In the distance, a straggling herd of wildebeest arced up and back into the grass like dolphins leaping from the water.

BBC: The Serengeti in the off-season

Elsewhere, notably in Aceh at one tip of the straggling archipelago, and in Irian Jaya at the other, secessionist sentiment remains strong.

ECONOMIST: Wavering Wahid

It was a pagan desire, she thought, and it was a pagan place: a dark garden of yews and straggling roses and, at its center, the stone church, with its altar and its font and, above it all, the bells, suspended in the chill air of the belfry, heavy and still, waiting to be brought to life.

NEWYORKER: The Bell Ringer