Removing the Social Stigma of HIV/AIDS in Bali

Bali’s Religious Leaders Join Forces to Halt Discrimination Against Those Suffering and Dying from HIV/AIDS.

Bali News: Removing the Social Stigma of HIV/AIDS in Bali
(9/5/2009) Kompas.com reports that many Balinese, particularly those from rural areas, practice discrimination against those infected with HIV/AIDS, including, in some instance, refusing to handle, bury or cremate the remains of those who die from HIV/AIDS. A lack of information on how people become infected with HIV/AIDS is the root cause of why village people will often have nothing to do with HIV/AIDS victims, either living or dead.

To address this situation, religious leaders in Bali have agreed to work together to educate the public and end discrimination against HIV/AIDS sufferers.

The Vice-Chairman of the Parisadha Hindu Dharma Indonesia (PHDI), the leading Bali Hindu religious organization, Raka Santeri, told the press: “We are concerned with the narrow attitude of people towards those suffering from HIV/AIDS. The bodies of several sufferers who died in hospital have not been received back for burial by either their families or neighbors. This is highly discriminative and cruel.”

The Hindu leader went on to explain that such refusals are not in keeping with religious law requiring that the dead and their remains be honored. Because of this, he is calling on all Hindu leaders to correctly educate their fellow Hindus about HIV/AIDS.

Similar sentiments were also expressed by the Bali representative of the Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI), Richard Muchlis. Agreeing that discrimination towards those suffering or who have died from HIV/AIDS is not acceptable, Muchlis said: “It is therefore important that we move together to persuade the public about how HIV/AIDS is spread. What’s more, someone who has died of this disease cannot infect the living.”

Between January and July of 2009, the bodies of six people who died of HIV/AIDS at Denpasar’s Sanglah General Hospital were refused by their families and home villages.

Roy Noldy, an HIV/AIDS activist, regretted the refusal of local citizens to dispose of the dead. He was also shocked to learn that family members of the dead also refused to handle and pray for the deceased.

In February, an HIV/AIDS victim’s body was cremated at the public crematorium in Mumbul at a cost of Rp. 12 million (US$1,200) because the deceased’s family were not prepared to pray and make offerings on behalf of their family member. “Disturbed by these developments were hope religious leaders in Bali will help spread correct information,” Noldy said.

The number of HIV suffers in Bali between 1987 until May 2009 totaled 2,829 people, with most averaging between the age of 20 and 39 years. During the entire year of 2008, 255 people died from HIV/AIDS in Bali.

by http://www.balidiscovery.com/messages/message.asp?Id=5474

Germany angered over legal ruling to allow Islamist to name son Jihad

Germany is outraged over a legal decision to allow an Islamist fanatic linked to the Bali bombings the right to call his son Djehad, a variation on the Arabic “jihad,” or holy war.

 

By Allan Hall in Berlin
Published: 6:00AM BST 03 Sep 2009

Germans are also incensed that the taxpayer must foot the bill for tens of thousands of euros for Egyptian-born Reda Seyam’s court costs in winning the right to the name.

A court in Berlin said that he could name the child Djehad because it was an “accepted Arabic first name term”.

Germany has some of the strictest rules in the world governing the naming of children. Parents who conjure up fanciful or non gender-specific names often find their choices rejected by authorities.

In recent years the list of banned names has grown to thousands and includes Sputnik, McDonald, Woodstock, Satan, Grandma, Tom-Tom and Peppermint.

Seyam, 49, spent three years and thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ cash to overturn a decision by Berlin municipal authorities forbidding him from naming his boy Djehad.

A fanatic who rails against the West, human rights laws, votes for women and democracy, Seyam has been under observation by German intelligence services for years.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, has for long regarded him as being a “string-puller” behind the Bali bombings of 2002 which killed 200 mostly young holidaymakers.

But officials say there has never been enough proof to charge him. His first wife left him after 15 years of marriage in the same year as the Bali bombing saying he was a “fanatic” and has been in a witness protection programme in Germany ever since.

Just days ago, however, the Munich public prosecutor’s office announced a probe against him and seven others accusing them of belonging to a “criminal organisation” and to have made internet calls for young German converts to Islam to join in a Jihad against the West.

Seyam has fathered six children with his second wife and gets around £2,000 a month in state benefits.

news by http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/6128905/Germany-angered-over-legal-ruling-to-allow-Islamist-to-name-son-Jihad.html

Ombak Bali Surf Film Festival launches on August 19th

Ombak Bali Surf Film Festibal

Discovery Hotel, Jl. Kartika, Kuta
19 – 22 August 2009

Ombak Bali Surf Film Festival launches on August 19th

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 27 July, 2009 : – - What a life… kissed by the sun, hot sand in between your toes, the sound of breaking waves, tight beach bums around you… It’s Bali baby! Kuta’s high season pops up, Ombak Bali drops in. The second edition of Ombak Bali Surf Film Festival takes you for a four day ride. August 19 till 22 in on the island of Bali, Indonesia.

Kuta will transform into surf cinema walhalla. Ombak Bali creates a stage for worlds best surf productions and brings Bali surf lifestyle to a peak. This year the surf film festival jumps next level with a Beach Screening Day on Thursday August 20 on Kuta Reef beach. Screening ‘A Fly in the Champagne’ revealing the intense rivalry between world champions Kelly Slater versus Andy Irons. Lay down and relax watching films under the sun… does life get any better than this?

Get out to downtown Kuta to lay your eyes on many of the latest surf flicks and world premieres like the new Taylor Steele movie ‘The Drifter’ on Rob Machado roaming through Indonesia, female ocean odyssey ‘Dear&Yonder’, the Dede Suryana surf doc ‘Mengejar Ombak’, ‘Havana Surf’ about young surfers in Cuba and more.

Just read it on http://www.globalsurfnews.com/news.asp?Id_news=42067

A renascent Tamarine Tanasugarn turned the first Asian player to fall in the Road To Bali

A renascent Tamarine Tanasugarn turned the first Asian player to fall in the Road To Bali this yr for the Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions in November as she disappointed up-and-coming Belgian Yanina Wickmayer 6-3 7-5 in the final of the Ordina Open among the pre-Wimbledon grass-court warmups.

It was the 3rd claim of her career, after she acquired Hyderabad in 2003 and *s-Hertogenbosch in 2008. She’s the 1st adult female of all time to win back-to-back titles at *s-Hertogenbosch.

Last yr she had broken Dinara Safina in the final, and this year she made it once more, beating out the world number 1 7-5 7-5 in the semi-finals to take the finest result of her career at 32-years of age.

Best Western International’s Asian Members Met in Bali- Indonesia

More International event in Bali. Asian Hotel owners and marketing executives gathering in Bali

Published by Ozgur Tore
Monday, 06 July 2009
Best Western hotel owners and senior corporate business development and marketing executives from all over Asia converged on Best Western New Kuta Condotel, Bali, Indonesia, for the 6th Asian Members Meeting held from July 1-4, 2009.

The recently opened deluxe hotel, Best Western’s first in Indonesia, has been chosen to host the bi-annual conference both as a prime example of how The World’s Largest Hotel Chain® is impacting the hospitality industry around the region and because Indonesia is a particularly strong prospect for the US-based multinational brand.

Bali bombers screwing Phillipines

COTABATO, Philippines, July 6 (UPI) — A military spokesman in the Philippines said Monday the militant group suspected in the 2005 Bali bombings may be linked to a recent church bombing.

Maj. Randolph Cabangbang said Monday an investigation was under way to determine if the Islamic militant group Jemaah Islamiah was involved in a southern Philippines church bombing that killed five people, The Manili Times reported.

In addition to killing five people, Sunday’s bombing at the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic cathedral in Cotabato injured dozens.

Aqua Marine Diving – Scuba Bali Diving

 

Scuba diving in Bali in September 2007 with AquaMarine Diving. Featuring USAT Liberty shipwreck at Tulamben, mola mola at Crystal Bay, a whitetip reef shark at Nusa Penida, and lots of macro critters such as nudibranchs and shrimps from Coral Garden, Seraya Secrets and Puri Jati. 720p HD version shot and produced by Nick Hope.

watch the video here

Election In Bali – Not Just an Elite Game

In Bali, it’s neither policy, parties nor entrenched elites, but image-savvy politicians and an all-powerful media that are dominating the new electoral landscape

Graeme MacRae and I Nyoman Darma Putra

In Bali, most people have taken this year’s elections in their stride. Balinese are getting used to elections and are beginning to develop their own distinctive electoral culture.

And little wonder. In Bali, as in other parts of Indonesia, there have been many elections since the last national legislative and presidential elections in 2004. These have included several rounds of pilkada (direct elections of regional heads) at the district and city level, the election of a new governor of the province, as well as this year’s (national) general election of members of district, provincial and national parliaments.

Opinions vary on the extent to which truly democratic representation is being achieved in Indonesia. Research in many parts of the country suggests that political elites of the New Order period have found new ways of reconfiguring and consolidating their power through collusion, alliances and cartels that cross the lines of political parties. We have been following elections in Bali for several years, focusing on the cultural dimensions as well as the purely ‘political’ ones. What we have seen leads us toward somewhat different conclusions.

In Bali, old elites haven’t had it all their own way

In Bali, old elites, especially those from the royal houses, have been emerging as political contenders, but they haven’t had it all their own way. Not surprisingly, the powerful local media is also emerging as a dominant force in electoral politics, albeit a not entirely predictable one. Contrary to some of the more gloomy assessments of the growth of democracy, voters in Bali are becoming more interested in the policies and platforms of the candidates. But it’s a constantly shifting picture. Here is a brief summary of what we have learnt.
Electing district heads in 2005

In 2005, there were, for the first time, direct elections – pilkada – in four of the eight districts of Bali as well as in the capital city, Denpasar. In these elections, two new trends emerged.

One trend was the re-emergence of the traditional aristocracies. Since the colonial era, and especially since independence, they had been progressively disempowered. Now, they are returning to the formal political arena, both directly as sources of candidates and indirectly as sources of legitimation and support for candidates. Candidates also drew upon a political language and style derived from traditional forms of display and relationships of patronage between aristocracies and their subjects.

The second trend was the role of the mass media, particularly the dominant Bali Post Media Group (BPMG) in mediating and managing information about the candidates and their campaigns. Most media in Bali, but especially the Bali Post group, charge candidates fees for all but the most newsworthy of coverage of their campaigns, a practice which somewhat blurs the line between advertising and editorial content as well as constituting a significant source of income. As a result, candidates with fewer resources to ensure sympathetic coverage in the BPMG’s many outlets, faced an uphill battle getting elected.

Despite this essentially commercial policy, the Bali Post Media Group was very careful to give exactly equal coverage to candidates (provided they paid) and also to avoid showing partiality toward any particular candidate. In this way, and by using some of the visual language of traditional politics, the BPMG managed to present itself to the public as a neutral party concerned with the well-being of the whole island rather than any particular candidate or party. In this way they implied for themselves a role analogous to the traditional rulers of Bali.

Aristocratic status is a valuable resource that candidates can draw upon, but is not in itself decisive

The results in this cycle of elections were mixed. Some aristocratic candidates succeeded while others failed. The present distribution, after this and the subsequent elections in 2008 is three bupati of high (ie priestly or aristocratic) status and five of ordinary rank. So, while aristocratic status was a valuable resource that candidates could draw upon it was not in itself a decisive one. Two factors that were, on the other hand, strikingly unimportant were the role of political parties and of policy in the electoral campaigns.

Italy G8 summit key to global efforts on climate change

chinaview – ROME, July 5 (Xinhua) — With climate change high on the agenda, the Group of Eight (G8) leaders are set to meet in the quake-stricken Italian town of L’Aquila from Wednesday to Friday.

The G8 meeting comes as a deadline draws nearer for world leaders to endorse a new global warming pact at a UN climate change conference in Copenhagen in December.

DECISIVE MOMENT

The “Bali Roadmap,” unveiled in December 2007, set a two-year deadline for a global agreement and pledged to complete a new UN climate treaty at the Copenhagen meeting to follow up on the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

However, the journey from Bali to Copenhagen has been dogged by squabbles between developed and developing nations and among developed nations themselves.

At the latest UN climate change talks held in Bonn in early June, the 50-page draft for a new global warming treaty grew to more than 200 pages stuffed with rival proposals after its maiden hearing.

Meanwhile, on June 27, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed the “American Clean Energy and Security Act,” a legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The bill came as a hard-won victory for President Barack Obama, who is keen on a leading U.S. role in tackling global warming.

The L’Aquila summit is the last G8 summit before the December Copenhagen meeting. Under Obama’s initiative, a major economies forum for 17 countries, which account for some 80 percent of the global emissions, is scheduled for Thursday on the sidelines of the summit. If the leading powers could sew up differences on global warming at the summit, L’Aquila will be a landmark on the road to tackle climate change.

THORNY ISSUES

Italy, which holds the current G8 presidency, wants the summit to agree that global greenhouse gas emissions should peak by 2020 and world temperature change should be limited to 2 Celsius degrees above pre-industrial levels.

According to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a rise in temperatures of more than 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels would be dangerous for the delicate balance of Earth’s climatic system.

The two targets have been accepted by the European Union, but not by G8’s non-EU members — the United States, Russia, Canada and Japan.

Meanwhile, the leading economies are using different time frames when setting cap goals: some looking to 2012, 2020 or 2050. They are also basing emissions cuts on different baselines: some comparing to 1990 levels, others to 1997 levels or 2005 levels.

In the first round of the Bonn talks in early April, the United States said it was considering cutting its emissions by 14-17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, which means the U.S. 2020 goal amounts to a merely 4 percent cut compared to 1990 levels.

On June 10, the Japanese government announced a plan to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, which translates into an 8 percent cut from 1990 levels.

Australia set its emission target on 5-15 percent by 2020 compared to 2000 levels, while Canada plans to cut by 20 percent by 2020 on 2006 levels.

The European Union (EU) has promised to cut emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, and by 30 percent if other rich nations follow suit.

U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern said in late May that rich nations as a group are unlikely to reach the deep 2020 cuts in greenhouse gas emissions as part of a new UN climate treaty.

According to the IPCC, all developed countries should cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 25-40 percent by 2020 compared to 1990 levels to tackle climate change.

Another thorny issue for developed countries is how to channel money and technology to the poor to help deal with climate change, as an estimated 100 billion to 200 billion U.S. dollars will be needed to support developing countries to tackle climate change.

The EU has urged the leading economies to split the bill based on their historical emissions and current wealth, but the bloc members have so far failed to agree on how to split the bill among themselves.

Meanwhile, some developed countries want a new sliding scale to redefine developing nations and demand more actions by the wealthier developing countries in slowing global warming.

In April, Japan submitted a draft text of the new climate pact to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), bringing up the concept of “wealthier developing countries.”

In the draft document released on May 20, the UNFCCC also passed the buck to poor nations, setting emission reduction goals for developing countries by 2050.

This has drawn fierce criticism from developing nations, presenting another obstacle on the way to a successful Copenhagen meeting.

“The countries gathering in L’Aquila have the biggest responsibility to show leadership on climate. Without their action we cannot expect the rest of the world to move,” environmental group World Wildlife Fund said Friday.

Editor: Wang Guanqun

Neal Kearney, The Froth Pit: Surf travel is worth the risk

mercurynews – Surfing has grown into an international sport practiced just about anywhere waves break. From the Amazon River to the Gaza Strip, people are going to the ends of the earth to find uncrowded surf. Local economies reliant on surf tourism are growing rapidly, bringing much needed economic stimulation to regions that need it badly.

Sometimes, however, events unfold that can convince these surfers to stay at home instead.

In October 2002, the surf-rich island of Bali was the victim of gruesome terrorist attacks on two of its most popular nightclubs. The bombs,which ripped through downtown Kuta Beach, killed 182 and injured hundreds more. In addition to the deaths of local Indonesian, scores of Australian surfers on holiday were killed.

This unthinkable tragedy nearly crippled the island’s economy. From taxi drivers to hotel owners, everyone felt the sting, and it took a couple years for surfers to come back in significant numbers and the local economy to recovery.

Recently, a different kind of deterrent has invaded the shores of South and Central America.

Before I left on my month-long excursion to Puerto Escondido, in Oaxaca, Mexico, I was warned repeatedly not to go. Fox News, Hilary Clinton, even the pharmacist at Costco, who wished me luck with the “drug cartels and murderers,” advised against my trip.

Despite heartfelt advice from the media, the government and a complete stranger, I decided to go ahead with my trip. In reality, the
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odds of being affected by any of the multitude of travel dangers out there are pretty slim.

Savannah Shaughnessy is a 20-year-old surfer from Scotts Valley who’s been coming down to Puerto for months at a time over the last four years. She is a skilled big wave surfer who is lured by the juicy, top-to-bottom waves that explode over Puerto’s shallow sandbars like clockwork.

I asked Shaughnessy if the threat of swine flu or drug cartels influenced her choice to make the trek south this year

“It didn’t affect my decision too much, because I love coming here and I knew that it would be pretty safe once I got here,” she sid. “But it made my parents really worried. They almost didn’t let me come!”

Like Shaughnessy, there are many among the surf community who will travel just about anywhere, no matter what the dangers are, just to get that opportunity to score some epic surf. While the local business owners may have lost some profits throughout the past few months, the loyal will always return. And fewer people means smaller crowds, something any surfer knows is worth a little risk.