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Indonesia: Islands
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Indonesia is an archipelago of over 17,000 islands with a population of more than 200 million, scatterd over a land area of some 2.02 million square kilometers. Lying across a region of immense volcanic activity, Indonesia has some 400 volcanoes, with at least 70 still active.
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Lake Toba, the largest of Indonesia’s lakes, is situated on Sumatra’s Batak Highlands in the Barisan Mountains, about 180 km (about 110 mi) south of Medan. Surrounded by steep mountain cliffs and sandy beaches, Lake Toba covers 1,145 sq km (442 sq mi) and features Samosir Island in its center. The lake is the source of the Asahan River, and as the center of Batak culture it is an important tourist destination.
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In 1963, Netherlands New Guinea (the Dutch portion of the island of New Guinea) was transferred to Indonesia and renamed West Irian, which became Irian Jaya in 1973 and West Papua in 2000. Hatta and Sukarno, the cofathers of Indonesian independence, split over Sukarno's concept of “guided democracy,” and under Sukarno's rule the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) steadily increased its influence.
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The New York Times reported that Indonesia's national culture has traditionally been "overwhelmingly tolerant and inclusive" (29 Dec. 2001). The BBC ... reported that the country, which is comprised of approximately 17,000 islands (CFI 24 Sept. 2003), is "a very big place," most of which is "peaceable and tolerant," and that the violence between religious and ethnic groups is "often apparently the work of agents provocateurs" (BBC 18 Aug. 2001). However, according to International Religious Freedom Report 2002, religious intolerance became a "growing concern" to persons of minority religions (and Muslim moderates), due to increased religious intolerance by Muslim extremists towards religious minorities, including Christians (7 Oct. 2002, Sec. III).
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