Peter Symonds – Only a few days after its formation on Monday, the alliance forged between three of the major opposition parties standing in the Indonesian elections on June 7 is showing signs of disarray.

Mark Dodd, Atsabe – United Nations investigators believe that their surprise arrival in this highland town on Wednesday may have stalled plans for a second attack by pro-Indonesian militias.

Mark Dodd, East Timor – United Nations investigators have seen Indonesian Army personnel training loyalist civilian militia in this East Timor town, throwing doubt on Jakarta's promise to ensure the neutrality of its military before the territory's independence vote.

Jakarta – The ministry of State Enterprise Empowerment acknowledged that it has channelled soft loans to small and medium scale businesses through the ruling Golkar party. The move is seen by many people as an attempt by Golkar to buy votes ahead of the election, said Sofyan A. Djalil, communication deputy for the ministry.

Jakarta – Tensions marked the second day of campaigning in several volatile areas across the country, including Pidie in Aceh, where hundreds of Geulumpang Tiga villagers attacked and burned a United Development Party (PPP) van to drive home the message that they do not want a general election but a referendum.

Jonathan Thatcher, Jakarta – Indonesia on Friday abruptly changed the date for East Timor's independence vote, a move greeted with astonishment by Portugal and the United Nations, which had settled on a poll for August 8.

Jakarta said the troubled former Portuguese colony would now go to the polls a day earlier, on a Saturday.

Jakarta – Thousands of Indonesian students took to the streets in the country's second city of Surabaya on Friday to mark the anniversary of reviled President Suharto's ouster.

Witnesses said campaign activities by political parties for June's general election in the city were overwhelmed by the large number of student protesters.

Jakarta – Troops fired warning shots as thousands of students shouting "Hang Suharto" tried to storm parliament on the first anniversary of the downfall of the former strongman here Friday.

David E. Sanger, Washington – Top Clinton administration officials said Wednesday that they had pressed the World Bank to make sure that more than a billion dollars in aid to Indonesia was held up for several weeks so that the country's government could not use it to buy votes in the first free election there in more than 40 years.

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – As Indonesia's election campaign kicked off, analysts here predict that the ruling Golkar still has a strong chance of winning, despite poll predictions placing Ms Megawati Sukarnoputri's PDI-Struggle as the most popular party.

Jakarta – Indonesia's electoral campaign got off to a lacklustre start in the troubled territory of East Timor Wednesday, largely ignored by a population gripped by fractional violence ahead of a UN-monitored ballot on self-determination in August.

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – President B.J. Habibie's campaign to be elected at June polls suffered a serious blow yesterday when three main Indonesian opposition parties formed a united front against him.

Opposition leaders agreed to put aside key policy differences, including on East Timor, to form a bloc for the country's first free elections in 44 years.

Vaudine England, Jakarta – Residents of the Maluku province capital, Ambon, were burying their dead from the latest outbreak of mob anger and military killing yesterday as violent unrest continued further east in Tual, capital of the Kai Islands.

Hundreds of troops and police patrolled the streets of Ambon and fired occasional warning shots yesterday.

Jakarta – Former Indonesian president Suharto has ordered lawyers to sue Time magazine over a report that it had traced 15 billion dollars accumulated by him and his family, a report said Monday.

"All of the reports on Suharto by Time in this week's edition are big lies," the evening Berita Buana daily quoted Suharto lawyer Felix Tampubolon as saying.

Jakarta – A year after Indonesia's long-time president Suharto handpicked his protege B.J. Habibie to succeed him, the German-trained technocrat is still battling to shed his image as the former strongman's "favorite child", analysts say.

Habibie himself said after taking power on May 21, 1998, that he was aware of questions about the legitimacy of his presidency.

Jakarta – A total of 48 political parties are contesting Indonesia's June 7 elections, the first since the fall of president Suharto whose Golkar party swept all polls under his 32-year rule.

Only a handful – including two of the three parties allowed by the Suharto government – are expected to make a significant showing. Campaigning starts Wednesday.

Jakarta – Two witnesses at the corruption trial of a son of former president Suharto on Monday retracted statements that a company he controlled had caused millions of dollars of losses to the state.

Indonesia faces its first post-Soeharto elections with fears of mob violence not just during the polls but afterwards, as Louise Williams reports.

Mas Damon has a mob for hire – 30,000 or so tough, young men and women, all with basic military and crowd control training, ready to do anything for anybody, so long as the price is right.

Vaudine England, Jakarta – The nomination of President Bacharuddin Habibie as the sole presidential candidate of the Golkar party is a sign not of the President's personal popularity but of the continuing dominance of money politics, party insiders say.

Jakarta – Most of the people gunned down by the military in the staunchly Islamic province of Aceh earlier this month were shot at from behind, suggesting they were running away or lying down in a bid to avoid being struck, says a leading human rights group.

Jakarta – Scores of farmers were arrested and 11 were missing from villages in Indonesia's West Java province after a protest over a land dispute, a rights group said Friday.

Jakarta – Indonesia's ruling Golkar party agreed early Friday to nominate President B.J. Habibie as its sole candidate for the next presidency to be decided in November, the official Antara news agency said.

Habibie, 62, was vice president when former president Suharto stepped down amid widespread protests last year, and named him as his successor.

Jakarta – Clashes broke out between local army battalion and a special Indonesian force in the East Timor town of Baucau, a rights group said Friday.

Terry Cook – An appeal for support from striking Indonesian garment workers employed by the Japanese-owned Berbek sweater manufacturing company in Sidoarjo, East Java, reveals the sweatshop conditions under which they are forced to work.

Tim Dodd, Dili – Dr Kevin Baker has a simple rule of thumb for determining who is on which side in East Timor's civil strife.

If a man weighs less than 45 kilograms, then he is probably in favour of independence. If he weighs much more, he probably wants the province to stay with Indonesia.

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – Threats and attacks by pro-Jakarta militias are preventing aid agencies from sending tonnes of urgently needed rice and other supplies to thousands of villagers outside the East Timor capital.

Golkar deputy chairman Marzuki Darusman talks to Yang Razali Kassim about the many politically volatile issues facing Indonesia today

Q: The spate of violence in Indonesia has taken a baffling turn. The brutalities are now not only between ethnic but also religious, even tribal, groups. How does one make sense of all this?

Brian Woodley, Dili – East Timor's main pro-Indonesian group, which claims to run the militias behind a campaign of terror across the province, demanded yesterday the UN-sponsored referendum on August 8 be abandoned.

The call came after Indonesian President B.J. Habibie announced the formation of a team of ministers to oversee the UN-monitored poll in East Timor.

Sander Thoenes, Jakarta – Indonesia's opposition party has yet to reveal its party programme for next month's general election but the supporters of Megawati Sukarnoputri have indicated that they favour restrictions on foreign investors and free trade.

Andreas Harsono, Jakarta – It is still more than six months until Indonesia will choose a new president, but the most likely candidates are already out in force in a display of public politicking that hasn't been seen for a generation.

Catholic leaders march on day of peace in East Timorese capital. Residents of East Timor's capital Dili witnessed a rare display of peace today ... as hundreds of Catholic nuns, priests and Nobel Laureate, Bishop Carlos Belo marched through the city.

Jakarta – Following the military's revelation that at least 10 people were killed in recent clashes among party supporters, leaders of the 48 political parties contesting the June 7 general election agreed on Tuesday to stop all precampaign activities.

Jakarta – Thousands of students Wednesday peacefully marked the first anniversary of the shooting of their peers which triggered days of rioting and helped pressure former president Suharto to resign, as security was tightened in the capital in anticipation of street demonstrations.

Kafil Yamin, Bandung – Asih is only in her 40s, but she is already a grandmother four times over. She married at 12 and had three children by the time she turned 15. When she was 27, she saw her eldest daughter, Atikah, get married. Atikah was all of 14.

With less than four weeks left to the June 7 general election, signs are growing that the polls – the most crucial this country has held in its 54-year existence – will not quite be as free and fair as the government promised they would be.

The Deputy Head of the Provincial Government in Aceh, Yusri Hadjerat (who belongs to the ABRI faction in local government) told students and the people to "kill" the provocateurs who have been causing unrest. "If you meet with a provocateur, whether they belong to GAM or to the military or whoever they may be, they must be killed," emphasised Yusri in Banda Aceh on Tuesday 11/5.

Mark Dodd, Dili – The guns of the East Timorese armed resistance would remain silent despite desperate attempts to provoke them by pro-Indonesian militias and their Indonesian army allies, a senior pro-independence official said yesterday.

Lhokseumawe – Five grenade blasts Tuesday rocked the headquarters of the air defence battalion in Indonesia's troubled Aceh province but there were no casualties, the military said.

The early morning attack on the base in this major city in Sumatra island came a week after soldiers, including some from the base, opened fire at civilians leaving at least 41 civilians dead.

K. Basrie, Banda Aceh – Victims and witnesses of the May 3 shooting at Krueng Geukueh in North Aceh asserted over the weekend that the military has lied to the world about the incident, in which at least 41 people, including children and women, were killed.

Many Indonesians, both in the Christian minority and the Moslem majority, are uncomfortable with the sudden prominence of Islam in politics. Sander Thoenes reports on disquiet over exploitation of religion in the election campaign

Canberra – The Australian government will open a consulate-general office in East Timor in order to monitor the changes occurring in the Indonesian province.

AusAID, the government's aid body, will also open an office in Dili, according to an Australian government statement Tuesday.

Dili – As a consequence of continuing clashes between pro-independence and pro-integration groups, the Dili-based Suara Timor Timur has again been forced to cease publication.

Jakarta – Activists have deplored the government's recent rejection of a United Nations (UN) report on violence against women in Indonesia, on the grounds that its content was akin to viewpoints held by non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Jakarta – Indonesian President B.J. Habibie said on Monday he was appointing Justice Minister Muladi to the powerful post of state secretary after the resignation of Akbar Tandjung, the chairman of the ruling Golkar party.

"The state secretary's post will be taken over by Minister of Justice Muladi because he knows a lot about the law," Habibie told reporters.

Jakarta – Fresh violence broke out in the eastern Indonesian islands of Maluku as villagers from three villages clashed on the weekend, leaving 14 houses burned, a report said here Monday.

Maluku province spokesman Major Philipe Jekriel said the clashes broke out on Saturday and Sunday in Ambon, the Antara news agency said.

Jakarta – Party functions held by the ruling Golkar across Java over the weekend were met with hostile receptions, and at one site led to an emergency rescue of chairman Akbar Tandjung.

A helicopter flew Akbar and his wife from Jember to the neighboring East Java town of Lumajang on Sunday, after Golkar supporters were ambushed by opposition parties.

Jakarta – Indonesia's ruling party Golkar may be barred from campaigning for the June 7 elections after charges that it had used money from an aid programme for its own political gains, a newspaper reported on Monday.

To the East Timorese people, the members of the CNRT To all those in a position of leadership, in Dili, especially Youth of Loriko Aswain.

Philip Shenon, Washington – The Clinton administration has decided to offer riot-control training to the Indonesian police in preparation for next month's national elections despite concerns from human rights groups over the abysmal human rights record of the police there, administration officials say.

Dili – New violence flared between pro-and anti-Indonesia factions in the East Timor capital Sunday, with shots fired and attacks on foreign journalists.

As dusk fell in town, gunfire had left at least one man dead and another wounded, and small fires of tyres and wood were burning in the middle of downtown streets.