IN their testy negotiations over oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea, the Australian and East Timorese sides have been driven solely by their respective national interests. This is good and proper. If Australia wants to provide assistance to East Timor, it should do so through the transparent mechanism of aid, not by giving way on maritime boundaries and ceding bits of Australia.

Melbourne – Australia has warned that it may suspend the next round of negotiations with East Timor on a maritime border in the resource rich Timor Sea that will decide the ownership of billions of dollars worth of oil and gas.

Australia and East Timor held talks in April and are scheduled to meet again in September.

Canberra – The government threatened Sunday to suspend the second round of talks with East Timor over a maritime boundary between the two neighbors after the opposition called for a fresh start to negotiations on how seabed oil and gas riches will be shared.

The Federal Opposition says it is the Government that is playing politics over Australia's negotiations with East Timor over the boundaries in the Timor Sea, which determine control over oil and gas reserves.

Opposition Leader Mark Latham says it appears there has been bad blood in the negotiations so far and if Labor is elected, it would restart the talks.

Sydney – Australia's foreign minister has threatened to suspend talks with East Timor on disputed multi-billion-dollar Timor Sea gas and oil fields, saying the opposition Labor Party had politicised the issue.

Steve Lewis and Nigel Wilson – The Howard Government is threatening to suspend talks with East Timor over control of billions of dollars worth of oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea until after the election, following remarks by Mark Latham that a Labor government would consider restarting negotiations.

A riot in the East Timorese capital Dili this week has turned the spotlight on simmering political tensions in the country. Cornelio Gama, a dissident former commander of Falintil who goes by his jungle codename L-7 led about a hundred supporters in a demonstration against the government. The government denies that it's facing a serious challenge.

Michelle Grattan, Canberra – The Flood report has rejected an allegation that a pro-Jakarta lobby within the Defence Intelligence Organisation distorted intelligence estimates on East Timor so that the Government got what it wanted to hear.

Mark Dodd, Darwin – Anti-government demonstrations this week in East Timor's capital involving former guerrilla fighters indicate a growing frustration among veterans who feel robbed of their independence dividend in a fledgling nation with a profoundly weak economy and high unemployment.

Canberra – East Timor's economic future would be given more weight in talks over oil and gas royalties if Labor was elected, Opposition Leader Mark Latham said today.

Australia – By the medium of our Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, is presenting a very unattractive face to the world, not least our Pacific and South-East Asian neighbours, as it negotiates with East Timor over borders between the two countries, and rights to some of the oil royalties in the disputed areas.

The Australian Democrats have backed a call for New Zealand to mediate in negotiations between East Timor and Australia over the Timor Sea boundary.

The mediation is expected to determine the seabed boundary, thereby dividing control of an estimated $30 billion in royalties from Timor Sea oil and gas deposits.

Reporter: Tanya Nolan

Tony Eastely: East Timor says that if it can't resolve its differences with Australia over maritime rights it wants New Zealand to step in as a mediator. The idea was floated by the country's foreign minister, Jose Ramos Horta, in a speech he gave in Sydney last night.

Jakarta – Responding to a letter sent by East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao, the East Timorese parliament and East Timorese Attorney General Longuinhos Monteiro stating that the former governor of East Timor Abilio Soares was innocent, Indonesian foreign minister Nur Hassan Wirajuda said that no party is entitled to intervene in the legal system of Indonesia.

Reporter: Nance Haxton

Mark Colvin: The Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has strongly rebuffed criticisms and complaints from East Timor over the controversial Sunrise Gas Field negotiations.

Dili – Police in East Timor fired tear gas on Tuesday to disperse dozens of former freedom fighters demonstrating outside the main government building demanding more reform, eyewitnesses and police said.

There's confusion tonight in Dili as to the whereabouts of East Timor's dissident Falantil guerilla fighter Cornelio Gama, otherwise known as L7.

Dili – East Timorese police fired off rubber Bullets and tear gas Tuesday to disperse hundreds of protesters who had occupied the tiny nation's government building to demand immediate elections.

Dili – East Timor's president said Monday that Indonesian security forces were responsible for the violence that swept his country in 1999 _ not the territory's last governor, who began serving a jail term in Indonesia over the weekend.

Tiarma Siboro and Abdul Khalik, Jakarta – The imprisonment of former East Timor governor Abilio Soares is maintaining the immunity of military top brass in the gross human rights violations in the former Indonesian province in 1999, a rights campaigner says.

The first person to be convicted of human rights abuses in the lead up to East Timor's independence referendum has begun his three year jail sentence. The former Indonesian appointed governor of East Timor, Abilio Soares, has been convicted of involvement in the bloody violence which claimed up to 14 hundred lives during the 1999 vote.

Shawn Donnan, Jakarta – BP has completed the relocation of villagers at the future site of its Tangguh liquid natural gas project in the remote Indonesian province of Papua and expects to begin "peak construction" by the end of this year, according to a senior executive.

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta – Former East Timor governor Abilio Soares began serving on Saturday a three-year prison term for his role in the 1999 violence in the former Indonesian province, becoming the first person to be jailed for the bloodshed.

Yemris Fointuna and Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, Jakarta/Kupang – Convicted former East Timor governor Abilio Soares defied a summons on Friday to begin serving his three-year jail term for human rights crimes in Indonesia's former province in 1999.

John Filiatreau, Dili – Five years ago, this country reclaimed its independence from Indonesia, becoming the newest, and arguably poorest, nation in the world.

John Filiatreau, Liquica – Leonito da Costa's death and resurrection took place shortly after August 30, 1999, the day he and hundreds of thousands of other East Timorese trooped to the polls to vote for independence from Indonesia.

Alex Chadwick, host: This is Day to Day. I'm Alex Chadwick.

The world's newest nation, East Timor, celebrated its second birthday in May without much to really celebrate. Most of the 800,000 people are poor. Foreign donors provide as much as half the country's annual budget.

Two years after independence, the people of East Timor are trying to sort out the muddle of languages that is a legacy of the country's complicated history and politics. There are indigenous languages as well as the languages of the colonisers, the occupiers and the peacekeepers: Portuguese, Bahasa Indonesia and English.

A controversial immigration decision taken by the East Timorese government is to be challenged in East Timor's Court of Appeal.

The various languages of East Timor speak of the history of the place, but in the present they are the topic of fierce debate.

Jakarta, Kompas – Former East Timor governor Abilio Jose Osorio Soares has questioned the verdict handed down against him by the courts. He will therefore be appealing to the head of the Supreme Court to conduct a review into the court's decision because he is simply being made a scapegoat who is bearing the responsibly for other people's mistakes.

John McBeth, Dili – Peter Galbraith is not popular with Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Sonny Inbaraj, Darwin – Documentary filmmaker and cameraman Max Stahl – whose images of the 1991 Dili massacre in East Timor moved the world into taking action against Indonesia – is back in the fledgling nation to help the East Timorese deal with their past violent history and pave the way for healing and reconciliation.

Four years after Australia helped East Timor gain independence the good will is being threatened by a disputed line on the seabed that will decide how revenue from the multi-billion dollar oil and gas deposits is divided.

Jon Lamb – As the pre-election hype takes off, the issue of the disputed maritime boundary between East Timor and Australia has slipped from the mainstream political spotlight. Nonetheless, the big oil and gas companies with investments in the Timor Sea remain concerned about the stand-off between Dili and Canberra.

At the height of the East Timor crisis, Australia gave General Wiranto a stark ultimatum: back off or else. Now the former army chief has a strong chance of becoming Indonesian president, and Canberra is feeling nervous. Paul Daley reports.

Robyn Waite, Dili – The Asia Pacific Coalition for East Timor (APCET) is a coalition of Asian human rights groups and East Timor solidarity networks that was founded at a conference in Manila in 1994 with the aim of galvanising solidarity with East Timor's struggle for national self-determination.

Mark Baker, Jakarta – East Timor has invoked the wrath of God upon Australia in the bitter feud over the division of oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea.

Timorese Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta warned yesterday that God might strike to dry up the ocean between the two countries if Australia refused to give a fair share of the resources to his nation.

Dili – The state budget proposed by East Timor's ruling Fretilin party was approved Tuesday by the Dili parliament, although most opposition parties boycotted the debate and final vote in protest at the "arrogant" attitude of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.

Kupang – The United Nations Security Council lowered its security status in West Timor regency to Alert IV from Alert V after an evaluation by the UN Security Coordination team on May 13 this year, a senior military officer said here on Monday.

An Australian journalist has been deported from East Timor even though a court dismissed charges of illegal weapons possession and immigration violations, his attorney said Tuesday.

Julian King, 43, was forced to leave late Monday after a court in the capital, Dili, ruled that police had no evidence to support the charges against him, said his lawyer, Pedro de Oliveira.

Andre Vltchek – What can you do if your country is tiny and poor and your wealthy neighbor shamelessly exploits commonly shared area rich in natural resources depriving you of funds so much needed to feed your people?

The name of 58-year-old Kay Rala Xanana Gusmao has once more caught the Indonesian public's attention. Two weeks ago, Xanana met with Wiranto, former defense and security minister/armed forces commander, and now Golkar's presidential candidate.

Two martial arts gangs clashed in East Timor, leaving four dead including a 70-year-old man who tried to break up the brawl, police said Saturday.

The clash started late Tuesday when one gang accused the other of attacking innocent civilians in Urahu village, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) outside the capital Dili, National Police Commissioner Paul Fatima Martins said.

Amy Chew, Jakarta – Indonesian presidential candidate and former armed forces chief General Wiranto publicly apologised for the first time for the violence in Timor Leste, then called East Timor, that killed more than 1,000 people in 1999.

[While President Xanana Gusmao makes overtures of friendship towards Indonesia, there are many East Timorese who may never be able to forgive their country's former oppressors. Filmmaker Neil Barrett took their testimony.]

Andi Hajramuni, Makassar – Hundreds of East Timorese refugees who hail from South Sulawesi sealed off the province' high court on Wednesday to vent their frustration over the court's verdict in an embezzlement case.

An Australian man facing charges in East Timor claims he has been framed by local authorities.

Julian King, a freelance journalist and activist from Darwin, is charged with possessing ammunition and illegal documents and is still awaiting trial in Dili.

Kathy Marks – From the refugee camp of Sunkaer Laran, the mountains of East Timor are so close you can almost touch them. It is so close, and yet so far, for people gazing towards the border from their scruffy plywood huts in Indonesian West Timor.

The meeting between Xanana Gusmao and General (ret) Wiranto reaped condemnations in Timor Leste. As soon as he landed at Nicolau Lobato Airport, Dili, unlike his usual self, Timor Leste President Xanana Gusmao descended the steps with a sour expression. Carrying his son, accompanied by his wife, Kirsty Sword Gusmao, he stepped outside the airport on Monday, two weeks ago.