Jon Land – Fretilin, the party which declared East Timor independent in 1975 and which was the largest single force in the long fight against occupation, has won 57% of the vote in the

Jana DK, Dili – In its first major mobilisation since the beginning of East Timor's election campaign, on August 25 some 5000 Timorese Socialist Party members and supporters gathered at

Yemris Fointuna, Dili – The United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) is planning to forge economic cooperation between the former Portuguese colony and Indonesi

Vaudine England, Jakarta – Pressure is building on Indonesia to return 124 East Timorese children taken from their parents in West Timor refugee camps following East Timor's 1999 indepe

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – There is a palpable mood of relief in East Timor this week after the election in which the country voted overwhelmingly in favor of the leftist nationalist party F

Mark Dodd, Dili – What's in a word? Quite a bit if you are considering running for president of East Timor.

Mark Dodd, Dili – Fretilin, the party that led East Timor's 24-year struggle for independence from Indonesia, has won the fledgling nation's first democratic election.

• Total Votes Cast: 384,248
• Total Valid Votes: 363,501
• Invalid Votes: 20,747

National Ballot

Despite its decision to contest the election process, East Timor's UDT party congratulated Thursday the Fretilin party for its victory in last week's voting for the 88-member Constituen

Dili – The Chief Electoral Officer of the East Timor's Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), Carlos Valenzuela, today presented the full and final results of the 30 August Constituent

Results of last week's elections in East Timor indicate that the territory's new 88-seat Constituent Assembly will have a total of 24 women members.

The leader of East Timor's ASDT party, Fransico Xavier do Amaral, told Lusa Wednesday in Dili that he would not be a future candidate for president.

The Deputy President of the Dili District Court Rui Pereira dos Santoas stressed that the Timor Lorosae Judiciary will continue using Bahasa Indonesia and Tetun in all proceedings for a

For Fretilin [East Timor Revolutionary Front] – the party most likely to win the recent Timor Lorosae (TL) elections – there are three main things which need to be maintained [from 1975

Xanana's interview with Tempo magazine:

Tempo: At first you dithered on being nominated as president. But you changed your mind later. Why?

Jose Ramos Horta said Monday in Dili he was "profoundly sad" about the "unhappy", "lamentable" and "incendiary" criticism of the East Timorese election process leveled by the leader of

Dili – The winners of last week's historic election in East Timor must listen to the people when drafting a constitution as a prelude to independence, two watchdog groups said Monday.

Lincoln Wright – Two star witnesses behind the allegation that Defence knew beforehand of the murder of five Australian journalists at Balibo in 1975 now maintain they never saw an inte

East Timor's Defense Force would be willing to accept Indonesian military aid if the offer was made by Jakarta, the force's commander said on Monday.

Presenter: Sergio Vieira de Mello, head of UNTAET, the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor, has replied to the fraud accusations, made by UDT (Timorese Democratic Union) leader

Lindsay Murdoch in Liquica and agencies – East Timorese kept what the United Nations had called a date with democracy yesterday, voting in the first democratic election of their turbule

At the Toko Lay hardware store in central Dili, Charles Tan was checking a newly arrived generator to sell to the burgeoning construction industry.

Five people arrested Thursday in the East Timorese capital had various weapons in their possession, the UN civil police spokesman said, adding that the operation had nothing to do with

Woodside Petroleum, Australia's biggest independent oil and gas group, is to evaluate competing proposals from Royal Dutch/Shell and Phillips Petroleum of the US in an attempt to resolv

Jakarta – Feared ex-militia leader Eurico Guterres declared Thursday a "day of mourning for East Timor" and said its people could end up second-class citizens like Australia's Aborigine

Christine T.

Slobodan Lekic, Dili – Women nursed babies held in shoulder slings and people joked with UN monitors as they waited in long lines to vote Thursday in a election seen as a historic step

Rowan Callick – The emergence of democratic government in an independent East Timor is a miracle.

Richard Lloyd Parry – Two years to the day after the 1999 referendum on independence, the East Timorese people vote again on Thursday in the first elections to a democratic national ass

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – Carlos first introduced himself as a driver. When none of Dili's dilapidated taxis could be found, he would always produce one.

Vaudine England, Dili – East Timor's president-in-waiting, Xanana Gusmao, yesterday restated his belief that amnesties should be considered for people who committed serious crimes.

Joe Cochrane, Ermera – The farmers of Ermera are fiercely proud of their long tradition of growing East Timor's finest coffee, but these days that is not enough to fill their stomaches.

Don Greenlees – The Indonesian army has extended an olive branch to East Timor's fledgling defence force, by offering to train former Falintil guerilla fighters and inviting East Timor'

Jon Land – The August 30 election for East Timor's Constituent Assembly signifies an important step towards the conclusion of the United Nations transitional administration.

Dili – Justice must come before amnesty for people guilty of human rights violations in East Timor, a lawyer working to establish a truth commission said Wednesday.

Joe Leahy – Building a central bank from scratch in one of the world's poorest countries was never going to be easy.

Mark Dodd, Dili – He was East Timor's first president, the head of the short-lived Fretilin administration that unilaterally declared independence in November 1975, 10 days before Indon

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – Nobel Peace Prize-winner Bishop Carlos Belo has made a new appeal to the international community to establish a war crimes tribunal to punish Indonesian military

Vamasae – In one of the thousands of charred and gutted buildings that still scar East Timor's landscape, 200 villagers squat before the man who won a Nobel peace prize crusading for th

Dili – East Timor's president in waiting, Xanana Gusmao, said Tuesday that amnesties must be considered for those who led the violence surrounding the territory's independence vote two

The upcoming Constituent Assembly elections in East Timor serve "only to comply with the calendar and are neither free nor fair", the leader of the historic UDT party, Joao Carrascalao,

The leader of East Timor's Social Democratic Party (PSD) said Monday in Dili he hoped his party would obtain between 30 and 40 percent of the vote in Thursday's Constituent Assembly ele

Mark Dodd, Dili – The East Timor independence leader Mr Xanana Gusmao has decided not to retire from politics to grow prize pumpkins for the Dili show.

Lisbon – East Timor's UN administrator said in a newspaper interview Friday that a broad-based government will be named to govern the territory following next week's elections.

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – East Timor's leaders are planning an international campaign to pressure the Indonesian Government to allow Timorese children separated from their parents at t

James Fox – Parliamentary elections will be held in East Timor on Thursday, two years from the day when the East Timorese turned out en masse to vote for their independence.

Predicting his Fretilin party would win East Timor's first free elections by a landslide, Mari Alkatiri warned the territory's UN transition administration Monday his party could refuse

Fretilin Party Secretary-General Mari Alkatiri has guaranteed there would be no radical behaviour on the part of his party as Fretilin were no longer a communist or socialist party.

[Speaking for the first time, former Indonesian president B.J.

Bronwyn Curran, Baucau – In a good month Carlos Bovida makes 20 dollars selling sweet potatoes and bananas on a lonely road, winding through the sparse mountains of this half-island nat