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I N T E R N A T I O N A L 16 Pages Number 238th year

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

DPs 23 - 32WEATHER FORECAsT

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

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Russia urges for including Kurds in Syria talks

Page 8 Page 13

PSG’s total dominance removes any drama from French league

French taxis, air traffic controllers, schools on strike

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Cyrus, the 23-year-old Disney actress turned singer and master of provocation, said that she will appear in the yet untitled project that the online retail giant plans to stream later this year.

Cyrus posted on Instagram a blue-hued painting of the famously bespectacled Allen, saying that she had kept his picture “next to my bed for a few years.”

“I was looking into his eyes when I got the call to be a part of the cast,” she wrote, expressing her joy with a string or profani-ties.

She will appear across from 83-year-old Elaine May who starred in Allen’s 2000 film “Small Time Crooks,” a comedy about theft in the art dealing world.

A spokeswoman for Cyrus also confirmed that she would appear in the series.

Hollywood publication Deadline first re-ported that the 80-year-old Allen had decided to cast Cyrus in the initial six-episode run of the series that will be set in the 1960s.

Amazon announced a year ago that it had

signed up Allen, the New Yorker who has directed classic films such as “Manhattan” and “Annie Hall,” to create his very first television series.

Amazon has been seeking to catch up with Netflix, which has won loyal followings through series such as the dark Washington thriller “House of Cards” and the prison comedy “Orange Is the New Black.”

Amazon has already won awards with “Transparent,” a comedy-drama about a family dealing with a transgender father, and “Mozart in the Jungle,” about the wild off-stage lives of New York classical musi-cians.

Cyrus, the daughter of country star Billy Ray Cyrus, rose to fame on the show “Han-nah Montana” but has since taken a marked turn toward racier fare.

Known for her pan-sexual identity and comfort with nudity, Cyrus returned to the public eye in August by hosting the MTV Video Music Awards and releasing an album with alternative rock band The Flaming Lips.

Allen, known for his sharp-tongued wit and fascination with sexual taboos, has throughout his career worked closely with a number of actresses including former part-ners Diane Keaton and Mia Farrow. (afp)

LOS ANGELES - “The X-Files” actor David Duchovny got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Monday, a day after the cult televi-sion series returned to small screens to fanfare in the US.

“It’s surreal, it’s a surreal moment and it’s a surreal event, everything just seems... it feels like something coming out of a movie, in a strange way,” joked Duchovny, 55, who plays Special Agent Fox Mulder.

Mulder and his partner Dana Scully, played by Gillian Anderson, returned for a mini series to great excitement among “X-Files” fans.

“I’m never confident about a success, but I’m confident that we made a really good show again,” said Duchovny, who won a Golden Globe in 1997 for his turn as Mulder and again in 2008 for his role as Hank Moody in the hit comedy-drama series “Californication.”

The latest “X-Files” received decidedly mixed reviews from critics.

“Like Mulder, I want to believe, but with a messy new beginning like this, Chris Carter (the producer) and crew are making it pretty hard,” wrote Kaly Soto in The New York Times. (afp)

Miley Cyrus to star in Woody Allen series for Amazon

‘X-Files’ actor Duchovny gets Hollywood Walk of Fame star

Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

IBP/Net

LOS ANGELES - Pop star Miley Cyrus will be the latest muse of Woody Allen as the legendary comedian directs his first television series for Amazon.

The boat was believed to be tak-ing the Indonesians back to their home country when it overturned off the southern Malaysian state of Johor.

Police Chief Superintendant Rahmat Othman of the Malay-sian town of Kota Tinggi was quoted by Bernama as saying police had launched a search

for survivors and any more victims.

The dead included nine women and four men, whose bodies washed up on beaches in the area, the report said.

Malaysia is Southeast Asia’s third-largest economy and a magnet for migrant workers from its poorer neighbours, with the vast majority

coming from Indonesia.About two million Indonesians,

many of them working illegally, are now in Malaysia doing a range of generally low-paid jobs.

Deadly accidents in the strait are not uncommon, with travellers typically attempting the crossing in rickety vessels and often at night to avoid detection. (afp)

TRAVEL agencies have long considered that tourist destinations in Buleleng are highly sought after by foreign visitors. Unfortunately the

destinations that the govern-ment has already opened up to

tourism apparently still need to be managed properly in order to run well.

Infrastructure that supports tourism is cer-tainly necessary but destinations in North Bali also need to have descriptive profiles so that travel agencies can more easily market tour packages for Buleleng.

The Celukan Bawang Harbor in Gerokgak, is already a popular destination for cruise ships that drop off large numbers of tourists who are eager to explore the area. Although this repre-sents a great opportunity for the development of the trouts industry in North Bali -because these passengers only have a short time to visit, tour packages are important.

Travel agencies have said that they find it hard to introduce tourist destinations in Buleleng to tourists, because the profiles that the government has provided so far are inad-equate. Destinations in the area would be far easier to sell to cruise ship passengers if there were short descriptions of the different nearby destinations.

Continue to page 2Response ...

13 Indonesians drown when boat capsizes off Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR - Thirteen people drowned Tuesday when a boat carrying Indonesian illegal immigrants capsized after being struck by strong waves off Malaysia, state news agency Bernama reported, quoting local police.

IBP/Mudiarta

The Celukan Bawang Harbor in Gerokgak, is already a popular destination for cruise ships that drop off large num-bers of tourists who are eager to explore the area.

Working on tourism potential of North Bali

Head of the Buleleng Culture and Tourism Agency, Gede Suyasa, in response to input from travel agencies, recently said that each destination must be supported by accurate information. Presently

many destinations have no official description. “Our tourist destina-tions generally need to be improved according to studies and available budgets,” he added.

Suyasa explained that cruise ship passengers that are dropped off in Celukan Harbour have a few dif-ferent travel agencies to chose from when trying to book a tour. For now

there are four main tour packages that are offered: diving in the area of Menjangan Island, visits to the tour-ism village of Munduk, visits to the Sembiran heritage site and to Gedong Kertya (palm-leaf manuscript mu-seum) in the town of Singaraja.

These packages need to be further developed and gradually completed with brief descriptive information.

The district government recently started publishing a calendar of tourism events in Buleleng. Some events such as the Buleleng Festival (Bulfest), Lake Buyan and Tam-blingan Festival, and other events include short descriptions.

This calendar of events is distrib-uted through travel agencies, hotels at Ngurah Rai Airport and a few

other venues. “We plan to continue developing new attractions and im-proving existing ones so that travel agencies can design tour packages that might inspire trouists to extend the length of their stay. We plan to target, not only the cruise ship pas-sengers but also other tourist who want to visit Bueleleng,” shared Suyasa. (mud)

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

Wednesday, January 27, 2016Wednesday, January 27, 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 1Response ...

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IBP/Courtesy of Ritz-Carlton Bali

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IBP/Courtesy of Ritz-Carlton Bali

According to PHRI Karangas-em, more tourist attractions need to be developed in the area and that Menjagan forest could become a draw for tourism in the area if it were better maintained. The PHRI is therefor urging the government of Karangasem to resolve the problem of the convoluted status of Men-jagan forest.

Presently, the status of this 13

hectares swath of land remains in limbo. Both the Karangasem Palace and the government of Karangasem could claim authority over the forest. “We encourage the government to resolve the issue of the land’s status. Karangasem has a lot of potential tourist attractions but they are not managed properly and many of them are neglected,” said Kariasa.

Acting Head of the Karangasem Forestry and Plantation Agency, Wayan Budiarsa, confirmed that the status of the Menjagan forest remains unclear. He explained that initially, the land area of 13 hectares was an asset of the Karangasem Palace. However, after the Karan-gasem district and Bali province “greened” the location and turned it into a tourist destination, they of-fered the Karangasem Palace IDR 3 million per hectare, but the offer was rejected.

However because the Karangas-em Palace does not have proof of legitimate ownership of their assets, the government of Karangasem quickly submited a request to the

National Land Agency (BPN) to be granted a certificate of ownership of the forest land. Although this request was submitted a few years ago, it is still being processed.

Undeniably, tourist attractions can support the economy of the middle to lower class population of an area. Over the last few years, Karangasem has been visited by far fewer domestic tourists than other parts of Bali. Kariasa is therefor also asking the local gov-ernment to look to Ginayar as an example of a place that is develop-ing recreational sites for families. “Currently, we still have very few domestic visitors. Tourism should benefit not only employers but

should also contribute to the wel-fare of the middle to lower class,” he said.

The local government needs to seriously improve Karangasem’s tourist attractions both in terms of their physical attributes as well as their management. Kariasa is confident that Menjangan forest, for instance, could draw a lot of tourists to Karangasem, provided road access and other supporting facilities were properly arranged. According to the PHRI, this and other attractions need to be bet-ter organized so that within the next few years these tourist des-tination can meet international standards. (gie)

IBP/Bagiarta

Menjagan forest in Nawa Kerti village, Abang has been damaged for years. This forest had previously been a popular tourist attraction.

PHRI deplores destruction of Menjangan forest

THE KArANGASEM branch secretary of the Indonesia Ho-tel and restaurant Association (PHrI) Wayan Kariasa, recently expressed how regrettable it is that so many tourist attractions in Karangasem have been left dormant. He said that he found it particularly deplorable that the Menjagan forest in Nawa Kerti village, Abang has been damaged for years. This forest had previously been a popular tourist attraction.

14 InternationalTechnologyWednesday, January 27, 2016 3International Bali News Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Rules must be agreed to prevent the development of such weapons, they said at a January 19-23 meet-ing of billionaires, scientists and po-litical leaders in the snow-covered ski resort of Davos.

Angela Kane, the German UN High Representative for Disarma-ment Affairs from 2012-2015, said the world had been slow to take pre-emptive measures to protect hu-manity from the lethal technology.

“It may be too late,” she told a debate in Davos.

“There are many countries and many representatives in the inter-national community that really do not understand what is involved. This development is something that

is limited to a certain number of advanced countries,” Kane said.

The deployment of autonomous weapons would represent a dangerous new era in warfare, scientists said.

“We are not talking about drones, where a human pilot is controlling the drone,” said Stuart Russell, pro-fessor of computer science at Uni-versity of California, Berkeley.

“We are talking about autono-mous weapons, which means that there is no one behind it. AI: artifi-cial intelligence weapons,” he told a forum in Davos. “Very precisely, weapons that can locate and attack targets without human interven-tion.”

Russell said he did not foresee a

day in which robots fight the wars for humans and at the end of the day one side says: “OK you won, so you can have all our women.”

But some 1,000 science and technology chiefs including Brit-ish physicist Stephen Hawking, said in an open letter last July that the development of weapons with a degree of autonomous decision-making capacity could be feasible within years, not decades.

They called for a ban on offen-sive autonomous weapons that are beyond meaningful human control, warning that the world risked slid-ing into an artificial intelligence arms race and raising alarm over the risks of such weapons falling into the hands of violent extremists.

“The question is can these ma-chines follow the rules of war?” Russell said.

How, for an example, could an

autonomous weapon differentiate between civilians, soldiers, resis-tance fighters and rebels? How could it know that it should not kill a pilot who has ejected from a plane and is parachuting to the ground?

“I am against robots for ethical reasons but I do not believe ethical arguments will win the day. I be-lieve strategic arguments will win the day,” Russell said.

The United States had renounced biological weapons because of the risk that one day they could deployed by “almost anybody”, he said. “I hope this will happen with robots.”

Alan Winfield, professor of elec-tronic engineering at the University of the West of England, warned that removing humans from battlefield decision-making would have grave consequences.

“It means that humans are de-prived from moral responsibility,”

Winfield said.Moreover, the reaction of the

robots may be hard to predict, he said: “When you put a robot in a chaotic environment, it behaves chaotically.”

Roger Carr, chairman of the Brit-ish aerospace and defence group BAE, agreed.

“If you remove ethics and judge-ment and morality from human endeavour whether it is in peace or war, you will take humanity to another level which is beyond our comprehension,” Carr warned.

“You equally cannot put some-thing into the field that, if it malfunc-tions, can be very destructive with no control mechanism from a human. That is why the umbilical link, man to machine, is not only to decide when to deploy the weapon but it is also the ability to stop the process. Both are equally important.” (afp)

SAN FRANSISCO - US Internet giant Google paid Apple a billion dollars in 2014 to be the go-to search tool on iPhones, Bloomberg reported, citing court documents.

The rare glimpse into financial figures typically kept private by Google and Apple was provided by an Oracle attorney dur-ing a court hearing in San Francisco last week, according to Bloomberg.

A transcript of the proceeding was not among documents available at the court’s digital filing system on Friday, in the wake of a move by Google lawyers to have it redacted and sealed.

An Oracle attorney had revealed that Google, a subsidiary of corporate parent Alphabet, paid a billion dollars in the year 2014 alone to secure its position as the default search engine on iPhones, Bloomberg reported.

Google lawyers argued that Oracle “improperly disclosed highly sensitive, confidential information” regarding revenues and profits related to its Android mobile operating software, a copy of the motion showed.

Android revenue details cited by an Oracle attorney in open court last week had been labeled “Highly Confidential - Attor-ney’s Eyes Only,” Google contended.

According to Bloomberg, an Oracle lawyer also said in court that Google had $22 billion in profit from Android, which it makes available free to mobile device makers.

The first Android-powered smartphone launched in 2008, and the software now powers more than 80 percent of smartphones sold worldwide.

The figures were made public briefly during a long-running le-gal fight over whether copyright-protected elements of Java code made by Oracle were used in Android without permission.

While Apple is not a party in the case, Oracle lawyers argued that the impressive sum of money Google takes in from Android must be factored in by the court. (afp)

WASHINGTON - Two months after the breakthrough launch and vertical landing of a reusable rocket, the space firm created by Internet entrepreneur Jeff Bezos did it again.

The company, Blue Origin, said Saturday that the same New Shepard booster which blasted off and landed in November had repeated the feat, hitting an altitude

of 333,000 feet (101 kilometers) before “gently” returning to Earth.

A video released by Blue Origin showed the launch and landing from the Texas site, with the rocket slowed to three miles per hour (five kilometers per hour) on its descent with the assistance of parachutes.

The breakthroughs by Blue Ori-gin and parallel efforts by rival In-ternet mogul Elon Musk’s SpaceX

open up the potential for cutting costs for space travel and making rockets as reusable as airplanes.

In November, Bezos called the accomplishment a “game changer” which opens the door to lower costs in space travel and his vision of people living and working in space.

Bezos, who founded online gi-ant Amazon and also owns The

Washington Post newspaper, said in a statement Saturday that Blue Origin has solved the problem of balancing to keep the rocket in an upright position as it lands.

“I’m a huge fan of rocket-pow-ered vertical landing,” he said in the statement.

“Why? Because to achieve our vision of millions of people living and working in space we will need

to build very large rocket boosters. And the vertical landing architec-ture scales extraordinarily well.

“When you do a vertical landing, you’re solving the classic inverted pendulum problem, and the inverted pendulum problem gets a bit easier as the pendulum gets a bit bigger.”

SpaceX in December managed a similar feat for the first time with its Falcon 9 rocket. (afp)

Scientists urge world to stop killer robotsDAVOS - The world must act quickly to avert a future in

which autonomous robots with artificial intelligence roam the battlefields killing humans, scientists and arms experts warned at an elite gathering in the Swiss Alps.

Bezos space firm duplicates reusable rocket breakthrough

Google paid $1 bn for search spot on iPhones

AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade

An Indian traveler uses a free WiFi service to browse the net at Mumbai Central Train Station in Mum-bai, India, Friday, Jan. 22, 2016. US Internet giant Google paid Apple a billion dollars in 2014 to be the go-to search tool on iPhones, Bloomberg reported, citing court documents.

Head of Water Tourism Rescue Agency (Balawista) Badung, I Ketut Ipel on Tuesday explained that, on Monday, there were four domestic tour-ists swimming in Double Six Beach, Seminyak, when large waves suddenly

swept four of them out to sea. Two of them made it back to shore unharmed, but the two others were taken by the waves.

Seminyak Beach is one of beach-es around Kuta that many tourists

visit. Ipel said that he hopes tour-ists will be very careful when they swim in the ocean, especially during rough weather conditions of the kind Bali is currently experiencing. (may/ant)

MANGUPURA - A rally held by taxi drivers on Friday (Jan22) in demonstration against UberTaxi and GrabTaxi operating in Bali, is considered to be inappropriate, giv-en that these two companies do not operate on the island. In response to the demonstration, the Land Transport Organization (Organda), on Sunday (Jan 24), announced that: “UberTaxi and GrabTaxi only operate in Jakarta, while in Bali Organda only accommodates Grab-

Car” said Acting Chief of Organda Bali, Bagus Soediana.

Soediana said that Balinese people should understand that UberTaxi and GrabTaxi are also un-der scrutiny in Jakarta because they use private cars. GrabTaxi accom-modates Express Taxi, Dian Taxi, Gamia Taxi and others. “In Bali there is no UberTaxi and GrabTaxi, there is only GrabCar who operate with licensed, leased cars and pay regional taxes and levies and com-

ply with the regulations for leased transport,” he explained.

Soediana added that GrabTaxi use very well developed technology that facilitates customers in search-ing for transportation. The app that they use was first developed in Bali by Taxi Praja Bali.

“Private transportation systems equipped with IT applications ben-efit consumers. Prospective passen-gers do not have to wait for taxi’s on the roadside, thus minimizing the

likelihood of street crimes and such applications also reduce operation costs,” said Soediana, who added that Bali’s Blue Bird Taxi also has online access.

This former chief of Bali Tour-ism Transportation Unit (Pawiba) said that in the near future Ngurah Rai Taxi will also implement IT applications to improve their ser-vices.

“Fully implementing IT ap-plications will benefit transport

services for the public and will also benefit taxi drivers who will not have to drive around looking for prospective passengers,” he explained.

The demonstration held by local taxi drivers at Mengwi terminal on January 22nd, was meant to protest against UberTaxi and GrabTaxi operating in Bali because it would be lethal to local taxi drivers. Their billboards were taken down on Saturday. (kmb27)

DENPASAR - The National Narcotics Agency (BNNP) of Bali has arrested ten suspected members of a narcotics syndicate, which was targeting some villages in Buleleng District as part of its modus operandi.

“We had made them our target. This network was indeed targeting villages,” Head of BNNP of Bali Brigadier General Putu Gede Suastawa stated on Monday.

The authority has arrested seven suspects, in-cluding DM, HF, MY, and LG, among others, in Si-datapa Village, Buleleng District, on January 23.

The suspects were arrested from DM’s house, and the owner was caught consuming crystal meth during the raid.

The police have confiscated 0.76 grams of meth from DM.

Based on information provided by the suspects, the authority has arrested three more suspects --- ID, AL, and JY --- from a house located on Ki Barak Panji Sakti Street of Singaraja.

The police personnel seized 9.59 grams of meth ready to be distributed in 28 small packages.

The list grew longer as another individual with the initial NMD was arrested in Badung for pos-session of 0.5 grams of meth in his pocket, and NS in Banjar Roban, Gianyar District, with 6.95 grams of meth.

During the raid at NS’ house, a man surrendered himself, after which the officers conducted a search on him and recovered nine packages of meth weigh-ing 6.2 grams, three plastic packets of meth (12.49 grams), and three ecstasy pills (1.41 grams).

The authority has seized a total of 37.95 grams of illegal drugs from the suspected syndicate of Sidatapa and Badung-Gianyar.

The officers also confiscated some scales and meth crystal breakers, which indicate that the sus-pects were linked, Suastawa revealed.

The BNNP is investigating the case. (ant)

Four tourists swept to sea, two found dead

DENPASAR - Two domestic tourists were found dead after being swept away by waves on Seminyak

Beach on Monday. The rescue team brought the body of the male victims from Bandung, West Java

to Sanglah Hospital for further investigation.

UberTaxi and GrabTaxiOrganda affirms that they do not operate in Bali

Targeting villageAuthority arrest suspected drug syndicate members

IBP/Yudi Karnaedi

The National Narcotics Agency (BNNP) of Bali has arrested ten suspected members of a narcotics syndicate, which was targeting some villages in Buleleng District as part of its modus operandi.

Bali News International4 Wednesday, January 27, 2016 13InternationalWednesday, January 27, 2016

Prime Minister Manuel Valls agreed to an emergency meeting with taxi drivers Tuesday after-noon, in an apparent attempt to defuse tensions. Tuesday’s pro-tests are the latest challenge to the Socialist government as it tries to modernize the economy and find France’s place in an increasingly globalized, online marketplace.

One in five flights were canceled at Paris airports and other flights faced delays as air traffic controllers staged a walkout and taxi drivers disrupted roads. Twenty people were detained at protests around the French capital, according to Paris police, and i-Tele television reported that two people were injured at Orly Airport when a shuttle bus tried to force its way past a taxi drivers’ blockade.

Some teachers and other public servants are also on strike over wages, education reforms and working conditions.

Hundreds of French taxis, joined by a few from Belgium and Spain, blocked a massive intersection leading into western Paris. Dozens of taxi drivers tried to march onto an eight-lane bypass, but police pushed them back with tear gas. Some drivers set pre-dawn bonfires, put out later by firefighters.

Traditional taxi drivers say they’re suffering unfair competition

from Uber, which has faced legal challenges around Europe.

Uber’s lowest-cost service is banned in France and two Uber executives go on trial next month in Paris for fraud. Previous French taxi protests have also turned violent, with ambushes of Uber drivers and passengers. Karim Asnoun, head of the CGT Taxi Union, said at Tues-day’s Paris protest: “Unfortunately the governments are weak and as unemployment is pressuring them, they cede. They think they are creat-ing jobs, whereas for every created job there is one that’s destroyed.”

Uber sent a message to French customers warning of potential violence, saying the goal of Tues-day’s protest is “to put pressure on the government to ... limit com-petition.” It warned that limiting app-based car services would raise costs, put drivers out of work and send customers back to the era “be-fore apps and smartphones.”

Protests were also held in other French cities. Uber drivers “vandal-ize professionals who are paying taxes, who respect the rules,” said Rachid Boudjema, 37, president of the taxi drivers union in Marseille. He described “American cowboys” who “want to destroy our system, the system we are all attached to.” (ap)

TOKYO — UNICEF is seeking $18 million in relief funds for tens of thousands of children in North Korea it believes have been hit by the impact of a drought last year that heightened malnutrition and diarrhea caused by a lack of access to clean water.

Severe drought conditions last year in four agricultural provinces led to reduced food production and availability of safe drinking water, the U.N. agency said Tuesday.

It said there has been a 72 percent increase in diarrhea among children under the age of 5 in the drought-affected provinces and there are 25,000 children in need of immediate treat-ment of severe and acute malnutrition. To meet the need for help, the agency said it is calling for $8.5 million in assistance for nutrition, $5 million for clean water and sanitation and $4.5 million for health.

The health funds include “life-saving medi-cation, immunization, prevention and treatment of diarrhea and pneumonia, therapeutic food, and access to safe drinking water,” it said in a statement.

North Korean media called last year’s drought the worst in a century. That claim has been hard to substantiate due to the country’s restrictions on foreign access.

Though improvements have been seen in recent years, North Korea’s food production is regularly affected by droughts or floods that expose the inefficiencies of its agricultural sys-tem, which is heavily reliant on foreign aid.

A devastating North Korean famine dur-ing the mid-1990s is believed to have killed hundreds of thousands of people. The exact number is disputed.

The UNICEF statement said that in August 2015 the North Korean government announced a more than 20 percent reduction in crop production compared with 2014. It said the average cereal ration was reduced, impacting the nutritional and health status of women and children.

“There is a critical need to address the immediate and underlying causes of under-nutrition in order to promote child survival and development,” it said. (ap)

AP Photo/Christophe Ena

Travellers make their way to Orly airport, south of Paris, as taxi drivers block the access of the airport, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Paris taxi drivers protesting what they consider unfair competition from rival services such as Uber are joining teachers and other public servants in nationwide strikes and demonstrations.

French taxis, air traffic controllers, schools on strike

PARIS — Paris police fired tear gas and taxi drivers lit bonfires on a major highway Tuesday amid nationwide strikes and protests over working conditions and competition from non-traditional services such as Uber.

UNICEF seeks funds for N. Korea drought victims

REUTERS/KCNA

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (R) visits the Kumkop General Foodstuff Factory for Sportspersons in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang January 23, 2016.

DENPASAR - A Malaysian traveler with the ini-tials TKK aka Ayung, 48, wishing to spend holidays in Bali for two months totally failed at the end. Instead, he was arrested for carrying crystal meth and cannabis at the lobby of Hotel Amaris on Jalan Teuku Umar, Denpasar, Wednesday (Jan. 20). The illicit goods are planned to be used during his holidays in Bali with his girlfriend, LHM, 48.

“Initially, the suspect was alleged to meet someone in Bali, but after being developed he did not. Accord-ing to his admission, the drugs will be used for his own consumption,” said the Chief of Sub-Directorate II, Directorate of Bali Police Drug Investigation Unit, Joni Lay, accompanied by Public Information Subdi-vision Head, Sri Harmiti, Monday (Jan. 25).

Disclosure of the case, said Joni, was informed by customs officer at the Ngurah Rai Airport, Tuban. Initially the suspect along with his girlfriend arrived at the airport flying with Malaysia Airlines of Kuala Lumpur-Denpasar at 18:24. Results of the X-ray imaging device were suspected if there were two drugs in his bag. But with the reason of develop-ment, the suspect was not immediately arrested but allowed to go. “But a team of the airport and Den-pasar customs tailed the suspect. We then standby at hotel,” he said.

On arrival at the hotel, the suspect was imme-

diately caught. Police then searched his brown bag and found a sachet of honey containing crystal meth package weighing 4.04 grams, one sachet of honey containing two crystal meth packages respectively weighing 4.63 grams and 3.93 grams. Besides, the team also confiscated one sachet of coffee powder containing marijuana package weighing 0.99 gram, bong, mobile phone and passport.

The raid was resumed to the red suitcase. In the suitcase of the suspect admitting to have profession as manager of online gambling was found 50 sachets of stamina enhancing coffee. One of the herbal coffee sachets contained crystal meth package weighing 9.65 grams. Additionally, the team also secured a coffee powder sachet containing crystal meth package weighing 0.50 gram.

“Urine of the suspect has been tested and the results were positive, while that of his companion was negative. Since there is no evidence of getting involved, LHM was released. As recognition of the suspect, the drugs were brought from Malaysia,” he said. Are there any other motives? “Until now, we still focus on dealing with the drug cases. In addition to spending holiday, the suspect claimed that he was about to marketing his coffee. Whether it is only the reason of suspect we are still further investigating,” he said. (kmb36)

Chief of ASDP Padangbai, Wayan Rusta, when contacted on Monday (Jan. 25) mentioned that the impact has been felt since Sun-day night (Jan. 24) after the incident of bridge collapse was reported. “After hearing the news on the broken down bridge, there was only one departing vessel. In the follow-ing morning, the crossing activity is totally empty,” said Rusta.

He added that temporarily the crossing traffic from Gilimanuk to Padangbai is diverted through Sin-garaja and then to Padangbai. Surely this road section is farther with more difficult and dangerous terrains. However, until Monday afternoon there were no more vehicles crossing from Padangbai to Lembar.

Occasionally the crossing was only seen from Lembar to Padang-bai. However, Rusta did not know how many vehicles already arrived and would cross. Besides, he did not know how long this situation will last. However, from initial information the crossing repair to make it normal may take a year. In other words, this situation can last for months because there is no longer adequate road section other than through Singaraja. As antici-

pation, the vehicles are diverted to Singaraja road section. However, the vehicles allowed to pass are limited with the tonnage of less than 20 tons because in the Gilimanuk-Singaraja road section there are many uphill paths accompanied with sharp turns.

He already delivered directly to the employers to reduce the tonnage of goods delivered to NTB in order to pass the Singaraja road section smoothly. “We also appealed to passengers from Lembar to Padan-gbai through loudspeakers to seek alternative road section due to the broken down bridge,” said Rusta.

He hoped there will be other solutions to overcome this prob-lem. If the crossing continues to be hampered, the prices of basic com-modities in NTB can soar because the trucks commonly carrying the basic food needs are hampered at Gilimanuk. In addition, revenue from the crossing activities at Padangbai Harbor is ascertained to slump these weeks. Related to weather condition, he said it re-mained normal. Extreme weather in the past few days in Bali did not disturb crossing traffic to and from Padangbai. (kmb31)

Impact of broken down Tukadaya Bridge

Crossing of Padangbai-Lembar vacantAMLAPURA - Broken down Tukadaya Bridge in the town

of Negara, Bali, Sunday night (Jan. 24), has an impact on the activities of harbor crossing at Padangbai, Karangasem. The Padangbai-Lembar crossing was completely empty, Monday (Jan. 25). If this condition is not addressed, it is feared that NTB Province will have difficulties to meet its basic needs.

IBP/Bagiarta

The condition of Padangbai Harbor in Karangasem.

A Malaysian traveler arrested over drug possession

IBP/Eka Adhyasa

The worker is making lantern that will be used during the Chinese New Year celebration next month. Many of the hotels and restau-rants in Bali are also using it as decoration.

Indonesia Today Wednesday, January 27, 2016 5InternationalWednesday, January 27, 201612 International

BUSINESS

SEOUL — Hyundai Motor Co. reported its lowest annual profit in five years after a failure to fully anticipate strong demand for sports utility vehicles in China led to a sales drop in the world’s largest auto market.

The South Korean company said Tuesday its net profit for 2015 was 6.51 trillion won ($5.4 billion), down 15 percent from 7.6 tril-lion won in 2014.

For the final quarter of 2015, its net profit was 1.53 trillion won ($1.27 billion), down 8 percent compared with 1.66 trillion won a year earlier. Profit at Hyundai, South Korea’s largest automaker, has dropped for eight quarters in a row.

Hyundai’s sales in China dropped about 30 percent in June and July over a year earlier on lower demand for its passenger vehicles and the absence of a new sports utility vehicle model. SUVs have become the fastest grow-ing sales category for new passenger vehicles in China.

Passenger cars accounted for nearly three quarters of Hyundai’s annual vehicle sales last

year while SUVs accounted for 21 percent. Its sales also took a hit as Chinese brands clawed back market share from foreign rivals.

Its monthly sales in China turned positive starting in October after the company released the revamped Tucson sports utility vehicle during the second half of the year. Overall, the company sold 1.06 million vehicles in China in 2015, a 5 percent decrease from the previ-ous year. Explaining the fall in fourth quarter profit, Hyundai’s chief financial officer Lee Won-hee said the company had to increase incentives for car buyers in the U.S. market to sell its Avante model.

A fall in emerging markets currencies pressured sales in Latin American countries and dented the profitability of its overseas factories, he said.

For the fourth quarter of 2015, sales gained 5 percent to 24.76 trillion won while operating profit sank 20 percent to 1.52 trillion won.

The automaker expects to sell 5.01 million vehicles in 2016, an increase of 1 percent from 2015. (ap)

There had been a glimmer of hope that the worst start to a trading year on record may be easing, with a surge across all assets spurred by a Euro-pean Central Bank pledge Thursday

to further ease monetary policy.A report suggesting the Bank of

Japan (BoJ) was considering similar moves fanned the optimism, with crude surging about 15 percent over

the two days and equities seeing blistering gains.

But analysts said the euphoria sub-sided as the realisation set in that the oil market is far too oversupplied for its weak demand, and with China’s economy continuing to struggle.

“Obviously investors are working through some potentially difficult is-sues in their minds about the state of

the world economy,” John Carey, a Boston-based fund manager at Pio-neer Investment Management, told Bloomberg News.

“It might be a while before we emerge from this period of uncertain-ty.” Shanghai, which has already this year lost about 17 percent, slumped 6.4 percent by close Tuesday.

The slump came despite the Peo-

ple’s Bank of China pumping $67 billion into the money market in a bid to ease tight liquidity ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday. The injection was the largest since 2013, Bloomberg News reported.

But analysts said dealers took their cue from losses in New York, where all three main indexes lost more than one percent. (afp)

PARIS - Lower prices at the pump may be pleas-ing to American and European consumers, putting breeze in the sails of a limp economic recovery, but the plunge in crude prices has now become a threat to the global recovery.

“We are in a situation today where there can only be bad news in the short term,” said Jean-Michel Six, chief economist for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at ratings agency Standard and Poor’s.

That pessimism is at odds with many delighted consumers, who are suddenly left with spare money in their pockets after paying less for petrol and heating oil. This has a non-negligible impact on growth.

In Germany, for example, “of growth of around 1.5 percent in 2015, around four tenths of a percent-age point is due to the price of oil,” said Ludovic Subran, chief economist at Euler Hermes. “It is a real rebound in consumption.”

But the past few months have been trying for countries which produce oil and other commodi-ties, the prices of which have slumped as demand has slowed in China -- the motor of global growth in recent years.

And the longer prices stay low, the more they will feel the pain as many rely on export revenue to fund social benefits.

“...financial strains in many oil exporters reduce their ability to smooth the shock, entailing a sizeable reduction in their domestic demand,” the Interna-tional Monetary Fund said last week in its latest update to its World Economic Outlook report.

The drop in prices for oil and raw materials “is hitting world trade hard,” said Six.

World trade declined 0.1 percent in November from October, according to estimates from the Dutch government’s economic policy analysis unit. A less volatile measure found trade growth slowed to 0.8 percent in the three months to November from 1.7 percent in the three months to October.

The reason is simple: with less revenues, com-modities producing countries have less money to import goods.

Demand from these commodity producing na-tions had helped support Europe and the United

States after the global financial crisis in 2008, but is now shaping up to be a drag.

“The longer the oil counter-shock lasts, the more the winners and losers will diverge, whether it be in terms of countries or sectors,” said Surban.

Oil price developments have been a boon for airlines, but oil companies have been pummelled.

“In the energy sector, there could be conse-quences,” warned Olivier Garnier, chief economist at Societe Generale, who worries of debt problems in the industry.

Moody’s rating agency on Friday warned it was reviewing 120 energy, metals and mining compa-nies for downgrade.

“These reviews reflect a mix of declining prices that are near multi-year lows, weakening demand and a prolonged period of oversupply that will continue to significantly stress the credit profiles of companies in these sectors,” said Moody’s.

Worse, falling oil prices risk “destabilising a certain number of countries” that depend on export revenues to buy social peace, said Societe Gener-ale’s Garnier.

For Subran, countries like Algeria, Angola, Ecuador and Saudi Arabia risk very quickly “run-ning out of political economic tools to eke out a bit of growth”.

To confront their falling revenues, producer countries do not have a choice: “more debt, more privatisation or austerity,” said the chief economist at Euler Hermes.

In other words, unpopular measures “that will quickly translate into intense social pressure”.

Several Gulf nations have followed Saudi Ara-bia’s lead in taking the unprecedented measure of cutting hefty petrol subsidies. This has led to the somewhat paradoxical situation of rising pump prices as crude tumbles.

But a marked rebound in oil prices, however unlikely that may appear at the moment, would be “bad news” for the global economy as well, said Six.

Too brutal an increase in oil prices would “weak-en buying power in Europe, and thus consumption, while the recovery remains fragile”, he said. (afp)

Asian markets tumble as two-day recovery ends

HONG KONG - A more than six percent collapse in Shanghai led Asian markets lower Tuesday as a two-day global rally fuelled by stimulus talk came to an abrupt end following sharp losses in US and European markets while oil prices tanked again.

Cheap oil blackens outlook for global recovery

A visitor checks the Hyundai Mo-tor’s Genesis EQ900 sedan dis-played at its show-room in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Hyundai Mo-tor Co. reported its eighth consecutive drop in quarterly earnings on weak sales in China and emerging markets and lower demand for passenger vehicles.

Hyundai Motor’s 2015 profit sinks to 5-year low

AP Photo/Lee Jin-man

JAKARTA - The industry ministry said PT Ford Motor Indonesia plans to stop operation in the country before the end of this year.

Director General of Metal, Transport and Elec-tronic Equipment I Gusti Putu Suryawirawan said he had received confirmation that the Ford car sales agent would stop operation.

PT FMI is only a trader as it has no manufacturing facility in the country, Putu said on Tuesday.

Ford in an electronic letter said it would continue to serve global market while aggressively carrying out its business restructuring especially in countries where Ford could not compete in the markets .

Ford said in its electronic letter that it saw no prospects of profit in its operation in the country.

The company, however, assured its customers that it would continue to facilitate supply of services and spare parts for Indonesia. (ant)

“I highly laud President Jokowi’s first state visit to Timor Leste, and I hope the president will hold talks on seeking a settlement of Indonesian assets in Timor Leste,” Martin Hu-tabarat of the Gerindra Party faction at the House of Representatives (DPR) remarked on Tuesday.

He affirmed that it is an historic state visit by President Jokowi to Timor Leste as the two countries share strong emotional relations.

Hutabarat noted that almost all cabinet members and officials of the Timor Leste government had graduated from various universities in Indonesia.

Further, he reiterated that Presi-dent Jokowi could achieve a dip-lomatic breakthrough with the Timor Leste government to reach a settlement on Indonesian assets in the form of lands, farms, and houses of thousands of Indonesian citizens of Timor Leste origin.

“They have since long been seeking a settlement of their assets, but it had never received serious attention from the government,” Hutabarat pointed out.

President Jokowi and his entou-rage arrived in Dili, Timor Leste, at

10 a.m. local time on a state visit to the country.

Presidential Palace spokesman Ari Dwipayana remarked on Tues-day that in the company of First Lady Iriana, the president and his entourage arrived in Dili after a two-hour flight from Denpasar’s Ngurah Rai International Airport aboard the presidential aircraft, Indonesia-1.

While in Dili, the president will meet his Timor Leste counterpart President Taur Matan Ruak and Prime Minister Maria De Araujo.

The main agenda of the talks between Jokowi and Timor Leste’s leaders is to intensify cooperation in trade, investment, energy devel-opment, infrastructure develop-ment, and the settlement of border issues.

The Timor Leste government will award President Jokowi the highest service medal of Grande Colar de Ordem de Timor Leste.

The two governments would sign five memoranda of understand-ing on cooperation in the areas of youth and sports, search and rescue, energy, petroleum, and mineral resources. (ant)

JAKARTA - Tourism Minister Arief Yahya is optimistic that the up-coming total solar eclipse phenom-enon, which will occur on March 9 in almost every region of Indonesia, will serve as a momentum to boost Indonesia’s tourism industry.

Various cultural events will be organized to coincide with the rare and spectacular natural phenomenon to attract tourists, the minister stated here on Monday.

The ministry has set a target to receive 12 million foreign tourists and 260 million domestic travelers this year. The provincial, district, and municipal administrations whose regions will lie in the path of the shadow of the total solar eclipse,

have made preparations to organize several interesting events to lure the tourists,” he remarked.

The eclipse will be visible for two to three minutes in 12 prov-inces: Bengkulu, West Sumatra, South Sumatra, Jambi, Bangka Belitung, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, West Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, and North Maluku.

Cities where the phenomenon can be witnessed include Palembang, Tanjung Pandang, Palangkaraya, Balikpapan, Palu, Ternate, and Sofifi.

The South Sumatra administra-tion, for instance, will organize a glowing night run, a supernatural

community ritual, cultural perfor-mances, an international photog-raphy festival, a 30-meter-long barongsai show, release of thousands of lampoons, and an educational tour for students organized jointly with the National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN).

Indonesia is also targeting to promote the event among scientists, researchers, astronomers, photog-raphers, and astronomy communi-ties.

During the 2012 total solar eclipse phenomenon, Queensland in Australia had managed to attract 60 thousand visitors, including 1.2 thousand Japanese researchers, who came aboard chartered flights.

“The event offered high promo-tional value as it was witnessed by around 20 million people on NASA’s live broadcast, according to Yahya.

Indonesia will promote the March 2016 eclipse during an eclipse awareness campaign through vari-ous forms of media, including online media, mailing lists, online astronomy forums, Yahoo Groups, and the social media.

In cooperation with various travel agents, Indonesia is preparing several tour packages, including the Eclipse Regatta.

“For the Eclipse Regatta, four cruisers have registered themselves to sail through Indonesia’s regions during the total solar eclipse. Orion

Cruise of the National Geographic, Caladonian Cruise, Coral Princess Cruise, and Peter Deilmaaan Cruise will be passing through the country’s waters. In the meantime, PT Pelni plans to offer three big ships as float-ing hotels respectively in Bangka Belitung, Palu, and Ternate,” the minister remarked.

The government hopes to gener-ate foreign exchange amounting to Rp172 trillion from 12 million foreign tourist arrivals and Rp223.6 trillion from domestic tourists this year.

The tourism sector is expected to contribute five percent to the gross domestic product and create 11.7 million job opportunities. (ant)

Jokowi to discuss setlement of Indonesian assets in Timor Leste

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) during his state visit to Timor Leste on Tuesday is expected to discuss the settlement of Indonesian assets in the country, according to a legislator.

AP Photo/Koji Sasahara, File

In this Thursday, Jan. 9, 2014, file photo, a man looks at a Ford Fiesta compact car in Tokyo. Ford Motor Co. said Monday, Jan. 25, 2016, that it’s pulling out of Japan and Indonesia before the end of the year because there is no path to grow sales or make sustained profits.

Total solar eclipse could be a momentum to boost tourism

Ford to stop operation in Indonesia

6 International

W RLDWednesday, January 27, 2016 11Wednesday, January 27, 2016International

BALI DIRECTORY

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov rejected allegations that Moscow had offered Syrian Presi-dent Bashar Assad to step down and could offer him a political asylum.

He specifically shrugged off reports last week claiming that Russia’s military intelligence chief had traveled to Damascus to try to persuade Assad to step down. Lavrov argued that there was no point to make such a trip as As-sad visited Moscow in the fall and had extensive talks with President Vladimir Putin.

“No one has asked for or offered any political asylum,” he said, add-ing that Assad had promised Putin to sit down for peace talks with op-position, including armed groups, and engage “patriotic” opposition in the fight against the Islamic State group alongside the Syrian army.

Lavrov emphasized that the Kurdish group, the Democratic Union Party, or PYD, plays an im-portant role in fighting the Islamic State group and is an essential part of political settlement in Syria.

Turkey sees the PYD and its YPG militia group as branches of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a Kurdish resistance group it has long fought and considers a terror-ist group.

Lavrov warned that it would be a “grave mistake” not to invite the PYD. “How can you talk about po-litical reforms in Syria if you ignore a leading Kurdish party,” he said, adding that the Kurds account for 15 percent of the population.

The nearly five-year Syrian conflict that began in 2011 with protests against Assad’s rule, has morphed into an all-out war that has killed a quarter million and displaced millions.

Lavrov’s statement at a news conference reflects the tough pos-turing ahead of Syria peace talks set to start Friday. U.N. special envoy Staffan de Mistura will be sending invitations amid intense jockey-ing between countries like Russia and Turkey about who should be invited.

Russia, a key ally of Assad, has called for the inclusion of Kurdish

representatives, and the U.S. and others have supported the Kurds in the fight against IS. Russia’s rela-tions with Turkey are at a freezing point after a Turkish fighter jet downed a Russian warplane at the border with Syria in November.

Lavrov also warned against Saudi Arabia’s proposal to invite only opposition groups which it hosted at a meeting last month, say-ing the Syrian peace process should also include other opposition repre-sentatives, like those which met for talks in Moscow last year.

He noted that he “highly values” his cooperation with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in helping pave way for the talks.

In Ankara, Turkish Prime Min-ister Ahmet Davutoglu on Tuesday reiterated Turkey’s opposition to including Syrian Kurdish forces at the Geneva talks.

“It is imperative that Kurds are present around the table,” Davuto-glu said in his weekly address to his party’s legislators.

“A table without the Kurds would be incomplete. We do not oppose the Kurds but we oppose the PYD and YPG who oppress the Kurds,” Davutoglu said. “It is not acceptable for us for a terror organization to be included within the opposition.” (ap)

COLOMBO — Sri Lankan au-thorities on Tuesday began destroy-ing a shipment of African ivory seized three years ago, following a ceremony at which Buddhist monks gave the slaughtered elephants blessings for a better rebirth.

The ivory was traced to northern Mozambique and Tanzania and has been valued by Sri Lankan customs at 368 million rupees (more than $2.5 million). Officials said the ivory, which was seized at Colombo’s port, was being trans-ported to Dubai through Kenya and Sri Lanka.

The destruction took place in an elaborate ceremony in Colombo attended by politicians, officials and diplomats.

The 359 tusks weighing a total of 1,529 kilograms (3,370 pounds) were crushed by machines into smaller pieces that will later be burned to ash in high-temperature ovens at a cement factory.

Before the crushing, Buddhist monks chanted blessings to make

merit for the elephants so they could have a better rebirth.

John Scanlon, secretary general of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, was among those who participated in the ritual, which is usually performed by fam-ily members at Buddhist funerals.

Scanlon said the approximate value of the annual illegal trade in wildlife worldwide is $20 billion. The figure excludes timber and marine trade and mostly consists of ivory and rhino horns.

“Today’s event also provides a very public opportunity to warn those people who trade illegally in ivory that the age and origin of the contraband can now be readily identified through the use of modern forensics, making prosecution and conviction far more likely,” Scanlon said in a speech.

“Illegal trade in ivory is shifting from high profit, low risk to high risk, low profit,” he said. (ap)

WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s interior minister says the nation will veto any plan by the European Union that would oblige member states to accept set numbers of migrants.

Last year, Poland and other countries in the region opposed a plan to redistribute over 120,000 migrants from Africa and the Mid-dle East among the EU members. Warsaw agreed to accept no more than 7,000 asylum-seekers.

Mariusz Blaszczak said Tuesday that Poland would veto any new relocation plan that would impose quota of migrants to be accepted, saying such a plan would encourage more arrivals.

Blaszczak also said that Poland will “most probably” introduce temporary border controls in July when it will host NATO summit and world youth’s meeting with Pope Francis. (ap)

Minister: Poland will veto forced relocation

of migrants

AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena

Sri Lankan Buddhist monks bless African tuskers killed by poachers for a better rebirth, as blood ivory or ivory obtained and traded illegally after poaching elephants are displayed before being destroyed in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016.

Sri Lankan authorities begin destroying seized ivory

Russia urges for including Kurds

in Syria talks

AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov speaks during his annual news conference in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016.

MOSCOW — Russia on Tuesday argued strongly against Turkey’s demand to keep a leading Kurdish group out of Syria’s peace talks, and said it expects the U.N. envoy to resist “blackmail” by Turkey and others, reflecting sharp differences that remain ahead of the scheduled talks.

“It was super intense,” Williams said of the replay of last year’s final. “She’s an incredibly intense, focused player who was No. 1 and has won so many Grand Slams for a reason. You have to come out with a lot of fire and intensity.” Up next for her is fourth-seeded Agnieszka Radwan-ska, who beat No. 10 Carla Suarez Navarro 6-1, 6-3 to reach a Grand Slam semifinal for the fifth time.

Roger Federer reached his 12th Australian Open semifinal, and his 39th at a Grand Slam tournament, when he beat No. 6 Tomas Berdych 7-6 (4), 6-2, 6-4. The four-time Aus-tralian champion used a full array of shots, including some vintage backhands, in his 48 winners, to avenge two losses to Berdych at Wimbledon in 2010 and the 2012 U.S. Open.

“Tomas has caused me a lot of problems over the years,” said Federer, who improved to 16-6 against the Czech player. “He’s one of those guys who make you a better player, he’s beaten me on the biggest courts around the world. “I was aggressive, had some variety in there. I’m very happy I was able to play this way.”

He’s now the oldest man since 1979 (Colin Dibley) to reach the Australian Open semis, where he’ll play either five-time champion Novak Djokovic or No. 7 Kei Ni-shikori. Williams has won the title

each the six previous times she’s won in the quarterfinals here. It’s not a statistic she was aware of, but one she didn’t mind.

“No, but that’s good,” she said. “It’s not a stat that’s set in stone — I still have to win two matches.” Sharapova has won five majors, in-cluding the 2008 Australian title, and has been in three other finals at Mel-bourne Park. In her fourth-round win against No. 12 Belinda Bencic she had a career-high 21 aces. Against Williams, she had three, and seven double-faults. Williams had 13 aces, three double-faults, hit 31 winners to 11, and broke Sharapova’s serve four times.

“She played quite explosive,” Sharapova said. “She was really explosive off the return. Yeah.” Sharapova broke to open the match and held for a 2-0 lead. But Wil-liams held in the third game and broke to quickly level at 2-2.

Early in the set, points were short. As it progressed, the rallies got longer, the shrieks and grunts got louder and the emotions were fully on display. Both players struggled with their ball toss at one end, repeatedly practicing their toss to work out the best position to serve into the sun.

Williams also had to concentrate hard to hold in the ninth game, when a baby screamed loudly in the stands as she faced breakpoints.

She was able to protect her own serve, and go on the attack against Sharapova’s. It cost her in the eighth game when she had three break-point chances, taking the high-risk rather than the high-percentage option with her return.

But that approach is what has helped win her 21 major titles, and Williams’ aggressive returns finally helped her convert on her fourth set point, following a heavy ground stroke to the net and putting away

a volley. She went on a five-game roll until Sharapova held in the second set, and then finished it off in the seventh game after saving break points.

Williams had medical treatment between sets, and again in the second during a changeover, but it wasn’t clear what the problem was. She said she had an upset stomach.

Sharapova noted Williams started the opening set with four big serves, so she didn’t think it hampered the

34-year-old American’s game.She hasn’t beaten Williams

since back-to-back victories in 2004, when she led their rivalry 2-1. Despite more than 11 years in between, Sharapova isn’t giving up hope of breaking that drought. “It’s motivating because she’s at a dif-ferent level,” Sharapova said. “She makes you go back to the drawing board, not just for me, but for many other players. She makes you work. That’s inspiring.” (ap)

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Please contact Gugiek : 08123840500/

Eka : 081338519538

Chef 5 years Experience forRestaurant Group in Bali.

soulinabowlcafe@gmail.com085739056802

A.BP.001.01.16.0002867

The Damai Urgently needs:1 GSAmore preferable female.have

driving license.min.1 yearexperience in similar positionmin.D3 hospitality with good

English & Have SKCKSend CV to : hrd@thedamai.com

B.BP.009.01.16.0001300

Restaurant in Seminyak NeedStaf for Bar Contac 0361732567

A.BP.153.01.16.0002814

Urg Looking for Eng TeacherHub:226518/081337555226

A.BP.001.01.16.0002785

SINGARAJA - The Les wa-terfall is located in Les village, 38 kilometer south to Singaraja, in the north Bali. The waterfall is overlooking green hills and untouched nature. The height is about 30 meters.

In addition, Les Village is also famous for its very amazing beach with its magnificent underwater

world view. Located some 90 kilometers north of Denpasar, Les is blessed with a majestic waterfall and rich underwater scenery at its beach.

The best way to reach Les is by rented or private car or motorcycle, so visitors can stop where they want to take photos.

The shortest route from Den-

pasar to Les is through Gianyar and Kintamani, where visitors can stop to enjoy the wonderful Lake Batur and mountain views while sipping hot Balinese coffee outside Pura Puncak Panulisan, a temple.

The waterfall is about 1 kilome-ter from the village’s main road. Visitors can park at the entrance gate, where a few shops sell snacks

and souvenirs, before walking along a path to an open area next to a wide river, with a small stream of water and huge rocks.

After crossing the river, a simi-lar footpath leads to the waterfall.

The 30-meter-high waterfall has a perfect slope so the water from the river jumps from one rock to another before eventually

hitting the bottom of the land more gently.

Visitors can stand under the waterfall and enjoy the sensation of a natural massage of the water pounding on their head, neck and back while trying to become one with the surroundings and listening to the great voice of the waterfall.

IBP/File Photo

Les waterfall

TORONTO — Toronto extended its winning streak to a season-high eight straight by beating the Los Angeles Clippers 112-94 on Sunday, cre-ating a bit of franchise history by sweeping both L.A. teams in the same season for the first time.

The Raptors completed a season double over the Clippers — as they also did last year — to add to the earlier sweep of the Lakers. Elsewhere, Houston used a spurt of 3-pointers in the fourth quarter to pull away and beat state and division rival Dallas.

Toronto’s Kyle Lowry scored 21 points and Jonas Valanciunas had 20 for the Raptors while Terrence Ross had five 3-pointers en route to his fourth straight game in double figures off the bench.

The eight-game streak is one short of the team record set in 2001-02. Chris Paul had 23 points

and 11 assists for the Clippers.Houston’s James Harden had a triple double of

23 points, 15 rebounds and 10 assists to lead the Rockets past Dallas 115-104.

Trevor Ariza scored a season-high 29 for the Rockets, who trailed by one entering the fourth quarter, but hit 4 3-pointers in a 14-4 run to take a 98-89 lead with about nine minutes left.

After a Dallas basket, Houston then added five points to effectively end the contest. Chan-dler Parsons had a season-high 31 points for the Mavericks. Brooklyn’s Brook Lopez scored a season-high 31 points and grabbed 10 rebounds as the Nets beat Oklahoma City 116-106, halting the Thunder’s run of wins at seven.

Boston won 112-92 at struggling Philadelphia in a game delayed a day by the wintry weather enveloping the eastern United States. (ap)

Serena Williams beats Sharapova; Federer advances to semis

Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press via AP

Toronto Raptors’ DeMar DeRozan tumbles during first half NBA bas-ketball action against Los Angeles Clippers in Toronto on Sunday, Jan. 24, 2016.

Toronto makes it 8 straight with win over Clippers

MELBOURNE, Australia — Serena Williams attacked Maria Sharapova’s strength and it helped extend her complete domination of their rivalry, earning the six-time Australian Open champion a place in the semifinals. Top-ranked Williams beat Sharapova 6-4, 6-1 in the quarterfinals on Tuesday, her 18th consecutive victory and 19th in their 21 career meetings back to 2004.

AP Photo/Andrew Brownbill

Serena Williams, right, of the United States is congratulated by Maria Sharapova of Russia after winning their quarterfinal match at the Australian Open tennis championships in Melbourne, Australia, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016.

98 Wednesday, January 27, 2016 Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Sp rt

At the current rate, PSG will finish on 104 points — smashing its own record by 15 — while coach Laurent Blanc’s side is on course to score around 100 league goals and concede the least ever in a season.

A second straight domestic treble is odds-on, with PSG playing in the League Cup semi-finals on Tuesday, and if PSG avoids defeat at Saint-Etienne on Sunday it will equal the longest unbeaten league run of 32 games, set by Nantes 21 years ago.

PSG’s Qatari owners, Qa-tar Sports Investments, have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the club since tak-ing over in June 2011 in a bid to join Europe’s elite. The club is worth around €480 million in terms of revenue, making it the fourth richest behind Manchester

United, Barcelona and No. 1 Real Madrid, according to Deloitte’s rankings.

It’s all too easy, meaning that Blanc’s side will ultimately be judged on how well it does in the Champions League — hav-ing lost in the quarterfinals for the past three seasons — rather by how many points it wins its fourth straight title by.

Therefore, it is understand-able that Blanc has spent the past two weeks talking about the importance of being ready to face Chelsea in the last 16 — even though the first leg is not until Feb. 16.

But in doing so he may as well grab a megaphone and tell everyone how weak the domestic competition is.

Saturday’s 5-1 hammering of Angers extended an unbeaten

league run dating back to March 15, matched a club record for 11 straight wins and improved PSG’s whopping goal difference to + 46. At the ripe age of 34, Zlatan Ibrahimovic is on course for his best ever tally — he has 17 league goals so far, despite miss-ing five games — while winger Angel di Maria has already beaten his league scoring record as well as setting up the most goals in Ligue 1. PSG’s only defeat anywhere was 1-0 away to Real Madrid in the Champions League on Nov. 3.

In boxing terms, PSG’s domi-nance would be the equivalent of a heavyweight champion knock-ing out petrified middleweights within a minute of the opening round.

Seven-time French champion Lyon and nine-time champ Mar-seille did challenge last season, but both languish 30 points behind. Monaco threatened to upstage PSG after a massive cash outlay under Russian billionaire owner Dmitry Rybolovlev three years ago, but then did every-thing to undermine that bid.

In the past two seasons, Mo-naco has sold Colombia’s World Cup star James Rodriguez to Real Madrid, France midfielder Geoffrey Kondogbia to Inter Milan, speedy winger Yannick Ferreira Carrasco to Atletico Madrid, lynchpin defender Ay-men Abdennour to Valencia, and rising star Anthony Martial to Manchester United — as well as letting once-feared striker Radamel Falcao join United on loan. For a club hoping to chal-lenge PSG, that is a funny way of showing it.

Instead, Monaco has now become purely a profit-making club — and a very good one — using its vast scouting network to recruit exceptionally talented young players and sell them for a profit.

Even if Monaco does fin-ish second, it would be hard to bet against the club selling more of its promising assets.all-time leading scorer with 126 goals. But with no rivals, PSG fans have the luxury of picking holes in their own team. (ap)

PANAMA CITY — FIFA presidential candidate Gianni Infantino gained votes outside Europe on Monday when the 7-nation group of Central American soccer federations pledged its support. The group, known as UNCAF, pub-lished a letter signed Monday by its federation presidents backing the UEFA general secretary in the Feb. 26 FIFA election to succeed Sepp Blatter.

The pledge is a significant bloc of support in the five-man ballot for a candidate from outside voters’ home region.

“Thank you UNCAF for the support. To-gether we can take FIFA forward!” Infantino wrote on his Twitter account.

Infantino met the group — which is part of the CONCACAF continental body — in Panama after months of turmoil for the region caught up in the FIFA bribery case by American federal prosecutors.

In December, current and past federation leaders from El Salvador, Guatemala, Hondu-ras and Panama were named in an indictment unsealed by the U.S. Department of Justice. The sprawling racketeering case has provoked Blatter’s departure and rocked soccer across the Americas.

Infantino visited ahead of campaigning at the assembly of 10-nation South American govern-ing body CONMEBOL in Asuncion, Paraguay. CONMEBOL is electing a new president after the past three were all indicted in the U.S.

The Swiss official opted to travel across Latin America instead of attending a candidates event called by European Parliament lawmakers in Brussels on Wednesday.

That meeting lost credibility on Monday when Prince Ali of Jordan and South African businessman Tokyo Sexwale withdrew. Only former FIFA official Jerome Champagne of France stayed committed to attend.

Sheikh Salman of Bahrain, the Asian Football Confederation president, declined the Brussels invitation citing meetings this week in Doha, Qatar. (ap)

LONDON - Louis van Gaal did not offer to resign after watching his team’s latest home defeat at the hands of Southampton at the week-end, sources close to Manchester United told Reuters on Tuesday.

Britain’s Guardian newspaper earlier reported that the club’s exec-utive vice-chairman, Ed Woodward, had persuaded the Dutchman to stay following the 1-0 defeat which resulted in fans booing the team and Van Gaal off the pitch.

Woodward told Van Gaal to speak to his family before making a decision over his future, the news-paper said. The Dutchman flew to the Netherlands on Sunday for his daughter’s birthday.

Van Gaal is expected to hold fresh talks with United’s hierarchy on Tuesday when he takes first-

team training.The loss to Southampton left

United in fifth place in the league table, trailing leaders Leicester City by 10 points and five points adrift of fourth-placed Tottenham Hotspur.

The defeat also marked the first time this season that the increas-ingly impatient fans showed open dissent against the manager.

Van Gaal admitted for the first time after the game that he had failed at Old Trafford, saying he was

disappointed and frustrated that

he had not lived up to the fans’ e x p e c -ta t ions . (rtr)

New head coach Francesco Guidolin has lifted the mood at Swansea City with the players keen to prove their worth to the Italian, captain Ashley Williams said after Sunday’s 2-1 Premier League win over Everton.

Before the 60-year-old’s ar-rival Swansea were in dreadful form, having picked up just one win in their last 12 games in all competitions and being knocked out of the FA Cup by fourth- tier

Oxford United.Since the Guidolin’s appoint-

ment, however, Swansea have moved out of the relegation zone with victories over Wat-ford, where he watched from the stands, and Everton.

“It has probably been about a new guy coming in, everyone gets buzzing again looking to impress,” Williams told British media.

“A new manager comes in

and a lot of people liven up trying to impress him, that is only human nature. The players who want to get into the team want to show him what they can do.”

Having picked up back-to-back league wins for the first time this season, Swansea, who are 15th in the table and four points above the bottom-three, travel to West Bromwich Albion on Feb. 2. (rtr)

CheLseA goalkeeper Thi-baut Courtois backed team mate Diego Costa to continue his goalscoring spree after the striker scored the winner in Sunday’s 1-0 Premier League victory over bitter rivals Arsenal.

Costa has struggled to re-capture the form he displayed

on his debut season, when he netted 20 goals in 26 league appearances to lead Chelsea to the league title.

The 27-year-old ap-pears to have found his scoring touch since

Guus Hiddink replaced Jose Mourinho at the helm at Stam-ford Bridge, scoring six goals in as many appearances in all competitions.

“We knew that when he scored a few goals again he would go on and score more, and I think he has confidence,” Courtois told the club website (www.chelseafc.com). “He’s a top striker and he will score more goals for us, this was a big one.”

Chelsea still languish in the 13th place in the league table but midfielder Nemanja Matic was optimistic they can maintain the

recent form they have displayed during their eight-game unbeaten run in all competitions.

“This was the real Chelsea, and I believe that we can show again in the future that we de-serve to play for this club,” Matic said.

“Of course we are not in a good position in the table but there are a lot of games until the end of the season and we have chance to show our quality.”

Chelsea face second tier side Milton Keynes Dons in the fourth round of the FA Cup on Sunday. (rtr)

REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

Paris St Germain’s Angel Di Maria (top) in action with Angers’ goal-keeper Alexandre Letellier.

PSG’s total dominance removes any drama from French leaguePARIs — Fuelled by funding from Qatar, Paris saint-

Germain’s crushing dominance this season has removed all suspense from the French league with 16 matches remain-ing. Unless you are a PsG fan, the excitement factor has evaporated. PsG already leads closest rival Monaco by a colossal 21 points and has only setting domestic records to worry about.

Walter Bieri/Keystone via AP, File

FILE - In this Monday Jan. 11, 2016 file photo, UEFA secretary general Gianni Infantino arrives on the red carpet prior to the FIFA Ballon d’Or award-ing ceremony at the Kongresshaus in Zurich, Switzerland.

7 FIFA voters in Central America

pledge for Infantino

M a n -c h e s t e r United man-ager Louis Van Gaal looks de-jected at the end of the match Action Images via Reuters / Jason Cairnduff

Van Gaal made no offer to

quit Man Utd

Courtois expects Costa to continue scoring spree

Guidolin has lifted the mood at Swansea, says Williams

Reuters / Andrew Yates

Swansea head coach Francesco Guidolin and coach Gabriele Ambrosetti (R)

98 Wednesday, January 27, 2016 Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Sp rt

At the current rate, PSG will finish on 104 points — smashing its own record by 15 — while coach Laurent Blanc’s side is on course to score around 100 league goals and concede the least ever in a season.

A second straight domestic treble is odds-on, with PSG playing in the League Cup semi-finals on Tuesday, and if PSG avoids defeat at Saint-Etienne on Sunday it will equal the longest unbeaten league run of 32 games, set by Nantes 21 years ago.

PSG’s Qatari owners, Qa-tar Sports Investments, have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the club since tak-ing over in June 2011 in a bid to join Europe’s elite. The club is worth around €480 million in terms of revenue, making it the fourth richest behind Manchester

United, Barcelona and No. 1 Real Madrid, according to Deloitte’s rankings.

It’s all too easy, meaning that Blanc’s side will ultimately be judged on how well it does in the Champions League — hav-ing lost in the quarterfinals for the past three seasons — rather by how many points it wins its fourth straight title by.

Therefore, it is understand-able that Blanc has spent the past two weeks talking about the importance of being ready to face Chelsea in the last 16 — even though the first leg is not until Feb. 16.

But in doing so he may as well grab a megaphone and tell everyone how weak the domestic competition is.

Saturday’s 5-1 hammering of Angers extended an unbeaten

league run dating back to March 15, matched a club record for 11 straight wins and improved PSG’s whopping goal difference to + 46. At the ripe age of 34, Zlatan Ibrahimovic is on course for his best ever tally — he has 17 league goals so far, despite miss-ing five games — while winger Angel di Maria has already beaten his league scoring record as well as setting up the most goals in Ligue 1. PSG’s only defeat anywhere was 1-0 away to Real Madrid in the Champions League on Nov. 3.

In boxing terms, PSG’s domi-nance would be the equivalent of a heavyweight champion knock-ing out petrified middleweights within a minute of the opening round.

Seven-time French champion Lyon and nine-time champ Mar-seille did challenge last season, but both languish 30 points behind. Monaco threatened to upstage PSG after a massive cash outlay under Russian billionaire owner Dmitry Rybolovlev three years ago, but then did every-thing to undermine that bid.

In the past two seasons, Mo-naco has sold Colombia’s World Cup star James Rodriguez to Real Madrid, France midfielder Geoffrey Kondogbia to Inter Milan, speedy winger Yannick Ferreira Carrasco to Atletico Madrid, lynchpin defender Ay-men Abdennour to Valencia, and rising star Anthony Martial to Manchester United — as well as letting once-feared striker Radamel Falcao join United on loan. For a club hoping to chal-lenge PSG, that is a funny way of showing it.

Instead, Monaco has now become purely a profit-making club — and a very good one — using its vast scouting network to recruit exceptionally talented young players and sell them for a profit.

Even if Monaco does fin-ish second, it would be hard to bet against the club selling more of its promising assets.all-time leading scorer with 126 goals. But with no rivals, PSG fans have the luxury of picking holes in their own team. (ap)

PANAMA CITY — FIFA presidential candidate Gianni Infantino gained votes outside Europe on Monday when the 7-nation group of Central American soccer federations pledged its support. The group, known as UNCAF, pub-lished a letter signed Monday by its federation presidents backing the UEFA general secretary in the Feb. 26 FIFA election to succeed Sepp Blatter.

The pledge is a significant bloc of support in the five-man ballot for a candidate from outside voters’ home region.

“Thank you UNCAF for the support. To-gether we can take FIFA forward!” Infantino wrote on his Twitter account.

Infantino met the group — which is part of the CONCACAF continental body — in Panama after months of turmoil for the region caught up in the FIFA bribery case by American federal prosecutors.

In December, current and past federation leaders from El Salvador, Guatemala, Hondu-ras and Panama were named in an indictment unsealed by the U.S. Department of Justice. The sprawling racketeering case has provoked Blatter’s departure and rocked soccer across the Americas.

Infantino visited ahead of campaigning at the assembly of 10-nation South American govern-ing body CONMEBOL in Asuncion, Paraguay. CONMEBOL is electing a new president after the past three were all indicted in the U.S.

The Swiss official opted to travel across Latin America instead of attending a candidates event called by European Parliament lawmakers in Brussels on Wednesday.

That meeting lost credibility on Monday when Prince Ali of Jordan and South African businessman Tokyo Sexwale withdrew. Only former FIFA official Jerome Champagne of France stayed committed to attend.

Sheikh Salman of Bahrain, the Asian Football Confederation president, declined the Brussels invitation citing meetings this week in Doha, Qatar. (ap)

LONDON - Louis van Gaal did not offer to resign after watching his team’s latest home defeat at the hands of Southampton at the week-end, sources close to Manchester United told Reuters on Tuesday.

Britain’s Guardian newspaper earlier reported that the club’s exec-utive vice-chairman, Ed Woodward, had persuaded the Dutchman to stay following the 1-0 defeat which resulted in fans booing the team and Van Gaal off the pitch.

Woodward told Van Gaal to speak to his family before making a decision over his future, the news-paper said. The Dutchman flew to the Netherlands on Sunday for his daughter’s birthday.

Van Gaal is expected to hold fresh talks with United’s hierarchy on Tuesday when he takes first-

team training.The loss to Southampton left

United in fifth place in the league table, trailing leaders Leicester City by 10 points and five points adrift of fourth-placed Tottenham Hotspur.

The defeat also marked the first time this season that the increas-ingly impatient fans showed open dissent against the manager.

Van Gaal admitted for the first time after the game that he had failed at Old Trafford, saying he was

disappointed and frustrated that

he had not lived up to the fans’ e x p e c -ta t ions . (rtr)

New head coach Francesco Guidolin has lifted the mood at Swansea City with the players keen to prove their worth to the Italian, captain Ashley Williams said after Sunday’s 2-1 Premier League win over Everton.

Before the 60-year-old’s ar-rival Swansea were in dreadful form, having picked up just one win in their last 12 games in all competitions and being knocked out of the FA Cup by fourth- tier

Oxford United.Since the Guidolin’s appoint-

ment, however, Swansea have moved out of the relegation zone with victories over Wat-ford, where he watched from the stands, and Everton.

“It has probably been about a new guy coming in, everyone gets buzzing again looking to impress,” Williams told British media.

“A new manager comes in

and a lot of people liven up trying to impress him, that is only human nature. The players who want to get into the team want to show him what they can do.”

Having picked up back-to-back league wins for the first time this season, Swansea, who are 15th in the table and four points above the bottom-three, travel to West Bromwich Albion on Feb. 2. (rtr)

CheLseA goalkeeper Thi-baut Courtois backed team mate Diego Costa to continue his goalscoring spree after the striker scored the winner in Sunday’s 1-0 Premier League victory over bitter rivals Arsenal.

Costa has struggled to re-capture the form he displayed

on his debut season, when he netted 20 goals in 26 league appearances to lead Chelsea to the league title.

The 27-year-old ap-pears to have found his scoring touch since

Guus Hiddink replaced Jose Mourinho at the helm at Stam-ford Bridge, scoring six goals in as many appearances in all competitions.

“We knew that when he scored a few goals again he would go on and score more, and I think he has confidence,” Courtois told the club website (www.chelseafc.com). “He’s a top striker and he will score more goals for us, this was a big one.”

Chelsea still languish in the 13th place in the league table but midfielder Nemanja Matic was optimistic they can maintain the

recent form they have displayed during their eight-game unbeaten run in all competitions.

“This was the real Chelsea, and I believe that we can show again in the future that we de-serve to play for this club,” Matic said.

“Of course we are not in a good position in the table but there are a lot of games until the end of the season and we have chance to show our quality.”

Chelsea face second tier side Milton Keynes Dons in the fourth round of the FA Cup on Sunday. (rtr)

REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

Paris St Germain’s Angel Di Maria (top) in action with Angers’ goal-keeper Alexandre Letellier.

PSG’s total dominance removes any drama from French leaguePARIs — Fuelled by funding from Qatar, Paris saint-

Germain’s crushing dominance this season has removed all suspense from the French league with 16 matches remain-ing. Unless you are a PsG fan, the excitement factor has evaporated. PsG already leads closest rival Monaco by a colossal 21 points and has only setting domestic records to worry about.

Walter Bieri/Keystone via AP, File

FILE - In this Monday Jan. 11, 2016 file photo, UEFA secretary general Gianni Infantino arrives on the red carpet prior to the FIFA Ballon d’Or award-ing ceremony at the Kongresshaus in Zurich, Switzerland.

7 FIFA voters in Central America

pledge for Infantino

M a n -c h e s t e r United man-ager Louis Van Gaal looks de-jected at the end of the match Action Images via Reuters / Jason Cairnduff

Van Gaal made no offer to

quit Man Utd

Courtois expects Costa to continue scoring spree

Guidolin has lifted the mood at Swansea, says Williams

Reuters / Andrew Yates

Swansea head coach Francesco Guidolin and coach Gabriele Ambrosetti (R)

“It was super intense,” Williams said of the replay of last year’s final. “She’s an incredibly intense, focused player who was No. 1 and has won so many Grand Slams for a reason. You have to come out with a lot of fire and intensity.” Up next for her is fourth-seeded Agnieszka Radwan-ska, who beat No. 10 Carla Suarez Navarro 6-1, 6-3 to reach a Grand Slam semifinal for the fifth time.

Roger Federer reached his 12th Australian Open semifinal, and his 39th at a Grand Slam tournament, when he beat No. 6 Tomas Berdych 7-6 (4), 6-2, 6-4. The four-time Aus-tralian champion used a full array of shots, including some vintage backhands, in his 48 winners, to avenge two losses to Berdych at Wimbledon in 2010 and the 2012 U.S. Open.

“Tomas has caused me a lot of problems over the years,” said Federer, who improved to 16-6 against the Czech player. “He’s one of those guys who make you a better player, he’s beaten me on the biggest courts around the world. “I was aggressive, had some variety in there. I’m very happy I was able to play this way.”

He’s now the oldest man since 1979 (Colin Dibley) to reach the Australian Open semis, where he’ll play either five-time champion Novak Djokovic or No. 7 Kei Ni-shikori. Williams has won the title

each the six previous times she’s won in the quarterfinals here. It’s not a statistic she was aware of, but one she didn’t mind.

“No, but that’s good,” she said. “It’s not a stat that’s set in stone — I still have to win two matches.” Sharapova has won five majors, in-cluding the 2008 Australian title, and has been in three other finals at Mel-bourne Park. In her fourth-round win against No. 12 Belinda Bencic she had a career-high 21 aces. Against Williams, she had three, and seven double-faults. Williams had 13 aces, three double-faults, hit 31 winners to 11, and broke Sharapova’s serve four times.

“She played quite explosive,” Sharapova said. “She was really explosive off the return. Yeah.” Sharapova broke to open the match and held for a 2-0 lead. But Wil-liams held in the third game and broke to quickly level at 2-2.

Early in the set, points were short. As it progressed, the rallies got longer, the shrieks and grunts got louder and the emotions were fully on display. Both players struggled with their ball toss at one end, repeatedly practicing their toss to work out the best position to serve into the sun.

Williams also had to concentrate hard to hold in the ninth game, when a baby screamed loudly in the stands as she faced breakpoints.

She was able to protect her own serve, and go on the attack against Sharapova’s. It cost her in the eighth game when she had three break-point chances, taking the high-risk rather than the high-percentage option with her return.

But that approach is what has helped win her 21 major titles, and Williams’ aggressive returns finally helped her convert on her fourth set point, following a heavy ground stroke to the net and putting away

a volley. She went on a five-game roll until Sharapova held in the second set, and then finished it off in the seventh game after saving break points.

Williams had medical treatment between sets, and again in the second during a changeover, but it wasn’t clear what the problem was. She said she had an upset stomach.

Sharapova noted Williams started the opening set with four big serves, so she didn’t think it hampered the

34-year-old American’s game.She hasn’t beaten Williams

since back-to-back victories in 2004, when she led their rivalry 2-1. Despite more than 11 years in between, Sharapova isn’t giving up hope of breaking that drought. “It’s motivating because she’s at a dif-ferent level,” Sharapova said. “She makes you go back to the drawing board, not just for me, but for many other players. She makes you work. That’s inspiring.” (ap)

Wednesday, January 27, 2016DestinationWednesday, January 27, 201610 InternationalInternational

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Place Your Add Here

It is for Job Vacancy, Property, Selling or Buying

Please contact Gugiek : 08123840500/

Eka : 081338519538

Chef 5 years Experience forRestaurant Group in Bali.

soulinabowlcafe@gmail.com085739056802

A.BP.001.01.16.0002867

The Damai Urgently needs:1 GSAmore preferable female.have

driving license.min.1 yearexperience in similar positionmin.D3 hospitality with good

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SINGARAJA - The Les wa-terfall is located in Les village, 38 kilometer south to Singaraja, in the north Bali. The waterfall is overlooking green hills and untouched nature. The height is about 30 meters.

In addition, Les Village is also famous for its very amazing beach with its magnificent underwater

world view. Located some 90 kilometers north of Denpasar, Les is blessed with a majestic waterfall and rich underwater scenery at its beach.

The best way to reach Les is by rented or private car or motorcycle, so visitors can stop where they want to take photos.

The shortest route from Den-

pasar to Les is through Gianyar and Kintamani, where visitors can stop to enjoy the wonderful Lake Batur and mountain views while sipping hot Balinese coffee outside Pura Puncak Panulisan, a temple.

The waterfall is about 1 kilome-ter from the village’s main road. Visitors can park at the entrance gate, where a few shops sell snacks

and souvenirs, before walking along a path to an open area next to a wide river, with a small stream of water and huge rocks.

After crossing the river, a simi-lar footpath leads to the waterfall.

The 30-meter-high waterfall has a perfect slope so the water from the river jumps from one rock to another before eventually

hitting the bottom of the land more gently.

Visitors can stand under the waterfall and enjoy the sensation of a natural massage of the water pounding on their head, neck and back while trying to become one with the surroundings and listening to the great voice of the waterfall.

IBP/File Photo

Les waterfall

TORONTO — Toronto extended its winning streak to a season-high eight straight by beating the Los Angeles Clippers 112-94 on Sunday, cre-ating a bit of franchise history by sweeping both L.A. teams in the same season for the first time.

The Raptors completed a season double over the Clippers — as they also did last year — to add to the earlier sweep of the Lakers. Elsewhere, Houston used a spurt of 3-pointers in the fourth quarter to pull away and beat state and division rival Dallas.

Toronto’s Kyle Lowry scored 21 points and Jonas Valanciunas had 20 for the Raptors while Terrence Ross had five 3-pointers en route to his fourth straight game in double figures off the bench.

The eight-game streak is one short of the team record set in 2001-02. Chris Paul had 23 points

and 11 assists for the Clippers.Houston’s James Harden had a triple double of

23 points, 15 rebounds and 10 assists to lead the Rockets past Dallas 115-104.

Trevor Ariza scored a season-high 29 for the Rockets, who trailed by one entering the fourth quarter, but hit 4 3-pointers in a 14-4 run to take a 98-89 lead with about nine minutes left.

After a Dallas basket, Houston then added five points to effectively end the contest. Chan-dler Parsons had a season-high 31 points for the Mavericks. Brooklyn’s Brook Lopez scored a season-high 31 points and grabbed 10 rebounds as the Nets beat Oklahoma City 116-106, halting the Thunder’s run of wins at seven.

Boston won 112-92 at struggling Philadelphia in a game delayed a day by the wintry weather enveloping the eastern United States. (ap)

Serena Williams beats Sharapova; Federer advances to semis

Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press via AP

Toronto Raptors’ DeMar DeRozan tumbles during first half NBA bas-ketball action against Los Angeles Clippers in Toronto on Sunday, Jan. 24, 2016.

Toronto makes it 8 straight with win over Clippers

MELBOURNE, Australia — Serena Williams attacked Maria Sharapova’s strength and it helped extend her complete domination of their rivalry, earning the six-time Australian Open champion a place in the semifinals. Top-ranked Williams beat Sharapova 6-4, 6-1 in the quarterfinals on Tuesday, her 18th consecutive victory and 19th in their 21 career meetings back to 2004.

AP Photo/Andrew Brownbill

Serena Williams, right, of the United States is congratulated by Maria Sharapova of Russia after winning their quarterfinal match at the Australian Open tennis championships in Melbourne, Australia, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016.

6 International

W RLDWednesday, January 27, 2016 11Wednesday, January 27, 2016International

BALI DIRECTORY

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov rejected allegations that Moscow had offered Syrian Presi-dent Bashar Assad to step down and could offer him a political asylum.

He specifically shrugged off reports last week claiming that Russia’s military intelligence chief had traveled to Damascus to try to persuade Assad to step down. Lavrov argued that there was no point to make such a trip as As-sad visited Moscow in the fall and had extensive talks with President Vladimir Putin.

“No one has asked for or offered any political asylum,” he said, add-ing that Assad had promised Putin to sit down for peace talks with op-position, including armed groups, and engage “patriotic” opposition in the fight against the Islamic State group alongside the Syrian army.

Lavrov emphasized that the Kurdish group, the Democratic Union Party, or PYD, plays an im-portant role in fighting the Islamic State group and is an essential part of political settlement in Syria.

Turkey sees the PYD and its YPG militia group as branches of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a Kurdish resistance group it has long fought and considers a terror-ist group.

Lavrov warned that it would be a “grave mistake” not to invite the PYD. “How can you talk about po-litical reforms in Syria if you ignore a leading Kurdish party,” he said, adding that the Kurds account for 15 percent of the population.

The nearly five-year Syrian conflict that began in 2011 with protests against Assad’s rule, has morphed into an all-out war that has killed a quarter million and displaced millions.

Lavrov’s statement at a news conference reflects the tough pos-turing ahead of Syria peace talks set to start Friday. U.N. special envoy Staffan de Mistura will be sending invitations amid intense jockey-ing between countries like Russia and Turkey about who should be invited.

Russia, a key ally of Assad, has called for the inclusion of Kurdish

representatives, and the U.S. and others have supported the Kurds in the fight against IS. Russia’s rela-tions with Turkey are at a freezing point after a Turkish fighter jet downed a Russian warplane at the border with Syria in November.

Lavrov also warned against Saudi Arabia’s proposal to invite only opposition groups which it hosted at a meeting last month, say-ing the Syrian peace process should also include other opposition repre-sentatives, like those which met for talks in Moscow last year.

He noted that he “highly values” his cooperation with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in helping pave way for the talks.

In Ankara, Turkish Prime Min-ister Ahmet Davutoglu on Tuesday reiterated Turkey’s opposition to including Syrian Kurdish forces at the Geneva talks.

“It is imperative that Kurds are present around the table,” Davuto-glu said in his weekly address to his party’s legislators.

“A table without the Kurds would be incomplete. We do not oppose the Kurds but we oppose the PYD and YPG who oppress the Kurds,” Davutoglu said. “It is not acceptable for us for a terror organization to be included within the opposition.” (ap)

COLOMBO — Sri Lankan au-thorities on Tuesday began destroy-ing a shipment of African ivory seized three years ago, following a ceremony at which Buddhist monks gave the slaughtered elephants blessings for a better rebirth.

The ivory was traced to northern Mozambique and Tanzania and has been valued by Sri Lankan customs at 368 million rupees (more than $2.5 million). Officials said the ivory, which was seized at Colombo’s port, was being trans-ported to Dubai through Kenya and Sri Lanka.

The destruction took place in an elaborate ceremony in Colombo attended by politicians, officials and diplomats.

The 359 tusks weighing a total of 1,529 kilograms (3,370 pounds) were crushed by machines into smaller pieces that will later be burned to ash in high-temperature ovens at a cement factory.

Before the crushing, Buddhist monks chanted blessings to make

merit for the elephants so they could have a better rebirth.

John Scanlon, secretary general of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, was among those who participated in the ritual, which is usually performed by fam-ily members at Buddhist funerals.

Scanlon said the approximate value of the annual illegal trade in wildlife worldwide is $20 billion. The figure excludes timber and marine trade and mostly consists of ivory and rhino horns.

“Today’s event also provides a very public opportunity to warn those people who trade illegally in ivory that the age and origin of the contraband can now be readily identified through the use of modern forensics, making prosecution and conviction far more likely,” Scanlon said in a speech.

“Illegal trade in ivory is shifting from high profit, low risk to high risk, low profit,” he said. (ap)

WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s interior minister says the nation will veto any plan by the European Union that would oblige member states to accept set numbers of migrants.

Last year, Poland and other countries in the region opposed a plan to redistribute over 120,000 migrants from Africa and the Mid-dle East among the EU members. Warsaw agreed to accept no more than 7,000 asylum-seekers.

Mariusz Blaszczak said Tuesday that Poland would veto any new relocation plan that would impose quota of migrants to be accepted, saying such a plan would encourage more arrivals.

Blaszczak also said that Poland will “most probably” introduce temporary border controls in July when it will host NATO summit and world youth’s meeting with Pope Francis. (ap)

Minister: Poland will veto forced relocation

of migrants

AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena

Sri Lankan Buddhist monks bless African tuskers killed by poachers for a better rebirth, as blood ivory or ivory obtained and traded illegally after poaching elephants are displayed before being destroyed in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016.

Sri Lankan authorities begin destroying seized ivory

Russia urges for including Kurds

in Syria talks

AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov speaks during his annual news conference in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016.

MOSCOW — Russia on Tuesday argued strongly against Turkey’s demand to keep a leading Kurdish group out of Syria’s peace talks, and said it expects the U.N. envoy to resist “blackmail” by Turkey and others, reflecting sharp differences that remain ahead of the scheduled talks.

Indonesia Today Wednesday, January 27, 2016 5InternationalWednesday, January 27, 201612 International

BUSINESS

SEOUL — Hyundai Motor Co. reported its lowest annual profit in five years after a failure to fully anticipate strong demand for sports utility vehicles in China led to a sales drop in the world’s largest auto market.

The South Korean company said Tuesday its net profit for 2015 was 6.51 trillion won ($5.4 billion), down 15 percent from 7.6 tril-lion won in 2014.

For the final quarter of 2015, its net profit was 1.53 trillion won ($1.27 billion), down 8 percent compared with 1.66 trillion won a year earlier. Profit at Hyundai, South Korea’s largest automaker, has dropped for eight quarters in a row.

Hyundai’s sales in China dropped about 30 percent in June and July over a year earlier on lower demand for its passenger vehicles and the absence of a new sports utility vehicle model. SUVs have become the fastest grow-ing sales category for new passenger vehicles in China.

Passenger cars accounted for nearly three quarters of Hyundai’s annual vehicle sales last

year while SUVs accounted for 21 percent. Its sales also took a hit as Chinese brands clawed back market share from foreign rivals.

Its monthly sales in China turned positive starting in October after the company released the revamped Tucson sports utility vehicle during the second half of the year. Overall, the company sold 1.06 million vehicles in China in 2015, a 5 percent decrease from the previ-ous year. Explaining the fall in fourth quarter profit, Hyundai’s chief financial officer Lee Won-hee said the company had to increase incentives for car buyers in the U.S. market to sell its Avante model.

A fall in emerging markets currencies pressured sales in Latin American countries and dented the profitability of its overseas factories, he said.

For the fourth quarter of 2015, sales gained 5 percent to 24.76 trillion won while operating profit sank 20 percent to 1.52 trillion won.

The automaker expects to sell 5.01 million vehicles in 2016, an increase of 1 percent from 2015. (ap)

There had been a glimmer of hope that the worst start to a trading year on record may be easing, with a surge across all assets spurred by a Euro-pean Central Bank pledge Thursday

to further ease monetary policy.A report suggesting the Bank of

Japan (BoJ) was considering similar moves fanned the optimism, with crude surging about 15 percent over

the two days and equities seeing blistering gains.

But analysts said the euphoria sub-sided as the realisation set in that the oil market is far too oversupplied for its weak demand, and with China’s economy continuing to struggle.

“Obviously investors are working through some potentially difficult is-sues in their minds about the state of

the world economy,” John Carey, a Boston-based fund manager at Pio-neer Investment Management, told Bloomberg News.

“It might be a while before we emerge from this period of uncertain-ty.” Shanghai, which has already this year lost about 17 percent, slumped 6.4 percent by close Tuesday.

The slump came despite the Peo-

ple’s Bank of China pumping $67 billion into the money market in a bid to ease tight liquidity ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday. The injection was the largest since 2013, Bloomberg News reported.

But analysts said dealers took their cue from losses in New York, where all three main indexes lost more than one percent. (afp)

PARIS - Lower prices at the pump may be pleas-ing to American and European consumers, putting breeze in the sails of a limp economic recovery, but the plunge in crude prices has now become a threat to the global recovery.

“We are in a situation today where there can only be bad news in the short term,” said Jean-Michel Six, chief economist for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at ratings agency Standard and Poor’s.

That pessimism is at odds with many delighted consumers, who are suddenly left with spare money in their pockets after paying less for petrol and heating oil. This has a non-negligible impact on growth.

In Germany, for example, “of growth of around 1.5 percent in 2015, around four tenths of a percent-age point is due to the price of oil,” said Ludovic Subran, chief economist at Euler Hermes. “It is a real rebound in consumption.”

But the past few months have been trying for countries which produce oil and other commodi-ties, the prices of which have slumped as demand has slowed in China -- the motor of global growth in recent years.

And the longer prices stay low, the more they will feel the pain as many rely on export revenue to fund social benefits.

“...financial strains in many oil exporters reduce their ability to smooth the shock, entailing a sizeable reduction in their domestic demand,” the Interna-tional Monetary Fund said last week in its latest update to its World Economic Outlook report.

The drop in prices for oil and raw materials “is hitting world trade hard,” said Six.

World trade declined 0.1 percent in November from October, according to estimates from the Dutch government’s economic policy analysis unit. A less volatile measure found trade growth slowed to 0.8 percent in the three months to November from 1.7 percent in the three months to October.

The reason is simple: with less revenues, com-modities producing countries have less money to import goods.

Demand from these commodity producing na-tions had helped support Europe and the United

States after the global financial crisis in 2008, but is now shaping up to be a drag.

“The longer the oil counter-shock lasts, the more the winners and losers will diverge, whether it be in terms of countries or sectors,” said Surban.

Oil price developments have been a boon for airlines, but oil companies have been pummelled.

“In the energy sector, there could be conse-quences,” warned Olivier Garnier, chief economist at Societe Generale, who worries of debt problems in the industry.

Moody’s rating agency on Friday warned it was reviewing 120 energy, metals and mining compa-nies for downgrade.

“These reviews reflect a mix of declining prices that are near multi-year lows, weakening demand and a prolonged period of oversupply that will continue to significantly stress the credit profiles of companies in these sectors,” said Moody’s.

Worse, falling oil prices risk “destabilising a certain number of countries” that depend on export revenues to buy social peace, said Societe Gener-ale’s Garnier.

For Subran, countries like Algeria, Angola, Ecuador and Saudi Arabia risk very quickly “run-ning out of political economic tools to eke out a bit of growth”.

To confront their falling revenues, producer countries do not have a choice: “more debt, more privatisation or austerity,” said the chief economist at Euler Hermes.

In other words, unpopular measures “that will quickly translate into intense social pressure”.

Several Gulf nations have followed Saudi Ara-bia’s lead in taking the unprecedented measure of cutting hefty petrol subsidies. This has led to the somewhat paradoxical situation of rising pump prices as crude tumbles.

But a marked rebound in oil prices, however unlikely that may appear at the moment, would be “bad news” for the global economy as well, said Six.

Too brutal an increase in oil prices would “weak-en buying power in Europe, and thus consumption, while the recovery remains fragile”, he said. (afp)

Asian markets tumble as two-day recovery ends

HONG KONG - A more than six percent collapse in Shanghai led Asian markets lower Tuesday as a two-day global rally fuelled by stimulus talk came to an abrupt end following sharp losses in US and European markets while oil prices tanked again.

Cheap oil blackens outlook for global recovery

A visitor checks the Hyundai Mo-tor’s Genesis EQ900 sedan dis-played at its show-room in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Hyundai Mo-tor Co. reported its eighth consecutive drop in quarterly earnings on weak sales in China and emerging markets and lower demand for passenger vehicles.

Hyundai Motor’s 2015 profit sinks to 5-year low

AP Photo/Lee Jin-man

JAKARTA - The industry ministry said PT Ford Motor Indonesia plans to stop operation in the country before the end of this year.

Director General of Metal, Transport and Elec-tronic Equipment I Gusti Putu Suryawirawan said he had received confirmation that the Ford car sales agent would stop operation.

PT FMI is only a trader as it has no manufacturing facility in the country, Putu said on Tuesday.

Ford in an electronic letter said it would continue to serve global market while aggressively carrying out its business restructuring especially in countries where Ford could not compete in the markets .

Ford said in its electronic letter that it saw no prospects of profit in its operation in the country.

The company, however, assured its customers that it would continue to facilitate supply of services and spare parts for Indonesia. (ant)

“I highly laud President Jokowi’s first state visit to Timor Leste, and I hope the president will hold talks on seeking a settlement of Indonesian assets in Timor Leste,” Martin Hu-tabarat of the Gerindra Party faction at the House of Representatives (DPR) remarked on Tuesday.

He affirmed that it is an historic state visit by President Jokowi to Timor Leste as the two countries share strong emotional relations.

Hutabarat noted that almost all cabinet members and officials of the Timor Leste government had graduated from various universities in Indonesia.

Further, he reiterated that Presi-dent Jokowi could achieve a dip-lomatic breakthrough with the Timor Leste government to reach a settlement on Indonesian assets in the form of lands, farms, and houses of thousands of Indonesian citizens of Timor Leste origin.

“They have since long been seeking a settlement of their assets, but it had never received serious attention from the government,” Hutabarat pointed out.

President Jokowi and his entou-rage arrived in Dili, Timor Leste, at

10 a.m. local time on a state visit to the country.

Presidential Palace spokesman Ari Dwipayana remarked on Tues-day that in the company of First Lady Iriana, the president and his entourage arrived in Dili after a two-hour flight from Denpasar’s Ngurah Rai International Airport aboard the presidential aircraft, Indonesia-1.

While in Dili, the president will meet his Timor Leste counterpart President Taur Matan Ruak and Prime Minister Maria De Araujo.

The main agenda of the talks between Jokowi and Timor Leste’s leaders is to intensify cooperation in trade, investment, energy devel-opment, infrastructure develop-ment, and the settlement of border issues.

The Timor Leste government will award President Jokowi the highest service medal of Grande Colar de Ordem de Timor Leste.

The two governments would sign five memoranda of understand-ing on cooperation in the areas of youth and sports, search and rescue, energy, petroleum, and mineral resources. (ant)

JAKARTA - Tourism Minister Arief Yahya is optimistic that the up-coming total solar eclipse phenom-enon, which will occur on March 9 in almost every region of Indonesia, will serve as a momentum to boost Indonesia’s tourism industry.

Various cultural events will be organized to coincide with the rare and spectacular natural phenomenon to attract tourists, the minister stated here on Monday.

The ministry has set a target to receive 12 million foreign tourists and 260 million domestic travelers this year. The provincial, district, and municipal administrations whose regions will lie in the path of the shadow of the total solar eclipse,

have made preparations to organize several interesting events to lure the tourists,” he remarked.

The eclipse will be visible for two to three minutes in 12 prov-inces: Bengkulu, West Sumatra, South Sumatra, Jambi, Bangka Belitung, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, West Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, and North Maluku.

Cities where the phenomenon can be witnessed include Palembang, Tanjung Pandang, Palangkaraya, Balikpapan, Palu, Ternate, and Sofifi.

The South Sumatra administra-tion, for instance, will organize a glowing night run, a supernatural

community ritual, cultural perfor-mances, an international photog-raphy festival, a 30-meter-long barongsai show, release of thousands of lampoons, and an educational tour for students organized jointly with the National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN).

Indonesia is also targeting to promote the event among scientists, researchers, astronomers, photog-raphers, and astronomy communi-ties.

During the 2012 total solar eclipse phenomenon, Queensland in Australia had managed to attract 60 thousand visitors, including 1.2 thousand Japanese researchers, who came aboard chartered flights.

“The event offered high promo-tional value as it was witnessed by around 20 million people on NASA’s live broadcast, according to Yahya.

Indonesia will promote the March 2016 eclipse during an eclipse awareness campaign through vari-ous forms of media, including online media, mailing lists, online astronomy forums, Yahoo Groups, and the social media.

In cooperation with various travel agents, Indonesia is preparing several tour packages, including the Eclipse Regatta.

“For the Eclipse Regatta, four cruisers have registered themselves to sail through Indonesia’s regions during the total solar eclipse. Orion

Cruise of the National Geographic, Caladonian Cruise, Coral Princess Cruise, and Peter Deilmaaan Cruise will be passing through the country’s waters. In the meantime, PT Pelni plans to offer three big ships as float-ing hotels respectively in Bangka Belitung, Palu, and Ternate,” the minister remarked.

The government hopes to gener-ate foreign exchange amounting to Rp172 trillion from 12 million foreign tourist arrivals and Rp223.6 trillion from domestic tourists this year.

The tourism sector is expected to contribute five percent to the gross domestic product and create 11.7 million job opportunities. (ant)

Jokowi to discuss setlement of Indonesian assets in Timor Leste

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) during his state visit to Timor Leste on Tuesday is expected to discuss the settlement of Indonesian assets in the country, according to a legislator.

AP Photo/Koji Sasahara, File

In this Thursday, Jan. 9, 2014, file photo, a man looks at a Ford Fiesta compact car in Tokyo. Ford Motor Co. said Monday, Jan. 25, 2016, that it’s pulling out of Japan and Indonesia before the end of the year because there is no path to grow sales or make sustained profits.

Total solar eclipse could be a momentum to boost tourism

Ford to stop operation in Indonesia

Bali News International4 Wednesday, January 27, 2016 13InternationalWednesday, January 27, 2016

Prime Minister Manuel Valls agreed to an emergency meeting with taxi drivers Tuesday after-noon, in an apparent attempt to defuse tensions. Tuesday’s pro-tests are the latest challenge to the Socialist government as it tries to modernize the economy and find France’s place in an increasingly globalized, online marketplace.

One in five flights were canceled at Paris airports and other flights faced delays as air traffic controllers staged a walkout and taxi drivers disrupted roads. Twenty people were detained at protests around the French capital, according to Paris police, and i-Tele television reported that two people were injured at Orly Airport when a shuttle bus tried to force its way past a taxi drivers’ blockade.

Some teachers and other public servants are also on strike over wages, education reforms and working conditions.

Hundreds of French taxis, joined by a few from Belgium and Spain, blocked a massive intersection leading into western Paris. Dozens of taxi drivers tried to march onto an eight-lane bypass, but police pushed them back with tear gas. Some drivers set pre-dawn bonfires, put out later by firefighters.

Traditional taxi drivers say they’re suffering unfair competition

from Uber, which has faced legal challenges around Europe.

Uber’s lowest-cost service is banned in France and two Uber executives go on trial next month in Paris for fraud. Previous French taxi protests have also turned violent, with ambushes of Uber drivers and passengers. Karim Asnoun, head of the CGT Taxi Union, said at Tues-day’s Paris protest: “Unfortunately the governments are weak and as unemployment is pressuring them, they cede. They think they are creat-ing jobs, whereas for every created job there is one that’s destroyed.”

Uber sent a message to French customers warning of potential violence, saying the goal of Tues-day’s protest is “to put pressure on the government to ... limit com-petition.” It warned that limiting app-based car services would raise costs, put drivers out of work and send customers back to the era “be-fore apps and smartphones.”

Protests were also held in other French cities. Uber drivers “vandal-ize professionals who are paying taxes, who respect the rules,” said Rachid Boudjema, 37, president of the taxi drivers union in Marseille. He described “American cowboys” who “want to destroy our system, the system we are all attached to.” (ap)

TOKYO — UNICEF is seeking $18 million in relief funds for tens of thousands of children in North Korea it believes have been hit by the impact of a drought last year that heightened malnutrition and diarrhea caused by a lack of access to clean water.

Severe drought conditions last year in four agricultural provinces led to reduced food production and availability of safe drinking water, the U.N. agency said Tuesday.

It said there has been a 72 percent increase in diarrhea among children under the age of 5 in the drought-affected provinces and there are 25,000 children in need of immediate treat-ment of severe and acute malnutrition. To meet the need for help, the agency said it is calling for $8.5 million in assistance for nutrition, $5 million for clean water and sanitation and $4.5 million for health.

The health funds include “life-saving medi-cation, immunization, prevention and treatment of diarrhea and pneumonia, therapeutic food, and access to safe drinking water,” it said in a statement.

North Korean media called last year’s drought the worst in a century. That claim has been hard to substantiate due to the country’s restrictions on foreign access.

Though improvements have been seen in recent years, North Korea’s food production is regularly affected by droughts or floods that expose the inefficiencies of its agricultural sys-tem, which is heavily reliant on foreign aid.

A devastating North Korean famine dur-ing the mid-1990s is believed to have killed hundreds of thousands of people. The exact number is disputed.

The UNICEF statement said that in August 2015 the North Korean government announced a more than 20 percent reduction in crop production compared with 2014. It said the average cereal ration was reduced, impacting the nutritional and health status of women and children.

“There is a critical need to address the immediate and underlying causes of under-nutrition in order to promote child survival and development,” it said. (ap)

AP Photo/Christophe Ena

Travellers make their way to Orly airport, south of Paris, as taxi drivers block the access of the airport, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Paris taxi drivers protesting what they consider unfair competition from rival services such as Uber are joining teachers and other public servants in nationwide strikes and demonstrations.

French taxis, air traffic controllers, schools on strike

PARIS — Paris police fired tear gas and taxi drivers lit bonfires on a major highway Tuesday amid nationwide strikes and protests over working conditions and competition from non-traditional services such as Uber.

UNICEF seeks funds for N. Korea drought victims

REUTERS/KCNA

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (R) visits the Kumkop General Foodstuff Factory for Sportspersons in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang January 23, 2016.

DENPASAR - A Malaysian traveler with the ini-tials TKK aka Ayung, 48, wishing to spend holidays in Bali for two months totally failed at the end. Instead, he was arrested for carrying crystal meth and cannabis at the lobby of Hotel Amaris on Jalan Teuku Umar, Denpasar, Wednesday (Jan. 20). The illicit goods are planned to be used during his holidays in Bali with his girlfriend, LHM, 48.

“Initially, the suspect was alleged to meet someone in Bali, but after being developed he did not. Accord-ing to his admission, the drugs will be used for his own consumption,” said the Chief of Sub-Directorate II, Directorate of Bali Police Drug Investigation Unit, Joni Lay, accompanied by Public Information Subdi-vision Head, Sri Harmiti, Monday (Jan. 25).

Disclosure of the case, said Joni, was informed by customs officer at the Ngurah Rai Airport, Tuban. Initially the suspect along with his girlfriend arrived at the airport flying with Malaysia Airlines of Kuala Lumpur-Denpasar at 18:24. Results of the X-ray imaging device were suspected if there were two drugs in his bag. But with the reason of develop-ment, the suspect was not immediately arrested but allowed to go. “But a team of the airport and Den-pasar customs tailed the suspect. We then standby at hotel,” he said.

On arrival at the hotel, the suspect was imme-

diately caught. Police then searched his brown bag and found a sachet of honey containing crystal meth package weighing 4.04 grams, one sachet of honey containing two crystal meth packages respectively weighing 4.63 grams and 3.93 grams. Besides, the team also confiscated one sachet of coffee powder containing marijuana package weighing 0.99 gram, bong, mobile phone and passport.

The raid was resumed to the red suitcase. In the suitcase of the suspect admitting to have profession as manager of online gambling was found 50 sachets of stamina enhancing coffee. One of the herbal coffee sachets contained crystal meth package weighing 9.65 grams. Additionally, the team also secured a coffee powder sachet containing crystal meth package weighing 0.50 gram.

“Urine of the suspect has been tested and the results were positive, while that of his companion was negative. Since there is no evidence of getting involved, LHM was released. As recognition of the suspect, the drugs were brought from Malaysia,” he said. Are there any other motives? “Until now, we still focus on dealing with the drug cases. In addition to spending holiday, the suspect claimed that he was about to marketing his coffee. Whether it is only the reason of suspect we are still further investigating,” he said. (kmb36)

Chief of ASDP Padangbai, Wayan Rusta, when contacted on Monday (Jan. 25) mentioned that the impact has been felt since Sun-day night (Jan. 24) after the incident of bridge collapse was reported. “After hearing the news on the broken down bridge, there was only one departing vessel. In the follow-ing morning, the crossing activity is totally empty,” said Rusta.

He added that temporarily the crossing traffic from Gilimanuk to Padangbai is diverted through Sin-garaja and then to Padangbai. Surely this road section is farther with more difficult and dangerous terrains. However, until Monday afternoon there were no more vehicles crossing from Padangbai to Lembar.

Occasionally the crossing was only seen from Lembar to Padang-bai. However, Rusta did not know how many vehicles already arrived and would cross. Besides, he did not know how long this situation will last. However, from initial information the crossing repair to make it normal may take a year. In other words, this situation can last for months because there is no longer adequate road section other than through Singaraja. As antici-

pation, the vehicles are diverted to Singaraja road section. However, the vehicles allowed to pass are limited with the tonnage of less than 20 tons because in the Gilimanuk-Singaraja road section there are many uphill paths accompanied with sharp turns.

He already delivered directly to the employers to reduce the tonnage of goods delivered to NTB in order to pass the Singaraja road section smoothly. “We also appealed to passengers from Lembar to Padan-gbai through loudspeakers to seek alternative road section due to the broken down bridge,” said Rusta.

He hoped there will be other solutions to overcome this prob-lem. If the crossing continues to be hampered, the prices of basic com-modities in NTB can soar because the trucks commonly carrying the basic food needs are hampered at Gilimanuk. In addition, revenue from the crossing activities at Padangbai Harbor is ascertained to slump these weeks. Related to weather condition, he said it re-mained normal. Extreme weather in the past few days in Bali did not disturb crossing traffic to and from Padangbai. (kmb31)

Impact of broken down Tukadaya Bridge

Crossing of Padangbai-Lembar vacantAMLAPURA - Broken down Tukadaya Bridge in the town

of Negara, Bali, Sunday night (Jan. 24), has an impact on the activities of harbor crossing at Padangbai, Karangasem. The Padangbai-Lembar crossing was completely empty, Monday (Jan. 25). If this condition is not addressed, it is feared that NTB Province will have difficulties to meet its basic needs.

IBP/Bagiarta

The condition of Padangbai Harbor in Karangasem.

A Malaysian traveler arrested over drug possession

IBP/Eka Adhyasa

The worker is making lantern that will be used during the Chinese New Year celebration next month. Many of the hotels and restau-rants in Bali are also using it as decoration.

14 InternationalTechnologyWednesday, January 27, 2016 3International Bali News Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Rules must be agreed to prevent the development of such weapons, they said at a January 19-23 meet-ing of billionaires, scientists and po-litical leaders in the snow-covered ski resort of Davos.

Angela Kane, the German UN High Representative for Disarma-ment Affairs from 2012-2015, said the world had been slow to take pre-emptive measures to protect hu-manity from the lethal technology.

“It may be too late,” she told a debate in Davos.

“There are many countries and many representatives in the inter-national community that really do not understand what is involved. This development is something that

is limited to a certain number of advanced countries,” Kane said.

The deployment of autonomous weapons would represent a dangerous new era in warfare, scientists said.

“We are not talking about drones, where a human pilot is controlling the drone,” said Stuart Russell, pro-fessor of computer science at Uni-versity of California, Berkeley.

“We are talking about autono-mous weapons, which means that there is no one behind it. AI: artifi-cial intelligence weapons,” he told a forum in Davos. “Very precisely, weapons that can locate and attack targets without human interven-tion.”

Russell said he did not foresee a

day in which robots fight the wars for humans and at the end of the day one side says: “OK you won, so you can have all our women.”

But some 1,000 science and technology chiefs including Brit-ish physicist Stephen Hawking, said in an open letter last July that the development of weapons with a degree of autonomous decision-making capacity could be feasible within years, not decades.

They called for a ban on offen-sive autonomous weapons that are beyond meaningful human control, warning that the world risked slid-ing into an artificial intelligence arms race and raising alarm over the risks of such weapons falling into the hands of violent extremists.

“The question is can these ma-chines follow the rules of war?” Russell said.

How, for an example, could an

autonomous weapon differentiate between civilians, soldiers, resis-tance fighters and rebels? How could it know that it should not kill a pilot who has ejected from a plane and is parachuting to the ground?

“I am against robots for ethical reasons but I do not believe ethical arguments will win the day. I be-lieve strategic arguments will win the day,” Russell said.

The United States had renounced biological weapons because of the risk that one day they could deployed by “almost anybody”, he said. “I hope this will happen with robots.”

Alan Winfield, professor of elec-tronic engineering at the University of the West of England, warned that removing humans from battlefield decision-making would have grave consequences.

“It means that humans are de-prived from moral responsibility,”

Winfield said.Moreover, the reaction of the

robots may be hard to predict, he said: “When you put a robot in a chaotic environment, it behaves chaotically.”

Roger Carr, chairman of the Brit-ish aerospace and defence group BAE, agreed.

“If you remove ethics and judge-ment and morality from human endeavour whether it is in peace or war, you will take humanity to another level which is beyond our comprehension,” Carr warned.

“You equally cannot put some-thing into the field that, if it malfunc-tions, can be very destructive with no control mechanism from a human. That is why the umbilical link, man to machine, is not only to decide when to deploy the weapon but it is also the ability to stop the process. Both are equally important.” (afp)

SAN FRANSISCO - US Internet giant Google paid Apple a billion dollars in 2014 to be the go-to search tool on iPhones, Bloomberg reported, citing court documents.

The rare glimpse into financial figures typically kept private by Google and Apple was provided by an Oracle attorney dur-ing a court hearing in San Francisco last week, according to Bloomberg.

A transcript of the proceeding was not among documents available at the court’s digital filing system on Friday, in the wake of a move by Google lawyers to have it redacted and sealed.

An Oracle attorney had revealed that Google, a subsidiary of corporate parent Alphabet, paid a billion dollars in the year 2014 alone to secure its position as the default search engine on iPhones, Bloomberg reported.

Google lawyers argued that Oracle “improperly disclosed highly sensitive, confidential information” regarding revenues and profits related to its Android mobile operating software, a copy of the motion showed.

Android revenue details cited by an Oracle attorney in open court last week had been labeled “Highly Confidential - Attor-ney’s Eyes Only,” Google contended.

According to Bloomberg, an Oracle lawyer also said in court that Google had $22 billion in profit from Android, which it makes available free to mobile device makers.

The first Android-powered smartphone launched in 2008, and the software now powers more than 80 percent of smartphones sold worldwide.

The figures were made public briefly during a long-running le-gal fight over whether copyright-protected elements of Java code made by Oracle were used in Android without permission.

While Apple is not a party in the case, Oracle lawyers argued that the impressive sum of money Google takes in from Android must be factored in by the court. (afp)

WASHINGTON - Two months after the breakthrough launch and vertical landing of a reusable rocket, the space firm created by Internet entrepreneur Jeff Bezos did it again.

The company, Blue Origin, said Saturday that the same New Shepard booster which blasted off and landed in November had repeated the feat, hitting an altitude

of 333,000 feet (101 kilometers) before “gently” returning to Earth.

A video released by Blue Origin showed the launch and landing from the Texas site, with the rocket slowed to three miles per hour (five kilometers per hour) on its descent with the assistance of parachutes.

The breakthroughs by Blue Ori-gin and parallel efforts by rival In-ternet mogul Elon Musk’s SpaceX

open up the potential for cutting costs for space travel and making rockets as reusable as airplanes.

In November, Bezos called the accomplishment a “game changer” which opens the door to lower costs in space travel and his vision of people living and working in space.

Bezos, who founded online gi-ant Amazon and also owns The

Washington Post newspaper, said in a statement Saturday that Blue Origin has solved the problem of balancing to keep the rocket in an upright position as it lands.

“I’m a huge fan of rocket-pow-ered vertical landing,” he said in the statement.

“Why? Because to achieve our vision of millions of people living and working in space we will need

to build very large rocket boosters. And the vertical landing architec-ture scales extraordinarily well.

“When you do a vertical landing, you’re solving the classic inverted pendulum problem, and the inverted pendulum problem gets a bit easier as the pendulum gets a bit bigger.”

SpaceX in December managed a similar feat for the first time with its Falcon 9 rocket. (afp)

Scientists urge world to stop killer robotsDAVOS - The world must act quickly to avert a future in

which autonomous robots with artificial intelligence roam the battlefields killing humans, scientists and arms experts warned at an elite gathering in the Swiss Alps.

Bezos space firm duplicates reusable rocket breakthrough

Google paid $1 bn for search spot on iPhones

AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade

An Indian traveler uses a free WiFi service to browse the net at Mumbai Central Train Station in Mum-bai, India, Friday, Jan. 22, 2016. US Internet giant Google paid Apple a billion dollars in 2014 to be the go-to search tool on iPhones, Bloomberg reported, citing court documents.

Head of Water Tourism Rescue Agency (Balawista) Badung, I Ketut Ipel on Tuesday explained that, on Monday, there were four domestic tour-ists swimming in Double Six Beach, Seminyak, when large waves suddenly

swept four of them out to sea. Two of them made it back to shore unharmed, but the two others were taken by the waves.

Seminyak Beach is one of beach-es around Kuta that many tourists

visit. Ipel said that he hopes tour-ists will be very careful when they swim in the ocean, especially during rough weather conditions of the kind Bali is currently experiencing. (may/ant)

MANGUPURA - A rally held by taxi drivers on Friday (Jan22) in demonstration against UberTaxi and GrabTaxi operating in Bali, is considered to be inappropriate, giv-en that these two companies do not operate on the island. In response to the demonstration, the Land Transport Organization (Organda), on Sunday (Jan 24), announced that: “UberTaxi and GrabTaxi only operate in Jakarta, while in Bali Organda only accommodates Grab-

Car” said Acting Chief of Organda Bali, Bagus Soediana.

Soediana said that Balinese people should understand that UberTaxi and GrabTaxi are also un-der scrutiny in Jakarta because they use private cars. GrabTaxi accom-modates Express Taxi, Dian Taxi, Gamia Taxi and others. “In Bali there is no UberTaxi and GrabTaxi, there is only GrabCar who operate with licensed, leased cars and pay regional taxes and levies and com-

ply with the regulations for leased transport,” he explained.

Soediana added that GrabTaxi use very well developed technology that facilitates customers in search-ing for transportation. The app that they use was first developed in Bali by Taxi Praja Bali.

“Private transportation systems equipped with IT applications ben-efit consumers. Prospective passen-gers do not have to wait for taxi’s on the roadside, thus minimizing the

likelihood of street crimes and such applications also reduce operation costs,” said Soediana, who added that Bali’s Blue Bird Taxi also has online access.

This former chief of Bali Tour-ism Transportation Unit (Pawiba) said that in the near future Ngurah Rai Taxi will also implement IT applications to improve their ser-vices.

“Fully implementing IT ap-plications will benefit transport

services for the public and will also benefit taxi drivers who will not have to drive around looking for prospective passengers,” he explained.

The demonstration held by local taxi drivers at Mengwi terminal on January 22nd, was meant to protest against UberTaxi and GrabTaxi operating in Bali because it would be lethal to local taxi drivers. Their billboards were taken down on Saturday. (kmb27)

DENPASAR - The National Narcotics Agency (BNNP) of Bali has arrested ten suspected members of a narcotics syndicate, which was targeting some villages in Buleleng District as part of its modus operandi.

“We had made them our target. This network was indeed targeting villages,” Head of BNNP of Bali Brigadier General Putu Gede Suastawa stated on Monday.

The authority has arrested seven suspects, in-cluding DM, HF, MY, and LG, among others, in Si-datapa Village, Buleleng District, on January 23.

The suspects were arrested from DM’s house, and the owner was caught consuming crystal meth during the raid.

The police have confiscated 0.76 grams of meth from DM.

Based on information provided by the suspects, the authority has arrested three more suspects --- ID, AL, and JY --- from a house located on Ki Barak Panji Sakti Street of Singaraja.

The police personnel seized 9.59 grams of meth ready to be distributed in 28 small packages.

The list grew longer as another individual with the initial NMD was arrested in Badung for pos-session of 0.5 grams of meth in his pocket, and NS in Banjar Roban, Gianyar District, with 6.95 grams of meth.

During the raid at NS’ house, a man surrendered himself, after which the officers conducted a search on him and recovered nine packages of meth weigh-ing 6.2 grams, three plastic packets of meth (12.49 grams), and three ecstasy pills (1.41 grams).

The authority has seized a total of 37.95 grams of illegal drugs from the suspected syndicate of Sidatapa and Badung-Gianyar.

The officers also confiscated some scales and meth crystal breakers, which indicate that the sus-pects were linked, Suastawa revealed.

The BNNP is investigating the case. (ant)

Four tourists swept to sea, two found dead

DENPASAR - Two domestic tourists were found dead after being swept away by waves on Seminyak

Beach on Monday. The rescue team brought the body of the male victims from Bandung, West Java

to Sanglah Hospital for further investigation.

UberTaxi and GrabTaxiOrganda affirms that they do not operate in Bali

Targeting villageAuthority arrest suspected drug syndicate members

IBP/Yudi Karnaedi

The National Narcotics Agency (BNNP) of Bali has arrested ten suspected members of a narcotics syndicate, which was targeting some villages in Buleleng District as part of its modus operandi.

Head of the Buleleng Culture and Tourism Agency, Gede Suyasa, in response to input from travel agencies, recently said that each destination must be supported by accurate information. Presently

many destinations have no official description. “Our tourist destina-tions generally need to be improved according to studies and available budgets,” he added.

Suyasa explained that cruise ship passengers that are dropped off in Celukan Harbour have a few dif-ferent travel agencies to chose from when trying to book a tour. For now

there are four main tour packages that are offered: diving in the area of Menjangan Island, visits to the tour-ism village of Munduk, visits to the Sembiran heritage site and to Gedong Kertya (palm-leaf manuscript mu-seum) in the town of Singaraja.

These packages need to be further developed and gradually completed with brief descriptive information.

The district government recently started publishing a calendar of tourism events in Buleleng. Some events such as the Buleleng Festival (Bulfest), Lake Buyan and Tam-blingan Festival, and other events include short descriptions.

This calendar of events is distrib-uted through travel agencies, hotels at Ngurah Rai Airport and a few

other venues. “We plan to continue developing new attractions and im-proving existing ones so that travel agencies can design tour packages that might inspire trouists to extend the length of their stay. We plan to target, not only the cruise ship pas-sengers but also other tourist who want to visit Bueleleng,” shared Suyasa. (mud)

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

Wednesday, January 27, 2016Wednesday, January 27, 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 1Response ...

Each healthy meeting option allows colleagues to connect on a new level through a carefully curated combination of a warm-up session, wellness break, several healthy meals, and a team-building

exercise. Soaking in the healing powers of the sea, groups greet the new day with a refreshing, holistic experience on the Bali resort’s pristine white beach through either meditation (Revitalizing Secret),

yoga (Detox), or jogging (Energy Boost), depending on the program option chosen. A healthy, organic breakfast is enjoyed prior to all meeting sessions, which are set up for the following four to six hours, equipped with healthy food and juice options – all of which have a low Glycemic Index (GI), such as carrot juice, 90% cocoa bars, and dry roasted walnuts, to aid in digestion.

Productive meeting sessions are punctuated with a wellness break, allowing groups to unwind with ei-ther a 15-minute massage (Detox), or guided stretching (Energy Boost and Revitalizing Secret) and enjoy a selection of infused waters on the Senses Lawn to promote a healthy, productive lifestyle. Mid-day three-course organic lunches feature amuse bouche appetizers, starters, main entrees, and replenishing, healthy desserts. Each restorative dish has been carefully created and tailored to provide the best possible nutrients that our Bali hotel guests

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ternoon meetings, guests can enjoy another 15-minute break. Options include various fruit water infusions for the Detox program, a healthy tea time for The Revitalizing Secret, or organic and purifying juices for the Energy Boost program

The day is completed with an invigorating team-building break-out session, with options ranging from aqua stretching or flying yoga (Detox), Tai Chi or Pilates (Revitalizing Secret), and group surfing or beach volleyball competi-tion (Energy Boost). Rates for the Healthy Meeting Package start at $125 plus 21 percent tax and service per person.

Featuring more than 8,000 square feet of meeting spaces – including indoor, outdoor, formal, and informal venues across over 30 miles of lush landscape, The Ritz-Carlton, Bali provides an array of group setting that captivate guests. The Nusa Dua resort’s meeting

and function spaces are enhanced by distinctive outdoor venues and a beautiful natural setting, along with a dedicated multi-functional ballroom including five breakout rooms, wraparound terrace, and an abundance of space and light, combining the ambience of the tropics with full technological support. The luxury resort features five meeting rooms including The Ballroom, the most expansive of the indoor venues, and offers timeless Balinese elegance in its design, in addition to a boardroom that is ideal for presentations and more. For those who prefer an unconventional setting, the resort also offers a wide range of alternative spaces.

The hotel packages include complimentary Wi-Fi throughout the resort grounds, customizable teleconferencing facilities, state-of-the-art audiovisual equipment, as well as coffee, snack breaks, meals, and team-building activities in ad-dition to working with a dedicated meeting planner specialist.

IBP/Courtesy of Ritz-Carlton Bali

The Ritz-Carlton, Bali introduces three revolutionary,

healthy meeting optionsNUSA DUA – Inspired by the transformative beauty and

spiritual renewal of the Indian Ocean, The ritz-Carlton, Bali has infused the natural healing elements of its culture and idyllic Balinese surroundings into three new healthy meeting experiences - Detox, Energy Boost, and revitalizing Secret for the health and wellness conscious businessperson. While each program offers different wellness breaks and team building activities, they all result in a relaxed state of mind conducive to strengthened business relationships, and creating energetic, productive executive retreats.

IBP/Courtesy of Ritz-Carlton Bali

According to PHRI Karangas-em, more tourist attractions need to be developed in the area and that Menjagan forest could become a draw for tourism in the area if it were better maintained. The PHRI is therefor urging the government of Karangasem to resolve the problem of the convoluted status of Men-jagan forest.

Presently, the status of this 13

hectares swath of land remains in limbo. Both the Karangasem Palace and the government of Karangasem could claim authority over the forest. “We encourage the government to resolve the issue of the land’s status. Karangasem has a lot of potential tourist attractions but they are not managed properly and many of them are neglected,” said Kariasa.

Acting Head of the Karangasem Forestry and Plantation Agency, Wayan Budiarsa, confirmed that the status of the Menjagan forest remains unclear. He explained that initially, the land area of 13 hectares was an asset of the Karangasem Palace. However, after the Karan-gasem district and Bali province “greened” the location and turned it into a tourist destination, they of-fered the Karangasem Palace IDR 3 million per hectare, but the offer was rejected.

However because the Karangas-em Palace does not have proof of legitimate ownership of their assets, the government of Karangasem quickly submited a request to the

National Land Agency (BPN) to be granted a certificate of ownership of the forest land. Although this request was submitted a few years ago, it is still being processed.

Undeniably, tourist attractions can support the economy of the middle to lower class population of an area. Over the last few years, Karangasem has been visited by far fewer domestic tourists than other parts of Bali. Kariasa is therefor also asking the local gov-ernment to look to Ginayar as an example of a place that is develop-ing recreational sites for families. “Currently, we still have very few domestic visitors. Tourism should benefit not only employers but

should also contribute to the wel-fare of the middle to lower class,” he said.

The local government needs to seriously improve Karangasem’s tourist attractions both in terms of their physical attributes as well as their management. Kariasa is confident that Menjangan forest, for instance, could draw a lot of tourists to Karangasem, provided road access and other supporting facilities were properly arranged. According to the PHRI, this and other attractions need to be bet-ter organized so that within the next few years these tourist des-tination can meet international standards. (gie)

IBP/Bagiarta

Menjagan forest in Nawa Kerti village, Abang has been damaged for years. This forest had previously been a popular tourist attraction.

PHRI deplores destruction of Menjangan forest

THE KArANGASEM branch secretary of the Indonesia Ho-tel and restaurant Association (PHrI) Wayan Kariasa, recently expressed how regrettable it is that so many tourist attractions in Karangasem have been left dormant. He said that he found it particularly deplorable that the Menjagan forest in Nawa Kerti village, Abang has been damaged for years. This forest had previously been a popular tourist attraction.

Page 6

I N T E R N A T I O N A L 16 Pages Number 238th 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

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Wednesday, January 27, 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.

Russia urges for including Kurds in Syria talks

Page 8 Page 13

PSG’s total dominance removes any drama from French league

French taxis, air traffic controllers, schools on strike

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Cyrus, the 23-year-old Disney actress turned singer and master of provocation, said that she will appear in the yet untitled project that the online retail giant plans to stream later this year.

Cyrus posted on Instagram a blue-hued painting of the famously bespectacled Allen, saying that she had kept his picture “next to my bed for a few years.”

“I was looking into his eyes when I got the call to be a part of the cast,” she wrote, expressing her joy with a string or profani-ties.

She will appear across from 83-year-old Elaine May who starred in Allen’s 2000 film “Small Time Crooks,” a comedy about theft in the art dealing world.

A spokeswoman for Cyrus also confirmed that she would appear in the series.

Hollywood publication Deadline first re-ported that the 80-year-old Allen had decided to cast Cyrus in the initial six-episode run of the series that will be set in the 1960s.

Amazon announced a year ago that it had

signed up Allen, the New Yorker who has directed classic films such as “Manhattan” and “Annie Hall,” to create his very first television series.

Amazon has been seeking to catch up with Netflix, which has won loyal followings through series such as the dark Washington thriller “House of Cards” and the prison comedy “Orange Is the New Black.”

Amazon has already won awards with “Transparent,” a comedy-drama about a family dealing with a transgender father, and “Mozart in the Jungle,” about the wild off-stage lives of New York classical musi-cians.

Cyrus, the daughter of country star Billy Ray Cyrus, rose to fame on the show “Han-nah Montana” but has since taken a marked turn toward racier fare.

Known for her pan-sexual identity and comfort with nudity, Cyrus returned to the public eye in August by hosting the MTV Video Music Awards and releasing an album with alternative rock band The Flaming Lips.

Allen, known for his sharp-tongued wit and fascination with sexual taboos, has throughout his career worked closely with a number of actresses including former part-ners Diane Keaton and Mia Farrow. (afp)

LOS ANGELES - “The X-Files” actor David Duchovny got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Monday, a day after the cult televi-sion series returned to small screens to fanfare in the US.

“It’s surreal, it’s a surreal moment and it’s a surreal event, everything just seems... it feels like something coming out of a movie, in a strange way,” joked Duchovny, 55, who plays Special Agent Fox Mulder.

Mulder and his partner Dana Scully, played by Gillian Anderson, returned for a mini series to great excitement among “X-Files” fans.

“I’m never confident about a success, but I’m confident that we made a really good show again,” said Duchovny, who won a Golden Globe in 1997 for his turn as Mulder and again in 2008 for his role as Hank Moody in the hit comedy-drama series “Californication.”

The latest “X-Files” received decidedly mixed reviews from critics.

“Like Mulder, I want to believe, but with a messy new beginning like this, Chris Carter (the producer) and crew are making it pretty hard,” wrote Kaly Soto in The New York Times. (afp)

Miley Cyrus to star in Woody Allen series for Amazon

‘X-Files’ actor Duchovny gets Hollywood Walk of Fame star

Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

IBP/Net

LOS ANGELES - Pop star Miley Cyrus will be the latest muse of Woody Allen as the legendary comedian directs his first television series for Amazon.

The boat was believed to be tak-ing the Indonesians back to their home country when it overturned off the southern Malaysian state of Johor.

Police Chief Superintendant Rahmat Othman of the Malay-sian town of Kota Tinggi was quoted by Bernama as saying police had launched a search

for survivors and any more victims.

The dead included nine women and four men, whose bodies washed up on beaches in the area, the report said.

Malaysia is Southeast Asia’s third-largest economy and a magnet for migrant workers from its poorer neighbours, with the vast majority

coming from Indonesia.About two million Indonesians,

many of them working illegally, are now in Malaysia doing a range of generally low-paid jobs.

Deadly accidents in the strait are not uncommon, with travellers typically attempting the crossing in rickety vessels and often at night to avoid detection. (afp)

TRAVEL agencies have long considered that tourist destinations in Buleleng are highly sought after by foreign visitors. Unfortunately the

destinations that the govern-ment has already opened up to

tourism apparently still need to be managed properly in order to run well.

Infrastructure that supports tourism is cer-tainly necessary but destinations in North Bali also need to have descriptive profiles so that travel agencies can more easily market tour packages for Buleleng.

The Celukan Bawang Harbor in Gerokgak, is already a popular destination for cruise ships that drop off large numbers of tourists who are eager to explore the area. Although this repre-sents a great opportunity for the development of the trouts industry in North Bali -because these passengers only have a short time to visit, tour packages are important.

Travel agencies have said that they find it hard to introduce tourist destinations in Buleleng to tourists, because the profiles that the government has provided so far are inad-equate. Destinations in the area would be far easier to sell to cruise ship passengers if there were short descriptions of the different nearby destinations.

Continue to page 2Response ...

13 Indonesians drown when boat capsizes off Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR - Thirteen people drowned Tuesday when a boat carrying Indonesian illegal immigrants capsized after being struck by strong waves off Malaysia, state news agency Bernama reported, quoting local police.

IBP/Mudiarta

The Celukan Bawang Harbor in Gerokgak, is already a popular destination for cruise ships that drop off large num-bers of tourists who are eager to explore the area.

Working on tourism potential of North Bali