Jakarta – Berlin-based Transparency International (TI) has still ranked Indonesia among the most corrupt countries in the world, with scores of two or less, while Finland, Denmark and New Zealand were the "cleanest", with scores of between nine and ten.

Peter Symonds – The outcome of the first trials by an Indonesian court over the massacres in East Timor in 1999, prior to and following the UN-sponsored vote on independence, has proved to be a farce.

Bambang Nurbianto, Jakarta – A total of 49 non-governmental organizations on Wednesday demanded that President Megawati Soekarnoputri stop the ongoing Jakarta gubernatorial election process, stressing that it was being carried out undemocratically and against the prevailing regulations.

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – New districts and regencies are mushrooming across Indonesia as ambitious politicians try to carve out fiefdoms to increase their political power and attract more funds to the newly created districts.

Stewart Taggart in Dili and Lor – Times have changed for Commandante Elias Falour. Once he was a leader in the East Timorese guerrilla resistance. Today he has an official job, district commander of East Timor's national defence force in the town of Los Palos – and a lot less to do. With the Indonesians gone, there isn't much to defend against.

Yuli Tri Suwarni, Jakarta – Heavily-armed police in the West Java capital of Bandung have arrested two more labor activists in apparent attempts to suppress the labor movement in the province.

So far, a total of 34 labor activists have been arrested in line with mounting opposition to two labor bills currently being deliberated by the House of Representatives.

John Aglionby – For anyone who is not in Indonesia's military it must be hard to understand why Colonel Herman Sedyono is not in jail.

Jill Joliffe, Dili – East Timor's Government is likely to ask the United Nations to set up an international tribunal to hear war crimes cases after key suspects were acquitted by a Jakarta court.

Jakarta – Ten representatives of temporarily employed teachers here came to the City Council on Wednesday to complain about the various problems they were facing, including unfair dismissal, low-salaries and other examples of allegedly discriminatory treatment.

The group of demonstrators who protested outside the Malaysian embassy in Jakarta yesterday is suspected to have links with Indonesian military forces and armed groups involved in the East Timor massacre three years ago.

The governor of the Indonesian province of Central Kalimantan has threatened jail terms for people who set fires to clear land as haze thickened over the area and halted many flights, officials said.

Governor Asmawi Agani has issued a circular warning offenders they may face up to three years in jail, said provincial spokesman, Hadi, on Wednesday.

Brendan Pereira, Kuala Lumpur – Malaysian politicians yesterday asked the Indonesian government to rein in troublemakers in Jakarta or face the prospect of a more trying period in bilateral relations with its Asean neighbour.

Implicit in the message was the point that Indonesia had more to lose if the current spat became worse.

Vincent Lingga, Jakarta – Raising revenues for the state budget is only one of the objectives of the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency's (IBRA) massive auction sale of Rp 135.4 trillion (US$15 billion) in bad loans which began last month, and not the most important one for that matter.

The Swedish Ambassador to Indonesia Harald Sanberg says his government won't take any legal action against Hassan Tiro, the exiled chief of Indonesia's separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), as long as he doesn't break any law in Sweden.

[The Australian engineering firm Thiess is seeking a court order to sack six hundred workers from its coal mining operation in Indonesia's southern Kalimantan province. Thiess says it's the worst dispute its encountered in the 30 years the company has operated in Indonesia.

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – Women use it to entice the opposite sex, celebrities often resort to it to boost popularity and politicians turn to it to further their careers – the supernatural.

They are all clients of Indonesian psychics, practitioners of the occult and others with knowledge of the supernatural – all enjoying booming business despite the economic crisis.

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – The government dispelled public fears on Monday over the number of political parties participating in the 2004 general election, saying that all parties would undergo a strict screening process before they were allowed to contest in the event held once every five years.

Vincent Lingga, Jakarta – Most analysts view the government's estimate of 5 percent economic growth for 2003 as too optimistic since consumer spending, one of the biggest locomotives of economic expansion besides export, is expected to slacken as a result of the contractible fiscal policy, while foreign investment will likely remain moribund.

Jakarta – Indonesia's foreign direct investment approvals dived to $2.67 billion in the first seven months of 2002 from $5.55 billion in the same period last year, government figures showed on Tuesday. The drop was in line with analysts' expectations.

Alexandre Assis, Dili – East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao was very angry when he heard the verdict of the Central Jakarta Ad Hoc Human Rights Court that set free the main suspects – Brig. Gen. Timbul Silaen and other middle-rank Indonesian Military (TNI) and police officers – in the East Timor human rights violation following the 1999 referendum.

Ian Martin – The trials before an ad hoc human rights tribunal in Jakarta of officials implicated in the 1999 crimes in East Timor are not only failing to do justice: They have turned truth on its head and added insult to injury.

Jakarta – Jailed Indonesian businessman Tommy Suharto has complained about night-time mosquito bites but is otherwise adapting to simple prison food and the lack of privileges at his new prison on the island of Nusakambangan.

Jakarta – An Indonesian group protesting Kuala Lumpur's decision to whip illegal immigrants toppled the main gate of the Malaysian embassy in Jakarta on Monday, AFP reported.

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – Indonesian business leaders and politicians are privately unhappy with what they see as Malaysia's harsh treatment of illegal foreign workers in the country.

John O'Callaghan, Singapore – Southeast Asia will suffer more dry weather and smoke from fires in Indonesia before monsoon winds offer a reprieve in November, environmental officials in Singapore said on Tuesday.

John Roberts – Indonesia's People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), which met in Jakarta from August 1-11, has approved a series of constitutional changes that are aimed at ending some of the more blatantly anti-democratic provisions of the country's political system.

Singapore has said it wants a group of suspected terrorists holed up in Southeast Asia to be extradited over a plot to blow up American, Israeli and other targets in the city-state.

Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said Tuesday that East Timor's judges and court officials are to be trained in Portuguese and rejected a reported preference by the UN for the use of Indonesian by the judiciary.

East Timor Action Network/US (ETAN) said today that it was "deeply disturbed" by East Timor's decision to give US troops in the new nation immunity from prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Indonesian troops killed five suspected separatist rebels in Aceh province during a raid on a suspected rebel base, a military spokesman said.

The dead were among 12 alleged rebels, including a district commander, whom the military claims to have killed since Sunday.

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – A multi-million-dollar scandal involving an agro-business company has put several Indonesian officials, including Vice-President Hamzah Haz, under the spotlight for publicly endorsing investment schemes that have now left thousands broke.

Robert Go, Jakarta – Fed up with Jakarta's inability to control haze-inducing fires and to help residents of two provinces smothered by smoke, environmental groups are taking matters into their own hands.

Vincent Lingga, Jakarta – The Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) seems not to be fully aware yet that credibility and accountability should be its basic capital in executing its primary task, which is disposing of the billions of dollars of distressed assets under its management.

A document drawn up by the United Nations Mission in East Timor says that the training of judges and support to courts and Timorese jurists should be undertaken in Indonesian, a policy that the UN mission denied last week.

The paper, "A Strategic Action Plan for the East Timor Judicial System", was written by the No. 2. administrator of UNMISET.

Matthew Moore – In the grimy rooms of Jakarta's Hotel Borneo, a dwindling bunch of mostly Afghan asylum seekers sit around and wait for the end of another slow day.

Jakarta – Dozens of human bones have been found in a 67 metre deep hole in a village in East Java.

Residents of the Lorejo Village were aware of the presence of the human remains for more than three decades but chose to stay silent, Kompas daily reported yesterday.

Washington – The newly independent state of East Timor has signed an agreement exempting US military personnel from prosecution in the International Criminal Court, the US State Department said on Monday.

Damar Harsanto, Jakarta – Incidents of mob justice have become almost daily occurrences in Jakarta, as residents frustrated with a justice system that is seen as anything but just take the law into their own hands to mete out harsh punishments on suspected criminals.

Jill Jolliffe, Suai – UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson rode into the eye of East Timor's human rights storm at the weekend when she visited the scene of the September, 1999, Suai church massacre.

Berni K. Moestafa, Jakarta – Calls to reshuffle the Cabinet are again mounting. Analysts have blamed the development on the Cabinet's poor teamwork and asked whether a reshuffle would benefit President Megawati Soekarnoputri. The answer appears to be both yes and no.

Andrew Perrin – The former custodians of the Hotel Flamboyan in Baucau, the picturesque seaside town on East Timor's northeast coast, had a lot to learn about hotel management.

Jakarta – Indonesia said on Monday more peace talks with Acehnese rebels could be useful, only four days after playing down chances of dialogue by saying the separatists would have to accept a special autonomy package first.

[Indonesia's troubled province of Aceh may see an escalation in conflict, if the government and separatist rebels fail to agree on conditions for peace talks. The rebel Free Aceh Movement, or GAM, is open to holding talks. But, Jakarta says there'll be no negotiations unless GAM accepts the autonomy package that was introduced late last year.]

Jakarta – Indonesia has raised more than US$2.5 billion from the sale of bad loans that it took over following the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.

In East Timor, the Bishop of Dili has called for the creation of an international tribunal to try crimes committed during the independence vote three years ago.

The call by Bishop Carlos Belo comes after an Indonesian court acquitted six military and police officers of gross human rights violations in East Timor in 1999.

Moch. N. Kurniawan, Jakarta – Gender-biased politics in Indonesia could be substantially changed if political parties were required to let women make up 30 percent of legislative candidates, analysts said on Saturday.

They demanded that the proposal be accommodated in the general elections bill now being deliberated in the House of Representatives.

Robert Go, Jakarta – Indonesians are crazy about academic degrees and will spend money to get fake ones, prompting top educators and politicians to suggest a crackdown against those who sell or buy such accreditations.

Jakarta – Schools reopened and residents went without masks in parts of Kalimantan and Sumatra yesterday as rain cleared smoke-filled skies that had hung over the region during weeks of raging forest and brush fires.

Officials in West Kalimantan said the haze had lifted, allowing students to return to schools that had been shut because of the smoke.

Jakarta – Many foreign manufacturers have shut down or relocated their businesses in Indonesia to other countries due to lingering labour conflicts, Industry and Trade Minister Rini Suwandi has said.

Gde Anugrah Arka, Jakarta – The UN's human rights chief visited an East Timor massacre site on Saturday and was told by victims' families an international tribunal was needed to examine human rights violations in the former Indonesia province.