Oyos Saroso H.N., Bandarlampung – A herd of some 20 wild elephants from the South Bukit Barisan National Park (TNBBS) in Lampung ventured again into nearby settlements in the past week, ravaging dozens of hectares plantations and residents' houses as their habitat continues to shrink.

M. Rizal Maslan, Jakarta – The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) has expressed regret over the attack by three unknown assailants on an action by supporters of Munir at the Central Jakarta State Court. The actions by the three mysterious men will be reported to police.

Jakarta – Former deputy chief of the National Intelligence Agency (BIN), Muchdi PR, claimed that he did not know Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, the main suspect in the murder of top human rights activist Munir, but acknowledged there had been several phone contacts from his cellphone to that of Pollycarpus.

Multa Fidrus, Tangerang – Thousands of workers grouped under the Cisadane Workers Coalition (KBC) staged a rally in Tangerang municipality on Thursday to demand that the administration double the current minimum wage for next year.

Arin Widiyanti, Jakarta – The importation of rice from Vietnam which is being done by Bulog (the State Logistics Agency) with the permission of trade minister Mari Elka Pangestu, has been opposed unconditionally by hundreds of farmers. This is because the price of rice at the moment is good so they believe the policy is intentionally being implemented to "kill" them.

Jakarta – Papuan people gave mixed reactions on Thursday to a Dutch government-commissioned study that found the 1969 vote on their territory's incorporation into Indonesia to be a "sham".

Jakarta – A website purportedly set up under orders from a leading Asian militant gives instructions on how to shoot foreigners in the streets of the Indonesian capital or throw grenades at motorists stuck in traffic.

Jakarta – Thousands of secretariat employees in villages across Java and Bali went to the House of Representatives on Wednesday, demanding they become officially recognized as civil servants.

The employees said they had been working for the state for years without a clear job status.

Rendi A. Witular, Busan (South Korea) – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will soon issue a presidential instruction regulating government officials' roles in dealing with projects funded or initiated by the state.

Urip Hudiono, Jakarta – To invite more private participation into public infrastructure development, the government has issued a new regulation providing more incentives and governmental support for the risk management of projects.

Jakarta – Indonesia dismissed Friday a Dutch parliament-commissioned study that cast doubt on the legality of its rule in the province of Papua, saying the report's "substance was no longer relevant."

The Australia West Papua Association (Sydney) calls on the Australian Government to follow the Dutch governments example and commission a study into our own involvement in the so called 'act of free choice" in West Papua.

Bill Guerin, Jakarta – Only two days after a raid that led to the death of one of Indonesia's most wanted terrorist suspects, police struck at a massive illegal drug factory near Jakarta.

Lita Oetomo, Jakarta/Jayapura – The Papuan People's Council has threatened to reinstate demands for special autonomy if the Government delays the election of regional heads in West Irian Jaya scheduled for 28 November. The Council believes the election contravenes Government Ruling Number 54/2004 regarding the Papuan People's Council.

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – The Aceh provincial legislative council has completed drafting a new bill on the governing of Aceh, which would allow former rebels to set up local political parties that could participate in next year's election of top local administration officials.

The US annual foreign aid bill, H.R. 3057, is now law. The legislation, signed by President Bush on November 14, continues US restrictions on some forms of military assistance for Indonesia.

Jakarta – Thousands of commuters were stranded on Tuesday morning at railway stations from Bogor to Jakarta as some 600 meters of cable to operate the electric trains was stolen on Monday night.

The route is the city's most popular line, transporting over 200,000 commuters from Bogor municipality, Bogor regency and Depok municipality to Jakarta every day.

Imam Cahyono, Jakarta – The image of the Muslim-based Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) as a clean party committed to good governance with empathy for ordinary people was clear in the results of last year's legislative election, when it doubled its previous tally to gain about 7 percent of the vote.

Urip Hudiono, Jakarta – Indonesia will miss the opportunity to attain a tax-based economy if it fails to address the main problems of complicated tax laws and tax officials with questionable integrity, analysts say. "The devil is in the details, in the fine print of the tax laws," economist Faisal Basri of the University of Indonesia said at a seminar on tax reform on Tuesday.

Jakarta – Indonesian Military chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto would welcome the possible return of Hassan Tiro, the self-exiled leader of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), to the province.

Dili – Three East Timorese opposition parties on Wednesday called on the government to suspend all talks on developing Timor Sea oil and gas resources until after general elections next year.

Jakarta – The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) has reported threats made against its activists investigating illegal logging in Aceh to the National Police and the Ministry of Forestry.

Walhi chairman Chalid Muhammad said a number of persons unknown had told its Southeast Aceh activists to leave Kutacane in Southeast Aceh or they would "be risking their lives".

Jakarta – Hundreds of members of the Betawi Brotherhood Forum (FBR) and residents of Cilandak Barat, South Jakarta, stopped short of brawling on Monday afternoon over the establishment of a security post.

Outnumbered by residents opposing the establishment of the post 500 to 200 the FBR members left Jl. Terogong, near the Kristal Hotel, where the post had been erected.

James Balowski, Jakarta – Ignoring widespread public opposition, the Indonesian armed forces (TNI) has announced it is reactivating its territorial command network down to the village level to "assist" local communities and police to "fight terrorism".

Denpasar – Three men detained as part of Indonesian police raids last week in which a top Asian militant was killed have been named suspects over October's bombings on Bali island, an officer said on Wednesday.

They are the first suspects named in the wake of the suicide bombings at three restaurants on the Indonesian resort island on October 1, which killed 20 people.

Jakarta - TNI (Indonesian military) chief General Endriartono Sutarto has explained that the involvement of TNI soldiers in preventing terrorism is part of the responsibility of being a citizen. The duties being taken up by soldiers will be limited to preventative efforts in order that there are no more members of the public who fall victim to acts of terrorism.

Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – David S. was surprised when his wife brought home cans of food with World Food Programme (WFP) labels on them.

Theresia Sufa, Bogor – Hundreds of workers grouped under the Coalition of Bogor Workers demanded on Monday that the team in charge to assessing the minimum wage conduct a survey on living costs before determining the workers' minimum cost of living and regional wage.

The Pacific Concerns Resource Centre expresses alarm and disgust at recent news that Australia has signed a new Security Treaty with Indonesia.

PCRC calls on Australia to sincerely rethink the consequence this Treaty will have on indigenous Papuans.

The 1969 Act of Free Choice, intended to be an act of self-determination by the people of Indonesian-occupied West Papua, was doomed to failure from the outset suggests a Dutch government-commissioned report released today.

Anthony Deutsch, The Hague – A key 1969 vote on the future of the Indonesian island province of West New Guinea was "a sham" orchestrated by Jakarta, a Dutch government-commissioned study has found.

That vote, which made the province part of Indonesia, has been followed by decades of abuse at the hands of the Indonesian military.

Jakarta – A court in the Indonesian capital rejected a government multi-million-dollar pollution lawsuit against US mining giant Newmont and ruled the case should be settled by arbitration.

Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – Thousands of employees at state plantation company, PTPN II, here held a protest on Monday, demanding the government increase their wages and conditions after five years with no raises.

This week, the Jakarta administration will launch a large-scale crackdown on unskilled migrants who have entered the city after the Idul Fitri holiday. Governor Sutiyoso's administration has blamed migrants as the source of many urban problems.

Summary

Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – At least 50,000 hectares out of a total of 216,000 hectares of forest in the Gunung Leuser National Park has been deforested since 1980, sparking concern over an environmental disaster in the area, a senior local government functionary said on Friday.

Illegal logging was to blamed for the rapid deforestation, said Langkat regent Syamsul Arifin.

Australian aid agency (AusAID) has effectively 'blacklisted' 13 East Timorese NGOs for speaking out over East Timor's maritime boundary dispute with Australia. The 13 NGOs are to be denied funding for 'openly criticizing Australia' in press releases dated 29 of September 2004 and 27 of October 2004.

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – The police said they would continue their investigation into five men who are suspected of being responsible for the recent beheadings of three schoolgirls in Poso, Central Sulawesi, despite a move by the local military to release them.

Aboeprijadi Santoso, Amsterdam – Conventional wisdom about what happened in Indonesia during the second half of the 1960s generally held leading Army officers, in collaboration with some youth organizations, responsible for Indonesia's greatest human disaster after its independence, which included the killings, persecutions and imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of alleged commun

Jakarta – Having to dodge cars, three-wheeled taxis, motorcycles and carts appearing from nowhere could soon be a thing of the past for Central Jakarta residents, thanks to the municipality's plans to develop more sidewalks on city roads next year.

TAPOL, the Indonesia Human Rights Campaign, strongly condemns the decision of the police in Jayapura to ban an action planned for tomorrow, 15 November, to welcome the launch in The Netherlands of a book by Dutch historian, Professor Drooglever on the 1969 Act of Free Choice.

Alisa P, Banda Aceh – The composition of the draft law on the organisation of a government for Aceh as mandated by the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) should not be a revision of the special autonomy law (Otsus) or Law Number 18/2001.

Damar Harsanto, Jakarta – The Jakarta office of the Central Statistics Agency (BPS Jakarta) has registered over 28,000 new families that may be eligible to benefit from the government's cash assistance program.

Local soap star Anjasmara is naked! And it's an Adam and Eve installation! Is it art or pornography? Everybody in this country seems to have jumped on that bandwagon, some condemning and some defending it.

Yuli Tri Suwarni, Bandung – As police widened the search for the followers of master bombmaker Azahari, an antiterror official warned on Saturday that Islamic militants could carry out widely dispersed attacks across the country following Azahari's death.

Fadli, Batam – A lot of folks' favorite fish, such as the selar and tongkol, are getting harder to find in Batam as hundreds of fishing boats that usually bring them in have curbed operations over the last couple of weeks due to soaring operational costs after a huge fuel price hike.

Several churches in Jakarta and West Java were closed down by force recently, prompting practitioners to conduct their prayers outside their church. This issue has also gained attention from the United States, which mentioned the restrictions on religious freedom in the State Department's 2005 International Religious Freedom Report released on Wednesday.

ID Nugroho, Surabaya – A swarm of flies settled on a heap of rotting corn abruptly rose as Siti Maesaroh (not her real name), 17, walked passed the pile of garbage on Wednesday. She held her nose with the fingers of her left hand to keep out the stench, while she shooed away the flies with her right hand.

Yesterday [10 November 2005], on the 4th anniversary of the murder of West Papuan independence leader Theys Hiyo Eluay by Kopassus [Indonesian Special Forces], the West Papua Street Parliament led a protest involving over 300 hundred Papuan students.

Bill Guerin, Jakarta – One of Southeast Asia's most-wanted suspected terrorists has blown himself up – or been gunned down – only days after it was revealed that al-Qaeda's former Southeast Asian chief had escaped from US custody.