Surabaya – Thousands of people in East Java armed with knives, sticks and metal chains blocked a planned visit yesterday by Muslim leader Amien Rais to a town near Indonesia's second city of Surabaya, residents said.

Indonesia's crippled companies can draw little comfort from this week's launch of an agency to help restructure their crushing foreign debts, analysts say – they need hefty debt write-offs, not just rescheduling, to save them.

Jenny Grant, Jakarta – The armed forces have systematically violated human rights in the province of Aceh and should be brought to justice, a member of a fact-finding team said yesterday.

Andrew Marshall, Jakarta – Nearly half of Indonesias children have failed to enrol for the new school year as deepening poverty forces more parents to put their children to work, the countrys education minister said on Wednesday.

Shoeb Kagda, Surabaya – On the road leading into the town centre from the airport, Surabaya's economic decline is starkly visible. On both sides of the road, rows and rows of small shops are shuttered and closed two months after bloody riots and looting brought the city to its knees.

Several leading human rights activists have expressed their dismay with the decision of the armed forces commander in chief, General Wiranto, to set up a military Honour Council, DKP, to investigate Lieutenant-General Prabowo and two other top-ranking officers, all connected with the army's elite force, Kopassus, in connection with the abduction of activists.

Jenny Grant, Jakarta – The once-untouchable Indonesian general and son-in-law of the former president Soeharto, Lieutenant-General Prabowo Subianto, will be called before a military inquiry for his alleged role in a series of kidnappings, the military announced yesterday.

Mantik Kusjanto, Jakarta – Indonesia in July posted its second highest monthly inflation rate this year with prices jumping 68.72 percent on a year-on-year basis as latest figures showed a further slowdown in trade.

When he took the reins from Suharto in May, B.J. Habibie was generally viewed as a short-term, transitional President. Since then, he has confounded the skeptics by spearheading political reforms that depart radically from the policies of his predecessor.

According to an Antara report published in Waspada on 2 August, fourteen bodies have been discovered in a mass grave on Sanglang Island in the Sunda Strait. News of the discovery of these bodies has spread to people in the districts of Serang and Cilegon, West Java. It is thought that they may be the bodies of the fourteen activists still believed to be missing.

Jakarta – City Military commander Maj. Gen. Djadja Suparman has warned Jakartans of the existence of certain parties who have been attempting to spread rumors and terror in the capital to create social unrest.

Vienna – A massive inflow of foreign money early this year supports suggestions that former Indonesian President Suharto moved billions of dollars to Austrian banks shortly before his downfall, an Austrian business newspaper has said.

Indonesia's chief of police, Lt. General Roesmanhadi has announced that all expressions of opinion through demonstrations, rallies, public meetings and announcements in the mass media or through the Internet by persons or groups that fail to notify the police in advance will be dispersed and regarded as unlawful.

Jakarta, Cindy Shiner – Defense Secretary William S. Cohen arrived here tonight on his first visit to Indonesia since violent upheavals in May ended three decades of authoritarian rule and forced the military to come to terms with its role in a freer and more modern society.

Sander Thoenes, Jakarta – Indonesian parliamentarians have found seven mass graves in the province of Aceh, according to a report on Friday in a prominent newspaper. The graves are the most dramatic discovery following recent revelations of human rights abuses allegedly committed by the government of former president Suharto.

Jakarta – Mystery surrounds a missing student activist who apparently turned up alive and well in the southern Philippines, with officials and his family saying he may not be the man they are looking for.

Many hundreds of people in Aceh are now coming forward to give evidence of disappearances, killings and torture during the time the region has been designated as a 'military operational district'. The following information is taken from a report in an Acehnese daily, Serambi Indonesia, 29 July 1998:

Jakarta – Around one hundred people from the People's Democratic Party (PRD), Papuan People's and the East Timore People's jointly demonstrated in front of the offices of the Minister of Justice on Thursday, July 31. They demanded that the government immediately release all political prisoners without conditions.

Jakarta – The leaders of 11 political groupings have formed an opposition forum to prevent a victory by the ruling Golkar party in the next elections in 1999, newspapers quoted leaders of the political groups as saying. "A Golkar victory should be prevented, Golkar should the halted, rather than let the state be ruined," Ridwan Saidi, head of the Masyumi Baru Party, said.

Jakarta - Reports on the rape of Chinese Indonesian women during the widespread rioting last May have been baffling the people as these reports lack proof, an observer here has said.

Jakarta – Church officials and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) expressed their belief yesterday that a number of bodies found recently near Biak island, Irian Jaya, might be related to the military's shooting on pro-independence activists earlier this month.

Sydney – The United States is encouraging Indonesia's military to exercise restraint as the embattled Asian country copes with financial meltdown and social unrest, Defense Secretary William Cohen said Thursday.

John McBeth, Jakarta - Just a few months ago, Badan Urusan Logistik Nasional was the government-run monopoly everyone loved to hate. As late as April, the logistics agency for basic foodstuffs, better known as Bulog, was the prime example of all that was wrong with doing business in Suharto's Indonesia.

Carol Giacomo, Sydney – Conditions in financially embattled Indonesia are expected to worsen significantly by the year's end, according to US and Asian officials. Some of the estimates go far beyond current projections, fanning fears that the world's most populous Moslem nation faces starvation and could implode.

Paris – Here are the main points of the statement issued by the World Bank after some 30 donor countries and international organisations agreed here on Thursday to provide 7.9 billion dollars to Indonesia:

Sigli, Aceh – Several women testified to a parliamentary fact-finding mission on a visit to Sigli about their experiences at the hands of the security forces. The testimony was given at a meeting attended by about one thousand people, most of them widows and orphans.

Banda Aceh – Non-governmental organisations (NGO) have told a parliamentary group investigating violence in this autonomous Indonesian region that some 600 women had been raped over the past seven years, many allegedly by the military.

Jakarta - The July 27 incident is already two years past, but the Minister of Home Affairs, Syarwan Hamid, continues to be asked to take responsibility for his involvement in engineering the overthrow of Megawati Sukarnoputri as chairperson of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI).

Jay Solomon, Jakarta – Indonesian police, amid growing pressure on authorities to get to the heart of May riots, believe they may have found one of the instigators: a retired crime lord turned Islamic preacher.

Jakarta – Two People's Democratic Party (PRD) political prisoners who receive an amnesty from President B.J. Habibie, Wilson bin Nurtiyas and Ken Budha Kusumandaru, were forcibly evicted from the Cipinang Prison, Jakarta.

In a statement issued on 24 July 1998, the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI) has strongly criticised the Indonesian government's decision to set up a fact-fidning team to investigate a series of crimes, in particular the crimes which occurred during the riots in Jakarta on 13 - 15 May this year.

Yogyakarta – Clashes broke out here Sunday between followers of opposition politican Megawati Sukarnoputri and a rival party after some 30,000 Megawati supporters had held a peaceful rally, witnesses and police said.

Jakarta – The police are hunting suspected rioters who attacked and set fire to the Taman Sari Subregency Office, West Jakarta. Some of them are already known. According to the West Jakarta police resort chief who was contacted Saturday (25/7), they are seasonal workers who have lately come to work as tricycle drivers.

Jack Anderson and Jan Moller – Rooting out corruption and cronyism in Indonesia in the wake of President Suharto's 32-year rule will be difficult, if not impossible. Even the mythological Hercules, who cleaned the Augean stables by diverting a river, would have found a daunting task in Indonesia.

Jakarta – Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Feisal Tanjung has denied knowing of – and much less ordering – the kidnapping of more than 20 Indonesian pro-reform activists, press reports said Saturday.

Jakarta – Indonesia has issued a law governing where and when street demonstrations can be held, the official Antara news agency reported on Saturday. It said President B.J. Habibie signed the decree on freedom of expression on Friday.

Jakarta – The government has officially granted amnesty to six prisoners and abolution to 44 political detainees. Government will also rehabilitate the late HR Dharsono's good reputation. Minister of Justice Muladi together with Attorney General AM Ghalib, issued this statement to reporters after he was received by President BJ Habibie at Bina Graha, Jakarta, on Friday (24/7).

Surabaya - The Brawijaya Military Commander, Major-General Djoko Subroto has denied that his personnel [were responsible for] abducting student activists in East Java some time ago. However he did admit to "arresting" People's Democratic Party (PRD) and [PRD affiliated] Student Solidarity for Indonesian Democracy (SMID) activists.

Washington – There are indications high Indonesian military officials were involved in kidnapping and torturing pro-democracy activists, including those who remain missing, US officials told lawmakers Friday.

Jakarta – Abdurrahman Wahid, chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) Moslem organization, sounded a rallying call yesterday for the newly founded People's Awakening Party (PKB), declaring it was an open organization without ethnic or religious prejudice.

Jakarta – A poll jointly conducted by the University of Indonesia and Soegeng Sarjadi Syndicated shows that in the first three-months of his presidency, B.J. Habibie's policies have failed to win over the hearts of the people.

President Habibie has appointed an all-female task force to investigate the rapes of Chinese women during the May riots. Human rights groups have detailed at least 168 cases and 20 deaths. This is one woman's story.

John McBeth, Jakarta – Down a narrow side street in a crowded East Jakarta suburb is a small nondescript office marked by a white banner with a red cross.

Jakarta – A new World Bank report says the Indonesian economy, at its most critical stage in more than three decades, will likely make a slight recovery of 2 percent to 4 percent growth in 2000, after an estimated contraction of 10 percent to 15 percent in 1998.

Keith B. Richburg, Jakarta – Indonesia has a food problem. It's not that food isn't available – it's that most people cannot afford the sky-high prices for basic goods, so they are cutting back on how much, and how often, they eat.

Jakarta – Since yesterday night, around 200 PT Mayora Indah women workers have been staying at the Jakarta Indonesian Legal Aid Offices (LBH) because they are afraid of intimidation and other acts of terror following a clash at the company last week.

Medan – Hundreds of people burned vehicles, houses and warehouses in Indonesia's north Sumatran town of Porsea following a dispute over logging with rayon company PT Inti Indorayon, witnesses said on Wednesday. There were no reports of casualties in the violence, which occurred on Tuesday, the witnesses said.

Jakarta – An Indonesian political activist kidnapped in March and later held in police custody said on Tuesday he believed he had been abducted by security forces.

After some period of no protests or open forums being held on the Gajah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta, Central Java, on Tuesday, July 20, a mass organisation calling itself the Yogyakarta People's Coalition (Koalisi Rakyat Yogyakarta, KRY) began rocking the UGM Boulevard.

Amy Chew, Jakarta – Indonesian opposition figure Megawati Sukarnoputri will tell supporters to occupy parliament if the government does not endorse her as legitimate leader of the minority Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) by November, a senior PDI official said on Tuesday.