Australian Prime Minister John Howard pledged on Wednesday A$1.0

Australian Prime Minister John Howard pledged on Wednesday A$1.0 billion (US$765 million) over five years to Indonesian tsunami reconstruction and development. Indonesia is the worst-hit nation with almost 150,000 dead and 500,000 homeless from the Dec. 26 tsunami, which swept across seven Asian nations. -- Reuters

U.S. to ease RI embargo

Washington has decided to partially lift an embargo on supplying military hardware to Indonesia, promising spare parts for Hercules aircraft to be used in Aceh relief efforts, officials said on Wednesday. Indonesian presidential spokesman Dino Patti Djalal said visiting U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell had confirmed that restrictions on equipment to mend a fleet of grounded military cargo planes would be lifted, and that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had hailed the move. The embargo was imposed in the wake of alleged gross human rights violations by Indonesian troops in 1999 around an independence vote which saw East Timor separate from Jakarta. -- AFP