The government's plan to build Indonesia's first nuclear power plant, tentatively set to begin 2011, is moving forward with the public given little or no chance to have its say.

Hamish McDonald – Australia's spooks are often aghast at the way highly classified intelligence material and techniques leak out into the public domain in the United States.

It looks as though Indonesia is yet to be free of disasters.

The recent deadly flooding that submerged Greater Jakarta for one week left behind prolonged misery and remarkable damages.

The Commission of Truth and Friendship (CTF), set up by Indonesia and Timor Leste, has finally begun to show its face with its inaugural public hearings.

Brett Morris – On Monday, a commission set up by Indonesia and East Timor began its first hearing to further reconciliation between the two countries over the violence that occurred dur

The mudslinging between the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and State Secretary Yusril Ihza Mahendra poses yet another test for the government's graft fight.

Bill Guerin, Jakarta – Singapore's aggressive regional investment strategy has already taken bilateral relations with Thailand to an all-time low, but a rising tide of economic national

James Dunn – The current coronial enquiry into the death of Brian Peters at Balibo in October 1975 has brought back vivid memories of a crisis in which I myself played a part.

Anthony Hubbard – The New Zealand government didn't want to make a fuss about the death of Gary Cunningham.

New Zealand's shameful record over East Timor comes into focus again this week.

In between the nonstop television news coverage of the Jakarta floods this week was a report from Australia about a man plucked from a tree by a helicopter as floodwaters raged below.

Seth Mydans, Jakarta – Too many shopping malls in the city. Too many squatters on the riverbanks. Too many villas on the southern hillsides.

The massive flooding in Jakarta over the past few days is further proof that crisis brings out the best in most people.

After two days of heavy rain, floods paralyzed Jakarta and its buffer towns on Friday to a degree that surely exceeded the flooding of five years ago, which up to this point was conside

Hopes were high last September that peace would last in Poso after police executed three Christian men convicted of carrying out a series of killings in the Central Sulawesi town in 200

The nation's commitment to civil society is being tested again as the debate intensifies over the bill on national security, which includes a major revamp of the National Police.

Patrick Thronson – Americans lose part of the past in an obvious sense when a former president dies: A living link to our history is extinguished.

David Fullbrook – Cutthroat cost competition, overcrowded airports and perennial safety concerns, including a tragic accident involving an aged plane that killed at least 90 people on M

Muhammad Qodari, Jakarta – It has been more than eight years since the country began the transition to democracy, but the Indonesian political elite's understanding of democracy is stil

Bill Guerin, Jakarta – Indonesia is on the upswing, with strong export and economic growth combining to drive the Jakarta Stock Exchange Index up by more than 55%, accounting for the wo

Few might have ever thought when this nation – through its representatives in the People's Consultative Assembly – agreed in 2001 to establish the Constitutional Court, that the new jud

The rage over a cleric's decision to take a second wife continues, particularly among women, but what it means for the women's movement here is an open question.

John McBeth, Jakarta – The United States may have finally lifted the arms embargo imposed on Indonesia in the wake of the 1991 East Timor massacre, but it could be decades before Jakart

Dr. Vedi Hadiz, Associate Professor of Sociology at the National University of Singapore, is writing his fifth book Local Power in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia and Southeast Asia.

A display of individual commitment to peace by millions of Acehnese is what we are likely to see in the near future, following Monday's elections and the announcement of early unofficia

The timing could not have been worse.

One bad article in the newly passed Civil Registration Law spoils the whole legislation.

Ben Terrall and John M.

Djamester A. Simarmata, Jakarta – Most of Indonesia's fiscal problems are inherited from previous governments, especially from the Soeharto era.

Gary LaMoshi, Bali – US President George W Bush has come and gone for his quickie summit with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, leaving his hosts to pick up the bill and th

Gary LaMoshi, Bali – US President George W Bush's scheduled 10-hour trip to Indonesia on Monday has entailed vast security preparations and logistical inconveniences and has evoked mass

Charmain Mohamed – Despite all its recent progress, Indonesia remains far from a fully functioning democracy. Religious intolerance is on the rise. Military reform is stalled.

Amy Goodman – The troops marched slowly, their US-made M-16s raised. It was Nov. 12, 1991, a day that would forever be seared into my memory, and into history.

Let's hope that the head of the Hutt River Province, His Royal Highness Prince Leonard, does not have many ardent followers in Indonesia.

The idea of heroes is far from the minds of most people these days, with so many non-heroic deeds going on around them.

Mark Forbes, Jakarta – John Howard and Alexander Downer should trumpet a new security treaty with Indonesia, but their attempts to play down elements unpalatable to some Australians – s

Damien Kingsbury – On Monday, Australia's Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, and Indonesia's Foreign Minister, Hassan Wirayuda, will sign a so-far secret treaty intended to bring the t

The outlook is bright on this side of the world for convicted murderers, particularly those who plot to assassinate the law enforcers who punished them for other crimes.

The Regional Investment Forum here last week presented several business-friendly provincial governors and regional officials, who fully realize that conducive policies and bureaucratic

Hamish McDonald – With the near Pacific going pear-shaped on just about every front for Canberra, let us take a look at the crisis that kicked off the year, the Indonesian province of P

James Dunn – For Prime Minister John Howard, the recent Pacific Forum meeting must have been a rather uncomfortable experience.

Andreas Harsono, Jakarta – The restoration by the US of full military ties with Indonesia, in the common interest of combating global terrorism, has been used by Jakarta's generals to f

The processes of justice in Indonesia's court system continue to baffle anyone looking for consistency or punishments fitting the crime.

Mario de Queiroz, Lisbon – After centuries of Portuguese colonialism and more than two decades of Indonesian military occupation, instability and violence continue to plague East Timor,

Jakarta – The early release from jail of the son of former Indonesian President Suharto has thrown the spotlight on what critics say is a justice system still capable of being manipulat

Bill Guerin, Jakarta – As Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono enters his third year in office, the world's most populous Muslim country is widely viewed simultaneously as one

Matthew B Arnold – With America's adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan faltering and United Nations peace-keeping missions stretched thin and struggling from Haiti to the Ivory Coast and

Tim Johnston – East Timor used to be the poster child for international intervention, but a report published this week by a group of United Nations investigators illustrates just how sh

The East Timorese Government was handed a heaven-sent opportunity this week to begin the long overdue process of healing the rifts so vividly exposed by last May's wave of violence.