Craig Skehan – Jostled by a media frenzy and a crowd of supporters, Mr Xanana Gusmao, the nationalist fighter almost certain to lead an independent East Timor, received a hero's welcome

Dili – Indonesian authorities on Tuesday deported four Australian journalists from East Timor, accusing them of inciting violence during the territory's autonomy ballot, a military offi

Paul Daley, Canberra – Australia has rejected advances from the United States to cooperate on peacekeeping plans for strife-torn East Timor.

Eric Ellis, Singapore – Every time Christovita Wiloto sits down at his computer, the 30-year-old banker is reminded of how tough his job is.

Born June 6, 1901 in Surabaya; 1927 - Founds movement for independence from the Dutch; 1945 - After Japanese surrender, declares independence and is elected President; 1963 - Names h

Banda Aceh – Inspired by East Timor's independence referendum, students occupied a government building Monday, demanding a similar vote in the violence-torn Indonesian province of Aceh.

Steven Gan – Today the people will decide. After 23 years of brutal Indonesian occupation, East Timorese will be given a choice: independence or autonomy.

Washington – US President Bill Clinton has warned the president of Indonesia that relations with the US will be seriously damaged – including an implicit threat to curtail international

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – Australia's senior observers have given a gloomy assessment of Monday's historic ballot on the future of East Timor, but said there was no alternative but to pre

Jakarta – It is a murky tale which strikes deep at the even murkier heart of Indonesian banking, and heavyweights of international finance warn it could spell ruin for Southeast Asia's

Brian Toohey – Australian policy makers have fought long and hard to get the international community to trust Indonesia's security forces to prevent a bloodbath in East Timor.

Craig Skehan – The Indonesian Government has hit back at foreign critics of the upsurge in violence in East Timor, arguing it does not need outside pressure over its handing of Monday's

Dili – The United Nations on Friday led international condemnation of Indonesia's handling of militia violence in East Timor as an exiled separatist leader called for a UN peacekeeping

Mark Dodd, Dili – Under intense diplomatic pressure, Jakarta has recalled from Dili a senior intelligence officer alleged to be a key figure behind militia activity in East Timor.

The battle for the hearts and minds – and votes – of the East Timorese people will not lose its passion, writes Hamish McDonald from Dili, even after Monday's referendum.

Jakarta – Fires which have resumed in Indonesia's Sumatra and Kalimantan regions have ravaged at least 5,561 hectares of forest and scrub in the past month, a report said Saturday.

Militiamen strutted the capital's streets yesterday, a day after going on a deadly rampage, as a final rally in the campaign for next week's vote fell victim to the violence.

Jakarta – The savage riots that swept Indonesia in mid-May before the fall of ex-president Suharto were organized by professional agitators, Jakarta's governor was Friday quoted as sayi

Jakarta – Protests greeted a visit Saturday to the restive Aceh province by a delegation of Indonesian ministers and senior officials bringing aid for refugees fleeing violence between

Jakarta – Scores of students in the easternmost Indonesian province of Irian Jaya have protested over the alleged involvement of British elite troops in a violent hostage-rescue operati

Mark Dodd – Something is rotten in the regency of Suai.

Mark Colvin: We begin the programme tonight in Dili, capital of East Timor, where there's been a major and ominous development involving a shoot-out involving pro-autonomy militias and

Lisbon – The Indonesian army will fight to the last soldier if a UN peacekeeping force is sent to East Timor without Jakarta's approval, a senior Indonesian diplomat told the Portuguese

Joanna Jolly, Dili – It was after the thousands opposed to independence had paraded through Dili that a hard-core of several hundred militiamen showed the true colours of the pro-integr

Peter Cole-Adams – Australia put military units on standby yesterday to evacuate about 200 Australians, and other foreign nationals, from East Timor after Monday's vote on the future of

Lisbon – A photographer with US magazine Time said on Friday he had witnessed Indonesian police shoot dead a 25-year-old unarmed protester in the head during clashes in East Timor ahead

Tim Dodd, Dili – United Nation officials are considering whether Monday's referendum for independence on East Timor can go ahead after pro-Indonesia militia groups fought pitched battle

Antony Balmain – As East Timor prepares to vote in a United Nations ballot to decide its future, documents show Australia played an active and secret role to ensure Irian Jaya became a

Jakarta – Jailed East Timor resistance leader Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao promised on Wednesday to offer amnesty to his political opponents if East Timorese voted for independence on

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – Indonesia's top officials in East Timor are preparing to reject the outcome of Monday's ballot on the territory's future, claiming the way the United Nations wil

Gay Alcorn, Washington – The Clinton administration said today that, on a practical level, it was too late for an armed United Nations peacekeeping force to enter East Timor before Mond

Convinced they will win a historic UN-supervised referendum by a landslide next week, up to 10,000 jubilant supporters of independence for East Timor defied threats by rivals and choked

Jakarta – Logging and forest fires are destroying rainforests and the wildlife they support, government authorities and environmentalists warned yesterday.

Tim Johnston, Dili – A leading opponent of East Timorese independence said on Tuesday that a narrow loss in next Monday's ballot on the future status of the troubled territory would lea

Jeremy Wagstaff, Dili – The United Nations mission in East Timor has refused applications by 24 Indonesian government-linked youth groups to send observers to this month's referendum on

Peter Cole-Adams – The Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Downer, telephoned his Indonesian counterpart, Mr Ali Alatas, last night to repeat Australia's concern over security breakdowns in Ea

Jakarta – Fresh Moslem-Christian clashes in Indonesia's spice Moluccas islands have left up to 12 people dead, scores injured and several churches torched, sources and reports said Tues

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili Armed militias massing in East Timor near the western border plan to go to war to stop the territory they hold becoming independent, United Nations officials have

Jakarta – Indonesian security personnel in the capital on Monday arrested at least nine students who had attempted to protest at the palace against clinging Suharto-era politicians and

The recent surge of violence in East Timor is part of a deliberate pattern to scare voters away from participating in the August 30 referendum on the territory's future status, the Unit

Mark Dodd – After 24 years of fighting for independence, a senior commander of one of the world's most enduring guerilla groups says he is considering what once seemed unthinkable – a r

Jakarta – Police yesterday beefed up security at the US$2.5 billion Arun LNG refinery following reports of arson over the weekend, and have blamed rebels for a new round of killings in

Jill Jolliffe, Darwin – Almost exactly 24 years ago, Darwin was put to the test when thousands of traumatised East Timorese refugees fleeing civil war landed from every imaginable type

Ati Nurbaiti, Lhokseumawe – National Police chief Gen. Roesmanhadi was in Lhokseumawe, the capital of North Aceh regency, last month.

Jakarta – Some 2,000 Indonesian Moslems held a mass prayer here Sunday calling for an end to mounting violence in two of the country's major trouble spots – Ambon and the western provin

Jakarta – A pro-Indonesia group has called on the United Nations to count the votes at next week's self-determination ballot at the stations where they are cast, the state Antara news a

Vaudine England, Jakarta – While international attention is focused on the forthcoming ballot in East Timor, the Indonesian armed forces chief has threatened to impose emergency rule in

Jakarta – Continued violence between separatists and the military has claimed 11 lives in the past two days in the troubled Indonesian province of Aceh, sources and reports said Saturda

The popular consultation moved into a new phase this week, with the end of the registration process and the beginning of the political campaign period, which is scheduled to run through

Don Greenlees – Several hundred East Timorese militiamen handed over a motley collection of homemade pistols and rifles at a military-style parade in Dili yesterday in a symbolic gestur