JAKARTA - INDONESIA will increase its defence budget by 20 per cent next year to compensate for years of low spending, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on Friday.

Speaking two days after apparently winning re-election for a second five-year term, Dr Yudhoyono said new defence spending was possible thanks to economic growth forecast at around six per cent next year.

YANGON - MYANMAR on Friday resumed its trial of Ms Aung San Suu Kyi after a six-week adjournment and a week after a failed bid by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to see the Nobel peace laureate, officials said.

The court at the notorious Insein prison in Yangon heard from legal expert Khin Moe Moe, a rare witness for the defence, after a ban on his testimony was overturned last month, the officials said.

COTABATO (Philippines) - SHOPS, restaurants and schools shut down in the large southern Philippine city of Cotabato on Friday in protest over a deadly bombing blamed on Islamic militants, eyewitnesses said.

Hundreds of protesters trooped to Christian churches and Muslim mosques across the city to listen to religious leaders condemn Sunday's bombing that left six people dead and more than 50 others wounded, they said.