Jakarta – The registration of millions of voters for Indonesia's crucial June 7 elections got off to a sluggish start here Monday with few registrants and many areas awaiting delivery of registration papers.

Jakarta – The trials of an Indonesian official and a businessman charged with corruption linked to a land exchange scheme involving a son of former president Suharto opened Monday.

Jakarta – Religious clashes in the Southeast Maluku town of Tual have claimed at least 11 and injured 50, police and hospital sources said Friday.

Head of the Tual General Hospital, Nona Notanubun, told Antara that a priest, Butje Hehanussa, and his two sons, Hensen Hehanussa and Dani, were killed as a result of machete attacks on Wednesday.

Jakarta – A planned meeting of Indonesia's ruling Golkar party in East Java was cancelled after supporters of another party trashed the venue and ambushed the participants as they made their way there, a report said Saturday.

Abu Shams – The battle for votes in the upcoming Indonesian national elections is already on and it exposes rivalries among the existing Islamic political parties in the country. Among such Islamic parties is the United Development Party, whose leaders have chosen the Kabah which all Muslims face in prayer, as the new party symbol.

Michael Richardson, Jakarta – Indonesia's badly battered economy appears to be stabilizing and could return to growth before the year is out, according to officials and analysts who have been tracking it.

Jakarta – The Indonesian military relinquished command of the police force Thursday as part of a government push to reform the armed forces, which have been tainted by charges of corruption and human rights abuses.

Tokyo – A Japanese contractor allegedly paid at least 40 million yen (340,000 dollars) in kickbacks to cronies of former Indonesian president Suharto and related ministries to get a railway contract, a report said Thursday.

Jakarta – The Indonesian government has proposed scrapping its draconian subversion law and including new articles in the criminal code to cover crimes against the state, reports said Thursday.

Jakarta – Nine students from Trisakti University and a university security guard were badly wounded by riot troops in a clash in a street rally held on Wednesday in front of the Ministry of Defense and Security in Central Jakarta.

Two of the wounded students were women. The university security officer, Riswadi, was assigned to help supervise the students' protest.

Christopher Torchia, Jakarta – Foreign investment will probably flow back into Indonesia's shattered economy if parliamentary elections on June 7 are conducted without any major disruption, former US President Jimmy Carter said Thursday.

Carter, who plans to act as an election observer, described the poll in Indonesia as the most significant in 1999.

Jakarta – Standard and Poor's hurriedly restored Indonesia's long-term foreign currency sovereign rating Wednesday, just a day after a downgrade by the US agency sparked an angry central bank rejoinder.

Performing a rare about-face, the New York-based credit assessor said it had "reset" the rating from "Selective Default" back up to "Triple-C-Plus."

Jakarta – Tension remained high throughout villages in the eastern Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara on Wednesday after clashes between residents that left at least five people dead, police and news reports said.

Lisbon – East Timor resistance spokesman Jose Ramos Horta has announced his support for the NATO military intervention in Yugoslavia and blamed the current situation on the intransigence of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

Jenny Grant, Jakarta – The court ruling allowing ministers to campaign will undermine public confidence in a fair poll and could threaten the smooth running of the election, analysts said.

Padang – Seven students were injured and 46 arrested after clashes with security forces during a protest here against a Jakarta-appointed caretaker administration put in place after the governor resigned.

Tomi Soetjipto, Jakarta – Around half of Indonesia's children aged under five suffer from malnutrition as economic crisis plunges families into poverty, a UNICEF official said. The figure, based on UNICEF research and experience in the field, represents around 11.5 million children.

Jakarta – Some 100 Indonesian students on Tuesday marched to the Elections Commission headquarters here to demand the disbanding of the ruling Golkar party ahead of the pivotal June 7 election.

The Student Action Forum for Reform and Democracy (Famred) chanted "disband Golkar" as their advance was blocked near the office by some 40 anti-riot police and troops.

Jakarta – The Indonesian Electoral Commission has issued a definitive schedule for the June 7 election process, documents showed Tuesday.

In a ruling issued by the 53-member commission, voter registration for the polls, the first since the fall of former president Suharto, will be held from April 5 to May 4 and the final list of voters issued on May 13.

Jakarta – A senior minister and the national police chief arrived in Indonesian Borneo Tuesday as calm returned after days of grisly ethnic violence that left over 200 dead and displaced more than 28,000 people.

Surabaya – The supporters of other political parties have continued to vandalise the Golkar party's flags, banners, stickers, and signs. Most of the Golkar signs mounted in the streets were pulled apart by crowds, many wearing the colours of Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI-Struggle), when mass meetings of that party were being held.

Christine T. Tjandraningsih, Jakarta – An Indonesian committee passed a code of conduct Monday for the general election campaign, set from May 19 to June 4, that includes the ban of street rallies and the disqualification of parties from the June 7 election if they abuse the rules.

Thomas Wagner, Jakarta – Ever since President Suharto resigned last year during widespread rioting, his successor, B.J. Habibie, has impressed many Indonesians by lifting some of the authoritarian restrictions that they had lived under for decades.

Indonesia's experiment in population control has left a bloody legacy, reports John Aglionby in Pontianak

Sarni Kemal was wearing everything he owns when the headhunters came – a ripped shirt, a pair of grubby jeans and his underpants. When they came, he fled with his wife and eight children into a forest.

Canberra – Defence Minister John Moore today defended the holding of joint military exercises with Indonesia's armed forces (ABRI following allegations about military operations within Indonesia.

Vaudine England, Jakarta – The release of 10 political prisoners after 33 years in jail said little about any government commitment to political freedom, historians and other former political detainees said yesterday.

The 10, jailed for their part in the alleged communist coup attempt of 1965, were freed late on Thursday.

Jenny Grant, Jakarta – Indonesia's ruling Golkar party could threaten the credibility of June's general election if it resorts to vote-buying, the nation's top electoral official warned yesterday.

Rudini, the chairman of the General Election Commission, said Golkar was ready to "play dirty" by buying votes and forcing the private sector to donate campaign funds.

Jakarta – The death toll from nearly two weeks of ethnic violence in Borneo rose to about 260 when new attacks on villages killed at least 15 people and dozens of refugees died of injuries or illnesses, newspapers reported Saturday.

The United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women, Dr Radhika Coomaraswamy, has said that not only have women been raped by military personnel in East Timor, Aceh and Irian Jaya, but that in some cases victims were sent photographs of their own rape.

Jakarta – Indonesia's current economic crisis has led to widespread malnutrition amongst many pregnant women and children, a study conducted by the Helen Keller Indonesia foundation concluded yesterday.

According to the non-governmental organization's report, the social conditions in Jakarta are twice as bad as conditions in Bangladesh.

Raissa Robles in Manila and Vaudine England in Jakarta – About 600 Indonesian rebels have just finished training at a Muslim separatist camp in the southern Philippines, the Philippine military claimed yesterday.

Vikram Khanna, Singapore – Indonesian political leader Abdurrahman Wahid yesterday said his party, the National Awakening Party (PKB), is open to forming a coalition with the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) led by Megawati Sukarnoputri, as well as with Muslim leader Amien Rais and other democratic parties, to form a government in Indonesia after the general elections in June.

John McBeth in Jakarta and Dini Djalal in Ambon – Ambon has long been a tragedy waiting to happen. Ever since Indonesia became independent 50 years ago, a tradition of nonviolence, known as pela gandong, had kept a tenuous peace between Muslims and Christians.

Jakarta – Indonesia's election commission on Wednesday said it would bar government ministers from campaigning for June's parliamentary election, a day after the government announced that most of them could.

Jakarta – A son of former Indonesian president Suharto will stand trial next month for his suspected involvement in a multi-million dollar land scam, reports said Wednesday.

The dossier on Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, Suharto's youngest son, was handed to the South Jakarta district court Tuesday by a public prosecutor, the state Antara news agency said.

Jakarta - President B.J. Habibie has granted amnesty to 42 political prisoners accused of subversion. Two of them were involved in the Candi Borobudur bombing case, Hasbi Abdullah and Husein Ali Al Habsyi, and the other 40 people in subversion cases in Aceh.

David Watts, Singkawang – Indonesia has sent in 1,000 armed police officers to try to stamp out ethnic violence between Madurese migrants and locals yesterday before it spreads further in this province in Borneo.

Geneva – Chinese women raped during last year's disturbances in Indonesia have been threatened in order to shut them up, a United Nations investigator reported Wednesday.

Radhika Coomaraswamy, special reporter to the UN human rights commission, said she was convinced despite police denials that there were mass rapes including gang rapes during the riots.

Pontianak - Over 10,000 Madurese from Sambas regency have poured into this city and surrounding areas to escape the violence with local Malays and Dayaks. The exodus continued on Tuesday, while over 13,000 people in the Pemangkat coastal sub-district of Sambas were waiting to be evacuated.

Jakarta – Indonesia will release 10 ageing political prisoners, including ex-Colonel Abdul Latief, all sentenced to death more than 30 years ago for alleged involvement in the 1965 coup, Justice Minister Muladi said Wednesday.

Jakarta – Indonesian troops opened fire to disperse a crowd protesting the acquittal of an MP charged with embezzling 12 million dollars, injuring one student, reports said Tuesday.

Around 200 students outside the courthouse in Ujung Pandang on Monday pelted stones after Nurdin Halid, an MP for the ruling Golkar Party, was acquitted, the Jakarta Post said.

Jakarta – Indonesia's struggling privatization program suffered another setback Monday, when the government said it won't complete three key sales this fiscal year.

Christine T. Tjandraningsih – The ongoing economic crisis that has plagued Indonesia since the middle of 1997 has left children hungry in the country, with at least 610 reported to have died in recent months from malnutrition, international organizations said Tuesday.

Palu – The People's Democratic Party (PRD) has said that for the PRD, the 1999 election campaign is not just about getting votes. What was more important for the PRD was to providing political education to the people to increase their political consciousness.

The escalating violence in Ambon and Sulawesi since the fall of Soeharto has led to communities torn apart, with neighbour killing neighbour. Louise Williams reports.

Jakarta – Hundreds of Indonesian bank employees who lost their jobs when the government shut down 38 banks this month staged a protest march through central Jakarta Tuesday demanding increased severance pay.

Andi Jatmiko, Simpang Monterado – Indonesian soldiers fired shots in the air Tuesday to scare off fighters armed with spears, swords and homemade guns who tried to attack another ethnic group on Borneo island.

[The following is a speech by Pramoedya Ananta Toer (1) on the occasion of his swearing in as a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PRD) in Jakarta on March 21.]

Jakarta – Scores of Indonesians from 54 of the archipelago's different ethnic groups, many in native costume, rallied at the national parliament here Monday to demand more control of their lands and respect for their birthright.

Amy Chew, Jakarta – Indonesia's spiralling violence, fuelled by a brutal economic recession and religious and ethnic tension, threatens to derail the country's first democratic election in more than 40 years.