James Balowski, Jakarta – The official death toll from the massive earthquake that struck densely populated Yogyakarta and parts of Central Java on May 27 now stands at more than 6200, with more than 46,000 people injured – 33,000 seriously.

M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – The government and the House of Representatives should not water down powers granted to future Aceh administrations because they would be in violation of last year's Helsinki peace accord, a coalition of non-governmental organizations says.

M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – After 26 episodes of mocking and lampooning the country's political leaders, the groundbreaking political satire Republik Benar-Benar Mabok (Truly Drunken Republic) has been taken off the air. Monday night was the show's last episode.

Jon Lamb – While the fighting between different factions of the East Timor Defence Force (FDTL) and the East Timor National Police (PNTL) has ceased with the arrival of the Australian-led international security force, sporadic street skirmishes and violence by unruly gangs continue.

Peter Boyle – Commenting on the Australian troop deployment to East Timor on May 31, the Australian's Paul Kelly said, "this intervention is both military and political. Its primary purpose was to respond to East Timor's security crisis... But this is not just a military intervention. It is a highly political intervention...

Jakarta – Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso said Monday he was happy to meet with police to find a way to disband groups that justified acts of aggression with religion or ethnicity.

The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) today urged Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to promote justice and reform, not the Indonesian military, when he visits Jakarta Tuesday.

The unfortunate thing about overseas is that it is full of foreigners, and they have different traditions from us. That seems to be the gist of some lamentations here about the state of East Timor.

Nani Afrida, Banda Aceh – A peace deal signed in August last year by the government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) marked an end of three decades of conflict in Aceh, but it also marked the beginning of a crime wave in the province.

Maryann Keady, Dili – East Timor Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri says that he is a marked man and vows to not leave his government post without a fight. As violent civil unrest in East Timor continues and an Australian-led intervention force digs in, Asia's youngest country's political future is very much in doubt.

Diane Farsetta – Is the Southeast Asian island nation of East Timor a success story or a basket case?

Paul Eckert, Jakarta – Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld hailed restored US military ties with Indonesia, but was told that America was seen as "overbearing" when it appeared to be pushing its anti-terrorism policies on others.

Up to 2,000 protesters paraded through Dili in a convoy of trucks and motorcycles to call for the dismissal of East Timor's prime minister Mari Alkatiri and his government.

Yuli Tri Suwarni and Ridwan Max Sijabat, Bandung/Jakarta – Government underfunding is to blame for the high number of fatal accidents on the state rail network, PT Kereta Api's (PT KA) management and workers say.

Yogyakarta – Dozens of aid trucks laden with rice remained blocked in government depots on Tuesday due to bureaucratic bottlenecks, angering Indonesian earthquake survivors struggling to rebuild their shattered lives.

Jakarta – Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid's faction of the conflict-ridden National Awakening Party (PKB) is the legitimate face of the political group, a court here ruled Monday.

Tb. Arie Rukmantara, Jakarta – Flash floods, landslides, poisonous air, polluted water and other catastrophes haunting millions of Indonesians are the logical consequences of the country's ineptitude in preserving its ecological balance, say environmental activists.

Jakarta – The ongoing campaign to revitalize the state ideology, Pancasila, has put some Muslim hard-liners, currently working to turn Indonesia into an Islamic state, on the defensive.

It turns out, however, that leaders of the groups say that they too accept Pancasila – but they have the right to interpret its meaning the Islamic way.

Michael Perry, Yogyakarta – Aid is now flowing to tens of thousands of survivors of Indonesia's earthquake but shelter remains a critical problem, the United Nations said on Monday, as Jakarta revised down the disaster death toll.

Bantul – Indonesian authorities have revised down the death toll from the Java earthquake to nearly 5,800, as new aid supplies helped survivors move forward on the long road to recovery.

Indonesia's consumer confidence improved a notch in the first quarter of this year, compared to the previous quarter, with more than 20 percent of respondents in a recent survey believing they are doing better.

The Roy Morgan Indonesian Consumer Confidence Rating was 107.8, up 2.6 points from 105.2 in the final quarter of last year.

Rendi Akhmad Witular, Jakarta – Investor confidence in the country's economy may further dwindle as the government and lawmakers are showing no sense of urgency about completing the deliberation of key bills related to economic reform, even as time is running out.

Jakarta – Three private groups of lawyers and activists have filed suit against the Indonesian attorney general's office for dropping a long-running corruption case against ailing former dictator Suharto.

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.