Amid increasing concerns the Indonesian Defense Forces (TNI) is using the tsunami disaster in Aceh to crack down on the province's separatist movement, the military has claimed that troops are needed to stop rebels from "infiltrating" refugee camps, stealing aid and carrying out attacks.

Emergency assistance to Asian communities affected by the tsunami disaster will be needed for at least six months, the United Nations has said, warning that a full recovery would take far longer.

Medan – A load of relief supplies slung under a US military helicopter fell and slammed into a car parked at a shopping mall in the Indonesian city of Medan early Wednesday, local officials said. Provincial government spokesman Eddy Sofyan said there were no injuries but that one car parked at the mall was damaged.

Jakarta – As relief officials work to help the thousands of people made homeless from last month's tsunami, another concern is quietly making the rounds of donor meetings: the threat of corruption.

The real reason why the imperialist government does not pay attention to the human rights violations in Aceh is due to the importance of international capital, such as Exxon-Mobil International, which has a symbiotic relationship with military control and civil bureaucrats in Aceh.

Disillusioned with the government's stuttering relief efforts in tsunami-hit Aceh, one of Indonesia's most popular conservative Muslim political parties organized initial relief efforts here, and come election time, analysts say, it will reap the rewards of its swift response.

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta – The House of Representatives leaders decided on Tuesday to form a team of 20 legislators with the task of supervising the distribution of humanitarian aid to tsunami-hit areas in Aceh and North Sumatra in order to help prevent misuse of funds.

Agencies – Indonesian authorities posted police guards at refugee camps today to protect children orphaned by last week's tsunamis from child traffickers.

Military control of the massive tsunami relief operation in Aceh, and its monopoly of aid distribution, is hampering the delivery of vital supplies to those most in need according to information received by TAPOL, the Indonesia Human Rights Campaign.

Bob Burton, Canberra – Despite his reputation as a progressive social thinker, former Australian Labor Party prime minister Gough Whitlam – according to just declassified documents – refused to criticise the invasion of East Timor by the Indonesian military in December 1975 or the subsequent brutal treatment of its population.

Anthony Reid – The magnitude of the devastation visited on Aceh on December 26 is almost beyond comprehension. No natural disaster in Indonesian, or indeed South-east Asian, history comes close to the mounting toll of death and destruction of this undersea earthquake and tsunamis.

George Monbiot – There has never been a moment like it on British television. The Vicar of Dibley, one of our gentler sitcoms, was bouncing along with its usual bonhomie on New Year's Day when it suddenly hit us with a scene from another world. Two young African children were sobbing and trying to comfort each other after their mother had died of Aids.

The disaster that happened in Aceh and North Sumatra and in other countries has inflicted a deep wound. The earthquake and Tsunami in Aceh, estimated to cause an enormous loss of lives, had killed more than 90,000 people.

Sonny Inbaraj, Bangkok – While volunteers, relief workers and families are busy collecting and searching for bodies in Indonesia's tsunami-stricken Aceh province, Indonesian soldiers are continuing their offensive against separatist rebels, hindering the delivery of badly needed humanitarian aid, critics say.

ExxonMobil has contributed $5 million to the Tsunami relief efforts. In Aceh, the company operates one of the largest gas fields in the world and they're being sued for gross human rights violations. We speak with a lawyer who has just returned from Indonesia where he was interviewing witnesses against ExxonMobil from Aceh.

Throughout Indonesia, people of all backgrounds and from all islands have been mobilising to collect and send aid to the victims of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Aceh.

Bill Guerin, Jakarta – In the wake of the tsunami tragedy that has claimed more than 80,000 Indonesian lives, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has called on his people to approach the New Year with optimism.

Meulaboh – A dozen towns that once thrived near here are gone. Some 10,000 people have been buried, local officials say, and the effort to collect bodies cannot keep up.

Edward Cody, Bung Bak Yok – Rukaiyah's right arm has swollen dangerously, pus leaking from an angry gash along the inside of her elbow. The skin has yellowed on a forearm puffy all the way to the wrist.

Unchecked infection has led to the threat – and maybe the onset – of gangrene.

Six days after the tsunami waves swept the coast of the Indonesian province of Aceh and part of North Sumatra, causing the loss of at least 80,000 lives, the victims are still lacking access to relief supposedly distributed by the state apparatus.

Jakarta – Many of the planned New Year's celebrations will become charity events in the wake of Sunday's 9.0-magnitude earthquake and deadly tidal waves in Aceh and other nations on Indian Ocean that killed at least 80,000 in Aceh alone as of Thursday night.

Danang Widoyoko – The new government has vowed to take real action against corrupt officials in its first 100 days as a form of "shock therapy" in an effort to gain public trust. But properly enforcing the law against such a widespread problem, with so many involved, is nothing short of a monumental task.

Endy M. Bayuni, Jakarta – Bodies are still scattered on the streets and under the rubble in Banda Aceh, Meulaboh and many other towns in Aceh. Tens of thousands of survivors are still without food, clean water, medicines or even clothes to change into. Their ordeal and suffering continue.

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) was again urged on Thursday to prohibit government officials from holding double positions in an effort to fight corruption.

The death toll in the tsunami tragedy that swept Indonesia, in Aceh and North Sumatra is feared to have killed nearly 40,000-80,000 people.

The Indonesian military says it is continuing to launch raids against separatist rebels in tsunami-devastated Aceh, despite having earlier called a ceasefire to help aid efforts.

Lindsay Murdoch, Meulaboh – The suffering in this once-bustling seaside town of 40,000 on Sumatra's west coast is unimaginable.

Five days after the massive earthquake struck beneath the seabed only 60 kilometres south-west of here, most survivors have received no food, drinking water, medicines or outside help.

Donald Greenlees, Banda Aceh – The home that Epayani left behind at Meulaboh, on the west coast of Indonesia's Aceh province, now lies under the sea.

Her last memory of the concrete cottage in a military compound is of waves crashing against the roofline before she was thrown into the swirling water.

Eva C. Komandjaja, Jakarta – The way school textbooks are procured leaves the door open to corruption in elementary and junior high schools, involving not only principals but also teachers and school committees, a survey revealed.

US-based groups with a long record of experience in the region today called on the Indonesian government to not let politics override the needs of people in tsunami stricken Aceh. The groups include the East Timor Action Network (ETAN), International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF) and Nonviolence International (NI).

Sidney Jones – Indonesia continues to be plagued by astonishingly diverse forms of violence: vigilantism, communal conflict, armed insurgencies and counter-insurgency responses, terrorism, land and resource disputes, and shoot-outs between the army and police. That's not counting the occasional high-profile murder of a beloved public figure like Munir.

Rizal Sukma – This article examines recent changes in Indonesia's politics, perceived and real, since the election of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, affectionately called SBY, as Indonesia's sixth president in October 2004.

Agus Widjojo, Jakarta – The term de-politicization is central to the whole concept of reforming the Indonesian Military (TNI). However, it should be mentioned that this reform is not only about de-politicization.

Lindsay Murdoch, Simeulue – From the air, it could be Hiroshima – a town hit with such devastating force it has literally been flattened.

Lone buildings and palm trees inexplicably left standing are all that remains of the Indonesian town of Meulaboh – about 60 kilometres north-east of the epicentre of Sunday's earthquake.

Sian Powell, Aceh – It was the stuff of nightmares in Aceh's capital city yesterday but it was an essential step to preventing epidemics of cholera and other diseases – an excavator working overtime scooping corpses into a truck for rapid transfer to a mass grave.

Stephen Fitzpatrick and Patrick Walters – The first shocking images of Sumatra's devastated west coast emerged yesterday, leading authorities to dramatically increase the estimated toll from Sunday's disaster and increasing the pressure on Australia to take a leading role in the reconstruction of tsunami-hit Indonesia.

Maire Leadbeater – The year is ending tragically for hundreds of thousands of our Southeast Asian neighbours. The only hope to be drawn from the sad situation is the thought that the international community is geared to respond with urgent aid.

Alan Sipress, Banda Aceh – At the Indonesian military's primary airfield here, cartons of instant noodles, bottled water and medicine were stacked high inside a hangar Wednesday, awaiting delivery to camps filled with desperate tsunami victims.

Jakarta – Shocked and grieved by the massive devastation and loss of life wrought by the earthquake and tsunamis that hit Aceh and North Sumatra, Indonesians have turned out in droves to donate money to aid agencies.

Christine Susanna Tjhin, Jakarta – President Susilo's decision to spend Christmas in Papua (Dec. 26, 2004) may well be a very sympathetic yearly ritual. And the recently signed presidential regulation on the Papuan People's Assembly (MRP) has been considered by many as one of the wonderful Christmas gifts all Papuans could get.

Phelim Kyne, Jakarta – Rampant corruption will take a massive bite out of millions of dollars in aid to Indonesia's earthquake-stricken province of Aceh unless the government tightens control mechanisms, government officials and analysts warned Wednesday.

Erlangga Djumana – Vice President Jusuf Kalla announced on 29 December that the civil emergency status has been lifted in Aceh, following the virtual breakdown of the local government in the province, as a result of the earthquake and tsunamis that have struck the region since 26 December.

Multa Fidrus, Tangerang – Tangerang regency councillors' protest on Monday was condemned by a religious leader and labor activist, who said the councillors had disappointed their constituents.

Chaerudin, a religious leader in the regency, said the councillors had shown that their goal was to enrich themselves.

A massive earthquake December 26 in the Java Trench off Sumatra spawned tsunamis that have killed tens of thousands in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, the Maldives, Thailand and east Africa. The embattled Indonesian province of Aceh, home to a militant separatist movement, was hardest hit.

Jakarta – A group of rights activists lamented on Tuesday the government-sanctioned fact-finding team that will probe the death of rights campaigner Munir, which they claim was powerless.

Amy Goodman, host

Jakarta – Golkar, which elected Indonesia's Vice-President Jusuf Kalla as its chairman earlier this month, will replace its faction chief in the House of Representatives.

Mr Mohammad Hatta's replacement will harmonise party policies with those of the legislators in the House, Golkar's deputy leader Agung Laksono said on Monday.

Dewi Santoso, Jakarta – The anticorruption call made by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) ahead of Idul Fitri has proven effective, and the city's parcel business is slowing down, even as New Year nears.

The KPK had called on state officials to refrain from receiving gifts and parcels in an effort to combat bribery.