Dili – East Timor's independence leader Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao said Friday that East Timor will be the first new independent nation of the new millennium, but not with him as president.

Gusmao has been widely regarded as the main contender for the presidency when East Timor, now under UN administration, becomes independent.

Dili – East Timor's leader Xanana Gusmao said here Friday that he foresaw the territory obtaining full independence in at most two years – a year less than currently envisaged.

Jakarta – Just two months after taking over the reins of national leadership, observers and opinion polls are already heaping doubt on the leadership of Abdurrahman Wahid.

Jakarta – Indonesia's economy is predicted to grow by between three and four percent in 2000 in a new expansion phase following two years of political, economic and financial turmoil, an official said Friday.

"Economic growth will reach three to four percent in the year 2000," said the head of the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS), Suwito Sugito.

I Made Sentana, Jakarta – Indonesia's inflation rate of 2.01% in December was higher than analyst expectations of a 1.62% rate.

However, the December figure isn't raising concerns that price growth will get out of hand again next year like in 1998 when it soared as high as 77.63%.

Keith B. Richburg, Tuapukan Refugee Camp – Zelia Soares and her family had decided to go home, to leave this refugee camp in western Timor and take their chances in the newly independent East Timor.

Jakarta – A former battalion commander in East Timor admitted on Thursday that his troops ambushed two foreign journalists in the territory's capital of Dili on September 21.

Jakarta – Share prices on the Jakarta Stock Exchange (JSX) ended the year with a 70% gain, making the bourse one of the world's best performing markets.

According to data compiled by the Indonesian Capital Market Supervisory Agency (Bapepam), the JSX ranked third among the world's best performing markets in 1999 after South Korea's Seoul and Singapore stock exchanges.

Jakarta – Indonesia's central bank, Bank Indonesia, said early Saturday that it passed the year date change – Y2K – without any computer glitches.

"We have tested connections with all of our branches all over the country and there wasn't any problem," said Brenda Sutrisno, an official with Bank Indonesia.

Makassar – Some 100 protesting students intercepted visiting President Abdurrahman Wahid's entourage on Thursday to demand the government promptly resolve the violence in Ambon.

Jakarta – Indonesian security forces killed a suspected separatist rebel and wounded another in the latest armed skirmish in Aceh province, a local newspaper reported on Friday.

The exchange of gunfire between rebels and security forces lasted for 30 minutes on Thursday in the Matangkuli area of North Aceh, the Banda Aceh-based Serambi daily said.

Surabaya – A 65-year-old woman became the latest victim of the two-week-old killing spree in the Malang area, which has so far claimed nine lives. Alimah Saniwar was found dead in the wee hours of Wednesday morning at her home in Sumber Runcing village, Pagak district, Malang, some 90 kilometers south of Surabaya.

Jakarta – Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid has arrived in the remote eastern province of Irian Jaya, were calls for independence have been rising, to watch the first local sunrise of 2000, the state Antara news agency said Friday.

Jakarta – Jakarta-based thugs are offering large rewards to hunt down and kill suspected black magic warlocks leading to eight horrific deaths so far, security officials alleged in a report Tuesday.

Jakarta – Muslim-Christian violence raged for the third day running in the eastern Indonesian city of Ambon on Tuesday, after claiming at least 33 lives the previous day, residents said.

The sound of gunfire and explosions from grenades and home-made bombs has echoed around the city since dawn, the sources said, adding that a number of buildings were in flames.

Jakarta – Six men were killed when police opened fire on hundreds of angry fishermen who stormed and burned 10 fish warehouses in the North Sumatra port of Belawan on Tuesday, reports reaching here said.

Jakarta – Efforts to bring to justice those behind the violence in East Timor received a double blow this week with the former armed forces chief rebuffing a domestic inquiry and the government again rejecting an international tribunal.

Jakarta – The Indonesian government will impose import duties of 30 percent on rice and 25 percent on sugar from January 1, reports said Friday.

Yogita Tahil Ramani, Jakarta – Violence in the capital has known no boundaries this year. With vicious murders, countless armed robberies, bomb blasts and gruesome street justice, the year 1999 can be safely declared a year of crime.

Jakarta – Former Indonesian armed forces chief General Wiranto on Friday told a human rights commission there had been no plan or policy for either a genocide or crimes against humanity in East Timor.

Jakarta – The Indonesian government Thursday released 105 political prisoners, the last still held in the country's jails, Minister of Law and Legislation Yusril Ihza Mahendra said.

"There are practically no more political prisoners and detainees," Mahendra told journalists at the presidential office after announcing the releases.

Reuters in Jakarta – At least 43 people have been killed in bloody gang battles between Christians and Muslims in Indonesia's troubled Spice Islands, ignoring presidential pleas for peace.

More than 170 homes, churches and other buildings had been torched during the bloodshed on Buru island and hundreds of villagers had fled to the police headquarters, officials said.

Railako – There was not much left of body number 258, but a team of UN civilian police officers and soldiers from the International Force for East Timor (Interfet) set out Thursday to find as much as they could.

Jakarta – Around 8,000 workers at two Indonesian factories producing Nike shoes went on a violent rampage in protest at dragging negotiations over bonuses, a report said Thursday.

The workers from the PT Astra's Shoe Industry Division in Tanggerang, west of Jakarta, on Wednesday vandalized seven vehicles inside the factory compound and smashed factory windows with stones.

Jakarta – The Jakarta city administration has rounded up about 2,000 insane people from the streets over the past week and is now holding them at Panti Laras Asylum in Cipayung, East Jakarta.

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – Rahadi winds in and out of the buses pulling into Pulo Gading, one of Jakarta's main bus stations. As soon as the buses are emptied of passengers, he jumps on and starts sweeping and mopping the rubbish-strewn floor and seats.

Vaudine England, Jakarta – The political elite is using religion to incite conflicts to suit its own ends, according to Indonesia's Religious Affairs Minister Tolchah Hasan.

He said incidents such as last week's burning of a Christian compound might be part of a wider pattern, loosely described as "bringing Ambon to Jakarta".

Keith B. Richburg, Dili – Australian troops in East Timor are examining a newly discovered grave site in the Oe-Cussi enclave that may contain the remains of as many as 50 victims of last September's bloody rampage by Indonesian army troops and allied militias, which followed the territory's overwhelming vote to secede from Indonesia.

Canberra – More than 100,000 refugees in West Timor were trapped in makeshift camps and living in a state of constant fear under the rule of the militia groups that destroyed East Timor, an Amnesty International report said today.

Dili – Seven people were wounded after a suspected member of a pro-Indonesian militia threw a hand grenade in the border area between East and West Timor, a spokesman for the international peace force here said.

Jakarta – Teachers at elementary and junior high schools in remote areas of Central Sulawesi province say they are so badly paid they cannot afford staple foods amid these tough economic times.

Jakarta – Indonesian police are to go on the offensive against separatist rebels in the troubled province of Aceh following an increase in attacks on security forces in the province.

"We will not yield to armed civilians in Aceh. They will be dealt with sternly," national police chief General Rusmanhadi told the Media Indonesia daily.

Geneva – More than 119,000 East Timorese have now returned to the territory – most of them from Indonesian West Timor, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said here Tuesday. With the exception of three minor incidents since Friday, UNHCR staff had also reported an easing of conditions in some militia-controlled camps in West Timor, spokesman Paul Stromberg said.

Jakarta – The Central Kalimantan prosecutor's office said on Saturday it had enough evidence to name former public works minister Radinal Moochtar a suspect in a corruption case.

The case is linked to an unsuccessful government project to develop one million hectares of unproductive peat land into rice fields and a housing complex in 1996.

Jayapura – A House of Representatives delegation said here on Saturday no foreign country would recognize an independent Irian Jaya.

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – An independent Indonesian commission, which has made surprising headway investigating human rights abuses committed during East Timor's post-ballot violence, has come under fire from the high-ranking generals it has named as being connected with the violence.

Still, the Indonesian team of lawyers has vowed to press on with their investigation.

Jonathan Manthorpe – The evidence is building that Indonesia 's new, reformist president, Abdurrahman Wahid, is prepared to shield the country's repressive military from its past misdeeds and cater to its rampant nationalism in order to preserve the fledgling democracy.

Kupang – A pro-Jakarta East Timor militia chief accused the Indonesian government on Friday of abandoning its own supporters, but said he would not disband his group, which is accused of terror in the territory.

Atambua – One week after the commander of pro-Indonesian militias ordered his forces to disband, militias remain present here but their power is fading, aid workers say.

Vaudine England, Jakarta – The man who was a role model to Indonesia's new generation of human rights lawyers is now defending the country's top generals, adding to growing controversy over investigations into the military's role in wiping out East Timor.

Jakarta – The offshore debt of the Indonesian government in the fiscal year ending next March is estimated to reach 71.9 billion dollars, a report said here Saturday.

Jakarta – The commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) yesterday in Jakarta revealed it's new investigation results from East Timor, concerning the violence which was conducted before and after the UN sponsored plebiscite. The results show evidence that the militia were paid by local administrators and the military.

Jakarta – Indonesia should post Gross Domestic Product growth of 1.8% in the year to March 2000, according to a draft of the government's latest letter of intent to the IMF, obtained Friday.

Jakarta – Indonesian police and soldiers set fire to dozens of houses and shops on Friday in the troubled Aceh province to avenge the killing of a soldier, a report said.

A soldier was found dead in the Lammeu area of Pidie district on Friday morning, prompting security authorities to send troops to the area to search for the assailants, the Detik online news service said.

Michael Richardson, Dili – Now that the East Timorese independence coalition no longer has a common enemy to hold it together, there are signs that it is starting to fracture.

Lindsay Murdoch – Eurico Guterres looks a beaten man. Gone are his thug bodyguards and the copy-cat red beret uniform of Indonesia's elite Kopassus forces. Gone also are his bravado and threats to kill.

Instead, the militia leader – who ordered mass murders and the destruction of East Timor – is living under an assumed name in a seedy hotel in north Jakarta.

Jakarta – Dozens of policemen in Central Java were injured in two days of protests by villagers trying to attack a rubber plantation, the official Antara news agency said Thursday.

Two police trucks were set ablaze on Wednesday along with a police post and a telecommunication center at the Ciseru-Cipari plantation in Cilacap, about 270 kilometers southeast of the capital.

Reuters in Jakarta – Indonesia's parliament on Thursday backed away from the idea of allowing any referendum for the troubled province of Aceh.

Separatists are demanding a referendum on independence for the Sumatran region and a special parliamentary committee earlier recommended holding a vote of some kind in the province.

Vaudine England, Jakarta – The armed forces are smarting under a welter of rights abuse allegations. They have warned that local and international efforts to call the generals to account will not only fail but could threaten the nation's state of relative calm.

Daniel Cooney, Jakarta – State investigators demanded yesterday that army generals be tried for human rights abuses in East Timor after President Abdurrahman Wahid said he would not block their prosecutions by the Indonesian courts.