In September, the Supreme Court ordered Time magazine to pay more than US$100 million in damages and to print apologies to the family of former President Suharto. In May 1999, the magazine, owned by Time Warner Inc., ran a cover story alleging Suharto and his family had amassed a fortune of around US$15 billion, which Suharto and his family denied. Time had prevailed in lower courts.

In November, an Australian coroner's inquest found that five Australian journalists were deliberately killed in 1975 by Indonesian armed forces seeking to prevent them from reporting on Indonesia's invasion of East Timor. The killings may qualify as war crimes under the Geneva Conventions and Australian law, according to the report by Dorelle Pinch, deputy coroner for the state of New South Wales. Pinch referred the case to Australian Attorney General Philip Ruddock. The Indonesian government said the journalists were accidentally killed in crossfire.

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