Jill Jolliffe, Dili – A leader of East Timor's parliamentary opposition has described an agreement regulating conditions for US troops in the territory as "an affront to East Timorese sovereignty".

The International Finance Institutions (the IMF, World Bank, the ADB) present a real threat to East Timorese economic independence.

Jakarta – Nearly 400 displaced East Timorese sheltering in West Timor have been forced to eat leaves for the past month as they cannot afford to buy rice, a government official says.

Karen Polglaze, Canberra – Australian ratification of the Timor Gap Treaty could increase the risk of political instability in East Timor, a parliamentary committee was told today.

An East Timorese man, wounded in an attack on a refugee-packed compound in Dili in April 1999, told a court here that Indonesian soldiers were among the attackers.

East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao called Monday for Portugal to strengthen the "bridge" connecting his country and the European Union, adding that Lisbon's backing would be invaluable in developing Dili's embrionic foreign policy.

Jakarta – East Timor said on Monday it wants its land border with Indonesia to be gradually de-militarised and hopes all frontier disputes with its former ruler can be solved by next year.

Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo – My native East Timor became the 191st member of the United Nations last week. We reached this milestone after a 24-year war in our island nation that left few families unaffected. Justice and common sense dictate that positive lessons be drawn from these tragic events, not only for my people but for many others throughout the world.

Yogyakarta – East Timor's Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta said on Saturday he doubted allegations Australian troops tortured pro-Jakarta militiamen and shot one in the head during a peace mission in the territory in 1999.

Jill Jolliffe, Bazartete – Ever since Lysistrata and her sisters refused sex to their warmongering husbands in ancient Greece, women have had a special role to play in brokering peace.

In East Timor, the militia violence of 1999 was almost exclusively the work of men. They may have been bit players in an Indonesian master plan but that, too, was men's business.

Adam Morton, Melbourne – Australia will have to step in and "sort out" East Timorese politics within five years unless the Timor Sea Treaty is balanced, the ACTU said today.

Rod McGuirk – East Timorese private sector groups today urged the federal government not to ratify the new Timor Sea Treaty.

Leaders of the East Timor National NGO Forum, Institute for Reconstruction Monitoring Analysis and Independent Information Centre for the Timor Sea flew to Darwin to address the Federal Parliament Treaties Committee.

East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao appealed to business leaders in the former colonial power Portugal Friday to invest in his war-battered country, recently admitted to the United Nations.

Tom Allard and Jill Jolliffe – The bodies of two militia fighters, one of them alleged to have been summarily executed by the Australian SAS in East Timor, have been exhumed by United Nations order as part of investigations into the incident.

The alleged war crime centres on claims someone using a handgun of a senior SAS officer shot one of the militia members in the head.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – East Timorese authorities are fighting an invasion by Indonesian prostitutes, who have swarmed into Dili since independence on May 20.

Mark Forbes and Jill Jolliffe – The Australian Defence Force has promised a vigorous investigation into allegations that SAS troops carried out torture and murder in East Timor, and will examine the exhumed bodies of two militia fighters.

East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao prepared to head to Portugal Thursday after a "positive" round of meetings in Washington, including talks with President George Bush.

The bodies of two Timorese militiamen shot dead in a gun battle with Australian soldiers in 1999 have been exhumed as part of an inquiry into allegations of torture and brutality by SAS troops.

Rumours a captured pro-Indonesian militiaman was summarily executed by Australian troops in East Timor had floated around special forces circles for some time, a defence commentator said today.

[The Australian government has begun four days of hearings into the Timor Sea Treaty it signed with East Timor on the day of that country's declaration of independence in May this year. The Treaty covers the Joint Petroleum Development Area in the Timor Sea from which East Timor will earn most of its income for the foreseeable future.

Jane Counsel – The key players developing gas resources in the Timor Sea have urged the Federal Government to ratify the Timor Sea Treaty without delay or risk losing billions of dollars in revenue.

Geneva – Newly-independent Timor -Leste, formerly East Timor, has just 47 doctors for its 850,000 citizens because of large-scale emigration, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday.

Rachel S.

Ray Brindal, Canberra – East Timor doesn't recognize a claim by PetroTimor Comphanhia de Petroleos SARL over energy-rich concessions in the Timor Sea, according to a senior East Timor government official.

East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao on 27 September marked his country's admission as the UN's 191st member with a defence of the right to independence of both the Palestinians and the people of the Western Sahara.

Irwin Arieff, United Nations – The tiny Southeast Asian nation of East Timor, the first country to be born in the 21st century, won a seat at the United Nations on Friday, swelling the world body's membership to 191.

Dili – East Timor becomes the 191st member of the United Nations on Friday, an historic day for the world's newest nation after a bloody transition from Indonesian rule, but East Timorese complain it will pass virtually unnoticed in their own land.

New York – On the eve of East Timor's joining the United Nations, the president of the former Indonesian-held territory said he would not advise other regions to use armed struggles as their route to independence.

New York – East Timor's fragile peace will only hold if the international community continues to provide assistance and not abandon the country, said the fledgling nation's foreign minister.

East Timor, which gained independence from Indonesia through a United Nations-backed referendum in 1999, is desperately poor and heavily dependent on foreign aid.

Jane Counsel – A former top executive with US oil and gas group Unocal is set to reopen the debate about the Sunrise gasfield in the Timor Sea by arguing its gas should be piped to East Timor, not Darwin.

Sophie Douez, Canberra – The Federal Government yesterday denied refugee claims to 168 East Timorese who fled the then-Indonesian territory seeking asylum in Australia almost a decade ago.

[Indonesia is moving to settle its maritime border issues with East Timor and is keen to see Australia do the same, according to a senior government advisor. East Timor is keen to renegotiate its maritime boundaries with Australia to maximise its share of the rich Timor Sea oil and gas resources, a move Australia is resisting.

Dili – East Timor's Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta has said that despite his country's 24-year struggle for freedom from Indonesian rule, it would not support independence movements in Aceh, Papua and other restive parts of Indonesia.

Robson Seth – "Kill the police" were the only words part-time soldier, Lieutenant Colonel Greg Hart, could understand, as he faced an angry mob of East Timorese dissidents.

Ray Brindal Canberra – East Timor has been poorly dealt with by Australia and companies wanting to develop vast natural gas resources in the Timor Sea, John Imle, a former president and former vice president of US- based energy company Unocal Corp., said this week.

The leader of East Timor's Catholic community, Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, appealed Monday to Portugal's people to give more help to his country, whose situation, he said, is "worse than before independence".

The Federal Defence Minister says Australian military commitment to peacekeeping in East Timor will be phased out over the next 18 months.

Senator Robert Hill was in Darwin yesterday to farewell soldiers heading to East Timor in a peacekeeping role. Included in the battalion is Alpha Company, manned largely by reservists.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – New Zealand's Labour Government is the latest to reveal the skeletons in its closet over Indonesia's 1975 East Timor invasion, but the Melbourne family of a Wellington-born cameraman killed there says it is not satisfied.

Ray Lilley, Wellington – East Timor President Xanana Gusmao has called on the international community not to forget his tiny new nation, which became the 191st member of the United Nations in late May.

Jakarta – The Indonesian government and international agencies have agreed that as of December 31 this year, all East Timorese refugee camps in West Timor will be shut down.

Geoffrey Barker – East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao yesterday criticised the heavily armed Australian army presence in front of the Australian embassy in Dili and demanded that Australia co-ordinate this with the East Timor Government.

Mr Gusmao's criticism was published as the main front-page article in the Timor Post newspaper.

Keith Moor – East Timor is in danger of being infiltrated by crime gangs intent on using it as a stepping stone to Australia.

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said his force was working with the East Timorese Government to lessen the risks.

Munir, Jakarta – The first round of the ad hoc Human Rights Tribunal on the East Timor case ended in anticlimax as the suspects of crimes against humanity were mostly acquitted from all charges. The verdict cast by the first human rights court conducted in this republic's history carries a danger that we may not have taken seriously.

Jakarta – The new government in East Timor would try to heal the psychological trauma suffered by many of its people in the 1999 violence when Indonesia withdrew from the territory, the country's health minister said.

Jakarta – Unsure about the outcome of reconciliation attempts by former pro-Indonesia fighters, leaders of East Timorese people in squalid camps in Belu, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), have started urging refugees to participate in transmigration programs to other parts of the country.

Canberra – Australia reopened its embassy in East Timor on Monday after it was closed following a threat against Australian interests in the fledgling nation but said travellers should remain on alert.

Keith Moor – Victorian officers attached to the United Nations found the graves of 24 massacre victims and will this month start exhuming the bodies.

They have identified the senior militia members responsible for torturing and killing the pro-independence Timorese villagers.

Audrey Young – Jose Ramos-Horta, East Timor's Foreign Minister, is everything his country is not: highly educated, sophisticated and stylish.

For 25 years he roamed the globe as an international spokesman for East Timorese independence, acquiring degrees, a doctorate and a Nobel Peace Prize on the way.

Nick O'malley – Fresh out of a Dili jail, Edit Horta, sister-in-law of East Timor's foreign minister, Jose Ramos Horta, island-hopped to Darwin in 1994.

She was pregnant and had an eight-year-old son in tow, but the need to escape Indonesia's oppressive rule and be reunited with her three daughters, who escaped two years earlier, kept her going.

A Dili court has sentenced a Timorese man who belonged to a pro-Indonesian militia to twenty years imprisonment for three murders that he committed in 1999, it was announced Wednesday.