Febriamy Hutapea & Muninggar Sri Saraswati – Still reeling from having his party at the center of the latest corruption scandal to rock the House of Representatives, the head of the National Mandate Party, or PAN, has attempted to resuscitate PAN's flagging campaign by reaching out to a number of parties.

Yuli Tri Suwarni, Bandung – The wave of layoffs caused by the negative impacts of the global economic crisis has increased by another 18,000 people in West Java in the first two months of this year.

Yogyakarta – Over 5,000 disabled people in Sleman regency might lose their voting rights in the upcoming legislative election if special aid is not put in place for them.

ID Nugroho, Surabaya – Gresik has followed other regencies protesting against the blatant disregard of a recent rise in minimum wages by employers, which it has called on to respect workers' rights.

Corinne Podger – Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon has told Radio Australia that Australian troops will stay as long as East Timor says it needs them.

Nivell Rayda – One of the country's most senior Muslim leaders on Thursday threatened to issue an edict banning people from voting for the incumbent president in the upcoming election because of the government's reluctance to outlaw the Ahmadiyah religious sect.

Andra Wisnu, Jakarta – Islam and yoga share more similarities than some parties would like to admit, a seminar concluded Thursday.

Titled "Yoga and Pluralism and the Islamic Perspective on Peace" experts participating in the forum, held at the Bali-India Foundation office in Denpasar, said that Islam shared many similarities with Yoga.

Stephanie March – East Timor's state secretary for defence, Julio Tomas Pinto, wants to send more of his troops to Australia for training.

Indra Harsaputra, Surabaya – The upcoming legislative election has already been tainted by money politics, fueled by the fierce competition among the hundreds of thousands of candidates.

Jakarta – Ten years down the track, regional autonomy may be doing more harm than good, the founding father of the country's current self-reliance model says.

Aditya Suharmoko, Jakarta – Indonesia has officially agreed US$5.5 billion of loans from Australia, Japan, the World Bank (WB) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to help fill shortfalls in the state budget, as well as to stimulate the weakening economy.

Australia supplies $1 billion and Japan $1.5 billion, WB supplies $2 billion and ADB $1 billion.

Lilian Karunungan – Indonesia's rupiah erased losses on speculation the central bank intervened to support the currency. Government bonds rose.

Teguh Prasetyo – Indonesian exporters are projecting an increasingly bleak outlook for the coming months, with January-April orders likely to drop by as much as 30 percent, particularly in commodities and manufacturing, raising the specter of more job losses.

Luh De Suriyani, Denpasar – Residents and members of Denpasar's artistic community have urged the city administration not to ban the ogoh-ogoh festival, held on the eve of Balinese Hindu Saka New Year, or Nyepi.

The city administration has banned the annual event, claiming that it could spark riots between rival political factions given the upcoming election.

Jakarta – The International Labor Organization (ILO) launched a new project involving the National Teacher's Union (PGRI) and other workers' unions to fight child labor in Indonesia, inaugurated Wednesday by ILO country director Alan Boulton.

Anita Rachman – A decade after the country launched its decentralization drive, the promised prosperity for the regions has failed to materialize, one of the policy's key proponents said on Wednesday.

Muninggar Sri Saraswati & Sally Piri – Two senior members of the fractured Golkar Party have announced their willingness to run for vice president on the ticket of incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono after Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who is also Golkar chairman, indicated he may contest the presidency.

Multa Fidrus, Tangerang – The global financial crisis has forced several large manufacturers in Banten to file a request with the provincial administration to pay workers less than the minimum wage.

Camelia Pasandaran – The General Elections Commission continues to face new challenges in the distribution of ballot papers across the country and has been unable to increase the rate of production.

Irawaty Wardany – The already-tarnished integrity of the country's legislators is once again under the spotlight after the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) arrested yet another legislator for alleged bribery.

Abdul Hadi Djamal, now dismissed from the National Mandate Party (PAN), was caught Monday night allegedly receiving bribes.

Jakarta – While some lawmakers have offered valid excuses for their absences from the last plenary session of the House of Representatives, most could not offer anything beyond laziness.

By Murray McLaughlin

Kerry O'Brien, Presenter: Here is a story about East Timor, where a newspaperman who was jailed for his resistance activity during the time of Indonesia's occupation is facing the prospect of being put back behind bars if he's found guilty of a charge of criminal defamation.

Nurdin Hasan & Markus Junianto Sihaloho – Indonesian soldiers who pulled down the flags and banners of political parties in Aceh earlier this week had no authority to do so and might have committed legal violations, a local election supervisory committee, or Panwaslu, said on Wednesday.

Camelia Pasandaran & Markus Junianto Sihaloho – As preparations for next month's elections intensify, several legislative candidates admitted on Thursday that they were reaching too deep into their pockets to finance their campaigns.

Television star-turned-politician Raslina Rasyidin said she couldn't rely solely on her popularity anymore.

Febriamy Hutapea – The Prosperous Justice Party, or PKS, stepped up its communication with other Islam-based parties on Thursday night with a discussion about a possible coalition in the July presidential election.

Lindsay Murdoch, Darwin – Authorities in Dili have charged 28 people, including Timorese-born Australian Angelita Pires, over last year's attacks on East Timor's top two political leaders.

Prosecutors say they will ask a Dili court to jail 42-year-old Pires for three years.

Undeterred by a series of court-issued setbacks for independent candidates and small parties, 23 political parties have established a group to fight a Constitutional Court ruling that upheld a threshold for parties to make it into the House of Representatives.

Dicky Christanto, Jakarta – A crack is appearing within the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), with its top brass split over which presidential candidates to support.

A faction led by PKS president Tifatul Sembiring has intensified moves to approach Vice President and Golkar Party chairman Jusuf Kalla, who recently expressed his readiness to run for president.

Muninggar Sri Saraswati – In the past few weeks, the media has reported a spate of stories concerning candidates in the upcoming legislative elections being suspected of involvement in various thefts.

Jakarta – In addition to declining exports, Indonesia's industry is under another threat of equally great significance – a continued drop in imports of key raw materials.

Such conditions could have a major impact on the unemployment rate, said Edy Putra, a deputy to the Coordinating Minister for the Economy, on Tuesday.

Muhamad Al Azhari – Emerging-market countries such as Indonesia are struggling for increasingly scarce liquidity in global financial markets as they compete with the US Treasury's plans to issue $3 trillion in debt to fund the US budget deficit, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said on Tuesday.

Febriamy Hutapea – The corruption-plagued House of Representatives was criticized on Tuesday after it concluded its third sitting session of the 2008-09 governmental year without enacting legislation for the establishment of a permanent Anti-Corruption Court.

Camelia Pasandaran – An advocate for the rights of migrant workers said on Tuesday that the lives of Indonesians working overseas had not significantly improved since the last elections.

Nivell Rayda – An anticorruption declaration signed last week by all of the political parties running in the legislative elections amounts to nothing without the action to support it, Indonesia Corruption Watch said on Tuesday.

Jakarta – The House of Representatives has once again upheld its poor record for legislation performance, ending its 45-day sitting period on Tuesday with just three bills having been passed into law.

The three laws deal with the trafficking of women and children, taxes and the ratification of the UN convention against transnational organized crime.

Rizal Sukma, Jakarta – Reading the warnings by TNI Chief Gen. Djoko Santoso last week reminded me of the days of the New Order rule. During that era, especially when the general elections were approaching, military generals routinely warned the people of possible threats to the nation's stability and security.

Adianto P. Simamora – Activists have warned that the legislative elections slated for April 9 may not be held simultaneously across the country due to logistics quandaries coupled with poor preparation by the polls body.

Muninggar Sri Saraswati – If Vice President Jusuf Kalla was trying to make his stance on running for president clear during remarks to Golkar Party cadres over the weekend, he still managed to leave political observers around the country scratching their heads over what his real plans are.

Irawaty Wardany, Jakarta – The government's plan to ban unregistered and contractual marriages and tighten procedures for polygamous ones sparked controversy Monday among the public.

Some said the government should not interfere in the private lives of its citizens, while others said the plan should be supplemented with a revision of the 1974 marriage law.

Heru Andriyanto & Markus Junianto Sihaloho – Authorities have arrested 436 terror suspects since the country launched a major crackdown on terrorism in the wake of the October 2002 Bali bombings, according to a government report issued on Monday.

Anita Rachman – In the heart of Sumatra, amid the forests, farmlands and rural villages, a disturbing turf war is raging between humans and animals for dwindling space and natural resources.

Paul Toohey – Angelita Pires has been accused of being an indirect author of last year's shooting of East Timor President Jose Ramos Horta and has been charged with 19 counts of attempted homicide.

Pandaya, Jakarta – It has been three months since the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) rocked the boat when it arrested Aulia Pohan, a former Bank Indonesia deputy governor who happens to be the father-in-law of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's son.

Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta – The open system to allocate legislative seats will not entirely shut out political parties from naming their representatives in legislatures.

Harry Bhaskara, Jakarta – Dressed in his Golkar Party uniform and belting out political slogans to passing motorists, Indra Piliang knows all too well the stress of public campaigning in the lead up to legislative elections.

Five Australians jailed in Indonesia over an ill-fated sightseeing adventure in West Papua have been released from prison while their lawyers prepare an appeal.

Multa Fidrus, Tangerang – More than a thousand factory workers in Banten face an uncertain future after two manufacturing firms where they have been working for years made moves to sever contracts this weekend.

Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta – Women's activists and legislators have vowed not to stop fighting for more seats in legislative bodies, after failing to win a legal basis to support their move.

They plan to stage a massive series of rallies later this week to pressure the government to ensure more legislative seats for women during the April 9 legislative elections.

Aloysius Unditu and Arijit Ghosh – Indonesia's exports fell the most in more than 22 years in January and inflation slowed the following month, increasing scope for the central bank to reduce its benchmark interest rate this week.

The United Nations Security Council has unanimously approved East Timor's request to keep its peace keeping force there for another year.

The UN says peace and security have improved since the assassination attempt on President Jose Ramos Horta by rebel forces a year ago but the situation remains fragile.