Sophie Douez, Canberra – The Federal Government yesterday denied refugee claims to 168 East Timorese who fled the then-Indonesian territory seeking asylum in Australia almost a decade a

[Indonesia is moving to settle its maritime border issues with East Timor and is keen to see Australia do the same, according to a senior government advisor.

Dili – East Timor's Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta has said that despite his country's 24-year struggle for freedom from Indonesian rule, it would not support independence movements

Ray Brindal Canberra – East Timor has been poorly dealt with by Australia and companies wanting to develop vast natural gas resources in the Timor Sea, John Imle, a former president and

The leader of East Timor's Catholic community, Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, appealed Monday to Portugal's people to give more help to his country, whose situation, he said, is "worse tha

The Federal Defence Minister says Australian military commitment to peacekeeping in East Timor will be phased out over the next 18 months.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – New Zealand's Labour Government is the latest to reveal the skeletons in its closet over Indonesia's 1975 East Timor invasion, but the Melbourne family of a Wellin

Ray Lilley, Wellington – East Timor President Xanana Gusmao has called on the international community not to forget his tiny new nation, which became the 191st member of the United Nati

Jakarta – The Indonesian government and international agencies have agreed that as of December 31 this year, all East Timorese refugee camps in West Timor will be shut down.

Geoffrey Barker – East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao yesterday criticised the heavily armed Australian army presence in front of the Australian embassy in Dili and demanded that Aust

Keith Moor – East Timor is in danger of being infiltrated by crime gangs intent on using it as a stepping stone to Australia.

Munir, Jakarta – The first round of the ad hoc Human Rights Tribunal on the East Timor case ended in anticlimax as the suspects of crimes against humanity were mostly acquitted from all

Keith Moor – Victorian officers attached to the United Nations found the graves of 24 massacre victims and will this month start exhuming the bodies.

Canberra – Australia reopened its embassy in East Timor on Monday after it was closed following a threat against Australian interests in the fledgling nation but said travellers should

Jakarta – Unsure about the outcome of reconciliation attempts by former pro-Indonesia fighters, leaders of East Timorese people in squalid camps in Belu, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), have

Jakarta – The new government in East Timor would try to heal the psychological trauma suffered by many of its people in the 1999 violence when Indonesia withdrew from the territory, the

Audrey Young – Jose Ramos-Horta, East Timor's Foreign Minister, is everything his country is not: highly educated, sophisticated and stylish.

Nick O'malley – Fresh out of a Dili jail, Edit Horta, sister-in-law of East Timor's foreign minister, Jose Ramos Horta, island-hopped to Darwin in 1994.

A Dili court has sentenced a Timorese man who belonged to a pro-Indonesian militia to twenty years imprisonment for three murders that he committed in 1999, it was announced Wednesday.

Sharon Labi, Fatuk-Hun – The red juice of the betel nut stains her teeth and runs down her chin, settling in the cracks of her lips and the wrinkles of her weathered face.

An Indonesian prosecutor has proposed that controversial human rights trials be moved to Dili, the capital of neighbouring East Timor.

Sharon Labi, Dili – They idolise Britney Spears, watch lots of TV and worry about what to wear to school.

Dan Murphy, Wonosobo – Maya Friera's letter home is filled with re-assurances for her parents. The 8-year-old promises she's studying hard and saying her prayers every day.

East Timor's foreign minister Jose Ramos-Horta says the country's fledgling judicial and prison systems are frail because there are insufficient judges.

A special fund to compensate former Indonesian government employees and pensioners in East Timor expects to make its first payments next month, a founder of the fund said Monday.

Jamie Walker – According to the army, it began as a Melbourne Cup day joke.

Phil Goff – The Foreign Minister Phil Goff says it is a matter of shame that New Zealand, Australia and the United States did not strongly oppose the Indonesian invasion of East Timor i

Jakarta – The Indonesian government will host the 55th session of the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Committee for South-East Asia Region on September 11-13, according to an o

[It's three years since the violence that accompanied East Timor's vote for independence.

Vannessa Hearman – On August 15 an Indonesian court convicted Abilio Soares, the former Jakarta-appointed governor of East Timor, of failing to rein in subordinates in September 1999 as

Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo has called to East Timor's political leaders and the international community to begin moves to establish an international court to try those responsible for t

[Kirsty Sword was a resistance fighter who became the First Lady. Now comes the hard part. Susan Wyndham profiles the wife of the East Timorese leader.]

Dili – The fledgling nation of East Timor risks being exploited by organized crime and developing institutionalized corruption, because of its poverty and rudimentary legal system.

Mari Alkatiri – It is a truism of the developing world that the blessing of petroleum wealth can be a curse.

East Timor's religious leader has said that the Timorese people are "disenchanted" after three months of independence.

[The following review of Don Greenlees and Robert Garran, "Deliverance: The Inside Story of East Timor's Fight for Freedom" (Allen & Unwin), is by John Martinkus.

Jill Jolliffe, Gugleur – Gugleur has little to recommend it. Its people are subsistence farmers and the maize crop has failed this year.

Jakarta – East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao urged his people on Friday to focus on the task of nation-building as the territory marked its first 100 days of independence.

Dili – East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao on Friday asked his critics for more time to solve the vast problems facing the newly independent nation.

East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao took stock of his new nation on Friday in a speech marking 100 days of independence, calling for greater grassroots democracy to check potential abu

Jill Joliffe, Dili – East Timor's Government is likely to ask the United Nations to set up an international tribunal to hear war crimes cases after key suspects were acquitted by a Jaka

John Aglionby – For anyone who is not in Indonesia's military it must be hard to understand why Colonel Herman Sedyono is not in jail.

Stewart Taggart in Dili and Lor – Times have changed for Commandante Elias Falour. Once he was a leader in the East Timorese guerrilla resistance.

Peter Symonds – The outcome of the first trials by an Indonesian court over the massacres in East Timor in 1999, prior to and following the UN-sponsored vote on independence, has proved

Alexandre Assis, Dili – East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao was very angry when he heard the verdict of the Central Jakarta Ad Hoc Human Rights Court that set free the main suspects –

Ian Martin – The trials before an ad hoc human rights tribunal in Jakarta of officials implicated in the 1999 crimes in East Timor are not only failing to do justice: They have turned t

Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said Tuesday that East Timor's judges and court officials are to be trained in Portuguese and rejected a reported preference by the UN for the use of Indone

East Timor Action Network/US (ETAN) said today that it was "deeply disturbed" by East Timor's decision to give US troops in the new nation immunity from prosecution by the International

Andrew Perrin – The former custodians of the Hotel Flamboyan in Baucau, the picturesque seaside town on East Timor's northeast coast, had a lot to learn about hotel management.

Jill Jolliffe, Suai – UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson rode into the eye of East Timor's human rights storm at the weekend when she visited the scene of the September