Justice John Dowd, Sydney – A royal commission is needed into why the Whitlam Government turned a blind eye to the Balibo killings, writes Justice John Dowd.

Jakarta – At least 547 East Timorese refugees sheltering in squalid camps throughout Indonesian-controlled West Timor have died in the past nine months, the province's governor said Wednesday.

Dili – The Humanitarian Assistance and Emergency Rehabilitation Pillar recently released its three-part assessment of the Consolidated Appeal Process (CAP). The East Timor CAP is a mechanism established in September 1999 to coordinate the overall humanitarian programme of the international community in the territory.

Jon Land - Up to 120,000 East Timorese are still languishing in refugee camps throughout West Timor 10 months after the post-referendum rampage by the Indonesian military and their pro-integration militia proxies forced around 290,000 East Timorese across the border.

Daniel Cooney, Dili – No one knows who really owns the blackened, burned-out building where Canadian businessman Kirk MacManus is trying to set up East Timor's first supermarket.

A Portuguese man claims it, saying the army threw him out when Indonesia invaded in 1975. Later, it housed an Indonesian bank. Then came East Timor's secession last year.

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – Violence by pro-Jakarta militia in West Timor camps has sabotaged plans by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to register 125,000 East Timorese waiting to return to East Timor or resettle in Indonesia.

Lisbon – East Timor's first transitional government was hailed yesterday as a crucial step forward by the pro-independence leader Mr Xanana Gusmao.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Dili – Lakan Feralafaek, one of a score of money changers who ply their trade on the sidewalk in front of East Timor's only bank, is more than happy to exchange foreign notes for the new official currency, the US dollar.

Marian Wilkinson, Sydney – An Australian intelligence agency learned from an intercepted Indonesian Army radio message that Australian television crews were in danger and would be targeted, hours before the October 16, 1975, attack at Balibo in East Timor, a new book has revealed.

Max Lane – The United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) has announced that it will be implementing measures to increase Timorese participation in the executive bodies of UNTAET.

Kupang – Peace has been restored to the West Timor town of Oesau following the July 1 mass riot in which remnants of the feared pro-Jakarta militia gangs from East Timor torched 16 houses and burnt down barns containing dozens of ill-fated cows.

Dili – Militants of East Timor's newest political party have seized a building destined to serve as a police station in the eastern district of Viqueque, claiming it as their headquarters.

Greg Ansley, Dili – New Zealand troops have broken a militia-linked extortion racket in a crackdown on organised crime in the western border region of East Timor. In a dawn raid on two villages, soldiers of 2/1 Battalion NZ Infantry Regiment and United Nations police officers arrested eight alleged racketeers.

Jakarta – Tension between East Timorese refugees and locals in Indonesia's West Timor has forced the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to suspend its refugee return operation.

Tom Fawthrop – Political expediency persuaded the UN mission in East Timor to revoke its original requirement to disarm FALINTIL, the army of the pro-independence rebel group Fretilin, but what of its future status?

Dili – Hundreds of Indonesians armed with bows and arrows have blocked roads in West Timor to keep UN aid officials from continuing repatriation of East Timorese refugees, a spokesman for the UN High Commission for Refugees said Wednesday in Dili.

Dili – United Nations police have opened investigations into three more recent discoveries of human remains in East Timor, likely linked to anti-independence violence last year, a spokesman said Monday in Dili.

New York – Stressing that a climate of fear is still a reality in the East Timorese refugee camps in West Timor, US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke questioned Indonesia's ability to control the pro-Jakarta militia.

Kupang – Angry over a spate of recent attacks, hundreds of villagers blockaded a road in Indonesian-controlled West Timor demanding that thousands of East Timorese refugees be sent home.

East Timorese independence leader Xanana Gusmao's new Australian wife played a "fundamental and key" role over the past decade in the resistance to Indonesian occupation, Portugal's ambassador to Jakarta said Monday in Dili.

Vaudine England, Jakarta – Bargaining over property and compensation claims between Indonesia and East Timor has begun in what is already proving to be a complex and sensitive process.

Dili – Rigid UN practices coupled by delays in distribution of World Bank funds are hampering progress on the reconstruction of East Timor, Sergio Vieira de Mello has told the UN Security Council.

Carolyn Robinson, Belu – They fled only to become refugees. Now they almost live here as inmates. In the camps that dot the countryside of this impoverished Indonesian province, about 100,000 refugees now live alongside the same militias who went on a killing and burning rampage in East Timor last September following a referendum on independence.

Darwin – East Timor wanted a maritime boundary with Australia at the midpoint between the two countries, putting key petroleum projects in East Timorese waters, spokesman on Timor Gap issues for the National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT) Mari Alkatiri said on Monday.

Dili – The United Nations has ruled out sharing executive power with East Timorese leader Xanana Gusmao in the lead-up to full independence for the UN-administered territory, according to a document obtained Tuesday.

Dili – Catholic Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, East Timor's spiritual leader, has written to the UN administration and foreign health aid groups demanding a stop to the use of "artificial" family planning methods in the territory.

Peter Alford – "The criticism of us has been varied and I would say only partly justified ... at no time in history has a country been totally rebuilt in six months or a year," so Jean Cady, deputy chief of the UN Transitional Authority in East Timor (UNTAET), dryly notes.

Lisbon – East Timor 's independence leader Jose Alexandre Gusmao said Thursday the guerrillas he once led against Indonesian troops are living in squalid conditions and could revolt.

Hundreds of former guerrilla fighters, who still have their weapons, have been living for the past nine months in designated areas monitored by the United Nations.

Tim Johnson, Dili – UN peacekeepers in East Timor have arrested two suspected anti-independence militiamen and confiscated rifles and grenades in the wake of a grenade attack on peacekeepers Wednesday, a UN peacekeeping force (PKF) spokesman said Friday.

Mark Dodd, Dili – Under pressure to give East Timorese more responsibility for their own affairs, the United Nations announced yesterday it would more than double the size of the country's de facto parliament and make it all Timorese.

Jim Della-Giacoma – In one of the most courageous acts of self-determination in recent history, the people of East Timor went to the polls last August to reject an Indonesian offer of greater autonomy in favor of a transition to independence under the stewardship of the United Nations.

Vanya Tanaja, Dili – This city has been rocked by snap public transport stoppages since June 2 in response to a rise in the price of fuel. Small minibuses, "mikrolets", that provide cheap public transport around Dili, and private taxis have all taken part, leaving the city with only private vehicles, United Nations cars and a large number of pedestrians.

Mark Dodd, Dili – Negotiations between the United Nations and Canberra for a new Timor Gap treaty could see up to $US100 million a year in oil and gas revenue flowing to East Timor, senior UN officials say.

Twenty-four years of Indonesian occupation of East Timor ended last September in a frenzy of murder and destruction. Now the Timorese are recreating their nation with energy and hope

Dili – The UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) is sending a wrong message to the devastated territory by failing to allocate funds for environmental protection in its new budget, according to local environmentalists.

Sonali Paul, Melbourne – Australian, East Timorese and United Nations officials have told oil companies renegotiation of the Timor Gap Treaty would not hurt their oil and gas plans, a Phillips Petroleum Co executive said on Thursday.

Mark Dodd – East Timor, a rugged and mountainous half-island territory just 300 nautical miles off Australia's north-west coast, has long played a strategic role in Australia's defence planning.

Mark Dodd, Dili – Do not expect shiny stainless steel tables or a laboratory filled with gleaming new equipment at the United Nations' forensic examination centre in Dili.

Mark Dodd, Dili – The de facto parliament, the National Consultative Council, has approved a Budget of $US59.23 million to help the nation rebuild after last year's devastating militia violence. The budget will be taken for approval to an international donors' conference in Lisbon this month.

Dili – Is there a conspiracy of silence within our media about conditions in East Timor? Sister Fabiol Gusmao, who runs Carmelite health clinics and an orphanage in Dili and dispenses food and medical aid to starving people, recently sent a despairing call for food to the Mary MacKillop Sisters in Sydney.

Dan Murphy, Jakarta – As Indonesian prosecutors stepped up their investigation of soldiers for involvement in the atrocities that followed East Timor's independence vote last September, a senior general signaled the military is digging in.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Dili – Lured by the opportunity to make it big in the coffee trading business, Abdul Halim moved to this predominantly Roman Catholic territory in 1996 from his largely Islamic hometown on Sumatra island, settling in a small community near the Dili airport filled with fellow Muslim migrants from other parts of the Indonesian archipelago.

Mark Dodd, Dili – A draft UN legal code designed to serve East Timor's fledgling judiciary was so flawed it would make a criminal conviction virtually impossible, a visiting team of senior Australian legal experts said.

Taxi and van drivers blocked traffic in Dili with their vehicles and tried to force their way into the central administrative building Wednesday to protest recent fuel price hikes.

Kupang – Responding to an UNTAS statement which said that it would not participate in the 2001 elections in East Timor if the UN didn't clarify UNAMET fraud in the referendum, UNTAET representative in Kupang, Colin Stewart, stressed that the elections will still be carried out even without the pro-integration group.

Mark Dodd, Jakarta – The United Nations chief in East Timor, Mr Sergio Vieira de Mello, has sought the co-operation of Indonesia's judiciary for investigations into crimes committed by pro-Jakarta militia and their army backers after last year's bloody vote for independence.

Jon Land – From May 15 to 20, the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin) held a conference in Dili, East Timor. It was the first Fretilin conference in East Timor since the end of the Indonesian occupation.

London – The Solidamor chair, Coki Naipospos sustained injuries all over his body and suffered wounds on his wrist and forehead. When the attack started, he grabbed hold of a laptop to shield his face from being beaten with sticks and stones. Sapollo was kicked and beaten and was badly bruised . He was taken to hospital for an x-ray.

Mark Dodd, Dili – The United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) has denied reports it will spend $US15 million ($28 million) on the purchase of new motor vehicles to equip its civilian police.

Mark Dodd, Dili – The East Timor independence leader Mr Xanana Gusmao has threatened to boycott a key international donors' meeting in Portugal because of concerns over the UN's accountability with donor funds. The Lisbon donors' meeting scheduled for June 23 is expected to hear UN budget proposals for East Timor.