Jakarta – Vice President Jusuf Kalla expressed disappointment Wednesday after the political parties supporting his government failed to block a petition by the House of Representatives to look into a controversial plan to import rice.

Andi Widjajanto, Jakarta – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has nominated Air Marshal Djoko Suyanto to be the next Indonesian Military (TNI) commander. There are several explanations as to why the President picked Suyanto as his sole candidate.

Jakarta – The United Nations should publicise a report it was due to receive alleging that Indonesia's occupation of East Timor caused the deaths of up to 180,000 civilians, a rights group said.

Sian Powell, Jakarta – The Indonesian military used starvation as a weapon to exterminate the East Timorese, according to a UN report documenting the deaths of as many as 180,000 civilians at the hands of the occupying forces.

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – Had the New Order leader Soeharto – a former Army general – not been deposed, few Indonesian Air Force officers would likely hold important roles within the Indonesian Military (TNI).

Duncan Graham, Surabaya – The treaty now being negotiated between Australia and Indonesia raises some interesting questions: The foremost is – who benefits?

According to Australian media reports the long discussed document will cover counter-terrorism, fish poaching, people smuggling, disaster response and humanitarian assistance.

Tiarma Siboro and Tony Hotland, Jakarta – Although the nomination of the first Air Force chief to head the military has been hailed as a fresh start in reform efforts, an analyst fears it may be a shortlived window of change before the Army's resurgence.

An American teacher has survived a traumatic experience in Papua in which her husband was killed, and has returned here in a bid to speed up the search for justice for herself and the other victims of the shooting incident in 2002.

New York – Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. paid Indonesia about US$1 billion since 2004, including for security at the Grasberg mine that has sparked a US government inquiry, Chief Executive Officer Richard Adkerson said.

Jakarta – The National Police will continue to involve the FBI in resolving the 2002 killings of one Indonesian and two American teachers in Timika, Papua – but agents won't be allowed to question the suspects.

Jakarta – A total of 1,099 people died of dengue fever in Indonesia in 2005, a health ministry official said here on Tuesday.

"The number is higher than last year's 957," said Rita Kusriastuti, head of the subdirectorate of arboviruses of the directorate general of disease control and environmental health.

Gary LaMoshi, Denpasar – The United States and Indonesia have gotten their man in the ambush killings of two Americans in Papua three years ago. The arrest of Antonius Wamang, an alleged separatist military commander, is supposed to quell speculation that the Indonesian military was behind the shootings.

Hera Diani, Jakarta – Although they deny the claims they are a breeding ground for terrorists, pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) are a fertile spot for conservative, intolerant views of other faiths, a new study reveals.

Tb. Arie Rukmantara, Jakarta – Three Christian women jailed in the West Java town of Indramayu for inviting Muslim children to their Sunday school last year will stay in prison for three more years, after the Constitutional Court rejected a legal challenge to the ruling.

Andi Hajramurni, Makassar – Three Army soldiers involved in a violent attack last November on a village in Jeneponto regency, South Sulawesi, were each given 10-week jail sentences and fined Rp 5,000 (53 US cents) by a Makassar military court Monday.

Tiarma Siboro and Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta – As widely expected, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has nominated Air Marshall Djoko Suyanto to lead the Indonesian Military (TNI), an appointment that is expected to prevent dissent among the armed forces.

Tb. Arie Rukmantara, Jakarta – Most of the social welfare programs created by the government following the fuel subsidy cuts are missing their proper targets, a report released by a group of social workers says.

Jakarta – A petition signed by more than 100 legislators calling on the House of Representatives to investigate the government's plan to import rice from Vietnam has suffered a blow.

The House's consultative committee failed Monday to get a quorum to discuss whether the request could be taken to a House plenary session for approval.

ID Nugroho, Surabaya – A clash erupted between thousands of protesting workers demanding the minimum wage be raised and police in the East Java capital Surabaya on Monday, with dozens of workers injured and eight others arrested.

Tb. Arie Rukmantara, Jakarta – The Aceh-Nias Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency (BRR) admits it has turned a blind eye to hundreds of houses being rebuilt in prohibited, highly polluted areas that were devastated by last year's tsunami in Aceh.

Tom McCawley, Jakarta – A security pact expected to be signed this year between Indonesia and Australia will mark a formal end to a six-year rift over violence in East Timor and signals just how far the world's most populous Muslim nation has come in relations with its southern neighbor as well as the United States.

Nethy Dharma Somba, Jayapura – Four Timika residents arrested by Papua Police over the killing of two American teachers and their Indonesian colleague continue to live in fear, despite being released after it became clear they had no connection to the murders.

Tony Hotland, Jakarta – The 2002 killings of an Indonesian and two American teachers in Papua province was caused by local separatist soldiers firing on civilians by mistake, National Police chief Gen. Sutanto said here Monday.

Nurfajri Budi Nugroho, Jakarta - Around 40 students from the Papua Students Action Front (FAMP) have demonstrated demanding that police release the eight suspects being held over the shooting of two US citizens in Timika on 2002.

The action was held in front of the national police headquarters on Jalan Trunojoyo in Jakarta on Tuesday January 17.

Hon Alexander Downer MP
Minister for Foreign Affairs
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

16 January 2006

Dear Mr Downer,

M. Azis Tunny, Ambon – Dressed in distinctive attire of turbans and white robes, hundreds of former members of Muslim hardline group Laskar Jihad filed into the Al-Fatah Grand Mosque here.

The welcome resolution of East Timor's dispute with Australia over oil and gas revenue from the Timor Sea means about $150,000 for every man, woman and child in the recently independent nation.

A deal signed last week between East Timor and Australia to share billions of dollars in revenue from Timor Sea oil and gas deposits has short-changed Asia's poorest country, a rights group says.

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – An internal rift is again threatening the work of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI), flatteringly dubbed the "locomotive of democracy" during the authoritarian rule of Soeharto.

This time the conflict pits executive chairman Munarman against senior lawyer Daniel Panjaitan, who heads the foundation's legal advocacy department.

Tony Hotland, Jakarta – Extending the term for the international Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM) would be a good way to help Indonesian authorities and former separatists establish a long-lasting commitment to peace, legislators and a senior Acehnese politician said.

But the government still needs to explain the reasons behind the extension to the House of Representatives.

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta – Establishment of local political parties and the partition of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam into three provinces are expected to be main issues of contention when legislators begin deliberations on the bill on Aceh later this month.

Jakarta – With the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations on freer trade of non-agricultural products to be finalized in April, local industries must immediately make preparations to compete with future increases in imported products, business players have said.

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's dream to have a corruption-free and efficient immigration office, which does not embarrass him at international forums, will not come easy.

His intention to totally reform the office is being challenged by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, which does not want to lose its primary revenue stream.

[Gerakan-gerakan Rakyat Dunia Ketiga (Mass movements in the third world). Noer Fauzi, ed. Resist Book Yogyakarta, September 2005. xvi + 304 pp.]

The new treaty between the governments of Australia and Timor-Leste to share oil and gas resources from part of the Timor Sea temporarily resolves a long-standing and difficult dispute. However, the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) believes this agreement does not fully serve the rights and interests of the people of Timor-Leste.

Yuli Tri Suwarni and Oyos Saroso H.N., Bandung/Bandarlampung – Members of the West Java Legislative Council charged on Friday rice was being hoarded at production centers in West Java, including the provincial capital Bandung, amid public outcries over the scarcity of the staple food.

Tb. Arie Rukmantara, Jakarta – Like their counterparts on countless streets throughout the nation, the children on the corner in Pejompongan, Central Jakarta, regularly show up every day to beg for money from motorists. But they have been absent from school for years, if they ever attended.

Jakarta – A study into a graft case involving a prominent businessman and politician shows the strange and shoddy way the law is applied in the country, two judicial watchdogs say.

Bill Guerin, Jakarta – An event in the remote Indonesian province of Papua, thousands of kilometers from Washington, seems certain to result in a much stronger position for Jakarta within the already fast-improving relationship between the two countries.

Adianto P Simamora, Jakarta – There are no floods in the city for months and then they happen all at once. In Jakarta, when it rains, it does indeed pour.

The rain over the past week alerted people living on the banks of Ciliwung River to the possibility of floods.

Blontank Poer, Surakarta – A thick cloud of suspicion hangs over the country's pesantren (Islamic boarding schools), with many convinced they are a breeding ground for terrorists.

Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – A number of international relief organizations have been forced to import timber to build houses for tsunami survivors whose homes were destroyed in the catastrophe.

The decision to import timber was taken due to the scarcity of logs from sustainable forests in the country.

Tb. Arie Rukmantara and Tony Hotland, Jakarta – Local governments are balking at the controversial plan to import 110,000 tons of rice from Vietnam, a move they say will devastate the livelihood of local farmers.

Ellen Nakashima, Jakarta – Eleven men and a teenager met with two FBI agents at a small hotel in the remote Indonesian province of Papua on Wednesday night, expecting, they said, to be flown to the United States.

Raymond Bonner, Jakarta – An Indonesian who was indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington in connection with the killing of two American school teachers in Papua Province has admitted to the police that he fired shots during the ambush, but he also says he saw three men in Indonesian military uniforms firing at the teachers' convoy, his lawyer said Friday.

Suherdjoko and Yuli Tri Suwarni, Bandung/Semarang – A number of cities across the country are experiencing rice shortages, pushing up prices by 25 percent and raising suspicions over hoarding by traders.

Jakarta – The promise of free education for many elementary and junior high school students in Jakarta and the Thousands Islands regency from late January onward has been welcomed by parents.

The administration has upped the 2006 provincial budget allocation for development in education to Rp 689 billion from Rp 500 billion.

Jakarta – An alliance of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) urged the government on Thursday to take serious measures to protect citizens from natural disasters. The NGOs, grouped in the People's Coalition for Disaster Prevention, said government agencies had designed several disaster prevention schemes, but the plans were rarely implemented.