Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has held the position for five years but made her first official visit to Timor-Leste, a country Australia helped found, only two weeks ago.

Michael Leach – When the newly formed Change for Progress Alliance, or AMP, secured an outright majority at Timor-Leste's 12 May election, the prospects for stability seemed promising.

Christopher Knaus – New South Wales Labor will move a motion to condemn the "entirely inappropriate" prosecution of former spy Witness K and his lawyer, breaking with the silence of their federal colleagues.

Estevao Nuno – The executive director (CEO) of NGO Timor Aid, Florentino Sarmento, said the original culture of Timor, handed down from the ancestors will go extinct unless young Timorese develop an interest for its development.

Bec Strating – Last week, an Australian leader visited Dili for the first time in five years. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop spent 36 hours in Timor-Leste as part of a four-country diplomatic trip around Southeast Asia.

Paulina Quintao – The general director for Tourism Jose Quintas appealed to all citizens to be responsible for keeping the capital, Dili, clean and beautiful because doing so will attract more tourists to Timor-Leste which will also raise the country's national revenue.

Kerrin Thomas – An Australian dentist and a small group of volunteers have managed to check more than 1,200 mouths in just two weeks on Timor Leste.

That amounted to 527 extractions and 406 fillings for Charmaine White, from Narooma on the New South Wales south coast, and her volunteers.

Australia is trying to reboot its troubled relations with historical friend East Timor, with Julie Bishop the first foreign minister to visit in five years.

Julie Bishop kept to her daily routine of a morning run this week when visiting East Timor's capital Dili.

Steve Cannane – Nobel Peace Prize winner and former president of East Timor Jose Ramos-Horta says charges should be dropped against two men who exposed Australia's spying operation on the East Timor cabinet room during a lucrative oil and gas deal in 2004.

Helen Davidson and Christopher Knaus – Australia should drop its prosecution of Witness K and lawyer Bernard Collaery because the two men "acted out of conscience" and "reflected the very best of Australia", former Timor-Leste president Jose Ramos-Horta has said.

Sophie Raynor – Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop arrived in Timor-Leste at the weekend, on her first official visit and the first by any Australian minister to the country in five years. Bishop arrived with the promise of a beatific "new chapter" in the two nations' previously fraught relationship.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has rejected suggestions Australia has bullied East Timor in the fight over natural gas and says it's time to renew the friendship in the first visit by a federal minister in nearly five years.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop will be the first Australian minister to visit Timor-Leste in five years when she goes as part of an Asian tour.

Ms Bishop will visit Timor-Leste, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia from July 29 to August 7 and reaffirm Australia's commitment to its regional neighbours in southeast Asia.

Luke Henriques-Gomes – The former Victorian premier Steve Bracks says the federal Labor party should speak up about the Turnbull government's prosecution of the former Australian spy Witness K and his lawyer.

Christopher Knaus – Human rights campaigners have urged Australia to drop the prosecution of a former spy and his lawyer who helped expose a secret government mission to spy on Timor-Leste during lucrative oil and gas negotiations.

Paulina Quintao – The Executive Director for Business Registration and Verification (SERVE), Florencio Sanches said they recently received applications from four big international companies with the intention of closing their business in Timor-Leste due to low earnings.

John Braithwaite – Much of the media commentary on the government prosecution of Witness K and his lawyer Bernard Collaery has focused on government duplicity in suppressing the trial until it had its oil and gas treaty signed with Timor-Leste.

Sydney – Australian authorities should not prosecute a former Australian spy and his lawyer for exposing government wrongdoing, Human Rights Watch said today. The Magistrates Court in the Australian Capital Territory is scheduled to hold a hearing setting out next steps in the case against barrister Bernard Collaery and "Witness K" on July 25, 2018.

Helen Davidson – Timor-Leste activists have condemned the Australian government over the prosecution of Witness K and lawyer Bernard Collaery for their roles in revealing the bugging of the Timor-Leste cabinet during negotiations on an oil and gas treaty.

James Scambary – East Timor held its fourth parliamentary election in May 2018. Kay Rala 'Xanana' Gusmao's newly minted coalition, the Change for Progress Alliance (AMP), comfortably defeated the Revolutionary Front of Independent East Timor (FRETILIN), ending months of political crisis.

Shannon Power – As Pride celebrations continue around the world, the upcoming parade in the tiny nation of East Timor is a welcome reminder of why Pride exists at all.

East Timor (Timor Leste) is one of the world's youngest nations. It has been on a path of self-discovery after gaining independence from Indonesia in 1999.

Paulina Quintao – The Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Timor-Leste (CCI-TL) Kathleen Goncalves said entrepreneurs have discussed among themselves about looking for alternatives to reduce the use of single-use plastics towards resolving the growing plastic waste problem throughout the country.

Australia's greedy and probably illegal theft, through espionage, in 2004 of fledgling, struggling neighbour Timor-Leste's government's deliberations on a dispute between the two nations over ownership of oil and gas reserves was a disgrace.

Unprecedented legal action against two men for allegedly breaching the intelligence services act has sparked fierce debate about the balance between national security and the public's right to know.

Transcript

Matthew Doran – Intelligence whistleblower turned independent MP Andrew Wilkie has called on the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to launch an investigation into the role the nation's intelligence services played in the bugging of East Timor's cabinet rooms.

Christopher Knaus – Australian federal police (AFP) say they are assessing a request to investigate the lawfulness of Australia's controversial spy operation against Timor-Leste during sensitive oil and gas negotiations.

A group of crossbenchers on Thursday sought to raise the stakes in the controversial prosecution of former spy Witness K and his lawyer Bernard Collaery.

Michael Vincent – Australian lawyer and former legal representative for East Timor, Bernard Collaery, says the charges against him for allegedly breaching the Intelligence Services Act for revealing Australia bugged East Timorese government offices mean he is facing the prospect he may never practise law again.

Max Lane – The laying of criminal charges under the Intelligence Services Act 2001 against Witness K and lawyer Bernard Collaery in relation to their exposure of the Australian government's reprehensible bugging of the East Timorese government's cabinet room is a case of a defeated and wounded elitist white imperialism lashing out at somebody at home because they can't do it to the

Christopher Knaus – A decorated US diplomat spied upon by Australia as he represented Timor-Leste during lucrative oil and gas negotiations has described the prosecution of the two men who exposed the covert operation as "vindictive and pointless".

Binoy Kampmark – It took the protective grace of parliamentary privilege to encourage independent Australian MP Andrew Wilkie to reveal that a former Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) officer, known as Witness K, and his lawyer, former ACT Attorney-General Bernard Collaery, had been charged by the Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecutions.

Patrick O'Connor – A new East Timorese government was sworn into office on June 22, following an early election held in May that was triggered by the collapse of a minority Fretilin administration earlier this year. Fretilin is now the official opposition party, after receiving 34 percent of the total vote and 23 of the 65 seats in parliament.

Christopher Knaus – The former New South Wales supreme court justice Anthony Whealy has warned it would be "disturbing" to prosecute a former spy and his lawyer in secret over their role in revealing Australia's bugging of Timor-Leste's cabinet.

Paul Karp – The attorney general has refused to elaborate on why he approved the prosecution of a former spy who revealed Australia had bugged Timor-Leste's cabinet rooms, describing it as an "independent decision" of prosecutors.

Viji Menon – Timor-Leste's second parliamentary elections in a space of 10 months have raised the prospect for a resolution to the young country's political gridlock; but challenges remain which call for exceptional leadership from all parties.

The President of the Board of Timor-Leste's Women's Network Timor-Leste Judite Dias Ximenes said women's representation within the divulged composition of the VIII Constitutional Government of Timor-Leste has decreased compared to previous governments.

She said in 2015, women made up 24% of the leadership roles but in 2018, this has decreased to 14%.

David Dixon – They just couldn't leave it alone could they? The Attorney-General's decision to approve charges against "Witness K" and his lawyer, Bernard Collaery, for telling the government of East Timor that their offices had been bugged by Australia is a crude act of political revenge against a whistleblower.

Anne Barker – When police in East Timor caught a large fleet of Chinese fishing boats last year, with thousands of dead sharks on board, the evidence of illegal fishing – on a massive scale – seemed indisputable.

Clinton Fernandes – The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, Sarah McNaughton SC, recently filed criminal charges against Canberra lawyer Bernard Collaery and his client, a former officer of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS).

Anton Hermansyah, Jakarta – President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo congratulated Timor Leste for holding a successful election on May 12.

Jakarta – First Lady Cidalia Lopes Nobre Mouzinho Guterres of Timor Leste paid a brief visit Thursday to Kampung KB (Family Planning Village) at a child-friendly integrated public space (RPTRA) in Kalijodo, North Jakarta, where she and her Indonesian counterparts spoke about sexual and reproductive health rights.

Nick O'Malley – A retired senior judge has expressed alarm over the decision to charge the former spy known as Witness K and his solicitor Bernard Collaery for exposing Australia's bugging of East Timor during contentious oil and gas negotiations.

Michael Sainsbury and Jose Belo, Dili – Timor-Leste's new government has hit a major hurdle in its plan to improve fraught relations with Australia over the sensitive issue of maritime boundaries in the gas-rich sea between the two countries.

Anton Hermansyah, Bogor, West Java – President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo welcomed East Timor President Francisco "Lu Olo" Guterres at the Bogor Palace in West Java on Thursday.

Criminal charges have been filed against a spy-turned-whistleblower who exposed a secret Australian bugging operation in East Timor, parliament heard Thursday, in what one MP called an "insane development".

Andrew Greene and Lucy Sweeney – A Canberra lawyer whose client exposed a secret Australian spying operation in East Timor has described the prosecution against them both as an attack on freedom of speech.

Paul Karp and agencies – Criminal charges have been filed against the spy-turned-whistleblower who revealed Australia had bugged Timor-Leste's cabinet rooms, federal parliament has been told.

Rod Mcguirk, Canberra, Australia – Australia's prime minister on Friday distanced his government from a decision to prosecute a former spy and his lawyer who accuse Australia of illegally bugging the East Timorese Cabinet while negotiating a deal to share oil and gas revenue.

Ahmad Faiz Ibnu Sani, Jakarta – Timor Leste President Fransisco Guterres urged has called on Indonesia to support his country to become a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

He conveyed his wish to President Joko Widodo or Jokowi during Guterres' visit to the Bogor Presidential Palace on Thursday, June 28.

Anton Hermansyah, Jakarta – President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo met Timor Leste President Francisco "Lu Olo" Guterres during the latter's state visit at the Bogor Palace in Bogor, West Java, on Thursday.

Celestina Soares – The Director of the Central Basic School (EBC) in Akadiru-hun, Dili, Mateus Pinto Tilman urged the Public Service Commission (PSC) to encourage teachers aged 60 and upwards to retire so that new teachers can be recruited.