Ryan Dagur, Jakarta – Timor-Leste has ordered all its citizens to comply and be tested on demand for Covid-19 or be forced into quarantine if they refuse.

The order was passed by the country's Council of Ministers on May 5.

Chris Barrett, Singapore – Health experts are urging the Morrison government to accelerate its delivery of doses to East Timor amid a deepening crisis there that has led China's vaccine diplomacy to reach Australia's doorstep.

A month after being hit with devastating floods, Timor-Leste is struggling to cope amid a Covid-19 outbreak.

Last month's floods left more than 45 people dead including a dozen children and tens of thousands homeless.

Li-Li Chen – On 8th of April, in the aftermath of devastating floods, Timor-Leste's government declared that Timor-Leste entered the state of emergency for thirty days, when the government appealed to international assistance for its post-disaster rebuilding and recovery.

Michael Leach – The recent floods in Timor-Leste have now caused 45 deaths and some 10,000 people to be displaced, including 7000 in the capital, with widespread damage to roads and bridges, and around 4500 dwellings destroyed. The government has called for international assistance, as a number of local non-government initiatives mobilised to feed and shelter the displaced.

Ryan Dagur, Jakarta – Salesian Archbishop Virgilio Do Carmo da Silva of Dili has called on the people of Timor-Leste to participate in the government's vaccine program and adhere to health protocols as the number of cases in the Catholic-majority country continues to rise.

Guteriano Neves – On April 4, Tropical Cyclone Seroja hit Timor-Leste, devastating the island nation and resulting in the worst floods in 48 years. According to the United Nations, the natural disaster took 45 lives, affected 25,709 families, and destroyed 4,546 houses, forcing nearly 10,000 people to seek shelter in the capital Dili.

Chloe King – Over the Easter weekend, as the first shipment of COVID-19 vaccines was expected to arrive in Timor-Leste's capital of Dili, Tropical Cyclone Seroja arrived instead.

Margie Mason, Robin McDowell and Raimundos Oki, Dili – It was the same every night. A list of names was posted on Reverend Richard Daschbach's bedroom door. The child at the top of the roster knew it was her turn to share the lower bunk with the elderly priest and another elementary school-aged girl.

Felicity James – Fernanda Borges remembers Australia assisting Timor-Leste when the tiny country was struggling with violence after its independence vote.

Ms Borges lives in Darwin now but was formerly Timor-Leste's finance minister during this transition – she would like to see a similar response to the country's recent catastrophic floods and landslides.

Stephen Dziedzic – Labor is ramping up pressure on the federal government to send military helicopters to Timor-Leste, which is struggling to provide aid to remote communities devastated by catastrophic floods.

The government announced a $7 million assistance package for Timor-Leste on Sunday, including emergency supplies and personal protective equipment.

Ryan Dagur – Xanana Gusmao, Timor-Leste's independence hero and former prime minister and president, has been at the center of a protest demanding the release of the body of man who health authorities claim died of Covid-19 while his family claim he died of a stroke.

Michael Rose – Xanana Gusmao, famed icon of East Timor, is letting his people down. Once placed by many of his Australian supporters in the same pantheon as Nelson Mandela, on Monday he was filmed assaulting two women in the street.

Australia has responded to a request for help from the government of Timor-Leste with a $7 million relief package to support 100,000 people affected by flooding.

Chris Barrett, Singapore – Devastated by natural disaster and in the grip of a COVID-19 outbreak, there is a new controversy in East Timor.

Christine Rovoi – Already facing the threat of a new coronavirus outbreak, the tiny nation of Timor-Leste has been hit by devastating flooding and landslides.

According to authorities, the Easter weekend deluge claimed the lives of at least 40 people including a dozen children, destroyed house, roads, bridges and left the capital Dili under water.

Stephen Dziedzic and Anastacio Medeira Araujo in Dili – When the floods came, Markus dos Santos lost almost everything. His wife and three children were all buried by a massive avalanche of mud and water which smashed into their house.

Markus remembers desperately scrabbling through the ruins, trying to pull his two young daughters to safety as they called for help.

Chris Barrett, Singapore – A state of calamity has been declared by East Timor, whose foreign minister has been asked to seek international assistance from Australia and others as it bids to recover from catastrophic floods and landslides and confronts an alarming new COVID-19 outbreak.

Ryan Dagur, Jakarta – Priests and nuns in Timor-Leste have joined efforts to provide much-needed assistance to flash flood victims forced to flee their homes in recent days following storms that have struck the Catholic-majority country since Easter Sunday.

Many of those who fled have sought shelter at church-run facilities.

Raimundos Oki, Dili – In Tasitolu, a suburb in the west of the capital, Dili, Batista Elo balances his young daughter on his hip as he stands in flood waters that reach up his thighs.

Ryan Dagur, Jakarta – Timor-Leste announced the death of a woman from Covid-19 on April 6, its first recorded virus death, as it tries to stem a growing infection rate.

The 44-year-old woman tested positive on March 24 with no symptoms but started showing symptoms on April 4, said Niltor do Carmo da Silva, spokesman of the Integrated Center for Crisis Management.

On Pacific Beat with Mala Darmadi – The death toll from floods and landslides in eastern Indonesia and neighbouring Timor Leste has reached almost 100.

Officials say many people are still unaccounted for and thousands have been displaced after Cyclone Seroja swept through on the weekend.

Stephen Dziedzic – Timor-Leste's government says it will ask Australia and other nations for help following catastrophic floods that have killed dozens and left thousands homeless.

Late on Tuesday, officials confirmed the death toll from the disaster had reached 34. But that figure is expected to rise, with at least another eight people missing.

The Australian government says it "stands ready" to help Timor-Leste after devastating floods hit the country, forcing thousands to take refuge and leaving at least 27 people dead.

Antonio Sampaio, Dili – Hundreds of people, many of them students, mobbed exit routes out of the Timorese capital Dili on Good Friday seeking to leave the city to escape the difficulties they are experiencing over the covid lockdown.

Chris Barrett, Singapore – Already facing a worrying new COVID-19 outbreak, Timor Leste has been hit by devastating flooding and landslides, claiming the lives of at least 11 people, destroying roads, bridges and houses and leaving the capital Dili under water.

Damon Evans – East Timor is considering building a liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal and converting oil-fired power plants to gas in an effort to slash energy supply costs and cut greenhouse gas emissions. The move seems slightly ironic given the country advocated developing an LNG export complex for much of the past decade.

Timorese authorities have announced that they have detected a record surge in new covid-19 cases – 55 in one day.

According to Lusa news agency yesterday, 43 new cases of covid-19 were reported in the previous 24 hours in the capital Dili, 11 in Baucau and one in Viqueque, bringing the total number of active cases in the country to 206.

The trial of a former US priest accused of child abuse in Timor-Leste due to resume tomorrow at the Oecusse Court has been postponed until May 24, according to judicial sources.

Ryan Dagur, Jakarta – The Catholic Church in Timor-Leste says it is boosting efforts to help contain a recent spike in Covid-19 cases that has forced the government to implement lockdowns in three municipalities.

The tiny Catholic-majority country has recorded 229 infections, some 95 of which are active cases, in five municipalities since March 7.

Ryan Dagur, Jakarta – The superior of the Society of the Divine Word congregation in Timor-Leste has moved to scotch rumors that ex-priest and self-confessed pedophile Richard Daschbach, who is currently on trial for sexual abuse, will be reinstated.

Nelson Da Cruz, Kate Lamb, Dili – The tiny Southeast Asian nation of East Timor will put its capital city on a coronavirus lockdown for the first time, its government said on Monday, amid fears it could be facing its first local outbreak.

Joao da Cruz Cardoso – Timor-Leste, like many other countries, has experienced considerable economic hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the country's economy was fragile long before the pandemic and will likely continue to face challenges for the foreseeable future.

Sara Niner – Xanana Gusmao's recent contrived jovial participation in the birthday celebrations of "self-professed" paedophile and defrocked foreign priest Richard Daschbach has shocked many of his supporters, not least his Australian former wife and three Timorese-Australian sons who have publicly condemned the visit and written apologetic letters to the young women who were due to

Oecusse, Timor-Leste – A defrocked American priest went on trial on Tuesday (Feb 23) to face charges he sexually abused young girls at his shelter for orphans and children from impoverished families, marking the first clergy sex case to emerge in Timor-Leste – the most Catholic place in the world outside the Vatican.

UCA News reporter, Dili – A court in Timor-Leste has started the trial of a self-confessed pedophile American priest who was dismissed from the priesthood by the Vatican on charges of child abuse in 2018.

Antonio Sampaio, Pante Macassar, Timor-Leste – The fear that has led for years to silence dozens of children, allegedly victims of sexual abuse by a former priest who begins trial today in Timor-Leste's western enclave, still shrouds the case.

Michael Leach – After a year of upheaval, Timor-Leste politics entered 2021 in an interesting place. Alliances between the major parties have been reconfigured and a rising generation of small parties is generating new pressures. Still unresolved, meanwhile, is the future management of the maritime oilfields, vital to the nation's economic future.

By Aashna Jamal – Timor-Leste is one of the countries with the lowest number of COVID-19 cases, largely because the government shut down borders in early 2020 knowing that the fragile health system would not be able to cope with a pandemic. The nation has been in an extended state of emergency since March 28, 2020, a period that was broken only by a brief hiatus in July and August.

Anne Barker – The sons of Timor Leste's former president Xanana Gusmao have expressed their disappointment to the victims of a former priest facing child sexual abuse allegations, after their father visited him for his birthday at his home in Dili.

Christopher Knaus – The federal government's attempt to use "extraordinary" national security powers to obstruct Bernard Collaery engaging a highly respected barrister in the Timor-Leste spying case was "disturbing" and "unfair", a judge has ruled.

Annie Sloman – The COVID-19 pandemic has not only had global health, economic and social impacts, it has also impacted on civic space. But what has been the impact of COVID-19 on civic space in Timor-Leste?

Lusa News, Dili – The Timorese Press Council today asked journalists to avoid being "messenger boys", referring to the publication of a statement about former Timor-Leste president Xanana Gusmao's controversial visit to a former priest accused of child abuse without identifying the source.

Dili (SPS) – The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Timor Leste, Mrs. Adaljiza Albertina Xavier Reis Magno, has reaffirmed Thursday the support of her country to the struggle of the Saharawi people, voicing their constant willingness to defend their right to freedom and independence during a meeting with SADR's ambassador to East Timor, Mr. Mohamed Islam Badi.

Pacific Media Watch – The Timorese Episcopal Conference has called on the entire Catholic community in Timor-Leste to accept and respect Pope Francis' decision to expel an American accused of child sexual abuse in the country from the priesthood, reports LUSA news agency.

Graeme Dobell – The word 'guarantee' rightly makes Oz politicians, diplomats and lawyers cautious, even nervous: never say forever, never say never, and try never to provoke Indonesia.

Rob Harris – The development of a domestic security force in East Timor was a matter of "fundamental importance" to Australia's strategic interests, newly declassified documents released for the first time on Friday reveal.

Randy Mulyanto, Jakarta, Indonesia – Timor-Leste, formerly known as East Timor, has a creaky healthcare system and is one of the poorest countries in Asia, but even as neighbouring Indonesia grapples with one of the worst outbreaks in the region, it has managed to keep the virus at bay.

Rui Graca Feijo – Timor-Leste is a surprising success story in the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. As of mid-December 2020, the country had recognised a total of just 31 cases and it is one of the few nations to have not reported a single casualty.

Jakarta – Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto has handed over awards in the form of medals and National Defense Patriot certificates to 11,485 former East Timor fighters.

Prabowo handed over the symbolic awards to 23 representatives – one of which was East Timor pro-integration figure and former East Timor pro-Indonesian militia deputy commander Eurico Guterres.