An Indonesian independent rights watchdog has found evidence that the country's police and military were involved in gross human rights abuses in the troubled eastern province of Papua, a report said.

David Gollust, State Department – The United States Monday expressed dismay over an Indonesian appeals court ruling overturning convictions of security officials for crimes against humanity in the 1999 violence in East Timor. The State Department called the Indonesian legal process "seriously flawed."

Dan Eaton, Jakarta – East Timor urged its friends on Monday not to push for a U.N tribunal for Indonesian forces accused of abuses during its bloody 1999 vote for independence, saying such a court would not help the fledgling state.

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, Jakarta – The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has completed the report on its investigation into bloody incidents in the Papua towns of Wamena and Wasior, saying soldiers and police committed gross abuses in both cases.

New York – US-based rights groups called for a UN inquiry to bring to justice Indonesian security officers let off the hook for atrocities during East Timor's 1999 violence-marred independence vote.

Andrew Burrell, Jakarta – The only four Indonesians found guilty of the wave of killings and destruction in East Timor in 1999 have all had their convictions and jail terms overturned by a Jakarta appeals court.

The High Court verdict almost certainly means that no Indonesian will ever be punished for the East Timor atrocities that shocked the world five years ago.

John Aglionby, Jakarta – A UN prosecutor and human rights groups called for international action yesterday after an Indonesian appeal court quashed the four outstanding convictions of members of the country's security forces prosecuted for their alleged involvement in violence in East Timor in 1999.

Jakarta – Foreign rights groups Saturday demanded the establishment of an international tribunal to punish Indonesian security officers implicated in the 1999 violence in East Timor after an appeals court overturned four earlier convictions.

Matthew Moore, Jakarta – Three Indonesian soldiers and a police officer have won their appeals against convictions for gross human rights abuses in East Timor, in a decision that means all Indonesian security force personnel have now been cleared of the violence that resulted in the deaths of about 1600 people.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – "I saw seven police firing their pistols at L-7, a volley of bullets directed at his legs. It would be surprising if he hadn't been hit."

It was a bloody event that Abdul Hakim Garuda Nusantara, then a human rights activist and University of Indonesia law student working part-time at the Legal Aid Institute (LBH), can never forget. Even today, as Chairman of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), he can still recall the scent of death that day.

Melbourne – East Timor's first lady today accused the federal government of making the Timor Sea oil negotiations a political football.

Melbourne-born Kirsty Sword-Gusmao, the wife of East Timorese president Xanana Gusmao, was in Melbourne today to call on the Australian public to lobby for a fairer deal for East Timor in the maritime boundary negotiations.

Evelyn Rusli, Jakarta – An Indonesian appeals court has overturned the convictions of three army officers and one policeman for crimes against humanity during violence in 1999 over East Timor's independence that left some 1,500 people dead.

East Timor's first lady, Kirsty Sword Gusmao has called on the Alkatiri government to listen to the needs and demands of rebel Cornelio Gama or L-7. The disgruntled war veteran recently lead a demonstration in Dili in which 26 people were arrested after riot police fired tear gas to break up the protest

Presenter/Interviewer: Claudette Werden

A dispute over the killing of two Americans in a remote Indonesian province two years ago shows no sign of abating, despite a recent US indictment against an Indonesian man believed to have been involved.

John Roberts – US Attorney General John Ashcroft announced in late June that the Justice Department and FBI had indicted Anthonius Wamang over the August 2002 ambush of employees of the giant US-operated Freeport mine in West Papua that resulted in three deaths-two US teachers and an Indonesian colleague.

Matthew Moore, Jakarta – Three human rights groups in Papua province have accused the US Attorney-General, John Ashcroft, of withholding evidence of the Indonesian military's involvement in an attack that killed two American teachers in 2002.

Jakarta – Rights groups in Indonesia's Papua province Wednesday accused US Attorney General John Ashcroft of a cover up over the killing of two US teachers and an Indonesian near Papua's giant Freeport gold mine in 2002.

Oil wealth was always expected to play an important role in rebuilding East Timor after independence. Two years on, thanks to the stubbornness of neighbouring Australia, there is still much uncertainty over whether the bulk of that wealth will ever be made available to the government of the struggling new country.

[This transcript was kindly supplied by Tony O'Connor as ABC TV no longer provides transcripts.]

Reporter: Anthony Balmain (AB)

Speakers: John Rumbiak (JR), Anthonius Wamak (AW), Spier (PS), Albert Kailele (AK)

Scene of Wewak beach and town

The eyes of world are far from the small coastal ton of Wewak on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea.

Max Lane – On July 27, outside the office of the Jakarta governor, scores of civil service police – the governor's security corps – attacked a peaceful demonstration as it was dispersing.

Jon Lamb – Australian Labor Party federal leader Mark Latham's comments on July 22 that a government led by him would start new negotiations with East Timor over the maritime boundary in the Timor Sea has provoked a threat from Prime Minister John Howard's government to cancel the next round of talks between Canberra and Dili scheduled for September.

Banda Aceh – Indonesia's military said on Tuesday its warplanes attacked two suspected rebel bases in Aceh province, in the second use of air power against the separatists in a week.

Antony Balmain – West Papuan leaders, including several from the Free Papua Movement, OPM, have decided to lay down arms and pursue self-determination from Indonesia through peaceful means.

There are claims that the Indonesian military and police have been extorting bribes from Acehnese asylum seekers and selling them into slavery. The claims have been backed by refugee advocates working closely with the UN refugee agency in Malaysia, where thousands of Acehnese are facing expulsion under a government crackdown on illegal workers.

Jakarta – A former general who led the first round of Indonesian presidential polls agreed yesterday to join forces with a defeated rival, a move that could usher in a strategic alliance for the run-off vote.

The former leader of the largest Muslim group in Indonesia and possibly its next Vice President says its time for the religious group to rule the country. Hasyim Muzardi resigned as leader of Nadlatul Ulama to contest the election as President Megawati's Vice Presidential running mate.

Sydney – The Australian-born first lady of East Timor, Kirsty Sword-Gusmao, Monday appealed to Canberra not to force her country beg for a "fair share" of the Timor Sea oil and gas reserves.

Brad Howarth – The East Timorese and Australian Governments have agreed to proceed with negotiations over the Timor Sea oil and gas fields without discussing permanent seabed boundaries.

Nigel Wilson – The Howard Government has told East Timor it will get no revenue from the Bayu Undan and Greater Sunrise gas fields if it pursues its claim for a maritime boundary set at the median point between the two countries.

Richard Norton-Taylor – The government approved a significant increase in arms exports to Indonesia in the first few months of the year despite serious concern from MPs, Foreign Office figures show.

Kurniawan Hari and Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – Despite the growing opposition toward the Indonesian Military (TNI) bill, major factions in the House of Representatives are insisting on deliberating the government-sponsored draft.

Indra Harsaputra and Blontank Poer, Surabaya/Surakarta – East Java's General Elections Commission (KPUD) is investigating a report that a number of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) clerics had received US$10,000 each to support Megawati Soekarnoputri and her running mate Hasyim Muzadi.

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta – While the July 5 election proceeded orderly and peacefully, democracy may prove to take much longer to develop in the world's largest archipelagic country, analysts and an election watchdog say.

Matthew Moore, Jakarta – Police are struggling to hold Abu Bakar Bashir on terrorism charges.

Suspected terrorist Abu Bakar Bashir is still in jail, but in the past week the 65-year-old preacher has had his best chance yet to escape the legal net police have used to hold him since the Bali bombings.

Rowan Callick – The Timor gap is getting wider. And both Australia and East Timor are set to delay or lose substantial income as a result.

Australia's row with East Timor over the oil- and gas-rich sea bed between the countries has inevitably turned into a domestic debate, too, as the election approaches, clouding the issues.

Abdul Khalik and Fitri Wulandari, Jakarta – Water consumed by residents living near Buyat Bay in North Sulawesi, where US-based PT Newmont Minahasa Raya has a mine, contained higher mercury levels than normal, a laboratory test confirmed on Thursday.

Jakarta – Oil prices remained high on Thursday but fell from record peaks, reviving fears over a ballooning fuel subsidy and widening state budget deficit.

Reuters reported that oil prices fell after Russia's justice ministry said it was not seeking to halt production by oil giant Yukos.

Darwin – Federal and state mining ministers have shot down a proposal to include East Timor in their talks on the exploitation of oil and gas resources.

Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – An official of the Leuser Management Unit (UML), which manages the Leuser Ecosystem area, has stated that 25 percent of the vast 2.6-million-hectare area has been deforested.

Abdul Khalik, Jakarta – While unable to implicate Abu Bakar Ba'aysir in the Bali bombings, the National Police said on Thursday they would charge the Muslim cleric with involvement in the 2003 JW Marriott Hotel attack in Jakarta, to keep him in custody.

After transporting Jakartans for nearly three decades, the city's bajaj will begin disappearing from the streets over the next few days. The city administration is determined to phase out the Indian-made bajaj in favor of locally made kancil (mini-taxi, literally means "mouse deer" in Bahasa Indonesia).

Abdul Khalik and Agus Maryono, Jakarta/Banjarnegara – In an apparent demotion, the National Police have transferred the Banyumas, Central Java, Police chief, Sr. Comr. Andi Mapparesa, to a desk job for giving a speech supporting President Megawati Soekarnoputri's bid for reelection. Andi had violated an order by National Police chief Gen.

Derwin Pereira, Jakarta – It was tipped to be the battle of the generals. But in the end, it was not. Incumbent Megawati Sukarnoputri defied the odds with a last-minute surge that catapulted her into the second round of the presidential race with a fighting chance now for re-election.

By annulling Law No. 16/2003 on retroactivity of the Antiterrorism Law last Saturday, the Constitutional Court put the nation one step back in its fight against terrorism – and took it one step closer to establishing a viable, working democracy.

Jakarta – The Constitutional Court has summoned three ministers of economic affairs to provide a clarification on a petition for a judicial review of Law No 20/2002 on the electricity sector, and Law No 22/2001 on oil and natural gas against the 1945 Constitution.

Andri Hadi, Jakarta – Efforts by certain quarters, within and outside Indonesia, to question the decolonization process in Papua gain a momentum by the declassification of restricted documents in the US recently.

Jeffrey Winters, Chicago, USA – The real controvery in the recent Constitutional Court decision does not turn on retroactivity. In fact, all the judges (including the five for the majority) reject an absolute interpretation of retroactivity (which the defense team had argued for).

Sarah Boyd – The United Nation's special representative in East Timor, Sukehiro Hasekawa, has been thinking about the O J Simpson trial. "The relatives of the victim and those of the accused needed to look each other in the eye and acknowledge what actually happened. That trial went on for a year and cost a lot of money, but perhaps they never did that."

An ex-general who was ruled out of the running in Indonesia's presidential race after finishing third in initial round voting has petitioned for a Supreme Court review of the poll.