Last week's passage of the income tax law is the best Idul Fitri gift the country could provide to our businesses and fellow taxpayers.

Dili – Rosalina Soares has no idea who cut off her fingers. She also has machete scars across her upper back and neck. The middle-aged mother of two lost everything.

The legislative election is half a year away, and yet the existing legislation regulating the electoral process, which is still party- rather than people-oriented, has lately become the

Simon Roughneen, Dili – East Timor's post-independence politics have confounded outside observers, and for the most part the Timorese themselves.

Sam King – This year's May Day demonstrations in Jakarta took on a special significance because they came 10 years after General Suharto was forced by mass street protests to resign as

The government has often seemed powerless in its response to small but noisy (and often violent) groups who use religion as a reason or pretext to take justice into their own hands.

Politicians in the House of Representatives and leaders of the major political parties are very diligent to criticize the government for dragging its heels while eradicating corruption

Marcellus Hernowo – As well as celebrities and family members of core political party leaders, the provisional list of legislative candidates that will take part in the 2009 general ele

The Munir murder case is entering a new stage. These coming weeks Maj. Gen. (ret) Muchdi Pr is standing trial.

Paul Toohey - East Timor President Jose Ramos Horta has delivered a furious tirade against The Australian, accusing it of inventing an article.

Stephen de Tarczynski, Melbourne – East Timor's most prominent independence leaders – currently holders of the young nation's two highest political offices – may now be the main obstacl

John McBeth – Lost in the recriminations over the Commission of Truth and Friendship's (CTF) report on the bloody events surrounding Timor Leste's vote for independence is a singular re

As the battle against corruption intensifies in the legal arena, pressures mount for this acute societal disease to be simultaneously fought in a different mode: through social sanction

Evan A.

Prodita Sabarini, Jakarta – Former homophobe Anton (not his real name) says he has transformed into a more tolerant person, acknowledging that gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transvest

Sahil K. Mahtani – As if to illustrate the universality of poor taste, the former chief of the Indonesian Special Forces Gen.

It's a great story that makes the world go 'round – apart from love and money. A story that feeds the insatiable human need for information on the condition of others.

Julia Suryakusuma, Jakarta – Vivienne, an old friend of mine from Singapore, came to visit last week. I had just watched a Chinese kung fu DVD and Viv noticed the cover.

We are flabbergasted to learn that the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) is continuing to lobby the government for an indiscriminate tax amnesty it claims to be vital

"Indonesia on execution spree", reads the headline of a wire service reporting on six such executions in the past month.

Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless

- TS Eliot, The Hollow Men

Mike Steketee, National Affairs Editor – Downer's achievements as our longest serving foreign minister aren't all he claims and must be balanced against some calamitous mistakes

HS Dillon, Jakarta – The report of the joint Commission for Truth and Friendship, recently presented to the two heads of state who established the body, could certainly be lauded for en

Warren Reed – By any measure, our intelligence agencies are the eyes and ears of the nation.

Eko Waluyo, Sydney – At the handover of a report by the joint Indonesia-Timor Leste Commission of Truth and Friendship (CTF) in Bali, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono accepted the rep

Aboeprijadi Santoso, Jakarta – The final report of the Indonesia-Timor Leste Truth and Friendship Commission (CTF), titled Per Memoriam ad Spem (Through memory toward hope) is a politic

Amid the growing number of legislators arrested for corruption allegations, House of Representatives Speaker Agung Laksono has accepted the public criticism against the legislative body

Sahil K. Mahtani – Unlike his predecessors, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono can hardly be accused of shooting from the hip.

Aboeprijadi Santoso, Contributor, Jakarta – "Did the Nazi Party and its supporters give Indonesian nationalists a chance to accelerate the process toward independence?

Hamish McDonald – Hilario Madeira was the sort of priest who makes you understand how the balance of the global Catholic congregation is shifting to the developing world, away from a ja

Usman Hamid, Jakarta – On July 15, Indonesia and Timor Leste officially accepted a report produced by the joint Commission for Truth and Friendship (CTF).

Paul Toohey – There was never any question that it would tread softly. After all, it was called the Commission for Truth and Friendship, not the commission for truth.

Jakarta – The separatist conflict in Indonesia's Papua region – formerly known as Irian Jaya and once one of the world's great liberal causes – has become relatively quiet in recent yea

In 2000, the then Indonesian president, Abdurrahman Wahid, performed one of the most difficult acts a nation's leader can perform.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was very quick in implementing one of the recommendations of the joint Indonesia-Timor Leste Commission of Truth and Friendship (CTF) – expressing reg

Clinton Fernandes – Imagine the reaction if an inquiry assigned responsibility for the Holocaust without mentioning Hitler, and focused only on the last few months of World War II.

Bruce Haigh – The release of a joint Indonesian-East Timor report on Tuesday by the Commission for Truth and Friendship into the causes of the crimes against humanity in the run-up to E

Daniel Flitton – The sorry history of violence in East Timor did not begin with the militia rampage following the 1999 independence ballot.

Meidyatama Suryodiningrat, Jakarta – The casualty list piled into the newsroom like a high-scoring sports box line.

Mark Aarons – When Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Jose Ramos Horta receive the Truth and Friendship Commission's (CTF) report today, the Indonesian President will be hoping that it is the

Hanan Nugroho, Jakarta – While domestic demand for oil is escalating uncontrollably (12 percent for gasoline and 15 percent for diesel fuel in 2007) and domestic oil production has been

This week we are facing two challenging humanitarian issues, the situation in Zimbabwe and the findings of the Indonesia-East Timor Truth and Friendship Commission.

Hamish McDonald, Asia-Pacific editor – The emails still keep coming from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, several times a day, attached with transcripts of what the minister

Alexander Downer – Even in 1999 it was widely known that elements of the Indonesian military were behind the violent militia activity in East Timor.

Tom Hyland – The report of the Commission of Truth and Friendship is a bitter pill for the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a slap in the face to the Indonesian military,

The long-awaited report by the Indonesia-East Timor 'Commission on Truth and Friendship' (CTF) has been handed down, confirming what we already knew about the events in East Timor in 19

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) alarmingly said last week while international oil prices continued to surge closer to US$150 per barrel that rising oil prices had reached a cri

Mr. Rudd's recent Jakarta visit was obviously a success, paving the way for a more informal and creative relationship between Canberra and Jakarta.

Max Lane – Protest demonstrations in Jakarta and other Indonesian cities in recent weeks marked the appearance of a new progressive alliance, the National Liberation Front (FPN).

Tom McCawley, Jakarta – A breakaway Islamic sect's struggle to survive has become a major test of tolerance for Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country.