Approximately 93 per cent of the estimated population in East Timor have been registered in advance of upcoming elections, the United Nations mission in the territory announced today.

Banda Aceh – At least 49 people were killed or found dead in the violence-plagued Indonesian province of Aceh during the weekend, hospital and rebel sources said Sunday.

Jakarta – Madurese settlers in Indonesia's West Kalimantan province have asked the local government to give them two weeks to persuade thousands of Madurese refugees to leave their camp

Jakarta – The House of Representatives' consultative body agreed on Thursday to put forward a controversial special autonomy bill for Irian Jaya proposed by Papuan legislators, but at t

Lhokseumawe – Indonesian security forces killed 22 rebels in two separate gunbattles in Aceh province, officials said yesterday.

Peter Kerr, Jakarta – Soon after giving birth earlier this year in a major central Jakarta hospital, nursing staff gave Indra a pack containing infant milk formula, a measuring cup and

Banda Aceh – Optimism looms ahead of the upcoming two-day peace talks between the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) scheduled to take place in Geneva from Monday.

Hamish McDonald – Senior United States and Australian officials yesterday joined in an unusually direct warning to Jakarta against trying to suppress secessionists in Aceh and Irian Jay

Jakarta – Corruption, collusion and nepotism are rampant in state enterprises, a top government official admits, confirming what many have long suspected.

Jakarta – While the fate of embattled President Abdurrahman Wahid is still far from sealed, the United Development Party (PPP) and the Crescent Star Party (PBB) are already preparing to

Reuters in Manila – President Abdurrahman Wahid, threatened with impeachment by a hostile Parliament, offered yesterday to reconcile differences with opponents in the legislature and th

Jakarta – Court officials said yesterday that they had not lost the documentation of a Supreme Court decision ordering a fugitive son of former Indonesian President Suharto to pay nearl

Mark Dodd, Dili – The United Nations has told the people of East Timor they will be virtually self-governing from September 15 – but that the UN will decide who will form the government

The UN administration in East Timor has prepared a package of wide-ranging logistical and material aid for 16 parties and independent candidates contesting the territory's first electio

Jakarta – Indonesian Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri on Thursday warned President Abdurrahman Wahid that declaring a state of emergency, as he has threatened, would be unconstituti

Jakarta – National Police chief Gen.

Ray Brindal, Canberra – Australian and East Timorese representatives have resolved many of their outstanding differences about a planned new treaty covering royalties from energy produc

Poso, Central Sulawesi – Eight armed men were detained on Wednesday as they were allegedly about to attack residents working on a cacao plantation in Batugincu village, Poso, Central Su

Mark Dodd, Dill – The United Nations in East Timor will encourage staff to volunteer for HIV tests but cannot make them compulsory on human rights grounds.

Paula Doran – For half of his 30 years Domingos lived chained to a wooden bench behind his village home in the hills of East Timor.

Atambua – Facing the prospect of resettling tens of thousands of East Timorese refugees, an Indonesian government delegation on Thursday appealed to pro-Jakarta militia leaders to retur

A group of presumed anti-independence militiamen opened fire Thursday on a patrol of UN peacekeepers in the East Timorese district of Maliana, near the border with Indonesia.

Jakarta – Hundreds of becak (pedicab) drivers held a march on Wednesday to demand that the poor be given the right to earn a living in the capital.

The head of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) today presented the first State of the Nation address to the East Timorese National Council, giving an

Max Lane – On June 15 the Indonesian police kidnapped eight members of the People's Democratic Party (PRD) and occupied and ransacked the PRD's West Java office.

A leading Timorese aid worker has branded as a "sham" an Indonesian canvassing drive which found that 98% of East Timorese refugees confined to camps in West Timor did not want to go ho

Tomi Soetjipto, Jakarta – Indonesian Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri's expected rise to power is likely to be clouded by the same opportunistic politicking that has plagued her hap

Jakarta – Activists from the Anti-Torture Network visited on Tuesday the headquarters of the city police and the West, North and East Jakarta police, and reported that their detention c

Brendan Pearson – The Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, and Indonesia's President, Mr Abdurrahman Wahid, have pledged to repair a diplomatic relationship marked by discord and bitterness

Jayapura – An Irianese separatist group that has taken hostage two Belgian filmmakers is demanding President Abdurrahman Wahid bring the Irian Jaya issues before an international forum,

Peter Boyle – Indonesian non-government organisations believe the June 8 raid by police on the Asia-Pacific Solidarity Conference, during which 32 foreigners were detained, was "a threa

Jakarta – Amid the topsy-turvy of preparations for the upcoming special session of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), a total of 13 members of the House of Representatives (DPR)

Sixteen political parties have nominated candidates to run in the August elections for East Timor's Constituent Assembly, meeting the deadline set for noon local time on Wednesday, UNTA

A group of unidentified youths set fire Wednesday to a school in the East Timorese city of Baucau, 130 kms east of Dili, causing serious material damage.

Nick Everett & Rebecca Meckelburg, Bandung – Police have arrested six members of the radical People's Democratic Party (PRD) in West Java, in an attempt to repress the largest strik

Joanna Jolly – East Timorese independence leader Xanana Gusmao said he supports pardons for militiamen who are found guilty of committing atrocities during the territory's 1999 vote for

Jane Counsel – A United States company is stepping up efforts to settle a 25-year dispute over the oil and gas riches of the Timor Gap, announcing yesterday it would launch legal procee

Hamish McDonald – Within an hour of arriving in Canberra from a gruelling journey from Jakarta, Abdurrahman Wahid was plunged into a succession of discussions and engagements last night

Jakarta – The IMF said on Tuesday it would resume a vital $5 billion loan programme with Indonesia if the government agreed to delay a debate on controversial central bank law revisions

Australia and Indonesia had agreed to put behind them the strained relationship which arose over East Timor and move on, Prime Minister John Howard said today, while Indonesian Presiden

Craig Skehan – Australia and New Zealand will press Indonesia's visiting President Wahid to prosecute members of his country's military, and militiamen, over atrocities in East Timor.

George Quinn – Personally I don't think Indonesia will break up, but we are talking here of probabilities, and there is an outside chance, but a real chance, that current stresses will

Is it mere symbolism for the Wahid visit that John Howard has had an apparent change of heart on Asia, asks Gerard Henderson?

The civil registration process has been a success.

Jakarta – Pro-independence leader Don Flassy has been arrested and is now detained in Indonesia's remote Irian Jaya province, a justice official said Tuesday.

Yogyakarta – Revolutionary groups which attack gambling houses and nightspots in the name of religious beliefs are mushrooming here, causing residents to be increasingly fearful.

Bandung – Tens of youths from various youth groups under the umbrella of the former ruling Golkar Party occupied the West Java branch office of the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights

Jakarta – More than 250 Mayasari Bhakti bus drivers went on strike on Monday, and hundreds of others are rumored to join on Tuesday to demand a bus fare increase to compensate their dwi

Jakarta – After weeks of nationwide, sometimes riotous agitation, Indonesia's labor unions scored a major victory last week when the Wahid government decided to delay implementation of

Maputo – Guterres, visiting president of the Timorese liberation movement (Fretilin), declared here on Tuesday that he is confident his party will win in the country's first presidentia