Banda Aceh (Agencies) – Indonesia wants a lasting truce with separatists in tsunami-ravaged Aceh province, Vice President Jusuf Kalla said on Friday, as both sides expressed a willingness for talks to end the 28-year rebellion.

Amy Goodman: We're joined by journalist and activist, Allan Nairn.

Bill Guerin, Jakarta – As the United States rides its sudden wave of popularity in the world's most populous Muslim country, Indonesia, the secular government there has been handed a very hot political potato.

New York – The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply troubled by Indonesian government restrictions on reporting in the province of Aceh, which was devastated in the December tsunami. CPJ called on the government today to lift the limitations immediately so independent journalists can fully document the massive international humanitarian effort.

The East Timor Action Network (ETAN) today urged Congress and the Bush administration to maintain restrictions on US military assistance to Indonesia. Congress has limited US weapons and training support for the Indonesian military (TNI) for more than a decade because of human rights violations and other atrocities committed by Indonesia's armed forces.

Bangkok – SEAPA is dismayed by Jakarta's stated intent to restrict the movement of aid workers and journalists in Aceh. In the wake of the devastation wrought by the 26 December 2004 tsunami on the province, SEAPA said the latest statements of the Indonesian government and military run against a need to ensure transparency and access to information in Aceh.

Matthew Moore in Banda Aceh and agencies – Indonesia's Vice-President, Jusuf Kalla, said yesterday that foreigners should get out of Aceh as soon as possible. "Three months are enough. The sooner [they leave], the better," he said.

Raymond Bonner, Jakarta – As the United States and other world governments prepare to channel hundreds of millions of aid dollars to the tsunami-ravaged regions of Aceh, Indonesia's culture of corruption has emerged as a major concern.

The Indonesian military will send thousands more soldiers into Aceh to help tsunami relief efforts, bringing the total troop deployment there close to 50,000, a military spokesman said.

Yeoh En-Lai, Lhoknga – All that remains of the barracks that housed 2,000 Indonesian soldiers in this village is a huge mound of rubble, crushed in seconds by last month's tsunami. The commander died when his quarters were washed away.

Banda Aceh – Wanting to visit Sigli to report on the activities of Doctors without Borders here, Bruno Bonamigo, producer of Radio Canada Information, reported to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs desk at the governor's house in Banda Aceh.

An official at the desk told Bonamigo that he could go to Meulaboh on the west coast, but not to Sigli, a town on the east coast.

The leadership of a rebel movement fighting for independence in the tsunami-hit Indonesian province of Aceh has called for ceasefire talks with the government.

Rebel prime minister Malik Mahmud said in the statement that his men were willing to sit down for discussions with Jakarta to ease fears over the safety of foreign humanitarian workers operating in Aceh.

Manila – Two radical Islamic groups that have moved into Indonesia's tsunami-stricken Aceh province aren't likely to attack foreigners or relief workers, but may raise tensions by fostering anti-Western sentiments, said an expert in Manila Thursday.

Petaling Jaya – A team of Malaysian volunteers was forced to bribe its way through a military check point at the Medan-Aceh border yesterday during its journey to deliver medicine and other supplies to the tsunami victims.

Banda Aceh – Indonesia bore the brunt of the tsunami, suffering 100,000 of the 150,000 fatalities. The world's response has been generous, but is already causing tensions

Jakarta – Indonesian Military (TNI) chief General Endriartono Sutarto has said that Indonesian government needed not to impose non-war martial law in the province of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD).

Guests: Prof. William Liddle, Prof. Jeffrey Winters

Jim Lehrer: Next, politics and aid in the devastated Indonesian province of Aceh. We start with a report from James Mates of Independent Television News.

Paul Toohey – The stragglers below wave plastic flags and shirts as the US Navy Seahawk helicopter settles on an island of broken tarmac in the no-longer-existent village of Panga, some 100km south of Banda Aceh. It is the briefest of touchdowns.

Two-thirds of the total fatalities in the tsunami disaster in Aceh were women and children as they were the ones left at home along the affected coastline.

Marian Carroll, Jakarta – An Australian Catholic priest yesterday announced an alliance with Indonesia's second largest Muslim organisation to build an orphanage in devastated Aceh province, despite warnings that radical Islamic groups could stir up tensions.

Canberra – Australia's prime minister on Wednesday supported the Indonesian government's demand that foreign aid workers and journalists report their movements outside tsunami-battered Aceh's provincial capital.

Damien Kingsbury – The arrival in Aceh of militant Islamic fundamentalist groups has raised the prospect of conflict with foreign aid workers and troops, including Australians, who are helping the tsunami relief operation.

Jane Perlez, Banda Aceh – The Indonesian military on Tuesday ordered restrictions on foreign aid workers, limiting their free operation to the two main cities hit by the tsunami in an effort to assert control over international relief operations here.

Matthew Moore in Banda Aceh and Karuni Rompies – Rebels in Indonesia's tsunami-stricken province of Aceh have threatened to abandon their two-week-old cease-fire unless the Indonesian military agrees to stop action against them.

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak and Riyadi Suparno, Banda Aceh – The government and the military are caught between a rock and a hard place regarding the presence of more than 2,000 foreign nationals in disaster-hit Aceh.

Matthew Moore, Banda Aceh – Alwi Shihab couldn't help himself. Barely two hours after a US Seahawk helicopter crashed near Banda Aceh's airport, the Indonesian minister responsible for the relief effort explained what had gone wrong to a news conference of mainly foreign journalists.

New York – The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply troubled by Indonesian government restrictions on reporting in the province of Aceh, which was devastated in the December tsunami. CPJ called on the government today to lift the limitations immediately so independent journalists can fully document the massive international humanitarian effort.

The desire by the government of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to create an opportunity for a peace agreement and end the armed conflict with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) should be welcomed all elements of society. This positive signal should also be welcomed by GAM.

The commander of the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI), General Endriartono Sutarto, announced Tuesday that foreign aid agencies wishing to distribute relief to people in Aceh would be restricted to two cities, Banda Aceh and Meulaboh. Special permission would be needed to go anywere else. All agencies will now be required to tell the military where they intend to deliver aid.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Monday (10/1/05) met with the ambassadors of Britain, Japan, Libya, Singapore, Sweden and the US to hear their views on how to resolve the separatist conflict in Aceh, said a senior government official.

On December 25, 2004, one day before Aceh was devastated by an earthquake-driven tsunami, the Indonesian military (TNI) announced that it had just killed eighteen guerrillas in the province.[1] Such news had long since become routine. A week earlier, the TNI killed five.[2] TNI chief Gen.

INFID Statement on the meeting of the Paris Club, on January 12, 2005 and the Consultative Group on Indonesia on January 19 and 20, 2005

Banda Aceh – Leaders in the international tsunami aid effort expressed concern about how curbs on the movement of workers and a deadline for foreign troops to leave would affect relief in Indonesia's worst-hit Aceh province.

The Indonesian military imposed sweeping restrictions on foreign aid workers in tsunami-hit Aceh, saying the move was needed to curtail a growing threat from separatist rebels.

Military chief General Endriartono Sutarto told reporters the armed forces would accompany and monitor aid groups on all missions outside the provincial capital of Banda Aceh.

Andrew Quinn, Jakarta – As cash donations pour in from around the world for the victims of Asia's tsunami, fears are rife that corruption will divert big chunks of the aid money before it reaches the disaster zone.

The Indonesian government said that separatist rebels were not infiltrating refugee camps in tsunami-hit Aceh province and were not responsible for a shooting near the main UN compound, contradicting assertions a day earlier by the country's military and police.

As the Aceh aid effort gathers pace, reports have been emerging from the battered province that Indonesian troops sent in to help distribute aid have instead been selling the supplies to the hungry and desperate victims of the tsunami. The Indonesian military meanwhile has claimed Acehnese rebels have themselves been blocking access to clean water supplies.

Shawn Donnan in Jakarta and David Ibison in Banda Aceh – The government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono threw open the doors to Aceh, the scene of a long-running separatist insurgency, in the days following the December 26 tsunamis that left more than 100,000 dead in the province, ending a de-facto ban on foreign aid groups working there.

Concerns remained that an unknown number of tsunami survivors in Indonesia's Aceh province have not received any aid, two weeks after the disaster that killed more than 104,000 people there.

The Australian government should be more vocal about calling an end to hostilities in Aceh, the United Nations Association said.

Thousands of Acehnese have died in three decades of fighting against Indonesian troops over independence for the region, which is now coming to grips with the loss of more than 100,000 people in the Boxing Day tsunami.

Matthew Moore, Banda Aceh – Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has labelled the tsunami calamity "the greatest challenge of my presidency so far".

For a man who has been in office less than three months, it was an odd remark but also a sign of how difficult it has been for Indonesia's Government to understand and respond to what has happened in Aceh.

Jonathan Head, Banda Aceh – Indonesian soldiers say their tsunami relief work in the province of Aceh is being hindered by clashes with the rebels who have been fighting a bitter separatist conflict. The rebels in turn accuse the military of using the disaster as a pretext for a renewed offensive.

Dan Eaton and Achmad Sukarsono, Banda Aceh – Drive south from this devastated city and the road just stops.

Ahead lies territory whose features have been erased – just like the hopes and plans of hundreds of thousands of its residents left homeless by the Indian Ocean tsunami.

Peter S. Goodman, Meulaboh – From the indentation her head left in the mud, the girl seemed about 5 years old. The soldiers recalled they found her face down under a collapsed brick wall.

Jane Perlez, Lamlhom – In the shade of a stand of coconut trees, Basri Ahmad buried his 19-year-old son on Friday, a victim not of earthquake or ocean waves but of the civil conflict that sowed death in Aceh long before the recent devastation.

Indonesia's military campaign to crush a long-running rebellion in Aceh and restrictions imposed on aid groups in the remote province are hindering disaster relief efforts, human rights groups warned.

Martin Chulov – Australian journalists who witnessed a confrontation between Indonesian soldiers and alleged separatists in tsunami-ravaged Sumatra yesterday were ordered to leave the area and warned not to report on the incident.

Fadli, Batam – Dozens of survivors of the quake-triggered tsunami have found they cannot even enter Batam to find their relatives. Authorities denied them entry because they failed to meet requirements as stated in the city's regulations.

A regional human rights group has accused the Indonesian Defense Forces (TNI) of hampering the distribution of aid to tsunami survivors in Aceh province.

The Bangkok-based Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development made the accusation in the following press release:

Bangkok – The Indonesian military is hampering efforts to distribute aid to tsunami survivors in Aceh province, denying assistance and even abusing some survivors, a regional human rights organization is alleging.