Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – The Papuan people's campaign against the province's division has received a major boost after the State Administrative Court ruled on Tuesday against a law appointing Abraham Octavianus Atururi as West Irian Jaya governor.

Derwin Pereira, Jakarta – Where are the crowds? Campaigning for Indonesia's first presidential polls began two weeks ago with a lot of bluster.

The banners of the five candidates and their running mates are still hoisted on flagpoles and trees to remind everyone this is an election year.

Matthew Moore, Jakarta – Indonesia's election authority has banned President Megawati Soekarnoputri from holding outdoor rallies in Denpasar in her heartland of Bali in a further blow to her election efforts.

Police in Sweden have arrested three leaders of Indonesia's separatist Free Aceh Movement after raiding their homes in a Stockholm suburb.

Larry Thompson – A 28-year conflict between the Indonesian government and the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) has killed thousands of civilians, displaced hundreds of thousands of people, and destroyed much of the infrastructure of Aceh.

Zakki P. Hakim, Jakarta – The rapid expansion of modern retail outlets like hypermarkets and minimarkets in big cities may have forced many traditional grocery stores to close down, creating huge job losses, according to a preliminary finding of the Central Statistics Agency (BPS).

Jakarta – Yusuf Hasyim, the head of the Tebu Ireng Islamic boarding school in Jombang, East Java, filed a complaint with the General Elections Commission on Tuesday over the use of images of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) founder Hasyim Asy'ari.

Jakarta – Some 669 people have died in a widespread dengue fever outbreak in Indonesia in the first five months of this year and the disease still remains a dangerous threat, Health Minister Achmad Suyudi said Wednesday.

As of May 31, some 59,321 people had been infected with the mosquito-borne disease and 669 of them had died, he said.

Abdul Khalik and Suherdjoko, Jakarta/Semarang – The Jakarta Prosecutor's Office received on Tuesday the last two dossiers of the July 27 case from National Police headquarters, including that of Governor Sutiyoso.

Pekanbaru – Hundreds of students from the Sultan Syarif Kasim State Islamic University prevented a discussion involving vice presidential candidate Jusuf Kalla, the running mate of presidential candidate Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, from going ahead after staging a rally against his presence on their campus on Wednesday.

Andi Hajramuni, Makassar – Hundreds of East Timorese refugees who hail from South Sulawesi sealed off the province' high court on Wednesday to vent their frustration over the court's verdict in an embezzlement case.

Eugene Low – The cukongs (wealthy Indonesian businessmen) are back in force. Business tycoons in Indonesia are aligning themselves with key presidential candidates, who are also out to woo them for financial backing.

Stephen Brown, Stockholm – Swedish police on Tuesday arrested three leaders of an Aceh separatist group which has been fighting Indonesia for independence since 1976, saying they were suspected of "grave breaches of international law."

Angelus Tito, Jakarta – The Indonesia Human Rights Monitor (Imparsial) is urging President Megawati Sukarnoputri to cancel her order to law enforcers to postpone the legal investigation into the July 27 case(1).

Jakarta – The two front running candidates in Indonesia's presidential election sparred yesterday over policies to deal with separatism in Aceh province and endemic graft in the world's fourth most populous country.

Biak – Some 300 people in Biak Numfor district in Indonesia's Papua province staged a peaceful rally at the legislative council building on Tuesday to press for the discharge of police officers for beating a local official last June 9.

Robert Go, Yogyakarta – Trailing her opponents by as much as 30 percentage points in the latest opinion polls, President Megawati Sukarnoputri has much ground to cover. But with just two weeks left in the campaigning period, she's hitting it walking.

Jakarta – Experts have played down the impact of negative campaigning targeting candidates in the presidential election, saying it only stated the obvious about the contenders.

Jakarta – After two weeks of the presidential campaign, Golkar leaders have urged party executives to show support for their candidate, retired general Wiranto and running mate Solahuddin Wahid.

An Australian man facing charges in East Timor claims he has been framed by local authorities.

Julian King, a freelance journalist and activist from Darwin, is charged with possessing ammunition and illegal documents and is still awaiting trial in Dili.

Andi Hajramurni, Makassar – A panel of judges dismissed on Monday defense pleas by two senior police officers charged with human rights abuses in Papua, ruling that their ad hoc rights trials must continue in Makassar, South Sulawesi.

Kathy Marks – From the refugee camp of Sunkaer Laran, the mountains of East Timor are so close you can almost touch them. It is so close, and yet so far, for people gazing towards the border from their scruffy plywood huts in Indonesian West Timor.

The meeting between Xanana Gusmao and General (ret) Wiranto reaped condemnations in Timor Leste. As soon as he landed at Nicolau Lobato Airport, Dili, unlike his usual self, Timor Leste President Xanana Gusmao descended the steps with a sour expression. Carrying his son, accompanied by his wife, Kirsty Sword Gusmao, he stepped outside the airport on Monday, two weeks ago.

Salim Osman – Presidential front runner Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono wants to put an end to a raging controversy over one issue that has threatened his bid for the top job in the country.

An Indonesian court has rejected a lawsuit brought by lawyers for terror suspect Abu Bakar Bashir which sought his release from police detention.

Jakarta – Sales of new vehicles in Indonesia jumped 41% on year in May to 39,955 from 28,272 in the same month a year ago, the Indonesian car assemblers' association Gaikindo said Monday.

It added that new vehicle sales in the country rose 0.3% in May from 39,841 in April. Falling interest rates in Indonesia have helped motor vehicle sales in the country.

Khairul Ikhwan, Medan – Burning photographs of a presidential candidate has become commonplace. In the South Sumatra provincial capital of Medan however, five photographs of candidates for the national leadership were burnt at the same time.

Moch. N. Kurniawan, Jakarta – Transparency International (TI) Indonesia alleges that all five presidential candidates have been involved in some form of vote-buying, known as money politics, during their electoral campaigns.

Salim Osman – Thousands of people lined the streets as presidential front runner Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono turned up on his first campaign trail stop in the North Sulawesi capital.

Moch. N. Kurniawan, Jakarta – A political expert and an anticorruption activist said Saturday that heads of local government administrations may also be involved in the recent spate of corruption cases committed by local legislative members.

Astrid Felicia Lim, Jakarta – The People's Democratic Party (PRD) is pushing for the investigation into the July 27 case(1) to be continued including the investigation of the generals [who have been implicated in the affair]. If former general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) is found to be involved then he must be disqualified as a presidential candidate.

Suryani Ika Sari, Jakartar – The People's Democratic Party (PRD) is calling for the government of President Megawati Sukarnoputri to conduct a thorough investigation into the July 27 case(1) and the human rights violations which were committed during the period of the New Order regime of former President Suharto.

Jakarta – Jakarta city authorities on Monday started the construction of a 600-million-dollar monorail project aimed at easing the Indonesian capital's gridlock traffic and chronic pollution.

A. Junaidi, Jakarta – The National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) said on Saturday that the victimization of women was on the rise in recent years.

Komnas Perempuan's deputy chairwoman Myra Diarsi said her commission had recorded over 6,000 cases of violence nationwide in 2003, up from some 5,000 in the previous year.

Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – An independent forestry research group in Medan shared on Saturday its findings that the development of a road connecting Karo and Langkat regencies was environmentally damaging to Mount Leuser National Park.

Multa Fidrus, Tangerang – Some 82 percent of 1,061 of industrial firms in Tangerang municipality do not have waste treatment facilities as required by law. Therefore, most of them do not process their waste effectively. Some even just dump their untreated waste directly into the river.

Laksamana.Net – Divestment of the country's largest banks may not proceed as the government or the central bank plan as Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) gears up to expand through a merger and push for the retrieval of funds stolen last year.

Zakki P. Hakim, Jakarta – The number of jobs in key industries such as manufacturing, construction and trade has contracted significantly as an unfavorable labor environment has prompted companies to hire fewer workers and cancel investment plans, according to the latest government labor data.

The Supreme Court, as widely expected, duly overturned the Jakarta Commercial Court's bankruptcy ruling of April 23 against the Indonesian subsidiary of British insurance company Prudential PLC, asserting that the case had been mishandled.

Mark Dodd – An Australian businessman has been hounded out of East Timor by anti-Australian sentiment whipped up by claims that Canberra is ripping a $1 billion oil and gas bonanza off the region's poorest country.

David Kennedy, Jakarta – When Kirsty Sword Gusmao stepped off the plane from Dili this week to launch her autobiography in Jakarta, she must have given a little smile.

The Australian-born mother of two spent much of the 1990s in the Indonesian capital as an undercover activist for the East Timorese independence movement.

On the face of it, Indonesia's presidential election campaign is so polite that even a debate between candidates has been ruled out in case they criticise each other.

Behind the scenes though, supporters and opponents of the three leading contenders are using both traditional and hi-tech smear tactics in the run-up to the country's first direct presidential poll on July 5.

Matthew Moore, Jakarta – The notorious former East Timorese militia leader Joao Tavares has again been forced to leave a border town near his old homeland where he was living in breach of an agreement he signed with the Indonesian military, TNI.

A former East Timor governor sentenced for human rights abuses will be housed in a prison cell with an en suite bathroom because of his service to the Indonesian nation, reports say.

The Koran Tempo reports the attorney-general's director for gross human rights cases, I Ketut Murtika, says a special room is being readied for Abilio Soares at Jakarta's Cipinang prison.

Banda Aceh – Injustice is at the root of a separatist movement in Indonesia's Aceh, presidential hopeful Amien Rais said on Saturday during the first visit by a candidate to the troubled province.

Budi Hartadi, Surabaya – Twenty activists form the Indonesian National Student League for Democracy (LMND) are holding a hunger strike to reject the 2004 presidential elections because they believe that only candidates from the former state ruling party Golkar, the military and the fake reformists are involved.

Abdul Khalik/Tony Hotland, Jakarta – The amount of counterfeit money circulating in the country increased just before and during the April 5 legislative elections, authorities have said.

Devi Asmarani, Bengkulu – Golkar Party workers here had declared in the local paper that the Wiranto campaign would draw some 25,000 people from all over this Sumatra province when it came to town.

Jakarta – Former army general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is moving closer to an outright victory in Indonesia's July presidential election, a pollster said yesterday.

Kupang – The Commander of Korem [Military Sub-Area Command] 161/Wirasakti Kupang, Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT), Col M Moesanip was of the opinion that East Timor's separation from Indonesia via the referendum on 30 August 1999 was the result of poor leadership, in particular in developing the cultural and public life of the East Timorese people who had been integrated with Indonesia fo