Derwin Pereira, Jakarta – In nationwide rallies yesterday, thousands of Indonesian students protested against President Suharto's decision to rule out major political reforms in the next five years.

Jakarta - Dozens of higher education institutes in the area of Jabotabek (Jakarta-Bogor-Tangerang-Bekasi) simultaneously staged actions of concern which were highlighted by clashes with the security apparatus at various campuses on Saturday (2/5).

Mantik Kusjanto, Jakarta – The IMF's executive board is expected to give Indonesia's reform programme its seal of approval on Monday, but economic analysts said even this was unlikely to stimulate the country's battered financial markets.

They said politics was the key issue setting the direction for the rupiah currency, as well as implementation of economic reforms.

Paul Blustein – The Clinton administration, worried that political upheaval in Indonesia could wreck the country's international economic rescue, is warning the government of President Suharto to show restraint in dealing with student demonstrations and other forms of dissent.

Louise Williams, Jakarta – In a clear warning to Indonesia's growing opposition, President Soeharto has insisted there will be no political reform for at least five years and indicated his government will crack down on attempts to disrupt national stability.

Don Greenlees, Jakarta – On Sunday March 8, Haryanto Taslam joined the list of Indonesian political activists to go suddenly missing. Soon before he disappeared he received a telephone call at his home in East Jakarta and told his wife, Ani Agustina, he was going out.

By David E. Sanger and Nicholas D. Kristof

Washington – The United States is preparing to back a $1 billion payment in international emergency aid to Indonesia on Monday, despite evidence that President Suharto's family and friends are continuing to undermine efforts to break up the multi-billion dollar monopolies they control.

Jakarta – The Indonesian armed forces (ABRI) plans to sue Indonesian media, which suggested that the military was behind the disappearances of anti-Suharto activists, the official Antara news agency reported yesterday.

Jakarta – The National Commission of Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has come to the conclusion after observations that the persons who were reported missing, were caught and led away by force. They did not disappear of their own choice. Abductions are a serious violation of human rights. Komnas HAM has drawn the conclusion that an organized group were responsible for the abductions.

[The following is an interview with Allan Nairn, Journalist and Indonesian Specialist by Danny Schechter.]

Schechter: Suharto is out. What happens now in Indonesia?

Nairn: Suharto is out, but the army is still there. It's the army who runs the police state. Until people break their power through protest, there is really no real chance for democracy.

Jakarta – A clash between the security apparatus and students staging actions of concern has now occurred at the Syarif hidayatullah Islamic Religion State Institute, Jakarta, on Thursday (30/4).

Jakarta – Waves of student protests critical of the government and demanding sweeping reforms were unrelenting yesterday, with clashes between students and security officers erupting on several campuses.

Raju Gopalakrishnan, Medan – Indonesian students protesting against the rule of President Suharto battled security forces for more than six hours in Medan Wednesday, torching a police motorcycle and hurling stones at troops.

Mystery contiunes to envelop kidnapers and the location at which pro-democracy activist, Pius Lustrilanang, was detained and tortured.

There are fears that both Cut Sari and M Hasyim, who have recently "disappeared", are being held in secret military custody in Aceh province and that their safety could be at grave risk.

Louise Williams, Jakarta – A secret interrogation centre where torture is used against political opponents of the Soeharto regime was revealed today to the Indonesian Human Rights Commission.

Jakarta - A leading US human rights group on Tuesday denounced a series of disappearances of student activists demanding that President Suharto quit.

Human Rights Watch said in a statement sent to Reuters that senior army and police officers may have lied when they denied knowledge of missing students who later turned out to have been in their custody.

Washington – The United States said Tuesday the reported abduction and torture of an opposition activist in Indonesia was disturbing, and urged the Jakarta government to mount a full investigation.

"It's a disturbing story," State Department spokesman James Foley said of the case of Pius Lustrilanang, a 30-year-old student activist.

Tokyo – US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said the lack of public participation in Indonesia's government aggravated the effect of the Asian financial crisis.

"We do not fully understand the causes of the financial crisis," Albright said.

Raju Gopalakrishnan, Medan – Indonesian authorities released 13 students Tuesday after detaining them over one of the most intense protests yet against President Suharto.

It is clear that the abductors of the 'disappeared' political activists systematically and repeatedly violated Indonesian law. How can the government expect students or anyone else to respect the law or the authority of the state when state security forces themselves engage in such flagrant human rights violations?

Jakarta – The amount of East Kalimantan ravaged by fires this year has increased to 442,800 hectares while timber revenue losses have reached Rp 8.27 trillion (US$1.06 billion), a news report said Saturday.

Jakarta – Unemployment in Indonesia jumped to 13.5 million on April 24 from 8.8 million in March, according to the latest figures from the Manpower Department, the Republika newspaper reported on Monday.

Jakarta – Andi Arief (27), Chairman of the Indonesian Students Solidarity for Democracy stated his preparedness to relate to the Military Police, where he all this time had been until he finally "stranded" and was declared detainee at the Police HQ last 17 April.

Medan – Five Indonesian students were taken away by what student leaders said were plain clothes security officials and two others were injured in escalating protests demanding President Suharto quit, witnesses said on Sunday.

Jakarta – Five Indonesian companies will go on trial next month for starting forest fires, the authorities announced yesterday, as a mounting haze and drought alert was sounded across South-east Asia.

The companies will be the first tried for starting fires in East Kalimantan province where nearly 400,000 hectares of forests have been destroyed in recent months.

Jakarta – Indonesian police detained about 40 students during an anti-government protest at a university in Jakarta on Saturday, local journalists reported.

The 40 were taken into custody when police blocked about 500 students from taking their protest outside the campus of the Ibnu Chaldun University in East Jakarta.

Irwan Firdaus, Jakarta – Police with clubs and riot shields battled rock-throwing student protesters on a campus in eastern Indonesia today. It was the second violent demonstration against President Suharto in as many days.

The National Commission for Human Rights (Komnas HAM) will shortly ask the State Police Headquarters to clarify the matter of "missing" people, following the discovery of a "missing" activist being detained at the State Police Headquarters. The Komnas HAM will also urge the apparatus to investigate fully the "abductors" of the activists, and take them to court.

Jakarta - During the last ten days, employees organized under the Indonesian Legal Aid Institutes Foundation (YLBHI) have experienced terror actions. Already four persons aiding YLBHI work have been terrorized, and one among them was even almost abducted. One incident of physical terrorization has been officially reported to the Menteng Sector Police.

Jakarta – Twenty-six students of the Universitas Mercu Buana, West Jakarta, on Friday (24/4) around 10.00 local time, came to the State Secretariat Building on Jalan Majapahit, Jakarta. Wearing red jackets, they wanted to deliver a letter and orchids for President Soeharto through the State Secretariat.

Jakarta – Thousands of Indonesian students have shrugged off repeated warnings from the authorities to keep up protest rallies across the country as 13 more people were hurt in a clash in Java, reports said yesterday.

Their ranks are being swelled by others demanding urgent economic and political reforms since the rallies started in February.

The United National Commission on Human Rights (UNHRC), the world's annual human rights meeting, has falied to deliver an effective response to the deteriorating situation of human rights in Indonesia, Amnesty International said today.

Leah Harrison, Jakarta – Indonesia may be more deeply mired than any other country in Asia's debt and currency crisis, but it's not too early for vultures.

Investors are swooping down on the country of more than 13,700 islands strewn across the equator between Singapore and Australia to pluck bargains from the rubble.

Jakarta – Health workers in Indonesia's capital are running low on blood for transfusions in a dengue fever outbreak, blamed for at least 422 deaths nationwide this year.

Health Ministry officials fear the actual death toll may be much higher, The Indonesian Observer newspaper reported today. More than 16,000 people have been infected.

In a demonstration Friday in the Indonesian city of Solo, a respected muslim preacher – Mohammad Komar – demanded that president Suharto step down. Jenny Grant reports from solo that demonstrators there are becoming increasingly militant.

Jakarta – Thousands of university students held peaceful protests against the government Friday, a day after a dozen students were injured in a clash with police on the tourist island of Bali.

Jakarta – University students here and in many other cities plugged on with their demands for an end to the economic crisis and comprehensive reforms in more demonstrations yesterday.

Jakarta – The whereabouts of the activist Andi Arief (27) who since 28 March 1998 was reported as missing in Lampung is presently known. This Chairman of the Indonesian Students Solidarity for Democracy was since 17 April 1998 "returned" by his kidnappers to the HQ of the RI Police.

By Margot Cohen in Tanjungbalai, north Sumatra, and Sigli, Aceh

David Jenkins, Jakarta – A prominent Indonesian political activist who disappeared from a Jakarta hotel in suspicious circumstances nearly six week ago has turned up In Surabaya, 670 kilometres east of the capital, in equally mysterious circumstances.

Huge areas of East Kalimantan have gone up in flames this year. This part of the island of Borneo was not badly affected by the fires last year. But, while there has been heavy rainfall in other parts of Kalimantan and in Sumatra earlier this year, the weather in East Kalimantan has been dry since early January.

Jakarta – Intellectuals are calling on students to continue with their struggle for political and economic reforms, lending greater weight to a youth movement that has grown into a formidable force over recent months.

Terry Mccarthy, Jakarta – Pramoedya Ananta Toer was perhaps the only writer in Indonesia who got the joke. Last month the Jakarta Arts Council announced the results of a nationwide writing competition: the 94 entries were so uniformly bad that the judges had refused to award anyone the first prize.

The progression in Indonesia has been inexorable: economic hard times, then social unrest, heightened political dissent and, finally, official repression. As impassioned student demonstrations have spread across the country's campuses, nearly 400 activists have been arrested since January.

Susan Sim, Jakarta – More than a third of Indonesia's 36-member Cabinet turned up for the marathon talks, but a third of their main dialogue partners – the student leaders who have been organising increasingly vociferous campus protests – declined to come.

Jakarta – Forest fires raging in Indonesia's East Kalimantan province have killed substantial insect life, posing a problem to forest rehabilitation, the official Antara news agency reported on Sunday.

"The disappearance of insects poses a problem to the rehabilitation of burnt forests," the agency said quoting a study by Abubakar Lahji of Mulawarman University.

"You only live once and must take a stand". This was Andi Arief's motto, an activist who was reported to have "disappeared" several months ago. In his daily life, as a political science graduate from the Gajah Mada University in Yogyakarta, Central Java, he always took a stand.

The army is being wrongly blamed for the disappearance of opposition figures, a senior officer tells Asia Editor David Jenkins in Jakarta.

Lewa Pardomuan, Jakarta – Indonesian students launched a full-blown attack on the government during a rare dialogue with cabinet ministers on Saturday, accusing President Suharto of failing to respect the people's desires.