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/ 11 January 2007

Strong quake hits in eastern Indonesia

A strong undersea earthquake of a magnitude 6,2 struck eastern Indonesia, about 70km south-west of the provincial capital of Ambon, an official at the country’s Meteorological and Geophysical agency said on Thursday. The official said by telephone the quake struck at 9.31pm local time and was at a depth of 57km.

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/ 11 January 2007

Wreckage of Indonesian plane found at sea

Pieces of an Indonesian airliner that vanished with 102 people on board have been found in the ocean, officials said on Thursday, after a painstaking 10-day search from jungles to stormy seas. Parts, including a tail stabiliser and flight attendant seats, were confirmed or reported found in the sea and on beaches near the town of Pare Pare on the west coast of Sulawesi Island.

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/ 10 January 2007

US ship targets metal object in Indonesia jet hunt

A United States navy ship helping hunt for an Indonesian plane missing for nine days should be able to shed light on whether metal objects found on the sea bed are wreckage, an Indonesian navy commander said on Wednesday. The search for the plane has chiefly focused on large metal objects detected on Monday by Indonesian ships using sonar in deep water.

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/ 7 January 2007

Indonesia expands search for missing plane

Indonesia beefed up its search for a missing passenger plane on Sunday, despatching more spotter aircraft to try to locate the jet nearly a week after its mysterious disappearance. Relatives of missing passengers, who were allowed to overfly part of the search area, admitted it put the scale of the task into perspective.

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/ 4 January 2007

Survivors found far from ferry disaster

Indonesia has widened the search for hundreds of people missing after a ferry sank, as survivors were found hundreds of kilometres from where the ship went down, a navy officer said on Thursday. A seven-year-old boy was among 13 people rescued on Wednesday clinging to an oil rig in the Java sea.

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/ 3 January 2007

Indonesia resumes search for missing plane

Indonesian rescuers launched new sea, land and air searches on Wednesday for a missing plane with 102 people aboard after initial reports its wreckage had been found turned out to be false. Senior government officials have apologised for erroneously saying the 17-year-old Boeing 737-400 had been spotted in the mountains of Indonesia’s eastern Sulawesi island.

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/ 2 January 2007

Indonesian airliner still missing, officials say

Senior Indonesian officials said on Tuesday reports that an airliner with 102 people on board had been found on Sulawesi island were wrong, and the plane was still missing. Officials had earlier said that wreckage of the Adam Air plane had been found after it had crashed into the mountains in heavy rain. There were reports 12 people had survived the crash.

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/ 1 January 2007

Teams spot survivors from Indonesian ferry disaster

Rescue ships collected scores of bloated corpses on Monday from seas close to where an Indonesian ferry sank in the Java Sea, but search teams also spotted survivors on life rafts and dropped food and water to them, officials said. Weeping relatives camped out at ports and a local hospital, desperate for news of the roughly 400 people still missing from the ferry.

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/ 1 January 2007

Indonesian jetliner crash kills 90

Rescuers found the smoldering wreckage of an Indonesian jetliner that crashed into mountains during a storm, and officials said 90 people were killed and that 12 survived the country’s second major transportation disaster in days. The Boeing 737-400 sent out two distress signals half way through its two-hour flight on Monday from the main island of Java to Sulawesi.

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/ 31 December 2006

More Indonesian ferry survivors found

Indonesian fishermen on Sunday found 18 more survivors as navy ships continued the search for over 500 people missing after a ferry sank in a storm off the coast of Java, police said. The 17 men and one woman were picked up by fishing boats and taken to Rembang hospital, where most of the survivors of the ferry disaster have been taken for medical check-ups.

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/ 29 December 2006

Aid finally reaches isolated Indonesian flood victims

Aid has finally reached the most isolated areas of Sumatra island a week after flash floods killed more than 100 people and forced 400 000 to flee, Indonesian officials said on Friday. Relief workers had faced problems with slow and limited supplies, as well as access difficulties due to the floods and landslides which have destroyed roads and bridges in worst-hit Aceh

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/ 24 December 2006

Scores die in Indonesian floods

The death toll from devastating floods in Indonesia has jumped from 15 to at least 60, with hundreds of other people still missing, local officials said on Sunday. "We have evacuated 60 bodies from Aceh Tamiyang district," Ghufran Zainal Abidin, the local chairperson of the Prosperous Justice Party, said from the worst-affected area in Aceh province.

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/ 19 December 2006

Scientists find over 50 new species in Borneo

Dozens of new species of animals and plants including a catfish with protruding teeth and a tree frog with striking bright green eyes have been found in the past year in the forests of Borneo, a WWF report said on Tuesday. The discoveries include 30 unique fish species, two tree frog species, 16 ginger species, three tree species and one large-leafed plant species.

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/ 18 December 2006

Earthquake rocks Indonesia, causes death

A quake that struck the Indonesian island of Sumatra killed at least seven people, injured 150 and brought down hundreds of homes, local officials and police said on Monday. Three aftershocks sent residents rushing out of their homes in the region, where memories of the 2004 tsunami, which devastated Aceh further to the north, are still fresh.

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/ 29 November 2006

Strong quake hits near Indonesian islands

A strong undersea earthquake struck near the Moluccas islands in northern Indonesia on Wednesday, the United States Geological Survey said on its website, but there were no reports of a tsunami or casualties. The agency put the strength of the quake, which struck at 10.32am (1.32am GMT), at a magnitude of 6,1.

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/ 11 October 2006

Indonesians pray for rain ahead of haze meeting

Hundreds of people prayed for rain on Wednesday in an Indonesian province hard-hit by forest fires as south-east Asian environment ministers prepared to gather to discuss ways to tackle smoke haze covering the region. Dry season fires caused by farmers and big businesses such as plantations have been burning for weeks in parts of Indonesia.

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/ 4 October 2006

Plea to Indonesia’s president: I need a date!

A cry for help from a man desperate for a date was one of two million text messages sent to Indonesia’s president since he set up the service last year, a report said on Wednesday. ”I need a job Mr President! I also need a wife and I want to have a date! Please help me! You are the president, right?” said one of the messages sent to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

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/ 3 October 2006

Writers mull rise of radical Islam

Western foreign policy and a tendency among some Muslims to impose their idea of truth have been key factors in the the rise of radical Islam, Muslim writers say. ”Islam is about peace and submission. But there are certain realities that we cannot hide from,” said Ziauddin Sardar, a Britain-based writer best known for his book, Why Do People Hate America?”.