The United States Senate approved Thursday a resolution condemning the "disproportionate" sentences an Indonesian court recently applied to the self-confessed killers of three UN aid workers.

The secretary-general of the Socialist Party of Timor (PST) Avelinho Coelho said Tuesday if the party gets majority seats in the 30 August election it will make Tetun the national language of the country.

Brian Robins – From being only rank hopefuls among offshore gasfields, Timor Sea projects backed by Phillips Petroleum and Woodside are racing off the starting blocks. Both are pushing into the east coast gas market, to emerge as replacements for the Cooper Basin as its reserves decline this decade.

An angry mob of street vendors stoned UN police and administrative personnel at a Dili market Tuesday, injuring three people and damaging three vehicles.

Rod McGuirk, Darwin – The HIV virus had taken hold in East Timor and spread into Australia, a Dili-based doctor said today. As many as 15 foreign workers, mostly Africans, evacuated from East Timor for treatment at the Royal Darwin Hospital, have tested positive to HIV, Dr Dan Murphy said.

Lindsay Murdoch – Antonio da Silva rarely smiles. His left ear has been cut off, his fingers broken and he has seen some of his militia friends killed during his fight to keep East Timor part of Indonesia.

Mark Dodd – Negotiations between Australia and East Timor to conclude a new agreement on revenue sharing from the oil- and gas-rich Timor Sea have run into last-minute problems, a senior East Timorese official said yesterday.

Karen Polglaze, Canberra – International donors today signed-off on East Timor's 2001-02 budget, the blueprint that will take the new country through elections to independence.

Mark Dodd – East Timor is set to get up to 90 per cent of Timor Sea oil and gas revenue in a move Australia hopes will ensure the new nation does not become dependent on foreign aid.

The Foreign Minister, Mr Downer, said yesterday that Australia wanted to avoid mistakes made in the early years of Papua New Guinea's independence, when Australia had to prop up its Budget.

Canberra – Economic prospects for East Timor remained low in the medium term, the World Bank said ahead of a two-day meeting of donors to the emerging nation that began in Canberra on Thursday.

Tony Jenkins – East Timor has acquired a powerful and unexpected new ally, a man some Americans still refer to as Dr Death: Henry Kissinger.

Hamish McDonald – The United Nations is running out of patience with the Indonesian Government's move to avoid prosecuting army, police and militia suspects over atrocities in East Timor before the 1999 independence ballot.

Kupang – Changes in the results of last week's registration of East Timorese refugees have aroused suspicion in Kupang of the possible manipulation of registration results. The refugees chose last week whether to remain in Indonesia or return to East Timor.

A security operation conducted by United Nations peacekeepers in East Timor has resulted in the surrender of 34 suspected militia members in the eastern part of the territory, the UN Transitional Administration (UNTAET) said today in Dili.

Washington – A leading Timorese aid worker on Wednesday branded as a "sham" an Indonesian canvassing drive which found that 98 percent of East Timorese refugees confined to camps in West Timor did not want to go home.

Dili - East Timor's UN administrators Tuesday said they would push ahead with historic elections in August despite fears of unrest. UN administrator Sergio Vieira de Mello has signed an order for the elections for a new governing assembly to proceed on Aug. 30 as planned, said UN spokesperson Barbara Reis.

East Timor may be forced to apply its future revenues from oil and natural gas exploration in the Timor Gap to cover its operational budget, rather than in investing in the territory's development, according to a study which will be presented to an international donors conference.

Sergio Vieira de Mello, the head of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET), has called the dissolution of the East Timor resistance umbrella organization CNRT a difficult and painful decision, but a "politically courageous, wise and timely one."

Mark Dodd, Dili - Amid emotional scenes, the organisation that united ordinary East Timorese in the struggle to end Indonesian rule dissolved itself on Thursday evening.

Mark Forbes, Canberra – Jose "Xanana" Gusmao will become East Timor's first president next year despite his pledge not to nominate, according to fellow independence campaigner Jose Ramos Horta.

Mark Dodd, Dili – As its final act, the organisation that united ordinary East Timorese in the struggle to end Indonesian rule called for all political parties contesting the August elections to sign a national unity pact.

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – The thousands of East Timorese still languishing in West Timor's camps are not free to choose to return to home as they have been intimidated by pro-Indonesian militia during a registration programme to determine their future, say aid workers and international observers.

Jakarta – Indonesia's central bank (BI) and the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) on Friday agreed to repatriate the equivalent of around 20 million dollars of Indonesian rupiah now circulating in East Timor.

Irwin Arieff G. K. Goh, United Nations – East Timorese refugees eager to return home are being threatened and intimidated by militia who forced them into squalid camps in Indonesian West Timor two years ago, an aid worker charged on Thursday.

Jakarta – An overwhelming majority of East Timorese refugees languishing in West Timor camps want to stay in Indonesia, early results of a registration drive showed Friday.

Indonesian language Internet media sources have published comments by East Timorese refugee representatives and IX/Udayana Military Area Commander Maj- Gen Willem T da Costa on the post-registration future of the refugees.

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – The East Timorese militia leader Eurico Guterres has been freed 23 days after an Indonesian court jailed him for six months.

Mark Dodd, Dili – East Timorese languishing in Indonesian refugee camps were asked yesterday if they wanted to stay or go home as aid agencies warned that those who opted to go home faced violent retaliation from the militias who control the camps.

Karen Polglaze, Canberra – East Timor could not begin its life as an independent country by scaring off investors – so it would reach agreement with Australia on a Timor Gap Treaty, interim foreign minister Jose Ramos Horta said today.

The East Timorese leader [currently cabinet member for foreign affairs] Jose Ramos Horta says his country cannot support the claim to secession by the Papuans in Indonesia's Irian Jaya Province. Mr Ramos Horta, who won the Nobel Peace Prize three years before East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia, says East Timor cannot support every secession claim in the region...

On June 6 and 7, the Indonesian government conducted a procedure throughout the refugee camps in West Timor. One stated objective was to allow each family to choose whether to be resettled in Indonesia or to return to East Timor, their homeland from which they were forcibly abducted 21 months ago.

Kupang – Allegations of widespread fraud and reports of intimidation of voters marred an Indonesian-run vote Wednesday for thousands of East Timorese refugees in West Timor to decide whether if they wish to return to their homeland.

John Gauci, Sydney – "East Timorese must ask themselves, why are we still divided? We can't go on holding other countries to blame", the new country's foreign minister Jose Ramos Horta told a public lecture at the University of New South Wales on May 30. "There is need for reconciliation. We need to develop relations with our neighbors and swallow our pride.

Canberra – Administrative action is being taken against two defence personnel following high profile document leak investigations. Defence department secretary Dr Alan Hawke told a Senate estimates committee the inquiries related to leaking of documents concerning East Timor and to alleged espionage by a Defence Intelligence Organisation employee who is now before the court.

Canberra – An interim East Timorese government minister has accused Telstra of monitoring private telephone conversations within the fledging country. Infrastructure Minister Joao Carrascalao said Telstra did not have a main switch in Dili and the communication was transmitted via Adelaide.

Andrew West – Australian Government officials have been accused of burying a crucial intelligence report about a 1998 Indonesian massacre in the West Papua town of Biak because it did not want to offend Indonesia so soon after it had thrown off the Soeharto dictatorship.

The United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) today reported that the grenade attack that killed five people along the East/West Timor border last week was the result of a private dispute between a militia member and a gambling ring organizer.

By Tim Anderson for AID/WATCH

1. World Bank dictating terms of development in East Timor

Brendan Pearson – East Timor's bounty from Timor Gap oil and gas revenues may hit $US1 ($1.95 billion) billion annually this decade, East Timor's interim Foreign Minister, Dr Jose Ramos Horta, said yesterday.

Mark Dodd, Dili – A dispute over illegal trade on the East Timor border with Indonesian West Timor is thought to have caused a series of grenade attacks on Tuesday that left at least five people dead and about 40 injured, United Nations military sources say.

The death toll in yesterday's attack along the border between East and West Timor has reached five, with up to 40 people injured, the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) confirmed today.

Mark Dodd, Dili – East Timor In an effort to mend an economy devastated by the violence that accompanied the Indonesian withdrawal in 1999, the United Nations transitional administration in East Timor is trying to get the American dollar widely accepted as the only legal tender.

London – Human rights abuses emerged in East Timor last year amid delays in rebuilding the territory after the bloody destruction carried out by Indonesian forces, Amnesty International said Wednesday.

A group of GNR (Guarda Nacional Republicana) [a security arm of Civpol], on Monday, fired warning shots at a group of RDTL supporters and activists at the border of Metinaro and Manatuto. Sixteen people were injured in clashes with the GNR and seven are receiving treatment at the Baucau General Hospital.

Mark Dodd, Gleno – Ironically, it is neglect which has produced independent East Timor's first major export crop: world-class organic, forest-grown coffee.

Jon Land – The World Bank has been prominent in East Timor's transition to full independence – so prominent in fact that the country now faces a looming struggle about whether the institution's neo-liberal economic model, so renowned for the hardship it has caused other poor countries, will be imposed on East Timor too.

Mark Dodd, Dili – Only 5 per cent of East Timorese understand the purpose of the United Nations-organised election to be held on August 30, a voter education survey released yesterday found. Most thought they would be choosing a president rather than an assembly.

Jakarta – Indonesian authorities are preparing for the registration of some 100,000 East Timorese refugees in camps in West Timor, a report said Tuesday.

The government has set up 507 registration stations across East Nusa Tenggara province which includes West Timor, to find out how many of the refugees want to return home, and how many want to remain in Indonesia.

Richard Galpin, Dili – East Timor is celebrating becoming the world's newest country. It has been under United Nations administration since 1999 when it overwhelmingly voted to break away from 24 years of Indonesian rule. Pro-Indonesian militias went on a bloody rampage following the vote, leaving parts of East Timor in ruins.

Partido Trabalhista Timor (PTT), on Friday, submitted its registration application with the Independent Electoral Commission. The party also nominated Xanana Gusmao and Jose Ramos-Horta as its candidates for the Constituent Assembly.