Indra Subagja, Jakarta – As soon as the price of fuel was officially increased at 12 midnight, 26 people from the People's Struggle Front (FPR) held a protest action in front of the State Palace in Central Jakarta. Police immediately moved in and rounded up the demonstrators and all 26 were taken to the Metro Jaya regional police headquarters.

Irwan Nugroho, Jakarta – The police attack on the University of Indonesia campus this morning has left those who witnessed it dumb founded after they watched hundreds of police officers surround some 50 or so students, who were then beaten, stripped naked and forced into trucks.

Lilian Budianto, Jakarta – Local women's rights activists have taken up the outcry raised by New York-based Human Rights Watch, following a Saudi Arabian court's acquittal of two people accused of torturing their Indonesian maid.

Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – A state minister on Friday delivered documents on the alleged May 1998 mass rape of mostly ethnic Chinese women to the Attorney General's Office (AGO).

State Minister for Women's Empowerment Meutia Farida Swasono handed over the documents to Attorney General Hendarman Supandji.

Aditya Suharmoko and Abdul Khalik, Jakarta – After weeks of uncertainty, the government on Friday raised subsidized fuel prices by an average of 28.7 percent to help salvage the state budget, which has been severely strained by high-flying crude oil prices.

Telly Nathalia, Jakarta – Indonesia's government jacked up fuel prices on Saturday, sparking protests, but some $1.5 billion of cash handouts intended to cushion the blow for poor families could turn out to be a savvy move, politically and economically.

Rizal Harahap, Pekanbaru – Five legislators in Riau province have come under fire for attending a seminar in Egypt organized by Indonesian students there.

Jakarta – From a soto (traditional soup) vendor to a lawyer, people from different walks of life have remembered the late human rights activist Munir through the enduring medium of music.

Presi Mandari, Jakarta – Angry students hurled molotov cocktails at police after Indonesia hiked the cost of gasoline by 33 (sic) percent Saturday to rein in subsidies that are exploding along with world oil prices.

Mustaqim Adamrah, Jakarta, Semarang, Kupang – More than 100 people were arrested Saturday during protests at National University (Unas) in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta.

Hundreds of Unas students and alumni had gathered to protest the government's fuel price rises.

Jakarta – Police arrested more than 100 protesters in the Indonesian capital Saturday after some burnt tyres and threw molotov cocktails during a rally over fuel price rises, police said.

Jakarta – Women and children from Jamaah Ahmadiyah families have been suffering not only repeated attacks but also discrimination and human rights abuses from Muslims outside the "deviant" Islamic sect, says a report.

Jakarta – Indonesian Corruption Watch has urged the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to investigate alleged graft within the Supreme Court after the court refused to state publicly how appellants' administrative fees were managed.

ICW legal investigator Febri Diansyah said Friday there were indications the Supreme Court had misused administrative fees.

Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – Islamic schools need to include more scientific and research studies, rather than trying to revive the glory of past Islamic civilization by focusing solely on theology, a seminar here heard Thursday.

[The following statement in English was edited slightly for readability, the original SMS message in Indonesian translated and the full names of organisations added where abbreviations only were used in the original – James Balowski.]

The following are statements of objection by three organisations that are part of the Ternate (North Maluku) National Liberation Front (FPN) against statements and releases issue by the Indonesian Student League for Democracy (LMND) and the People's Challenge Alliance (FRM).

[The following is a slightly abridged translation of a statement by the People's Struggle Front (FPR) condemning recent acts of violence by police against peaceful protests opposing the Indonesian government's planned fuel price hikes.]

Greeting of struggle,

Jakarta – Twenty students were detained by city police and were named suspects of various crimes after being arrested at recent demonstrations, a city police spokesperson said Thursday.

Jakarta – Bureaucratic reform in Indonesia has moved at snail's pace due to intervention by political parties and widespread corruption, a seminar heard Thursday.

Political considerations played a dominant role in the recruitment of personnel for professional bureaucratic positions, said Miftah Toha, a professor of political science at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta.

A report emerging from Indonesia's Papua region claims a Papuan man was forced to rape his fiancee by 8 Indonesian Navy marines in Jayapura.

The Elsham Human Rights group in Papua says the incident has been detailed in a report from a church group.

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – The Free Aceh Movement (GAM) has renamed its local party, and ended its armed struggle for Acehnese social welfare under the Indonesian political system.

With a redesigned symbol and flag the new party, Partai Aceh (Aceh Party), also has a different agenda to GAM.

Aid group Church World Service says climate change has helped push malnutrition in West Timor to levels higher than in Africa. A survey of 4,800 households by the group found 61.1 per cent of children under five in the region were stunted due to chronic malnutrition, while 13.1 per cent of children were acutely malnourished.

Dili – East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta is confident about his young country's future, despite lingering poverty and swirling mistrust over rebel attacks three months ago that left him near death.

Jakarta, Cirebon, Yogyakarta, Makassar – Thousands of students across the nation took to the streets Wednesday to reject the government plan to increase fuel prices and provide direct cash aid for affected low-income households.

The protests were generally peaceful, although minor incidents marred demonstrations in Jakarta and Cirebon, West Java.

Abdul Khalik, Jakarta – While some observers say there has been significant progress in the professionalism of the Indonesian military (TNI), many others think military reform has been too slow and half-hearted in the past decade following the authoritarian era.

Jakarta – The United Nations Committee against Torture (UNCAT) has recommended Indonesia drop its plan to outlaw Ahmadiyah, saying the ban will legitimize crimes against members of the Islamic sect.

T. Sima Gunawan, Contributor, Jakarta – Ten years after the country declared war on graft, it is still common, if the numerous investigations into government officials accused of stealing stats money are any indication.

Jakarta – The KPK unveiled Wednesday a link between two top officials at the Attorney General Office's (AGO) in the case of alleged bribery involving businesswoman Artalyta Suryani and state prosecutor Urip Tri Gunawan.

Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta – Indonesia has recently emerged as the "good boy" at the international level due to its positive role in global talks and its signing of many environmental agreements.

Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta – The environment ministry has warned Indonesia's emissions from the energy sector will continue to increase if oil and gas companies do not prevent their carbon from being released into the atmosphere.

Apriadi Gunawan and Rizal Harahap, Medan/Pekanbaru – Choking haze from forest fires in Riau and Jambi has blanketed North Sumatra for several days and threatens to spread to neighboring countries.

Harry Bhaskara, Jakarta – In a sense, the media is like an eligible bride who often has a honeymoon with a new government.

In Indonesia, that honeymoon began in 1998 when autocrat Soeharto fell from grace and the press enjoyed freedom for the first time in more than two decades.

Jakarta – Waves of protesters commemorating 10 years of reformasi took to the streets on Wednesday May 21. At least 6,000 people from a number of mass and student organisations gathered at the State Palace and the House of Representatives (DPR) between 11am and 6pm. The protesters presented seven people's demands to the government.

Greenpeace says that without good governance, Indonesia's plans to utilise millions more hectares in its Papua region are unlikely to be sustainably managed.

Indonesia's agriculture ministry says that since Sumatra and Kalimantan have become too dense for new palm oil plantations, the only land available is in Papua.

Dear friends,

Rebels who attacked the East Timorese leadership in February were trying to seize control of the country, President Jose Ramos-Horta says.

Dili – East Timor's President Jose Ramos-Horta said Wednesday he had slashed the seven-year jail sentence handed out to a former minister for distributing weapons during violent unrest in 2006.

[The following is a compilation of abridged translations from Detik.com and Tempo Interactive covering protest actions around the country on May 21 against the Indonesian government's planned fuel price increases.]

Anti-fuel price hike protest in Bogor ends in clash

Jakarta – The ministry of industry has revised down the country's industrial growth target for the third time in five months to between 4.5 and 5 percent in response to the government's plan to increase fuel prices.

Jakarta – Indonesians took to the streets in angry protests over the soaring cost of food and a planned fuel price hike Wednesday, as an economic "crisis" overshadowed the 10th anniversary of Suharto's fall.

Johannes Simbolon, Jakarta – The rise in oil prices is happening at the "wrong time" for Indonesia – at a time when the country is struggling to stop or reverse the decline in its oil production.

In the past, when the country's oil production was still high and the country's oil production exceeded demand, a rise in oil prices was always welcomed as good news.

Jakarta – Thousands of students took to the streets across Indonesia on Wednesday to protest the government's plan to raise fuel prices.

With global oil prices surging, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has said he has little choice but to slash subsidies that threaten to bust the state budget, and raise fuel prices by up to 30 percent by the month's end.

Abdul Khalik, Jakarta – The House of Representatives is poised to pass an amended law on military tribunals that would allow civilian courts to try soldiers involved in non-military offenses.

Jakarta Police detained 18 students from Mercu Buana University who took over a fuel truck during a rally in West Jakarta on Tuesday.

The students used the country's 100th National Awakening Day to stage a protest against the government's recent decision to increase fuel prices.

Jakarta – The government of Indonesia, the world's largest palm oil producer, is now looking at its vast easternmost provinces in Papua to expand its palm oil plantations, a senior official said Wednesday.

Jakarta – Former student activists who took part in the historic rallies of May 1998 have called their struggle for sweeping reforms a disappointment.

The former students, some of them having joined major political parties, concluded in a discussion Tuesday that apart from forcing President Soeharto to resign, most of their demands had failed to materialize.

On this date 10 years ago, when Soeharto ended his 32-year iron-fisted rule, the country's economy was in total chaos, partly – some say mostly – because of the president's inability to control the greed of his children and cronies.

Chaz Muth, Washington – Indigenous residents of Indonesia's Irian Jaya region suffer a multitude of injustices, from rape and murder to the pilfering of riches extracted from their island, said representatives of an Indonesian Catholic diocese.

Dili – It is 8am and Star King in Dili, Timor-Leste's capital, is about to open. For most of the year, Star King, a dimly lit warehouse that sells tinned milk, noodles and cooking oil, is a store among a dozen just like it. But today police have been called to help manage the 100 or so anxious people waiting outside.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – East Timorese citizens are celebrating the sixth anniversary of their independence today, but with an edge of uncertainty about their political and economic future.