Melbourne – The East Timorese people were prepared to accept the risk of armed struggle against Indonesia and now accept the high cost of their freedom, resistance leader Xanana Gusmao said Monday.

Dili – Australia and Indonesia Monday traded accusations over a border clash between the multinational forces in East Timor and Indonesian troops, as Australia called for urgent top-level talks to defuse the row.

Paula Doran – Paul Morris has just served his fourth, and probably his last mission with the United Nations. He says the humanitarian organisation betrayed the trust of the East Timorese and did not treat its local staff properly.

Paul Daley – Australian intelligence agencies have new evidence that Indonesian military officials are systematically covering up their East Timor atrocities, with a program to intimidate and kill pro-integration militiamen who carried out much of the carnage.

Ian Hunter, London – Australian special forces and navy divers were scouting the terrain of East Timor and Indonesian forces deployments inside the territory months before the actual landing of United Nations-approved peacemakers last month, a senior Australian defence source has revealed.

Singapore – Pro-Indonesian militias are undergoing training in guerilla warfare with the aim of killing Australian soldiers spearheading a multinational force in East Timor, Singapore's Sunday Times said.

Dili – An Interfet foot patrol has shot dead a militia fighter near the East Timor border with Indonesian West Timor, an Australian army spokesman said Sunday.

Agence France Presse, Cassa – The armed men involved in a fatal clash with international peacekeepers in East Timor were from a feared militia that has committed a series of atrocities, witnesses said yesterday.

Tom Fawthrop and Marianne Kearney, Kupang – More than 230,000 East Timorese refugees in West Timor camps are being pressed to declare whether they want to return home or stay in Indonesia.

Jakarta's Ministry of Transmigration has been preparing a resettlement plan to absorb more than 250,000 East Timorese, with promises of two hectares of land and a house.

Dili – Indonesian commandos are conducting covert operations inside East Timor aimed at sabotaging the international peacekeeping effort, foreign military officials say.

Rene Flipo, Maliana – The few people who greeted the first international peacekeepers to arrive in the devastated and deserted town of Maliana yesterday recounted tales of terror, massacres and forced deportations.

The multinational force in East Timor (Interfet) was wise to avoid a firefight earlier this week with members of the resistance force, Falintil, by backing away from demands that the guerillas surrender their weapons. This is a directive that must be backed by the resistance leader, Mr Xanana Gusmao, if loss of life and suspicion of Interfet among East Timorese is to be avoided.

Tom Allard – The Indonesian Foreign Minister told his Australian counterpart, Mr Downer, as early as February that Indonesia was arming pro-integration groups.

According to an article in the Bulletin magazine, the Indonesian Foreign Minister, Mr Ali Alatas, told Mr Downer arming of the groups was "legitimate".

United Nations – Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday proposed a United Nations transitional authority for East Timor that would oversee all aspects of civilian life and include some 10,000 peacekeepers and police.

Dili – Falintil resistance fighters will be allowed to retain their weapons in their camps pending further disarmament negotiations, despite a UN mandate to disarm all groups, an Interfet spokesman said Tuesday.

Slobodan Lekic, Dili – Stung by criticism of alleged bias, the commander of the international peacekeeping force in East Timor demanded today that pro-independence rebels hand in their weapons.

Balibo – An escapee from the refugee camps in West Timor said on Sunday that pro-Indonesian militias were hunting down East Timorese men there and killing them.

Associated Press, Waimori – The international peacekeeping force is being too cautious in dealing with the remnants of the militias which ravaged East Timor, the commander of the pro-independence guerillas said yesterday.

Dili – The bodies of 13 people, many of them showing traces of violence, have been found in a mass grave near Dili, a spokesman for the United Nations said on Saturday.

Dafna Linzer, Kupang, – In the ramshackle Tuapukan camp, home to 10,000 refugees from East Timor's chaos, Indonesia's red-and-white flag flies proudly above unfinished roofs of dried palm fronds and straw.

Mark Dodd, Dili – Australian soldiers have taken control of two towns in militia heartland along East Timor's volatile border with Indonesian West Timor, in their biggest operation since landing in the territory 12 days ago.

Agencies in Dili, Los Palos and Jakarta – British Gurkha soldiers yesterday arrested two members of a group of East Timorese militiamen who were holding more than 4,000 people in the eastern port of Com, military sources said.

The militiamen appeared to be preparing to move the 4,000 people out of the territory, the sources said.

Dili – The mutilated and charred remains of at least nine people were discovered in a burnt-out pickup truck on the outskirts of Dili Wednesday, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

Waimori – Pro-independence guerillas said yesterday they had seized control of most of the eastern part of East Timor after clashes with retreating militia and Indonesian soldiers.

Mark Dodd, Dili – When paramilitary toughs supported by Indonesia's discredited military force in East Timor finally set down their cans of petrol and matches, hundreds of innocent people had been killed, tens of thousands made homeless and whole towns and villages razed.

The multinational force in East Timor must rapidly expand to start building peace and security in the territory, East Timorese leaders Xanana Gusmao and Jose Ramos Horta told correspondents at a press conference, sponsored by Portugal, at Headquarters this afternoon.

Craig Skehan, Jakarta – East Timorese independence supporters say they are being terrorised in Jakarta and elsewhere by militiamen with shadowy political connections.

Jakarta – The commander of the East Timorese militia has ordered his men to halt their campaign of terror, and apologize to their victims, the state Antara news agency said Tuesday.

East Timorese refugees in Indonesia, including the resort island of Bali, are being threatened with death by soldiers and militiamen, but plans for a large-scale evacuation are being delayed by the reluctance of foreign governments to accept large numbers of refugees.

Lisbon – Nine church workers including two nuns and a priest have been shot dead by Indonesian troops in the eastern part of East Timor, Bishop Basilio do Nascimento told Portuguese television on Monday.

The Bishop of Baucau said the group, all of whom worked for the Baucau diocese, were gunned down on Saturday and their bodies dumped in a river.

Mark Dodd, Dili – A vast cache of documentary and forensic evidence linking Jakarta's involvement to hardline pro-Indonesian militias accused of horrendous human rights abuses continues to lie unsecured in Dili one week after the arrival of Australian-led peacekeepers.

Keith B. Richburg, Kupang – They fled here in abject retreat, packed onto trucks scrawled with the names of their militia gangs and bringing with them their assault rifles, machetes and dreams of revenge.

Philippe Naughton, Dili – UN forces tightened their grip on Dili on Saturday and began venturing into East Timor's interior to secure routes for desperately needed aid.

Louise Williams, Darwin – Several days before he was killed in East Timor, the Dutch journalist Sander Thoenes was discussing his concerns over the political manipulations behind the public face of the Indonesian Government and military, and the violence and death that power struggle would wreak.

Stephanie Nebehay, Geneva – Asian and Western states failed to agree yesterday on whether to launch a UN inquiry into killings in East Timor, and a UN Commission on Human Rights special session on the issue was due to resume on Monday.

Michael Zielenziger, Dili – His eyes are rheumy and his legs are weak, but for a man in his 80s, Manuel Francisco Gusmao looks fairly healthy – considering the father of resistance leader Xanana Gusmao was reported on September 7 to have been killed by pro-Jakarta militia.

Bernard Lagan – Suspected supporters of East Timor's independence were executed on ships taking refugees from the territory and their bodies dumped in the sea, according to witness accounts collected by an Australian election observer who has just returned from Kupang, West Timor.

Jakarta – Journalist Sander Thoenes, found dead in East Timor yesterday, recently exposed a US$250-million scandal at a company controlled by the brother of Lt-General Prabowo Subianto, the former commander of Indonesia's elite special forces or Kopassus.

Nature has taken over the garden of Manuel Carrascalao's house in Dili. Tall weeds grow between paving stones and flies buzz in the air. As you approach the well at the back of the garden, the soft hum of millions of maggots becomes audible.

Sydney – A map smuggled out of West Timor purports to outline Indonesian plans to disperse 100,000 East Timorese across the archipelago, Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio said Friday.

Dili – Multinational troops clamped down on East Timor's militia with a raid and a high-profile arrest Friday and issued warnings against Indonesian soldiers wreaking havoc as they retreat.

The soldiers have burned their barracks behind them and let out volleys of automatic gunfire in defiant parting gestures as they are shipped out of the territory.

Kalinga Seneviratne – Australia has taken the high moral ground in organising the rescue of the East Timorese people, perhaps 25 years too late.

Doug Struck, Dili – As a large contingent of Indonesian troops marched to the port to withdraw from East Timor today, the international peacekeeping force here tightened its control of this capital city.

Jakarta – Indonesia on Thursday lifted martial law in East Timor and said it expected to hand over control of security in the territory to the UN-approved force there on Friday or Saturday.

At Least 100 members of the Indonesian armed forces (TNI) in East Timor have deserted and joined the pro-independence Falintil guerrilla movement, in a further indication of discord within TNI ranks.

Singapore – An American journalist and activist deported from Indonesia said Monday he was convinced armed forces chief General Wiranto was behind the militia killings in East Timor.

Allan Nairn was in Dili for about two weeks before Indonesian authorities detained him for violating visa regulations by entering the country as a tourist.

Lauren Martin – East Timorese resistance leaders had "disappeared" from militia-guarded refugee camps across the border, and the mainly women and children who remained were at risk of becoming hostages to other vigilantes, a Senate committee heard in Canberra yesterday.

Anne-Marie Evans – Eurico Guterres, leader of the Aitarak anti-independence militia, was made the head of a clandestine military-funded organisation earlier this year and supplied with guns and money, a source said yesterday.

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – The thugs of Dili's streets disappeared quickly. When the first Australian soldiers arrived in full combat dress, their rifles at the ready, the militiamen pretended they were the very refugees they had terrorised for weeks.

Jill Jolliffe, Darwin – East Timorese independence guerrilla commanders warn that Indonesian forces are preparing to resist United Nations troops.

Speaking from the Los Palos district, the deputy chief of the Falintil army, Mr Lere Anan Timor, said Indonesian soldiers were threatening to "kill the international troops, using the [pro-Jakarta] militia".