Indonesian police are tightening security checks on burqa-clad visitors at prisons in the capital Djakarta after a convicted terrorist apparently escaped under the Islamic veil.

INDONESIA’S most active volcano killed 77 people yesterday in its biggest eruption in over a century, incinerating homes, grounding flights and driving thousands into shelters.

INDONESIA’S Mount Merapi volcano erupted yesterday for the third time in a week, driving the number of refugees to almost 70,000, as the death toll from a tsunami thousands of kilometres to the west rose to 431, officials said.

Dozens of people were killed in a train crash in central Indonesia.

INDONESIA’S anti-terrorism unit arrested a radical Islamist cleric yesterday for alleged ties to an al-Qaida affiliated cell accused of plotting high-profile assassinations and Mumbai-style attacks targeting foreigners in the capital.

A Thai man was released from an Indonesian prison after spending three extra years behind bars because of a typo in his paperwork, a report said today.

INDONESIA’S most wanted Islamist militant was killed in a police shoot-out in Central Java, police said yesterday, lifting a major security threat ahead of a planned visit by US President Barack Obama.

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.

A close aide of Indonesia’s most-wanted terrorist has been arrested, police said today.

Hundreds of passengers are feared dead today after an Indonesian ferry carrying around 850 people sank in a storm off Central Java.

Judges today sentenced an Islamic militant to eight years in prison for harbouring the alleged mastermind of last year’s suicide bombings on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali – the first verdict in the terrorist attack.

A powerful earthquake flattened buildings in central Indonesia early today, killing at least 2,500 people and injuring thousands more in the country’s worst disaster since the 2004 tsunami.

A powerful earthquake flattened buildings in central Indonesia early today, killing up to 1,325 people and leaving overwhelmed doctors begging for help, a government official said.

Indonesia’s Mount Merapi belched out massive clouds of black smoke and sent lava flows shooting from its crater, but villagers ignored the dangers of an imminent eruption and returned to its slopes today to tend their animals and crops.

POLICE said they were narrowing in on a south-east Asia terror ringleader yesterday, with thousands of troops going door to door, checking cars, and combing railway and bus stations in central Indonesia.

Indonesia will vaccinate 24.3 million youngsters in a nationwide campaign to halt a polio epidemic that has infected 122 children across the archipelago, the country’s health minister said today.

Indonesia today confirmed an outbreak of bird flu among millions of chickens, but said the disease had not spread to humans.

An Indonesian militant denied allegations he headed the al Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist group as his trial began today on charges that he hid a key suspect in the Bali bombings.

INDONESIAN police have arrested 13 more people suspected of involvement in a wave of bombings across the country, a police spokesman said.

A COURT acquitted a Muslim cleric accused of heading an al-Qaida-linked Asian terror group and plotting to overthrow the government, giving a surprise verdict in a case seen as a test of Indonesia's willingness to fight terror.

A court in Indonesia was today due to deliver its verdict in the trial of the alleged spiritual leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist network.

The Islamic militant accused of planning last year’s Bali bombings targeted the tourist island as part of a “programme of jihad” against the United States for its invasion of Afghanistan, a key witness said today.

ARMED police yesterday transferred the alleged mastermind of last month’s deadly Bali nightclub bombings to the Indonesian capital for more questioning.

Armed police today transferred the alleged mastermind of last month’s deadly Bali nightclub bombings to the Indonesian capital for more questioning.