are usually able to produce 14 bottles of arrak (containing 10 liters) every three days. However, over the past three months, produc-tion has become erratic as raw coconut has become hard to come by. “The coconuts cannot grow when the weather is this hot for this long,” said Masta.

Tri Eka Bhuana village is the largest arrak produc-ing village in Karangasem, so the village’s economy is greatly affected by such conditions. About 95 percent of the 600 families (approximately 2,193 persons) rely on arrak sales to earn a living.

Continue to page 2Generations ...

AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim

An Indonesian Muslim woman holds a poster outside a Starbucks cafe where Thursday’s attack took place, in Jakarta, Indonesia, Sunday, Jan. 17, 2016. Indonesian extremist groups received international financing from Australia and Syria, the country’s security minister said Monday, adding to fears that jihadists are targeting the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

Luhut Panjaitan was speaking at a defence forum in Singapore less than two weeks after coordinated gun and bomb attacks in Jakarta left four civilians dead.

He said about $800,000 were found last week to have been sent to Indonesian extremist groups.

The Islamic State group (IS) has claimed responsibility for the Janu-ary 14 attacks, spurring concerns it is getting a foothold in southeast Asia.

“We are tracing right now...

how do they (Indonesian extrem-ist groups) get finance,” Panjaitan said.

He said about $100,000 came from the Syrian city of Raqa, the capital of IS’s self-styled caliphate, to support extremist activities in Indonesia, and about $700,000 came from Australia.

He said it was not known where the money had come from in Aus-tralia.

“Right now our agencies are working very hard, trying to moni-

tor this financing support, because without financing I don’t think they can move more aggressively,” Pan-jaitan said.

He did not give other details about the funds.

Panjaitan stressed the need for greater international cooperation, saying no country could fight the threat alone.

He cited information shared by Australia with Indonesia on the flow of funds, in addition to a com-munication hotline with Singapore as examples of “good cooperation” between countries.

Panjaitan also said the weapons used in the Jakarta attacks were smuggled from the southern Phil-

ippine island of Mindanao to the Indonesian town of Poso.

Panjaitan and Singaporean De-fence Minister Ng Eng Hen said financing and logistics support from overseas were evidence that terror groups in the region were improving their coordination.

“There is an international financ-ing network which you must try to strangle and choke to cut off the flow of funds,” Ng told reporters at a joint news conference with Panjaitan.

“The more we cooperate the stronger we become. This is a fight that may last many decades, we need many partners in this,” Ng said.

Singapore last week disclosed it had arrested 27 Bangladeshi

construction workers last year for supporting “the armed jihad ideol-ogy” of militant groups like IS and deported 26 of them.

Officials said that while the work-ers were being groomed to carry out attacks in their home country and elsewhere, they could have easily turned against Singapore. (afp)

Indonesian extremist groups getting international financing

SINGAPORE - Indonesian extremist groups received in-ternational financing from Australia and Syria, the country’s security minister said Monday, adding to fears that jihadists are targeting the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

Arrak producers ‘dying off’