Just eighteen months in office and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's approval rating has hit an all time low. A new survey released in Jakarta shows just 37 percent of the public is happy with the president's performance. The public's major concerns are the economy, unemployment, the rise in fuel and electricty prices and planned changes to the labor laws.

M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – The two biggest factions in the House of Representatives have balked at applying a retroactive principle for a human rights tribunal for Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, which would effectively bar it from trying members of the military.

Loro Horta – It was a hauntingly familiar scene. Large-scale riots broke out in East Timor late last month, attended by looting, arson and the murder of five civilians. But rather than a rebellion against foreign occupation, the recent melee in the capital, Dili, was purely a domestic affair.

Wahyudin Fahmi, Jakarta – The majority of factions in the Special Committee for the Aceh Government Draft Bill have approved the establishment of a human rights court in Aceh, one a year after the state decree was enacted.

M. Azis Tunny, Ambon – Hundreds of angry supporters of losing candidates in Ambon city's first direct election staged a protest Wednesday at the Ambon General Elections Commission (KPUD) office, accusing that Monday's election results were invalid.

Mark Dodd and Stephen Fitzpatrick, Dili – Police in East Timor have failed to restore law and order following last month's deadly violence because the Interior Minister is too preoccupied with his personal business interests, a damning UN cable has revealed.

Abdul Khalik, Jakarta – To reduce its arms imports, Indonesia plans to increase the production of its various military equipment to at least 16 percent of its total defense needs.

Human rights, religious and other organizations today urged a key congressional subcommittee to reinstate restrictions on US

military assistance to Indonesia as the best way "to influence positive change in Indonesia and to encourage justice for the people of Timor-Leste."

Jakarta (Agencies) – Protesters in Indonesia's capital demanded Thursday that prosecutors reinstate criminal charges against former president Soeharto, still hospitalized after colon surgery earlier this month.

Bandung – The West Java capital city, Bandung, is in the midst of a serious garbage crisis, with 200,000 cubic meters of trashed piled along its streets.

The problem, blamed on a lack of final dumping sites, has been going on for the past month. Residents living around the city's two temporary dumping sites in Cicabe and Pasir Impun are now rejecting incoming garbage.

Villagers in eastern Indonesia plan to sue Australian gold producer Newcrest Mining, accusing the company of environmental vandalism and failing to deliver on promises to improve their welfare.

Jakarta – Most of the labor supply companies operating in Jakarta, Bogor, Tangerang and Bekasi (Jabotabek) are illegal, an association says.

Sidoarjo – Residents of Sidoarjo have begun planting banana trees in the numerous large potholes that dot the village's main road, Antara news agency reported Tuesday.

M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – Just 37 percent of the public approves of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's job performance, the lowest rating he has registered in his 18 months in office, a poll has revealed.

Jakarta – Research by the Aceh Working group of the National Commission on Violence Against Women shows women are still objectified by the print media.

Tb. Arie Rukmantara, Jakarta – Concealing your identity for more than 30 years is an arduous task. It forces you to be suspicious of everyone you meet in your entire life, says Harsutejo, a former political prisoner during Soeharto's authoritarian regime.

"I couldn't even mention the year that I was born," the 70-year-old told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – Leading human rights, democracy and antigraft activists, political analysts and lawyers joined forces Tuesday to condemn moves to clear former president Soeharto's name without due process of law.

Abdul Khalik, Ottawa/Jakarta – Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda will visit the United States this week, where he is expected to talk up Indonesia's improved human rights record and seek assurances on the supply of military equipment from the US, a senior official at the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

Urip Hudiono, Jakarta – The Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) has issued yet another damning report on the management of the state finances, revealing 5,377 cases of irregularities worth nearly Rp 48 trillion (US$5.3 billion) in the spending of public funds during last year's second semester.

Femke van den Bos, Jakarta – It will only take up to two or three years of rain forest destruction if the current rate continues to determine the fate of the orangutan. The populations of orangutans that will still exist in 2008 will not be viable anymore and the damage done will be irreversible.

Laurent Lozano, Washington – "We did have an opportunity to talk extensively about some of the challenges in our immediate region," Howard said after the talks, adding that he highlighted the importance of Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, in counter-terrorism.

Mark Forbes, Jakarta – Indonesia has praised Australia's new stance against Papuan asylum seekers, indicating a thaw in the diplomatic freeze imposed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono after a boatload of 42 Papuans were granted asylum.

Endy M. Bayuni, Jakarta – You have to be either Javanese or a really desperate person, or both, to believe that this year's eighth anniversary of the downfall of Soeharto and his regime is worth commemorating differently from previous years.

Bandung – Dozens of students went on a march in Bandung on Monday, urging the government to not to drop its graft case against former president Soeharto.

Jakarta – For many well-heeled Indonesians in jail for graft or other crimes, penitentiaries are not so different from hotels.

Both places have rooms – at different prices depending on how much one pays – daily meals, and some even come with televisions and Internet connections.

M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – The House of Representatives and the government began deliberating the long-overdue Freedom of Information Bill on Monday, with the government already showing signs it wants to water down the legislation.

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – Two years after an official report on the May 1998 riots was submitted to the Attorney General's Office implicating top members of the security forces in wrongdoing, no one has been prosecuted by the state. Meanwhile, the AGO and the body that investigated the riots continue to blame each other for the halt to the investigations.

Ambon – The country is losing around Rp 45 trillion (about US$5 billion) a year because of widespread illegal logging, Forestry Minister MS Kaban says.

Kaban reiterated his pledge that the government aimed to stop all illegal logging activity in the country by end of the year.

Jakarta – Two supporters of a former Jayawijaya regent died following a clash with the police in Papua on Monday, after they tried to prevent the police from picking him up to appear in court on charges of misappropriating the administration's budget.

Paul Toohey – The dirt roads and hills in the western districts of the country are now their home. In Australian terminology, the 591 East Timorese soldiers – a third of the military – who abandoned their barracks in protest in March would be mutineers or traitors. In the delicate language of East Timor, they are "petitioners".

Urip Hudiono, Jakarta – The government is setting aside at least Rp 3 trillion (some US$300 million) in funds from this year's state budget to help kick off financing for infrastructure development around the country, in partnership with private investors.

Andi Hajramurni, Makassar – Peace has returned to Makassar following protests triggered by a housemaid's death at the hands of her Chinese-Indonesian employer, but there's still an uneasy feeling in the air.

Former People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) chairman Amien Rais said for the sake of justice former East Timor pro-integration fighter Eurico Gutteres should be freed from all legal penalties for the human right abuses he was accused of because other parties who were more responsible for the atrocities had been acquitted.

Jakarta – Representatives from the business sector and labor unions agreed Friday to jointly find the best ways to improve the business climate by holding an official national bipartite meeting in June.

Relations between the two parties had been tense since violence broke at out recent labor union rallies rejecting planned revisions to the 2003 Labor Law.

Abdul Khalik, Nusa Dua – Indonesia and Malaysia on Saturday signed a long-discussed memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the protection of Indonesian migrant workers, especially domestic workers, in Malaysia. The agreement was signed on the sidelines of the Developing Eight (D-8) Summit in Nusa Dua, Bali.

Jakarta – Two people were killed and six injured Monday after police clashed with villagers defending a district chief charged with corruption in Indonesia's Papua province, police said Monday.

Police were questioning 139 people after the violence in Wamena, the capital of the mountainous district of Jayawijaya, said Col. Kartono Wangsadisastra, a police spokesman.

Jakarta – Providing jobs, financial assistance and housing to thousands of former guerillas and political prisoners is essential for ensuring the success of the peace deal in Aceh, the World Bank said Monday.

Scott Burchill – The arrival of 43 West Papuan asylum seekers in northern Australia earlier this year pressed the pause button on the cosy relationship struck recently between political elites in Canberra and Jakarta.

Despite their common opposition to separatism in West Papua, both governments bungled their responses to this latest challenge to bilateral goodwill.

Tony Hotland, Jakarta – The government's decision to drop graft charges against former president Soeharto has been slammed by anticorruption and human rights groups, which say the ailing former strongman could still be tried in absentia.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's cornerstone policy of combating top-level corruption was badly dented after the Attorney General's Office dropped graft charges against former dictator Suharto in view of his poor health.

The House of Representatives is scheduled to deliberate a number of important bills, including the long-awaited Freedom of Information Bill. This bill was first proposed in November 2001 by the previous members of the House, but languished in the legislature until last July when it was revived. Many observers wonder why it has taken so long for the bill to be passed into law.

Damien Kingsbury – The recent Indonesian ban on academic contact with Deakin University over the West Papua issue is the latest shot in a wider political battle. But that battle is not with Deakin, or even Australia. The real battle is within Jakarta.

M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – Eight years after bringing down an authoritarian regime, the once thriving student movement is now in disarray.

No longer having a common enemy to unite their struggle, the movement is now deeply fragmented and can no longer produce a coherent platform. It is capable only of launching random attacks on the establishment.

Jakarta – For 14 years, Murad Aidit lived in a penal colony on the jungle-covered Indonesian island of Buru with 12,000 other suspected communist sympathizers.

[In the Time of Madness: Indonesia on the Edge of Chaos by Richard Lloyd Parry. Reviewed by Scott B MacDonald.]

Irwan Firdaus, Jakarta – Indonesian authorities on Saturday ordered the immediate evacuation of thousands of people who for weeks have refused to heed the ominous rumblings of Mount Merapi and the burning lava oozing from its mouth.

Lloyd Jones, Port Moresby – A Papuan woman who says she fled to PNG after Indonesian intelligence officers forced her to plead for her daughter's return from asylum in Australia should be granted a protection visa by Canberra, Papuan independence activists say.

Dili – East Timor's foreign minister Jose Ramos-Horta said his country does not need foreign peacekeepers, shortly after Australia said it had sent two warships close to Timorese waters.

Kylie Williams, Canberra – International human rights groups have lodged a formal protest over Australia's tough new immigration laws in a letter urging the government to adopt humane refugee policies toward Papuans.

Wearing colorful traditional costumes, around 500 activists demonstrated outside the House of Representatives on Thursday, demanding lawmakers abandon their deliberation of the pornography bill.