Cath Hart – The only West Papuan refused protection in Australia among a group of 43 asylum-seekers could have the decision overturned when his visa to Japan expires in September.

Jakarta – House of Representatives Speaker Agung Laksono has officially asked the government to drop a plan to revise the 2003 labor law, which stirred nationwide protests last month.

Elisia Yeo, Bantul – The United Nations warned that tens of thousands of Indonesia quake survivors still desperately needed shelter as new aftershocks frightened jittery residents.

A. Junaidi, Jakarta – "There is no point of return" is probably a perfect phrase to describe the spirit of human rights activist Ester Indahyani Jusuf in investigating mass killings in the country.

"We will continue to uncover the alleged mass killings even though people have started to forget the cases," Ester said in an interview with The Jakarta Post recently.

Elisia Yeo, Bantul – The United Nations says it is in a race against time to help survivors still struggling to get food, shelter and urgent medical care one week after the Indonesian earthquake.

Ian McPhedran, Dili – East Timor is a nasty little political jigsaw that will keep Australia guessing and engaged for decades to come. As rival gangs battled it out this week on the dusty back streets of the sweltering capital, former military officers sat stewing in the hills begging for dialogue and leadership, but refusing to lay down a single high-powered assault rifle.

Mark Dodd – The column of unarmed East Timorese police had walked less than 100m when the shooting began.

Two soldiers stepped forward, one of them armed with an M-16 rifle. What happened next was random and mind-numbingly brutal.

Tom Allard – Rosinha Erica Nunes is the kind of young woman that East Timor needs to cherish if it is to emerge as a viable country. A final-year high school student from a neighbourhood where few bother finishing their secondary education, she had the marks, and the ambition, to go to university next year.

Peter Symonds – Just over a week after its first troops landed in East Timor, the Australian government is conducting an unrelenting and barely disguised campaign of "regime change" in Dili. Two senior East Timorese ministers resigned on Thursday as part of a compromise deal brokered in a tense, two-day meeting of the country's consultative Council of State.

Jakarta – The Attorney General's Office (AGO) plans to summon all the debtors to the Bank Indonesia's Liquidity Support Scheme (BLBI) to ensure they pay back their debts by the government's December deadline.

It also plans to arrest one of the debtors who is wanted for a lending scam worth trillions of rupiah.

Endang Purwanti, Jakarta – An Ad Hoc Team from the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) is currently searching for 13 pro-democracy activists that disappeared between 1997 and 1998.

Jakarta/Bandung – The much-maligned Pancasila state ideology, now championed as the cure-all for societal conflicts, should not be returned to its once sacrosanct status in society, political experts say.

Ridarson Galingging, Chicago – The challenge ahead for the newly-reelected chief of the Indonesian Supreme Court Bagir Manan will not just be fighting corruption among judges, but also making the country's highest judicial body a forum for reviewing sharia-based bylaws that are not compatible with international human rights.

Endy M. Bayuni, Jakarta – A group of activists began circulating a petition Thursday seeking nationwide support to preserve Indonesia's diversity and to fight back against growing intolerance that they warn could tear the nation apart.

Jakarta – Indonesia and the United States will discuss ways to improve military ties during a visit by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Indonesia's foreign minister said Friday.

Rumsfeld is to meet President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Indonesia's defense and foreign ministers during his two-day visit, which begins Tuesday.

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – Sixty-five percent of people in a recent survey think the government was wrong in abandoning its prosecution of former president Soeharto for graft.

Tom Allard in Dili and agencies – Soldiers loyal to the East Timorese Government say rebels led by Major Alfredo Reinado ambushed them as they approached his stronghold for peace talks, casting new light on last week's fierce gunfight captured by a television crew.

Lindsay Murdoch and Tom Allard, Dili – Two of East Timor's most powerful ministers resigned from the embattled government in Dili yesterday, risking a further escalation of violence if security forces loyal to Rogerio Lobato, former minister for the interior, take revenge for his forced exit.

Paul Toohey – Saturday morning, things went crazy. The Australians had landed but, apart from a group of some 30 commandos nursing SR-25 semi-automatic rifles who had taken position around the United Nations compound, they were nowhere to be seen.

Tb. Arie Rukmantara, Jakarta – Lawmakers should summon top Freeport executives to explain the alleged environmental damage and human rights abuses at the firm's Grasberg mine in Papua, a team of legislators says.

Jakarta – The persistent weakness in Indonesia's economy has resulted in open unemployment remaining stubbornly high, with the number of people out of work in February compared to the same month last year staying unchanged at more than 10 percent of the workforce.

Elisia Yeo, Bantul – As thousands of Indonesian earthquake survivors held their first Friday prayers since the disaster, the United Nations warned the relief effort could take up to six months.

Palembang – Many poor residents have not been listed to receive the monthly cash assistance from the government although a reevaluation of poor families to be registered in the social welfare program has been conducted.

"We are included in the poor category because we have no jobs and we live in a slum," Dedi, a Lima Ulu subdistrict resident, told Antara on Thursday.

M. Taufiqurrahman and Nani Afrida, Jakarta/Banda Aceh – The secretive deliberation of the Aceh governance bill has sparked suspicions that factions in the House of Representatives are engaged in political maneuvering to water down the draft proposed by the Acehnese people.

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – A breakaway faction of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) has officially registered as the country's 28th political party, a move that the faction's supporters say will spell doom for the PDI-P.

Chris Brummitt, Bantul – Medicines, rice, water and tarps were delivered to Indonesia's earthquake disaster zone Wednesday to help about 650,000 displaced people, but many said the international aid was taking too long to get there.

Jakarta – Activists and academics have condemned the government's plan to spare state officials from prosecution if their policies are judged "erroneous", saying the regulation would only hinder the fight against graft.

Jakarta – Pro-democracy supporters and scholars are urging the upholding of the founding Pancasila state ideology to thwart hardline religious groups attempting to impose a monotheistic belief system.

Endy M. Bayuni, Jakarta – When the suggestion was made that Indonesia needs to restore Pancasila to its proper place as the unifying national ideology, many people reacted with skepticism or even downright cynicism.

Radzie, Banda Aceh – Hundreds of students and social activists in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh took to the streets again on June 1 to demand the immediate ratification of the Draft Law on Aceh Government (RUU-PA). This time, the action was centred at the governor's offices and the Aceh Regional House of Representatives (DPRD).

Helen Hill – The Australian Government and media have demonised East Timor's PM without knowing all the facts,

Nani Afrida, Banda Aceh – The decision of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) not to participate in the upcoming direct election of Aceh governor came as a shock but failed to discourage political parties from involving the former rebels.

Max Lane – On May 24, East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao, Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri and the speaker of East Timor's parliament Lu'olo sent a letter to the governments of Australia, Portugal, Malaysia and New Zealand as well as to the United Nations asking for assistance in the form of a military presence in order to respond to civil disorder in the East Timor capital Dili, and

Rohan Pearce – While not many details about the "security treaty" being negotiated between Canberra and Jakarta have been made public, the Howard government has indicated that it will include an Australian commitment to Indonesia's "territorial integrity" – in particular, opposition to self-determination for West Papua, including the right of West Papuans to secede from Indonesia an

Maryann Keady – Three years ago, I wrote a piece talking about attempts to oust Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri in East Timor, then a new struggling independent nation.

Jakarta – Some 300 people from several labor organizations staged a rally Tuesday in front of Jakarta Police Headquarters, demanding the release of eight workers who were detained following an ugly demonstration on May 3.

Rally coordinator Ilham Syah said the eight were not guilty of damaging public property as charged.

Jakarta – Governor Sutiyoso arrived back in the city Tuesday, from a day trip to Yogyakarta, to face allegations the administration misappropriated Rp 1.56 trillion (US$166 million) from the 2005 provincial budget.

"I'm asking the council not to make any statements that will cause a stir. I'm afraid the public will think we really have embezzled the money," he said.

Chris Brummitt, Bantul – US Marines joined an international effort to deliver aid and medical care to nearly 650,000 Indonesians displaced by a devastating earthquake, as hopes faded of finding more survivors.

Yogyakarta – Indonesian officials defended the earthquake relief operation under way in central Java, amid complaints from local residents that aid has been slow to arrive.

Jon Lamb – In response to ongoing clashes between the East Timor Defence Force (FDTL) and rebel soldiers and police, the East Timorese president, prime minister, foreign minister and speaker to the parliament sent a joint communique on the evening of May 24 to the Australian government requesting that it send troops as part of an international force to restore security.

Jakarta – The debate over whether to protect the country's forests or promote investment in the mining sector has reemerged, with mining firms now up in arms over Forestry Ministry guidelines that they claim are hampering their operations.

It is almost a week now after the arrival there of Australian peace-keepers but peace, you'd have to say, still seems a way off.

What, earlier this year, started out as basically an industrial dispute between disgruntled soldiers and the East Timorese Government, in April escalated when the armed forces split along both ethnic and political lines.

The entire country and the world have once again reacted with solidarity following another natural disaster here, this time the magnitude 5.9 earthquake that devastated Indonesia's densely populated Yogyakarta and parts of Central Java last Saturday.

Ridwan Max Sijabat/Tony Hotland, Jakarta – The government is insisting on classifying Saturday's deadly earthquake in Yogyakarta and Central Java as a local disaster, despite calls for it to be declared a national disaster and complaints about poorly coordinated aid efforts.

Sri Wahyuni and Blontank Poer, Bantul/Jakarta/Klaten Homeless survivors of Saturday's earthquake resorted to desperate measures Monday amid a dearth of assistance, with some camping out in a cattle shed and others begging for food from passersby.

Riyadi Suparno, Tokyo – The World Bank, a strong advocate of private sector investment in infrastructure, is now calling on governments around the world to increase their investment in infrastructure, noting that private sector investment in the sector can never be enough and has often brought about an unintended consequence: the victimizing of the poor.

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – An internal rift has forced the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) to drop its ambition to field gubernatorial candidates in the upcoming direct elections, a reliable source says.

Ian Timberlake, Bantul – Desperate Indonesian quake survivors were still waiting for aid despite pledges help would come fast, as the rising activity of a nearby volcano fuelled fears of an eruption.

Dili – East Timor dumped its defense minister Tuesday and the government showed signs of further unraveling, as desperate residents scuffled over scarce food in the capital and looters ransacked the prosecutor's office of vast numbers of files.

Jakarta – In the wake of the tragedy in Yogyakarta, in which thousands died in collapsed houses and buildings, experts warned that earthquake-resistant construction standards must be strengthened to prevent future disasters.