Jayapura – A crowd of some 100 students demonstrated on Monday before the provincial legislature against Jakarta's move to split Papua into three provinces, arguing it would attract more migrants to the natural resources-rich, yet sparely populated region.

Sem Karoba is a student leader and representative of the West Papua Presidium Council (West Papua's alternative to the Indonesian government) who is on his second visit to Ireland, lobbying for international support for his people.

John McBeth, Jakarta – The troubled task of clearing the way to resume limited military cooperation between the United States and Indonesia now lies in the hands of agents of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Craig Skehan – Despite its natural splendours, cultural diversity and tragic history of decolonisation gone awry, Papua has not loomed large in world or regional affairs. But that's about to change. Papua has the potential to become as explosive an issue between Australia and Indonesia as East Timor.

John Martinkus – Forty kilometres from the Papuan capital of Jayapura, its border with PNG has become a no-go area for Indonesian police and human rights workers – and home to Kopassus-run training camps for Laskar Jihad Islamic militants and Papuan militia.

Surabaya – Indonesian prosecutors demanded on Wednesday a two- and-a-half-year jail term for the highest-ranking special forces soldier on trial for the murder of a top Papua independence leader in 2001.

Seven members of the army's elite Kopassus force are on trial over the killing of Theys Eluay, an advocate of separation from Indonesia through peaceful means.

John Martinkus, Jayapura – The border between the Indonesian province of Papua and Papua New Guinea has become a no-go area for Indonesian police and human rights workers, according to human rights and independence groups.

Martin Flanagan – Human rights advocate John Rumbiak fled Papua a year ago. Local police had warned him that his investigation into the assassination of Papuan independence leader Theys Eluay in November 2001 had put his life in danger.

Jakarta – A leading US newspaper, The Washington Post, on Tuesday said it had found "no substantiation" to one of its reports published last year that implicated senior Indonesian military officers in plans for an attack in Papua, AFP reported.

The paper printed a statement on an inside page, following a settlement with lawyers for the military in Jakarta.

Iggy Kim, Sydney – The Indonesian government's decision to divide West Papua into three provinces is a further attack by Jakarta on the Papuan people's right to self-determination, West Papua Institute for Human Rights supervisor John Rumbiak told a February 20 forum organised by the Uniting Church and the Australia-West Papua Association.

Jakarta – The Indonesian military has withdrawn from Papua province a special forces unit, some of whose members are on trial for the murder of a pro-independence leader there.

Jakarta – Lawyers for the Indonesian armed forces said Monday they have agreed to settle their dispute with the Washington Post over a report that implicated senior officers in plans for an attack in Papua province.

Kanis Dursin, Jayapura – The decision to split up Papua into three provinces has eroded what little trust the Papuans had developed toward the government since the implementation of the special autonomy law on January 1, 2002.

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, Jakarta – Trying to ease the mounting controversy over its decision to split Papua into three provinces, the government is said to be seeking a formula to ensure fair revenues from exploitation of natural resources in Papua.

Port Vila – On Tuesday, 18 February, approximately 1300 non-Papuans traveled in convoy from Abepura to Jayapura in support of the recent presidential decree ordering the partition of Papua. Before leaving, the group gathered in front of the District Office in Abepura and, seeing an anti-partition crowd of about 100 Papuans, they began to heckle and abuse them.

Linda Mottram: A West Papuan human rights campaigner says that ongoing unrest in the Indonesian province is being caused by the violently radical Islamic group, Laskar Jihad, which was thought to have been disbanded.

Timothy Mapes, Jakarta – Just as Indonesia is beginning to bring its most serious armed rebellion under control, separatist tension is flaring again in another province that is home to several of the country's most promising new foreign investments.

John Martinkus, Jakarta – On December 28 last year a car carrying the wife and daughter of a prominent Papuan human rights activist was ambushed by unidentified gunmen between the border posts of Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.

Denpasar – Dozens of students and youths from Papua held a street rally in front of Bali's provincial legislative compound on Monday to oppose the government decision to split up the province into three.

They argued that the division would trigger horizontal and vertical conflicts in the country's easternmost province.

Simon Elegant – Patricia Spier was heading home from a mountaintop picnic in Indonesia's eastern province of Papua when the ambush began. Out of nowhere, a hail of automatic-weapon fire perforated the two Toyota Land Cruisers in which the American schoolteacher and a group of her colleagues and husband were traveling in.

Jim Buckell – Pressure from the Indonesian Government has forced RMIT University to withdraw official support for a conference on West Papuan independence scheduled for later this month.

The Free Papua Movement's representative in Vanuatu, Andy Ayamiseba, says the Indonesian plan to split Papua province into three is aimed at crushing the independence movement.

Nethy Dharma Somba and Kanis Dursin, Jayapura – The Papua Legislative Council (Papua DPRD) rejected on Monday the government decision to split up the province into three provinces and vowed to file a judicial review with the Supreme Court against a presidential decree endorsing the establishment of the provinces of Central and West Irian Jaya.

Jakarta – About one thousand students from various universities in the Papua capital of Jayapura held a rally Monday to protest the government's decision to divide the province into three, Antara reported.

Jakarta – Indonesia has decided to go ahead with its decision to divide the easternmost Papua province into three smaller provinces in the face of objections from local officials and religious leaders who have warned the move may spark unrest.

Jakarta – In the first public admission that the military was behind the killing of Papuan independence leader Theys Eluay, an Indonesian army officer told a court martial yesterday that one of his men strangled the politician.

The Indonesian military has indicated for the first time that it was involved in the murder of Papuan pro-independence leader, Theys Eluay 14 months ago.

Jakarta – The Indonesian army announced Tuesday that it will replace its commander in Papua province amid allegations his troops killed two US teachers and a prominent politician.

Sri Jegarajah, Jakarta – The United States embassy in Jakarta has denied a New York Times report alleging Indonesian soldiers killed two US teachers last August, saying such a conclusion was premature because investigations were still continuing.

Washington – Indonesian soldiers were the ones who carried out a deadly ambush that killed two American teachers returning from a picnic last summer, senior Bush administration officials told the New York Times.

Jakarta – Papua New Guinea (PNG) has reportedly expelled members of the separatist Free Papua Movement (OPM) from its territory after setting a January 19 deadline to do so, Antara has reported.

Raymond Bonner – Bush administration officials have determined that Indonesian soldiers carried out a deadly ambush that killed two American teachers returning from a picnic in a remote area of Indonesia last August, senior administration officials say.

Jakarta – The government threatened on Wednesday to end diplomatic ties with the Republic of Vanuatu if the country continued to support the Free Papua Organization (OPM) in its struggle to separate from Indonesia, Antara reported.

Ainur R. Sophiaan, Surabaya – Five witnesses testified in court here on Monday that they had never seen any of seven soldiers charged with murdering Papuan separatist leader Theys Hiyo Eluay two years ago.

Ainur Sophiaan, Surabaya – The panel of judges trying seven of the Army Special Forces (Kopassus) personnel charged with killing Papuan proindependence leader Theys Hiyo Eluay rejected on Friday a demand by the defendants' lawyers to drop the case.

John Roberts – After inconclusive Indonesian investigations into an ambush near the Freeport mine in West Papua last year, a team of US FBI investigators is due to arrive this week to take part in a joint inquiry. Two American teachers and an Indonesian died in the attack and 12 others were injured.

Policemen and soldiers deployed on border duties have yet to receive their operational orders from superiors. With only seven days to go before the deadline set for the Operassi Papua Merdeka (OPM) fighters to move out of Papua New Guinean soil, PNG troops stationed in Vanimo are still unsure of what they are supposed to do.

In Indonesia's Papua Province, human rights groups have warned the presence of American investigators will do little to bring the perpetrators of last year's Freeport mine killings to justice. The US FBI has sent a high-level team to help determine who launched the attack at the mine last August, when two Americans and an Indonesian were killed.

Anna Peltola, Malmo, Sweden – A Christian rebel group in Indonesia accused Jakarta on Wednesday of helping Islamic militants set up bases in the country's resource-rich Papua province.

The Free Papua Organisation has waged a protracted, low-level guerrilla war for independence in remote Papua, one of several trouble spots in the world's most populous Muslim country.

Matthew Moore, Jakarta – The Indonesian military has pledged full co-operation with a new FBI investigation into the fatal shootings of two American school teachers at the Freeport mine in Papua last year.

The main border crossings between the Indonesian province of Papua and PNG have been shut down because of an Indonesian military operation against Papuan separatist rebels. Thousands of Indonesian troups have been moved into the border area to flush out the OPM, which is the Free West Papua guerilla army.

Alan Boyd, Sydney – Indonesia may close its key border crossing into Papua New Guinea (PNG) after renewed separatist tensions in the rebellious province of West Papua (formerly Irian Jaya) that aid workers claim are being partly inflamed by Muslim extremists.

Tim Dodd, Jakarta – Two senior Indonesian police officers who uncovered evidence of army involvement in the killing of three teachers near the Freeport mine in Papua last August have been transferred to new posts.

Surabaya – In the midst of a heated situation following the recent shooting of civilians, about 4,000 TNI Indonesian National Military Forces personnel from the navy, air force and army were mobilized to Papua Irian Jaya as part of their 2003 amphibious operations programme.

Jakarta – Papuans demanded on Monday that the venue of the murder trial for local separatist leader Theys Hiyo Eluay be moved from the East Java capital of Surabaya to their province in order for justice to take place.

Heri Retnowati, Surabaya – Seven Indonesian special forces soldiers went on trial on Friday for the killing of an independence leader in Papua in what is seen as a test of Jakarta's ability to tackle rebellion in the remote province.

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – The government told the provinces of Papua and Aceh on Monday that the special autonomy status accorded to them in January 2002 would be final and any move to secede from the country would not be tolerated.

Indonesian police were fired upon by unknown gunmen as they tried to investigate the earlier wounding of two women including the wife of a local human rights campaigner, police said.

It was unclear whether any of the officers had been wounded, Papua police spokesman Daud Sihombing told AFP Wednesday.

Tom Hyland, Jakarta – A human rights group in the Indonesian province of Papua has linked the Indonesian Army to an ambush in which the wife and daughter of a human rights activist were shot and wounded.

Jakarta – Unidentified men shot the wife of a human right activist before an immigration post nearby Indonesia-Papua New Guinea border at about 9 a.m. on Saturday, El Shinta radio reported.