Robert Garran – Indonesian troops attacking the East Timorese town of Balibo in October 1975 had good reason not to want five Australian-based journalists to escape, according to a new book.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – The news that Japan has authorised its troops to serve overseas, despite the country's pacifist constitution, sends shudders down the spine of Marta Pereira, an aged East Timorese woman who lives on the outskirts of Dili.

Jakarta – The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said Tuesday that it has helped repatriate 188,646 East Timorese refugees from Indonesia's West Timor in the past two years.

Jakarta – Chief of the Udayana Military Command overseeing Bali, East and West Nusa Tenggara, Maj. Gen. Willem T. da Costa, said on Tuesday that he supported former rebel leader Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao as a possible president of neighboring Timor Lorosae (East Timor).

Yemris Fointuna, Kupang – In line with the planned establishment of an independent East Timor early next year, Indonesia and East Timor have agreed to demilitarize their border areas to allow their people to visit one another freely.

United Nations – The Security Council decided Wednesday that the UN-administered territory of East Timor should become independent on May 20 next year.

Setiyardi, Timor Lorosae – Floating hotels are a symbol of high living, an irony in stark contrast to widespread poverty in Timor Lorosae.

Disparity between the lifestyles of UNTAET personnel and the people of Timor Lorosae is sowing the seeds of social envy.

Hong Kong – East Timor's future president Xanana Gusmao has recalled his fury when Australia refused to accept temporarily a handful of East Timorese students fleeing persecution in Indonesia.

More than 3,200 East Timorese refugees returned home from Indonesia during October, the UN High Commission for Refugees said Monday in Dili, underlining it was the biggest one-month influx since March of last year.

UNHCR official Iain Hall told Lusa there were signs the repatriation process could increase significantly by year4s end.

Jakarta – The Indonesian government has decided to halt humanitarian assitance to East Timorese refugees in West Timor at the end of the year, a senior minister said in remarks published Sunday.

Presenter: The commemoration of East Timor's newly-gained independence has been scheduled for 20 May [2002], however, the chief minister of the provisional government, Mari Alkatiri, said the UN is still needed in the territory. In an interview with RDP [state radio], Mari Alkatiri reiterated that he is not predicting general elections to take place in the immediate future.

Virginia Marsh – If all had gone to plan, divers would now be laying a pipeline along the seabed linking Darwin to the substantial gasfields off its shores and a decades-old dream would be close to becoming reality.

Evelyn Leopold, United Nations – East Timor's newly elected constituent assembly asked the United Nations on Monday to grant it independence next May 20, paving the way for a reduction of UN military and civilian forces.

Dili – Indonesia-East Timor trade relations have good prospects in future so that there is glimmer of hope that certain parts of their common borderline will eventually be opened for across-the-border trade activities, an Indonesian representative official said.

Dili – Indonesia's currency, the rupiah, especially of the Rp 5000 to Rp 50000 denomination, is still legally accepted as a means of exchange in Timor Lorosae, along with the US dollar.

Yemris Fointuna, Atambua – At least 800 East Timorese refugees, formerly grouped under the Mahidi militia group from Ainaro regency, returned to their homeland on Wednesday and received a special welcome from East Timorese leaders.

Over 500 refugees crossed the border this morning in the second day of mass refugee returns from camps in Indonesian West Timor.

Jakarta – East Timor's foreign minister Jose Ramos Horta has supported the US-led air attacks on Afghanistan, saying his people have personal experience of the "scourge of terrorism."

Ramani de Silva, Dili – The Constituent Assembly elected in September had been in place for less than two weeks when on September 26 a demonstration of around 300 people demanded that its deliberations be opened to the people through public hearings.

Slobodan Lekic, Dili – When the Indonesian army helicopter suddenly appeared above a rebel camp hidden in East Timor's towering mountains, Agostinho Sidabatur didn't hesitate. The sentry raised his century-old, bolt-action Mauser rifle, aimed at the Bell Huey clattering overhead and squeezed off a single round.

Dili – In its first concrete step toward drafting a new constitution, East Timor's national assembly Wednesday set up four commissions tasked with preparing sections of the national charter.

The assembly has until mid-December to pass the nascent nation's first constitution so that it can be in place before the UN-administered territory achieves independence next year.

Simon Montlake, Jakarta – More than two years after Indonesia's bloody revenge on East Timor for a pro-independence vote, hopes of justice for thousands of victims are fading fast.

Yemris Fointuna, Kupang – Along with government aid for the 290,000 East Timorese remaining in Indonesia being discontinued at the end of December, the refugee status for people now living in West Timor will also be canceled.

Julie Chao, Dili – After Salvador Ferrera cast his ballot two years ago for independence for East Timor, he fled into the hills. When he came back a few weeks later, his hometown of Suai had been burned to the ground by militia groups. "All of Suai was totally destroyed," he said. "Three priests were killed. Until today, we don't know where their bones are."

Fabiola Desy Unidjaya, Jakarta – Former deputy Army chief of staff Gen. Johny Lumintang denied on Friday any responsibility over systematic human rights violations in East Timor in 1999 after it voted for independence from Indonesia.

Dili-East Timor's newly elected Constituent Assembly today unanimously adopted a set of Rules and Procedures for the 88-member body following a two-week debate.

The Indonesian Government has shown new signs of its determination to rid itself of East Timorese refugees, and thousands of them are now likely to be forced back across the border within the next three months.

The United Nations and the nascent government of East Timor have long wanted the estimated 50,000 to 80,000 refugees still in camps in West Timor to return.

Washington – A US judge has piled 66 million dollars in damages on a top Indonesian general, concluding after a civil lawsuit lodged in a US court that he was guilty of crimes against humanity in East Timor.

Kupang – The government has said that, as of December this year, there will be no more humanitarian aid for around 290,000 East Timorese who opted to stay in Indonesia and are now living in West Timor, East Nusa Tenggara province. This means that, starting next year, the refugees will be expected to rely on their own resources to survive.

A former pro-Indonesian militia member has received a 16-year sentence from the Special Panel for Serious Crimes in Dili.

[East Timor is finally on the road to independence but there is still a long way to go. Following its first election, a constituent assembly is drafting the constitution that will decide this young nation's political future. For 25 years, the East Timorese associated politics with violence and killing. Adjusting to the idea that politics can be peaceful has been a struggle.

Tom Fawthrop and Paul Harris – Formally recognising the continued security threats to East Timor, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on 26 July: "There is concern that some militia elements have adopted a strategy of lying low until independence in the belief that the international military peacekeeping force will be removed from East Timor.

Indonesian and East Timorese authorities have begun discussions on the removal of remains of Indonesian soldiers from various cemeteries across East Timor, according to an Indonesian government source cited by Monday's Jakarta Post newspaper.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – United Nations officials are challenging Indonesia's stand on East Timor war crimes. They are demanding the handover of 10 men accused of a September 1999 massacre in which 65 unarmed civilians were killed. Classified as crimes against humanity, the killings occurred in East Timor's western Oecusse enclave on September 8-10, 1999.

Ian Timberlake, Dili – Sister Erminia somehow survived the volley of rifle fire that tore into her van at a militia roadblock two years ago.

The Catholic nun, almost 70 years old, got out and knelt down to pray while the militia made sure none of the seven people with her survived.

Kupang – Six people, including Adj. Brig. Imanuel, a member of the East Nusa Tenggara police Mobile Brigade, were shot on Wednesday evening in a clash between security officers and East Timorese refugees in front of the local police headquarters.

Camden Smith – Closer ties can be forged between East Timor and the Territory because a Labor government is in power, East Timor's Chief Minister-elect Mari Alkatiri said yesterday.

Jakarta – A man accused of murdering a New Zealand peacekeeping soldier in East Timor last year is to face trial in Jakarta, his lawyer said Tuesday.

Kupang – Of their own free will, hundreds of thousands of East Timorese who have been living in refugee camps in Indonesia's West Timor for the past two years, have now decided to return to their homeland following the successful general election in East Timor, held in a free, orderly and safe manner on August 30, 2001.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – The election victory on August 30 of Fretilin, the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor, sent UN and World Bank officials in Dili into an instant policy huddle which lasted three weeks.

East Timor's Constituent Assembly has been sworn in this week following a peaceful election at the end of August. All but two of the country's 16 political parties won seats in the new assembly which now has just 90 days to write a constitution for the country's future governance.

Dili – The UN peacekeeping force (PKF) in East Timor and Indonesia's military have signed an agreement on sharing information and coordinating military activity along the border between the UN-administered territory and Indonesian-ruled West Timor, a PKF spokesman said Friday.

John Aglionby, Jakarta – The United Nations' transitional administrator in East Timor, Sergio Vieirade Mello, appointed the territory's first entirely East Timorese government yesterday to lead the fledgling country to full independence next year.

Christine T. Tjandraningsih, Dili – UN-administered East Timor's transitional government Thursday swore a new cabinet comprised mostly of figures from a long-established political party that won last month's election.

Dili – The following is the lineup of the new cabinet of East Timor's transitional government.

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – Indonesia's commitment to prosecuting human-rights cases in East Timor has come under fire following revelations that it has apparently stopped its probe into the 1999 murder of a Dutch journalist, possibly by Indonesian troops.

Jakarta – Indonesia expects to have repatriated 190,000 East Timorese refugees, currently still living in East Nusa Tenggara province, by the end of 2002, a minister said on Wednesday.

"So far, an average of 10,000 refugees are being sent back to their homeland every month," Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla said as quoted by Antara.

Jakarta – At least 500 East Timorese members of Indonesia's armed forces have resigned to return to their homeland, a report said Wednesday.