Advocate on behalf of East Timorese in Australia, Sr Susan Connelly, has said the Immigration Minister's change of heart on her decision to immediately deport 50 East Timorese asylum seekers who have been living in Australia for more than a decade.

Dili – Tens of thousands of government supporters gathered in East Timor's capital Friday to mark the 31st anniversary of the foundation of the ruling FRETILIN party in festivities that coincided with the celebration of the country's third independence anniversary.

The United Nations has marked the end of its peacekeeping operations on East Timor, celebrating a mission credited with bringing stability to the tiny country following its bloody break with Indonesia in 1999.

But while the last peacekeepers are to head home, a scaled-down UN presence will remain in the impoverished country for another year.

Dili – East Timor's political and military leaders unanimously criticized Thursday the UN Security Council's decision to ignore Secretary-General Kofi Annan's recommendation that the new, pruned-back UN mission include a symbolic peacekeeping force.

Taufik Basari, Jakarta – The atrocities that occurred in East Timor in 1999 have been recognized as gross violations of human rights that constitute international crimes. Elements of these crimes, such as torture, have been recognized as hostis humanis generis, or enemies of all mankind.

"Don't go around digging up old skeletons," so an old Indonesian saying goes.

Six-and-a-half years after the turmoil that swept the former province of East Timor (now Timor Leste), Indonesia has not respectfully laid to rest the skeletons of that fateful tragedy.

David Nason, New York – The Security Council has extended the UN presence in East Timor by implementing the mandate of the United Nations Office in Timor-Leste, which will operate until May 20 next year.

Three members of the UN-sanctioned Commission of Experts (COE) are scheduled to arrive in Jakarta on May 20 to meet with legal people involved in the human rights tribunal for Indonesian officers and officials, who were charged with, but acquitted of rights violations in East Timor.

Jakarta – Observers cast doubt on Tuesday over the ability of the UN-sanctioned Commission of Experts (COE) to bring the perpetrators of the 1999 atrocities in East Timor to justice.

They said the UN mission could instead actually disrupt the efforts by a reconciliation commission jointly established by Indonesia and East Timor to heal past wounds.

Dean Yates and Achmad Sukarsono – Indonesia gave mixed signals on Wednesday about a visit by UN experts who will inquire into carnage that swept East Timor in 1999, with one minister calling the trip "irrelevant," but another promising to cooperate.

Dean Yates and Achmad Sukarsono, Jakarta – Indonesia on Wednesday labelled as "irrelevant" a visit by UN experts who will inquire into bloodshed that swept East Timor in 1999 during an independence vote as well as into Jakarta's accounting for the violence.

Agung Yudhawiranata, Jakarta – In an effort to stave off the creation of an ad hoc international rights tribunal to investigate the clearly orchestrated violence that accompanied the vote for independence in East Timor, Indonesia made unambiguous commitments to the international community and the people of East Timor to prosecute those individuals responsible for the atrocities.

The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) today said that the reported agreement between Australia and Timor-Leste on the division of resources in the Timor Sea "cheats" the new nation. It urged the two governments to transparently conduct negotiations based on fundamental international legal principles.

Bob Burton, Canberra – After eighteen months of often tense discussions, officials from the governments of Australia and East Timor reached an agreement last week on the division of revenues from oil and gas deposits in the mineral-rich waters between the two countries.

Shawn Donnan in Jakarta and Lachlan Colquhon in Sydney – East Timor's prime minister, Mari Alkatiri, warned on Tuesday that key details remained unresolved in the tiny nation's negotiations with neighbouring Australia over how to split billions in oil and gas revenues.

Tim Boreham and Karen Brown – East Timor will have to wait at least a decade to see any economic benefit from the Greater Sunrise gas field, with the $5 billion project slipping down the list of operator Woodside Petroleum's priorities.

HT Lee – The weekend media faithfully reported the foreign minister's announcement on Friday that last week's Timor Sea talks in Sydney with East Timor had finished successfully. But Alexander Downer's proclamation might be premature.

John Roberts – The Australian and East Timorese governments agreed on April 29 to a new arrangement on the division of royalties from oil and gas projects in the Timor Sea.

Seth Mydans – Withdrawing in humiliation in 1999 from the land they had occupied for 24 years, Indonesian soldiers scrawled angry graffiti that warned of poverty and hunger ahead. One of them: "A free East Timor will eat stones."

As they departed, they and the local militias they controlled did everything they could to make their words come true.

Doubts have been raised over whether Australia and East Timor have reached an agreement to carve up multi-billion dollar oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea.

The Timor Sea Justice Campaign today accused the Australian Government of trying to force East Timor into another shabby deal that fell well short of East Timor's legal entitlements, amid reports that in principal agreement had been reached at this week's bilateral negotiations.

Marian Wilkinson – A long-awaited controversial report on the Defence Intelligence Organisation outlining how officials cut off critical intelligence to Australian troops in East Timor is expected to be released soon by the Defence Minister, Robert Hill.

Dili – East Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri denied a report Friday that Dili and Canberra had reached a tentative agreement on the sharing of Timor Sea oil and natural gas revenues, labeling the Australian media report an "absolute lie".

Australia and East Timor completed the latest, and possibly last, round of talks between officials on the split of royalties from oil and gas fields in the Timor Sea.

Dili – An East Timor court sentenced two militiamen Thursday to nine years in jail for taking part in a church massacre and other killings during the country's bloody break from Indonesian rule in 1999.

Maritime boundary negotiations between Australia and East Timor resume tomorrow with representatives from the two governments meeting in Sydney to focus on crucial details of a proposed temporary resource sharing deal.

Vannessa Hearman – On April 29, Greens Senator Kerry Nettle met with local East Timorese in Darwin and condemned the "resource-sharing" deal offered to the Timorese by the federal Coalition government as "manifestly unfair". She said that the deal currently offered to the Timorese would "rob East Timor of at least $40 billion in revenue".

Seth Mydans, Dili – East Timor After ducking and dodging for more than five years, it appears that the Indonesian officers responsible for the devastation of East Timor in 1999 have reached safe ground and will avoid prosecution under a new agreement signed by the leaders of both countries.

Helen Hill – On Wednesday in Brisbane, East Timorese and Australian negotiators will again meet to debate rights to the taxation revenues in the Timor Sea.

To most Timorese, this is about determining permanent maritime boundaries with Australia, which they never had and which they regard as their right and part of self-determination.

Putrajaya (Malaysia) – East Timor will wait patiently – even if takes 20 years – for Indonesian military and militia members to be tried for human rights abuses during the country's bloody break from Indonesia in 1999, its foreign minister said onTuesday.

HT Lee – The next round of talks between East Timor and Australia over the Timor Sea oil and gas riches begins on Wednesday in Sydney – just in time to be buried in the post-budget avalanche. Foreign Minister Lord Downer hopes the talks will tie up the loose ends to the creative solutions proposed by his East Timorese counterpart Jose Ramos-Horta.

Denpasar – The Indonesian army is to form a special battalion to guard the country's 240-km-long land border with East Timor or Timor Leste in East Nusatenggara, a spokesman said.

Dili – Traffic moved freely through the center of the East Timorese capital Monday for the first time in nearly three weeks, following the signing of an accord between the government and the Catholic Church that put an end to non-stop, church-sponsored demonstrations.

Rosliwaty Ramly, Putrajaya – Timor Leste is one of the world's least developed countries whereby the majority of its women are illiterate, uneducated subsistence farmers who are marginalised in the social, cultural, economic and political sectors, according its country report.

Marilyn Rodrigues – Catholic advocates for East Timorese asylum seekers are shocked and disappointed that some have had their residency applications rejected on unnamed "serious character grounds".

More than 1400 East Timorese asylum seekers who came to Australia in the early to mid 1990s have been given permanent residency.

Marilyn Rodrigues – Asylum seeker Sereneu (Simon) Pereira hated to tell his "friends and mothers" at St Anne's Nursing Home, Hunters Hill, that he faces having to leave them and go back to East Timor.

Amended versions of Australian businessman Ian Melrose's previously refused Timor Sea TV ads have been resubmitted to the Commercial Advisory Division (CAD) of Free TV Australia and are scheduled to air nationally on Monday evening on networks Seven, Nine and SBS.

Mike Carlton – The mindless cruelties and the rank stupidity of this country's immigration policies grow more disgusting with each passing week.

United Nations – Allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse by UN staff more than doubled last year, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said in a report.

There were 121 allegations in 2004 compared to the 53 in 2003, Annan said in a report to the UN general assembly.

Pip Hinman, Sydney – Paddy Keneally, a former wharfie and Australian commander in East Timor, condemned the Coalition government for stealing Timor's oil at a rally in Martin Place on April 26. The same day, talks resumed in Dili between Timorese and Australian authorities over the disputed oil and gas fields in the Timor Sea.

Sarah Stephen – On April 26, 50 East Timorese asylum seekers were hand delivered letters rejecting their applications for refugee status in Australia, and given 28 days to leave the country. The immigration department (DIMIA) is offering individuals $2000 each or up to $10,000 a family, and a one-way ticket to Dili.

Sibylle Kaczorek – As the Australian government continues its attempted theft of Timorese oil, solidarity from Australians with the Timorese becomes more important than ever. At Easter, Tomas Freitas, a spokesperson from the East Timor Institute for Reconstruction Monitoring and Development, was a guest at the third Asia-Pacific International Solidarity Conference in Sydney.

Jon Lamb – Three days of negotiations over the disputed maritime boundary between East Timor and Australia concluded in Dili on April 29.

Vannessa Hearman, Melbourne – As talks between East Timor and Australia re-commenced in Dili, the Timor Sea Justice Campaign (TSJC) was notified on April 27 that its latest television commercials were again refused broadcast by TV stations.

Dili – Amid signs in recent days of an emerging settlement to church protests against the East Timor government, leading Catholic clergymen made new demands Wednesday on the Dili executive including a call for a reconsideration of plans to relax the country's abortion laws.

Mark Dodd – Armed East Timorese police were last night poised to break up a huge church-backed anti-government protest in Dili, the most serious challenge yet to the authority of the fledgling state.

Police and security forces yesterday sealed off parts of the city, erecting razor-wire cordons around the main government offices and parliament buildings in central Dili.

Canberra – Australia has managed to out-wait a cash strapped East Timor in reaching agreement on lucrative Timor Sea oil and gas revenues, US-based strategic thinktank Stratfor says.

In an analysis of the deal which is set to be finalised in Brisbane on May 11, Stratfor said Dili was always likely to cave in.

Paulo Gorjao – In April 2004, in his progress report regarding the United Nations Mission of Support in East Timor (UNMISET), the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, recommended maintaining it for one more year. In May, the UN Security Council did so, but made it quite clear that this was the last extension.

Dili – The East Timorese capital braced Tuesday for the possibility of clashes between police and anti-government Catholic demonstrators, but a police deadline for the end of street protests ran down without any confrontation.

Presented by Fran Kelly

The failure to resolve the differences between Australia and East Timor over the gas reserves has delayed large-scale developments like the natural gas field known as Greater Sunrise.