The UN administration in East Timor has prepared a package of wide-ranging logistical and material aid for 16 parties and independent candidates contesting the territory's first elections, but it does not plan to provide direct financial help.

The head of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) today presented the first State of the Nation address to the East Timorese National Council, giving an in-depth overview of the progress to date and the challenges that lie ahead.

Atambua – Facing the prospect of resettling tens of thousands of East Timorese refugees, an Indonesian government delegation on Thursday appealed to pro-Jakarta militia leaders to return home.

A group of presumed anti-independence militiamen opened fire Thursday on a patrol of UN peacekeepers in the East Timorese district of Maliana, near the border with Indonesia.

Paula Doran – For half of his 30 years Domingos lived chained to a wooden bench behind his village home in the hills of East Timor. His family was so afraid of his unexplained aggression that they bound his wrists and feet with chains.

Mark Dodd, Dill – The United Nations in East Timor will encourage staff to volunteer for HIV tests but cannot make them compulsory on human rights grounds.

Ray Brindal, Canberra – Australian and East Timorese representatives have resolved many of their outstanding differences about a planned new treaty covering royalties from energy production in the Timor Sea, Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Thursday.

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

Sixteen political parties have nominated candidates to run in the August elections for East Timor's Constituent Assembly, meeting the deadline set for noon local time on Wednesday, UNTAET, the United Nations Transitional Administration in the territory, said today.

A group of unidentified youths set fire Wednesday to a school in the East Timorese city of Baucau, 130 kms east of Dili, causing serious material damage. No one was hurt in the incident. UN civil police investigators said the group of between five and 10 people had set fire to the building at about 2:30 a.m. local time.

Joanna Jolly – East Timorese independence leader Xanana Gusmao said he supports pardons for militiamen who are found guilty of committing atrocities during the territory's 1999 vote for independence.

George Quinn – Personally I don't think Indonesia will break up, but we are talking here of probabilities, and there is an outside chance, but a real chance, that current stresses will tear the nation apart. If this happens in any comprehensive way, the new state of East Timor will find itself the star player in a whole new regional ball game.

The civil registration process has been a success. Since the start of it on 24 February till its closing on 22 June, 777,989 Timorese have been registered at the various centers in the country. The total population of Timor Lorosae has been estimated at 812,000 people.

Maputo – Guterres, visiting president of the Timorese liberation movement (Fretilin), declared here on Tuesday that he is confident his party will win in the country's first presidential election scheduled for August 30. Guterres made the remarks immediately after an audience with Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano, who is also president of the ruling Frelimo party.

Geoffrey Barker – A wizened brown man with black teeth squatted in the dusty Balibo roadside with eight 5-litre plastic jerry cans of kerosene he had lugged 8 kilometres up steep jungle hills from the smugglers' market on the border between East Timor and Indonesian West Timor.

Jane Counsel – A United States company is stepping up efforts to settle a 25-year dispute over the oil and gas riches of the Timor Gap, announcing yesterday it would launch legal proceedings to validate its claims.

Geoffrey Barker – An armada of big, white four-wheel-drive vehicles cruises and clogs the dusty roads of Dili carrying the army of United Nations soldiers, policemen and civil servants that is preparing the world's newest impoverished nation for independence.

Geoffrey Barker – Sergio Vieira de Mello says emphatically, perhaps too emphatically, that he is convinced East Timor's coming constituent assembly elections will be free of violence despite the country's long history of political violence.

A group of protesters has demonstrated outside the Indonesian consulate in Melbourne on the first day of Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid's Australian visit.

Dili says it does not recognize claims by an American petroluem company that it obtained concession rights to exploit oil and natural gas in the Timor Gap from Portuguese colonial authorities in 1970s.

Hamish McDonald – Indonesian submarines and combat aircraft shadowed so closely ships carrying Australian and New Zealand troops into East Timor in 1999 that escorting warships went onto full battle stations alert, it has been revealed.

Mark Dodd, Dili – East Timor's de facto government, the National Council, has backed the formation of an international war crimes tribunal to prosecute leaders of anti-independence militias and their Indonesian army supporters.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 – 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.