RELATIONS between Indonesia and Malaysia, lukewarm at the best of times, have turned outright hostile after navy vessels skirmished on their northeastern sea border and a minor Jakarta starlet fled a Malaysian royal husband she called "perverted".

Although the two countries have not been to war since the early 1960s, newspapers and gossip TV were abuzz over the two events - unrelated, yet viewed by most through a single nationalist prism. In the first, a Malaysian fast-attack craft entered Indonesian waters in the Sulawesi Sea on Saturday, and according to military headquarters, was moments away from being fired on. The vessel was chased back into Malaysian waters, off Sabah state in the north of Borneo island.

Jakarta claimed it was the ninth such encroachment this year in the oil-rich disputed territory of Ambalat. "We would remind them that Ambalat is in our waters," Air Vice-Marshall Sagom Tamboen, from military central command in Jakarta, said ominously.

But it was the soap-opera tale of teenage model Manohara Odelia Pinot's flight from alleged sexual slavery that gave the international spat its salacious edge. The more aggrieved among Indonesia's commentariat took the chance to throw one of their favourite epithets at their northern neighbour: "Maling-sia", literally "thieving Malaysians".

The 17-year-old Indonesian-American student fled to Jakarta on Sunday from Singapore, where she had been visiting her ill father-in-law, the Sultan of Kelantan state, telling stories of a dramatic midnight escape.

There were elements of a spy drama, including co-operation between Singapore, Jakarta and Washington, and a desperate bid for freedom in the hotel elevator as royal minders tried to stop her from running. Manohara appeared at a media conference in Jakarta wearing the uniform of a paramilitary group called Laskar Merah Putih, or Red-and-White Force - for the colours of the Indonesian flag - and surrounded by the group's members.

The organisation has form in stirring up anti-Malay sentiment, evoking through its name nationalist dreams stretching back to the post-World War II anti-Dutch independence struggle. Manohara is a perfect foil for such chauvinism: she was named by Harper's Bazaar magazine as "one of Indonesia's 100 precious women" and is a former consort of society heir Adindra Bakrie, playboy son of wealthy Welfare Minister Aburizal Bakrie.

That she is of mixed blood presents no obstacle to the nationalist myth: so are most Indonesian beauty queens. But it was her underage marriage last year to Tengku Muhammad Fakhry, a prince of the Kelantan royal family, that set the gossip-meters ticking.

Manohara's mother Daisy Fajarina - accused by some of being a gold-digger who auctioned her daughter to the highest bidder - started making noises about ill-treatment at the prince's hands. Manohara fled to Jakarta in December but was enticed back early this year with the promise of an expenses-paid pilgrimage to Mecca. This began what she claimed was the "trauma" of her kidnapping while in Saudi Arabia, and return to sexual bondage at the hands of her "perverted" husband. "I didn't have my human rights - women's rights, all my rights were taken away," she said. "I got sexually abused, physically abused, mentally abused."

She claimed to have photographic evidence of physical torture, including razor slashes to the nipples. For now, Manohara says she just wants to return to school. Presumably international relations will be off the curriculum. The Australian. Hat tip Danse Macabre