The Asia Director of Human Rights Watch has serious doubts about therecently appointed attorney-general, MA Rachman, considering his trackrecord. She believes that he obstructed completion of the cases about humanrights abuses.

Reuters in Jakarta – A leading international rights group yesterday accused Indonesia's security forces and Aceh rebels of violating human rights with impunity in an increasingly bloody conflict in the province.

Seth Mydans – Just at the start of his ill-starred presidency, Abdurrahman Wahid slipped out of his official palace and made a secret pilgrimage to the tomb of a Muslim holy man who preached here in central Java 400 years ago.

Terry Friel, Lhokseumawe – Rebels in Indonesia's battered Aceh province said on Sunday they could not work with new nationalist President Megawati Sukarnoputri and demanded foreign intervention to help end the bloodshed.

Abdul Razak Ahmad – Only one road leads to the house of Pramoedya Ananta Toer and I am not on it. Lost instead in a maze of back lanes in the Javanese village of Desa Waringin Jaya, I am driving around in circles trying to find the house of the man generally regarded as the greatest living writer in Indonesia.

Muninggar Sri Saraswati and Fitri, Jakarta – "Being a becak driver is easy. I just have to use my muscles," said Yatim.

[The following is the state-of-the-nation address delivered by President Megawati Soekarnoputri before the House of Representatives on August 16, 2001 ahead of Independence Day.]

Robert Go, Jakarta – Less than four weeks after she became Indonesia's leader, Ms Megawati Sukarnoputri presided over an emotional Independence Day ceremony in front of what was the Dutch colonial governor's palace.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – Apocalyptic predictions are rife in East Timor as the territory approaches political freedom after centuries of Portuguese colonial rule and a quarter century of Indonesian military repression.

Rodney Joyce, Aiwo, Nauru – South Pacific island nation leaders on Friday backed Indonesian plans for autonomy in Irian Jaya rather than the independence Melanesian separatists are seeking for the restive province.

Banda Aceh – At least 30 bombs or grenade blasts were heard around the main city in the restive province of Aceh in the run-up to Indonesia's Independence Day Friday, residents said.

The blasts cut power to the provincial capital Banda Aceh for some hours Thursday night and badly damaged four banks, an AFP reporter saw. One was burnt to the ground.

Mark Riley, New York – The Prime Minister has asked to meet with the United Nations Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, as the UN comes under pressure to accelerate its withdrawal from East Timor and leave an even greater bill to Australia and its regional partners.

Authorities in Indonesia's Aceh province have unearthed a grave containing the bodies of 48 people, a spokesman said yesterday. Lieutenant-Colonel Firdaus said the mass grave was found near Lhong village, in the west of Aceh, a province on the northern tip of Sumatra.

United Nations civil police in the Suai region of East Timor have detained two people suspected of committing infractions of election campaign rules, a UN source told Lusa on Friday.

Lely Djuhari, Jakarta – President Megawati Sukarnoputri, a staunch nationalist, said yesterday she respected East Timor's right to secede from Indonesia, and apologised for atrocities in Aceh and Irian Jaya.It was the first time that Ms Megawati, who opposed East Timor's independence, has publicly acknowledged its right to self-determination.

Jakarta – With an unstable security situation and well-entrenched separatist movements, Indonesia has become fertile soil for international terrorist groups to sow seeds of violence, experts warned.

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – President Megawati Sukarnoputri has disappointed observers in Jakarta by appointing as Attorney-General a low-key prosecutor who failed to pursue senior military officers over atrocities in East Timor.

Brussels – Two Belgians held hostage for over two months by a separatist group in the Papua New Guinea jungle have been released, the Belgian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

Jakarta – Pro-independence leaders in Irian Jaya and Aceh were unmoved Thursday by President Megawati Sukarnoputri's apology for past suffering inflicted on the restive Indonesian provinces.

Jakarta – House of Representatives (DPR) speaker Akbar Tandjung hailed on Wednesday the decision by President Megawati Soekarnoputri to appoint M.A. Rachman, a career attorney, as thenew attorney general.

Marianne Kearney – Anti-corruption campaigners and human-rights lawyers yesterday criticised President Megawati Sukarnoputri's choice of Attorney-General as a step back in the government's drive to tackle graft and rights abuses.

Aout 200 ex-Falintil members on Tuesday staged a one-day sit-in at UNTAET headquarters to demand that the United Nations fulfill its promises to the former freedom fighters.

Domingos da Silva, spokesperson for the ex-Falintil said the group of freedom fighters that did not meet the grade to enter the Timor Lorosae Defense Forces (FDTL) were in dire straits.

Jakarta – The owner of a car repair shop who is facing a possible death sentence for the bombing of the Jakarta Stock Exchange building told the court on Wednesday that he was a scapegoat and had been framed.

Mark Dodd, Dili – With an army of street kids recruited to plaster seafront coconut trees with stickers, and a UN vehicle pressed into service blaring raucous political messages, the Timorese Nationalist Party (PNT) kicked off its election campaign this week.

Max Lane – In moves which confirm activists' appraisals that her government represents a return to power of those allied with former dictator Suharto, the government of newly-elected president Megawati Sukarnoputri is escalating a targeted program of political arrests.

Robert Go, Jakarta – Indonesia will sell assets cheaply, if necessary, to meet state-budget targets and to conform to the prescriptions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said the country's new minister of state-owned enterprises.

Michael Schuman – A deteriorating Indonesian economy could constrain new President Megawati Sukarnoputri's efforts to pursue much-needed reforms.

Pip Hinman – It doesn't come as much surprise that PM John Howard has been so quick to visit Jakarta. Barely a day after the new Indonesian cabinet was announced, Howard was on his way to make a deal with the Sukarnoputri-military government.

Craig Skehan, Nauru – A senior member of the Irian Jayan independence movement who slipped into Nauru for the annual gathering of Pacific island leaders despite an official ban, made an impassioned plea for regional support before being deported.

Jakarta – Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri Wednesday called for dialogue rather than violence to settle separatist pressures in Aceh and announced she would visit the restive province soon, officials said.

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – The Indonesian navy is stepping up patrols in the Straits of Malacca to block supplies to separatist rebels in Aceh, while President Megawati Sukarnoputri pursues a political solution to the conflict by summoning Acehnese community leaders to Jakarta yesterday.

Eighty supporters of Solidarity for the Acehnese Peoples Movement, mostly non-Acehnese, held a protest in Jalan Thamrin, a central Jakarta thoroughfare, on August 7.

Sam Frost – Oil giant ExxonMobil's operations in the Indonesian province of Aceh are to be examined by a US court, after 11 Acehnese filed a suit against the company, claiming to have suffered human rights abuses at the hands of military units acting on its behalf.

Max Lane – Militant trade union leader and former political prisoner Dita Sari has been awarded the Raymond Magsaysay Award, considered an Asian Nobel Prize, for being a "leader of new forces in Asia".The chairperson of the Indonesian National Front for Workers' Struggles, Dita Sari told the People's Democratic Party's August 8 issue of Our Tasks, that she was "very moved [by the aw

Jakarta – Responding to the increasing number of terrorist attacks in the country, Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has instructed all branches of the security forces to mobilize their intelligence potential to prevent further outrages.

Medan – A court in the North Sumatran capital of Medan has jailed for 11 years a man found guilty of making and posting 14 bombs to churches and clergymen on Christmas Eve last year.

The sentence was lighter than the 20-year jail term sought by chief prosecutor Freddy Siregar.

Jakarta – Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri Wednesday swore in career prosecutor Muhammad Abdur Rahman as her new attorney general, a choice which left human rights advocates disappointed and sceptical.

Megawati said she had chosen someone from within the attorney general's office "to enhance the image of the office, which has recently been not too good."

Max Lane – Military generals and figures linked to the regime of former dictator Suharto have done well in the first cabinet of newly-elected President Megawati Sukarnoputri, which was announced on August 9.

Mark Dodd, Dili – A former member of the independence movement Fretilin, Dr Abilio Araujo, expelled for his links with Indonesia, has returned to East Timor after 26 years' self-imposed exile in Portugal to contest the election on August 30.

Joe Leahy – Antonio, a farmer in the arid highlands south of East Timor's capital Dili, points at a distant ridgeline. That is where his family's traditional houses were before Indonesia invaded in 1975.

[Source: RDP Antena 1 radio, Lisbon, in Portuguese. Excerpt from report by Portuguese radio on 14 August]

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – Australia has buried the hatchet with Indonesia's new government over East Timor, opening the way for renewed contact between the two countries' armed forces.

Jakarta – Human rights groups accused the the Indonesian army of hampering the hunt for the fugitive son of former dictator Suharto, as police interrogated his wife yesterday. Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra has eluded authorities since he was convicted of corruption last year and sentenced to 18 months in jail.

Jakarta – Some 74 becak (pedicab) drivers, formed a union here on Monday to fight for the right to peddle the streets of Jakarta. The decision was announced by drivers during a three-day congress held in a field opposite the Gapura Angkasa Building in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, that started on Sunday.

Jakarta – Hundreds of angry pedicab drivers set fire Tuesday to two Jakarta city council vehicles during an attempt to get them off the streets of the Indonesian capital, witnesses said.

The two pickup trucks were torched during an attempt by city officials to remove the pedicabs from main streets in the central Roxy and Karanganyar areas, one witness told AFP.

Unidentified assailants have thrown stones at a vehicle carrying Democratic Party (PD) supporters on a campaign tour of the Liquiga district west of the East Timorese capital.

The incident, which took place early Monday evening, left one car window smashed but no-one hurt and was only reported to police on Tuesday.

Jakarta – Indonesia will not agree to an international probe into the massacre of 31 people in strife-ridden Aceh province because it would infringe upon its sovereignty, Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said on Monday.

[Source: RDP Antena 1 radio, Lisbon, in Portuguese]

Certain political parties have resorted to door knocking campaigns forcing people to vote for them. This was brought up at a dialogue session with the Democrat Party (PD) campaign manager who visited Aileu on Saturday.

Thousands of people made their way to Dili on Saturday to take part in the UDT mammoth campaign. UDT supporters in buses and trucks toured the city shouting slogans and waving victory signs before they reached the Democracy field to hear UDT leaders and candidates speak. At the Democracy Field, supporters and on-lookers were entertained by the popular rock band Vi-Almaa-X.