Jakarta – Shoppers pack the supermarkets in the Indonesian capital these days, car and mobile phone sales are jumping, seven new airlines are ready to hit the skies and companies are re

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

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

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

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 cou

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 milli

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.

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 si

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.

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 mi

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

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

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 yest

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

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

Dili – Is there a conspiracy of silence within our media about conditions in East Timor?

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

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,

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 la

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

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.

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

Q: Describe Gus Dur for us.

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.

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 sen

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 refug

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.

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.

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.

Why is Irian Jaya such a hot issue, and are there parallels to be drawn with East Timor?

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 wa

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 su

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 p

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 re

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 sa

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

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 conti

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,

Ridwan M.

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 pa

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.

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 withou

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

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 sca

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.

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

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 Soehart

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.

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 refor