Megawati lamented that humanitarian values, which are taught by Islam, were being increasingly ignored.

"They are now even more threatened by regression because the law of the jungle -- which had long been disregarded and where the powerful feels it has the right to enforce its wishes on the weak -- is practised again," she said.

Megawati, addressing a Muslim women's conference, did not name any country, but has in the past deplored the fact that the United States and its allies went ahead with their attack on Iraq without the consent of the UN.

Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-populated nation, has seen daily street protests since the attack began.

The government has strongly criticised the war as an act of illegal aggression. It has called for an emergency UN meeting to try to halt the war.

"We are asking ourselves why such institutions as the United Nations appear to be held in contempt and disregarded," Megawati said.

She said that after the Cold War, there were dreams of a just and fair world. "What we now face turns out to be something different."

Science and technology, the president said, had not been dedicated to humanitarian purposes but focused on war and destruction.

Last Friday her vice-president Hamzah Haz lashed out at the US-led war, calling President George W. Bush the "king of terrorists."

SPACE.WIRE