Jakarta – Sony Electronics Indonesia Ltd has ended its Indonesian operations and is offering severance pay to its 884 workers.

Indonesia's Golkar Party which was used by former President Suharto to impose decades of authoritarian rule, is undergoing a makeover.

International environmental organisation Greenpeace says Indonesia has the world's highest rate of forest loss and may see much of its lowland forest disappear by 2010.

Moch. N.

Jakarta – On June 3 a number of press and non-government organisations from the Coalition for Violence Against Journalists (Koalisi Antikekerasan terhadap Wartawan) declared their conce

Washington (Agencies) – The following is a summary of results for Indonesia from the 2003 Global Attitudes Survey by the Washington-based Pew Research Center for the People and the Pres

Pip Hinman – Since Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri declared martial law in Aceh on May 19, defence minister Robert Hill and foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer have bee

Matthew Moore, Jakarta – Average incomes across Bali are down 40 per cent, one in five Balinese is out of work, and children are increasingly dropping out of school, according to the fi

Robert Go, Jakarta – Tourist arrivals in Bali have recovered only to a third of the level that tourism experts had said it would.

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, Jakarta – The British government has questioned the use of HS-Hawk warplanes by Indonesia during the military operation against rebels in Aceh, saying the pre-pur

Nick Everett, Jakarta – On May 19-21, more than 60 peace activists from 26 countries met at Hotel Wisata to assess the challenges faced by the global peace movement and to develop a pla

Something is not quite right with this picture: Key Cabinet ministers arriving in their chauffeur-driven Volvo sedans to a Cabinet meeting on Monday to consider which direction to take

Relations between Indonesia and Sweden sink to a new low, over the fate of Aceh's rebel leaders.

Robert Go, Jakarta – Major donors, who pledge billions of dollars in loans to Indonesia on a yearly basis, called on the government yesterday to start making progress on its reform prom

Dadan Wijaksana, Jakarta – Indonesia's traditional donors grouped under the Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI) have welcomed the country's macroeconomic improvements, but warn that s

Darren Goodsir, Denpasar – Waving his arms and yelling at his lawyers to respond to his religious chants, Imam Samudra – the alleged brains behind the Bali bombings – strolled into cour

Sari P. Setiogi, Jakarta – The government is not postponing the new visa policy but is merely implementing a six-month transition period instead, spokesman Ade E.

Public demand for action to uncover the mystery behind the 1998 May riots that led to the downfall of the Suharto regime apparently still has a long way to go before it achieves success

[The following article will be published in the forthcoming issue of the Tapol Bulletin.]

R. William Liddle – How likely is it that Indonesia will once again be ruled by the Indonesian Military (TNI)?

The Indonesia-headquartered Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) claims that members of the Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI) – which holds its interim meeting in Jaka

Indonesia summoned the Swedish ambassador to express disappointment at his country's response to a demand for action against exiled Acehnese rebel leaders.

Simon Montlake – As recently as 1999, Indonesia idled in the AIDS slow lane.

A'an Suryana, Jakarta – The National Awakening Party (PKB) concluded its three-day national meeting late on Thursday by naming its chief patron, Abdurrahman Wahid, its presidential cand

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, Jakarta – People living in Jakarta will be jailed for up to three months without trial and fined during a massive city administration crackdown on illegal resid

An Indonesian group linked to the al-Qaeda network held a high-level meeting last month in Indonesia, possibly to identify new terrorist targets, The Australian newspaper reported.

Arya Abhiseka, Jakarta – A noted abortion expert said on Wednesday the high number of maternal deaths from unsafe abortions was partly the fault of the media, which has failed to educat

Haidir Anwar Tanjung, Pekanbaru – With the beginning of the dry season, an increasing number of forest fires have been detected in Riau and Kalimantan, raising a thick haze that could d

Jakarta – Flora & Fauna International (FFI) and the Team for the Conservation of Sumatran Tigers (TPHS) have received reports on the unchecked poaching of Sumatran elephants and oth

Bambang Nurbianto, Jakarta – Public bus drivers are forced to pay, on average, up to Rp 40,000 for legal and illegal fees each day, a factor that has caused their services and safety to

Matthew Moore, Jakarta – Two key suspects in the Bali bombings testified yesterday that Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir is the head of Jemaah Islamiah, the al-Qaeda linked terror organis

Phar Kim Beng, Hong Kong – As the international spotlight focuses its glare upon the Bali bombing trial in Jakarta and renewed separatist violence in Aceh, it is all too easy to assume

Nick Everett – On May 21, I was arrested for attending a protest in Jakarta.

London – Indonesia failed to take decisive action to end human rights violations last year, Amnesty International said Wednesday.

Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta/Manado – Regionalism is the latest, unintended consequence of the much-debated national education bill, which has already divided the nation along religious lin

Nana Rukmana, Cirebon – Thousands of sugar cane farmers in the West Java regency of Cirebon threatened to boycott the supply of sugar cane to sugar producers unless the government raise

Oyos Saroso H.N., Bandar Lampung – With no protection from the government, farmers in Lampung are having a difficult time surviving a time of economic hardship.

Jakarta – Rupiah on Monday reached its highest level against the dollar since August 2000, sparking concerns that the upturn could be overdone and harm the country's exports.

Women's groups in Indonesia have welcomed a new law that paves the way for more women to enter parliament.

Jakarta – Indonesia has banned the sale of 78 brands of traditional medicine – some of them said to enhance sexual performance – because they contain hazardous chemicals, officials said

Robert Go, Jakarta – Some Indonesian cigarette manufacturers are dodging tax payments to the government to the tune of millions of dollars each year, said officials investigating the ma

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta – A further split has cast a shadow over the United Development Party (PPP), the nation's largest Muslim-based party, as a walkout spoiled the finale of its four

A'an Suryana and Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, Jakarta – Political leaders asserted on Friday that reform had moved at a snail's pace over the past five years, and that fresh leadership blood

Bill Guerin, Jakarta – Despite predictions that Indonesian state oil and gas company Pertamina faces a bleak and uncertain future after the government lifted its decades-long oil and ga

Leo Wahyudi S – On May 21, 1998, then president Soeharto yielded to demands to step down during the bloody rallies that followed the earlier May riots.

Nick Everett, from Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific (ASAP) and co-convenor of the Sydney Walk Against War Coalition and Kylie Moon, coordinator of Books Not Bombs – a yout

Tangerang – Hundreds of motorcycle taxi (ojek) drivers blocked Jl.

Annabel Crabb, Canberra – Australian military co-operation with the Indonesian army and its special forces unit, Kopassus, would not be affected by their involvement in Jakarta's attack

Jakarta – Indonesian police with water cannons drove back hundreds of students Wednesday protesting the slow pace of reform since the downfall of ex-dictator Suharto five years ago.

For a second straight day, the Indonesian military has continued its offensive against Aceh's separatist rebels, with an order to exterminate those who refuse to surrender.