Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – Forty years after the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) was accused of masterminding the bloody attempted coup on Sept. 30, 1965, political prisoners associated with the movement still bear scars of incarceration and persecution.

The Indonesian military has begun selling off some of its business ventures as part of government reforms. The defence minister has given the green light to the sale of some assets a month before they're due to be taken over by the state.

Tony Hotland, Jakarta – The "clearance sale" of assets and properties belonging to Indonesian Military (TNI) foundations and business ventures could last for a month, the Minister of Defense says.

Forty years ago this weekend, Indonesia was plunged into the darkest period in its history when Major-General Suharto unleashed a wave of mass killings regarded among the worst of the 20th century.

Dean Yates, Jakarta – Thousands of Indonesians staged noisy protests across the country on Thursday, some throwing rocks and burning tyres as they demanded President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono drop a plan to raise fuel prices sharply.

Fadli, Batam – Lured by promises of a high salary and better working conditions, Oneng left her hometown in the West Java town of Cianjur to work as a maid in Malaysia with high hopes.

Tony Hotland, Jakarta – Factions in the House of Representatives are drawing up strategies to snatch top positions in strategic commissions or auxiliary bodies, following the introduction of new guidelines on House leadership positions.

Jakarta – Garuda pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto was not scheduled to be on the Sept. 6, 2004 flight bound for Amsterdam via Singapore, according to Eddy Santoso, Garuda's crew scheduling manager.

Febry Orida, Leupung – Every morning Yahya leaves home with a hoe in hand. But he is not tending his coffee crops as he did before the tsunami slammed into Aceh's coastlines, killing 131,000 people: He is digging for bodies.

Jakarta – Indonesian legislators have cleared the way for a controversial rise in fuel prices this weekend, slashing petrol subsidies despite growing public anger over the move.

Police said they were bracing for anything from street protests to fuel-truck thefts before the price rise, which has been imposed to battle a budget shortfall, comes into force on Saturday.

Jakarta – The government played down on Tuesday demonstrations against looming fuel price increases, despite the fact that the protests were growing in frequency and gathering pace of late.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who is on an overseas trip to South Africa, said the government was not worried about the demonstrations.

Bandung/Makassar/Medan – State postal company PT Pos Indonesia, which has been given the task of printing special cards for those entitled to government assistance funds, has printed and distributed 3.6 million cards in 15 towns across the country.

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) chief says Australia's defence relationship with Indonesia is as good as it has ever been.

Relations between the two neighbours suffered a major setback when Australian troops were sent into East Timor in 1999. They were sent there to stem the violence after East Timor's vote for independence from Indonesia.

Shanties, Jakarta - Indonesian police have identified the presence of infiltrators in social groups who will demonstrate against fuel price increases on October 1. It is suspected the infiltrators will provoke the pubic during demonstrations and incite them into anarchistic acts.

Indramayu – An estimated 80,000 fishermen did not vote in the Indramayu regency election on Sept. 22, said Bachtiar of the Indramayu General Elections Commission on Monday.

The fishermen were among the 379,992 eligible voters who chose not to cast their ballots in the election, said Bachtiar. A total of 1,224,122 people were eligible to vote in the election.

Henri Salomo Siagian, Jakarta – Although political parties are expected to exploit demonstrations against fuel price hikes, as a whole the atmosphere in the lead up to the price increases is conducive.

Semarang/Makassar/Samarinda/Batam – Gasoline and diesel shortages worsened across the archipelago on Monday as the government's scheduled price increase on Oct. 1 draws near.

Damar Harsanto, Jakarta – Holding her family card in both hands, Niah, 57, a resident of Petojo Selatan subdistrict, Gambir in Central Jakarta, was figuring out how to spend the Rp 300,000 (US$29) she was about to receive as "compensation" for the upcoming fuel price increase.

Aleksius Jemadu, Bandung – The success of a monitoring mission involving foreign parties in resolving an intra-state conflict can be achieved as long as the implementation of the peace agreement satisfies the expectations of the conflicting parties.

Rendi A. Witular, Jakarta – The much-awaited tax reform is unlikely to be implemented soon as lawmakers will not be able to finish deliberating on the revised draft of tax laws on schedule.

Jakarta – The House of Representatives has agreed to ratify the international covenant on civil and political rights with an adjustment that will ensure its enactment will not justify any separatist movements.

Australia's new Defence Force Chief has made it clear he wants Australia to have strong defence ties with Indonesia. It hasn't impressed human rights groups in Indonesia who say abuses by the military are continuing and Australia should be placing more conditions on cooperation between the defence forces of the two countries.

Jakarta – A team set up by the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) to probe into the abductions of prodemocracy activists during the regime of former dictator Soeharto has come to conclusion that all the victims had died.

Peter Gelling – The Indonesian military on Sunday withdrew the last of a promised 6,000 troops from Aceh Province, completing the first phase of the peace accord signed by the government and a separatist rebel group last month.

About 200 soldiers left the town of Lhokseumawe by ship, leaving more than 20,000 Indonesian soldiers still to be withdrawn by the end of the year.

Nani Afrida, Tamiang – Tears flowed down the cheeks of Nuraida, 35, a resident of Bendahara district, Tamiang regency, Aceh. She murmured prayers while her fingers brushed away the dried leaves from the three graves in front of her.

Jakarta – Thousands of people took to the streets to protest the government's plan to raise fuel prices on Oct. 1 to ease the state's burden of paying for a mushrooming fuel subsidy due to higher global oil prices.

Tony Hotland and Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – Over Rp 38.8 billion (US$3.85 million) worth of profits from assets of the Indonesian Military (TNI), which were used by third parties, have not been accounted for, according to a Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) report on the central government.

Tiarma Siboro and Hera Diani, Jakarta – The House of Representatives has set up a special commission to draft a revision of Law No. 62/1958 on citizenship, but few people expect a quick revision after some legislators warned of the negative implications of giving "privileges" to mixed marriage couples.

For children of mixed marriages: Children automatically take the fathers' citizenship. However, based on the 1984 Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which has been ratified by Indonesia, the distinction between father and mother to determine children's citizenship should be eliminated.

Simon Pitchforth – Indonesian policemen, noble upholders of the law, with their voluminous peaked caps and their epaulets the size of telephone directories. Love them or loathe them, you are bound to run into the medium-length arm of Indonesian law enforcement sooner or later.

Tony Hotland, Jakarta – Legislators and activists lashed out at the Attorney General's Office (AGO) for not being serious in its efforts to recover over Rp 6.66 trillion (some US$660 million) in fines and restitution monies from those convicted of corruption.

Tony Hotland, Jakarta – A Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) report on the House of Representatives has revealed that legislators left hundreds of millions of rupiah worth of unpaid electric and telephone bills, and it has forced the House to use re-allocated budget money to pay them off.

Miswar, Banda Aceh – The chairperson of the Acehnese Popular Democratic Resistance Front (FPDRA), Thamrin Ananda, is calling on all parties not behave in a counter-productive manner and threaten the ideals of the peace process in Aceh.

Riswan, Banda Aceh – The Acehnese people are calling on the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM) to disarm the militia in Aceh during the period of demilitarisation. If they are not disarmed and their organisations disbanded it could threaten the peace process in Aceh.

Canberra – A US defence commander said on Friday that Indonesia must show it had taken steps to reform its military for resumption of aid and arms sales, held back because of concerns of human rights abuse by troops.

Jakarta – Following the selling of the Kartika Eka Paksi foundation's 11-percent in PT Bank Artha Graha for not depositing the requested capital, the working group within Indonesian Military (TNI) headquarters (HQ) is still discussing the grouping of the corporation's legal base and military business capital.

Abdul Khalik, Jakarta – Actor Anjasmara and model Isabella were reported to the Jakarta Police on Thursday by an extreme right wing Islamic group for allegedly posing nude in a photograph displayed since Sept. 17 at the Bank Indonesia Museum in Central Jakarta.

ID Nugroho, Probolinggo – Seven former counselors at a drug and cancer rehabilitation center in Probolinggo were sentenced on Thursday to jail terms of between three and five years for the crime of insulting Islam, a clear sign that the East Java judiciary is clamping down on alternative Islamic thought despite the religious freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.

Padang – An environmental group has issued a statement in protest over West Sumatra Governor Gamawan Fauzi's decision to issue a letter of recommendation to the central government to grant 49,440 hectares of forest concession to a plantation company.

[The following is a compilation abridged translations on demonstrations between September 16-25 against the government's plan to increase fuel prices by as much as 60 per cent on October 1.]

Malang students oppose fuel price increases

Detik.com - September 16, 2005

The Supreme Audit Agency, for the fourth consecutive year, placed a disclaimer on the government's financial statement for the 2004 fiscal year, due mainly to inadequate internal controls, noncompliance with financial accounting rules and discrepancies in current accounts.

Veronika Kusuma Wijayanti, Jakarta – The ineptness of the investigation into the murder of human rights activist Munir is being questioned. The reason being that up until now police have yet to arrest the masterminded behind the murder and or to name any new suspects aside from Pollycapus Budihari Priyanto.

Representatives of 48 human rights, faith-based, arms control and peace groups wrote members of the US Congress this week to urge continued restriction of military assistance to Indonesia.

Shanty, Jakarta – On Thursday September 22, the Munir Solidarity Committee (Komite Solidaritas Untuk Munir, Kasum) went to the police headquarters' criminal investigation bureau to ask about developments in the investigation of the Munir murder case. Kasum took this step because they believe that the police investigation team has been totally inept in its investigation.

Rendi A. Witular, Jakarta – Eleven months after taking over the presidency, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's pledges to curb corruption within government agencies, particularly the tax and customs services, have not being realized, according to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

Ardimas Sasdi, Jakarta – The peace pact signed by the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Indonesian government in Helsinki on Aug. 15 has so far brought hopes of a lasting peace to the province after more than 30 years of war.

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – Former Garuda Indonesia president director Indra Setiawan had given a special assignment to pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, who is charged with murdering noted human rights activist Munir last year, two executives of the company testified on Friday.

Bill Guerin, Jakarta – A senior judge in the world's most populous Islamic country, declaring that "killing is a big thing in the eyes of God, blood must be paid with blood", sentenced a Muslim militant to death by firing squad this month.

Urip Hudiono, Jakarta – The Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) has again put a disclaimer note on the government's financial report of the state budget, despite the implementation since last year of what was hailed as a "new and improved" state accounting system.

Yemris Fointuna, Kupang – Driven by their frustration over the sluggish investigation into corruption cases, dozens of anticorruption activists took high-ranking prosecutors hostage in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara on Tuesday.