Akara Reis, Dili – As workers prepare to celebrate their first May Day in a free East Timor, their pay and conditions of work remain very low, especially compared with the vast sums paid to foreign workers employed by the United Nations Transitional Authority in East Timor (UNTAET).

Acting for a speedy independence, the National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT) has proposed the creation of a joint commission with the territory's transitional United Nations administration to prepare a constitutional conference next year.

Australia failed to fulfil its duty of care to the Timorese people who were placed at risk by our Government's policy, says Tony Kevin.

Seth Mydans – People here have got used to the scene: a mob of unemployed young men shoving, shouting and weeping in anger outside the headquarters of the United Nations, held back by an impassive multinational police contingent.

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – Reports that Indonesian authorities are serious about bringing to justice Eurico Guterres, East Timor's most notorious militia commander, appear to be premature.

The long-haired, black-clad, former gang leader in Dili is often seen mingling with Indonesia's elite at a official functions in Jakarta.

Geneva – The flow of East Timorese refugees signing up to be repatriated from camps in West Timor is "grinding to a halt" because of fears they could be harassed on their return, the UN's refugee agency UNHCR said Tuesday.

Mark Dodd, Dili – United Nations riot police backed by soldiers from the peacekeeping force launched an extensive security operation yesterday to clear Dili's central market area of scores of armed youths, after the worst violence seen in the capital since last year's militia rampage.

Jakarta – The Attorney General's Office kicked off on Monday their official investigation into last year's violence in East Timor by questioning several Indonesian Military (TNI) officers. Former East Timor military commander Brig. Gen. Tono Suratman was grilled for more than six hours while his immediate superior, former Udayana Military commander Maj. Gen.

Mark Dodd, Suai – When Detective Senior Sergeant Matt Reynolds took part in a recent murder case in Canberra, about 20 detectives were assigned within 24 hours to solve the killing.

Geneva – The United Nations welcomed on Friday a campaign by Indonesia to get East Timorese members of the Indonesian army in West Timor to resettle in other parts of the country or resign from the military.

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – Former Information Minister Yunus Yosfiah has been accused of murdering five Western journalists in East Timor in 1975 by a new witness who gave evidence on an Australian television show.

Mark Dodd, Suai – An Indonesian court has jailed the notorious militia leader Laurentino Soares, known as Moko, for up to three years for illegally possessing firearms, according to United Nations observers.

Seth Mydans, Dili – There is not much question about the language of commerce here as East Timor begins to define itself as a nation. The muddy central market is alive with the cries of moneychangers: "Dollar America! Dollar America! America, America, America, America!"

Mark Dodd, Dili – The United Nations mission in East Timor is considering reducing its 8,000-strong peacekeeping force because of concerns over costs and possible social problems created by its military presence.

Mark Dodd, Dili – When pro-Jakarta militias went on their rampage of arson, murder and looting last September they filled the classrooms of Dili's secondary schools with drums of fuel to ensure maximum damage before torching the buildings.

Mark Dodd, Dili – The East Timorese leader, Mr Xanana Gusmao, and a senior United Nations official will hold a public meeting in Dili today to discuss the the country's number one social problem – unemployment.

Nicole Winfield, United Nations – The first militia leaders accused of serious crimes in East Timor are expected to be brought to trial before international and East Timorese judges by June or July, a senior UN official said.

[The following is a sidebar from the Red Cross 2001 World Disasters Report. The writer is a medical doctor who has worked in Afghanistan and East Timor.]

Sydney – An Australian soldier facing expulsion from East Timor for trying to be a "spymaster" was well-intentioned but misguided, former Interfet commander Major General Peter Cosgrove said Tuesday.

Dili – Bishop Carlos Belo would be shocked if he knew. It is well after midnight and the streets of Dili are deserted, except for a few stray dogs. But the discotheque on the multi-storey cruise ship moored at shore is packed, sweaty and jumping to loud music.

Sonny Inbaraj, Darwin – In East Timor, Avelino da Silva is nicknamed the 'Negotiator' – a reference to one of the main characters in a Frederick Forsyth novel.

Dili – Portuguese national guardsmen serving with the UN police force in East Timor were called Friday to the BNU bank in Dili, to control a crowd dissatisfied with a revised exchange rate for Portuguese escudos and Indonesian rupiahs.

David Lague – An independent East Timor would have a powerful legal case to renegotiate the Timor Gap treaty and win a bigger share of potentially massive oil and gas revenues, according to legal and oil industry experts.

Comment by Andrew McNaughtan – When the Australian and Indonesian foreign ministers toasted the signing of the Timor Gap treaty in 1989 it was presented as a diplomatic coup and a sign of a friendly, co-operative relationship.

Akara Leon and Vanja Tanaja, Dili – Sixty East Timorese workers at the aid agency World Vision walked off the job and demonstrated on April 3, demanding an explanation from management for the sacking of eight security guards.

Lindsay Murdoch – Almost every day people trail into the Liquica police station to tell the United Nations police stationed there about new grave sites.

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – Indonesia has opened the way for some of its top military officers and the leaders of pro-Jakarta militia groups responsible for last year's violence in East Timor to be put on trial in the United Nations-controlled territory.

Joanna Jolly, Atambua – The Indonesian army is training militias in West Timor for an invasion into East Timor next month despite its continued denials, according to a West Timorese church leader and a human rights organisation.

Shawn Donnan – Ever since aid groups and multinational organisations including the United Nations and the World Bank entered East Timor last year, the nation's coffee industry has been seen as key to rebuilding the devastated territory.

Food distribution to 100,000 refugees still in camps in West Timor will continue by the Indonesian Government which announced in early March that food and other assistance will be cut off by March 31, 2000.

Lela E. Madjiah, Kupang – Former president B.J. Habibie was naive when he thought that letting go of East Timor would mean an end to Indonesia's problems.

Habibie then argued that getting rid of the predominantly Catholic province would help Indonesia regain direly needed credibility in the international world.

Vannessa Hearman, Dili – To come face to face with public health services in East Timor is a daunting thing. For expatriate workers, there is access to foreigner clinics and always the possibility of being evacuated to Darwin or some other First World medical facility.

Vanja Tanaja, Dili – United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (NTAET) security forces threatened to use anti-riot gear against 800 job seekers seeking information on their job applications on March 29. They had been asked to come to the UNTAET office to hear of the outcome of their applications.

Canberra – Paul Keating was a politically dead former prime minister trying to maintain relevance and "would be better off walking naked down the street", East Timorese Nobel laureate Jose Ramos-Horta said today.

Heather Paterson, Dili – East Timor may be heading for renewed political turmoil as its former independence movement – now relieved of the common enemy that once united it – begins to crumble, party leaders warn.

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – After taking part in or helping to loot almost everything of value in East Timor last year, Indonesian soldiers are claiming compensation for losing their belongings in a hasty withdrawal from the territory.

Joanna Jolly, Tuapukan – The song is the most popular in the camp. "UNAMET go home, you only came for a few months, but many people died," the refugees sing to an upbeat tune. "You came to be in the middle, but in fact you were not. Because of UNAMET, we have left our children and gone away from our families."

Tom Fawthrop, Dili – Riot police and UN peacekeepers held back a mob of more than 800 angry East Timorese protesters outside the world body's headquarters in Dili yesterday. Many in the crowd had shown up for promised job interviews but the UN had earlier cancelled them without informing the applicants.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Noelbaki refugee camp – Sitting on a rickety wooden bed frame in a cramped corner of her barracks, with only a sheet to provide privacy from her neighbors, Augustina Said spends her days hoping she and her family can return to the life they had in East Timor. To their freshly painted house. To their television, refrigerator and comfortable furniture.

Joanna Jolly – An organised campaign of misinformation regarding the situation in East Timor is preventing many refugees from returning home, say international aid workers in the Indonesian province of West Timor.

Don Greenlees, Kupang – Even in a military known for disregarding civil rights, Korem 164 is a notorious unit. Its men will be remembered either for standing by and watching the rape of East Timor or joining in the final rampage of arson, lootings and murder.

Paul Daley, Canberra – Paul Keating has launched another attack on John Howard's handling of the East Timor crisis, repeating his allegation that the Prime Minister is directly responsible for the bloodshed in the newly independent state.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Dili – Louis Nkopipe spent last week in the sweltering Dili courthouse conducting a crash course on elementary legal principles. "Defendants are presumed innocent," intoned Nkopipe, a French lawyer, at the start of one lecture. "And they have the right not to incriminate themselves."

Jakarta – Three hundred East Timorese crossed the border to return home from West Timor yesterday, a week before Jakarta cuts off all assistance to the tens of thousands of refugees still holed-up in camps in West Timor, an official said.

United Nations – The United States, Britain and other Security Council members have urged Indonesia to keep its pledge to disarm militias that continue to attack East Timor and to end army support for the militia.

Vanya Tanaja, Dili – Frustration and discontent spilt over into another demonstration here on March 7 as 300 job seekers gathered outside the offices of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor. The job seekers alleged collusion and nepotism in the appointment of local UNTAET workers, an allegation strenuously denied by the UNTAET human resources department.

Dili – The success of East Timor's struggle to become an independent country is crucial in promoting stability throughout neighboring Indonesia, a visiting senior US official said Tuesday.

Dili – The small, unassuming office of the CPD-RDTL (Council in Defence of the Democratic Republic of East Timor) in Balide belies the debate that is brewing over the restoration of the independence which was declared by Fretilin on November 28, 1975.

Jon Land – The recent spate of pro-integration militia incursions along the western border of East Timor highlights the failure and unwillingness of the Indonesian government to disarm its militia gangs in West Timor.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Dili – UN peacekeepers have concluded that the Indonesian military has been involved in a recent spate of attacks by paramilitary units across the increasingly tense border separating newly independent East Timor from Indonesian- controlled western Timor.