1. Hambali -- 5 columns, 1 lines, 30

1. Hambali -- 5 columns, 1 lines, 30 U.S. grants RI access to question Hambali The United States has granted Indonesia access to interrogate Indonesian-born terrorist suspect Hambali more than two weeks after his arrest in Thailand and his transfer to a U.S. custody.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirayuda said on Wednesday that he received confirmation about the permission to question Hambali from U.S. ambassador to Indonesia Ralph L. Boyce.

"There was confirmation from the U.S. ambassador to Indonesia today that the Indonesian Police would be given access to interrogate Hambali," Hassan told reporters.

However, he said there was not yet a clear timetable and it was not known if there would be any conditions for the Indonesian police to interrogate Hambali, who has been implicated in the deadly Bali bombings on Oct. 12, 2002, the JW Marriot Hotel bombing in Jakarta last Oct. 5, and a string of church bombings on Christmas Eve in 2000.

Hassan went on to say that it was not necessary to challenge the interrogation of Hambali in the U.S. or in Indonesia.

"There is a common international interest to fight against terrorism under the name of multinational cooperation," he said.

With the U.S government giving Indonesian Police access to interrogate Hambali, it was the second time since the war on terror began in 2001, that police investigators have been allowed to question a terror suspect, with Indonesian connections, being held by the U.S.

The first terrorist suspect in U.S. custody questioned by the Indonesian Police was Omar al-Faruq, believed to be a top aide of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Southeast Asia.

During the interrogation, al-Faruq disclosed a link between Abu Bakar Ba'asyir and Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) as well as a plan to launch a series of bombing attacks and to assassinate President Megawati when she was vice president.

However, al-Faruq's interrogation by the Indonesian police was reportedly conducted under strict conditions set by the U.S. government including "yes and no" questions only.

The Indonesian Police had reportedly sent officers to the U.S. following Hambali's arrest.

In addition to interrogation access, much of the local population and media have also called on the government to bring Hambali back to Indonesia and try him in his homeland.

President Megawati Soekarnoputri and U.S. President George W. Bush, apparently spoke on the phone about the Hambali issue and there have been varying reports about what was discussed.

Hambali, born as Encep Nurjaman in Sukamanah village, Cianjur, West Java, 39 years ago, was arrested in Thailand on Aug. 11.

He was reportedly carrying a phony Spanish passport under the name of Daniel when he was arrested, making it difficult to determine whether or not he still holds his Indonesian citizenship.

With a possibly complicated status, the Indonesian government has been seemingly reluctant to provide protection for Hambali's rights while under U.S. custody.

2. Terror -- 3 columns, 1 line, 20 Court to deliver Ba'asyir verdict next Tuesday The treason trial of cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir is coming to a close, with the Central Jakarta District Court setting a Sept. 2 date for the judges to deliver their verdict.

Ba'asyir made his last-ditch effort on Wednesday to evade the 15-year jail sentence demanded by prosecutors, for plotting the assassination of then vice president Megawati Soekarnoputri and violating immigration law.

"I am not guilty. This trial is about my struggle for the imposition of sharia. It is fueled by the enemy of God: the U.S. government and its allies," he told the court.

The trial began on April 23, but the cleric has been detained since October last year, following his arrest while hospitalized in the Central Java town of Surakarta.

Ba'asyir, 65, has been accused of heading the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), a shadowy organization, believed to have links with the al- Qaeda terror network.

JI is blamed for a string of deadly bombings in recent years, including the Bali attack last October, which killed 202 people, and this month's JW Marriot hotel blast in Jakarta, in which 12 people died.

He is also accused of approving the bombing of churches in 2000, that killed in total 19 people.

Ba'asyir said on Wednesday he had only engaged in a peaceful campaign for the imposition of sharia in Indonesia.

His defense lawyers have repeatedly criticized the work of the prosecutors, saying the dossiers and indictment against their client were unfounded and based on speculation only. They also questioned the validity of testimonies delivered by key witnesses via teleconference.

Head of the Jakarta Prosecutors' Office Salman Maryadi refuted on Wednesday the defense lawyers' accusation, saying the indictment had been based on testimonies from witnesses presented during the lengthy trial.

"It is not true that the indictment is based only on testimonies from witnesses through teleconference," he told reporters here.

Separately, in the trial of Bali bombing suspect Ali Imron, a witness told the Denpasar District Court that the quantity of explosives used in the Oct. 12, 2002 attack was less than that claimed by another prime suspect, Amrozi.

Sarjio, the witness, said two days prior to the blasts he and another suspect, Abdul Ghoni, blended 18 kilograms of aluminum powder and three kilograms of sulfur.

Previously Amrozi and Ali Imron said they used 600 kilograms and 1,025 kilograms of explosive materials respectively.

Sarjio said, that he was barely aware that the substances were meant for the assemblage of a bomb. "I thought the explosives were for producing firecrackers," he said.

But, he added that he had learnt about assembling a bomb during his stay in Pakistan.

He said that he had left for Bali only after receiving orders from Imam Samudra, allegedly the field operator of the bomb attacks.

"I spent my first week here doing nothing. And I started working on the second week, when the first two packages arrived," he said.

The trial was adjourned until Wednesday to hear the prosecutors' sentence demand.

3. Aceh -- 3 columns, 2 lines, 20 Aceh remains volatile as council speaker abducted A chief concillor was abducted in Langsa, East Aceh and several bodies were recovered in Peurelak in the regency on Wednesday, highlighting the situation in the province the military has recently claimed to have been gradually returning into normal.

Budiman Samaun, 54, chairman of the Langsa regency legislative council was reportedly missing on Wednesday but witnesses said he was abducted by rebels.

Quoting several witnesses, the local police said Budiman was abducted by unidentified men when he was riding a motorcycle on his way from his residence in Matang Seulimeng to Seulalah subdistrict in the Langsa town on Wednesday.

"He was taken away, and so was his motorcycle," said Aceh police spokesman Commissioner Sayed Husaini quoted a witness as saying in Langsa.

Sayed said that the police was still chasing for the abductors and investigating motives behind the abduction.

Separately, the spokesman of the military operation in Aceh Lt. Col. Achmad Yani Basuki said that the abduction was executed by four people.

He explained that the four people abducted the chief councillor demanding ransom from his family. "This abduction is typically similar with other abductions in other areas in the province," he said, citing that GAM has abducted several people to seek funds for the separatist organization.

Budiman's abduction has made a longer list of councillors abducted in Aceh. Many of them were shot dead while many others were released after paying ransom. The latest fatality struck Amirudin, a councillor at Langsa Regency from the United Development party fraction and, later, he was killed.

Yani said that a female corpse was found at 8 a.m in the regency. The victim was known as Dahnir, 31, residence of Pasir Putih village in Peureulak district. "The victim was dead after she was shot in the back of her head and necks," said Yani.

The military has said the situation in Aceh was gradually returning into normal while GAM leaders have been in difficult positions after three F-16 Falcon and OV-10 Broncos bombers dropped bombs and fired rockets to GAM hideouts in a two-day air strikes on Monday and Tuesday.

Meanwhile, RCTI television reporter Ersa Siregar who along with his cameraman Ferry Santoro has been taken hostage for months was in a critical condition after suffering an exhaustion.

Ishak Dawood, GAM spokesman in East Aceh confirmed that Ersa collapsed on Tuesday night due to exhaustion.

Ishak said that his group was willing to release Ersa out for medical treatment, on the condition of a week-long cease fire.

4. BBM -- 2 columns, 3 lines, 15 Team finds corruption in rice-for-poor program An independent monitoring team revealed on Wednesday a clear violation in the implementation of the fuel subsidy compensation program which was supposedly aimed at reducing the impact of higher fuel prices on the poor.

"We are not ruling out possible violations by some of our brothers," said James Hellywarang, coordinator of the monitoring team from 35 universities across the country.

He said that some residents, who did not qualify for the low- cost rice, were still allowed to purchase the subsidized rice, and then turned around and sold it to the poor at higher prices, thus profiting from their poor neighbors.

James chose not to make public the specific data on the violations that they had documented, saying that his team had yet to finished their report.

"But, the percentage is very, very small," he added quickly.

Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla admitted that many of the poor did not get the subsidized rice.

"It's our fault, but we will improve soon as this year's program is not yet complete," he said when asked to comment on the independent monitoring team's statement in a press conference.

Also attending the presentation were Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro, Minister of National Education Abdul Malik Fajar, State Minister of Communications and Information Minister Syamsul Mu'arif and Minister of Social Affairs Bachtiar Chamsyah.

This year, the government allocated Rp 4.4 billion (US$517,600) for the fuel subsidy compensation scheme in the form of below-market-price rice and other services. The government also has provided similar programs such as inexpensive health services, social services, primary education, higher education, religious education, transportation, water facilities, small- scale enterprise help, coastal people's empowerment and contraception.

Although the program was supposed to begin in January, Kalla admitted that only the rice and education programs had been running for the 12 million or so poor people across the country.

"The government only got around to disbursing the funds in May," he said, adding that the government had not yet disbursed most of the money.

The government has only implemented 11 percent of the program due to financial shortages, he said without elaborating.

The government introduced the fuel subsidy compensation scheme in 2000 to ease the burden of the fuel subsidy phasing-out on low-income people. It has cut off the fuel subsidy in accordance with the IMF bailout program requirements, which has been in effect since 1997.

The government decided to do a check on the use of the funds following reports that some of the money had missed its target group, the poor, in 2001 due to corruption and shoddy implementation.

5. Media -- 4 columns, 1 line, 30 Press reporting not impartial in Aceh: Watchdog Most national newspapers and television stations have failed to uphold the basic principle of covering both sides in reporting the Aceh conflict, a media watchdog says.

Head of Aceh News Watch Agus Sudibyo said on Wednesday that monitoring of reports by 13 Jakarta-based print media and all Jakarta-based television stations from July 28 through Aug. 12 indicated that their reports were biased, as they did not cover both sides of the conflict.

Most of the media preferred to get information from official sources rather than ordinary people in Aceh and the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), he said.

"It is pitiful that our media is not finding alternative news sources," Agus said when presenting the results of his monitoring project at a discussion here on Wednesday.

He added that many reports on the Aceh conflict mixed facts with journalists' opinions.

According to Agus, the monitoring was part of efforts to promote and build control into the so-termed integrated operation in Aceh, launched on May 19.

The monitoring, funded by the Institute for the Study of Free Flow of Information (ISAI), started last July and is expected to end in December this year. It will publish its evaluations fortnightly.

The 13 print media monitored were: Tempo, Forum, Gatra, Suara Pembaruan, Harian Terbit, Warta Kota, Indo Pos, Rakyat Merdeka, Koran Tempo, Pos Kota, Media Indonesia, Republika, and Kompas.

ISAI also monitored nine television stations: Metro TV, SCTV, RCTI, TV7, Indosiar, TPI, TVRI, Lativi, and Trans TV.

Ivan Harris, a news editor with SCTV, acknowledged that his television crews had to remain physically close to the martial law administration in order to ensure their security.

"Of course we want to cover both sides, but the situation in Aceh has prompted us to seek protection from the Indonesian Military (TNI)," Ivan said in the discussion.

Ivan also blamed the rough terrain in Aceh and the lack of telecommunications services for the failure of his TV station to run balanced stories.

However, he said that although SCTV decided to stay close to TNI in Aceh, the station would continue to supervise its performance in the province.

"We shall ensure that TNI does not carry out human rights abuses during the military operation in Aceh," Ivan said.

Bambang Sukartiono from Kompas daily and TV 7 TV station concurred with Ivan, saying that attempts to cover both sides were difficult to achieve in practice due to limited access to the separatist movement.

"Enforcement of the military operation has reduced access within Aceh," Bambang added.

Meanwhile, military analyst Indro Cahyono from the University of Indonesia (UI) said most media institutions had degraded the news value of the Aceh conflict by burying Aceh stories on their inside pages.

Television reports from July 28 through Aug. 8 --------------------------------------------------------------- News Source MetroTV SCTV RCTI TV7 TVRI --------------------------------------------------------------- Military 39 12 18 15 24 Police 23 - 12 3 8 GAM 5 - 10 1 - Public 18 2 23 6 12 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Source: ISAI

Print media reports from July 28 through Aug. 12 ------------------------------------------------ No. News Source Percentage ------------------------------------------------- 1. Military 33 2. Police 9 3. Government 18 4. House 4 5. GAM 5 6. Non-governmental organizations 4 7. International 2 8. Religious leaders 10 9. Public 9 10. Journalists 4 11. Others 2 ------------------------------------------------- Total 100 -------------------------------------------------- Source: ISAI