JP/1/BULOG This is for 24 Hours

Key witness in graft case: Winfried Simatupang, a key witness in the Rp 40 billion corruption case implicating Golkar Party chairman Akbar Tandjung, appeared for the first time at the Attorney General's Office in Jakarta on Thursday for questioning as a witness.

Simatupang, (not Wilfred Simatupang as reported earlier), enraged journalists who had been waiting for hours outside the interrogation room by replying, "I forget, I forget" to almost all the questions put to him.

Simatupang is said to have been the contractor in the food-for-the-poor project to which Akbar, in his capacity as Cabinet Secretary in 1999, passed the funds. The nonbudgetary funds from the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) were, however, allegedly diverted to Golkar. Akbar has denied any wrongdoing.--JP

Afghans return home: The border between Pakistan and Afghanistan reopened on Thursday afternoon after closing a day earlier in confusion over who controlled the eastern province of Nangahar guarding the road to Kabul. Within the first couple of hours of reopening, more than 125 minibuses and vans filled with Afghans, including several tribal leaders, had streamed over the border from Pakistan. -- Reuters

Al-Qaeda, Taliban leaders killed: Some leaders of al-Qaeda and the Taliban -- but neither Osama bin Laden nor Mullah Mohammad Omar -- were believed killed in U.S. air strikes on two buildings in Afghanistan over the past two days, Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said Thursday. "There was some senior leadership in both," said Clarke, adding there was no evidence that either bin Laden, al-Qaeda's leader, or Omar, the Taliban's supreme leader, were there. -- AFP