Jill Jolliffe, Dili – An international expert says Australia "shares some responsibility" for the 1999 atrocities in East Timor, despite its leading role in the United Nations peacekeeping force.

Dili – Sitting in his cramped jail cell, Joanico Gusmao readily admits he helped torch a village and stabbed to death a pro-independence supporter during the violence that enveloped East Timor in 1999.

Rachland Nashidik – The past is catching up with General (ret) Wiranto. The Serious Crimes Unit (SCU) of the Attorney General's Office of East Timor (now Timor Leste) has proposed a legal motion for the arrest of the former defense and security minister/Indonesian Military commander.

Canberra's insistence on a bilateral resolution to sea border issue is not fair

Peter Kammerer – The tussle between East Timor and Australia for oil and gas reserves under the Timor Sea is becoming markedly vocal and tactical.

Brad Howarth – The newest nation is struggling to its feet, but little will happen without foreign investment.

Nigel Wilson – The federal Government's release of exploration acreage in the Timor Sea has been described as "a slap in the face" for East Timor Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.

Shadow resources minister Joel Fitzgibbon said it was another example of the Australian Government bullying East Timor over maritime boundaries.

Max Lane – On March 24, the Senate resumed debate of the Greater Sunrise Unitisation Bill 2004, a bill to allow for the implementation of the Greater Sunrise International Unitisation Agreement that the East Timorese government was pressured to sign last year. The IUA covers how government revenues from the Greater Sunrise gas field are to be calculated.

If Australia and East Timor cannot agree on a maritime boundary, let the court decide.

Canberra – Parliament passed legislation Monday allowing Australia and East Timor to share revenue from a Timor Sea gas and oil field in a deal that a Greens lawmaker said robs one of the world's poorest nations of vital revenue.

Jakarta – Indonesian will no longer pay attention to East Timor's Serious Crime Unit (SCU) which has accused several Indonesian officials of human rights violations, a spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday.

Dili – Tiny East Timor accused its giant neighbour Australia on Friday of breaching international law by issuing exploration licences in a disputed section of a giant gasfield in the sea area between them.

Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said his country is committed to honouring agreements with Canberra about the Greater Sunrise field.

Reporter: Anne Barker

Hamish Robertson: A children's schoolbook which portrays the President and Prime Minister of East Timor as monkeys has caused a diplomatic outcry.

A Washington-based organisation, the International Republican Institute, has compiled the book to teach children about the processes of democracy.

Matthew Moore, Jakarta – Former Indonesian military chief and prominent presidential candidate General Wiranto has challenged United Nations prosecutors in East Timor to come to Indonesia and discuss their allegations that he is guilty of gross human rights abuses.

Jill Jolliffe, Pante Macassar – The 45,000 inhabitants of East Timor's tiny enclave of Oecusse have suffered isolation and economic disadvantage as a result of independence in 2002, but this has not altered their passionately nationalist views.

Max Lane – Since the East Timorese independence referendum in 1999, the Australian government has received approximately $1 billion dollars in taxes on oil taken from the Laminaria Corallina field, which is fully situated in East Timorese territory.

Bob Burton, Canberra – East Timor's government, Australian political leaders and community groups are condemning the Australian government for what has been described as an attempt to 'rob' billions of dollars of revenues from oil and gas projects in the sea between the two countries.

Dili – UN prosecutors Tuesday urged East Timor's legal authorities to issue an international arrest warrant for Indonesia's former military supremo, saying he was responsible for war crimes committed by Indonesian forces in their former province in 1999.

Brendan Nicholson – A lobby group supporting East Timor wants Australia to put the billions flowing from some of the Timor Gap oil and gas fields into a trust fund until the boundary dispute is resolved.

Mark Davis – Moves to develop massive natural gas fields in the Timor Sea face new hurdles after East Timor's government yesterday strongly disputed the Australian government's interpretation of a deal between the two countries for exploitation of the resources.

Sian Powell, Jakarta – Accused war criminal, love-song crooner and charismatic speaker: Wiranto is an oddity even among Indonesia's eccentric array of presidential candidates.

Five years ago he was in charge of the nation's brutal armed forces and the master-mind of the relentless battle to hold on to East Timor.

Brendan Nicholson – The East Timorese Government says Australia is breaching international law by taking billions of dollars worth of fuel from parts of the Timor Sea oil and gas fields that East Timor says it owns.

East Timor has threatened to withold ratification of an agreement with Australia to develop oil and gas resources in the Timor Sea worth eight-billion US dollars. And East Timor says it could still take Australia to the International Court of Justice, even though Canberra says it will not submit to boundary rulings by the World Court.

Guido Guillart, Dili – An American group said on Thursday it cancelled plans to distribute a children's book on democracy in East Timor, after the country's leaders complained that the illustrations portrayed them as monkeys.

East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao said today he would not stand for re-election in his country's second presidential elections, are slated for 2007.

"I am tired. Five years is enough for me," the independence hero and former guerrilla leader told the Portuguese news agency Lusa.

Dili – A former Australian diplomat said his country's "policy of failure" was partly to blame for Indonesia's 1975 invasion of East Timor and its subsequent 24-year occupation that resulted in more than 150,000 deaths.

Kupang – East Timorese refugees in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) province can no longer claim any assets in East Timor, as Thursday was the deadline for the refugees to do so back in the country of their birth.

Washington – US legislators have urged Australia to negotiate its maritime boundary with East Timor to give the tiny nation a fair share of Timor Sea resources.

The fate of substantial oil and natural gas deposits between Australia and newly independent East Timor depends on a boundary agreement to be hammered out between the two countries.

Canberra – Australian opposition lawmakers on Wednesday held up legislation to ratify an oil and gas field development deal with East Timor, saying the agreement exploited the impoverished nation.

Jakarta – The Supreme Court upheld the acquittal of five top-brass military and police defendants in a case involving East Timor human rights abuses during 1999, a justice said.

East Timor today welcomed proposals to form a new foreign police unit, including Australian officers, to boost security after the current United Nations mission is scaled down in May.

Brian Brady, Westminster editor – A fresh row has broken out over the brutal murder of a Scottish journalist and four colleagues at the hands of Indonesian troops almost 30 years ago, after an Australian company revealed they want to make a film of the tragedy.

Jakarta – Former president Soeharto's daughter Siti Hardiyanti Indra Rukmana visited former East Timor integration fighters at their "Seroja" housing complex here on Thursday, pledging to help them send their children to school.

Trevor Sykes with Andrew Burrell – East Timor's Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri, has angrily rejected claims he accepted $US2.5 million in bribes from oil and gas company ConocoPhillips to secure an investment in the Timor Sea, threatening to sue the company for including them in a legal action in the US.

Nigel Wilson and Roy Eccleston, Washington – The battle over the Timor Sea's vast gas reserves intensified yesterday with political delays to the Greater Sunrise field development coinciding with a call from senior US Congress members for Australia to accelerate talks on a new maritime boundary with East Timor.

Less than two years after winning independence, war-ravaged East Timor is hoping to lure travelers to its coral reefs and colonial towns. Christopher R. Cox reports on the country's prospects for success

by Christopher R. Cox

London – Many people are shot dead by police forces who do not follow United Nations standards on using lethal force only where necessary and in self-defence, Amnesty International says.

Sian Powell – The son of one of East Timor's most feared militia leaders stares deadpan as he says he is a man of peace. "We don't intend to remain opposed to our brothers there [in East Timor]," explains Arnaldo da Silva Tavares, whose father, Joao Tavares, ruled the East Timorese border region like a particularly manic king through most of 1999.

A proposal to extend a peacekeeping presence in East Timor has received widespread support from the United Nations Security Council, and strong support from East Timor itself. But some countries, including Australia, believe a UN police presence is more than adequate to the task.

Presenter/Interviewer: Anita Barraud

East Timor's Roman Catholic Bishop Carlos Belo says he will consider running for president in three years time.

Bishop Belo, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 with Jose Ramos Horta for their opposition to Indonesian rule in East Timor, says his decison would depend on President Xanana Gusmao choosing not to seek re-election.

Rodney Dalton/New York, Sian Powell/Jakarta – Australia is trying to convince a divided UN Security Council that peacekeepers in East Timor should be replaced by police under a new mandate.

The rumours started four years ago. SAS troops in conflict with an Indonesian-backed militia group near Suai on October 6, 1999 had overstepped the rules of battle. They had tortured East Timorese militiamen, the rumours said. They had kicked corpses. They had taken photographs of bodies as trophies. One militiaman had been executed.

Dili – East Timorese officials Thursday welcomed a proposal by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to extend the UN support mission in the new nation for one more year.

"The president welcomes and fully supports the recommendations of the secretary-general," said Agio Periera, chief of staff to President Xanana Gusmao.

Atambua, E Nusatenggara – At least 319 resettlement units in Belu distrit set up in Indonesia's East Nusatenggara province between 2000 and 2002 for local people and former East Timor refugees have been abandoned, an Indonesian official said here Thursday.

Dili – Indonesian presidential candidate General Wiranto has won a political reprieve in East Timor after a UN judge denied a prosecutor's demand for a public hearing over a requested arrest warrant.

Dili – United Nations Secretary- General Kofi Annan has recommended that the UN's peacekeeping mission in East Timor continues after its planned May withdrawal, but with a significant reduction in personnel.

United Nations – Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for the withdrawal of almost all UN peacekeepers in East Timor and a shift in the UN's focus to helping the newly independent country consolidate its political institutions.

Kupang – The United Nations Peacekeeping Force (UNPKF) in East Timor aired its pessimism over the security conditions there following the withdrawal of the UN mission scheduled for May 20, an Indonesian Military officer said on Wednesday.

Dili – A former militia commander was sentenced to seven years in jail Tuesday for killing a pro-independence leader during East Timor's bloody break from Indonesia in 1999.

The Army today admitted it made mistakes in investigating the case of a senior Special Air Service (SAS) soldier accused of kicking the corpses of two militiamen shot dead in East Timor in 1999. An apology had been made to the unnamed soldier.