Peter Hartcher – Australia came perilously close to war with Indonesia last year. Australian policy planners know that we could easily veer towards a collision once more. And if you look at the speed with which things have gone badly wrong in our region, you'd be foolish to dismiss the threat.

Mark Dodd, Dili – The de facto parliament, the National Consultative Council, has approved a Budget of $US59.23 million to help the nation rebuild after last year's devastating militia violence. The budget will be taken for approval to an international donors' conference in Lisbon this month.

Banda Aceh – Rebels shot and wounded a Police Mobile Brigade (Brimob) officer in a gunfight between security forces and Free Aceh Movement (GAM), the third attack since a cease-fire was declared eight days ago, an official said Friday.

Jakarta – Australian Prime Minister John Howard yesterday reassured President Abdurrahman Wahid that Australia respects Indonesia's territorial integrity, and agreed to patch up diplomatic relations.

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – Not long ago feted as South-East Asia's greatest leader, Indonesia's former president Soeharto knows little about the dramatic changes taking place in the country he ruled for 32 years.

His family do not allow Mr Soeharto, who turned 79 this week, to read newspapers or watch television news, apparently for fear his blood pressure will rise.

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – Parliamentarians from the party linked to Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid are spearheading a new probe into an estimated 2.7 trillion rupiah (S$513 million) allegedly stolen from the National Logistics Agency (Bulog) under his predecessors.

Grace Nirang, Jakarta – Little fresh investment will flow into Indonesia's mining sector this year as companies hug the sidelines due to a host of problems plaguing the industry.

Ian Timberlake, Jakarta – Buoyed by overtures from Indonesia's democratic President and emboldened by the nation's new climate of freedom, ethnic Chinese here say they are ready to push for an end to years of discrimination.

Simon Montlake, Jakarta – Local activists protesting over land rights have lifted a siege of a 14-ton-a-year gold mine in Kalimantan, owned and operated by a unit of Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto Ltd. (A.CRA), the company said Friday.

Jakarta – Authorities in Jakarta have given the go-ahead for police to shoot rioters if other attempts to control them fail, according to reports published here yesterday.

The decision was reached at a meeting between administration leaders, the military, police and civic leaders at the Jakarta governor's office on Wednesday, the Warta Kota daily reported.

Agence France Presse in Tokyo – Australian Prime Minister John Howard sought to move beyond past acrimony at yesterday's summit with Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, the first since the East Timor crisis.

Marianne Kearney, Banda Aceh – Aceh's landmark ceasefire is in danger of faltering as the two sides argue about how to monitor whether each side – the Indonesian army and the separatist rebels – keep to the agreement which went into effect last Friday.

Palu – A fresh batch of reinforcement troops arrived in Poso on Wednesday to help quell the continuing sectarian riots there.

Jakarta – Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid has warned the military against using violence in dealing with calls for independence in West Papua, while one of his top officials yesterday warned Papuans against acts of "treason".

Andrew Kilvert, Jayapura – Violence has broken out between militias supporting independence and autonomy in the easternmost Indonesian province of West Papua.

Fighting broke out at Waena in the capital, Jayapura, on Tuesday evening when a pro-autonomy militia known as Satgas Merah Putih (Red and White Taskforce) attacked a group of independence militia with machetes.

Dili – Is there a conspiracy of silence within our media about conditions in East Timor? Sister Fabiol Gusmao, who runs Carmelite health clinics and an orphanage in Dili and dispenses food and medical aid to starving people, recently sent a despairing call for food to the Mary MacKillop Sisters in Sydney.

Grainne McCarthy, Jakarta – The President's masseur embezzles money from the country's key food agency; the President's talk of capital controls spooks the international community; the President's showdown with the central bank governor sends investors fleeing. You'd think that for Indonesia things couldn't get much worse. Well, you'd be wrong.

The Indonesian Minister of Law and Legislation, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, this week formally submitted to the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR) a bill to set up human rights courts to try "gross violations of human rights". Special ad hoc courts will have jurisdiction over past violations, including those connected with last year's murder and destruction in East Timor.

Dan Murphy, Jakarta – As Indonesian prosecutors stepped up their investigation of soldiers for involvement in the atrocities that followed East Timor's independence vote last September, a senior general signaled the military is digging in.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Dili – Lured by the opportunity to make it big in the coffee trading business, Abdul Halim moved to this predominantly Roman Catholic territory in 1996 from his largely Islamic hometown on Sumatra island, settling in a small community near the Dili airport filled with fellow Muslim migrants from other parts of the Indonesian archipelago.

Mark Dodd, Dili – A draft UN legal code designed to serve East Timor's fledgling judiciary was so flawed it would make a criminal conviction virtually impossible, a visiting team of senior Australian legal experts said.

Taxi and van drivers blocked traffic in Dili with their vehicles and tried to force their way into the central administrative building Wednesday to protest recent fuel price hikes.

In another blow to ex-president Suharto, a court yesterday rejected a multi-billion-dollar criminal defamation case he had filed against the US magazine Time.

Judge Sihol Sitompul, heading a panel of three judges at the Central Jakarta District Court, ruled Mr Suharto's defamation suit could not be accepted for lack of evidence.

Kupang - Head of an advocacy team for a legal aid organization, Yohanes Yacob, did not design the attack on the Solidamor office that was carried out by a delegation of East Timor refugees (DPTT) two weeks ago.

[Gus Dur's controversial brother speaks frankly to The Straits Times.]

Q: Describe Gus Dur for us.

A: Gus Dur is a great solidarity-maker, but he's not the best administrator in town. His power came from various political centres, so he has to accommodate them in his policy-making.

The following is a statement presented by United States journalist Allan Nairn to the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Human Rights on May 11.

Dan Murphy, Jakarta – By omission or commission, the evidence is mounting that elements of the Indonesian military are reigniting the religious conflict in the Maluku islands. The motive? Political payback, perhaps.

Jakarta – The Miss Indonesia beauty contest, which has been banned for the past four years following opposition from Muslim groups, is to be held again this week with full government support.

Kupang – Responding to an UNTAS statement which said that it would not participate in the 2001 elections in East Timor if the UN didn't clarify UNAMET fraud in the referendum, UNTAET representative in Kupang, Colin Stewart, stressed that the elections will still be carried out even without the pro-integration group.

Jonathan Thatcher, Jakarta – A growing feud between Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid and his scandal-tainted central bank governor threatens more damage to the country's already precarious chances of economic recovery.

Chris McCal, Jakarta – Jakarta yesterday rejected a formal demand for independence by a West Papuan congress, slamming the meeting as invalid and its declaration as possibly illegal.

A leader of a breakaway faction of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) was killed in Malaysia just hours before a "humanitarian pause" in Aceh was to take affect. Don Zulfahri, secretary general of the GAM Government Council (GAM MP), was shot twice by an unidentified gunman in a restaurant in Malaysia late on June 1.

Why is Irian Jaya such a hot issue, and are there parallels to be drawn with East Timor? Indonesia analyst Dr John Taylor of South Bank University, London, discusses its prospects for independence in a BBC programme, The World Today, last Friday

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – Indonesia's President Abdurrahman Wahid yesterday warned of a military crackdown in Papua after a landmark congress in the far-eastern province declared it was no longer part of his country.

Jakarta – The US Embassy in Jakarta said Monday that Washington didn't support "independence for Papua or any other part of Indonesia."

It said it had sent an embassy officer to a congress held by Papua nationalists as an observer in line with standard diplomatic practice.

Andrew Kilvert and agencies, Jayapura – West Papua yesterday announced the formation of a government and declared independence from Jakarta, as Indonesian soldiers and riot police continued to patrol the streets of the capital, Jayapura.

Neles Tebay, Jayapura – Defying warnings from Jakarta, the Papuan Congress ended on Sunday with a declaration that West Papua, or Irian Jaya as the territory is still officially called, is no longer a part of the Republic of Indonesia.

Ridwan M. Sijabat, Jakarta – Legislators and observers are calling for a complete transformation of the Army's territorial function, which they say has aggravated political and security instability nationwide.

Jakarta – A steady commitment by the Indonesian government to implement pleged economic reforms will strengthen the ailing rupiah, a top official with the International Monetary Fund said Monday.

Martin Crutsinger, Washington – The International Monetary Fund on Friday gave approval for a $372 million loan to support economic reform efforts in Indonesia.

The decision by the IMF's 24-member executive board came after a review of the country's recent actions to meet IMF-imposed economic conditions.

Reuters in Jakarta – A landmark congress discussing the future of Indonesia's Irian Jaya province is set to close on Saturday with an affirmation of the right to independence but without the setting up of a provisional separatist government.

Lindsay Murdoch and Andrew Kilvert – A Jakarta-based organisation with criminal connections and links to Indonesia's military and Golkar, the former ruling party, is secretly funding part of a burgeoning independence movement in the country's far eastern province of Papua.

Chris McCall, Jakarta – Aceh refused to abandon its hopes for peace yesterday as a much-desired truce finally took effect under the shadow of an assassination in Malaysia.

Jakarta – Ten state-owned companies have been put on a primary list for privatization this year, according to an updated master plan to be issued by the Office of the State Minister of State Enterprises and Investment.

Jakarta – Minister of Defense Juwono Sudarsono said on Thursday he believed a series of riots and disturbances plaguing the country were linked to supporters of former president Soeharto.

Jakarta – The exiled leader of an Aceh independence faction gunned down in Kuala Lumpur was killed by the Indonesian military, the main separatist movement in Aceh claimed on Friday.

"I'm sure he was murdered by TNI [Indonesian military] intelligence agents in Kuala Lumpur," Ismail Sahputra, spokesman for the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), told AFP by phone.

Jakarta – Minutes before relinquishing his post as Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) chief, Sugito Suwito fired back at President Abdurrahman Wahid, saying he was being truthful in scaling back his economic growth projection.

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – Donor countries and international aid agencies say that President Abdurrahman Wahid's handling of the Buloggate scandal will indicate how committed his reform government is to driving out corruption.

Jose Manuel Tesoro, Jakarta – After two years of delays, false starts and even an outright cancellation, Indonesia's most-watched investigation is inching toward a conclusion. On May 19, Indonesia's attorney-general, Marzuki Darusman, announced that former president Suharto will be charged with corruption and abuse of power.

Jayapura – Speaker after speaker at a landmark conference on the future of Indonesia's West Papua province called for independence yesterday as alarm bells over a possible new East Timor sounded in Jakarta.