Jakarta

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Aileen remains traumatized by the men who broke into her room July 2 and raped and mutilated her. They singled her out, she is convinced, because she is Chinese.Scores of Chinese women report similar experiences in Indonesia this year, victims of a vicious expression of ethnic hatred in a nation with a history of interracial blood feuds.Government ministers acknowledge that such gang rapes have taken place since mobs burned more than 5,000 Chinese stores and shopping malls in mid-May, led by agitators yelling, "Death to the Chinese."

JAKARTA, Indonesia - An airline pilot will be tried in the killing of a prominent Indonesian human rights activist who died of arsenic poisoning while on a flight to Amsterdam, a five-judge panel ruled yesterday. Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, an off-duty pilot with Garuda Indonesia, is accused of putting poison into Munir Said Thalib's orange juice while the 38-year-old activist was flying from Jakarta to Singapore a year ago on the first leg of a journey to the Netherlands. Munir was a vocal critic of the Indonesian military and its record of human rights abuses.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Dealing another blow to Indonesia's embattled former leader, Suharto, a Jakarta court ruled yesterday that Time magazine did not libel him in an article that claimed Suharto and his family amassed a $15 billion fortune during his three decades in power. "According to the evidence, it is clear that the article was not fabricated, but was based on facts," said the ruling by a three-judge panel. The judges also said they respected the magazine's refusal to reveal its confidential sources.

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- He is 59 years old and nearly blind. He speaks passable English, comes from a long line of Muslim clerics and has studied in Egypt, Iraq and Canada.He totters about with a cane, tirelessly preaches religious tolerance and heads the largest Muslim group in the world's most populous Muslim nation.These are some of the spare and more obvious facts about Abdurrahman Wahid, Indonesia's newly elected president.His policies and political vision are less known, as are any political alliances he might have struck to help win the presidency.

Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid,on a visit to the United States to seek attention for serious vision problems, was scheduled to have his eyes examined today at the Wilmer Eye Institute in Baltimore. Holly Hamilton, a spokeswoman for the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, said Wahid met with his doctor yesterday at Wilmer, and was due for a physical and an eye exam today as an out-patient. Wahid, an Islamic cleric, was elected in October at age 59. He is nearly blind. His speeches often are read for him by his Vice President, Megawati Sukarnoputri.

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- While calm returned to Indonesia's capital yesterday after riots against the military left at least six people dead, students took to the streets of another large Indonesian city, hurling burning tires and rocks at soldiers and the police to protest a proposed law that would grant the army sweeping new powers.There were no immediate reports of injuries as a result of the riots yesterday in Medan, a city of 1.2 million on the island of Sumatra. But Indonesian news agencies reported fierce street clashes between nearly 2,000 student demonstrators and a joint force of soldiers and the police.

REPORTS FROM Aceh, the resource-rich Indonesian province on the northern tip of Sumatra, are grimmer by the day. With the only cease-fire in the 27-year war of independence between the Free Aceh Movement and Jakarta breaking down May 19 after just five months, the infamously brutal, increasingly powerful Indonesian army moved in to crush the 5,000 rebel guerillas - quickly followed by claims of executions, torture and school burnings and discoveries of...

One month and 24 days after he suffered a stroke in Indonesia, Dennis Storm, 57, a decorated Marine veteran and Bel Air resident, returned to the United States on Thursday. Storm was working as a contractor for a Singapore-based company and living in Jakarta when he was admitted to the Siloam Gleneagles Lippo Cikarang hospital for a stroke on Sept. 2. While receiving care, he contracted a fungal infection, pneumonia and bed sores. His family had been working with the U.S. Embassy and other government, military and private organizations to bring him home since September.

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Abu Bakar Bashir, the militant cleric alleged to be one of Southeast Asia's top terrorist leaders, was freed from prison yesterday after serving 25 months for his role in the bombings of two Bali nightclubs in 2002. Bashir, 67, smiled and waved to more than 100 supporters who had gathered outside Jakarta's Cipinang Prison to witness his release. "God is great," the crowd shouted as he stepped out of the prison gates. Bashir, who has denied any role in terrorist activities, signaled that he would use his freedom to promote the adoption of strict Islamic law in Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim population but is among the most moderate Muslim nations.

WHEN THE PEOPLE of Indonesia go to their polls in June, they will have no doubt which political party will win. Like the other "guided" democracies of Southeast Asia, Indonesia has made sure that its ruling party cannot be seriously challenged.Still, there is political ferment across this giant land of 200 million people spread over 17,000 islands, 3,200 miles east to west - roughly Baltimore to San Francisco. The issue of presidential succession has taken first place in the fourth largest country in the world and one of its most successful economies.