An Indonesian general admitted on Monday that some soldiers and civilians have been trying to discourage the tens of thousands of East Timorese refugees in Indonesian West Timor from re

Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri has rejected domestic and international criticism of a government amnesty and sentence reduction bill under discussion in the East Timorese legislature, say

Washington – East Timor, the world's youngest nation, was due to join the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank on Tuesday, the lending institutions said.

Poor countries should spend less money on weapons and seek to resolve their internal differences or differences with their neighbours via dialogue, says East Timor's President Kay Rala

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – The British Government has told families of the two British journalists killed in Balibo, East Timor, in 1975 that it will soon release classified documents concer

Berni K.

Yemris Fointuna, Kupang – Hopes for East Timorese refugees to escape starvation went up in smoke in just 24 hours on Thursday as the East Nusa Tenggara administration announced it did n

Dili and a Portugal Telecom-led consortium signed a 15-year concession Friday for the Lisbon-headquartered company to establish and operate the new country's telecommunications systems.

East Timorese officials today told a United Nations meeting on children that the new nation was on the verge of adopting an international treaty that protects the rights of youngsters.

Jakarta – A UN legal investigator looking into Indonesia's judiciary added his voice on Friday to criticism of how the trials into East Timor violence in 1999 were being handled.

John Aglionby – Since the fall of the dictator Suharto, Indonesia's reputation in the field of law enforcement has always been near the bottom of the scale – for instance a British poli

New York – A proposed amnesty law in East Timor could undermine due process and equal protection of the law and allow those responsible for some of the most serious rights abuses to go

The East Timor Defense Force (ETDF) assumes responsibility next week for all aspects of security in part of the new nation, and the Dili government was informed Thursday of progress in

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, Jakarta – After two months of hearings by the East Timor ad hoc human rights trial, held in the absence of eyewitnesses from East Timor, an East Timorese finall

Jakarta – Indonesia's last governor of East Timor said on Thursday his trial for crimes against humanity during the territory's independence vote in 1999 was bogus and aimed only at def

President Xanana Gusmao called Thursday to the nations of the North to grant debt relief to the countries in the South, who would, in their turn seek to implement "good governance" with

A survivor of a bloody attack on a refugee-filled church compound in East Timor in April 1999 said Wednesday he saw uniformed Indonesian soldiers and police fire shots into the compound

Andrew Trounson, Melbourne – East Timor is getting down to business. And that means playing tough, even with your friends.

Catharine Munro, Jakarta – Indonesian human rights prosecutors today raised the prospect of dropping charges against some defendants facing trial for gross human rights violations in Ea

Jakarta – Indonesian prosecutors said Wednesday they would seek to reopen the investigation into the killing of a Dutch journalist in East Timor, after receiving new evidence from Dutch

Jakarta – An investigation into the murder of a Dutch journalist in East Timor in 1999 is still open, a Dutch police officer said Wednesday after giving Indonesian prosecutors fresh evi

The Indonesian military, until recently occupiers of East Timor, may soon begin training officers for Dili's fledgling defense force, the UN mission in the newly independent country sai

A draft bill on amnesty and pardoning of sentences has been criticized as being "unconstitutional", "too general" and open to "dangerous interpretation", by a leading Timorese nongovern

Irwan Firdaus, Jakarta – The former commander of Indonesian troops in East Timor went on trial Tuesday on charges of crimes against humanity for allegedly allowing his soldiers to commi

After signing and approving East Timor's state budget Tuesday, President Xanana Gusmao called for revision of the measures within four months, while also lamenting the lackluster nature

President Xanana Gusmao will address the East Timorese Tuesday in a nationally broadcast speech that an aide described Monday as centered on his two-week delay in signing the government

Nigel Wilson – East Timor's decision to pursue maritime boundaries that might include substantial Australian oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea will not derail talks aimed at definin

[East Timor's fledgling parliament has made a key decision about the nation's borders which could be the first big test of its relations with Australia.

Thalif Deen, United Nations – East Timor, the world's newest nation, will ask the United Nations to designate it a "least developed country" (LDC).

Jill Jolliffe – An argument over who is to be East Timor's first ambassador to Australia could lead to a showdown between President Xanana Gusmao and Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.

[The following letter to the the Sydney Morning Herald editor was issued by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Dr Jose Ramos-Horta.]

Two former top Indonesian ministers told a human rights trial yesterday that a savage outbreak of militia violence in East Timor in September 1999 caught the Jakarta government unawares

Prosecutors yesterday demanded that East Timor's former Indonesian-appointed governor be sent to prison for 10 and a half years – just six months more than the minimum sentence for crim

[Deliverance by Don Greenlees and Robert Garran, Allen & Unwin.]

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – East Timor's Foreign Minister, Jose Ramos Horta, has put pragmatism ahead of human rights in his first foreign policy statement, describing China as the new nation

Rod McGuirk, Darwin – East Timor President and former freedom fighter Xanana Gusmao today said he did not want to see the Indonesian provinces of Aceh and Irian Jaya win independence.

Yemris Fointuna, Kupang – The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) expects to see half of the remaining 50,000 East Timorese refugees currently taking shelter in neighboring East N

Yemris Fointuna, Kupang – Dozens of people claiming to represent thousands of East Timorese refugees sheltering in camps in West Timor rallied at the gubernatorial office in the regiona

Thomas Freitas, Dili – Activists from the NGO La'o Hamutuk and others were disappointed by Manuel Carrascalao's statement in Tuesday's edition of STL that "Foreigners can not come here

The European Union is to give humanitarian aid worth nearly euros 2 million to East Timorese refugees still living in camps in Indonesian West Timor, it was announced Tuesday in Brussel

Dili – UN Police officials today announced they have seized two trucks loaded with sandalwood apparently destined for sale outside East Timor.

East Timor's parliament approved a draft bill Tuesday on maritime borders, paving the way for the ratification of the potentially lucrative Timor Sea oil and gas treaty, signed in May b

East Timor's minister of health has said that his country has all the conditions necessary for the outbreak of an Aids epidemic and urgent measure are needed to prevent this.

Dili – Amnesty should not be offered to those responsible for crimes against humanity during the violence that surrounded East Timor's 1999 bid for independence, said Bishop Carlos Xime

Reporter: Ross Coulthart

Producer: In collaboration with Max Stahl of Gillan Films

Jakarta/Kupang – The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Friday that 1,500 East Timorese children, placed in orphanages across Indonesia in 1999, had not yet b

Jill Jolliffe, Maubisse – Like most country folk in East Timor, the 18,000 people of the Maubisse district are enthusiastic about independence, but worried about their future.

Geoffrey Barker – Sixty influential Chinese business association leaders arrived in Dili from Macau last week to talk to East Timorese leaders about investing in the impoverished new na

Geneva – East Timor's Health Minister, Rui Maria de Araujo, warned Friday that his newly-independent country was in danger of an AIDS epidemic, saying its low official figures were "jus

[Achieving justice in East Timor for the victims of the violence after the 1999 independence vote, is not proving to be an easy task.