Bali

NUSA DUA, Indonesia -- Flying around the world to stem climate change isn't easy to defend. And that was just one of the environmental quandaries facing some 10,000 delegates, policy experts, activists and journalists at climate talks in Bali, which ended Saturday with a framework plan to trim the world's greenhouse-gas emissions. Free bicycles, for instance, were available on loan to delegates who wanted to ride between the meeting's various side events. They got plenty of use. But a share of negotiators and journalists alike, exhausted after days of overnight talks and dripping sweat in Bali's steamy heat, took one guilty look at the bikes and then waved for an air-conditioned taxi instead.

In the fall of 2002, the Indonesian island of Bali, once known for its luscious beaches and vibrant Hindu culture, became synonymous with terror and radicalism. After a massive bombing in Bali's nightclub district killed more than 200 people, the world suddenly realized what many locals had known for years: Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation on Earth, faced a serious internal terror threat. Even before the Bali attack, Indonesia had suffered a wave of bombings in the winter of 2000, and earlier that year someone had bombed the Jakarta Stock Exchange.

DENPASAR, Indonesia - Confessed Bali bomber Amrozi, laughing and joking as Indonesia's top policeman questioned him about his role in the Oct. 12 attack, said yesterday that he was "delighted" with the results of the blast. In an odd show staged for the news media, reporters were invited to watch through windows as Indonesia's police chief, Dai Bachtiar, conducted the interrogation. Amrozi, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, waved and smiled for the cameras. The public interrogation was apparently designed to demonstrate to skeptical Indonesians that Amrozi had acted freely in confessing that he took part in the bombing to further the agenda of extremist Muslims.

NUSA DUA, Indonesia -- Flying around the world to stem climate change isn't easy to defend. And that was just one of the environmental quandaries facing some 10,000 delegates, policy experts, activists and journalists at climate talks in Bali, which ended Saturday with a framework plan to trim the world's greenhouse-gas emissions. Free bicycles, for instance, were available on loan to delegates who wanted to ride between the meeting's various side events. They got plenty of use. But a share of negotiators and journalists alike, exhausted after days of overnight talks and dripping sweat in Bali's steamy heat, took one guilty look at the bikes and then waved for an air-conditioned taxi instead.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - A defiant Islamic militant was sentenced to death yesterday after being convicted of playing a major role in the Bali nightclub attack that killed 202 people last year. The defendant, Imam Samudra, 33, was described by a panel of five judges as the "intellectual actor" behind the bombing. He is the second man to be convicted in the Bali case. After hearing the sentence, Samudra, who has shown a belligerent demeanor throughout his three-month trial, shouted, "America, Australia go to hell!"

JAKARTA, Indonesia - As the death toll in yesterday's bombing of the Australian Embassy climbed to nine, police intensified their hunt for the man they believe is the master bomb-builder behind the attack: a Malaysian mathematician named Dr. Azahari bin Husin. Police said the car bomb, which injured more than 170 people, was the work of the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist network and its explosives expert, Azahari, who allegedly constructed bombs used in the group's earlier attacks in Bali and Jakarta.

DENPASAR, Indonesia - A court sentenced a grinning motorcycle mechanic to death yesterday after convicting him for plotting the Bali nightclub terror attack that killed 202 people in October. The man, known as Amrozi, 41, an accused member of the Islamic militant group Jemaah Islamiyah, is the first defendant to be convicted in the Bali case. Indonesian and American officials have said they believe that Jemaah Islamiyah is probably responsible for the terror attack on the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta on Tuesday that killed 16 people and wounded more than 150. Officials speculated that the Marriott blast was timed as a warning to the Indonesian government on the eve of the first verdict in the Bali bombing case.

KUTA, Indonesia -- The island of Bali, with miles of beaches and perfect waves, has long been marketed as a premier destination for tourists. Now, this surfer's paradise has a new distinction: repeat terrorist target. The deadly assault on three restaurants in Bali a week ago was the second time in three years that suicide bombers targeted the otherwise peaceful and isolated island. This time, some residents fear, Bali's tourism industry might not quickly recover. More than 200 people have been killed in terrorist attacks on the island simply for being in a nightclub or a restaurant on a Saturday evening.

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- The al-Qaida network that carried out the terrorist attack in Bali is responsible for past plots against the United States in Southeast Asia, and is now planning to strike at Western students at international schools in Jakarta, Western and Indonesian officials said yesterday. The plan to attack the schools was uncovered in the past few days, and officials said yesterday that the schools would remain closed until at least Wednesday. Officials declined to say precisely how they had learned of the plot, but the United States and Australia have stepped up their electronic surveillance and intelligence-gathering here since the Bali attack, which killed nearly 200, most of them Australians.

WATERFORD, Mich. - President Bush said yesterday that the bombing on the Indonesian island of Bali appeared to be the work of al-Qaida and was part of a pattern that included recent attacks in Kuwait and Yemen. These incidents, Bush said, show that al-Qaida is on the rise and will continue to be a threat to the United States. "I'm concerned about our homeland," Bush told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House before leaving for a political fund-raising trip here. "Obviously, if I knew of a specific piece of intelligence that would indicate a moment or a place in which the enemy would attack, we'd do a lot about it."

A senior midfielder at Oakland Mills, Bali Boule is a team captain and four-year starter. Along with her leadership and ball skills, she brings a long and accurate throw-in that the Scorpions use as a primary weapon. A second-team All-County midfielder last season, Boule led the team in scoring during the regular season this fall with six goals and eight assists - four coming from her long throw. Soccer has long been Boule's passion, having played club ball for 12 years. With a 3.12 grade point average, Boule is considering a number of colleges, with James Madison and Towson topping her list.

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA -- In this city of sparkling beauty, trash cans are considered terrorist weapons. Fearing they might be used as hiding places for bombs, officials had them removed from train station platforms. The waiting passenger without a place to put an empty coffee cup is also inundated with a billboard and electronic-screen message borrowed from post-9/11 New York: "If you see something, say something." Australia, the land of free spirits a day's flight from Baltimore, does not usually register on the map of potential trouble spots.

KUTA, Indonesia -- The island of Bali, with miles of beaches and perfect waves, has long been marketed as a premier destination for tourists. Now, this surfer's paradise has a new distinction: repeat terrorist target. The deadly assault on three restaurants in Bali a week ago was the second time in three years that suicide bombers targeted the otherwise peaceful and isolated island. This time, some residents fear, Bali's tourism industry might not quickly recover. More than 200 people have been killed in terrorist attacks on the island simply for being in a nightclub or a restaurant on a Saturday evening.

Indonesia is an affront to the forces of extreme Islam. Its archipelago is home to more Muslims than any other nation. It is a flourishing democracy, with its first directly elected president having taken office just last year. And its government has taken a stand against violent Islamic fundamentalists, hunting down leaders of the regional version of al-Qaida, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), and disrupting much of that terrorist organization. In 2002, when 202 people, including many foreign vacationers, were killed by terrorist bombs on Indonesia's island of Bali, the attack was widely viewed in part as retribution for Australia's backing of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Kuta, Indonesia -- Bali police released grisly photos yesterday of the heads of three men suspected of carrying out suicide bomb attacks here, as well as an eerie video of one of them walking into a steakhouse wearing what appears to be a backpack and blowing up. "We have reached a conclusion that they were suicide bombings," said Bali Police Chief I Made Mangku Pastika. The disclosures came less than 24 hours after the blasts and added to mounting evidence that the triple bombing was carried out by the same Muslim extremist group that has been conducting suicide bomb attacks in Indonesia over the past three years.

JIMBARAN, Indonesia - Three bombs exploded, two almost simultaneously, last evening at crowded restaurants on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, killing at least 25 people and wounding more than 100 others, authorities said. The blasts, which apparently targeted foreign tourists, ripped through two open-air cafes at popular Jimbaran Beach and, moments later, struck a restaurant about 18 miles north in the city of Kuta. Authorities branded the bombings terrorist attacks. Suspicion quickly fell on Jemaah Islamiyah, an extremist Muslim group linked to al-Qaida that was responsible for the double suicide bombing of two nightclubs in Kuta three years ago this month.

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- The Jemaah Islamiyah extremist network, accused of bombing nightclubs in Bali and the Marriott hotel in Jakarta, is suspected of planning attacks on U.S. oil companies and other targets in the Indonesian capital. A confidential document reviewed by The Los Angeles Times indicated that among the targets on the group's list are the Jakarta headquarters of Halliburton, a company once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney; Exxon-Mobil; and Unocal. Indonesian police officials warned seven U.S. companies last month that their names were on a list of potential targets uncovered during a raid on the house of suspected Jemaah Islamiyah members in the central Java city of Semarang.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - As the death toll in yesterday's bombing of the Australian Embassy climbed to nine, police intensified their hunt for the man they believe is the master bomb-builder behind the attack: a Malaysian mathematician named Dr. Azahari bin Husin. Police said the car bomb, which injured more than 170 people, was the work of the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist network and its explosives expert, Azahari, who allegedly constructed bombs used in the group's earlier attacks in Bali and Jakarta.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - An Indonesian court sentenced an Islamic militant to life imprisonment yesterday for his role in the Bali bombings that killed 202 people last year, many of them foreign tourists. The militant, Ali Imron, 33, an accused member of the Indonesian-based group Jemaah Islamiyah, was the only one of the defendants in the Bali case who had appeared to express remorse in court. The five-judge panel in Denpasar, the capital of Bali, said it had taken Imron's stated regrets into account but declined to hand down a 20-year sentence requested by the prosecution.