Jakarta - At least eight people were killed and five others injured when a passenger bus collided Friday with minivan on Java's northern coastal highway, media reports said.

The accident took place at about 2:30 am (1930 GMT Thursday) in the West Java district of Subang, about 70-kilometres east of Jakarta, when the west-bound bus collided with a packed minivan, the state-run Antara news agency reported.

Jakarta - Going home for Eid al-Fitr is seen as an obligation for Muslims, but when you live in Indonesia - the world's fourth most-populous nation which is also the world's most-populous Muslim country - the journey can be a logistical nightmare.

The obstacles do not daunt millions of Muslims who have just completed the Ramadan month of fasting - during which they are barred from eating, drinking or having sex from dawn to dusk - and are now ready to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, or what the locals call Lebaran.

"Going home for Eid al-Fitr celebration is quite an exhaustive journey. But we're happy," claims Sungkono, the father of three. "It's an occasion of double joy - and a double headache."

Jakarta - Indonesian police have arrested 18 suspected rebels in the country's easternmost province of Papua for hoisting a separatist flag, officials said Tuesday.

The detainees allegedly raised the "Bintang Kejora," or "Morning Star" flag on a street outside the office of the independent Papuan Customary Council in Papua's Timika Kwamki Baru sub-district, about 100 meters from a police precinct station.

Jakarta - Indonesia will boost security nationwide ahead of Eid al-Fitr, the celebrations marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, when tens of millions of people will be traveling across the country, officials said Tuesday.

Inspector General Imam Haryatna, chief of the security department at Indonesia's National Police, said as many as 98,000 police officers would be deployed across the country for security operations. Nationwide, there are around 200,000 national police officers.

Jakarta - Two-days of talks between the Thai government and representatives from Thailand's Muslim south hosted by Indonesia have achieved some progress in an attempt to end years of conflict that have claimed the lives of thousands of people, media reports said Monday.

The talks are being mediated by Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla as the presidential palace in Bogor, about 60 kilometres south of Jakarta, the presidential spokesman Dino Patti Djalal said.

Jakarta - At least seven people were injured when turbulence hit a Boeing 747-400 jetliner belonging to China Airlines on Saturday en route from Taipei to Indonesia's Bali island, an airport official said.

A spokesman for the Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport named Dimyati said the CAL-687 jet carrying 357 people dropped drastically to about 25,000-feet altitude from 35,000 feet, jolting passengers.