Jakarta, Dec 31: The US embassy in Jakarta Thursday warned of a possible attack on New Year's Eve on Indonesia's resort island of Bali.

The embassy said in a circular posted on its website that the information was received from Bali Governor Made Mangku Pastika.

"There is an indication of an attack to Bali tonight," the warning said, quoting the governor's message.

"Please don't panic, but put your security system to full alert," the warning said.

Jakarta, Dec 31 : Thousands of Indonesians came out on the streets to bid farewell to late President Abdurrahman Wahid, who died on Wednesday at the age of 69.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono led the memorial service before Wahid’s burial in his East Java hometown, Jombang. Five thousand people lined the streets to welcome his motorcade.

Weeping admirers lit candles and incense and said prayers at vigils held at mosques, churches, temples, schools and landmarks.

Jakarta, Dec 31 : Former president Abdurrahman Wahid, Indonesia's first elected leader after the 1998 fall of the Suharto regime, died Wednesday after long-term illnesses, relatives said. He was 69.

Wahid's brother, Solahuddin Wahid, confirmed to the private television station MetroTV that Indonesia's fourth president, who served from 1999 to 2001, died at a Jakarta hospital.

Abdurrahman Wahid, known by his nickname Gus Dur, which means Honoured Holiness Abdurrahman, suffered from heart failure among other ailments, Akmal Taher from Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital said.

Jakarta, Dec 29 :  An Indonesian woman found a brother who had been missing for more than three decades through the popular social networking site Facebook, a report said Tuesday.

Nurlianti Dehi was separated from her elder brother Anton in 1974 when he left their hometown in Central Sulawesi province for neighbouring North Sulawesi, according to the online edition of the Media Indonesia daily.

Anton maintained contact with his family for the first two years but later cut off communication completely, she told the newspaper.

Jakarta, Dec 29 :  An Indonesian woman found a brother who had been missing for more than three decades through the popular social networking site Facebook, a report said Tuesday.

Nurlianti Dehi was separated from her elder brother Anton in 1974 when he left their hometown in Central Sulawesi province for neighbouring North Sulawesi, according to the online edition of the Media Indonesia daily.

Anton maintained contact with his family for the first two years but later cut off communication completely, she told the newspaper.

Jakarta, Dec 26 - An earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale Saturday jolted the Maluku province in eastern Indonesia, the country's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said.

No tsunami warning was issued, Xinhua reported.

The quake occurred at 0815 GMT with the epicentre 152 km northwest of Tual area in Maluku province.

Indonesia sits on a vulnerable quake-hit zone called the "Pacific Ring of Fire". (IANS)

Jakarta, Dec 26 - Relatives of people who died in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that devastated Indonesia's Aceh province prayed at the graves of loved ones Saturday to mark the anniversary.

A solemn prayer ceremony to remember about 170,000 people who died in Aceh and some 60,000 others across Indian Ocean countries was held in the provincial capital Banda Aceh.

Vice President Boediono led the ceremony in the Ule Lhue area overlooking the sea, and later visited one of the mass graves where unidentified tsunami victims were buried.

Jakarta, Dec 10 : A bronze statue of Barack Obama as a young child was unveiled Thursday in Central Jakarta, the neighbourhood where the US president spent part of his childhood.

The statue has been erected at a corner of a playground at Taman Menteng Park, previously an athletic field near Obama's former school.

The construction of the statue was initiated by a group called Friends of Obama, a non-government organization.

Ron Mullers, the group's chairman said the unveiling of the statue was not a political event but purely inspirational.

Jakarta  - Indonesian rescue workers resumed their search Monday for dozens of people missing people after an overloaded ferry sank in bad weather off the island of Sumatra, officials said.

Rescue teams had picked up about 250 survivors and 27 bodies by Monday morning, while the number of missing remains unknown.

Other officials said 29 bodies had been retrieved. Rustam Pakaya from the Health Ministry's crisis centre said at least 17 other people were still missing.

The experience in Indonesia (November 16-18) was harrowing. I was invited to the country by Greenpeace Southeast Asia to report on the destruction of the Sumatran forests.

Three days before I reached Indonesia, Greenpeace activists had clashed with officials of APRIL, one of largest pulp and paper companies in the country, at the NGO’s climate defenders’ camp, Tilak Meranti, a five-hour drive from Riau province capital Pekanbaru.

Jakarta  - An explosion heavily damaged a drugstore in the central Java city of Yogyakarta on Thursday, injuring three people, police and media reports said.

Yogyakarta police chief Brigadier-General Sunaryono said the explosion was caused by a low-level explosive and occurred at 8:10 am (0110 GMT). It badly damaged the drugstore building.

However, Sunaryono said the blast was not believed to have been an act of terrorism.

"The cause is still unknown, but it is not related to terrorism," the state-run Antara news agency quoted Sunaryono as saying.

Jakarta  - A group of Sri Lankan asylum seekers were to leave an Australian customs ship moored off Indonesia's Bintan island Wednesday after a three-week standoff, the Indonesian Foreign Ministry said.

The 56 migrants are the remainder of a group of 78 Sri Lankans who were picked up by the Australian ship Oceanic Viking in international waters one month ago while on their way to Australia, claiming persecution in their homeland.

They were taken to port off Bintan but they refused to disembark, demanding they be sent to Australia.

Jakarta  - Indonesia said Tuesday it was checking reports that Sri Lankan asylum seekers aboard an Australian customs ship moored off Indonesia's Bintan island had agreed to disembark after weeks of standoff.

The 78 Sri Lankans were picked up by the Australian ship Oceanic Viking in international waters one month ago, while on their way to Australia, claiming persecution in their homeland.

They were taken to port on Bintan but had refused to disembark, prompting weeks of standoff.

Jakarta, Nov 16 : The Indonesian Government is reportedly planning to deport 255 Sri Lankan asylum seekers, whose boat was detained on its way to Australia last month and remains moored at the port of Merak in Java.

Jakarta - Indonesian police on Wednesday denied allegations by a police officer that he had been forced to make false statements to implicate the country's anti-corruption chief in a murder case.

The allegations by the policeman, on trial for his involvement in the murder of a businessman allegedly commissioned by Antasari Azhar, the sacked chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), further fueled suspicions of a conspiracy to weaken the body.

Jakarta  - Indonesia and the European Union on Monday signed a partnership agreement intended to bolster cooperation in areas such as trade, the environment and counter-terrorism.

The agreement was the first of its kind between the EU and a South-East Asian country, the Indonesian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

It was signed in Jakarta by Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa and his Swedish counterpart, Carl Bildt, whose country holds the current presidency of the European Union.

Jakarta - Eight people were killed and five were missing after a landslide triggered by days of heavy rain slammed into their houses in Indonesia's South Sulawesi province, an official said Monday.

Nine people were also injured in the landslide, which struck a village in Palopo district Sunday, said Rustam Pakaya, head of the Health Ministry's crisis centre.

Floods and landslides are common in Indonesia during the rainy season. (dpa)

Jakarta, Nov 9 - At least 38 people have been wounded and scores of houses, school buildings and a health clinic have collapsed after a quake of 6.7-magnitude on the Richter scale rocked the eastern parts of Indonesia Monday morning, officials said.

In Bima town of the Indonesian province of West Nusa Tenggara, the hardest-hit and the closest area to the epicentre of the quake, one health clinic, four school buildings and ten houses have collapsed, and over 50 houses got damaged, a Xinhua report quoted Disaster Management Agency Priyadi Kardono as saying.

Washington/Jakarta - An earthquake registering a magnitude of 6.7 on the Richter scale shook the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, the US Geological Survey reported early Monday.

The epicentre was in the eastern part of the island, which lies about 1,300 kilometres east of Jakarta.

There was no tsunami warning nor immediate reports of damage or casualties. (dpa)

Jakarta  - Indonesia's president pledged Thursday to step up the fight against corruption in the justice system after wiretapped recordings revealed an apparent attempt to undermine the country's anti-corruption commission.

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said cracking down on what Indonesians called "the judicial mafia" was one of the priorities of the first 100 days of his second five-year term, which started October 20.