ID Nugroho, Surabaya – The government needs to speed up the distribution of HIV antiretroviral medicine throughout Indonesia to help people with HIV/AIDS, an activist said Monday.

Tangerang – Tangerang city administration should carefully monitor businesses that channel wastewater into the Cisadane River during the rainy season, an environmentalist warns.

During periods when river levels are high, businesses could easily dump wastewater without being noticed, environmentalist Ahmad Sirojudin said Monday.

The massive flooding in Jakarta over the past few days is further proof that crisis brings out the best in most people. It is comforting to know that when the state fails you, you can count on the people around you to lend a hand and come to your rescue.

Sydney – An Indonesian military commander who later became a government minister opened fire on a group of Australian-based journalists killed in East Timor in 1975, an inquest heard Tuesday.

Mark Forbes, Jakarta, and Hamish McDonald, Sydney – A former Indonesian military commander has denied ordering the killings of five Australian journalists in Timor in 1975.

As an inquest into the death of Brian Peters – one of the Balibo five – began in Sydney yesterday, Yunus Yosfiah told The Age he had never even seen the men.

Reporter: Geoff Thompson

Mark Colvin: The Coroner's Court in Sydney today was told that the former commander of the Indonesian Military, Mohammad Yunus Yosfiah fired the first of the shots that killed five Australian journalists in Balibo, East Timor in 1975. Mr Yosfiah later became a minister in the Indonesian Government.

Mark Dodd – Prosecutors have dropped an investigation into allegations that former East Timorese prime minister Mari Alkatiri ordered a hit squad to kill political rivals, clearing the way for the Fretilin leader to contest April's presidential elections.

Ian McPhedran – At dawn on October 16, 1975, four young Australian-based journalists walked out of a house in Balibo, East Timor, with their arms above their heads. Moments later they were shot in cold blood by Indonesian special forces, an inquest has heard.

Reporter: Emma Alberici

Eleanor Hall: The NSW Coroner's Court has today begun investigating just what happened to Sydney journalist Brian Peters, 31 years after he died in Balibo in East Timor.

Lindsay Murdoch, Darwin – East Timor's rebel leader, Major Alfredo Reinado, has agreed to surrender and face charges, including attempted murder, but a deal he negotiated secretly from his mountain base is almost certain to collapse.

Mark Dodd and Nigel Wilson – East Timor's ruling Fretilin Party has threatened to withdraw from parliamentary elections unless they are held before the end of May, following confirmation a presidential vote will take place in April.

Hamish McDonald – If Canberra's defence and foreign affairs establishment thought Maureen Tolfree was going to give up, this was another intelligence failure.

More than 30 years ago, she came out from her home in Bristol, England, to find out how her brother Brian Peters, a Channel Nine cameraman, had died with four other Australian-based newsmen at Balibo in East Timor.

Prodita Sabarini, Jakarta – Flip... flop... flip... flop... The sound of a man's sandals blended with the chattering of children in their pajamas in the lobby of a hotel.

Zakki Hakim, Jakarta – Horse-drawn carts rescued residents from flood-stricken districts in the Indonesian capital on Monday after flooding burst riverbanks, killing at least 29 people and forcing some 340,000 to flee their homes in recent days.

Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta – As hundreds of thousands of Jakartans struggled with the cold and damp, officials on Saturday were quick to muster the culprits behind another year of severe flooding.

Tom Hyland – East Timor's Fretilin party, the dominant political force in one of the world's poorest nations, is pushing for lavish pensions and other benefits for former government ministers.

Lucy Bannerman and Richard Lloyd Parry – In the three decades since Brian Peters died during Indonesia's secret invasion of East Timor, his sister Maureen Tolfree has been told countless versions of who killed him and how.

Jakarta – This year's dengue fever outbreak will be harder to manage than previous outbreaks due to significant increases in the total number of sufferers, the Health Minister said Friday.

After two days of heavy rain, floods paralyzed Jakarta and its buffer towns on Friday to a degree that surely exceeded the flooding of five years ago, which up to this point was considered the worst natural disaster to hit the capital.

Jakarta – Grieving relatives of the 102 people on board an Indonesian airliner which vanished on New Year's day have held an emotional ceremony at sea over the spot where its "black box" flight recorders were found.

Indra Harsaputra, Sidoarjo – Sidoarjo council members have threatened to close down exploration activity by the company at the heart of Sidoarjo, East Java mudflow disaster unless it resumes payments to the regency.

Jakarta – Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar has blamed excessive construction on water catchment areas for floods which have inundated the Indonesian capital.

Swathes of Jakarta remained under water Saturday as thousands of people forced to abandon their flooded homes spent the night camped out alongside roads and in emergency shelters in higher areas of the city.

Nabiha Shahab, Jakarta – Five people are feared killed in floods in Jakarta with 100,000 others forced to camp out at roadsides and in emergency shelters after days of torrential downpours.

M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – Analysts criticized President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's 2007 State of the Union speech for delving too much into macroeconomic details and overlooking some of the country's most immediate problems, such as avian influenza and the raging sectarian conflict in Poso, Central Sulawesi.

Yuli Tri Suwarni, Bandung – The National Disaster Management Coordinating Board (Bakornas) announced Thursday that search for survivors and wreckage from two major air and sea disasters has left it run out of money.

Lucy Williamson, Jakarta – Jakarta's first poultry patrol was anything but a surprise to the residents of Kemayoran district. The red and white banner strung across the narrow street read "You are entering a chicken-free zone".

Australia and Indonesia will conduct a counter-terrorism exercise, the second since resumption of joint training involving the Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) and the controversial Kopassus special force.

Mark Dodd – The SAS will hold joint counter-terrorism exercises with Jakarta's elite Kopassus special forces as part of a dramatic expansion of defence ties between Australia and Indonesia.

The thaw in relations, which had been frosty in the aftermath of Australia's post-ballot intervention in East Timor, follows a series of unannounced visits.

Nethy Dharma Somba, Jayapura – The government will deploy a team of local officials to Yamo, Puncak Jaya, Papua, Monday to encourage thousands of people fleeing a crackdown on separatists to return home.

Around 2,000 people moved from the Yamo river to the center of Yamo district following military and police attacks on Free Papua Movement (OPM) rebels in the area.

Urip Hudiono, Jakarta – Indonesia's exports wrapped up 2006 on another record high, booking growth of nearly 20 percent over the previous year to close at more than US$100 billion for the first time ever.

Jakarta – A coalition of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) called on the government to cancel auctions for two selective logging concessions in Riau and Jambi, saying the move would endanger protected animals and threaten the livelihood of indigenous peoples.

M. Taufiqurrahman and Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – Pressure is mounting on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to take further action following his decision to revoke a controversial government regulation raising the allowances for councillors in cities, regencies and provinces nationwide.

Alvin Darlanika Soedarjo, Jakarta – The Indonesia Military was urged Wednesday to be softer in its handling of the separatist movement in Papua as the threat the movement posed was minimal and lacking in significant external support.

Jakarta – Indonesian policemen arrested on Thursday two men wanted as top members of a local Islamic militant group that has terrorized the country's Central Sulawesi province and had links to an Asian terror network, police said.

I. Summary

Ati Nurbaiti, Jakarta – Timor Leste women activists called for more solidarity and cooperation from Indonesian women to help build their new nation.

Canberra – Australian troops have participated in a major armed operation with the United Nations against warring gangs in Timor-Leste in which 50 people have been arrested in the capital of Dili.

Jakarta – Forty-seven people have been arrested in East Timor in an operation against gang violence in the tiny territory, the United Nations said in a statement on Thursday.

Dili – An estimated 8,000 to 10,000 East Timorese have rallied to the governing party, Fretilin, at the country's second city, Baucau, about 122 kilometres east of Dili.

Mark Dodd – East Timor's parliament is to vote on a conscription bill that aims to fill the ranks of the country's ethnically divided defence force, but which critics say could trigger renewed social upheaval.

East Timor Prime Minister Jose Ramos-Horta said he would not run for the presidency later this year unless there were no other candidates. "I do not want to (stand in elections) for the parliament, the government or the presidency," Ramos-Horta told AFP.

Max Lane, Jakarta – Despite right-wing intimidation, the founding congress of the National Liberation Party of Unity (Papernas) successfully concluded on January 20. A leadership was elected, which has already had its first meeting, preparing for a year of "all out" political campaigning.

Ardimas Sasdi, Jakarta – The plan of the government to "privatize", an euphemism for running higher state institutions under a private model, reminds the writer of a touching short message service (SMS) from a nephew studying at Bandung's Padjadjaran University (UNPAD).

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – The government-backed Indonesian Commission for the Protection of Children (KPAI) has opposed the imposition of corporal punishment on children in schools, saying it is still rife in state-run schools, Islamic schools and Islamic boarding schools in East Java.

It is a case about a band, in Bali, with a pedigree problem. Two musicians are standing trial in Denpasar District Court after singing a crowd favourite at a charity concert that likened police to dogs.

The musicians have been charged with "deliberately insulting a state institution in public".

Mark Dodd – Indonesia is planning to buy coastal patrol vessels to bolster border protection with The Philippines and to crack down on illegal fishing and people-smuggling to Australia.

Nethy Dharma Somba, Jayapura – Thousands of people fleeing a crackdown on Papuan separatists are now facing food shortages.

The crisis is hitting refugees in Yamo district, Puncak Jaya regency, Papua, after Indonesian Military and police attacks on Free Papua Movement (FPM) rebels in the area.

Urip Hudiono, Jakarta – The sharp drop in actual investment last year indicates that there are serious problem in the government's industrial development policies, a senior economist says.