Jakarta – In the era of reformasi a national leadership crisis has developed, including among the younger generation. Therefore the younger generation needs to hold a youth congress which can then give rise to a future leader. This leader must have a spirit of leadership and prestige.

Canberra – Australian Prime Minister John Howard yesterday defended a controversial plan to renew military links with Indonesia's elite Kopassus unit to help fight terror in the region – despite previously banning work with the group due to its questionable human rights record.

Jakarta – If the forces of peace are winning over the forces of violence in the "war on terror", it is far from obvious in Indonesia.

Kurniawan Hari and Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, Jakarta – Following last week's Marriott bombing, the government is mulling the adoption of a draconian law to preempt terrorist strikes, but House of Representatives' leaders appear to be having none of it.

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – The much-publicised three-day meeting of the Indonesian Mujahideen Council (MMI) was meant to show that the radical Islamic movement is very much alive despite the fact that its leader Abu Bakar Bashir is on trial for terrorism.

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, Jakarta – Indonesian Military (TNI) chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto has ordered all military units across the country to crack down on soldiers involved in criminal activities.

Australia has announced it will renew military ties with Indonesia's special forces unit, Kopassus, just four years after severing links following allegations that Kopassus had co-ordinated the East Timor massacres.

Linda Mottram: Though domestic issues are resurgent with the resumption of Federal Parliamentary sittings, security remains dominant, and the matter of how best to fight terrorism in Indonesia is fuelling a heated debate here in Australia.

Prime Minister John Howard has defended plans for Australia's military to resume links with Indonesia's notorious Kopassus special forces troops.

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) plans to resume contact and possibly counter-terrorism training with Kopassus, despite its suspected support for the militia carnage in East Timor in 1999.

Matthew Moore and Karuni Rompies, Jakarta – The terrorist suspected of blowing up Jakarta's Marriott Hotel was a member of a new suicide brigade of up to 15 bombers who are preparing more attacks, Indonesian police have warned.

Jakarta – Indonesia can still achieve its growth target for this year despite last week's deadly bombing at the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, a senior International Monetary Fund (IMF) official said yesterday.

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta – The State Intelligence Body (BIN) has asked for more power in the war on terror, but an analyst on Friday suggested that coordination among the country's intelligence institutions was a better solution to prevent terror attacks.

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta – Four national figures – Abdurrahman Wahid, Nurcholish Madjid, Adnan Buyung Nasution, and Salim Said – will testify before an inquiry of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) investigating the 1998 May riots.

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – Foreign infidels may have been the targets but nine of the 10 people killed in the Jakarta bombing on Tuesday were Indonesians just going about their daily life in the Indonesian capital.

Jakarta – Indonesian newspapers have welcomed the death sentence handed to Bali bomber Amrozi even as they took President Megawati Sukarnoputri's government to task for being too laid back in tackling terrorism.

Bandung – Hundreds of students from various organizations staged a demonstration on Friday afternoon in front of the Domestic Administration College (STPDN) in Jatinagor, Sumedang district, West Java, where President Megawati Soekarnoputri attended a student inaugural ceremony.

Bryan Lee – The bomb blast in Jakarta earlier this week may have left several dead and many injured, but investor sentiment in Indonesia seems to have been largely unscathed.

Fund managers cited a host of reasons that work in favour of the Indonesian market. Among them: A huge market, a country with vast resources and cheap stock valuations.

A'an Suryana, Jakarta – Close to tears, veteran politician Akbar Tandjung handed in his application form to contest the race for the Golkar party's candidate for the 2004 general elections.

Jakarta – Although the hopes and interests of society with regard to the 2004 general elections are very positive and indicate an attitude of enthusiasm, society feels pessimistic about whether the elections will be able to change their lives.

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta – The People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) concluded its Annual Session on Thursday with a call for President Megawati Soekarnoputri to create a clean government.

MPR chairman Amien Rais also reminded both the government and lawmakers that some reform agendas had not been attained, more than five years after the movement was launched in 1998.

Derwin Pereira, Jakarta – A survey by the Washington-based Pew Research Centre last December revealed some startling facts about Muslim attitudes in Indonesia towards terrorism. It suggested some 25 per cent of 220 million Indonesians felt terrorism was a legitimate weapon in defending Islam.

Ari A. Perdana, Jakarta – The wounds have yet to heal. The pain caused by several bombing incidents in the last few years had yet to become relief while yet another explosion hit the country. The issue here is not about where it happened – it was in one of Jakarta's business districts.

Bill Guerin, Jakarta – Indonesia is bracing itself for more hardship following Tuesday's Jakarta hotel bomb attack. As well as the death toll of at least 14 Indonesians and one foreigner, there may be serious consequences for an economy that had been on the mend.

As the Bali verdicts begin to unfold, the investigation is still fresh into the bombing of the Marriott hotel in Jakarta this week. While Indonesian police are saying they believe it was the work of Jemaah Islamiah, an investigation has been launched into the possible involvement of the country's armed forces.

A severed head found at the scene of Jakarta's deadly hotel bombing belonged to a member of the Jemaah Islamiyah extremist network, Indonesian police said.

Bambang Nurbianto, Jakarta – The city administration is doing almost nothing to prevent Jakarta's rivers from becoming industrial and household dump sites. City Environmental Management Agency (BPLHD) environment impact protection head Ridwan Panjaitan claimed the condition of the rivers was worsened by the absence of a sewerage system in the city.

Indonesia, hit on Tuesday by its second high-profile terrorist bombing in less than a year, is acquiring a reputation as a soft target for international terrorism. The country's oil, large Muslim population and strategic location are all contributing factors. But as important as anything are the cumulative effects of chronic misgovernment.

Derwin Pereira, Jakarta – Two weeks ago, I received a phone call from a long-standing and well-placed informant in Indonesia. He passed me critical information that the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) terrorist network was planning a major strike in Indonesia this month.

Bandung – West Java Governor Danny Setiawan asked workers from state-owned aircraft company PT Dirgantara Indonesia (PT DI) on Wednesday to cease their daily protest rallies against their suspension to curb potential security disturbances.

Indonesia's police chief linked the deadly bombing of a Jakarta hotel to the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror network and warned of fresh attacks by the al Qaeda-connected group.

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – The blasts that rocked the Indonesian capital came a day after the reopening of Paddy's bar which was devastated in the Bali bombings.

Now, Indonesians are wondering how they will pick up the pieces of an economy which had just begun to show signs of recovery from the earlier attack, the Iraq war and the Sars outbreak.

There are fears the Jakarta bombing has shaken the commitment of President Megawati Sukarnoputri to Indonesia's five year experiment with democracy. Two major terrorist strikes in twelve months has prompted a senior government minister to argue that some of Indonesia's new found civil liberties may have to be sacrificed.

An Indonesian court on Thursday found an Islamic militant called Amrozi guilty of the Bali bombing last October and sentenced him to death.

At the Marriott Hotel bomb site in Jakarta, investigators have been sifting for clues into the attack, but suspicion has already fallen on regional terror network, Jemaah Islamiah because of a mounting series of parallels to the Bali bombings.

Jakarta – Hundreds of university students grouped in the Greater Jakarta University Students' Executive Body (BEM) staged a rally in front of the parliament here Wednesday demanding the discontinuation of the ongoing annual People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) session.

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta – Three student activists were acquitted on Wednesday by the Central Jakarta District Court on charges related to a rally that was held last January 22.

"I couldn't believe it. I thought I would be punished," said Rico Marbun, one of the defendants.

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta – Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, the country's two largest Muslim organizations, led a chorus of condemnation against the bomb attack on JW Marriott Hotel and called on people to remain calm.

Former Indonesian military chief general Wiranto, who is accused by rights groups of war crimes in East Timor, said he would contest next year's presidential election on a ticket from the party of former dictator Soeharto.

"I'm ready to be the sixth president of Indonesia in 2004," Wiranto was quoted by the official Antara news agency as saying yesterday.

MPRS Decree Number XXV/1966 on the Dissolution of the Indonesian Communist Party and Prohibitions on Marxist, Leninist and Communist Teachings is still being maintained as law. However for the families who have been affected by this "collective sin" as a result of this decree, the issue is not one of the decree being revoked or not(1).

Bambang Nurbianto, Jakarta – Some 300 bajaj (three-wheeled motorized vehicles) were parked at the City Council compound on Wednesday in a noisy and smoky protest against the administration's plan to replace them with the Kancil (four-wheeled vehicles).

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – The Indonesian Navy is currently questioning four Marine soldiers over their alleged involvement in the murders of a businessman and his Army's Special Forces (Kopassus) bodyguard last month.

Palu – A powerful bomb exploded again on Thursday morning, in the sectarian conflict-torn city of Poso, Central Sulawesi province.

The explosion killed Bahtiar, alias Manto, 20, from Kayamanya and damaged buildings, Antara reported. The bomb exploded at 9am local time.

Dadan Wijaksana, Jakarta – The deadly bomb blast at the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta on Tuesday will undoubtedly hurt confidence in the an economy that had just started to recover as nervous investors and tourists shun the country, experts said.

Bill Guerin, Jakarta – With Indonesia's power needs hovering on the critical, a mothballed specter from the unlamented Suharto past – a 1,320-megawatt coal-fired plant in central Java – is being resurrected along with more than two-score other Suharto-era plants that were halted when the aging dictator fell from power in 1998.

Jakarta – On July 28, the government of South Kalimantan (Borneo) and Indigenous Dayak commmunity leaders strongly denounced Placer Dome, a Vancouver- and Sydney-based mining company, for its plans for mining operations in one of the last protected tropical forests in Indonesia.

Jakarta – A wealthy Indonesian businessman once implicated in a bank scandal that led to the downfall of former president B.J. Habibie jumped to his death from a hotel window yesterday.

Mr Marimutu Manimaren, 46, a commissioner of the troubled Indonesian conglomerate Texmaco, leapt from the 56th floor of Aston Hotel in downtown Jakarta, said police Major Kusdiantoro.

Agus Maryono, Cilacap – Civil servants, including teachers here, say they have been forced to buy T-shirts bearing the picture of the local chairman of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), Fran Lukman.

Indonesian share prices and the rupiah currency plunged after a huge explosion in a luxury hotel in Jakarta's business district.

Jakarta stocks ended down 3.06 per cent yesterday with the composite index finishing at 488.53 points, its lowest close in more than two months.

Matthew Moore – There have been five explosions in Jakarta this year, only one of which police have solved – and that was a bomb exploded by a member of its own bomb squad.

And yet, despite all of these bombings, most of the news about Indonesia's campaign against its home-grown terrorist threat has been good. At least it was until yesterday.

Matthew Moore, in Jakarta, Sean Nicholls, Tom Allard and agencies – A massive lunchtime car bomb at a prestigious Jakarta hotel killed at least 14 people and wounded 150 yesterday in an attack that appeared to be aimed at foreigners.