Bali may ban sex for unmarried
Court was likely the last chance to strike down the laws.
In Denpasar, British tourist Rose Hughes and her boyfriend Jake Rodgers, who are on holidays from Norwich, said the legal changes would put her off returning to Bali. ‘‘I understand if we can’t hold hands or kiss in a temple or religious places. But I don’t want to worry about doing something, a normal thing back home, and getting in trouble for it. Yes, I would reconsider coming to Bali,’’ she said.
Perth woman Kelly Ann, who did not want to provide her last name, said the legal change wouldn’t affect her but added that ‘‘I believe those who fall into this Tim Lindsey, Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society
category will not come. We will come again next year but it [Bali] will lose some people’’.
Ida Bagus Agung Partha Adnyana, the head of Bali’s tourism board, played down the implications of the new laws for foreign tourists.
‘‘We are not worried, the law requires a person to report such case. As a tourism destination we have to also observe international law. Overseas, often [civil] partnerships instead of marriage is the norm,’’ he said. ‘‘Bali has always welcomed all tourists, we will continue to do so, even with a new penal code.’’ – Nine A new explanation for the mysterious brain damage suffered by diplomats and spies in Cuba has been proposed: that it was caused by pesticides. The incidents, reported in 2016 and 2017, caused symptoms ranging from headaches to mild brain trauma. The United States withdrew 21 staff and their families from the embassy in Havana. Canadian diplomats were also affected and recalled. Cuba has called the theory ‘‘science fiction’’. The research, commissioned by Canada’s foreign ministry, involved a clinical study of 26 people, including a control group of people who never lived in Havana. Cuba, like other tropical countries, regularly sprays pesticides to kill insects that carry infectious diseases. In 2016 the government began an aggressive campaign against mosquitoes to stop the spread of the zika virus, which was linked to birth defects in Brazil. Embassy records show that diplomatic residences and offices were sprayed five times more often during the period that the illnesses were reported. The reason is unclear. Analysis of the Canadian victims confirmed the presence of pyrethroid and organophosphate, compounds found in fumigation. Justin Trudeau yesterday refused to rule out the existence of more pictures of himself in blackface as he said white ‘‘privilege’’ had blinded him to the racism of the practice. Three separate cases of the Canadian prime minister wearing blackface have emerged in the last two days, a month before a general election. Trudeau said he ‘‘deeply regretted’’ the incidents. ‘‘I didn’t see that from the layers of privilege that I have. And for that I am deeply sorry, and I apologise,’’ he said. He refused to be drawn on whether further photographs may emerge, saying: ‘‘I am wary of being definitive about this because the recent pictures that came out I had not remembered.’’ The Canadian leader’s political turmoil began on Wednesday night when Time magazine published a yearbook photograph from 2001 of a 29-year-old Trudeau, pictured centre, wearing robes and a turban, with his hands, face and neck coated with brown make-up. As a teacher at West Point Grey Academy in Vancouver, Trudeau was attending an Arabian Nights-themed gala dressed as Aladdin. Emergency workers caught an unusual prowler lurking around rooftops in northern France: a black panther. Firefighters and a veterinarian responded after residents of a neighbourhood near Lille reported that a big cat had been spotted ‘‘strolling on residential gutters’’ on Thursday. Photographs taken after the fire brigade’s arrival captured the panther making itself at home above ground, perching on building ledges and pacing outside a closed window. After firefighters secured a precautionary perimeter, the curious cat burglar slipped inside a house and workers trapped it. The animal was put to sleep with a drug dart and put in a cage. It wasn’t clear where the panther came from or if it had escaped from a zoo.