The leader of East Timor's ASDT party, Fransico Xavier do Amaral, told Lusa Wednesday in Dili that he would not be a future candidate for president.
Xavier do Amaral, whose party's strong performance in last week's Constituent Assembly elections surprised many observers, said his decision was due to a lack of adequate funds and support.
The Deputy President of the Dili District Court Rui Pereira dos Santoas stressed that the Timor Lorosae Judiciary will continue using Bahasa Indonesia and Tetun in all proceedings for about 10 to 15 years despite Portuguese being made the official language of the Constituent Assembly.
Xanana's interview with Tempo magazine:
Tempo: At first you dithered on being nominated as president. But you changed your mind later. Why?
East Timor's Defense Force would be willing to accept Indonesian military aid if the offer was made by Jakarta, the force's commander said on Monday. "If they decide to help us, then we are willing to accept the offer because we want to improve relations with Indonesia", Brigadier General Taur Matan Ruak said.
Jose Ramos Horta said Monday in Dili he was "profoundly sad" about the "unhappy", "lamentable" and "incendiary" criticism of the East Timorese election process leveled by the leader of the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT), Joao Carrascalao.
Dili – The winners of last week's historic election in East Timor must listen to the people when drafting a constitution as a prelude to independence, two watchdog groups said Monday.
Lincoln Wright – Two star witnesses behind the allegation that Defence knew beforehand of the murder of five Australian journalists at Balibo in 1975 now maintain they never saw an intelligence intercept warning that Indonesian forces were planning the killings.
Presenter: Sergio Vieira de Mello, head of UNTAET, the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor, has replied to the fraud accusations, made by UDT (Timorese Democratic Union) leader Joao Carrascalao, after the (30 August) elections (for the constituent assembly).
Lindsay Murdoch in Liquica and agencies – East Timorese kept what the United Nations had called a date with democracy yesterday, voting in the first democratic election of their turbulent history.
Christine T. Tjandraningsih, Kupang – As hundreds of thousands of East Timorese went to the polls Thursday in the UN-administered territory's first legislative elections, pro-Jakarta refugees sheltering in West Timor lowered Indonesia's red-and-white national flag to half-mast to mark what many there see as a black day.
Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – Carlos first introduced himself as a driver. When none of Dili's dilapidated taxis could be found, he would always produce one.
Richard Lloyd Parry – Two years to the day after the 1999 referendum on independence, the East Timorese people vote again on Thursday in the first elections to a democratic national assembly.
At the Toko Lay hardware store in central Dili, Charles Tan was checking a newly arrived generator to sell to the burgeoning construction industry. "We will close the shop for the election but we are not expecting any trouble," he said. "Everything is safe here now and we only want it to continue."
Rowan Callick – The emergence of democratic government in an independent East Timor is a miracle. The obstacles in its path, through erratic and often cruel Portuguese, Japanese and Indonesian rule, have been horrendous.
Slobodan Lekic, Dili – Women nursed babies held in shoulder slings and people joked with UN monitors as they waited in long lines to vote Thursday in a election seen as a historic step toward nationhood for East Timor.
Jakarta – Feared ex-militia leader Eurico Guterres declared Thursday a "day of mourning for East Timor" and said its people could end up second-class citizens like Australia's Aborigines.
The United Nations was imposing Thursday's election for a constituent assembly on a people who were not yet ready to stand alone, he told AFP.
Woodside Petroleum, Australia's biggest independent oil and gas group, is to evaluate competing proposals from Royal Dutch/Shell and Phillips Petroleum of the US in an attempt to resolve differences over how the substantial deep sea gas fields between Australia and East Timor should be developed.
Five people arrested Thursday in the East Timorese capital had various weapons in their possession, the UN civil police spokesman said, adding that the operation had nothing to do with the elections occurring on the same day.
Joe Cochrane, Ermera – The farmers of Ermera are fiercely proud of their long tradition of growing East Timor's finest coffee, but these days that is not enough to fill their stomaches.
Don Greenlees – The Indonesian army has extended an olive branch to East Timor's fledgling defence force, by offering to train former Falintil guerilla fighters and inviting East Timor's military chief, Taur Matan Ruak, to Jakarta for talks.
Vaudine England, Dili – East Timor's president-in-waiting, Xanana Gusmao, yesterday restated his belief that amnesties should be considered for people who committed serious crimes. But Dili's bishop, Nobel peace laureate Carlos Belo, disagrees, as do most victims of political violence in East Timor.
Jon Land – The August 30 election for East Timor's Constituent Assembly signifies an important step towards the conclusion of the United Nations transitional administration. As the UN starts to gradually wind back operations and hand over more direct control to the East Timorese, new and old social tensions are coming to the fore.
Dili – Justice must come before amnesty for people guilty of human rights violations in East Timor, a lawyer working to establish a truth commission said Wednesday.
Joe Leahy – Building a central bank from scratch in one of the world's poorest countries was never going to be easy.
But Fernando DePeralto, general manager of the Central Payments Office, East Timor's de facto monetary authority, manages to put a gloss on it.
Dili – East Timor's president in waiting, Xanana Gusmao, said Tuesday that amnesties must be considered for those who led the violence surrounding the territory's independence vote two years ago.
Vamasae – In one of the thousands of charred and gutted buildings that still scar East Timor's landscape, 200 villagers squat before the man who won a Nobel peace prize crusading for their independence, Jose Ramos Horta.
Mark Dodd, Dili – He was East Timor's first president, the head of the short-lived Fretilin administration that unilaterally declared independence in November 1975, 10 days before Indonesia invaded the Portuguese colony.
Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – Nobel Peace Prize-winner Bishop Carlos Belo has made a new appeal to the international community to establish a war crimes tribunal to punish Indonesian military officers and militia leaders who presided over an orgy of killings and destruction in East Timor in 1999.
The upcoming Constituent Assembly elections in East Timor serve "only to comply with the calendar and are neither free nor fair", the leader of the historic UDT party, Joao Carrascalao, said on Tuesday. "The people are neither prepared nor informed enough to vote.
The leader of East Timor's Social Democratic Party (PSD) said Monday in Dili he hoped his party would obtain between 30 and 40 percent of the vote in Thursday's Constituent Assembly elections.
Fretilin Party Secretary-General Mari Alkatiri has guaranteed there would be no radical behaviour on the part of his party as Fretilin were no longer a communist or socialist party.
[Speaking for the first time, former Indonesian president B.J. Habibie tells David Jenkins how and why he made the fatal decision to leave control of East Timor in the hands of the military before the bloody referendum which secured the province's freedom.]
Lisbon – East Timor's UN administrator said in a newspaper interview Friday that a broad-based government will be named to govern the territory following next week's elections.
Mark Dodd, Dili – The East Timor independence leader Mr Xanana Gusmao has decided not to retire from politics to grow prize pumpkins for the Dili show. He ended months of speculation by announcing at the weekend that he would stand as president of the world's newest country.
Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – East Timor's leaders are planning an international campaign to pressure the Indonesian Government to allow Timorese children separated from their parents at the height of mayhem in East Timor to be reunited with their parents.
James Fox – Parliamentary elections will be held in East Timor on Thursday, two years from the day when the East Timorese turned out en masse to vote for their independence. It is expected that 400,000 East Timorese will take part in the coming election.
Predicting his Fretilin party would win East Timor's first free elections by a landslide, Mari Alkatiri warned the territory's UN transition administration Monday his party could refuse to join a new interim government if UNTAET did not follow Fretilin's lead.
Bronwyn Curran, Baucau – In a good month Carlos Bovida makes 20 dollars selling sweet potatoes and bananas on a lonely road, winding through the sparse mountains of this half-island nation.
Dili – It is easy to be optimistic about East Timor's future when you are sitting at the villa of its de facto king – UN diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello.
David DeVoss – The East Timor branch of Portugal's Banco Nacional Ultramarino in Dili looks like a modern financial institution. It has a smiling receptionist, an unctuous guard and executives seated behind desks papered with documents. But don't bother asking for a Visa card, a letter of credit or interest on any money you might deposit.
Mark Dodd, Dili – East Timor's Cabinet member for foreign affairs, Mr Jose Ramos Horta, has blasted the United Nations mission in Dili for obstructing the implementation of Portuguese as the country's official language.
Lindsay Murdoch, Dare Mulo – Some people wept. Others sang national songs they had rehearsed for days and stamped their bare feet in the dust. Rogerio Lobato this week brought the revolution to Dare Mulo, a village high in East Timor's mountains, 100 kilometres south of Dili.
Dili – A US-based election monitoring group said Friday it was satisfied with conditions for East Timor's first free elections next week, but expressed concern over cases of voter intimidation.
Some East Timorese political forces have set up security-style partisan groups in preparation for next week4s elections but have not generated any problems, UN administration officials said Friday.
Jane Counsel – Delicate negotiations over a new Timor Gap revenue sharing agreement were further unhinged yesterday, after a small American group launched legal action against the Federal and Indonesian governments and Phillips Petroleum.
Bronwyn Curran, Dili – East Timorese voters are relishing their first-ever taste of democracy but some parties in next week's elections have tried to intimidate them, local poll watchdogs said Thursday.
Mark Dodd, Dili – The UN Serious Crimes Unit, charged with investigating human rights violations in East Timor in 1999, says it is investigating 674 documented murders but has insufficient resources to do the job.
Mark Dodd, Dili – An East Timorese anti-independence leader said yesterday he would tell refugees in camps in West Timor that the world's newest country was on the road to democracy.
The Senate has rejected a proposal for an international war crimes tribunal covering the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. Instead, it backed Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri's moves to prosecute those committing atrocities during the 1999 independence ballot.
The number two in East Timor's Fretilin party hierarchy, Mari Alkatiri, strongly critized Wednesday the territory's Independent Eletoral Mediation Panel, which has complained about the movement's campaign use of an expression deemed to be provocative.