A tsunami watch has been issued for countries across the Indian Ocean after a large earthquake hit waters off Indonesia, sending people pouring from their homes in panic.

Rescue teams searched for survivors today after a busy bridge collapsed in central Indonesia, sending a bus, cars and motorcycles crashing into the river below.

The Indonesian Muslim cleric known as spiritual leader of the militants who carried out the 2002 Bali bombings has been jailed for 15 years for his support of a terror training camp.

Indonesia’s president said violent, hard-line groups should be disbanded after mobs set churches on fire and killed three members of a minority Islamic sect.

PRESIDENT Barack Obama said Washington’s effort to reach out to the Muslim world was earnest and would help improve US security, although he acknowledged that there was still more work to do.

The death toll from a tsunami and a volcano rose to more than 300 today as more victims of Indonesia’s double disasters were found.

HELICOPTERS with emergency supplies finally landed yesterday on the remote Indonesian islands slammed by a tsunami that killed at least 272 people, while elsewhere in the archipelago the toll from a volcanic eruption rose to 30, including the mountain’s spiritual caretaker.

The death toll from an earthquake and killer tsunami in Indonesia climbed to 272 today as helicopters with rescuers and emergency supplies finally reached the remote islands.

Indonesia’s president ordered police to hunt down and arrest assailants who stabbed a Christian worshipper in the stomach and beat a minister in the head with a wooden plank as they headed to prayers.

PRESIDENT Barack Obama warned that an obscure US Christian pastor’s plan to burn the Koran tomorrow to mark September 11 could provoke al-Qaida suicide bombings, as Asian countries urged Washington to prevent the act.

US President Barack Obama today urged a Florida pastor to “listen to those better angels” and call off his plan to engage in a Koran-burning protest this weekend.

Anger was growing in Muslim countries as the leader of a small Florida church insisted he would not back down on plans to burn copies of the Koran on September 11.

Indonesia’s president said a top-ranked Southeast Asian militant wanted for planning the 2002 Bali bombings was identified as the man shot dead by police in a raid on the island of Java.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged environment ministers to reject attempts by sceptics to undermine efforts to forge a climate change deal, stressing that global warming poses "a clear and present danger".

A terrorist convicted of building the bombs which killed 202 people on the Indonesian resort island of Bali in 2002 has asked the nation’s president to reduce his life sentence, an official said today.

INDONESIA said last night it fears thousands have died in a major earthquake as exhausted rescue workers clawed through mountains of rubble with their bare hands to find survivors.

Explosive material recovered from the scene of two suicide bombings at hotels in the Indonesian capital is “identical” to that used by the Southeast Asian terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah in earlier attacks, police said today.

SUICIDE bombers posing as guests attacked American luxury hotels in Indonesia’s capital and set off a pair of bombs yesterday that killed at least nine people and wounded more than 50, authorities said.

Suicide bombers posing as guests blew up two luxury Indonesian hotels today killing eight and injuring more than 50.

A security guard working for US mining giant Freeport was killed and seven other people were injured today in a pair of attacks by suspected rebels in Indonesia's Papua province, police and company officials said.

AN Indonesian military transport plane carrying 110 passengers and crew crashed and burst into flames in East Java yesterday, killing at least 98 people on board and on the ground, officials said.

Indonesia and East Timor expressed deep regret for violence surrounding Dili’s 1999 independence vote after a joint probe blamed state institutions for “gross human rights violations”.

The body of former Indonesian president Suharto, who led a military dictatorship for three decades and whose US-backed regime killed hundreds of thousands of left-wing opponents, arrived in his home town today for a state funeral.

Campaigners tonight urged countries to name and shame the US for its “blatant attempts to derail” the negotiations for an international deal on climate change.

Ministers gathering in Bali in an a bid to forge a “road map” for a new international climate change deal were urged today to reach agreement for the sake of the world’s population and future generations.

Signing the Kyoto Protocol on climate change topped the agenda for the new Australian leader Kevin Rudd as he began work today after sweeping to power at weekend elections.

Powerful earthquakes struck Indonesia for a third day today, terrorising thousands of people who were refusing to return to their homes in fear of tsunami and falling debris.

At least 49 people were reported to have been killed and more than 90 injured when an Indonesian passenger plane carrying more than 140 people burst into flames as it landed on Java island early today.

US president George Bush shrugged off massive protests against his visit to the world’s most populous Muslim nation today as a sign of a healthy democracy, as thousands braved heavy rains to call him a war criminal and a terrorist.

Indonesia would be willing to send peacekeepers to Iraq, the foreign minister said today, and could encourage other Muslim countries to do the same.

US PRESIDENT George W Bush yesterday admitted he hasn’t decided whether to send more troops to Iraq or begin bringing them home, saying he is awaiting the military’s recommendations.

US President George Bush today said he had not yet decided on whether to send more US troops to Iraq or to begin bringing them home.

Indonesia’s police chief warned today that the threat of an attack by al-Qaida-linked militants has increased sharply ahead of US President George Bush’s visit.

Students protested in Indonesian towns and cities today against a visit next week by US President George Bush.

A Finn who helped mediate peace in Indonesia is tipped to win this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, while bookmakers favour a Turkish novelist for the literature award.

Muslim leaders demanded an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah yesterday at an emergency meeting in Malaysia, where Iran’s hard-line president said the solution was the obliteration of the Jewish state.

The Islamic world’s biggest bloc today demanded that the United Nations implement an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and investigate what it called flagrant human rights violations by Israel.

The death toll from the Indonesian tsunami rose to nearly 550 today as the president vowed to install a nationwide system capable of warning coastal communities of killer waves by mid-2008.

The commander of rebels in a conflict with East Timor’s government said the insurgents would hand over weapons to international peacekeepers today, after being asked to disarm by President Xanana Gusmao.

Survivors just a few miles from aid distribution centres in Indonesia said today they’re still waiting for emergency food nearly a week after an earthquake shattered their homes.

Regions previously not reached by relief teams in remote areas of Indonesia’s quake zone reported hundreds of additional deaths, pushing the death toll from last weekend’s disaster to more than 6,200, officials said today.

International relief poured into Indonesia’s earthquake disaster zone today, but for many of the estimated 647,000 displaced people, aid was not arriving quickly enough and healthcare remained patchy.

Rescuers said hopes of finding more survivors from a devastating earthquake that killed more than 5,400 people were waning today, as aid workers from around the world arrived in the disaster zone in central Indonesia.

A trickle of aid began reaching survivors of the Indonesian earthquake that killed more than 5,400 over the weekend, but desperate villagers said today the meagre deliveries were not enough.