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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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 – 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.

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 – 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.

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.

Sigit Widodo, Jakarta - A third of Pramoedya Ananta Toer's life was spent in jail. But in jail his imagination as a writer did not die. Pram says he does not feel vengeful against the New Order regime, even though the former head of the People's Cultural Institute (Lekra) was jailed without trial for years on Buru 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 – One man was killed and 15 injured in a clash between supporters of rival parties campaigning for the June elections in the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta, a report said Monday.

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.

Jamie Mackie, Hong Kong – The ethnic violence that has flared up over the last two months on the island of Ambon, 2,000 kilometers east of Jakarta, has been horrifyingly brutal and intractable. The clashes have claimed the lives of around 200 people, and Indonesia's formidable security forces have been unable to stop the killing.

Sigit Widodo, Jakarta – Although being campaigned against by the New Order regime for two years, the People's Democratic Party (PRD) is determined participate in the coming June elections. This was seen at the "Grand Launch" of the PRD at the Wisma Trisula Perwari Building in Menteng, Central Jakarta on Sunday.

[The following is a speech written by jailed chairperson of the People's Democratic Party (PRD), Budiman Sudjatmiko which was read at the "Grand Launch" of the PRD on March 21 in Jakarta.]

Comrades in struggle, leaders and members of the PRD,

"I can see clearly, though not completely, so that the darkness will slowly but surely clear away" - Cornel Simanjuntak

Jakarta – Indonesian police fired warning shots to disperse a mob of hundreds of villagers in North Sumatra demanding the closure of a pulp and rayon mill they charge is polluting their land and a nearby resort lake, reports said Saturday.

Jakarta – Around 100 people protested in Jakarta on Friday calling for top economics minister Ginandjar Kartasasmita to resign over Indonesia's economic crisis.

A group calling themselves Economic Solidarity with the Indonesian People gathered in the afternoon outside the National Planning Board building, where Ginandjar has his office.

Jakarta – Indonesian's privatisation of state firms in the year to March 31 is likely to raise less that half the targetted one billion dollars, reports said here Friday.

The privatisation scheme is expected to raise just 380 million dollars, the Jakarta Post daily quoted an unnamed official as saying.

Jakarta – Attorney General Andi M. Ghalib played down on Wednesday media reports on the planned sales of three luxurious mansions in London owned by relatives of Soeharto, saying it was irrelevant to the government's investigation into the wealth of the former president.

Jakarta – Four days of ethnic violence in the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan has left 51 dead and thousands evacuated, a report said Friday.

The heaviest toll in the daily carnage came Thursday when 33 died, the Kompas daily said, adding 1,900 troops and police had been sent to the Sambas district to prevent the violence from spreading further.

Kate Linebaugh, Jakarta – As Indonesia's June parliamentary election nears, trading volumes on the Jakarta Stock Exchange are drying up, threatening the country's already shrinking brokerage industry.

With few expecting any substantial spurts of investment in the coming months, analysts say the Indonesian securities industry may see a gradual contraction.

John McBeth, Jakarta – Ever since then-President Suharto dumped him from the cabinet six years ago, former Defence Minister Benny Murdani has clung to the shadows of Indonesian politics. Some of his critics have refused to believe he had ceased to be a player, seeing his hand in all manner of backroom machinations.

Sydney – Amnesty International said on Thursday that torture, disappearances and unlawful killings continued in Indonesia despite President B.J. Habibie's human rights reforms since coming to power in May 1998.

Gerry van Klinken – Is Indonesia's social fabric disintegrating? Or are the peasants simply in revolt? It's time to take a serious look at the accepted wisdom on what lies behind the epidemic of social unrest in this vast archipelago. Those outside Indonesia have seen their TV screens filled with images of smoke-blackened shops and Indonesian parents weeping over dead children.

Jakarta – An attack on a village in Sumatra left one man dead and 25 houses burned down, police and reports said Thursday, amid conflicting reports of who was responsible.

Truckloads of migrants arrived at the village of Dalu-Dalu, in Riau province, early Thursday following a row over unused land on a private plantation where they had settled, the Antara news agency said.

Canberra – Indonesian soldiers sent to quell religious rioting on Ambon worsened the violence because they were not trained in non-lethal crowd control, the US-based Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.

Melbourne – Australia's defence forces have been placed on their highest level of military preparedness since the Vietnam War, in what analysts see as a clear sign of Canberra's growing unease with regional instability across Asia.

Jakarta - The links between Pramoedya Ananta Toer and the People's Democratic Party (PRD) go back some time, starting in 1996. This matter was raised by the PRD's representative in the General Election Committee (KPU), Hendri Kuok, in a special interview with Detikcom at the KPU offices on Wednesday, March 17.

Jakarta – Indonesian authorities are to investigate whether relatives of former president Suharto are selling lavish London properties, and have called back his son-in-law from abroad for questioning, officials said Wednesday.

Jakarta – Scattered protests by bank employees greeted the weekend closure of 38 private banks here on Monday as owners of the closed banks mulled whether to sue the government over the move.

Jay Solomon, Jakarta – Abdurrahman Wahid, the chairman of Indonesia's largest Islamic organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, ruled out supporting opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri for president. Instead, he said NU and its main political arm, the National Awakening Party, or PKB, would back either himself or the Sultan of Yogyakarta, Sri Sultan Hamungkubuwono X.

Indonesian opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri, quietly confident of securing the presidency this year, has vowed to put up a "clean and respectable" government with the will to restore confidence to a country rocked by a financial crisis and ethnic bloodshed.

Vaudine England, Jakarta – Only three per cent of Indonesians see any connection between democracy and elections – but nearly everyone intends to vote in the country's June poll.

Indonesians also feel cautiously optimistic about their country's direction and future despite their concerns about the economy, according to the first nationwide survey of Indonesians' views.

Jakarta – The General Elections Commission (KPU) has set up a seven-member team, called the Team of Seven, to make a draft electoral code of conduct and stipulate internal rulings.

Commission chairman Rudini said it selected seven names from the 53-member commission to form the small team on the issues.

Ambon – Indonesian forces on the ravaged island of Ambon have been ordered to shoot residents who refuse to surrender weapons, a senior commander said.

"The security apparatus will take the policy of asking the people to surrender their weapons voluntarily at least three times," Colonel Karel Ralahalu told a news conference late on Sunday.

Jakarta – The 53 members of the newly established National Elections Committee (KPU) are to convene on Monday morning to discuss a draft code of conduct for election campaigning, which includes a ban on mass mobilization of supporters.

Jakarta – Leftist author Pramudya Ananta Toer hailed by international critics as Indonesia's leading modern novelist but gagged here until the fall of Suharto, is travel abroad for the first time in 40 years, Fordham University said Monday.

Labour is exporting more guns and other military equipment to Indonesia than the Tories – in spite of Robin Cook's much-vaunted "ethical" foreign policy. Sales of small arms, including machineguns, have even doubled under Labour.

Soraya Permatasari, Jakarta – Indonesia's textile industry, once a significant national breadwinner, has withered into a shadow of its former self under the strains of the country's deep economic crisis.

Huge exposures to foreign borrowings and expensive raw materials have undermined what was a major export earner.

Geoff Spencer, Ambon – Indonesian soldiers raided homes and searched boat passengers Sunday in a security crackdown on the island of Ambon to quell fighting between Christians and Muslims that has killed more than 200 people in less that two months.

Despite their efforts, 15 houses were burned near a military hospital after nightfall.

London – The Blair Labour Government is exporting more than its predecessors, a British newspaper has revealed, despite Indonesia's ongoing illegal occupation of East Timor.

Gde Anugrah Arka, Jakarta – Indonesia said on Saturday it had closed 38 banks as part of a cleanup of the debt-laden industry considered crucial to efforts to rescue its ravaged economy.

Jakarta – Former president Suharto's youngest son, Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, was slapped under city arrest for 20 days Friday pending trial for his alleged involvement in a multi-million dollar land scam.

Jakarta – A human rights group has called on the government to unconditionally release jailed Indonesian political party leader Budiman Sujatmiko, dismissing an offer of clemency as unacceptable, press reports said Friday.