Jakarta – The Indonesian press yesterday slammed President Abdurrahman Wahid's refusal to explain to parliament his decision to fire two ministers, and warned that he was courting a political disaster of his own making.

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – Some of those politicians who angrily rebuked President Abdurrahman Wahid in parliament this week represent Golkar, the party that for years propped up the corrupt and brutal Soeharto dictatorship.

Jakarta – Indonesia's Golkar party said it would be ready to be in the opposition and hinted that there would be a shake-up of its executive board ahead of the next general election in 2004.

Tokyo – President Abdurrahman Wahid needs to reassert control over his fractured government if the country is to address problems like the slide in the currency and violent protests, World Bank President James Wolfensohn said here.

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – Claims by the Indonesian authorities about serious efforts being made to stem plantation fires in Sumatra are being challenged by environmentalists who say that legal action is doomed to fail.

Vaudine England and Agencies in Jakarta – President Abdurrahman Wahid, going some way to ease political tensions, apologised to Parliament yesterday for a confrontation that stems from his refusal to explain why he sacked two ministers earlier this year.

Jakarta – Minister of Mines and Energy Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has blamed the involvement of an "international movement" on growing protests against Indonesian mining operations.

Mark Dodd, Dili – The United Nations mission in East Timor yesterday said it had no plans to arrest notorious pro-Jakarta militia leader Eurico Guterres, who is implicated in human rights abuses committed about the time of last year's independence vote.

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – President Abdurrahman Wahid yesterday refused to answer questions from angry MPs about his sacking of two ministers, setting the stage for a confrontation likely to plunge the country into prolonged political turmoil.

Vaudine England, Jakarta – Indonesian political confidence took a dive along with the rupiah yesterday as President Abdurrahman Wahid defied demands to explain his sacking of two ministers amid demonstrations and flag-burnings on the road outside Parliament.

Jakarta – European observers will be allowed to travel to the strife-torn Maluku islands in three months' time, Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid said in interview Friday.

Jakarta – State prosecutors investigating corruption charges against ex-President Suharto on Friday impounded an office building owned by charitable foundations linked to the former dictator. "The seizure of this building will prove that we are serious in dealing with the Suharto case," prosecutor Umbu Lagelozara said.

D. Sangga Buwana/BI & LM, Jakarta – A new initiative to send Indonesian Defense Force personnel to Australia for training in defense management was announced today by the Indonesian Defense Minister, Juwono Sudarsono. The Australian Labor Party, currently in opposition, has initiated the education program.

Jakarta – Dense haze, from forest and brush fires on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, forced the temporary closure of its most important airport yesterday, officials said.

Poor visibility of less than 700 metres at Medan city's Polonia airport forced the suspension of all flights for four hours early in the day, an airport official said.

Alex Kirby – A report by the World Resources Institute says the fires are symptomatic of "a far greater disaster – the systematic plunder and destruction of south-east Asia's greatest rainforests over the past three decades."

Jakarta – A relative of former Indonesian President Suharto who was arrested on drugs charges last month has been sent to a prison pending trial, reports said yesterday.

Jakarta – PT Kaltim Prima Coal (KPC) finally reached an agreement with its striking workers on Wednesday that allowed for an immediate resumption of production in East Kalimantan.

Banda Aceh – Almost all of the approximately 20,000 refugees who sought shelter at Point-A area of the Exxon-Oil airport compound in Tanah Luas district of North Aceh were gone on Wednesday afternoon. Witnesses said security forces cajoled refugees to return by surrounding the area and firing warning shots into the air the night before.

Jakarta – At least 547 East Timorese refugees sheltering in squalid camps throughout Indonesian-controlled West Timor have died in the past nine months, the province's governor said Wednesday.

Justice John Dowd, Sydney – A royal commission is needed into why the Whitlam Government turned a blind eye to the Balibo killings, writes Justice John Dowd.

Vaudine England, Jakarta – Christian militias have formed in the North Maluku island of Halmahera, intent on wreaking vengeance against Muslim fighters, reports from the troubled area have confirmed.

Jakarta – Hundreds of activists gathered a mere 500 metres from the parliament grounds today protested while the Golkar Party held the second day of it's annual leader's meeting.

Vaudine England, Jakarta – President Abdurrahman Wahid is due to answer questions from a fractious Parliament today in what will mark the beginning of formal moves against him by a body he once dubbed a "kindergarten".

Jakarta – A series of corruption charges have been brought to light within the last two months alone, but they only add to the numerous graft cases yet to be processed in the Indonesian legal system, much less resolved in court.

Dili – The Humanitarian Assistance and Emergency Rehabilitation Pillar recently released its three-part assessment of the Consolidated Appeal Process (CAP). The East Timor CAP is a mechanism established in September 1999 to coordinate the overall humanitarian programme of the international community in the territory.

Daniel Cooney, Jakarta – Police scuffled with anti-corruption demonstrators Wednesday, a day before Indonesia's president was to explain his firing of two ministers accused of graft.

Jakarta – Chairman of the Democratic People's Party (PRD) Budiman Sudjatmiko says President Abdurrahman Wahid and his National Awakening Party (PKB) will only be regarded as true defenders of democracy if they are willing to thoroughly resolve all major corruption cases that took place during the New Order regime of ex-president Soeharto.

Hestiana Dharmastuti/BI & Lyndal Meehan, Jakarta – Megawati Sukarnoputri seems to be facilitating 'consensus' and playing her largely ceremonial role of Vice President to the hilt in recent weeks.

Jakarta – The husband and executive secretary to Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri are emerging as key advisers, providing guidance and support to the policies of Indonesia's most powerful woman.

Jakarta – Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid faced international and domestic pressure Wednesday to end the bloody fighting between Muslims and Christians in the Maluku islands, which has raised the prospect of foreign peacekeepers.

Jon Land - Up to 120,000 East Timorese are still languishing in refugee camps throughout West Timor 10 months after the post-referendum rampage by the Indonesian military and their pro-integration militia proxies forced around 290,000 East Timorese across the border.

Around 100 students from the Trisakti University demonstrated at the Indonesian parliament (DPR) on Tuesday demanding that the DPR for a special council to solve the shooting of four Trisakti students on May 12, 1998.

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – Violence by pro-Jakarta militia in West Timor camps has sabotaged plans by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to register 125,000 East Timorese waiting to return to East Timor or resettle in Indonesia.

Djoko Tjiptono/BI & LM, Jakarta – Thousands of peasants from West Java have converged on the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas) office and then the parliament complex in Central Jakarta today. They demanded the government revise agrarian laws and regulations which they say exploit the vast majority of Indonesians who make their living from the agrarian sector.

Sydney – US Secretary of Defense William Cohen confirmed Monday that the US is reestablishing military links with Indonesia. But he denied his country is selling arms to Jakarta.

Jakarta – Some 1,000 Indonesian farmers on Tuesday rallied peacefully in the national parliament complex here to demand land reform and the return of farmlands forcibly taken over by the Suharto-era government.

"Return our land that has been forcibly taken over by conglomerates," read a banner waved by the protestors from the Union of Indonesian Farmers.

Daniel Cooney, Jakarta – Indonesia's military admitted Tuesday that some of its troops have taken sides in the long-running Christian-Muslim war in the Maluku islands.

George J. Aditjondro – The religious war between Christians and Muslims in Maluku (the Moluccas), which has taken anywhere between 3,000 and 10,000 lives in 18 months, is a tragedy that so far has not attracted much concern outside church circles in Australia.

Vaudine England, Jakarta – Men in Indonesian military uniform have been filmed providing covering fire for Muslim fighters as they attacked a Christian neighbourhood in the violence-wracked Maluku Islands. The footage has highlighted Christian calls for foreign troops to intervene, but such a move would be politically dangerous for President Abdurrahman Wahid.

Jakarta – A joint military-police investigation team initiated on Monday an inquiry into the involvement of both military and police personnel in the July 27, 1996 attack on the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) headquarters on Jl. Diponegoro in Central Jakarta.

LH, NL/FW, BS & Lyndal Meehan, Jakarta – The plot behind the bombing of the Attorney General's office on July 4 and its connection to the Suharto family continues to unfold. The bombs involved have been traced back to the Army and a former member of President Suharto's personal guard and four employees of one of Tommy's companies are being investigated.

Daniel Cooney, Dili – No one knows who really owns the blackened, burned-out building where Canadian businessman Kirk MacManus is trying to set up East Timor's first supermarket.

A Portuguese man claims it, saying the army threw him out when Indonesia invaded in 1975. Later, it housed an Indonesian bank. Then came East Timor's secession last year.

Vaudine England, Jakarta – "We wish a lot of the talking would stop and everyone would just get on with their jobs," said a housewife who lives in sight of Jakarta's green and mushroom-shaped parliament building.

Jakarta – Indonesia's Defence Minister, Dr Juwono Sudarsono, has blamed rogue army officers for inflaming religious war in the riot-torn Maluku islands, where seven people died in fighting between Christians and Muslims yesterday, bringing the death toll over four days to at least 28.

United Nations – Six Indonesian non-government organizations are opposing resumed military ties with the United States, saying it would send signals that Washington supported Indonesia's alleged human rights abuses in East Timor.

Vaudine England, Jakarta – Corruption and weak law enforcement promise to make the polluting haze caused by Indonesian forest fires a perennial problem. Farmers and contractors are burning forests to clear land for palm oil and rubber crops, and the logic of that market, in which raw commodities sell for much-desired dollars, will keep the fires burning.

Daniel Cooney, Jakarta – Christians and Muslims waged fierce street battles in the Maluku islands, leaving at least 11 people dead, hospital officials said Sunday.

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – Relations between President Abdurrahman Wahid and his Vice-President, Megawati Sukarnoputri, have soured dramatically, raising questions about the stability of the country's coalition government.

Jakarta – Nearly 3,000 volunteers of a militant Indonesian Muslim jihad (holy war) force are still in the riot-torn eastern city of Ambon, a report said Saturday.

Don Greenlees – Indonesia's Defence Minister, Juwono Sudarsono, has requested Australian military assistance in meeting the huge humanitarian burden in the country's violence-racked eastern islands.