Jakarta – Three prominent Muslim parties have formed a coalition for the next general election, saying they want to grab a sizeable share of the votes to champion Islamic values.

The three Islam-based parties are the United Development Party (PPP), the Nahdlatul Ummat Party (PNU) and the People's Awakening Party (PKU).

Jay Solomon, Pekanbaru – One of Indonesia's richest provinces is slowly prying control of its natural wealth from the central government, posing a major challenge to Jakarta and some big multinationals at a time when foreign investors are already wary of the archipelago.

Jakarta – Politicians from four of Indonesia's 48 political parties planning to contest in the June 7 general election Tuesday took part in the first ever open public debate among presidential hopefuls.

Tual – Police fired shots Tuesday to disperse battling mobs of Muslims and Christians in a region of eastern Indonesia that has been plagued by religious violence this year. At least four people were killed.

Rioters with knives and bows and arrows set nine houses afire in the village of Cansas on Kei Island, 2,800 kilometers northeast of Jakarta, the Indonesian capital.

Ujungpandang – Electoral Commission (KPU) Chairman Rudini said that there was now a distinct possibility that the 1999 general election could be postponed, following the government's suggestion to administratively divide the provinces of Maluku and Irian Jaya before the election.

Jakarta – At least 10 people were injured when security forces opened fire Saturday to quell rioting mobs in Indonesia's riot-torn Maluku islands, residents and reports said Sunday.

Susan Sim, Ujung Pandang – More than two thirds of the 131 million Indonesians eligible to vote in June have registered to do so in the country's first voluntary voter-registration drive, electoral planners said.

And this high sign-up rate, despite a shaky start three weeks ago, could augur well for the major opposition parties, some of their leaders predicted.

Jakarta – Chairman of the Jakarta Provincial Elections Committee (PPD I) Djafar Badjeber announced on Friday that campaign activities in the city for the June 7 general election were scheduled to start on May 19.

Jakarta – An Indonesian human rights group has claimed that more than 50 people have been murdered in a wave of mysterious serial killings this year, news reports said Saturday.

Jakarta – A series of mass murders have thus far killed more than 100 people in Ciamis, West Java, and some of the victims were those who had discredited Suharto or were against his rule. The murders were carried out by two groups led by two men with the initials S and SU.

Jakarta – Preliminary police investigations showed that the Monday bombing of the Istiqlal Mosque here was linked to a group calling itself the Mujahidin Islam Nunsantara Movement, police said yesterday.

Jenny Grant, Yogyakarta – The scene would have been impossible at the last elections. At a high-level meeting in a university campus, a long-haired activist told the city's Attorney-General that his monitoring group had found irregularities in the voter registration process.

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – Deposed president Soeharto, accused of massive corruption and cronyism during his 32-year rule of Indonesia, yesterday attacked the ruling Golkar party he created, saying it has been ruined by vested interests.

Tual – Police fired shots Friday to disperse battling mobs of Christians and Muslims in eastern Indonesia, witnesses said. At least seven people were killed.

The rioting in Tual city was the latest outburst of religious unrest in Maluku province, where more than 300 people have died in fighting this year. Dozens of churches and mosques have been burned.

Jakarta – The parents of some 70 students who went missing after taking part in a major pro-independence rally in the troubled province of Aceh on Thursday went to the legislature for help, a rights activist said.

Dini Djalal in Ambon, Pontianak and Jakarta – It seemed like what passes for normal at an Indonesian checkpoint. The soldiers were more brusque than usual, but they were on a dangerous detail – frisking people for machetes in strife-torn Ambon, the eastern island racked by murderous sectarian strife.

Kafil Yamin, Jakarta – The ruling Golkar party is among Indonesia's most unpopular organisations, and even the sight of its official yellow colour is enough to elicit violent reactions from many people.

But the chances of the party, which used to be headed by President Suharto, cannot be disregarded in the run-up to general elections in June.

Robert Garran – Former Indonesian president Suharto is likely to emerge as one of the most prominent corporate players in Indonesia in coming years, thanks in part to political protection from President B.J. Habibie, a new book claims.

Jakarta – More than 1,000 of Jakarta's urban poor staged a mass demonstration here Thursday accusing the government and the World Bank of abusing social safety net funds.

Jakarta – Indonesia's Parliament passed an anti corruption law Thursday that requires government officials to declare all their assets to a supervise commission set up by the president.

The new bill, endorsed during a plenary session of House, will apply to all government officials including the president.

Vaudine England – The "disappearance" of activists, whether temporary or permanent, is a political instrument common to past and present governments, a victim who was tortured said yesterday.

Jakarta – Indonesia's House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill which will grant greater autonomy to the governments of the country's 27 provinces and their sub-regencies, witnesses said.

Jakarta – Security forces fired warning shots when hundreds of students demanding a share of oil earnings stormed a Caltex Indonesia housing complex on Sumatra island Tuesday, wrecking cars and smashing office windows, sources said.

Hong Kong – The trial of 11 members of Indonesia's elite special force found guilty of kidnapping pro-democracy activists was a farce designed to protect high-ranking soldiers, one of the nine who was captured and tortured said here Tuesday.

Jakarta – A mob attacked a Roman Catholic complex in the predominantly Moslem province of South Sulawesi, throwing fuel bombs that burned several buildings just hours after a blast at a main mosque in Jakarta, police said Tuesday.

Jenny Grant, Jakarta – The People's Democratic Party has nominated three missing people to run as parliamentary candidates for the June general election.

Announcing the move yesterday, party chairman Budiman Sudjatmiko described the men – Petrus Bima Anugerah, Herman Hendrawan and Suyat – as three of its best cadres.

Jakarta – Security forces mistakenedly opened fire on a crowd of ethnic Madurese migrants and local Malays in Indonesian Borneo killing four people and injuring three others, an official said Monday.

Jakarta – Although the official election campaign period is still a month away, political parties across the country have moved their electioneering activities into high gear.

Fires burning in central Sumatra have once again blanketed Singapore in a haze that has pushed up pollution levels in the city-state famed for its "clean and green" image. Parts of Malaysia have also been affected.

Gerry van Klinken – For all his sometimes clownish mannerisms, President Habibie has in many ways been Indonesia's Gorbachev. He rode the crest of a wave of political creativity generated by the massive protests of last year. But now that wave has spent much of its force.

Jakarta – Indonesian has scrapped its draconian subversion law but introduced similar articles against sabotage and the spread of Marxism and Leninism to the criminal code, reports said Thursday.

The House of Representatves axed the anti-subversion law on Wednesday and brought six new articles into the criminal code, the Jakarta Post daily said.

Jakarta – Bitter ethnic clashes between Madurese settlers and local Malays and Dayaks erupted for the fifth consecutive day Thursday in Indonesia's West Kalimantan province, police said. Rival mobs fought with homemade guns and torched each others' homes in the province's Sungairaya sub-district.

Ambon – Sixty-four more bodies of those killed in recent riots in eastern Indonesian islands have been found, bringing the death toll to at least 177 in the clashes that started March 31, an official said Thursday.

Philip Bowring, Jakarta – The communal horrors of East Timor, Ambon and West Kalimantan are real enough. But they no more describe Indonesia than Kashmir, Bihar and Assam describe India.

Jakarta – Comments by ex-president Suharto expressing doubt about whether Indonesia's June 7 elections will be free and fair show he does not believe in democracy, the deputy chairman of the election commission said Thursday.

"His political concept is based on authoritarianism. He does not believe in democracy," Adnan Buyung Nasution said on television.

Jakarta – At least nine students were injured and 62 arrested in a number of rallies held across Java on Tuesday to oppose the June 7 general election. The arrests were made following a clash between students grouped in the Indonesian University Big Family (KBUI) and riot police who were attempting to disperse the protesters on Jl. M.T. Haryono in East Jakarta.

John Haseman, Jakarta – The recent outbreak of serious ethnic violence in Indonesia's Borneo province of West Kalimantan has underscored the difficulties Indonesia's armed forces face in trying to maintain domestic stability in a period of unprecedented political change and economic crisis.

Jakarta – The Indonesian military will court-martial a colonel who allegedly promised a Suharto-linked foundation a huge sum if he were reelected as a local government official, a report said Wednesday.

Jakarta – Indonesians will be able to study and write about communism for the first time in more than three decades, but promoting Marxism-Leninism will still land them in jail, reports said Tuesday.

Jakarta – Ethnic clashes between Madurese settlers and ethnic Malays and Dayaks flared up again Tuesday in Indonesian Borneo, which has been rocked by months of savage unrest, a military source said.

Jakarta – Indonesian police forced hundreds of anti-government and anti-military protesters away from a state-run radio station on Tuesday. At least five students were seriously injured, witnesses said.

Jakarta – In the first case of its kind in Indonesia, people in the oil-rich province of Riau have sued President B.J. Habibie for 22.5 billion dollars in compensation for lost oil revenues, reports said Tuesday.

The first hearing in the class action suit was held Monday in a court in the Riau city of Pakenbaru, the Kompas daily said.

Jakarta – Hundreds of Indonesian students shouting "revolution," massed outside parliament here Tuesday to protest June 7 polls and demand the government of President B.J. Habibie step down.

Hundreds of others, who marched towards the parliament without notifying the police, were disbanded by force four kilometres before reaching their destination.

Jakarta – Three jailed Indonesian politicians were in a critical condition in a police hospital Tuesday after staging a week-long hunger strike, their lawyer said.

"Until late last night, the condition of Budiman [Sujatmiko] was very bad ... he is being fed intravenously in hospital," lawyer Johnson Panjaitan of the Indonesian Legal Aid Council said.

Nurul Hidayati, Jakarta - The hunger strike by Budiman Sudjatmiko and his friends has finally ended. On the advice of the doctor who is treating them, the chairperson of the People's Democratic Party (PRD) and his other colleges, ended their action on Tuesday, April 13.

Vaudine England, Jakarta – Jakarta's legal community is unimpressed by the charging of Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra.

Jakarta – The corruption probe into former Indonesian President Suharto could drag down his successor President B.J. Habibie, the Indonesian Observer newspaper on Monday quoted one of Suharto's lawyers as saying.

Jakarta – Entering the sixth day of a hunger strike at the Cipinang prison, five leaders of the People's Democratic Party (PRD) are in a critical condition. Two of them had to be rushed to hospital.

Jakarta – To pass the clean governance bill without giving substantial authority to an independent body to implement the power controls would be a pointless and abortive attempt to uproot corruption according to the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW).

Jakarta – Indonesia's ethnic Chinese on Saturday formally established a mass organisation to promote awareness of their rights and obligations as Indonesians. The Chinese Indonesian Association (INTI) described itself as nationalist in character.