Bolt, the Estonian rival to ride-hailing app Uber, is calling its employees back to the office three days a week after its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) decried his “disconnected” staff’s habit of working from idyllic destinations like Bali. According to the Telegraph, Markus Villig, the billionaire boss of the taxi-hailing smartphone app, partially revoked the company’s flexible work policy, which he believes led to staff being scattered across the world. He introduced a new mandatory policy requiring all employees to work from the office three days a week or 12 days per month.

In an internal memo obtained by the Telegraph, Mr Villig said it was a “disgrace” that less than half of employees worked in the office for at least two days each week. He also criticised employees logging in from the beach. 

“We are too scattered, people feel disconnected, attrition is too high, and our offices lie empty,” the CEO said. “We will stop the insanity of people working remotely from places like Bali. That is a vacation, not what we hired them to do,” Mr Villig added. 

In his memo, the billionaire boss claimed that working in person will improve relationship-building, communication and mental well-being among employees. He urged the team managers to lend their support by leading by example and creating a “fun” office environment. He also asked them to monitor and manage the poor attendance of employees working from home too much. 

“We are absolutely fine if some people decide this is not for them, as the cultural impact far outweighs it,” the CEO said. 

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Further, according to the Telegraph, Mr Villig described the new policy as “generous” compared to other companies, including Amazon which last month ordered its workers to return to office five days a week. Mr Villig also warned that his company could “fall into mediocrity” if the firm does not improve its performance. 

“Even the largest companies from Amazon to Tesla to Apple realise that in order to stay at the top they have to retain an intense culture and have got people back to office three to five days a week. We are a tiny company in comparison and to ever reach that scale we have to work harder and innovate more than them,” he wrote. 

Bolt’s global employer branding manager Grete Kivi separately defended the new policy. “Working at Bolt is not for everyone. We’re fast-paced, and you’re expected to perform to the highest standard. Bolt has never been a remote-first company, and we’ve been clear about that from the start,” she wrote on LinkedIn. 

Notably, the shift to hybrid means staff will still have some flexibility, but will need to live within travel distance to a Bolt office. The taxi-hailing smartphone app employs 4,000 people across 50 countries, including the UK.

A recent investigation has revealed that Australian tourists were being tricked into eating dog meat skewers during their holidays on an Indonesian island. On Thursday, Bali officials seized hundreds of kilograms of raw dog meat and numerous skewers from vendors, despite a comprehensive ban on the trade of such meat on the popular resort island, the Independent reported. 

According to AFP, public order officers in Bali’s Jembrana district seized at least 500 dog meat skewers and 56 kilograms of raw dog meat from various sellers following a series of inspections. Dewa Nyoman Rai Dharmadi, head of the Bali Public Order Agency, said that inspections conducted this week found three vendors still peddling dog meat, defying local regulations that prohibit its sale.

Two of the vendors had previously received warnings from Bali Police regarding their engagement in the trade of dog meat. 

“We won’t suddenly take legal action, but we are giving them the chance to know the ban and why it was banned. But we will process recurrent (sellers) for deterrent effect. We’re not playing around,” Mr Dharmadi said. 

”Dog meat is not food and can also potentially cause disease. Don’t believe in the superstitions that dog meat is healthy. That’s misleading,” he added. 

Two of the vendors are reportedly set to attend court in August.

Notably, Bali has enacted a stringent ban on the dog meat trade, imposing severe penalties on offenders, including a maximum prison sentence of three months and a hefty fine of up to 50 million rupiah (approximately 2,300 pounds), serving as a strong deterrent to those who would engage in this illicit activity.

Unlike regulated agricultural practices, the dog meat trade often relies on the inhumane seizure of dogs that are not raised for food, including stolen pets, community-owned dogs, and street dogs. 

Animal welfare organizations, including Animals International, have condemned the sale and consumption of dog and cat meat, citing the inherent cruelty of the trade. They argue that the dog meat trade not only subjects dogs to immense suffering but also poses serious health and safety risks to both tourists and local communities. 

However, dog meat is considered a part of traditional cuisine and consumed in certain regions of Southeast and East Asia, including China, Vietnam, and North Korea. 
 

When travelling on a plane, passengers should follow some basic etiquette and do their best to not disturb or trouble anyone seated around them. However, recently a flight was forced to turn back after a “passenger from hell” banged on the cockpit door, spewed profanities and slapped another flyer’s glasses off his face. According to the New York Post, the incident took place aboard a Jetstar Flight from Australia to Bali. The flight was less than two hours into its journey when it made the U-turn back to Melbourne to get police help when a passenger became “disruptive”. 

“The Captain decided to return to Melbourne to get assistance from the Australian Federal Police after a passenger became disruptive just under two hours into the flight,” the airline said in a statement. “We know this was a difficult experience for other customers and our team members, and we thank those who assisted with the situation,” it added. 

Separately, as per the Post, eyewitness footage showed a woman with short hair screaming into the face of a seated male passenger as others looked in shock.  “How about try and understand what the f**k is going on before you have a comment,” the flyer yelled.

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A witness described the flyer as the “passenger from hell”. “(She was) verbally abusing everyone in her path! Even shoving a fellow passenger holding a baby,” the witness wrote on social media. “So we were turned around three hours into the flight while she was restrained by passengers and crew in the back. All the poor little kids had to listen to this for five hours,” they added. 

Another passenger posted online that the woman “went loopy and banged on the cockpit door because she thought someone stole her phone”. A flyer also said that the woman was walking up and down the aisle and spitting at people. She added that when a man made a comment to the disruptive passenger, “she got right up in his face and abused the absolute hell out of him and smashed his glasses off his face”. 

When it became clear that the flyer could not be calmed down, the pilot announced that the plane would turn back to Melbourne. Jetstar, an Australian budget airline, confirmed that the captain returned to Melbourne “to get assistance from the Australia Federal Police,” which is still investigating, as per the outlet. 

A powerful earthquake and two strong aftershocks rocked Indonesia’s resort island of Bali and other parts of the country early Tuesday, causing panic but no immediate reports of damage or casualties.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.1 and was centered in the Bali Sea 181 kilometers (112 miles) northeast of Gili Air, a tiny island near the coast of Lombok Island, next to Bali. It occurred at a depth of 513.5 kilometers (319 miles).

Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysical Agency said there was no danger of a tsunami but warned of dangers from aftershocks. The agency put the quake’s preliminary magnitude at 7.4. Variations in early measurements are common.

The quake was followed by aftershocks of magnitude 5.4 and 5.6 that hit the Bali sea a few minutes later, just before dawn.

Many residents and tourists rushed out of their homes and hotels toward higher ground after reporting powerful shockwaves, but the situation returned to normal after they received text messages saying the quake had no potential to trigger a tsunami.

“I thought the walls were going to come down on the hotel,” an Australian tourist said on social media.

People in the neighboring provinces of East Java, Central Java, West Nusa Tenggara and East Nusa Tenggara also felt the tremors and panicked as houses and buildings swayed for several seconds.

Indonesia, a vast archipelago of 270 million people, is frequently struck by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis because of its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific.

An earthquake in the hilly Karangasem in 2021 triggered landslides and cut off at least three villages, killing at least three people.

A magnitude 5.6 earthquake last year killed at least 331 people and injured nearly 600 in West Java’s Cianjur city. It was the deadliest in Indonesia since a 2018 quake and tsunami in Sulawesi killed about 4,340 people.

In 2004, an extremely powerful Indian Ocean quake set off a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in Indonesia’s Aceh province.

A strong earthquake of 7.0 magnitude struck deep in the sea north of Bali and Lombok islands in Indonesia early on August 29, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said, sending residents running out of buildings.

The quake’s epicentre was 203 km (126 miles) north of Mataram, Indonesia, and very deep at 516 km below the Earth’s surface, EMSC said.

Indonesian and U.S. geological agencies pegged the magnitude at 7.1, with no threat of a tsunami.

The quake was felt just before 4 a.m. (2000 GMT) across coastal areas in Bali and Lombok and was followed by two quakes of magnitude 6.1 and 6.5, according to the Indonesian geological agency.

Guests at Bali’s Mercure Kuta Bali ran out of their rooms after feeling the tremor for a few seconds, hotel manager Suadi told Reuters by phone.

“Several guests left their rooms but were still in the hotel area,” he said, adding they have since returned and there was no damage to the building.

There were no immediate reports of damage, Indonesian disaster agency BNPB said.

“The quake is deep so it should not be destructive,” BNPB spokesperson Abdul Muhari said.