Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, Jakarta – Indonesia has expressed optimism over the possibility of the United States Congress allowing Indonesian Military (TNI) officers to rejoin the US International Military Education and Training (IMET) program.

Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – Pressure is mounting on the police to release 16 people arrested for protesting against the planned reopening of the PT Toba Pulp Lestari (TPL) pulp mill in Porsea, North Sumatra, as the Sweden-based NGO, Jij Vecht Tegen Onrecht, protested the arrests on Friday.

Don Greenlees, Jakarta – Indonesia's Human Rights Court acquitted three army and police officers yesterday over charges of human rights crimes in East Timor – maintaining its unbroken record of refusing to convict senior security force personnel.

Jakarta – Thousands of poor people in Banggai and Banggai Islands in Central Sulawesi are reportedly facing famine, following the sharp decrease in theLuwuk logistics sub-depot's rice stocks, Antara reported.

Japanese technology company Sony Corporation will close its audio equipment manufacturing plant in Indonesia due to labour and tax problems.

Japan's industry and trade minister, Rini Suwandi, has been quoted as saying Sony had been facing labour problems since early this year.

State agencies responsible for managing and protecting the environment have come out in favor of a proposal to establish an integrated agency to deal with environmental crimes, but the affected industries remain entrenched within complex business, government and criminal networks left over from the corrupt regime of former president Suharto.

Integrated agency

Jakarta – The House of Representatives passed on Thursday a controversial broadcasting bill despite protests it will curtail press freedom.

"The bill was endorsed by all but one faction," legislator Slamet Effendy Yusuf told AFP, referring to the small Unity and Nationhood faction who wanted the passage to be delayed to allow a further review, he said.

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta – The House of Representatives endorsed on Thursday a bill on political parties despite the protest of a number of legislators demanding the adoption of specific rulings to ensure gender equality in politics.

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – Indonesia's plans to beef up its intelligence network by reviving its regional intelligence posts throughout the country, has led to some questioning about whether the body was becoming too powerful.

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – Jakarta's East Timor trials were supposed to be the place where Indonesia would prove that its military had reformed and could no longer escape punishment for human rights abuses.

[In Indonesia, one strand in the complex hunt for the Bali bombers has taken police to the troubled Maluku islands. Amrozi, one of the confessed conspirators in the Bali terrorist attacks, says he also helped to make bombs that were sent to the eastern island of Ambon in 2000.

Bill Guerin – Indonesia's once-mighty footwear industry is in danger of collapse if urgent measures are not taken to enable it to reassert itself in a market long dominated by China. Buyers are increasingly moving to Vietnam as Indonesian shoemakers lose their competitive edge.

Kafil Yamin, Jakarta – It took Indonesia's House of Representatives more than two years of often-heated debate to pass a controversial broadcasting bill on Thursday, but critics here say the law is a return to the repressive measures of the Suharto regime.

Jakarta – Due to personal commitments, a South Jakarta District Court judge postponed on Wednesday for the second time the hearing into a criminal case involving a student accused of insulting President Megawati Soekarnoputri.

Anthony L. Smith – Two Americans and one Indonesian were killed on August 31 at the hands of an unknown assailant near the Freeport mining operation in Timika, Papua.

For the second time in their continuing nationwide hunt for the Bali bombers, the police uncovered a cache of arms and ammunition in a house rented by the allegedly principal planner of the bombing, Imam Samudra.

The arms, found at Sukohardjo in Central Java, included eight American-made M-16 magazines and Russian 4 AK-47 magazines.

John Pilger – "What passing bells for these who die as cattle?", asked the great WWI poet Wilfred Owen. His famous line might have been written for those who perish in today's secret wars and terrorist outrages.

Debbie A. Lubis, Jakarta – Virtually unknown just a decade ago, drug use through injection is now a major source of HIV infection in Indonesia, which now affects 43,000 people, 9,000 of whom are women, the latest report on the AIDS epidemic revealed on Tuesday.

Jakarta – A labor activist vowed on Monday to continue the struggle for the rights of former Shangri-La hotel employees by regularly staging demonstrations at the hotel until the case was settled.

"We will not retreat back because we feel that we are not guilty," Odie Hudiyanto, secretary of the Independent Labor Union Federation (FSPM), told The Jakarta Post.

Debbie A. Lubis, Jakarta – Among the most vulnerable to acts of violence, women in Indonesia have nowhere to turn for protection because weak laws and a culture of impunity that often allows violations to go unpunished, activists said on Monday.

Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – The situation in the North Sumatra town of Porsea is still tense with hundreds of local people taking refuge following the week-long riot in which 17 locals, including two church ministers, were arrested.

Matthew Moore in Jakarta and Cynthia Banham – Security experts fear that Indonesia faces a new wave of terrorist attacks involving kidnappings and the assassination of Westerners, crimes foreign to the country.

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, Jakarta – President Megawati Soekarnoputri warned on Monday against excessive democracy, saying that it would endanger the ongoing reform movement in the country.

Haidir Anwar Tandjung and Apriadi Gunawan, Medan/Pekanbaru – Tembilahan, a small coastal town in the Riau regency of Indragiri Hilir, has drawn a lot of attention from small-scale businessmen over the last few months as it has become a gateway for used clothes into the provinces of Jambi, South Sumatra and Lampung.

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – A much-anticipated plan to privatise Indonesia's national television station, TVRI, to save it from bankruptcy has been thwarted by parliament because of concerns that station operators would focus only on making profits.

Bambang Nurbianto, Jakarta – City administration agencies are overstaffed, corrupt and mismanaged, resulting in huge numbers of complaints from a frustrated public.

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta – The nation will soon have a new repressive broadcasting law after the government and the House of Representatives reached an agreement last week to pass the broadcasting bill into law on Monday.

Sixteen protestors are under arrest and around 500 have fled a town in the Indonesian province of North Sumatra amid controversial plans to reopen a polluting pulp plant, police and a human rights lawyer said.

Everyone has the right to be rich. But in Indonesia, the source of many people's wealth has become a sensitive issue, especially when it happens to be the president or her husband who is under the spotlight.

Tom Allard – Kopassus, the Indonesian special forces unit, which the Government wants to re-engage in the hunt for terrorists, has links to terrorist groups and activities itself, a senior official admitted yesterday.

Robert Go, Jakarta – Detained terror suspect Imam Samudra has confessed to masterminding the October 12 deadly attacks on Bali, as well as a series of church bombings two years ago across the country, senior security officials said yesterday.

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta – The House of Representatives (DPR) once again showed its lack of professionalism to the public on Thursday when its steering committee (Bamus) failed to form teams to deliberate the much-debated bills on antiterrorism due to low attendance.

Bogor – Nine companies have folded since the start of the year in Bogor, West Java, leading to 5,585 workers losing their jobs, Bogor's manpower agency chief Suherdis announced on Thursday.

He said that seven other companies employing 3,211 workers had also sought leave from the agency to fire their workers as they were facing bankruptcy.

Bill Guerin, Jakarta – A new initiative to boost prospects for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in eastern Indonesia has been launched by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank's private sector development arm.

Jakarta – The number of foreign tourist arrivals in Indonesia in 2002 is estimated at only 20 percent of its target figure of 4.3 million to 5.4 million, the country's top tourism official said.

Matthew Moore in Jakarta and agencies – Indonesian police last night arrested Imam Samudra, alleged mastermind of the Bali bombing which killed nearly 200 people.

Moch. N. Kurniawan, Jakarta – An alliance of non-governmental organizations says it will file a judicial review with the Supreme Court against a controversial government regulation allowing mining in protected forests.

The naming of Special Forces (Kopassus) Commander Maj. Gen. Sriyanto and the alleged involvement of 11 Kopassus soldiers in the ambush which killed two Americans and an Indonesian at the Freeport gold and copper mining site August 31, have brought the elite Red Beret corps back into the spotlight.

Darren Goodsir in Kuta and Wayne Miller in Surabaya – Sumarno, the stepbrother of the confessed Bali bomber, Amrozi, will be quizzed repeatedly in the next few days by Indonesian detectives for leads on the possible whereabouts of the six fugitives wanted over the October 12 attacks.

Matthew Moore, Jakarta – Indonesian authorities say they granted the alleged mastermind of the Bali bombings, Imam Samudra, two new identity cards in the last three years because they "forgot" police were searching him for his involvement in bomb attacks.

Moch. N. Kurniawan, Jakarta – Residents of Lhoksukon and Pasai districts in North Aceh have accused ExxonMobil Indonesia Inc., the Indonesian unit of the US-based Exxon Mobil Corp., of polluting the environment with hazardous waste for the past two years.

Ian Bostock – Few issues continue to dominate Australia's security outlook more than our angst-ridden relationship with Indonesia.

Jakarta – Two students from the Jakarta Theology School (STT Jakarta) in Central Jakarta who have been on hunger strike since last week were rushed to the hospital last Saturday.

Affiliated with the Indonesian Military (TNI)

Organisasi Pagar Desa: Founded in the 1950s by A.H. Nasution to help TNI eliminate Darul Islam/Tentara Islam Indonesia (DI/TII) separatist rebels; militaristic, co-opted by the government.

Jakarta – Hundreds of students of Ngruki Islamic boarding school staged a rally on Sunday outside the Surakarta Police in Central Java, demanding the police to release Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir.

The students of the school, which was established by Ba'asyir, urged the government to revoke the recent emergency decrees on terrorism.

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, Jakarta – Intensive crackdowns on beggars and other people living on the street during Ramadhan has done little to restore order in the city. Instead, the raids are apparently worsening the administration's fading credibility, activists said.

Jakarta – The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) condemned the military in Cianjur, West Java, for getting involved in the street vendor problem in the regency.

Kontras coordinator Ori Rahman said in a press release on Saturday that the military's interference had led to violence against the vendors.

Sri Wahyuni and Emmy Fitri, Jakarta – Experts are at one over the idea to disband paramilitary groups in the country but are at odds on the mechanism that should be used to dissolve these groups, which often assume the roles of defense and security forces.

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, Jakarta – Kartini, a vegetable vendor, was standing on the sidewalk after shopping for vegetables at the Cengkareng traditional market in West Jakarta, when several Public Order Officers came and forced her into their truck.

Ahmad Junaidi, Jakarta – The city administration announced on Friday that the recent Bali bombing tragedy has affected the city's economic growth, and has forced a revision from the previously estimated 3.87 percent to between 3.5 percent and 3.7 percent this year.