Don Greenlees, Jakarta – President Megawati Sukarnoputri has approved a list of 18 judges to sit on a human rights tribunal trying crimes committed during Indonesia's retreat from East Timor, opening the way for the first trials of soldiers and militiamen more than two years after their bloody retribution over East Timor's vote for independence.

The East Timor Action Network (ETAN) said today that Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri's last minute approval of judges for an ad hoc court on East Timor does not alter its view that the court will not bring to justice all, or even most of, those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in East Timor.

Jakarta – The country's largest Muslim organisation, which founded the Nation Awakening Party (PKB), is giving up on attempts to reconcile two rival factions within the party.

Emmy Fitri, Jakarta – Governor Sutiyoso's plan to use more muscle to order the city, including evicting illegal squatters, will not solve his administration's many problems as he only looking for a quick solution and not a real one, activists say.

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – Several legislators said they would boycott Parliament Speaker Akbar Tandjung, a key suspect in a financial scandal, if he refused to vacate his post temporarily while undergoing a legal investigation.

Jakarta – Former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid was questioned by police yesterday over allegations that he received nearly US$2 million from an errant son of former president Suharto in an attempt to buy a presidential pardon.

United Nations – Rejecting "implicit suggestions of racism," the United Nations on Friday denied an accusation made by one of its officials that the peacekeeping mission in East Timor was dominated by white Westerners.

The charge was made by N. Parameswaran, a Malaysian who resigned this week as chief of staff of the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET).

Damar Harsanto, Jakarta – As thousands of people displaced by the recent city-led forced evictions cry for help, their representatives in City Council are due to leave for the mountain resort of Puncak, West Java, to discuss the proposed city budget, drawing strong criticism from the public and non-governmental organizations.

Jakarta – The authorities in the Indonesian capital have refused to halt a wave of forced evictions of Jakarta's poor, which has left almost 50,000 people homeless in the past year, a welfare activist said.

Emmy Fitri, Jakarta – The rising price of rice may not affect the middle to upper income households but it is surely having a major impact on the poor small-scale rice vendors.

Upi Sobri, 52, said she had to close her business selling nasi uduk (rice cooked in coconut oil) to school children last week because she could no longer afford the soaring price of rice.

Robert Go, Jakarta – Aid money earmarked by the government to offset the effects of fuel-price hikes on the poor will not help the needy, said activists who work with Indonesia's impoverished urban communities.

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta – Signs of a crack in the coalition government between the largest and second largest party, which catapulted Megawati Soekarnoputri to the presidency last July, is getting more obvious as the days go by.

Aan Suryana and Bambang Nurbianto, Jakarta – The government's decision to reestablish the military command in Aceh and internal conflicts in nearly all major political parties would do harm to efforts to end the military's role in politics, military observers warned on Friday.

Jakarta – Indonesia's former armed forces commander General Wiranto has accused President Megawati Sukarnoputri and her predecessors of failing the reform movement.

"None of the governments has been capable of taking the nation out of the crisis, let alone promoting the people's welfare," Gen Wiranto said on Wednesday, quoted by the Antara news agency.

Jakarta – The price of rice has increased by nearly 30 percent in several areas in Central and West Java, and many are attributing that to the government's plan to increase fuel prices and electricity bills.

In Purwokerto, Central Java, low quality rice, IR, is now Rp 3,000 per kilogram, Rp 600 higher than before.

Jakarta – The military is establishing a separate command in Aceh to spearhead the war against the rebel Free Aceh Movement, a move which means that soldiers in the province will no longer be accountable to headquarters in Jakarta.

Human rights activists have denounced the move, saying the action will increase military atrocities.

Washington – US and Indonesian officials believe hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters trained last year at a camp in central Indonesia, and fear sleeper cells could soon become operational there, the Washington Post reported Friday.

Banda Aceh – At least 12 people, including a soldier, were killed in the latest outbreak of violence in restive Aceh province from Wednesday to Thursday, official and humanitarian activists said.

Banda Aceh – Separatist rebels in Indonesia's Aceh province on Friday accused US-based energy giant ExxonMobil Indonesia of providing funds and facilities to soldiers to wage "a brutal military campaign" in Aceh.

Lisbon is negotiating with the United Nations over the possibility of taking over command of the UN peacekeeping force in East Timor, it was announced Friday by Portuguese Defense Minister Rui Pena.

Jakarta – Indonesian vice president and prominent Islamic leader Hamzah Haz on Friday warned the United States not to target the world's most populous Muslim nation in its war on terrorism, the official Antara news agency reported.

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – The Indonesian government has failed to lift the country out of the economic crisis despite initial confidence in the new economic team of President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

Tempo news magazine concluded in its New Year edition that almost all indicators showed that the country's economy was still in a rut.

East Timor's religious leader, Catholic Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, called Friday for the holding of legislative elections for the first post-independence Timorese parliament, instead of the planned transition of the Constituent Assembly into this body.

Vaudine England – The chief of staff for the United Nations mission in East Timor has resigned, citing management failures and racism as reasons for his departure.

When Nagalingam Parameswaran leaves the capital, Dili, this week there will be no senior manager at the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (Untaet) from a Southeast Asian country.

Cheah Chor Sooi, Koh Lay Chin and Shamini Darshni, Kuala Lumpur – Prominent personalities today came out in support of Datuk N. Parameswaran's decision to quit as chief of staff of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor over racism in the international body.

Dili – The Constituent Assembly today passed a further four articles of East Timor's 151-article draft Constitution. The articles, all passed by significant majorities, are the following:

Jakarta – Indonesia's disgraced former military commander Gen. Wiranto Wednesday described as unfair the prosecution of 19 military officials and militiamen for alleged human rights abuses in East Timor in 1999, saying soldiers under his command did nothing wrong.

His comments come shortly before the trials are scheduled to start in a special human rights court.

East Timor's General Prosecutor has issued more than 30 indictments in cases involving major incidents of mass killings and forced deportation, according to the latest figures released by the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET).

A former leading anti-idependence militia leader has canceled his planned return to East Timor. Cancio Lopes de Carvalho told the UN transition administration Monday he had canceled the trip for "technical reasons".

Indonesia's easternmost province of Irian Jaya was officially renamed Papua yesterday as part of an autonomy package aimed at reducing support for independence.

Jakarta – An Indonesian court on Monday charged two alleged hitmen with murdering a Supreme Court judge on orders from Tommy Suharto, a son of the former president.

Vaudine England and Agencies, Jakarta – The stakes were raised in Jakarta's potentially most explosive political corruption case yesterday when the Attorney-General's Office announced that the Speaker of the House of Representatives (DPR), Akbar Tandjung, was now regarded as a suspect.

Dili – The Constituent Assembly today passed a further seven articles of East Timor's 151-article draft Constitution. The articles were all passed with significant majorities and include the following:

Banda Aceh – At least eight more people including two suspected separatist rebels have been killed in Indonesia's restive province of Aceh in recent days, the military and humanitarian workers said Monday.

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta – Critics have urged the government of Megawati Soekarnoputri to speed up the ad hoc trial of military officers accused of human rights violations in East Timor in 1999 and Tanjungpriok, Jakarta, in 1984.

Jakarta – Hundreds of Indonesian activists rallied outside the presidential palace Monday to protest plans to raise fuel and electricity prices.

The protestors, mostly from the left-leaning Democratic People's Party, said the rises would only further impoverish the poor, Antara news agency reported.

Jakarta – More women in Indonesia died during childbirth last year than in any other Southeast Asian country, a health ministry official said Monday.

The rate was 323 per 100,000 births last year compared to 30 each in Malaysia and Sri Lanka, and 50 in Thailand, said the ministry's director general for public health, Azrul Azwar, as quoted by Antara news agency.

Tim Dodd, Jakarta – Three East Timorese men killed in an armed raid on their villages on Saturday night were former independence activists. Senior East Timorese officials believe that the attackers were once linked to the pro-Indonesian militia.

Dili – The Constituent Assembly today passed a further five articles of East Timor's draft Constitution relating to the functions of the Council of State and of the National Parliament. All the articles were passed by significant majorities.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – With the militia leader Eurico Guterres due to be charged with crimes against humanity next week, United Nations officials in East Timor are hopeful that 2002 may represent a new phase in the prosecution of human rights violators.

The Constituent Assembly today returned from a three-day New Year's break to continue debate on East Timor's first draft Constitution, passing five articles contained in the section on the status, election and appointment of the President of the Republic.

The assembly has now passed 79 of the Constitution's 151 articles.

Jakarta – Indonesia's military said Thursday it would cooperate with a special human rights court set up to try top commanders and militiamen accused of crimes in East Timor in 1999.

"We support it as long as it is in line with our laws," said armed forces spokesman Air Vice Marshall Graito Usodo. He said the men would be provided with defense lawyers for the proceedings.

Jakarta – Indonesian authorities have ceased providing food and cash for tens of thousands of East Timorese refugees stuck in squalid camps in West Timor, an official said Wednesday.

"We have stopped giving out assistance as of January 1," West Timor deputy governor Yohannes Pake Pani told AFP by phone from the capital Kupang.

Jakarta – The safety of refugees is still guaranteed: Even though the government has abolished refugee status for the refugees from East Timor with effect from 31 December 2001, Commander IX/Udayana Military Area Command Maj-Gen Willem da Costa, stated that he would still guarantee their safety.

East Timor's chief minister, Mari Alkatiri, Thursday denounced an unexpected call for legislative elections as an attempt by opposition forces to provoke a political crisis.

Indonesian military authorities have said they have discovered evidence of a new movement aiming to achieve independence for the whole of Timor island, according to an article in an Indonesian newspaper.

Jakarta – Indonesia's Supreme Court has assigned 17 judges to preside over the trials of Indonesian soldiers and militiamen accused of human rights abuses in East Timor in 1999, a news report said Thursday.

Indonesian president Megawati Sukarnoputri has scored a poor end-of-year report card from the country's human rights advocates, who accuse her of abandoning reforms and cosying up to figures from the former Suharto regime.

Jakarta – Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri on Saturday called on the country's soldiers to be firm in carrying out their job and not to be worried about accusations of human rights abuses.