Yogita Tahilramani, Jakarta – Corruptors who build on their relationships with leading political figures bring more havoc to the Indonesian legal system than other issues that lead to corruption, including low salaries among the judiciary and the police, a criminologist said on Monday.

Robert Go, Jakarta – Indonesia should not extend its contract with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) when it expires, said National Development Planning Minister Kwik Kian Gie yesterday in a scathing attack that accused the lender of making policy demands that "complicate" matters and are "dangerous" to the country's recovery programme.

Vaudine England, Jakarta – Paramilitary leader Eurico Guterres, notorious for his leadership of the East Timorese Aitarak, or Thorn militia, has been charged with crimes against humanity along with six others.

Jakarta – A five-day strike by thousands of workers at Indonesia's largest cigarette company Gudang Garam appeared to have ended on Monday.

"By noon, there were no longer workers on strike gathering in front of the factory but I cannot yet say whether the strike is over," said a member of the company's public relations office.

Ian Munro – Premier Steve Bracks has asked Prime Minister John Howard not to force 1700 asylum seekers to return to East Timor.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, Mr Bracks said many of the 1400 East Timorese in Melbourne had no homes to return to and did not want to revisit the scenes of trauma and destruction experienced during the Indonesian occupation.

Ian Munro – It is more than seven years since Anna Fam, now 70, fled East Timor with her mother and several of her grandchildren. There is not a moment's hesitation when asked if she would choose to return.

Ian Timberlake, Dili – An official has revealed new details about counterinsurgency operations two years ago that killed several pro-Indonesia militiamen and crippled their efforts to destabilize East Timor's transition to independence.

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – Indonesia's main Islamic authority, the Council of Ulema (MUI), is waging a war against television stations and several publications, charging them of veering increasingly towards sex and pornography in the country.

Max Lane – A major theme of the ceremony that took place in Dili on May 20 to proclaim the independence of East Timor was that the three-year period of United Nations transitional administration was a great success. However, East Timor has been one of the great failures of the UN.

At least four more people – including a suspected separatist rebel – have been killed in Indonesia's Aceh province, according to the military and residents.

About a quarter of East Timorese exiles in Portugal who return to their native shores decide to come back to the European country after seeing conditions in Timor, a Portuguese NGO has revealed.

Jill Jolliffe – A week after East Timor became independent, the terrace of Dili's City Cafe is near deserted. Days before, it was crowded with media crews, international VIPs who had graced the independence ceremony and the United Nations officials who have made it their watering hole since it opened in 2000.

Alan Boyd, Sydney – Worried about the strategic vulnerability of its eastern flanks, Indonesia is discreetly lobbying for East Timor to be granted early observer status in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Harald Bruning – Less than a fortnight after becoming the world's newest nation, East Timor is struggling to consolidate its hard-won democracy and solve myriad social problems left behind by Portuguese colonial neglect, brutal Indonesian occupation and rather transitory nation-building efforts by the United Nations.

East Timor has come a long way since the establishment of the United Nations Transitional Administration in the country, in 1999. The world's newest State has emerged, and in May of this year, a new labour code was signed into force.

Ian Timberlake, Motaain – Joao Pereira's East Timor home is just a few miles from here, but until recently it was a distance he had been reluctant to travel.

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – The battle is on for the most lucrative governor's position in Indonesia.

The Jakarta Governor's seat is hotly sought after, offering enormous power and prestige in the country's most populous and richest of cities.

Robert Go, Jakarta – Legislators, bureaucrats and even retired army generals are opening legal consultancies to make a quick buck.

Formal qualifications are not what count; connections with the bureaucracy and plain bribery are being used to win cases.

Craig Skehan – At least four boatloads of Muslim migrants – including many members of the militant Laskar Jihad – had arrived during the past week in the restive Indonesian province of West Papua, independence activists said yesterday.

David Shanks, Dili – "The reconciliations are amazing. They sit in little huddles and cry and hug each other." A UN refugees' official was describing the work of Dili's La Quarantina transit centre for refugees returning to independent East Timor.

Joanna Jolly, Dili – The government on Friday urged Indonesia to abandon any hope of retrieving assets from its former territory of East Timor, saying Jakarta's brutality and economic exploitation during its occupation nullified any claims to what it left behind.

Joseph Nevins – East Timor became the world's first new country of the millennium on May 20 and, appropriately, the Bush administration poured salt on East Timor's deep wounds. Bush's salt took the form of Bill Clinton and Richard Holbrooke, Clinton's last United Nations ambassador. Bush tapped the pair to head the US delegation to East Timor's recent independence celebration.

Associated Press in Jakarta – A notorious militia leader told a human rights court yesterday that his group's activities in East Timor were funded by an Indonesian government official – but denied knowing about killings allegedly committed by his men.

Kupang – Col. Moeswarno Moesanip, chief of the Wirasakti Military District supervising security in East Nusa Tenggara, turned down East Timor's request for the province to allow overland public transportation from Dili to proceed its enclave Oecusi through Atambua for security reasons.

Eric Ellis – For most of the chic clientele at Dili's City Cafe, the awesome struggle facing the Democratic Republic of Timor Lorosa'e seems the least of their concerns.

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, Jakarta – Two of the survivors in the April 1999 incident at Liquica Church in East Timor testified here on Thursday that what happened on the day was an attack on scared people by armed pro-integration militiamen.

Damar Harsanto, Jakarta – How can students study and their teachers concentrate on their work under a classroom ceiling that is threatening to fall on them at anytime? Yul Indira, the principal of state elementary school SD Pisangan Baru 13 in East Jakarta, may be able to answer the question.

Joe Leahy and Tom McCawley – When the veteran United Nations official Sergio Vieira de Mello went to Tokyo in late 1999 to lobby donors for funds to rebuild East Timor, he had no inkling of the task that lay before him.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – A Portuguese company is poised to win a $US16 million contract to set up East Timor's new telecommunications network, further consolidating Portugal's commercial influence in the new nation.

Jakarta – Two East Timorese bearing scars from a 1999 massacre Thursday told Indonesia's human rights court of a day of terror when militiamen brandishing guns and machetes attacked a church and killed 22 people.

Jakarta – The government has backtracked on its earlier decision to review a law on regional autonomy and agreed to wait until an evaluation of the legislation is completed before making changes.

Lela E. Madjiah, Ambon – Indonesian military personnel serving in Maluku face a tough choice: Remain loyal to the republic or leave the military.

The option was offered by Army Strategic Reserves Command (Kostrad) Chief Lt. Gen. Ryamizard Ryacudu during a one-day visit to Ambon on May 20.

Derwin Pereira, Jakarta – The Indonesian armed forces (TNI) has been accused of imposing "concealed martial law" on the trouble-torn Maluku islands after initial attempts to impose it through the proper channels met with widespread opposition.

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – The international environmental group Greenpeace, which is renowned for its confrontational stance towards governments, has been invited by Indonesia to help fight illegal logging, in a sign that Jakarta is getting desperate to prevent the widespread destruction of its environment.

Newly independent East Timor urged former ruler Indonesia to drop its compensation demand for assets left behind after Jakarta ended its two-decade occupation of the country.

But Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta played down Jakarta's decision to postpone indefinitely a visit by Dili's new leaders to Indonesia which had been scheduled for Wednesday.

Pandaya, Dili – There is a tragicomedy taking place in the East Timor's elementary schools. It revolves around the teachers' low proficiency of the Portuguese language, which the government has decided to use as the official language of instruction for grades one to three.

[The following is a slightly abridged version of a speech given by Sarah Stephen, a member of the Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific brigade to East Timor, at a protest organised by a number of East Timorese groups in Dili on May 19.]

[In the 2.5 years of UN administration in East Timor, the UN has been criticised for failing to pursue those responsible for the atrocities of 1999. With new president Xanana Gusmao's commitment to reconciliation with Indonesia and its former militia, there are fears that justice will be equally elusive in an independent East Timor. Dateline's Mark Davis reports.]

As East Timor struggles with its new relationship with Canberra, a book is being published on Australia's role in that extraordinary journey to independence from 1998. Titled "Deliverance – The Inside Story of East Timor's Fight for Freedom", it's the work of two Australian journalists, Don Greenless in Jakarta and Robert Garran in Canberra.

Review by Jon Land – This is a two-part series looking at how two different individuals begin new lives in East Timor following the August 31, 1999 referendum on independence.

Sarah Stephen, Dili – May 19 marked the turning point of a historic period of transition for the East Timorese people. It was the last day of operation for the UN Transitional Administration of East Timor (UNTAET), bringing to a close more than 400 years of foreign rule.

Mark Drajem, Washington – The Bush administration is calling on Indonesia to rein in the military's financial empire, saying profit-making ventures have allowed the armed forces to become unaccountable to the central government.

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – Indonesia's capital is still reeling from the effects of severe flooding three months ago with some areas submerged in water, major roads damaged by huge potholes and some residents without proper housing.

An Indonesian minister has warned regions not to go ahead with a threat to blockade oil and gasfields in their areas following dissatisfaction about the revenue split with the central government.

Banda Aceh – Tension in war-ridden Aceh, especially East Aceh regency, was rising following the release by the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) of female students allegedly abducted early this month.

Agus Maryono, Purwokerto – Drug abuse, student brawls and pornography have reached an alarming level among junior and senior high school students in Central Java's rural areas.

The three problems, which have long affected students and school-age children in urban areas, are befalling teenagers in rural and remote areas of Purbalingga, Cilacap and Banyumas regencies.

Geoffrey Barker – There are three forms of land title in East Timor, reflecting the country's long history of foreign occupation.

Some land, notably rural land, is held under customary communal title. During 450 years of Portuguese rule, 2,709 parcels of land were given to the colonial elites. During Indonesia's 24-year rule, some 44,000 land parcels were handed out.

Ahmad Junaidi, Jakarta – The City Council approved on Monday a regulation in the gubernatorial election that limits the public's participation in monitoring the election process, including the possibility of money politics.

Geoffrey Barker – Life is cheap and law is scarce in East Timor. How effective justice will be remains to be seen as the new nation's police and legal systems are being put in place.

[Australia's decision not to negotiate maritime boundaries with East Timor has surprised the new republic's Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.