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Kim Jong-il Scratches Meeting Due to Poor Health North Korean leader Kim Jong-il reportedly cancelled a meeting with Indonesian officials two weeks ago because of his failing health conditions. Quoting an Indonesian official, Japan's Jiji news agency reported on Sunday that a delegation including former president Megawati Sukarnoputri visited Pyongyang from Sept. 12 to 16. But the Indonesian official said the meeting was cancelled due to the North Korean leader's health condition, without any explanation or details provided. The official added that such cancellations happen rarely. Arirang News / Sep. 26, 2011 11:36 KST

On October 10, 1996, 25 churches in several towns in East Java were vandalized and burned down Unlike the previous incident on June 9, 1996, these incidents occurred in several towns surrounding the township of Situbondo where the attack first started. They are Situbondo, Besuki, Penarukan, Asembagus/Banyuputih, Wonorejo, and Ranurejo. This attack came only months after the authority promised to find the perpetrators in the last incident and are still without significant progress. [14]GKJW Induk Ranurejo Jawi Wetan Christian Church in Ranurejo Location: Ranurejo, East Java [15]Gereja Kristus Tuhan Christ the Lord Church Location: Ranurejo, East Java [16]Gereja Sidang Jemaat...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Small Bomb at Embassy in Paris Wounds 9 ELAINE GANLEY Associated Press PARIS - A small bomb exploded outside the Indonesian Embassy in Paris on Friday, slightly wounding nine people, France's interior minister said. The bomb was in a package at the base of a flagpole. The explosion shattered windows and damaged several cars, and police set up barriers to block access to the area. French Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin said most of the wounded were hurt by flying glass. Rescue workers led several people from the scene, which was crowded with fire trucks and ambulances. The embassy is...

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- Indonesia's outgoing President Megawati Sukarnoputri on Tuesday tearfully conceded defeat in last month's elections, clearing the way for the winner, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, to begin forming a new government. Yudhoyono had been waiting for Megawati's concession before claiming victory, respecting the decorum of Indonesia's fledgling democracy despite his landslide victory in the Sept. 20 polls. Yudhoyono, a U.S.-educated retired army general, canceled plans for an acceptance speech on Monday after the results were official released, as Megawati remained holed up in her residence. But Megawati acknowledged her defeat Tuesday in a typically indirect speech to...

The apparent landslide victory of "S.B.Y." (Gen. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono) in the Indonesian presidential election is promising. He has a reputation for getting things done; he has no time for Indonesia's Jihadis. He knows that free enterprise within a stable constitutional order is the way out of membership in the "Third World". And he says what he knows, with an uncommon boldness. He is intelligent and articulate (in English as well as Indonesian), and surrounded by advisers who are neither obsequious nor sanctimonious nor infamously corrupt.

Introduction On January 25, 2004, the Iraqi independent daily Al-Mada published a list of approximately 270 individuals and entities who were beneficiaries of Saddam Hussein's oil vouchers. [1] The report evoked reactions from many of those included in the list as well as from the Arab media, among them apologists for Saddam's regime. The fact that so many have opted for silence may give credence to the list's authenticity. A former undersecretary in the Iraqi Ministry of Petroleum, Abd Al-Saheb Salman Qutb, said that the ministry possesses documents proving the authenticity of the list published by Al-Mada. The list was...

Review - Regions: New Aceh War PhaseNovember 16, 2003 10:06 PM, Laksamana.Net -  Though deploying 35,000 troops, the government and the military (TNI) have been disillusioned after promising a quick war against an original strength of 5,225, rebel Free Aceh Movement (GAM) fighters. The military claim there are only 2,665 left with 1,683 firearms. Jakarta had said the martial law administration implemented on May 19 would have a four-pronged strategy. A military offensive to crush the rebels would be backed by a humanitarian mission to help war casualties. Greater influence of the national police, particularly in GAM-controlled areas, and the strengthening...

US president arrives in Bali The United States' president, George W Bush, has arrived on the Indonesian resort island of Bali. President Bush is visiting the island for just a few hours as part of his six-nation Asian tour. Indonesia has deployed at least 5,000 heavily armed police and troops across the island, backed up by sniffer dogs and bomb squad units. Seven Indonesian warships are anchored in waters nearby. The US leader, who arrived from Singapore, is to meet with Indonesia's president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, and Muslim clerics at a hotel near the airport, which has been shut for...

BALI, Indonesia (AP) -- Warships patrolled the seas and armored vehicles took up positions Tuesday close to the international airport as Indonesia's bomb-scarred Bali island beefed up security ahead of a flying visit by U.S. President George W. Bush. Bush is expected to be on the island for just three hours for talks with his Indonesian counterpart Megawati Sukarnoputri that are expected to focus on terrorism. A year ago, militants belonging to the al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah group blew up two Bali nightclubs, killing 202 people, mostly foreign tourists. The Oct. 12 bombings - the largest terror attack since Sept....

<p>BALI, Indonesia &#8212; The youngest of three Indonesian brothers being tried for last year's deadly blasts on the tourist island of Bali begged for forgiveness yesterday, telling a court that the attack was wrong and besmirched Islam.</p> <p>Though Ali Imron faces charges of plotting and organizing terror crimes similar to those of his older siblings, he has repeatedly shown remorse during the trial rather than the pride and defiance of his brothers.</p>

INDONESIAN police yesterday began questioning militant Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir over a series of church bombings and an alleged plot to kill President Megawati Sukarnoputri. A police official in charge of the investigation said Bashir, the alleged leader of the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) network that has been blamed for the Bali bombing, was being questioned at a police hospital in Jakarta where he was taken on Monday. Irfan Awwas, one of Bashir's aides, quoted the 64-year-old cleric as saying: "I am ready for questioning – they can even take me to court now." Police investigation chief Jeldy Ramadhan said...

Asia Times Online, 6306 The Center,  Queen’s Road,  Central, Hong Kong Southeast Asia  Indonesia: The enemy within http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/DJ15Ae02.html By Bill Guerin JAKARTA - For Indonesia the pretense is well and truly over.  President Megawati Sukarnoputri, reading out a prepared seven-point official statement more than 13 hours after the carnage in Bali occurred, said the government expressed its condolences to the relatives of victims in the brutal and inhumane violence, which was against the existing laws, religious teachings and moral values adopted by the Indonesian nation.  In the so-called Island of the Gods where 95 percent of the 3 million population are...

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Hardline Islamic groups in Indonesia were gearing up Friday to protest against visiting Secretary of State Colin Powell, who will discuss fighting terrorism and patching up military ties with Jakarta's leaders. Powell arrived in Jakarta overnight, armed with an offer of $16 million to help Indonesian police fight terrorism in the world's most populous Muslim nation, regarded as Southeast Asia's weakest link in the U.S.-led war on terror. The country's small but vocal radical Islamic groups planned a rowdy welcome during Powell's fleeting visit, part of a swing through Asia where battling terrorism has been the focus....

The second front in America's war on terror is yielding limited results THE arrival in January of 1,200 American soldiers in sleepy Basilan island in the southern Philippines drew attention to a wider threat of international terrorism in South-East Asia. Abu Sayyaf, a militant group the Americans have been helping to fight, is just one of many in the region, after all. Its founder, Abubakar Janjalani, trained with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. Two of the September 11th hijackers had spent time in Malaysia. Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the first bombing of the World Trade Centre, in 1993, used...

Hitting out at fringe militant groups, the President says Islam is a peaceful religion capable of creating prosperity JAKARTA - President Megawati Sukarnoputri turned the political ratchet yesterday by sending a strong signal to Indonesians and the international community that there was no place for radical Islam in the country. Speaking before the Nadhlatul Ulama (NU), Indonesia's largest Muslim organisation, the 55-year-old leader launched a rare, biting attack on the 'narrow fanaticism' of fringe militant groups. 'We want to show that Islam is a peaceful religion and is capable of creating prosperity in the world,' she told the national...