Jakarta – A company owned by Tommy Suharto spent 12 billion rupiah on financing protests against Mr Abdurrahman Wahid after the then Indonesian president rejected his pardon plea in November 2000.

Robert Go, Jakarta – The automated message comes in a soothing alto voice: "The number you are calling is being repaired." And it is heard often, as the poor resort to ripping out telephone cables and selling them in local black markets to make a living.

Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – North Sumatra Police chief Insp. Gen. Ansyaad Mbai met with leaders of the Batak-Toba Forum (Parbato) on Wednesday to diffuse tension that built after the central government decided to allow pulp and paper company PT Inti Indorayon Utama to resume operations.

Aaron Goodman, Dili (Inter Press Service) – Augostino da Costa Cabral's eyes were wide open, and his smile seemed unbreakable. But he could not sit still, and was shifting nervously in his seat on the gymnasium floor.

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta – The Central Jakarta District Court rejected on Tuesday the request by a group of East Timorese refugees demanding former president BJ Habibie to pay Rp 1 trillion (US$115.6 million) in compensation for losses incurred following East Timor's 1999 vote for independence.

Jakarta – A former school teacher told an Indonesian human rights court on Wednesday that he helped load the bodies of murdered priests, women and children from the East Timor township of Suai into cars and drive miles to bury them.

Jakarta – A five-day strike by thousands of workers at Indonesia's largest cigarette company Gudang Garam appeared to have ended on Monday.

"By noon, there were no longer workers on strike gathering in front of the factory but I cannot yet say whether the strike is over," said a member of the company's public relations office.

Jakarta – Lieutenant-General Ryamizard Ryacudu, the outspoken Kostrad commander who took a tough public stance against separatist revolts in Aceh and Papua, has been named as Indonesia's new army chief.

Ahmad Junaidi, Jakarta – Strong criticism from the public, particularly legal experts, has changed the West Jakarta Mayoralty's stance on its own instruction obliging students in public and private schools to wear Muslim attire on Fridays.

Jakarta – An international non-governmental organization (NGO) warned on Monday that endangered species in Indonesia were close to extinction due to poaching and the outlawed animal trade.

Jakarta – The population of Indonesia, the world's fourth largest nation, is projected to rise to 215.2 million next year from an estimated 212 million this year, head of the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) Sudarti Surbakti said on Monday.

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, Jakarta – Legal experts called on to testify for corruption defendant Akbar Tandjung told the court here on Monday that the former minister/state secretary could not be tried as the case had not resulted in losses to the state.

Yogita Tahilramani, Jakarta – Corruptors who build on their relationships with leading political figures bring more havoc to the Indonesian legal system than other issues that lead to corruption, including low salaries among the judiciary and the police, a criminologist said on Monday.

Robert Go, Jakarta – Indonesia should not extend its contract with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) when it expires, said National Development Planning Minister Kwik Kian Gie yesterday in a scathing attack that accused the lender of making policy demands that "complicate" matters and are "dangerous" to the country's recovery programme.

Yemris Fointuna, Kupang – The Indonesian Military (TNI) Headquarters has yet to consider transferring the headquarters of the Udayana Regional Military Command from Denpasar, Bali, to the East Nusa Tenggara capital of Kupang, Udayana Regional Military Commander Maj. Gen. Willem T. da Costa said on Monday.

Vaudine England, Jakarta – Paramilitary leader Eurico Guterres, notorious for his leadership of the East Timorese Aitarak, or Thorn militia, has been charged with crimes against humanity along with six others.

Ian Munro – Premier Steve Bracks has asked Prime Minister John Howard not to force 1700 asylum seekers to return to East Timor.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, Mr Bracks said many of the 1400 East Timorese in Melbourne had no homes to return to and did not want to revisit the scenes of trauma and destruction experienced during the Indonesian occupation.

Ian Munro – It is more than seven years since Anna Fam, now 70, fled East Timor with her mother and several of her grandchildren. There is not a moment's hesitation when asked if she would choose to return.

Ian Timberlake, Dili – An official has revealed new details about counterinsurgency operations two years ago that killed several pro-Indonesia militiamen and crippled their efforts to destabilize East Timor's transition to independence.

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – Indonesia's main Islamic authority, the Council of Ulema (MUI), is waging a war against television stations and several publications, charging them of veering increasingly towards sex and pornography in the country.

Max Lane – A major theme of the ceremony that took place in Dili on May 20 to proclaim the independence of East Timor was that the three-year period of United Nations transitional administration was a great success. However, East Timor has been one of the great failures of the UN.

At least four more people – including a suspected separatist rebel – have been killed in Indonesia's Aceh province, according to the military and residents.

About a quarter of East Timorese exiles in Portugal who return to their native shores decide to come back to the European country after seeing conditions in Timor, a Portuguese NGO has revealed.

East Timor has come a long way since the establishment of the United Nations Transitional Administration in the country, in 1999. The world's newest State has emerged, and in May of this year, a new labour code was signed into force.

Harald Bruning – Less than a fortnight after becoming the world's newest nation, East Timor is struggling to consolidate its hard-won democracy and solve myriad social problems left behind by Portuguese colonial neglect, brutal Indonesian occupation and rather transitory nation-building efforts by the United Nations.

Alan Boyd, Sydney – Worried about the strategic vulnerability of its eastern flanks, Indonesia is discreetly lobbying for East Timor to be granted early observer status in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Ian Timberlake, Motaain – Joao Pereira's East Timor home is just a few miles from here, but until recently it was a distance he had been reluctant to travel.

Jill Jolliffe – A week after East Timor became independent, the terrace of Dili's City Cafe is near deserted. Days before, it was crowded with media crews, international VIPs who had graced the independence ceremony and the United Nations officials who have made it their watering hole since it opened in 2000.

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – The battle is on for the most lucrative governor's position in Indonesia.

The Jakarta Governor's seat is hotly sought after, offering enormous power and prestige in the country's most populous and richest of cities.

Robert Go, Jakarta – Legislators, bureaucrats and even retired army generals are opening legal consultancies to make a quick buck.

Formal qualifications are not what count; connections with the bureaucracy and plain bribery are being used to win cases.

Craig Skehan – At least four boatloads of Muslim migrants – including many members of the militant Laskar Jihad – had arrived during the past week in the restive Indonesian province of West Papua, independence activists said yesterday.

Eric Ellis – For most of the chic clientele at Dili's City Cafe, the awesome struggle facing the Democratic Republic of Timor Lorosa'e seems the least of their concerns.

Joanna Jolly, Dili – The government on Friday urged Indonesia to abandon any hope of retrieving assets from its former territory of East Timor, saying Jakarta's brutality and economic exploitation during its occupation nullified any claims to what it left behind.

David Shanks, Dili – "The reconciliations are amazing. They sit in little huddles and cry and hug each other." A UN refugees' official was describing the work of Dili's La Quarantina transit centre for refugees returning to independent East Timor.

Joseph Nevins – East Timor became the world's first new country of the millennium on May 20 and, appropriately, the Bush administration poured salt on East Timor's deep wounds. Bush's salt took the form of Bill Clinton and Richard Holbrooke, Clinton's last United Nations ambassador. Bush tapped the pair to head the US delegation to East Timor's recent independence celebration.

Associated Press in Jakarta – A notorious militia leader told a human rights court yesterday that his group's activities in East Timor were funded by an Indonesian government official – but denied knowing about killings allegedly committed by his men.

Kupang – Col. Moeswarno Moesanip, chief of the Wirasakti Military District supervising security in East Nusa Tenggara, turned down East Timor's request for the province to allow overland public transportation from Dili to proceed its enclave Oecusi through Atambua for security reasons.

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, Jakarta – Two of the survivors in the April 1999 incident at Liquica Church in East Timor testified here on Thursday that what happened on the day was an attack on scared people by armed pro-integration militiamen.

Damar Harsanto, Jakarta – How can students study and their teachers concentrate on their work under a classroom ceiling that is threatening to fall on them at anytime? Yul Indira, the principal of state elementary school SD Pisangan Baru 13 in East Jakarta, may be able to answer the question.

Joe Leahy and Tom McCawley – When the veteran United Nations official Sergio Vieira de Mello went to Tokyo in late 1999 to lobby donors for funds to rebuild East Timor, he had no inkling of the task that lay before him.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – A Portuguese company is poised to win a $US16 million contract to set up East Timor's new telecommunications network, further consolidating Portugal's commercial influence in the new nation.

Lela E. Madjiah, Ambon – Indonesian military personnel serving in Maluku face a tough choice: Remain loyal to the republic or leave the military.

The option was offered by Army Strategic Reserves Command (Kostrad) Chief Lt. Gen. Ryamizard Ryacudu during a one-day visit to Ambon on May 20.

Derwin Pereira, Jakarta – The Indonesian armed forces (TNI) has been accused of imposing "concealed martial law" on the trouble-torn Maluku islands after initial attempts to impose it through the proper channels met with widespread opposition.

Jakarta – The government has backtracked on its earlier decision to review a law on regional autonomy and agreed to wait until an evaluation of the legislation is completed before making changes.

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – The international environmental group Greenpeace, which is renowned for its confrontational stance towards governments, has been invited by Indonesia to help fight illegal logging, in a sign that Jakarta is getting desperate to prevent the widespread destruction of its environment.

Jakarta – Two East Timorese bearing scars from a 1999 massacre Thursday told Indonesia's human rights court of a day of terror when militiamen brandishing guns and machetes attacked a church and killed 22 people.

Mark Drajem, Washington – The Bush administration is calling on Indonesia to rein in the military's financial empire, saying profit-making ventures have allowed the armed forces to become unaccountable to the central government.

Review by Jon Land – This is a two-part series looking at how two different individuals begin new lives in East Timor following the August 31, 1999 referendum on independence.

As East Timor struggles with its new relationship with Canberra, a book is being published on Australia's role in that extraordinary journey to independence from 1998. Titled "Deliverance – The Inside Story of East Timor's Fight for Freedom", it's the work of two Australian journalists, Don Greenless in Jakarta and Robert Garran in Canberra.

[The following is a slightly abridged version of a speech given by Sarah Stephen, a member of the Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific brigade to East Timor, at a protest organised by a number of East Timorese groups in Dili on May 19.]