East Timor's religious leader has said that the Timorese people are "disenchanted" after three months of independence.

[The following review of Don Greenlees and Robert Garran, "Deliverance: The Inside Story of East Timor's Fight for Freedom" (Allen & Unwin), is by John Martinkus.

[The Indonesian government has had harsh colonial policy vis-a-vis the people of West Papua (formerly Irian Jaya).

Only misery, not wealth, flows from the ExxonMobil gas pipeline that passes near this poor Aceh village, residents say.

The murder of two Americans and an Indonesian by unidentified gunmen on Saturday near PT Freeport Indonesia's huge copper and gold mine is certain to reinforce attention on the company'

While civil society groups have placed their hopes in creating a zone of peace in West Papua, thousands of members of Laskar Jihad have flooded into the province in the past year, amid

Jakarta – Health and emergency workers in an Indonesian border town said yesterday they were struggling to ensure thousands of Indonesians fleeing an immigration crackdown in Malaysia h

Mystery has shrouded the death in September 2001 of Willem Onde, a local OPM commander in Merauke, together with a colleague.

Marni Cordell – It's cold on the first morning of the Yumi Wantaim gathering, and we – an eclectic mix of faces, ages and colours – are huddled under a large white marquee in Pipemaker'

Matthew Moore, Jakarta – Indonesia's supreme military commander has warned the separatist movement in Indonesia's troubled province of Aceh that he would prefer war to a negotiated sett

Jakarta – Legislators are drafting new changes to the long running debate on the labor bill, proposing, among other items, a government permit for worker strikes and a ban to outsource

Yuli Tri Suwarni, Bandung – Hundreds of members of the Indonesian Prosperity Trade Union (SBSI) marched to the West Java provincial legislature compound to demand the local authorities

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – Less than three weeks after lawmakers agreed to scrap the military and police's free seats in the House of Representatives (DPR) and the People's Consultative A

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – Legal experts and critics yesterday described the Supreme Court's decision to overturn the graft conviction for Central Bank governor Syahril Sabirin as yet

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – A Bill that involves placing a government "spy" in broadcasting agencies here is likely to be passed next month by parliament to regulate the electronic media.

Jill Jolliffe, Gugleur – Gugleur has little to recommend it. Its people are subsistence farmers and the maize crop has failed this year.

Banda Aceh – Adj. Brig. Syarifuddin was killed by unidentified gunmen and 10 others, presumed to be civilians were killed on Wednesday and Thursday in strife-torn Aceh.

Catharine Munro, Jakarta – Indonesia's military (TNI) commander today argued for greater international ties but could not fully guarantee against human rights abuses by his men.

Jakarta – In yet another sign of a return to New Order policies, the government is now drafting a bill that will give more power to political parties to expel non-conformist legislators

Jakarta – President Megawati's sister, Rachmawati Soekarnoputri, proclaimed here on Thursday the establishment of a new party, Partai Pelopor (Pioneer Party).

Jakarta – East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao urged his people on Friday to focus on the task of nation-building as the territory marked its first 100 days of independence.

Dili – East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao on Friday asked his critics for more time to solve the vast problems facing the newly independent nation.

East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao took stock of his new nation on Friday in a speech marking 100 days of independence, calling for greater grassroots democracy to check potential abu

Rizal Sukma – After being postponed for almost two weeks from August 5, the government finally issued a "new policy" for Aceh on August 19.

Jakarta – Ten representatives of temporarily employed teachers here came to the City Council on Wednesday to complain about the various problems they were facing, including unfair dismi

Jill Joliffe, Dili – East Timor's Government is likely to ask the United Nations to set up an international tribunal to hear war crimes cases after key suspects were acquitted by a Jaka

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – New districts and regencies are mushrooming across Indonesia as ambitious politicians try to carve out fiefdoms to increase their political power and attract

Banda Aceh – Security authorities in Aceh have arrested 12 members of the pro-independence Front for Acehnese People's Democratic Resistance.

Jakarta (Agencies) – The war of words between leaders of the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) independence group continued, an Army captain was killed and at least

Jakarta – Berlin-based Transparency International (TI) has still ranked Indonesia among the most corrupt countries in the world, with scores of two or less, while Finland, Denmark and N

John Aglionby – For anyone who is not in Indonesia's military it must be hard to understand why Colonel Herman Sedyono is not in jail.

Peter Symonds – The outcome of the first trials by an Indonesian court over the massacres in East Timor in 1999, prior to and following the UN-sponsored vote on independence, has proved

Damar Harsanto, Jakarta – Jakarta has seen its security situation worsen considerably recently as indicated by the increase in street crime over the last three years, and many people ar

Bambang Nurbianto, Jakarta – A total of 49 non-governmental organizations on Wednesday demanded that President Megawati Soekarnoputri stop the ongoing Jakarta gubernatorial election pro

There are worrying signs that Indonesia's timber barons are trying to accelerate their destruction of Indonesia's last remaining forests.

Don Greenlees, Jakarta – Indonesian police have drawn up plans to outlaw the main Papuan independence organisation in a crackdown on separatism aimed at preventing Papua from becoming a

Stewart Taggart in Dili and Lor – Times have changed for Commandante Elias Falour. Once he was a leader in the East Timorese guerrilla resistance.

Yuli Tri Suwarni, Jakarta – Heavily-armed police in the West Java capital of Bandung have arrested two more labor activists in apparent attempts to suppress the labor movement in the pr

Jakarta – Indonesia's biggest mainstream Muslim organisation said on Thursday it strongly opposed any US attack on Iraq.

The group of demonstrators who protested outside the Malaysian embassy in Jakarta yesterday is suspected to have links with Indonesian military forces and armed groups involved in the E

Brendan Pereira, Kuala Lumpur – Malaysian politicians yesterday asked the Indonesian government to rein in troublemakers in Jakarta or face the prospect of a more trying period in bilat

Vincent Lingga, Jakarta – Raising revenues for the state budget is only one of the objectives of the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency's (IBRA) massive auction sale of Rp 135.4 trill

[The Australian engineering firm Thiess is seeking a court order to sack six hundred workers from its coal mining operation in Indonesia's southern Kalimantan province.

The Swedish Ambassador to Indonesia Harald Sanberg says his government won't take any legal action against Hassan Tiro, the exiled chief of Indonesia's separatist Free Aceh Movement (GA

The governor of the Indonesian province of Central Kalimantan has threatened jail terms for people who set fires to clear land as haze thickened over the area and halted many flights, o

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – Women use it to entice the opposite sex, celebrities often resort to it to boost popularity and politicians turn to it to further their careers – the supernatur

Jakarta – Indonesia's foreign direct investment approvals dived to $2.67 billion in the first seven months of 2002 from $5.55 billion in the same period last year, government figures sh

Singapore has said it wants a group of suspected terrorists holed up in Southeast Asia to be extradited over a plot to blow up American, Israeli and other targets in the city-state.

Vincent Lingga, Jakarta – Most analysts view the government's estimate of 5 percent economic growth for 2003 as too optimistic since consumer spending, one of the biggest locomotives of

John Roberts – Indonesia's People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), which met in Jakarta from August 1-11, has approved a series of constitutional changes that are aimed at ending some of