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