Ambon – Blasts rocked the eastern Indonesian city of Ambon yesterday and gunshots rang out as hundreds of loyalists protested against the flying of balloon-borne flags on the 52nd anniversary of a separatist group.

Derwin Pereira, Jakarta – Terrorism and piracy were on the agenda but a restoration of full military ties with the United States was uppermost among Indonesia's concerns, with its military chief calling for cooperation to be "reawakened".

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – The Indonesian government has ordered several provinces to revoke "problematic" laws and regulations in a bid to reign in regions which are exercising too much power.

Dean Yates, Jakarta – In the past two months foreign investors have snapped up a bond by Indonesia's top mobile phone firm, a US investment fund paid good money for the country's biggest retail bank and creditors agreed to roll over more state debt.

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – A witness in the human rights trial into the East Timor mayhem said on Wednesday that top state officials in Jakarta should have been held accountable for the violence that ravaged the former Indonesian province in 1999.

Jakarta – Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri will attend East Timor's landmark independence handover on May 20, despite strong opposition from MPs.

"Ms Mega is planning to attend. I repeat, Ms Mega is planning to be present" at the celebrations, top security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on Tuesday, according to the state Antara news agency.

Dean Yates, Jakarta – Indonesian and US defense officials Thursday wrapped up security talks that covered issues from terrorism to piracy, marking a step forward in relations after military ties were slashed in 1999.

Jupriadi, Makassar – Thousands of students in the South Sulawesi capital of Makassar marched on Wednesday to commemorate the killing of three local students in a clash with security forces in 1996.

Jakarta – The Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) has replaced its navy and air force chiefs in a routine military reshuffle, the head of the military announced yesterday.

Navy Chief of Staff Indroko Sastrowiryono was replaced by Admiral Bernard Kent Sondakh, currently inspector-general of the armed forces, Admiral Widodo Adisucipto told reporters at a press conference here.

Jakarta – Former Indonesian military chief Wiranto, who launched a solo album of classic Indonesian love songs last year, will soon provide the voice for a cartoon character.

General Wiranto will lend his voice to an elephant character in a local folk tale.

Bogor – About 100 alleged prostitutes were netted in a series of operations launched separately by the police and the local administration on Monday and Tuesday night following Saturday's attacks on a number of hotels and suspected brothels in Cipayung, part of the Puncak resort area.

Hundreds of loyalist Muslims staged a noisy protest in Indonesia's eastern city of Ambon against independence supporters flying flags attached to air balloons to mark the anniversary of a separatist group.

Annastashya Emmanuelle, Jakarta – The internal rift within the beleaguered United Development Party (PPP), mainly between the veterans and the newcomers, is widening as evidenced by fresh demands from the party's youth wing to move its congress up to 2003.

Kasparman, Padang – Some 7,000 temporarily employed teachers in West Sumatra are threatening to go on strike in protest against the provincial administration's alleged discriminatory recruitment policy and its neglect of their conditions of service.

Name: Jose Alexandre Gusmao
Nom-de-guerre: Kay Rala Xanana Gusmao
Date of Birth: 20 June 1946
Place of Birth: Manatuto, East Timor

General Kofi Annan recommended Tuesday that the Security Council approve a new UN mission for East Timor to last two years beyond its independence, slated for May 20. The proposed mandate, dubbed UN Mission to Support East Timor (UNMISET), would center on aiding good governance and assuring domestic and border security.

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – A witness testified before the ongoing Human Rights Court on Tuesday that he was ordered by his superior to bury at least 25 bodies, including three Catholic priests, after a massacre at St. Ave Maria Church in Suai town, Covalima regency, East Timor on September 6, 1999.

Pip Hinman, Sydney – The news that two Acehnese activists sought refuge in the Finnish embassy in Jakarta on April 10 didn't surprise Erwanto, an Acehnese activist currently visiting Australia. "Aceh is like hell on Earth", he said. "Already this year more than 700 people have been killed, almost all of them civilians.

Jakarta – A soldier told Indonesia's new human rights court Tuesday he was asked by his commanding officer to transport and bury bodies from a church massacre in East Timor, among the worst of atrocities that followed a 1999 vote for independence..

Jason Tedjasukmana – Here's why Iwan Fals matters: because boy bands don't take on dictatorships. They don't stand up when everyone else is hunkering down. They don't put to song what others are afraid to put in print. Pop stars should give a damn-when they do, remarkable transformations are possible.

Pramoedya Ananta Toer – Grandmother Satima and mother Saidah, according to Pramoedya Ananta Toer, made him who he is.

Two women gave me life. Two women of one flesh and blood, but sundered by fate. Two women who then defied that fate. Two women who taught me that the individual matters, above anyone or anything else. Two women who are my heroes.

Phil Zabriskie – Who is Xanana Gusmao? A Portuguese journalist put that question to Gusmao himself shortly before he was captured by the Indonesian military in November 1992. The answer, a celebrated freedom fighter battling a brutal oppressor, seemed plain to most everyone – except to the freedom fighter himself.

Dili's interim government has approved a USD 75 million budget for East Timor's first year as an independent state.

The East Timor Action Network (ETAN) described Friday's UN Commission on Human Rights statement on East Timor as "a rotten birthday present for the soon-to-be independent nation."

The Chairperson's Statement on the Situation in Human Rights in East Timor was issued in Geneva today.

Stockholm – East Timor's new president, former guerrilla leader Xanana Gusmao, on Monday urged Aceh separatists fighting for independence from Indonesia to follow East Timor's example and pursue a peaceful solution.

Jakarta – The mother of an Indonesian suspected of links to international terrorism said Thursday she was "shocked" to hear he had been jailed for up to 12 years in the Philippines.

A mob of protestors including Islamic students torched and vandalised six suspected brothels and injured four people during a rampage at an Indonesian hill resort, police and reports said.

Following the adoption of a statement on East Timor by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (the Commission) in Geneva last Friday, Amnesty International expressed its disappointment that once again the Commission has succumbed to pressure from the Indonesian Government not to address either the grave human rights situation in Indonesia or its poor record on holding perpetr

Grace Nirang, Jakarta – Indonesian farmers may be fed up with the low prices they get for their coffee but young people in the world's fourth most populous country can't get enough of the trendy bean.

Farmers in the world's fourth largest producer desperately want out of coffee, but plans are brewing in the big cities for even more trendy cafes serving the stuff.

Tim Dodd, Dili – With independence only a month off, how bad is the economic problem facing East Timor?

Tim Dodd, Dili – In Dili's old commercial heart is an Javanese bakso (meatball soup) restaurant that does a thriving trade at $US1 a bowl, proving the East Timorese have not lost their taste for the food of the oppressors.

Jakarta – Indonesia's president will attend next month's independence celebration in the country's former territory East Timor, a palace spokesman said Saturday.

Hamish McDonald – Dressed in dun-brown overalls and boots, Fitar dos Reis, Gil Nelson Belo and Gulio Freitas line up under the baking afternoon sun to take their place on a mat and practise loading an M-9 machine-gun.

Dan Murphy, Dili – Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao is a figure of such legendary stature here that no viable challenger ran against him for the presidency of the world's newest nation.

Banda Aceh – At least four more people including a soldier and a rebel have been killed in Indonesia's rebellious Aceh province, the military said Friday.

A soldier died Thursday in a 30-minute skirmish with Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebels in Bireuen district, said Aceh military spokesman Major Zaenal Muttaqin.

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, Jakarta – Defendants in alleged crimes against humanity in East Timor blamed on Thursday the policy of then president B.J. Habibie as the origin of all the troubles that occurred during East Timor's struggle for independence from Indonesia in 1999.

Timothy Mapes, Jakarta – The Indonesian military's controversial behavior in resource-rich Papua province could threaten the country's political unity and one of its biggest planned foreign investments.

Lee Kim Chew – East Timor's newly-elected President Xanana Gusmao, a poet and freedom fighter, loves the Portuguese language. It gives him a sense of identity.

Like many East Timorese who fought the Indonesians for independence, he draws inspiration from the historical past to face the future.

Jakarta – US ambassador Ralph Boyce has urged reform of Indonesia's "ineffective and corrupt" legal system to help attract badly needed foreign investment.

Jakarta – Indonesia's parliament speaker on Thursday urged President Megawati Sukarnoputri to snub next month's celebrations marking the formal independence of East Timor, which Jakarta once ruled with an iron fist.

Jakarta – Religious leaders in Indonesia's Papua province have met regional authorities to discuss the entry of a militant Islamic militia into the mainly Christian province, an official said Thursday.

Rod Myer – The impasse between joint venture partners in the Sunrise gas deposit in the Timor Sea highlights doubts over plans to pipe gas from beyond Australia's north coast to SouthEast Asia, and illustrates how unstable joint ventures can be.

Michael Kessler – Next month East Timor will become the world's newest nation when the former Portuguese colony, which voted for independence from Indonesia in 1999, formally adopts its first constitution.

Geneva – The World Council of Churches (WCC) has called for an independent inquiry to look into the killing of an independence leader in the Indonesian region of Irian Jaya.

Martin Doolard, of the Geneva-based WCC, told the UN Human Rights Commission that most people in Irian Jaya viewed the death of Eluay as a deliberate act of the state authorities to silence him.

Jakarta – Indonesia is planning new incentives to raise foreign direct investment after a slump last year, an official said Thursday.

Actual foreign investment last year totalled 50 million dollars compared to approvals of nine billion dollars, said Investment Coordinating Board chairman Theo Tumion.

Hamish McDonald – On a roadside in rural Balibo, among knots of people lingering to chat after casting their vote in their country's first presidential election last Sunday, different traditions mingle in the friendly greetings between two old Timorese women.

Bandar Lampung – Hundreds of villagers in Lampung province ended a protest against the detention of their representatives with violence as they clashed with police and attacked Bandarlampung Prosecutor's Office.

Jakarta – The former chief of the Army's Strategic Reserves Command, Lt. Gen. (ret) Prabowo Subianto, has urged all elements of the nation not to keep pointing their fingers at the Indonesian Military for all that is happening in the country because the TNI is the "glue that binds the country's unity".

A'an Suryana, Jakarta – The Army Special Force (Kopassus), a much feared unit within the Indonesian Military (TNI), has a long history of ups and downs.

Kopassus was born when the Indonesian Army was struggling to put an end to a separatist campaign waged by the South Maluku Republic (RMS) in 1950.

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta – Seven defendants went on trial on Tuesday for attacking the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) office building on Jl. Mendut, Menteng, Central Jakarta, last month.