Tom Hyland and Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – A fully armed Indonesian warship was last night ordered out of Dili Harbour by East Timor and the United Nations after it arrived unannounced and in violation of an agreement covering tomorrow's independence celebrations.

Conservative and isolated for decades, East Timor's Catholic Church is the most powerful institution in the soon-to-be nation, with many Timorese saying its charismatic leader, Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, commands more respect than Xanana Gusamo.

Alexander Weissink, Jakarta – The world's youngest democracy will have to stand on its own feet from Sunday. On this day East Timor will become the first newly independent nation of the 21st century. After more than 400 years of colonial rule by Portugal, 25 years of Indonesian occupation and over two years under UN administration, the wish of its people is being fulfilled.

Joanne Collins, Manatuto – Fidgeting in his chair and staring at the ground, Matias Soares recalls the night he and other pro-Jakarta militiamen went on a rampage, torching houses one by one, after East Timor voted to break from Indonesian rule in 1999.

Soares and his mates in this seaside town of Manatuto had just looted beer from a kiosk and were roaring drunk.

Bronwyn Curran, Dili – The flags of the world are fluttering above a frenzy of roof-fixing, painting and construction as East Timor's waterfront capital spruces up to welcome VIPs from 92 countries, including UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and exUS president Bill Clinton, for its giant May 19 independence party.

East Timor Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo complained of the rise in foreign prostitutes in the staunchly Catholic territory, which becomes independent at midnight on Sunday.

The United Nations Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) asked the East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) administration on Thursday to protect East Timorese students studying in Kupang from intimidation carried out by a group of Timorese refugees.

Adam Majendie. Dili – At midnight on Sunday, the eastern part of the island of Timor, 500 kilometers north of Australia, ends four centuries of foreign rule to become the world's newest country. It gains independence only in name.

Tim Dodd, Jakarta – On the eve of East Timor's independence a majority of Indonesians, ranging from the influential political elite to ordinary people, appear ready to accept the new nation as a friendly neighbour.

Alan Boyd, Sydney – Time is running out for a settlement of disputed oil and gas royalties in the Timor Gap, as Australia turns up the diplomatic heat on the fledgling Timorese republic just ahead of its independence celebrations.

As Bill Clinton leads the US delegation to East Timor's independence celebration, the East Timor Action Network (ETAN) urged that the history of US support for Indonesia's military occupation of East Timor not be forgotten. On May 20, East Timor will become the first new nation of the millennium.

Dean Yates, Dili – Caitono Soares erupted in anger when he saw East Timor's national flag being peddled from the back of a car in the capital Dili.

Lely T. Djuhari, Jakarta – Not everyone will be cheering Monday when East Timor declares its independence and becomes the world's newest nation two years after seceding from Indonesia.

Eric Ellis, Dili – A warrior of the East Timor Defence Force stands guard outside the offices of Aderito Hugo da Costa, editor-in-chief of Dili's Timor Post.

Chris McCall, Dili – Nearly 20 years ago, the remote East Timor community of Muapitine was shaken by a string of killings. The victims were clandestine resistance workers and their own relatives joined in the killing.

Colum Lynch, United Nations – The United States is seeking assurances from the United Nations that all UN personnel serving in a peacekeeping mission in East Timor would be shielded from prosecution by a local court or international tribunal on war crimes charges, according to US and other Western officials.

East Timor has traditionally been a patriarchal society with limited opportunities for women, but Maria Domingas, an ex-guerilla, says that it is now necessary to "start from scratch" in the struggle for equality between the sexes.

Stephanie Coop – After a lifetime dedicated to fighting for a free East Timor, Jacinto Alves will finally see his country move to full independence Monday, when the United Nations' transitional administration steps aside to make way for the country's first democratically elected government.

Asia's newest nation has been officially listed by the UN as the poorest country in the region. But many see East Timor's economic future as being dependent on the deal it strikes with Australia over oil and gas reserves in the East Timor Sea.

Joanne Collins, Dili – Paint is being slapped on fences, scaffolding is coming down from buildings, weeds are being ripped up and soccer fields are getting new goal posts.

Chris Brummitt, Dili – Children in East Timor are having trouble getting their tongues around their new official language. After years of speaking Indonesian, they now are having to learn Portuguese, the language of the territory's former rulers.

Tim Dodd – Dili, which becomes the capital of the independent state of East Timor at midnight this Sunday, is a relatively prosperous town for a developing country.

And Dili is the only place in East Timor which most of the VIP visitors will see when they arrive for this weekend's independence celebrations.

John Martinkus, Kupang – On the outskirts of the West Timorese capital, Kupang, a dusty former bus terminal still serves as the home for some of the estimated 60,000 East Timorese refugees who have not returned home.

Jon Land – On the eve of East Timor's independence on May 20, the crucial issue of the Timor Gap has still to be fully resolved. East Timor may lose billions of dollars in oil and gas royalties if the Australian government and the large petrochemical companies get their way.

Rod McGuirk – East Timor has a good chance of becoming financially independent in a few years through Timor Sea energy royalties, the World Bank told donor nations yesterday.

Delegates from 27 countries, including Australia, met in Dili today to consider East Timor's extraordinary request for $US77 million in direct budgetary aid for its first year of independence.

Don Greenlees, Dili – Francisco Alves voted in favour of East Timor remaining a part of Indonesia in the 1999 referendum on independence. When the vote went the other way, 10 families from the small coastal village of Ulmera, including his own, decided to flee across the border into West Timor.

Former Indonesian militia leader Eurico Guterres is being questioned in Jakarta today at the trials of 18-military, police and civilian officials accused of human rights abuses in East Timor. But a new report released by the International Crisis Group has described the trials as a farce.

Nusa Dua, Bali – Udayana Military Commander Maj. Gen. Willem T. Da Costa, who oversees Bali, West and East Nusa Tenggara provinces, warned on Monday pro-Indonesia East Timorese in East Nusa Tenggara against staging demonstrations on May 20, the day of East Timor's independence.

Tim Dodd – The infant Government of East Timor is supposed to have a car registration system and, indeed, there are plenty of vehicles on the road sporting the new TLS plates standing for Timor Loro Sae, as the country is known in the local Tetum language.

jakarta – A civilian and policeman testified on Monday at the trial of four soldiers and one policeman accused of gross human rights violations in East Timor in 1999 that they saw all the defendants at the scene of the church incident in Suai.

Joanne Collins, Dili – Tiny East Timor, counting down to its independence in a few days, is Asia's poorest country and will need considerable international assistance in the years ahead, the United Nations said on Monday.

Chris McCall at Mota Ain, the Timor border – Torn between tears and smiles, the refugees line up with all their worldly goods and wait to go home. Some are even bringing their dead.

Waiting to cross the frontier to his native East Timor, Mateas Soares has little to say except that he has to go home. "It is my place of birth. I have to go back," said the father of four.

Michael Richardson, Bacau – Marito Reis spent nearly 15 years in Indonesian prisons after he was arrested in 1980 for being a member of the clandestine underground movement supporting the small band of armed guerrillas fighting for the independence of East Timor.

As East Timor readies for independence on 20 May, Jakarta correspondent Richard Galpin writes that most of those who wreaked terrible violence after the 1999 vote to end Indonesian rule still walk free.

"It is not to get justice for the victims, it's just lip service" Human rights lawyer Johnson Panjaitan

Philip Sherwell, Maliana – In a calculated snub to the United Nations and Europe, the prime suspect in the murder of a Financial Times journalist in East Timor in 1999 returned to the territory last week as part of an official Indonesian military delegation on a goodwill visit.

Chris McCall in Noelbaki Camp, West Timor – Among decrepit huts, a few hundred disgruntled and demoralised East Timorese militiamen are pondering a bleak future, a shadow of the terror they once were.

Tim Dodd, Dili – Commodity markets are doing no favours for East Timor, which becomes an independent nation next weekend, with prices for coffee, its most valued agricultural product, languishing in the doldrums.

However, the answer may be as simple as plain vanilla, a product which grows in the same cool, tropical highlands as coffee but can sell for 200 times as much.

New York (CNS) – A "new consciousness of democratic ideals" and "assertive nationalism" is emerging in East Timor, said Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo of Dili, East Timor.

Tiarma Siboro and Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, Jakarta – An Indonesian Military (TNI) general said on Wednesday that the United Nations had a share of the blame in the violence and human rights violations before, during and after the UN-organized referendum in East Timor in August 1999.

[Ivete D'Oliveira began working with CIIR's Women's Advocacy Programme in August 2001. She talked to Catherine Scott about her work and about the experiences of East Timorese women in the transition to independence.]

Rowan Callick – The human rights trials under way in Jakarta over the events in East Timor in 1999 are reinforcing the near-universal image in Indonesia of the conflict as a civil war between equally matched Timorese factions, with Indonesian security forces as bystanders.

Paul Knox – Most poor countries are in hock to rich ones. This is not necessarily a bad thing, any more than a car loan or a mortgage. But overindebtedness is definitely a bad thing. And too many countries have too much debt – often the result of irresponsible behaviour by their own leaders, foreign lenders or both.

Three witnesses told the Human Rights Tribunal on Tuesday that they saw a number of people in military uniform burying victims of a massacre in a mass grave in Metamauk village in Wemasa, Belu, East Nusa Tenggara, in 1999.

East Timor's Truth and Reconciliation Commission faces huge problems, not least a long local tradition of revenge, writes Hamish McDonald.

East Timorese exiles in Indonesia could help lead a revolt in their former homeland if leaders of the newly-independent nation fail to bring prosperity, an exiles' leader said.

"People in the villages can't pay for their kids' schooling, can't pay for medicine," said Armindo Soares Mariano, acting head of Uni Timor Aswain (UNTAS).

Jennifer Hewett And Jane Counsel – Woodside is caught in another hot debate. A year ago, the hot political issue facing Clare Martin was her promise to end mandatory sentencing for juveniles. That was if Labor won government in the Northern Territory. Not that anyone expected it to least of all Clare Martin herself.

Don Greenlees, Jakarta – Three years after East Timor was laid waste by Indonesian military-sponsored militia, the country's President-elect, Xanana Gusmao, declared yesterday that justice for the perpetrators would take a back seat to social development in the priorities of the first independent East Timorese Government.

Indonesia's army chief has urged his countrymen to forget their traumatic past with East Timor and embrace its sovereignty, amid lingering bitterness about the territory's breakaway.

East Timor's president-elect Xanana Gusmao met Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri in Jakarta to personally invite her to attend his country's independence celebrations later this month.

Mark Baker – East Timorese Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta has ruled out any backing for separatist movements within Indonesia once the country achieves its independence next month.