A separatist leader in Indonesia's Papua province has accused the military of mounting an attack which killed two Americans and one Indonesian near the huge Freeport mine.

The army has blamed followers of Kelly Kwalik, a local leader of the disorganized and poorly armed Free Papua Movement (OPM) separatist army for the attack on August 31.

Jakarta – Two days after House of Representatives Speaker Akbar Tandjung was convicted of graft, his future has been narrowed down to two choices: resign or have legislators dismiss him through an honorary council.

Matthew Moore – Glaciers appear to hang from the sky above Tembagapura, an improbable town squeezed into a valley perched nearly two kilometres above a lush Papuan rain forest. It's a crazy place to build.

Ken Dalecki – If your company does business overseas, keep an eye on several lawsuits against US corporations alleging that they are "vicariously liable" for human rights abuses committed by others in countries where they do business.

The move by some 4,000 Indonesian villagers to sue the Japanese government and its aid agencies over losses caused by the Kota Panjang dam is a sad repeat of earlier fiascos that, when the dam was first envisaged, were not supposed to happen.

Robert Go, Jakarta – The Indonesian government wants to allow open-pit mining in protected forest areas in a bid to get more cash out of the country's vast natural resources and to speed up the pace of development in its eastern provinces.

Jakarta – The Indonesian Mujahidin Council (MMI), a Muslim militant Muslim group which allegedly has links to al-Qaeda, threatened on Friday to launch "sweeps" against foreign nationals working illegally in major Indonesian cities, DPA news agency reported.

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta – Most Jakartans are familiar with the presence of street children at most intersections in the city every day. They take their existence for granted as another dark side of the city.

Washington – The United States Under Secretary for Defense Paul Wolfowitz said here on Wednesday that the US government was very "disappointed" with the apparent lack of will to prosecute human rights abusers, particularly those from the Indonesian military (TNI), but added that it would be a mistake to paint the whole institution with the same brush.

Jalil Hamid, Nunukan – Indonesian officials say 35 deportees from Malaysia have died at sprawling makeshift camps in Borneo as they await the arrival of a navy vessel bringing medical help.

Phil Goff – The Foreign Minister Phil Goff says it is a matter of shame that New Zealand, Australia and the United States did not strongly oppose the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in the 1970's.

He has released classified papers on the invasion ahead of visits this month by the Timorese President Xanana Gusmao and foreign minister Dr Jose Ramos-Horta.

Jakarta (Agencies) – A powerful exploded at a stand in Merdeka Stadium in Ambon on Thursday, killing three junior high-school students and injuring 11 others, some seriously.

Antara identified two of the dead as Carla P, 15, from State Junior High School (SMPN) 4 and Yoke Siahaya from SMPN 6. Some of the injured are being treated at the GPM Hospital.

R.K. Nugroho, Jayapura – Four United States security officials, allegedly including an FBI agent, are visiting Papua to help look into last week's ambush that killed two Americans and one Indonesian as Indonesian troops ceased their pursuit of suspected attackers.

Banda Aceh – Rebels in Indonesia's restive Aceh province ambushed a convoy of vehicles carrying several top security and government officials, leaving a police commander critically injured, officials said on Friday.

Jakarta – Indonesian prosecutors yesterday indicted the half-brother of former president Suharto for embezzling state reforestation funds.

They charged Probosutejo, 72, with misusing 100.93 billion rupiah worth of funds designated by the Forestry Ministry for two of his companies in 1993, chief prosecutor I Ketut Murtika said.

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – A conviction on corruption charges and a three-year jail sentence have eroded Indonesian parliamentary Speaker Akbar Tandjung's chances of contesting the 2004 presidential elections.

Jakarta – Though kicked out of parliament, the army is still a force to be reckoned with. When Indonesia's parliament voted recently to abolish the 38 seats it reserves for the armed forces, pundits hailed the move as proof that the chief instrument of repression during the 32-year dictatorship of Suharto had finally been brought under civilian control.

Robert Go, Jakarta – Indonesia's military will not get out of business just yet but could set up holding companies to consolidate and clean up the hundreds of enterprises under its control, according to top generals and sources.

Jakarta – Hundreds of university students demonstrated in front of the Jakarta City Council building on Wednesday to protest against incumbent Governor Sutiyoso's reelection bid.

Demonstrator Syarif Effrina, from Jakarta State University (UNJ), said councillors should not be reelect Sutiyoso on Sept. 11 as he was inept, among other things.

[World Bank outgoing country director for Indonesia Mark Baird assumed the position in 1999 when the country was still struggling from a deep economic crisis, making him one of the few people intimately familiar with the country's economic development.

Ibnu Mat Noor, Banda Aceh – Two schoolgirls from the same village as the head of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) were abducted and executed by armed gunmen in Pidie regency, Eastern Aceh on Wednesday.

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, Jakarta – The peace talks between the government and separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) slated to be held in Geneva early this month are still hanging in the balance as no date has been set.

Damien Kingsbury – Last weekend's ambush of two buses near the giant Freeport copper and gold mine in the eastern Indonesian province of West Papua has highlighted yet again the problems that underscore relations between Jakarta and the deeply troubled province.

Matthew Moore, Timika – Indonesia's national police force chief has promised to investigate allegations of military involvement in Saturday's fatal attack on a group of mainly American teachers working at the remote Freeport gold mine. Three people died in the attack and 11 were wounded.

Jakarta – The Indonesian government will host the 55th session of the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Committee for South-East Asia Region on September 11-13, according to an official release here Thursday.

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – The conviction of parliamentary Speaker Akbar Tandjung, the second case in which a politically connected person has been sentenced to jail in the past two months, is being seen as another positive step for Indonesia's legal system.

Muhammad Nafik, Jakarta – Criticism of the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute Foundation (YLBHI) has mounted following the taking control of the once respected non-governmental organization by senior lawyers linked to the military and graft suspects.

[Leading law-makers in Indonesia are calling for the suspension of Akbar Tanjung as parliamentary speaker following his conviction for corruption. A Jakarta court has sentenced Mr Tanjung to three years' jail, for misusing over US four-million dollars in state funds, meant for the poor.

The question to be asked about the bloody ambush in the Indonesian province of Papua of employees of the giant US-owned Freeport mine is who stands to gain. The Indonesian military has been quick to blame separatist guerillas.

Yuliansyah, Banjarmasin – Angered by the fact that South Kalimantan Governor H.M. Sjachriel had ignored their demands for him to leave his official residence, dozens of people, grouped in the People's Suffering Action Forum (Kapera), sealed off the governor's official residence on Tuesday.

David Gosling, Yogyakarta – Indonesian workers are braving police repression to oppose President Megawati Sukarnoputri's IMF-inspired draft labour laws. So far strikes and protest rallies across the country have succeeded in pushing back the parliamentary debate on the laws until at least October, buying time for workers to organise against them.

[It's three years since the violence that accompanied East Timor's vote for independence. Then, thousands of men, women and children fled at gunpoint to the relative safety of West Timor and beyond. Now, most have returned to play their part in rebuilding East Timor. But some can't come home.

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – Desperate to get away, some female migrant workers now camped in Nunukan close to the Sabah border have resorted to selling their babies to raise money to pay for their return journey to homes in Sulawesi and Java.

Vannessa Hearman – On August 15 an Indonesian court convicted Abilio Soares, the former Jakarta-appointed governor of East Timor, of failing to rein in subordinates in September 1999 as pro-Jakarta militias rampaged, killing at least 1000 East Timorese.

[The security chief for the Freeport mine has said he agrees with assessments by the Indonesian military, that the local independence group, the Free Papua Movement, is probably to blame. He has also linked the attack to the America's so-called War on Terror.]

Transcript:

Muhammad Nafik, Jakarta – Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) joined on Tuesday opposition against the plan to revive political parties' power to expel dissenting members from legislative bodies, arguing the move would pave the way for authoritarianism by the parties.

Jakarta – Fifteen political parties, each of which won less than 2 percent of the vote in the 1999 general election, are requesting that the application of the electoral threshold be canceled to allow them to contest the 2004 general election.

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta – Three days after a group of armed men killed two American school teachers and an Indonesian in an ambush at a location that is normally tightly controlled by police and soldiers in Papua, the police are as yet in the dark as to who the perpetrators were.

[Last weekend's killing of three school teachers in Papua highlights the complex relationship between the Freeport mining company, the Indonesian military, and local Papuan villagers. P.T. Freeport Indonesia is a subsidiary of the US corporation Freeport McMoRan and operates a giant copper and gold mine in the Grasberg mountains in Papua.

A'an Suryana, Jakarta – The government has agreed to allow mining companies to operate in areas now categorized as protected forests, a decision that has drawn strong protests from environmental groups.

Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy Purnomo Yusgiantoro said on Tuesday that the decision was taken in a bid to boost investment and increase economic growth.

Tim Dodd – You didn't read about it at the time because no announcement was made by Freeport-McMoRan, the US company that controls the Freeport copper and gold mine in the Indonesian province of Papua.

But in the early hours of May 25 the company's local headquarters near the mine site, in the company town of Kuala Kencana, was attacked by an armed group of Papuans.

Jakarta – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Tuesday Indonesia was on track to achieve single digit inflation by year end, a day after Jakarta reported its first increase in annual inflation in six months.

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – Over the past five years, the Internet has become a crucial tool for Islamic groups in Indonesia to spread their beliefs and widen mass support. A local search engine shows as many as 200 websites on Islam run by various groups.

Mike Jendrzejczyk, Washington – Will US training improve the Indonesian military's terrible human-rights record?

Jakarta – Chinese herbal medicines are growing in popularity here, even among the non-Chinese, as an alternative to Western drugs.

Dan Murphy, Jakarta – Indonesian soldiers were searching the fog-shrouded mountains Monday near the world's richest gold and copper mine for the killers of two American school teachers and one Indonesian.

Jakarta – Some 800 of employees from five banks facing a merger rallied outside the House of Representatives on Monday, urging legislators to safeguard their jobs.

Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo has called to East Timor's political leaders and the international community to begin moves to establish an international court to try those responsible for the violence in Timor in 1999.

The shocking murder of three employees of the giant US-owned Freeport mine in West Papua on the weekend underscores the instability of our neighbourhood.

The portents are ominous. Indonesian security forces have begun a 60-day campaign to shut down the political wing of the Papuan independence movement.

Jakarta – Communications and information minister Syamsul Muarif said here Monday that the government and the House of Representatives (DPR) had agreed to ban by law local broadcasting companies from relaying the programs of foreign stations.