Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, Jakarta – President Megawati Soekarnoputri welcomed members of the separatist Free Papua Movement (OPM) back to the fold of the Unitary Republic of Indonesia (NKR

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – A United Nations official has confirmed that an investigation is under way in East Timor into prostitution and allegations of human trafficking.

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – The government-initiated re-registration of civil servants failed to gain momentum on its initial day on Tuesday with civil servants appearing decidedly unenthu

Lesley McCulloch – In the police stations of Aceh, in Indonesia's far northwest corner, fear is the daily diet of the detainees.

Makassar – Hundreds of East Timorese, currently under the care of the Al Anshar Foundation here, and other refugees and students have refused to go back to East Timor.

Jakarta – The number of students taking the 2003 state university admission exam (SPMB) declined by 12.11 percent to 350,306 students from 398,589 in 2002.

Andrew Burrell – They may not like being lumped together, but Indonesia's radical Islamic terrorists and the nation's military commanders have more in common than they would care to adm

Nani Farida, Banda Aceh – The Banda Aceh District Court handed an unwanted birthday present to Muhammad Nazar, the chairman of the Aceh Referendum Information Center (SIRA), in the form

Geneva – The International Secretariat of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), the world's largest coalition of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) engaged in the fight agai

Derwin Pereira, Jakarta – President Megawati Sukarnoputri yesterday called for civilian militias to be set up in Indonesia as the military and police struggle to contain insurgencies an

Nani Farida and A'an Suryana, Banda Aceh/Lhokseumawe – Following Monday's bomb blasts in Aceh's provincial capital Banda Aceh, authorities said they would tighten security in the city,

Jakarta – A general on trial before a human rights court on Tuesday rejected allegations that troops fuelled the 1999 atrocities in East Timor as "fantasy."

Dili – East Timor's prime minister, Mari Alkatiri, criticized Tuesday the earlier pronouncement by Dili's Court of Appeal that a draft immigration and asylum bill is unconstitutional.

An international rights group criticised East Timor's new police force for arbitrary detentions, beating some detainees and a trigger-happy response to last December's riots in which th

Nethy Dharma Somba, Jayapura – The Papua Provincial Legislative Council decided on Friday that it would refuse to implement the newly endorsed bill on national education in the province

Three Indonesian soldiers arrested for raping four women in war-torn Aceh province have confessed to the crimes, the military said.

Jakarta – More than 40 fighters of an armed separatist group in Indonesia's remote eastern province of Papua have surrendered to police and their immediate fate is – handicrafts trainin

Lhok Sukon, Banda Aceh – The management of PT ExxonMobil Indonesia began dismissing around 1000 workers on Monday, this is the third time the company has dismissed contract workers this

Jayapura – Forty-two rebels in Indonesia's eastern Papua province surrendered Monday, vowing to end their struggle for independence, police said.

Sidney Jones, Indonesia project director of Brussels-based analysts International Crisis Group suggests that the Jakarta government has an electoral interest in stirring up a nationalis

Matthew Moore, Jakarta – The newspaper editor Supratman is standing by his punchy page one headlines, even though they could send him to jail for six years.

Jakarta – About 500 people from eight villages in three subdistricts, including Jonggol, Bogor, staged a rally over the weekend to oppose the Jakarta administration's plan to use land t

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, Jakarta – Human rights activists denounced the excavation of mass graves in Aceh by the Indonesian Military (TNI), saying it violated normal investigation procedu

Bogor – Protected forests in Bogor, such as those on the slopes of Mt. Salak, Mt. Pangrango and Mt. Pongkor, are being destroyed by illegal logging and mining, an expert says.

Jakarta – Alleged irregularities in the purchase of Russian-made Sukhoi jet fighters are expected to come into the open slowly as lawmakers begin their investigation on Monday into the

Lumajang – Some 15 activists of the Moslem University Students Action Group (KAMMI) from some districts in East Java were released on Sunday afternoon after police earlier arrested and

Jakarta – The media criticized on Friday new guidelines for media coverage in Aceh, saying that rules were effectively hampering the press from obtaining balanced reports on the current

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – A group of senior Indonesian MPs is in the spotlight after media reports here said that they and their families had lived it up on a recent tour of Europe at ta

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta – Politicians have blocked public demands for transparency in the campaign funds channeled to and spent by presidential candidates, casting doubt over their comm

[The Politics of Power Freeport in Soeharto's Indonesia By Denise Leith University of Hawaii Press, 372 pp, $55.]

Matthew Moore, Jakarta – Just five weeks into its renewed war against separatist rebels in Aceh, Indonesia has been accused of, in effect, banning foreign journalists from the province.

The party is over but at least we have been left with some great lessons.

Lhokseumawe – Aceh Separatist Movement (GSA) members may have infiltrated Acehnese society over the past few weeks to obtain newly issued "red-and-white" citizen's cards, a military off

Marianne Kearney – One year after formal independence and almost four years after East Timorese voted in a United Nations-backed referendum to split from its former occupier Indonesia,

Nothing fades as fast as an international crisis that seems to be settled, as proved by the almost complete disappearance of East Timor from Australian newspapers and television screens

A'an Suryana, Lhokseumawe – Soldiers captured on Friday two alleged Free Aceh Movement (GAM) separatists who acted as the rebels' district chief and police chief for the GAM district Ta

Jakarta – A Japanese photojournalist has been arrested in the war-torn Aceh , apparently for working without a permit, police and the military said on Friday.

A'an Suryana, Takengon – Tens of thousands of Central Aceh residents thronged Gelanggang Musara Alun soccer field in Bebesen district on Thursday for a rally against the separatist move

Jakarta/Medan – Indonesia marked International Anti-drug Day 2003 on Thursday with grave concerns about the rapid growth in the drug trade.

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – Sobbing witnesses, lawyers walking out in protest against the judges' decision, and a defendant who never looked up from a book he was reading throughout the tr

Jakarta – FBI agents have returned to Indonesia to investigate the killing last August of two American schoolteachers in restive Papua province, an issue Washington has said could serio

Jakarta – Twenty bodies were uncovered in two mass graves in Aceh province, police said yesterday, as President Megawati Sukarnoputri warned that a military offensive against rebels in

Martial law authorities in Indonesia's Aceh have further tightened restrictions on foreign journalists and overseas non-government organisations (NGOs).

Kafil Yamin, Jakarta – Indonesia's armed forces might be winning the propaganda war in Aceh, thanks to "embedded" journalists, but activists warn that peace remains out of sight after m

Hanoi – President Megawati Soekarnoputri deplored US Secteraty of State Colin Powell's statement on alleged human rights abuses in Papua province, especially in the Timika ambush which

An Indonesian Muslim cleric accused of leading a terror network accused the United States of orchestrating his treason trial to stop him fighting for the establishment of Islamic law.

Alan Sipress, Jakarta – Five years after Gen.

Vannessa Hearman – On the eve of an official visit to Jakarta, Timorese PM Mari Alkatiri on May 30 called for an international tribunal in a "neutral country" to try those responsible f

The disastrous failure of Indonesia's ad hoc human rights court for East Timor to provide justice for the victims of human rights atrocities in East Timor has heightened fears of increa

Jakarta – An international ratings agency said Thursday it may upgrade Indonesia's credit ratings but warned that the country remains vulnerable to "unforeseen shocks." Moody's Investor