An eight-year-old Indonesian boy has died of bird flu, the Health Ministry said on Friday, bringing the toll to 97 in the nation worst hit by the H5N1 virus. The boy was the seventh person from the Jakarta satellite city of Tangerang to die of the disease since October. He died at 4am local time in a Jakarta hospital, the ministry's bird-flu centre said.
Most of the world's 1,2-billion Muslims celebrated the start of the holy month of Ramadan on Thursday as Indonesians prayed for the victims of a massive earthquake that rocked Sumatra island a day earlier. The start of Ramadan, the holiest month of the Muslim calendar, is traditionally determined by the sighting of a new crescent moon.
Two weeks after an Indonesian plane vanished with 102 passengers and crew, investigators admitted on Monday they still did not know exactly where or why the aircraft apparently came down. All they have found in two frustrating weeks of searching is a fragment of tail-fin and a few pieces of cabin debris washed up on the shore.
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.
With its hazy skies, traffic-clogged streets and fume-belching vehicles, the Indonesian capital Jakarta is poking fun at its constant state of pollution in a bid to clear the air. To mark World Environment Day, authorities on Monday unveiled six giant billboards around Jakarta reading "Welcome to Pollution City", with an illustration of a couple holding their noses.
Geologists warned on Tuesday that simmering Mount Merapi volcano could blow its top in the wake of the powerful quake that devastated swathes of Indonesia's main island of Java. "There is a very large possibility that tectonic activities trigger or increase volcanic activities," said Syamsulrizal, who works at Indonesia's national vulcanology office.
In the last story of her series about children behind bars, Athandiwe Saba speaks to young men who have committed serious crimes and are now living behind the walls of the Mogale Child and Youth Care Centre
