Banda Aceh – Indonesian police said on Friday they shot and killed a separatist commander in restive Aceh province but denied rebel allegations he'd been tortured to death.

Prostitutes in Indonesia's second largest city, Surabaya, have vowed not to make themselves available to officials to protest at a ruling banning their activities during Ramadan, a newspaper reported yesterday.

Alan Sipress, Jakarta – The Bush administration has warned Indonesian officials that it will withdraw some diplomats from the country unless police step up efforts to investigate a grenade explosion outside of a US building last month, a senior Indonesian security official said today.

Tony Sitathan – Irwin Goenawan graduated at the top in his class studying for magister manajeman, the Indonesian equivalent of a master of business administration (MBA) degree. He comes from a middle-class family.

Jakarta – Eighty four students who attacked a man they suspected of being an intelligence officer appeared at the Central Jakarta District Court on Thursday and were each ordered to pay a Rp 25,000 (US$2.8) fine or spend three days in police detention.

Robert Go, Jakarta – The newly-proposed National Security Council (DKN) provides President Megawati Sukarnoputri's government with a layer of protection from possible Islamic and nationalist backlash, if and when it steps up action against domestic terror threats.

Banda Aceh – A territorial commander of the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), identified as Abu Arafah, alias Ibrahim, 33, was shot dead at an isolated village in Aceh province, Aceh Police spokesman Taufik Sutiyono said here on Thursday.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a report on East Timor Thursday, stressing what he termed "the vital necessity" of continued UN aid for the world's youngest nation.

Lisbon – East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao says he would like to quit but will stay in the job to help his recently independent country grow. "If I could, I'd quit today," Gusmao said in an interview published Wednesday in daily paper Diario de Noticias.

The authorities in Indonesia's Aceh province have ruled out pursuing espionage charges against a Scottish woman detained for the past month, the prosecutor handling their case said.

"According to the chief, if we focus on spying it will be difficult to prove in court later," prosecutor Zainal Said told AFP Thursday.

Haze from forest and ground burning drifted back over Indonesia's Central Kalimantan province, ending the reprieve brought by several days of rain, the meteorology office said.

Nightclub workers have rallied against a hardline Muslim group that attacked entertainment spots in Indonesia's capital last weekend.

About 700 people, one-third of them female nightclub workers, demonstrated Wednesday in the parking lot of the Jakarta police headquarters.

Bill Guerin – Al-Habib Muhammad Rizieq bin Hussein Syihab, leader of the pro-Suharto radical Muslim group FPI (Defenders of Islam), and his storm troopers may, after two years of apparent immunity from the process of law and order, be about to be brought to account.

Jakarta – A bomb exploded in Indonesia's volatile Ambon city as police tried to defuse it on Wednesday, wounding six people including two police officials.

Residents had found a suspicious package in a market place and called police, a police spokeswoman said.

Jim Lobe – A group of Indonesian human rights organizations is urging the United States Congress to maintain tough conditions on renewing US training of the Indonesian military (TNI) even as the administration of President George W. Bush is actively enlisting the TNI in Washington's "war on terrorism."

Damar Harsanto, Jakarta – Police attempts to impress the public on the seriousness of legal action against their own officers alleged to have committed crimes seem doomed to failure as many irregularities were found at an open hearing on Tuesday.

Matthew Moore, Jakarta – On the eve of his return home, Australia's ambassador to Indonesia, Ric Smith, has sought to rebut a series of "myths" which he believes are straining the relationship between the two countries.

Muhammad Nafik and Ainur R. Sophiaan, Jakarta/Surabaya – Legal Aid Institutes (LBH) across the country are on the brink of collapse as the once respected non-governmental organization is suffering from financial difficulties following a bitter internal rift.

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – President Megawati Sukarnoputri has turned up the heat on Attorney-General M.A. Rachman by asking him to resign in the face of allegations of concealing his personal assets from state auditors.

But it is likely to take more than persuasion to make the controversial Attorney-General, who insisted he had done nothing wrong, vacate his coveted post.

Nani Farida, Banda Aceh – Aceh police detectives are questioning 20 colleagues from the elite Mobile Brigade (Brimob) for their alleged role in an arson attack on 80 shophouses in Keude Seuneddon, North Aceh, some 57 kilometers east of Lhokseumawe, last month.

Banda Aceh – Two soldiers and one teacher were killed in the latest round of violence in Aceh, provincial military spokesman Maj. Zaenal Mutaqin said here on Tuesday.

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, Jakarta – Indonesia and East Timor agreed on Tuesday to convert Indonesian assets in East Timor, mostly corporate assets, into equity investment in the newly born state.

Concluding the first joint commission meeting on Tuesday, the delegations of both countries agreed to further discussions within the next six months.

Jakarta – Indonesia is increasingly serious about confronting apparent efforts by Al-Qaeda to establish a terrorist beachhead in the world's most populous Muslim nation, the US ambassador to Jakarta said on Tuesday.

Bambang Nurbianto, Jakarta – The inauguration of Sutiyoso and Fauzi Bowo as, respectively, Jakarta governor and deputy governor for the 2002 to 2007 term took place smoothly on Monday without the demonstrations that had originally been planned by a number of non-governmental organizations.

Semarang – Because the price of tobacco has plummeted to only 5,000 rupiah per kilogram in the last period, the economic conditions for tobacco farmers in the central tobacco plantations in Central Java (Jateng) such as Wonosobo, Temanggung, Demak, and Kendal, is of increasing concern.

Indonesian-based Australian journalist John Martinkus explores the fine line between journalism and activism. John Martinkus has at times being accused of being an activist in his reports on the independence movement in East Timor, and more recently the Free Papua Movement (OPM) in the Indonesian province of Papua.

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – Murmurs of discontent within President Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-P) are growing louder by the day.

Last week, the party was rocked by allegations from within that some of its legislators had been accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars as bribes from various sources in the past three years.

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – The Indonesian government and Parliament have agreed on the need to set up a new body to advise the President on defence and international security issues, Chief Security Minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono announced yesterday.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – A leader of East Timor's parliamentary opposition has described an agreement regulating conditions for US troops in the territory as "an affront to East Timorese sovereignty".

Jakarta – Indonesia's military police chief said on Tuesday two officers from the special forces were the main suspects in last year's killing of a top Papua separatist leader.

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, Jakarta – The inclusion of foreigners in the planned monitoring commission to ensure peace in the war-torn province of Aceh will be discussed in the coming peace talks between the government and Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

Nani Farida, Banda Aceh – Thousands of the have-nots staged a peaceful rally in front of the Aceh provincial legislature building on Monday, demanding the administration disburse billions of rupiah of public funds to alleviate poverty in the resources-rich province.

An East Timorese man, wounded in an attack on a refugee-packed compound in Dili in April 1999, told a court here that Indonesian soldiers were among the attackers.

Kafil Yamin, Jakarta – Long stretches of parched paddy fields and vegetable farms lining the road are a testament to the drought that has hit Java and other parts of Indonesia. The arid landscape through Cikarang industrial estate, 60 kilometers south of Jakarta, is dotted with lamb and cattle eating dry grass here and there, the rivers having dried up long ago.

Karen Polglaze, Canberra – Australian ratification of the Timor Gap Treaty could increase the risk of political instability in East Timor, a parliamentary committee was told today.

Jakarta – Nearly 400 displaced East Timorese sheltering in West Timor have been forced to eat leaves for the past month as they cannot afford to buy rice, a government official says.

Jakarta – The government is determined to scrap the visa-free facility accorded to nationals of 48 countries in an effort to prevent more of its misuse, Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirajuda said on Monday.

The International Finance Institutions (the IMF, World Bank, the ADB) present a real threat to East Timorese economic independence.

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – More than three decades after an abortive coup blamed on the communists, Indonesians are still unable to come to grips with this bit of their nation's history.

East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao called Monday for Portugal to strengthen the "bridge" connecting his country and the European Union, adding that Lisbon's backing would be invaluable in developing Dili's embrionic foreign policy.

Jakarta – East Timor said on Monday it wants its land border with Indonesia to be gradually de-militarised and hopes all frontier disputes with its former ruler can be solved by next year.

At least three people, including a woman and her grandson, were killed in the latest violence in the troubled Indonesian province of Aceh, witnesses and the military said.

As global stock markets slide and a lack of leadership on international reform colored the annual meetings last week of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank annual meetings, analysts predict mixed results for Indonesia, which has long asked international creditors to be more understanding if conditions attached to fresh loans are not met on schedule.

Matthew Moore, Yogyakarta – A new regional group intended to strengthen Indonesia's brittle relations with its neighbours held its inaugural meeting at the weekend, and Australia's Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, stressed Canberra's strong opposition to Indonesia's secessionist movements.

Jose Ramos Horta knows a thing or two about Indonesia, about suppression, and about independence. So when he recently advised the Melanesians of Papua, and the Acehnese, to take Jakarta's offer of autonomy at face value, and give it a try, his voice demanded a hearing.

Sri Wahyuni, Yogyakarta – Golkar Party cadres from the party's founding organizations piled more pressure on party chairman Akbar Tandjung on Saturday to quit his post to rid the party of its bad image in the run-up to the 2004 general election.

Matthew Moore – Indonesia's President Megawati Soekarnoputri made headlines last week by not turning up at the site of a disused well in east Jakarta for an annual ceremony.

Jakarta – Indonesia will prosecute eight of 13 members of a radical Muslim group arrested for raiding nightspots in the capital as the police chief warned people against taking the law into their own hands.

Many were shocked but few surprised to learn last week that the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) had paid "protection money" to members of the military to secure IBRA property assets.

Jakarta – Indonesian police arrested seven members of a Muslim group yesterday over recent vigilante-style raids on nightspots in Jakarta.

Officers arrested the men at the headquarters of the Islamic Defenders Front organisation, a Jakarta police spokesman, Colonel Bahrul Alam, said.