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.

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

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

[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

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.

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.

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

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.

Dili – It is easy to be optimistic about East Timor's future when you are sitting at the villa of its de facto king – UN diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello.

David DeVoss – The East Timor branch of Portugal's Banco Nacional Ultramarino in Dili looks like a modern financial institution.

Mark Dodd, Dili – East Timor's Cabinet member for foreign affairs, Mr Jose Ramos Horta, has blasted the United Nations mission in Dili for obstructing the implementation of Portuguese a

Lindsay Murdoch, Dare Mulo – Some people wept. Others sang national songs they had rehearsed for days and stamped their bare feet in the dust.

Dili – A US-based election monitoring group said Friday it was satisfied with conditions for East Timor's first free elections next week, but expressed concern over cases of voter intim

Some East Timorese political forces have set up security-style partisan groups in preparation for next week4s elections but have not generated any problems, UN administration officials

Jane Counsel – Delicate negotiations over a new Timor Gap revenue sharing agreement were further unhinged yesterday, after a small American group launched legal action against the Feder

Bronwyn Curran, Dili – East Timorese voters are relishing their first-ever taste of democracy but some parties in next week's elections have tried to intimidate them, local poll watchdo

Mark Dodd, Dili – The UN Serious Crimes Unit, charged with investigating human rights violations in East Timor in 1999, says it is investigating 674 documented murders but has insuffici

Mark Dodd, Dili – An East Timorese anti-independence leader said yesterday he would tell refugees in camps in West Timor that the world's newest country was on the road to democracy.

The Senate has rejected a proposal for an international war crimes tribunal covering the Indonesian occupation of East Timor.

The number two in East Timor's Fretilin party hierarchy, Mari Alkatiri, strongly critized Wednesday the territory's Independent Eletoral Mediation Panel, which has complained about the

An American Civpol officer stationed in Bobonaro District was stoned by a group of Timorese at the border area.

Canberra – Australia is unable to dictate a solution to a dispute between East Timor and a US-based oil company that has stalled construction of a key gas pipeline, the government said

Vaudine England, Jakarta – The political party of East Timor's independence heroes, Fretilin, has been accused of using intimidation, threats and "Indonesian-style" campaigning ahead of

Mark Dodd, Dili – Those responsible for some of the worst atrocities committed in East Timor in 1999 are likely to escape prosecution by a special Indonesian war crimes tribunal, accord

Canberra – Australia said on Tuesday it would urge Phillips Petroleum Co chairman and chief executive Jim Mulva to talk tough with East Timor over tax proposals which are stalling a Tim

East Timorese women's rights groups have gathered more than 10,000 signatures backing the inclusion of a "Women's Rights Charter" in the territory's future constitutiuon, activists anno

Joe Leahy, Dili – Something resembling a commercial bustle has returned to Dili, East Timor's capital. Beaten-up taxis cruise streets frequented by illegal money-changers.

East Timor's UN Transition Administration (UNTAET) praised Monday the weapons collection campaign conducted last week by the Indonesian Armed Forces and targeting militias in Jakarta's

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – Apocalyptic predictions are rife in East Timor as the territory approaches political freedom after centuries of Portuguese colonial rule and a quarter century of I

Mark Riley, New York – The Prime Minister has asked to meet with the United Nations Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, as the UN comes under pressure to accelerate its withdrawal from Ea

United Nations civil police in the Suai region of East Timor have detained two people suspected of committing infractions of election campaign rules, a UN source told Lusa on Friday.

Mark Dodd, Dili – With an army of street kids recruited to plaster seafront coconut trees with stickers, and a UN vehicle pressed into service blaring raucous political messages, the Ti

Aout 200 ex-Falintil members on Tuesday staged a one-day sit-in at UNTAET headquarters to demand that the United Nations fulfill its promises to the former freedom fighters.

Mark Dodd, Dili – A former member of the independence movement Fretilin, Dr Abilio Araujo, expelled for his links with Indonesia, has returned to East Timor after 26 years' self-imposed