Louise Williams, Jakarta – Indonesia announced last night that it had reached agreement with the International Monetary Fund on a rescue package for its ailing economy.

Louise Williams, Jakarta – For fifteen days Pak Waska has been ready: waiting under the vast, concrete highway overpass, his work bag packed, his shirt neat and clean, the thick fumes o

Geoff Spencer, Jakarta – Indonesia shut down 16 insolvent banks and planned other austerity measures Saturday, a day after receiving word of $33 billion in foreign loans to revive an ec

When President Soeharto built himself a modern office block in the late 1960s, it was known for a time as the KISS building, an abbreviation of words borrowed from English – koordinasi,

Chris Lydgate in Singapore and Louise Williams in Jakarta – The Indonesian President's comments that the Singapore Government had agreed to offer a $US10 billion ($14.2 billion) aid pac

The national car

Tony Wright, Jakarta – The Prime Minister has told Indonesia's President Soeharto that Australia, in the spirit of "regional mateship", stands ready to dig deep as part of a major inter

Jakarta – The government is necessary to stop isolating ethnic Chinese from political life, an expert said.

Bernice Han, Singapore – Indonesia's National Logistics Agency (Bulog), the state-owned food price regulator, is seen targeted by the International Monetary Fund for reform, a senior ag

Jakarta – Police and soldiers used sticks to break up anti-government protests by hundreds of students today in two cities.

Louise Williams, Jakarta – The International Monetary Fund's rescue package for Indonesia is expected to be delayed until later this week after private talks reportedly stalled over pol

Michael Shari in Jakarta, with Joyce Barnathan in Hong Kong – The 60 Indonesian blue-chip company executives summoned to Bank Indonesia, the country's central bank, on Oct.

Jakarta – The number of cities covered by the thick haze from rampant forest and bush fires nearly doubled yesterday, amid uncertainty over when the annual monsoon rains would arrive.

K.T.

Seth Mydans, Kuala Lumpur – Tigers and elephants are fleeing the burning jungles. Birds are falling from the murky skies. Schoolchildren are fainting at their desks.

Chris Johnson, Singapore – Choking yellow-grey smog over Southeast Asia has already closed factories, cancelled flights and lengthened queues in doctors' waiting-rooms.

Jakarta – The worst drought in half a century has devastated crop harvests by as much as 40 percent, the government said Friday.

Lewa Pardomuan, Jakarta – Thick smog from rampant forest and bush fires spread to more cities in Indonesia on Sunday while uncertainties over the start of the annual monsoon rains linge

Jakarta – Outspoken Muslim scholar Amien Rais has suggested a national poll be held to determine whether the majority of Indonesians want President Suharto re-elected next year for a re

John McBeth with Fanny Lioe in Jakarta – On October 10, two days after Indonesia announced it was going to seek the International Monetary Fund's help in salvaging its economy, Jakarta

Lewa Pardomuan, Jakarta – Indonesia's state-owned aircraft manufacturer Industri Pesawat Terbang Nusantara (IPTN) said on Thursday it had found counter-trade deals beneficial and denied

Louise Williams, Jakarta – The Indonesian Government has warned that forest fires and smoke haze are getting worse, and monsoon rains are expected to be further delayed, while another f

Louise Williams, Jakarta – In a new effort to arrest the slide of the rupiah, Indonesia's Central Bank has announced that commercial banks may lend hundreds of millions of US dollars fr

Trevor Royle – Traditionally Britain's foreign interests have been dominated by a mixture of strategic initiatives to protect national interests and direct action, as the Foreign Office

Lewa Pardomuan, Jakarta – Military helicopters flew rice and noodles to famine-stricken areas in Indonesia's remote Irian Jaya province on Monday as government officials said food short

With Indonesia's President Soeharto nominated by his Golkar party this week for a seventh five-year term, his unopposed re-election by a largely hand-picked assembly seems certain, barr

Jakarta – President Soeharto denied press reports yesterday that a food shortage has forced people in Lampung and Java to eat cassava for their daily meals.

Jim Della-Giacoma, Jakarta – Indonesia's ruling Golkar party has predictably nominated ageing President Suharto to lead the country into the next century, but the question of who will s

There will be many redundancies in the industrial sector if businesses are forced to close down because of the present tight money policy, said Adi Putra Tahir, who heads the Organisati

President Suharto has earned plaudits for deregulating various aspects of Indonesia's economy. But he can't complete the job without challenging some powerful vested interests.

Louise Williams, Jakarta – Rising prices, cutbacks in health services and lay-offs resulting from economic reforms to be pushed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will hit Indones

I see this strike as the first action in a wave of actions that could hit the Suharto regime as a direct result of the crisis engulfing the Indonesian economy.

Jenny Grant, Jakarta – Popular Muslim figures have criticised the Government for failing to provide moral leadership in a time of economic and social crisis and warned it could face mas

Louise Williams, Jakarta – Thousands of workers from Indonesia's state aircraft manufacturer held mass demonstrations yesterday, following rumours of impending lay-offs, as an Internati

Four thousand five hundred workers at PT Prima Buana Tex which is located in Anggadita, Klari sub-district, West Java held a protest demonstration Monday to complain of inhumane treatme

Louise Williams, Jakarta – Hot, dry winds across Indonesia have caused a dramatic fourfold increase in forest fires and new smog warnings, after last week's light rains and initial succ

Quentin Peel and Sander Thoenes, Jakarta –

President Soeharto and his family are the most reluctant to make the necessary sacrifices because of their business interests, contends George J. Aditjondro.

A number of hotels in Kuta tourist complex, Bali, were burned down in a series of fires that engulfed four hotels and a group of tourist cottages.

[Media Indonesia, 10 October 1997, Summary only]

[From Media Indonesia 10 Ooctober and Kompas 11 October 1997, Summarised.]

Events in modern Indonesia bear an eerie resemblance to the calamities foretold in an ancient prophecy by a Javanese king.

What is life like under the asphyxiating pall created by the burning forests of Sumatra?

Jakarta – Indonesia was urged on Thursday to carefully preserve and manage its peat forests to avoid environmental disasters such as that which has covered much of Southeast Asia in cho

David Jenkins &150; President Soeharto's decision to call in the IMF and the World Bank, his second attempt in as many weeks to staunch a hemorhaging rupiah, has sent what should be

Jay Solomon &150; The playful smile on President Suharto's face as he gave the new "national motorcycle" a spin around his palace late last month could give the impression that all

John McBeth, Jakarta &150; Almost nightly on Indonesian television, thousands of firefighters armed with little more than water-filled backpacks are shown trying to beat back the bl

Michael Shari &150; For years, environmentalists have pleaded with governments in Southeast Asia to save the region's vast rain forests.

Buyung Rachmad Buchori Nasution, private secretary of the writer and politician Soebadio Sastrosatomo, who is on trial in the South Jakarta district court, has for a second time refused

Jakarta &150; Father Sandyawan Sumardi SJ, 38, said, after a hearing of the trial in which he and his brother Benny are the accused, that their trial is a test for the Indonesian go