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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Mark Dodd – Five ex-militiamen who crossed into East Timor from Indonesia have been arrested by New Zealand United Nations peacekeepers and face murder charges related to last year's post-ballot violence.

Lincoln Wright – The United States freighted state-of-the-art intelligence equipment directly to Canberra during the East Timor crisis, providing Australia with vital information about the Indonesian army and the militia groups that opposed independence.

Jakarta – Some 10,000 East Timorese repatriated by international agencies have returned to refugee camps in Indonesia because of uncertainties at home, including food shortages, a minister has said in Jakarta.

Xanana Gusmmo, East Timor's de facto leader, discusses the past and looks to the future. John Stanmeyer/Saba for Time. An enthralled crowd greets Xanana Gusmao, making his first visit to Oecussi, a remote East Timorese enclave.

Terry McCarthy, Dili – The woman in black is waiting for him. Xanana Gusmao, East Timor's poet-revolutionary and de facto leader, is working his way through a crowd of admirers. When he reaches her, she throws her arms around him and sobs uncontrollably on his shoulder.

Anastasia Vrachnos, Ailieu – In the mountains south of Dili, men with long hair and guns stand in the pre-dawn mist. They introduce themselves to a visitor with noms de guerre.

Joanna Jolly, Jakarta – The respect of East Timorese for the United Nations transitional administration's work is waning and it is in danger of being compared to the previous Indonesian colonial regime, observers said yesterday.

Scott Burchill – Indonesia would not have been able to illegally occupy and terrorise East Timor for a quarter of a century without the support it received from the West, particularly Australia.

The tactics employed by pro-integrationists in Australia to ensure Canberra's diplomatic collaboration with Jakarta were often crude, but they were remarkably effective.

Vannessa Hearman, Dili – Activities to mark International Women's Day on March 8 here included performance art and a public forum on the place of women in the rebuilding process in East Timor. Held in a large indoor stadium, the events were organised by Fokupers, a local women's rights organisation.

Dili – Elements of the Indonesian military are providing direct support for armed pro-Jakarta militiamen infiltrating into East Timor, a senior US diplomat said Tuesday.

Dili – The United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) Thursday established East Timor's first customs and tax system to provide the territory with much-needed revenue.

Dili – The United Nations peacekeeping force in East Timor has confiscated a number of weapons smuggled by ship from Indonesia's West Timor and detained at least five people, a UN spokesman said Friday.

Mark Dodd, Dili – Infighting involving senior United Nations staff is threatening East Timor's transition to independence, a senior official says.

The policy dispute has led to the resignation of the UN's head of district administration, who claims "Stalinist" and "colonialist" practises by several senior staff members are jeopardising the UN mission.

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – Indonesia's President, Mr Abdurrahman Wahid, responded quickly yesterday to protests from Australia and the United Nations, ordering his armed forces to disarm militia launching cross-border attacks in East Timor. He also ordered the closing of refugee camps in West Timor near the border with East Timor which militia groups use as their bases.

Peter Johnston, Dili – On arriving in East Timor, one is struck by how little has been repaired in the months since the militia destruction. Very few buildings were not damaged in the post-referendum, Jakarta-sponsored orgy of violence and looting. Most remain in ruins.

Vanya Tanaja, Dili – Whilst independence from Indonesian rule has been won, some things in East Timor have changed little. After the militia violence of September, many Timorese are worse off than ever and help is a long time coming.

Mark Dodd – United Nations peacekeepers have captured a suspected pro-Jakarta militiaman after a gun battle in highland country deep inside East Timor.

Dili – The UN Transition Administration of East Timor (UNTAET) has denounced the "disinformation campaign" waged by militia groups in Indonesian West Timor, whose aim is to make East Timorese refugees afraid to return to their homeland.

Mark Dodd, Dili – Heavily armed intruders from across the Indonesian border are believed responsible for a weekend attack in which one person was killed, another injured and a third person taken hostage.

Eric Wright, Dili – The former colonial power of East Timor, Portugal, is creeping back through an open door, more than 25 years after fleeing ignominiously from the mainland. The Timorese, in dire need of cash and assistance to build their new country, are willing to accept the Portuguese gifts.

Mark Dodd, Dili – In the local Tetum language it is known as Uma Mutuk, or Burnt House, restaurant. It is arguably Dili's most popular eatery, and, like the mythical phoenix, its proud owners say their flourishing business has risen from the ashes.

Dili – A vice president of the National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT), Jose Ramos Horta, said Friday he was "amazed" by a news report that Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid had suggested East Timor could yet opt for integration in Indonesia.

Mark Dodd, Dili – Australian and New Zealand peacekeepers based along East Timor's border with Indonesia have come under sustained fire from suspected militia in the most serious test so far of United Nations military readiness after the departure of Interfet.

Dili – More than 600 people are known to have been killed in East Timor last year , but the actual toll is likely to be higher, the United Nations said yesterday. No cases have yet gone to trial under East Timor's fledgling judicial system.

Jakarta – A visiting senior US official Friday called the prevailing situation in camps holding tens of thousands of East Timorese in Indonesian West Timor since September "untenable."

"The situation in West Timor [refugee camps] is untenable," US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Pickering told a press briefing here.

Chris Latham – One hundred and fifty East Timorese refugees refused to leave the East Hills army barracks in Sydney on February 22. The government was determined to remove the refugees from the camp for a "voluntary" flight home on February 22.

James Balowski – "In a forest west of Dili, Filomena Amaral is about to learn the details of how her husband, a village schoolteacher and church leader, was tortured and killed. Photographs of her husband's shattered bones are needed as evidence in the event that his killers are ever brought to trial.

Jackie Coleman spent January working at the Maubere Cultural Institute (MCI) in Dili, East Timor. Her visit, on behalf of Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET), was in response to a request for assistance from the institute. In this article, Coleman describes her stay.