Jakarta - Indonesian police were investigating a fire at a major fuels depot Monday in Jakarta that forced authorities to shut down the station and caused nearby residents to flee in panic.

Kuala Lumpur - Malaysian police on Monday shot dead three Indonesian men believed to be part of a gang responsible for more than 50 armed robberies in several states, a top police officer said.

The robbers targeted homes of politicians and high-profile corporate figures, and were believed to have hit at least 50 homes in seven states, said central Selangor state police chief Khalid Abu Bakar.

The three, including the alleged gang leader, were killed during a pre-dawn gun fight in the southern state of Johor, he said.

Jakarta - Rescue workers on Thursday picked up four bodies from a passenger ferry that sank four days ago in seas off the Indonesian province of West Sulawesi, raising fears that more than 200 other missing people have died as well, officials said.

"We have just got reports that rescue workers recovered four bodies and now they were on board a Navy warship heading the search operation," said Junaedi, an official at western Sulawesi port town of Majene, the closest port to the ferry's location when it sank.

He said the four bodies, twos adult and two children, were recovered from seas near Laboso Bay, about 18 kilometres from where the ferry went down Sunday morning, carrying 267 people.

Jakarta - A court in Indonesia's Papua province on Thursday jailed five Australians for two and three years in prison for landing a plane illegally, a prosecutor said.

The five Australians were arrested in September after landing a small plane in the Papuan district of Merauke. The plane departed from Australia's Horn Island.

Judges at the Merauke district court sentenced the pilot, William Scott-Bloxam, to three years in prison and fined him 50 million rupiah (4,550 dollars), said prosecutor Rifky Firmansyah.

Jakarta - A Pakistani and two Afghan refugees were killed after a boat carrying 18 Australia-bound foreign asylum seekers who escaped an Indonesian immigration detention centre sank off eastern Indonesia, police said Thursday.

Nine people survived after the boat capsized in the Pakuafu Strait off Rote island in East Nusa Tenggara province on Wednesday, said provincial police spokesman Octo Riwu.

Six other asylum seekers and three members of the boat's crew remained missing, he said.

Jakarta - Indonesia and the Netherlands on Wednesday called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, where an Israeli military offensive has killed more than 900 Palestinians.

Visiting Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen said after meeting his Indonesian counterpart Hassan Wirajuda that Indonesia and the Netherlands had a common interest in an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

"We also shared ideas on how to realize a ceasefire in Gaza," he told a news conference.

Retno Marsudi, the foreign ministry's director general for the Americas and Europe, said each country should play a role in pushing for a Gaza ceasefire.