Alan Ramsey – Five years ago a brilliant man hanged himself. Five weeks ago a distinguished army officer put his career on the line in an extraordinary letter to the Prime Minister. Both men were driven by remarkably similar circumstances. Each felt betrayed by the closed, insiders' culture of Australia's intelligence community. One succumbed and took his life.

Alison Roberts,Lisbon – East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao has launched a fierce attack on Australia's attitude in its dealings with the fledgling country.

Mr Gusmao said there was an unequal struggle with Australia to secure oil and gas resources.

Alisa Newman Hood – Barely two years after achieving independence, East Timor is learning to navigate the stormy seas of new nationhood in more ways than one. Its population, the most destitute in Asia, continues to suffer the typical scourges of the desperately poor: widespread unemployment, illiteracy, high infant mortality and short life expectancy.

Lisbon – President Xanana Gusmao of East Timor said Thursday that his country's "unequal struggle" with Australia over disputed offshore hydrocarbon resources bore parallels with Dili's independence fight against Indonesia.

Hobart – The East Timorese were fuming over Australia's plans to steal their oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea, Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown said today.

Australia and East Timor began talks earlier this week to establish a permanent maritime boundary in the oil-rich Timor Sea.

Sydney – Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer rejected appeals to settle a maritime boundary dispute with East Timor in international courts Thursday and lashed critics who accuse Canberra of bullying its impoverished neighbour.

Hugh White – Our key agencies got the big questions right and called the issues as they saw them.

Let's test the recent claims made by Australian Army intelligence officers about the handling of intelligence over East Timor in 1999.

John Kerin and Steve Lewis – A classified document warning intelligence analysts of the risks of providing advice challenging a "pro-Jakarta lobby" in the bureaucracy was circulated within Australia's defence agencies in the late 1990s, a former senior analyst has told The Australian.

Mark Forbes, Canberra – A senior army officer may sue the Howard Government over his treatment after warning of widespread failings in the intelligence system.

Jakarta – Rights activists expressed dismay on Wednesday after a former Indonesian military chief accused of crimes against humanity became the Golkar party's presidential candidate.

Wiranto, 57, has been indicted in East Timor for failing to curb army-backed militia atrocities against independence supporters in the Indonesian-ruled territory in 1999.

In the wake of The Bulletin's damning exposi of Australia's intelligence services and the attempted character assassination of Lieutenant Colonel Lance Collins, come further explosive charges against the military and its political masters. John Lyons reports.

Vannessa Hearman, Melbourne – On April 14, 50 members of the Timor Sea Justice Campaign met outside the High Court to launch the group. Comedian Rod Quantock was joined by protesters disguised as Prime Minister John Howard and foreign minister Alexander Downer. They waded in the ornamental pool, making a grab for Timorese oil, represented by black balloons.

Viseu, Portugal – Economic difficulties in the world's newest nation, East Timor, are a potential source of violence, President Xanana Gusmao has warned.

Jon Lamb – The recently formed Movement Against the Occupation of the Timor Sea (MKOT) staged a series of peaceful demonstrations in Dili on April 14-16, demanding an end to the theft of East Timor's oil and gas resources.

Last month, the Australian government released new offshore areas for companies to bid for petroleum exploration permits. This includes territory that is much closer to East Timor's coast than to Australia, which East Timor's government claims as part of our national territory.

Dili – Australian Green Party leader Bob Brown said in Dili on Wednesday he is pessimistic about negotiations between East Timor and Australia over the disputed maritime boundary between the two countries.

Talking to reporters after meeting with East Timor Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, Brown said Australia would not change its mind on the boundary.

Now to East Timor, where for the last three days, teams from there and Australia have been in bitter negotiations over where our sea boundaries lie and who will control the oil and gas royalties within them, worth an estimated $30 billion. This has been an ongoing issue between the two countries, which to date has been handled reasonably amicably.

Nigel Wilson – Australia is being painted as a bully and an ogre for refusing to accept an East Timor argument that a maritime boundary should be negotiated that gives East Timor control of potentially billions of dollars in oil and gas revenues.

Bob Burton, Canberra – As protests mount in East Timor, the Australian government is under increasing pressure to agree to a maritime boundary halfway between the two countries rather than a border that would deprive the world's newest nation of billions of dollars in oil revenues.

Sonny Inbaraj, Dili – East Timorese activists have thrown their support behind their government's refusal to ratify an agreement giving Australia the lion's share of disputed oil and gas fields in the Timor Sea as talks begin here this week to demarcate the two countries' maritime boundaries.

Jakarta – Indonesia's largest political party picked a retired general indicted for human rights abuses in East Timor as its presidential candidate Wednesday, drawing condemnation from critics who called him a war criminal. The Golkar Party of ex-dictator Suharto selected Gen.

Dili – Tiny East Timor has launched another swingeing attack on Australia as the two countries begin formal talks to settle their sea border and the ownership of billions of dollars in offshore oil and gas revenues.

Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said the issue is "a matter of life and death" for his country, which was Asia's poorest nation upon independence in May 2002.

Sydney – Australia was on Monday accused of bullying impoverished East Timor about the division of revenue from a multi-billion dollar oil and gas field as talks to establish boundaries began in Dili.

Tanya Nolan: East Timor and Australia will this afternoon start nearly a week of talks, on the increasingly tense issue of a permanent maritime boundary.

And in the lead-up to the meeting in Dili, East Timor has turned up the pressure by threatening not to ratify an agreement for a seabed oil and gas project, worth $8 billion. From Canberra, Graeme Dobell reports.

Mark Colvin: Australia and East Timor appear to be on a potential collision course over the future of a seabed boundary between the two countries.

Officials from both countries are in Dili today for the start of new talks to resolve what's shaping up as a major thorn in bilateral relations.

Wahyoe Boediwardhana, Denpasar – East Timor Attorney General Longinus Montero said on Sunday the trial of former Indonesian Military chief Gen (ret) Wiranto for his alleged role in crimes against humanity and war crimes in the former Indonesian province might not materialize due to lack of evidence.

Erwin Z, Jakarta – A total of 278 Indonesian citizens currently residing in the An-Nur mosque, Dili, East Timor, have requested that the Indonesian Representatives' Office (KUKRI) in the country to pay attention to them as they have been isolated by the East Timorese authorities.

David Fickling, Sydney – East Timor risks becoming "another Haiti" because of an attempt by Australia to exploit offshore oil and gas reserves between the two countries, according to its president, Xanana Gusmao.

Jose Ramos-Horta – I have been fighting for the independence of my country since the early 1970s. I lost three brothers and a sister, as well as countless friends and relatives, to the violence visited upon my people during 25 years of brutal Indonesian occupation.

Jakarta – East Timor's last Indonesian-appointed governor Friday denounced a Supreme Court ruling convicting him for the 1999 bloodshed there, saying he was a scapegoat for army generals who escaped punishment.

Hamish Robertson: Here at home, the controversy over allegations of bias and intimidation in Australia's intelligence services has deepened this morning.

A new report has been released, backing claims by top military intelligence officer, Lieutenant Colonel Lance Collins, who says he's been victimised by a "pro-Jakarta lobby" in the intelligence community.

Tom Allard – The liberation of East Timor has frequently been cited by the Prime Minister, John Howard, as one of his proudest achievements in eight years of government. True enough, a nation was born and no Australian lives were lost in restoring order and quashing militia remnants in the ravaged former Indonesian province.

Scott Burchill – Just as fish cannot perceive the sea, humans are often unaware of the ideas and influences that shape their thoughts. Contested political arguments and dubious moral preferences are often presupposed rather than critically examined.

Mark Forbes, Canberra – The barrister whose report was used to deflect allegations of intelligence failings made by a senior military analyst says his views do not invalidate those allegations.

Sydney – A coalition of church and aid groups on Friday called for Australia to grant East Timor concessions in a border dispute over the resource-rich Timor Sea as the countries prepare for talks in Dili Monday.

Mark Colvin: One of the key claims in the Collins case is the statement by the Lieutenant Colonel that Australian Defence intelligence on East Timor was distorted by a pro-Jakarta lobby.

The Indonesian government has rejected claims that it is failing to prosecute those responsible for the carnage in East Timor following its vote for independence.

Indonesia set up an ad hoc human rights court in 2001 to investigate and judge individuals suspected of crimes against humanity in East Timor in 1999.

Tony Jones: Back now to our top story, the Colonel Collins affair and the Government's attempts to deal with it.

As we said earlier, the Defence Minister tonight released an internal legal review by a Melbourne QC that's highly sceptical of the Collins allegations. But do we now have the whole story?

Maputo – East Timor's foreign minister, Josi Ramos Horta, has accused Australia of delaying negotiations to demarcate the two countries' maritime borders in order to drain oil- and natural gas-riches from the Sea of Timor.

Amnesty International has accused the United Nations of dragging its feet in bringing Indonesian officers to justice for the army-backed militia atrocities in East Timor in 1999.

Tom Allard – As an intelligence officer at Australian theatre headquarters in Brisbane, Lieutenant-Colonel Lance Collins was charged with writing highly classified reports on East Timor.

In July 1998, he wrote a chilling assessment that the Indonesian military was sponsoring militia violence and the Indonesian province was a powder-keg.

Mark Colvin: More details, meanwhile, are emerging about the character of the intelligence officer at the centre of the calls for a royal commission and the battle he fought within the Defence Force against claimed bias and intimidation.

About a dozen people have rallied outside the Darwin office of the Member for Solomon this morning, to protest against Australia's treatment of East Timor in oil and gas negotiations.

East Timor's Prime Minister Mari Alkitiri has indicated his parliament will not be ratifying an agreement that allows the oil and gas reserves to be developed.

Sydney – Energy giant Woodside has warned it will scrap a multi-billion dollar oil and gas development in the Timor Sea unless East Timor ratified a controversial border treaty with Australia.

Nigel Wilson – East Timor says it may call on the US to broker a deal with Australia on maritime boundaries that would give it access to billions of dollars in oil and gas revenues now under Australian jurisdiction.

Indonesia's Supreme Court has upheld a three-year prison sentence handed to a former East Timor governor for crimes against humanity during the territory's bloody breakaway from Jakarta in 1999.

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta – The Supreme Court's decision find former East Timor governor Abilio Soares Jose Osorio Soares guilty of rights violations has drawn criticism from activists, who claimed the verdict was "discriminatory and insidious".

Jakarta – For the third consecutive time in recent weeks, the Supreme Court has acquitted a defendant of all charges of involvement in the 1999 mayhem in East Timor.

Jakarta – Indonesia's Supreme Court has upheld a special court's decision to acquit a middle-ranking officer and to sentence a senior government official on charges of gross human rights violations in East Timor in 1999 when its people voted to separate from Indonesia, court sources said late Wednesday.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – A human rights expert has called for new charges to be laid against senior Indonesian leaders, based on war crimes evidence salvaged from smouldering barracks during their army's 1999 retreat from East Timor.