Banda Aceh – The Banda Aceh Court sentenced Central Information for Aceh Referendum (SIRA) chief Muhammad Nazar on Wednesday to 10 months in prison for displaying hostile intentions toward the state. The 27-year-old defendant was found guilty of inciting hostility against the state.

Stephen Collinson, Washington – An activist from East Timor tearfully told on Tuesday of his brother's murder in violence that erupted after the territory voted for independence, as a US court opened a civil trial into an Indonesian general's alleged role in the carnage.

Jakarta – About 30 women activists held rally at the US Embassy on Jl. Medan Merdeka Selatan here today. They asked President Bush not to support the Indonesian military (TNI) in any form, including supporting education program for TNI officers in the US.

Slobodan Lekic, Jakarta – Indonesia's president, defiant before a hostile parliament, denied corruption charges Wednesday and questioned the constitutionality of efforts to remove him from office.

Dean Yates, Jakarta – Indonesian newspapers on Thursday warned more upheaval would follow President Abdurrahman Wahid's rejection of a parliamentary censure, and one leading critic said the Muslim cleric was on borrowed time.

Jakarta – "Unsatisfactory" and "rhetorical" were some of the unfavorable responses from legislators to President Abdurrahman Wahid's reply to the House of Representatives' memorandum of censure.

John Gauci, Sydney – The large turnout of 230 people for a March 17 dinner and public meeting here on issue "Free Aceh, Referendum now!" is an indication of growing interest in the struggle in Aceh among the Australian public.

The event was organised jointly by Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET) and the Sydney-based Aceh Australia Association (AAA).

Vaudine England – The timber tycoon and golfing buddy of former Indonesian president Suharto, Mohammad "Bob" Hasan, has been moved to a high-security island jail following fears he might escape his central Jakarta cell.

Starting March 27, a United States court in Washington, DC, will hear evidence that Indonesian General Johnny Lumintang is responsible for gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity committed in East Timor. The proceeding will determine the amount of compensatory and punitive damages to be assessed against Lumintang, who is not expected to attend.

Jon Land – Chances are increasingly remote that the Indonesian legal system will bring to justice those responsible for war crimes and human rights abuses committed before, during and after East Timor's August 1999 referendum. Any trial that does take place will be little more than a whitewash.

Pip Hinman – The Indonesian military is stepping up its war against the Acehnese people.

Jakarta has declared a "limited military operation" to "rid" Aceh of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). The Indonesian government has branded GAM a "separatist" organisation.

Jakarta – Hundreds of activists of the Aceh Referendum Information Center (SIRA) held a rally in front of the Dutch Embassy on Wednesday to demand that the Dutch government return Aceh to the Acehnese.

The protesters started arriving at 1 a.m. and occupied the slow lane in front of the embassy building on Jl. HR Rasuna Said in Kuningan, South Jakarta.

Jakarta – Fire raged in Kuala Kapuas, the capital of Kapuas regency in Central Kalimantan, turning the town into a sea of fire all day long Tuesday.

Jakarta – Ethnic violence in Indonesian Borneo claimed another five lives, police and the military said Wednesday, a month after similar bloody clashes there left at least 500 dead.

Vaudine England, Jakarta – President Abdurrahman Wahid's reply to a censure motion today could trigger a last-ditch round of corrupt deal-making to try to ensure his political survival, according to analysts.

More than 1,000 Wahid supporters demonstrated in Jakarta yesterday and police were on high alert in anticipation of unrest ahead of the parliamentary session.

The National Council of East Timor today voted against setting up a mechanism that would have allowed the East Timorese people to provide input to the drafting of their territory's first constitution, according to the United Nations mission there, which had supported the idea of national consultation.

Dili – UN prosecutors in East Timor condemned on Tuesday the downgrading of charges against six people accused of killing international aid workers in West Timor in September.

Former workers of the Shangri-La hotel, Jakarta, have clashed with baton-wielding Indonesian police, after threatening to enter the hotel, which re-opened yesterday.

Banda Aceh – At least 14 people were killed in a series of clashes between government forces and separatist rebels in Indonesia's restive province of Aceh, police and residents said Sunday.

Dili – East Timor, preparing the way for eventual independence, will hold its first democratic elections on August 30, the head of the United Nations transitional authority said. Formal independence is not expected until later this year or in 2002.

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – President Abdurrahman Wahid has sacked a minister from one of the political parties trying to oust him in an apparent bid to remove disloyal aides from his Cabinet.

Susan Sim, Jakarta – Thirteen. That was the number of ministers and top generals President Abdurrahman Wahid had fired up until Thursday.

Number 14 was Forestry Minister Nurmahmudi Ismail, a former palace favourite whose regular night visits with Mr Abdurrahman in the early days of the administration led critics to dub them the Night Cabinet sessions.

Jakarta – Jakarta municipal authorities are complaining that the daily anti- and pro-government protests in the Indonesian capital are causing a strain – on their garbage collectors.

The thousands of protesters who staged daily sit-ins at the Indonesian parliament complex this week left behind some 60 cubic metres of garbage a day, the Kompas daily said.

Jakarta – Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid was publicly snubbed by his deputy on Saturday, adding to growing signs of a politically explosive rift at the top of the troubled administration.

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – Death threats and intimidation this week forced United Nations officials to abandon efforts to reunite children living in impoverished Indonesian orphanages with their parents in East Timor.

Mark Dodd, Dili – Seven suspected Indonesian spies have been detected in East Timor, prompting warnings by United Nations officials that saboteurs could try to wreck the territory's first democratic elections.

Daniel Cooney, Jakarta – Indonesia has deployed about 1,500 troops to protect Exxon Mobil oil fields from rebel attacks in the violence-plagued province of Aceh, the government said Saturday.

Jakarta – Army Chief of Staff Gen. Endriartono Sutarto dismissed on Thursday speculation that there would soon be a major reshuffle in the Indonesian Military (TNI).

Ambon – There is still gunfire every night in Ambon, the capital of the Moluccas, and sometimes a shattering bomb blast. Once a thriving commercial city, it is now a deadly maze of Christian "red" areas and Muslim "white" ones, a pattern of demarcation that has spread to the neighbouring islands.

Jakarta – Indonesia's central bank said on Friday it expects to keep raising interest rates to help ease inflationary pressures stemming from the battered rupiah, but hoped the rise would not be too high.

[The following is an article based on a conference paper by sociologist George J. Aditjondro, a lecturer at Australia's Newcastle University. It was originally published in two parts with the second appearing on March 17.]

Newcastle – Recently, the move to push Megawati Soekarnoputri into the presidential seat has become stronger.

Jakarta – The chief of police in the capital of Indonesia's restive Irian Jaya province was quizzed Friday over the deaths of three students in December, a human rights investigator said.

Jakarta – The United States government maintained on Thursday its opposition to separatism such as that in Aceh, but warned the Indonesian government to be "conscious of the local people's human rights."

Terry Frie, Malang – Indonesia's leading Muslim group and fanatic supporters of embattled President Abdurrahman Wahid threatened to call millions on to the streets of the capital to defend him.

Chris McCall and Reuters in Jakarta – Beleaguered President Abdurrahman Wahid won a much-needed boost yesterday when two cabinet ministers opted to stay in his Government and leave the party of his most ferocious political enemy.

Surabaya – More than 5,000 supporters of President Abdurrahman Wahid, armed with sickles, machetes and bamboo spears, blocked Ketapang Port in Banyuwangi, some 290 kilometers east of Surabaya, on Thursday, demanding that the House of Representatives (DPR) withdraw the memorandum it issued on February 1, censuring President Abdurrahman Wahid.

Jakarta – Lawyers for the Indonesian timber tycoon Mohamad "Bob" Hasan, a close associate of former president Soeharto, say they will appeal after Hasan was sentenced to six years' jail for corruption.

Marianne Kearney, Madura – There seems to be no safe haven for the thousands of Madurese refugees who are fleeing the brutal ethnic violence in Central Kalimantan.

Those who have returned to rural Madura in the hope of finding solace and refuge with their kinsmen face increasing problems of overcrowding and poverty.

Jakarta – The estimated number of East Timorese refugees still in camps in Indonesia has been reduced to about 50,000, a UN official said Thursday.

Jakarta – Police stormed a top-security prison here early yesterday, killing one inmate and injuring three others as they quelled a riot over plans to transfer 50 prisoners to other jails, police said.

Mark Dodd, On board the Curtis Wilbur, East Timor – The deck of an American guided missile destroyer might seem a strange place to train East Timorese police cadets but one hand-picked group of recruits learned some valuable lessons recently.

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – The presidential office yesterday denied that the US$300,000 sent to President Abdurrahman Wahid while he was on an overseas trip in Saudi Arabia was obtained improperly, saying it had come from its own coffers.

Jakarta – Indonesian vice president Megawati Sukarnoputri no longer supported President Abdurrahman Wahid and was ready to replace him, despite mistrusting her new allies, according to a senior official of her party.

Chris McCall, Jakarta – Rebel leaders in war-torn Aceh yesterday denounced plans by Jakarta to mount a new military operation there and said it would lead to a bloodbath on an appalling scale.

Jakarta – Prosecutors Thursday ordered the temporary release of five political activists facing subversion charges for alleged separatism in Irian Jaya province, lawyers said Thursday.

The move comes a day after Amnesty International condemned Jakarta for jailing dozens of "prisoners of conscience" in an attempt to stamp out separatist movements in several provinces.

Banda Aceh – A leading supporter of independence for Aceh walked out of his trial Wednesday when it refused to call Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid or his representative as a witness.

Muhammad Nazar, chairman of the Information Centre for a Referendum in Aceh (SIRA), walked out of the Banda Aceh district court in protest with his defence lawyers.

Chris McCall and agencies in Jakarta – Indonesians are bracing for more economic misery as their currency crumbles, sparking fears of a repeat of its 1997 collapse.

Supporters of President Abdurrahman Wahid yesterday staged their own demonstration outside the presidential palace, where thousands on Monday called for him to resign.

Vanya Tanaja, Dili – The "Draft Regulation on the Election of a Constituent Assembly to draft the Constitution of an Independent and Democratic East Timor" was presented to East Timor's National Council by the United Nations Transitional Administration for East Timor (UNTAET) on March 2.

Chris Latham & Pip Hinman – On February 20 the "cease-fire" between the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Indonesian military (TNI) was extended for the third time since the so-called humanitarian pause in 2000. These declarations mean nothing, Syadiah Marhaban from the Aceh Referendum Information Centre (SIRA) told Green Left Weekly.

Jakarta – Thousands of Indonesian students Wednesday abandoned a sit-in at parliament demanding the resignation of President Abdurrahman Wahid, amid rumours his supporters were descending on the complex.

As police squads looked on, some 2,500 students marched out of the back entrance of the sprawling complex after two nights camping in the grounds.