Vaudine England, Jakarta – Paramilitary leader Eurico Guterres, notorious for his leadership of the East Timorese Aitarak, or Thorn militia, has been charged with crimes against humanity along with six others.

Yemris Fointuna, Kupang – The Indonesian Military (TNI) Headquarters has yet to consider transferring the headquarters of the Udayana Regional Military Command from Denpasar, Bali, to the East Nusa Tenggara capital of Kupang, Udayana Regional Military Commander Maj. Gen. Willem T. da Costa said on Monday.

Max Lane – A major theme of the ceremony that took place in Dili on May 20 to proclaim the independence of East Timor was that the three-year period of United Nations transitional administration was a great success. However, East Timor has been one of the great failures of the UN.

Ian Munro – Premier Steve Bracks has asked Prime Minister John Howard not to force 1700 asylum seekers to return to East Timor.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, Mr Bracks said many of the 1400 East Timorese in Melbourne had no homes to return to and did not want to revisit the scenes of trauma and destruction experienced during the Indonesian occupation.

Ian Munro – It is more than seven years since Anna Fam, now 70, fled East Timor with her mother and several of her grandchildren. There is not a moment's hesitation when asked if she would choose to return.

Ian Timberlake, Dili – An official has revealed new details about counterinsurgency operations two years ago that killed several pro-Indonesia militiamen and crippled their efforts to destabilize East Timor's transition to independence.

About a quarter of East Timorese exiles in Portugal who return to their native shores decide to come back to the European country after seeing conditions in Timor, a Portuguese NGO has revealed.

Ian Timberlake, Motaain – Joao Pereira's East Timor home is just a few miles from here, but until recently it was a distance he had been reluctant to travel.

Alan Boyd, Sydney – Worried about the strategic vulnerability of its eastern flanks, Indonesia is discreetly lobbying for East Timor to be granted early observer status in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Jill Jolliffe – A week after East Timor became independent, the terrace of Dili's City Cafe is near deserted. Days before, it was crowded with media crews, international VIPs who had graced the independence ceremony and the United Nations officials who have made it their watering hole since it opened in 2000.

East Timor has come a long way since the establishment of the United Nations Transitional Administration in the country, in 1999. The world's newest State has emerged, and in May of this year, a new labour code was signed into force.

Harald Bruning – Less than a fortnight after becoming the world's newest nation, East Timor is struggling to consolidate its hard-won democracy and solve myriad social problems left behind by Portuguese colonial neglect, brutal Indonesian occupation and rather transitory nation-building efforts by the United Nations.

Associated Press in Jakarta – A notorious militia leader told a human rights court yesterday that his group's activities in East Timor were funded by an Indonesian government official – but denied knowing about killings allegedly committed by his men.

Kupang – Col. Moeswarno Moesanip, chief of the Wirasakti Military District supervising security in East Nusa Tenggara, turned down East Timor's request for the province to allow overland public transportation from Dili to proceed its enclave Oecusi through Atambua for security reasons.

Joseph Nevins – East Timor became the world's first new country of the millennium on May 20 and, appropriately, the Bush administration poured salt on East Timor's deep wounds. Bush's salt took the form of Bill Clinton and Richard Holbrooke, Clinton's last United Nations ambassador. Bush tapped the pair to head the US delegation to East Timor's recent independence celebration.

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, Jakarta – Two of the survivors in the April 1999 incident at Liquica Church in East Timor testified here on Thursday that what happened on the day was an attack on scared people by armed pro-integration militiamen.

Joanna Jolly, Dili – The government on Friday urged Indonesia to abandon any hope of retrieving assets from its former territory of East Timor, saying Jakarta's brutality and economic exploitation during its occupation nullified any claims to what it left behind.

David Shanks, Dili – "The reconciliations are amazing. They sit in little huddles and cry and hug each other." A UN refugees' official was describing the work of Dili's La Quarantina transit centre for refugees returning to independent East Timor.

Eric Ellis – For most of the chic clientele at Dili's City Cafe, the awesome struggle facing the Democratic Republic of Timor Lorosa'e seems the least of their concerns.

Joe Leahy and Tom McCawley – When the veteran United Nations official Sergio Vieira de Mello went to Tokyo in late 1999 to lobby donors for funds to rebuild East Timor, he had no inkling of the task that lay before him.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – A Portuguese company is poised to win a $US16 million contract to set up East Timor's new telecommunications network, further consolidating Portugal's commercial influence in the new nation.

Jakarta – Two East Timorese bearing scars from a 1999 massacre Thursday told Indonesia's human rights court of a day of terror when militiamen brandishing guns and machetes attacked a church and killed 22 people.

Pandaya, Dili – There is a tragicomedy taking place in the East Timor's elementary schools. It revolves around the teachers' low proficiency of the Portuguese language, which the government has decided to use as the official language of instruction for grades one to three.

[In the 2.5 years of UN administration in East Timor, the UN has been criticised for failing to pursue those responsible for the atrocities of 1999. With new president Xanana Gusmao's commitment to reconciliation with Indonesia and its former militia, there are fears that justice will be equally elusive in an independent East Timor. Dateline's Mark Davis reports.]

Review by Jon Land – This is a two-part series looking at how two different individuals begin new lives in East Timor following the August 31, 1999 referendum on independence.

As East Timor struggles with its new relationship with Canberra, a book is being published on Australia's role in that extraordinary journey to independence from 1998. Titled "Deliverance – The Inside Story of East Timor's Fight for Freedom", it's the work of two Australian journalists, Don Greenless in Jakarta and Robert Garran in Canberra.

[The following is a slightly abridged version of a speech given by Sarah Stephen, a member of the Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific brigade to East Timor, at a protest organised by a number of East Timorese groups in Dili on May 19.]

Newly independent East Timor urged former ruler Indonesia to drop its compensation demand for assets left behind after Jakarta ended its two-decade occupation of the country.

But Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta played down Jakarta's decision to postpone indefinitely a visit by Dili's new leaders to Indonesia which had been scheduled for Wednesday.

Sarah Stephen, Dili – May 19 marked the turning point of a historic period of transition for the East Timorese people. It was the last day of operation for the UN Transitional Administration of East Timor (UNTAET), bringing to a close more than 400 years of foreign rule.

Geoffrey Barker – There are three forms of land title in East Timor, reflecting the country's long history of foreign occupation.

Some land, notably rural land, is held under customary communal title. During 450 years of Portuguese rule, 2,709 parcels of land were given to the colonial elites. During Indonesia's 24-year rule, some 44,000 land parcels were handed out.

[Australia's decision not to negotiate maritime boundaries with East Timor has surprised the new republic's Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.

Geoffrey Barker – Life is cheap and law is scarce in East Timor. How effective justice will be remains to be seen as the new nation's police and legal systems are being put in place.

[East Timor's adored first president says he welcomes the tough tasks ahead. Three years ago, Jose (Xanana) Gusmo was a political prisoner languishing in a Jakarta prison. Today he's president of the world's newest nation.

Don Greenlees, Jakarta – Foreign Minister Alexander Downer yesterday signalled Australia would dismiss any proposals from newly independent East Timor to radically change seabed boundaries because it would risk unravelling thousands of kilometres of boundaries that have already been settled with Indonesia.

Irwan Firdaus, Jakarta – Like most lawmakers in Indonesia's Parliament, Natercia Do Menino Jesus Osoria Soares insists she is the voice of her people. The only problem is that the people live in another country.

Four Indonesian parliamentarians are hanging on to their positions despite their East Timorese electorate having broken away from the republic nearly three years ago.

Amid calls to give up their seats, the MPs insist they are representing the interests of the Timorese remaining in Indonesia.

Michael Richardson, Uotolari – Paradoxically, the neat figure of the Reverend Damianus Wagur seated behind a school desk in his office epitomizes the complexity of East Timor's recent history. Wagur, a missionary teacher from Flores, a predominantly Christian island of Indonesia, directs the senior high school in this town about 250 kilometers southeast of Dili.

HT Lee – When Howard claimed Australia is generous by giving East Timor a 90% share of the royalties – what he forgot to mention is that it is only for one of the three oil and gas fields off the Timor Sea – Bayu-Undan.

Jennifer Wells – On the news a few evenings back, CBC correspondent Patrick Brown contextualized the birth of the new nation of East Timor by emphasizing how small it is. With a population of just 800,000 souls, Brown made the point that the former Indonesian-occupied east end of an island is no bigger, people-wise, than Winnipeg.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute says disaffected members of East Timor's guerilla group Falintil are forming into armed groups and pose a serious threat to security in the new nation.

At the Northern Territory University in Darwin, the Institute's Elsina Wainwright has released a study on security and defence issues relating to the new nation.

The head of East Timor's Roman Catholic Church, Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, has said that the Dili correspondent of the Portuguese Lusa news agency "should be withdrawn from East Timor" for having written an article on church power in the new country which was "full of insults and lack of education".

Edith M. Lederer, United Nations – Acting with unusual speed, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution Thursday recommending that the 189-nation General Assembly admit East Timor as a new member.

Jonathan Steele – It's a hard world to be born into, even for nation-states. This week East Timor, half of a small island a few hundred miles north of Australia, became the youngest member of the so-called international community.

Reacting Thursday to calls from East Timor's religious leader for the expulsion of a Portuguese correspondent from Dili, Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said there will be freedom of the press in the new nation.

Jon Land – As the official festivities wind down in East Timor following the May 20 independence celebrations and the international dignitaries fly back to their comfortable and privileged lifestyles, a beckoning question for most East Timorese remains, what does independence hold?

Aaron Goodman, Dili – The unfurling of East Timor's flag and the lighting of fireworks on Sunday marked the formal coming out of the newest country of the millennium, one whose test of nationhood will be under way for many years to come.

Lincoln Wright – To avoid provoking Indonesia, Australia should pull its 1450 troops out of East Timor after the United Nations leaves in 2004, according to a new defence report.

But the Howard Government should help upgrade East Timor's police force to improve security.

Aboeprijadi Santoso and Yemris Fointuna, Dili/Kupang – Despite reconciliatory gestures from their leaders, the future of ties between Indonesia and its new neighbor East Timor hangs in the balance due to a legacy of wide-ranging unfinished business.

Tom Hyland, Dili – On its first day as an independent nation, East Timor yesterday warned Australia of a tough fight ahead for a greater share of Timor Sea oil and gas revenue, even as the two sides signed a treaty to exploit resources in the energy-rich seabed area.

East Timor hailed its move to democracy May 20 by signing the Timor Gap Treaty with Australia just hours after becoming the world's newest independent state. However, the signing of the treaty was more an empty symbol of goodwill than a declaration of cooperation between the two on developing the Timor Sea's vast natural resources.