Dili – After quitting East Timor's interim legislature in a bitter row over the shape of a new constitution, independence leader Mr Xanana Gusmao yesterday announced he will not compete in the nation's first presidential election.

John Ruwitch, Jakarta – East Timor leader Xanana Gusmao will remain a key figure in the impoverished territory's painful transition to independence despite resigning as head of the de facto parliament, UN officials said on Thursday.

Rita Uli Hutapea/Heather, Jakarta – East Timorese leader, Xanana Gusmao is unimpressed with the Indonesian government's handling of East Timor's transition to independence. He believes the donations have dried up due to the slow implementation of building projects in Timor Lorosae.

Yogyakarta – Some 30 students representing 12 universities in Yogyakarta marched to the provincial legislative council on Thursday to warn the country's political elite that the country was in danger of disintegrating.

Jakarta – Around 1,000 angry residents of Inderagiri Hilir, Riau, Thursday night ransacked and burned down the local police precinct building. No casualties were reported in the incident which was triggered by a fight between two locals on Sunday, Antara reported.

Jakarta – Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid said Friday he had ordered prosecutors to arrest a former mines and energy minister implicated in a graft scandal linked to a son of former dictator Suharto.

Banjarmasin – In order to prevent the spread of ethnic clashes between local Dayaks and Madurese migrants, a Dayak and a Madurese representing their respective communities inked a peace deal here on Wednesday.

Jakarta – Former Indonesian Military (TNI) chief Gen. (ret) Wiranto said on Thursday that he was not responsible for the shooting incident at the Trisakti University on May 12, 1998.

Jakarta – Residents in Kaloran village, Temanggung regency, East Java, Wednesday put up a roadblock to their village following a plan to bury the remains of 21 ex-communists there.

Jakarta – To everyone's surprise, the capital was free from huge rallies which had been expected to mark a plenary session at the House of Representatives to hear President Abdurrahman Wahid's reply to its first memorandum of censure on Wednesday.

Jakarta – Police fired warning shots and eventually clashed with pro-independence protesters in the Irian Jaya capital of Jayapura on Wednesday, Antara news agency reported.

The clash started when people boarding eight trucks arrived at the Cendrawasih sports hall on Jl. Ratulangi in Jayapura, where a seminar on special autonomy for Irian Jaya was being held.

Banda Aceh – The Banda Aceh Court sentenced Central Information for Aceh Referendum (SIRA) chief Muhammad Nazar on Wednesday to 10 months in prison for displaying hostile intentions toward the state. The 27-year-old defendant was found guilty of inciting hostility against the state.

Stephen Collinson, Washington – An activist from East Timor tearfully told on Tuesday of his brother's murder in violence that erupted after the territory voted for independence, as a US court opened a civil trial into an Indonesian general's alleged role in the carnage.

Jakarta – About 30 women activists held rally at the US Embassy on Jl. Medan Merdeka Selatan here today. They asked President Bush not to support the Indonesian military (TNI) in any form, including supporting education program for TNI officers in the US.

Slobodan Lekic, Jakarta – Indonesia's president, defiant before a hostile parliament, denied corruption charges Wednesday and questioned the constitutionality of efforts to remove him from office.

Dean Yates, Jakarta – Indonesian newspapers on Thursday warned more upheaval would follow President Abdurrahman Wahid's rejection of a parliamentary censure, and one leading critic said the Muslim cleric was on borrowed time.

Jakarta – "Unsatisfactory" and "rhetorical" were some of the unfavorable responses from legislators to President Abdurrahman Wahid's reply to the House of Representatives' memorandum of censure.

John Gauci, Sydney – The large turnout of 230 people for a March 17 dinner and public meeting here on issue "Free Aceh, Referendum now!" is an indication of growing interest in the struggle in Aceh among the Australian public.

The event was organised jointly by Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET) and the Sydney-based Aceh Australia Association (AAA).

Vaudine England – The timber tycoon and golfing buddy of former Indonesian president Suharto, Mohammad "Bob" Hasan, has been moved to a high-security island jail following fears he might escape his central Jakarta cell.

Starting March 27, a United States court in Washington, DC, will hear evidence that Indonesian General Johnny Lumintang is responsible for gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity committed in East Timor. The proceeding will determine the amount of compensatory and punitive damages to be assessed against Lumintang, who is not expected to attend.

Jon Land – Chances are increasingly remote that the Indonesian legal system will bring to justice those responsible for war crimes and human rights abuses committed before, during and after East Timor's August 1999 referendum. Any trial that does take place will be little more than a whitewash.

Pip Hinman – The Indonesian military is stepping up its war against the Acehnese people.

Jakarta has declared a "limited military operation" to "rid" Aceh of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). The Indonesian government has branded GAM a "separatist" organisation.

Jakarta – Hundreds of activists of the Aceh Referendum Information Center (SIRA) held a rally in front of the Dutch Embassy on Wednesday to demand that the Dutch government return Aceh to the Acehnese.

The protesters started arriving at 1 a.m. and occupied the slow lane in front of the embassy building on Jl. HR Rasuna Said in Kuningan, South Jakarta.

Jakarta – Fire raged in Kuala Kapuas, the capital of Kapuas regency in Central Kalimantan, turning the town into a sea of fire all day long Tuesday.

Jakarta – Ethnic violence in Indonesian Borneo claimed another five lives, police and the military said Wednesday, a month after similar bloody clashes there left at least 500 dead.

Vaudine England, Jakarta – President Abdurrahman Wahid's reply to a censure motion today could trigger a last-ditch round of corrupt deal-making to try to ensure his political survival, according to analysts.

More than 1,000 Wahid supporters demonstrated in Jakarta yesterday and police were on high alert in anticipation of unrest ahead of the parliamentary session.

The National Council of East Timor today voted against setting up a mechanism that would have allowed the East Timorese people to provide input to the drafting of their territory's first constitution, according to the United Nations mission there, which had supported the idea of national consultation.

Dili – UN prosecutors in East Timor condemned on Tuesday the downgrading of charges against six people accused of killing international aid workers in West Timor in September.

Former workers of the Shangri-La hotel, Jakarta, have clashed with baton-wielding Indonesian police, after threatening to enter the hotel, which re-opened yesterday.

Banda Aceh – At least 14 people were killed in a series of clashes between government forces and separatist rebels in Indonesia's restive province of Aceh, police and residents said Sunday.

Dili – East Timor, preparing the way for eventual independence, will hold its first democratic elections on August 30, the head of the United Nations transitional authority said. Formal independence is not expected until later this year or in 2002.

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – President Abdurrahman Wahid has sacked a minister from one of the political parties trying to oust him in an apparent bid to remove disloyal aides from his Cabinet.

Susan Sim, Jakarta – Thirteen. That was the number of ministers and top generals President Abdurrahman Wahid had fired up until Thursday.

Number 14 was Forestry Minister Nurmahmudi Ismail, a former palace favourite whose regular night visits with Mr Abdurrahman in the early days of the administration led critics to dub them the Night Cabinet sessions.

Jakarta – Jakarta municipal authorities are complaining that the daily anti- and pro-government protests in the Indonesian capital are causing a strain – on their garbage collectors.

The thousands of protesters who staged daily sit-ins at the Indonesian parliament complex this week left behind some 60 cubic metres of garbage a day, the Kompas daily said.

Jakarta – Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid was publicly snubbed by his deputy on Saturday, adding to growing signs of a politically explosive rift at the top of the troubled administration.

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – Death threats and intimidation this week forced United Nations officials to abandon efforts to reunite children living in impoverished Indonesian orphanages with their parents in East Timor.

Mark Dodd, Dili – Seven suspected Indonesian spies have been detected in East Timor, prompting warnings by United Nations officials that saboteurs could try to wreck the territory's first democratic elections.

Daniel Cooney, Jakarta – Indonesia has deployed about 1,500 troops to protect Exxon Mobil oil fields from rebel attacks in the violence-plagued province of Aceh, the government said Saturday.

Jakarta – Army Chief of Staff Gen. Endriartono Sutarto dismissed on Thursday speculation that there would soon be a major reshuffle in the Indonesian Military (TNI).

Ambon – There is still gunfire every night in Ambon, the capital of the Moluccas, and sometimes a shattering bomb blast. Once a thriving commercial city, it is now a deadly maze of Christian "red" areas and Muslim "white" ones, a pattern of demarcation that has spread to the neighbouring islands.

Jakarta – Indonesia's central bank said on Friday it expects to keep raising interest rates to help ease inflationary pressures stemming from the battered rupiah, but hoped the rise would not be too high.

[The following is an article based on a conference paper by sociologist George J. Aditjondro, a lecturer at Australia's Newcastle University. It was originally published in two parts with the second appearing on March 17.]

Newcastle – Recently, the move to push Megawati Soekarnoputri into the presidential seat has become stronger.

Jakarta – The chief of police in the capital of Indonesia's restive Irian Jaya province was quizzed Friday over the deaths of three students in December, a human rights investigator said.

Jakarta – The United States government maintained on Thursday its opposition to separatism such as that in Aceh, but warned the Indonesian government to be "conscious of the local people's human rights."

Terry Frie, Malang – Indonesia's leading Muslim group and fanatic supporters of embattled President Abdurrahman Wahid threatened to call millions on to the streets of the capital to defend him.

Chris McCall and Reuters in Jakarta – Beleaguered President Abdurrahman Wahid won a much-needed boost yesterday when two cabinet ministers opted to stay in his Government and leave the party of his most ferocious political enemy.

Surabaya – More than 5,000 supporters of President Abdurrahman Wahid, armed with sickles, machetes and bamboo spears, blocked Ketapang Port in Banyuwangi, some 290 kilometers east of Surabaya, on Thursday, demanding that the House of Representatives (DPR) withdraw the memorandum it issued on February 1, censuring President Abdurrahman Wahid.

Jakarta – Lawyers for the Indonesian timber tycoon Mohamad "Bob" Hasan, a close associate of former president Soeharto, say they will appeal after Hasan was sentenced to six years' jail for corruption.

Marianne Kearney, Madura – There seems to be no safe haven for the thousands of Madurese refugees who are fleeing the brutal ethnic violence in Central Kalimantan.

Those who have returned to rural Madura in the hope of finding solace and refuge with their kinsmen face increasing problems of overcrowding and poverty.

Jakarta – The estimated number of East Timorese refugees still in camps in Indonesia has been reduced to about 50,000, a UN official said Thursday.