Matt Brown – More cold water has been poured on plans to establish an asylum seeker processing centre in East Timor, with the UN refugee agency saying the country has not approached it

Bagus BT Saragih and Adianto P.

Muhammad As'ad, Surabaya – Many people, from civil society activists to pedicab drivers, are debating whether it is necessary for the House of the Representatives (DPR) to build a fancy

Omar Pidani, Jakarta – Timber smuggling from Indonesian forests along the Kalimantan-Malaysia border has long become a "pain in the neck" for the country.

Zely Ariane, in Jakarta – International Women's Day is still much less known among Indonesian women than May Day is among Indonesian workers.

James Balowski, Jakarta – The gruesome murder of three members of the Ahmadiyah religious sect by an Islamist mob has left Indonesia's image of pluralism and religious tolerance in tatt

Ulma Nurriva – The alleged beating death of a politician, allegedly at the hands of Citibank debt collectors, has sparked a debate on whether the use of outsourced debt collectors, who

Jakarta – The Central Information Commission (KIP) said Wednesday it was high time for state institutions to comply with an information law requiring them to have an impeded information

Nurfika Osman – Activists have drawn up a set of guidelines meant to ensure people with disabilities are not shut out of future elections.

Ismira Lutfia – Investigative journalism is on the decline in Indonesia, media activists have warned, despite an abundance of issues that require more in-depth coverage.

Arientha Primanita & Fidelis E.

Anita Rachman – The House of Representatives and the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights agreed on Thursday to introduce drastic rule changes relating to residential and work permits f

Ina Parlina, Jakarta – Law and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar withdrew proposed amendments to the 2001 Anticorruption Law after previously defending a draft that critics have sai

[An abridged version of this article appeared in the April 2011 issue of Direct Action newspaper

Yuli Krisna, Bandung – The Indonesia Ahmadiyah Congregation has issued an urgent request to West Java Governor Ahmad Heryawan to revoke a recent decree issued to ban activities of the A

Tom Allard and Kirsty Needham – East Timor has reaffirmed its hostility to a refugee processing centre on its territory, even as the Gillard government insists it will still proceed wit

Yan Christian Warinussy, the executive director of LP3BH, the Institute of Research, Analysis and Development for Legal Aid, has called on the Dewan Adat Papua, the Papuan Customary Cou

Nethy Dharma Somba, Jayapura – National Commission on Human Rights chair Ifdal Khasim is urging the Papuan Police to stop accusing protesters in Papua of treason because the law ensures

Heavy flooding in eight subdistricts of West Aceh has forced the evacuation of thousands of people, an official said.

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta – According to the World Bank, the nation's middle class grew by 61.73 percent to 131 million people in 2010, up from 81 million in 2003.

Ismira Lutfia – The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology on Wednesday assured the public that it would not wiretap conversations taking place on social networking sites

Ulma Haryanto & Eras Poke – As the drama continues over a recent display of supposed arrogance by a lawmaker involved in an argument over an airplane seat, flight experts have point

Netherlands officials have announced plans to immortalize assassinated Indonesian human rights activist Munir Said Thalib by naming a street in The Hague after him.

Anita Rachman – Embattled House Speaker Marzuki Alie lashed out at critics on Wednesday, saying opposition to a controversial office tower project he had approved was only meant to sull

Karlis Salna – East Timorese Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao has given his strongest indication yet that he is opposed to the idea of a refugee processing centre being built on his country

Jakarta – Prosecutors at the Semarang District Court are charging Syihabuddin, a defendant in the Temanggung riots case, of provoking people into engaging in last month's riots that dam

Semarang, Central Java – Twenty five men implicated in the highly publicized burning of churches in Temanggung, West Java, in early February made their first appearance in the Semarang

Arya Dipa and Panca Nugraha, Mataram – West Java Governor Ahmad Heryawan says he wants the police to investigate the attack of a house owned by an 80-year-old Ahmadiyah follower in Tasi

Officials on Thursday gave mixed reports on whether the Indonesian Government understood that the man arrested in Pakistan was actually suspected terrorist Umar Patek.

Sebastian Abbot and Niniek Karmini, Islamabad – The main Indonesian suspect in the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people was shot and wounded by security forces who arrested him in

Olivia Rondonuwu – Indonesian militants are using parcel bombs and targeting minorities to try to push an Islamist agenda on the government and they could launch further small attacks,

Australian unions have called on the Indonesian Government to respect international labour Conventions and human and trade union rights following the arrest of five nurses in West Papua

Anita Rachman & Markus Junianto Sihaloho – With Tuesday's passage of the House of Representatives' new code of ethics, lawmakers are no longer allowed to visit brothels and casinos,

Tan Ee Lyn & Fitri Wulandari – Indonesia wants the private sector to build more hospitals and reserve a quarter of the available beds for the poor, as it increases spending on free

Jakarta – Should the saga of the country's soccer association be turned into a film, it would be easy to frame the figure of chairman Nurdin Halid as the villain.

Brian Padden – Indonesia's unreserved support for East Timor's membership to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations reinforces the growing ties between two countries that were on op

Damien Kingsbury – The government's East Timor asylum seeker solution is dying a death of a thousand cuts. It is a slow and painful process and unedifying to watch it writhe in agony.

Karlis Salna – Prime Minister Julia Gillard plans to pursue an agreement with East Timor over her proposal for a regional refugee processing centre despite the fledgling nation all but

Camelia Pasandaran & Markus Junianto Sihaloho – Angered by some lawmakers' refusal to give the State Intelligence Agency powers to arrest terror suspects, Defense Minister Purnomo Y

Bangkalan, Madura, Bangkalan – Bangkalan Legislative Council in East Java has urged all schools in the regency to oblige their female students to wear Islamic head scarves when they are

Farouk Arnaz & Anita Rachman – After first having publicly denounced Prosperous Justice Party officials for allegedly embezzling campaign funds, ousted party co-founder Yusuf Supend

Dylan Welch – The veil of secrecy obscuring what Australia knew about Indonesia's 1975 invasion of East Timor will be pulled back a little, after a successful court challenge against th

Ina Parlina, Jakarta – The government defended on Monday its planned revisions to the 2001 Anticorruption Law, which critics have said would only weaken the fight against corruption.

Rizal Ramli, Jakarta – Recent revelations from WikiLeaks documents, stating that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his family were involved in corruption are, frankly, not a big su

Tom Allard and Kirsty Needham – East Timor has dismissed Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard's proposal for a refugee processing centre on its soil on the eve of a multinational sum

Karlis Salna – East Timor remains open to discussing Australia's plan for a regional refugee processing centre to be built on its territory but would like to delay the negotiations.

Jakarta – As our intelligence community is struggling hard to improve itself and provide early and accurate information to the country's top decision makers in the wake of several incid

Hasyim Widhiarto and Rendi Akhmad Witular, Jakarta – Despite damning allegations voiced by several PKS founders accusing some of the party's key members of embezzlement, unauthorized po

Anita Rachman & Dessy Sagita – Nongovernmental organizations should not assume to be representatives of the people's aspirations, the speaker of the House of Representatives said on

Dion Bisara & Mohammad Al Azhari – While the government expects the economy to grow 6.6 percent next year, worries about rising oil and food prices eating away at consumers' purchas