Jakarta – Belu Deputy Regent Lodovikus Taolin said that Indonesia and Timor Leste would work to uphold law enforcement along the border of the two countries in Belu regency.

Batam – Timor Leste's former prime minister Mari Alkatiri, who is now the country's economic attache, visited the Batam Free Trade Zone Management Agency (BPK FTZ) on Monday to study the concept of the special economic zone.

Mari was greeted by BPK FTZ head Mustofa Wijaya and former Riau Islands governor and economic consultant Ismeth Abdullah.

Fitri Bintang Timur, Singapore – Timor Leste Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao is often said to be the Che Guevara of the country. His charisma and charm helped him escape troubled times before his nation gained independence.

Angela Macdonald-Smith – The Timor Sea has never been famed for offering oil and gas operators smooth sailing over the years.

However East Timor's manoeuvring over the treaty with Australia about royalties from Woodside Petroleum's Sunrise gas venture have escalated sovereign risk in the waters off our northern coast to a worrying new level.

Jakarta – The Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) Advisory Council Chairman, Prabowo Subianto, exchanged experience with visiting former Timor Lest Prime Minister Marie Alkatiri at Gerindra office here on Monday.

Dili – An increase in new, higher-yield seed varieties is helping some rural communities produce more food in Timor-Leste, but greater support is still needed, aid agencies say.

Singapore – The future finances of the young, poor nation of Timor-Leste, formerly East Timor, have become embroiled in allegations of skulduggery by Australia nearly a decade ago. Timor-Leste has taken its big, wealthy neighbour to arbitration over a 2006 agreement on the exploitation of oil and gas in the sea between them.

An Australian parliamentary inquiry into the bilateral relationship with East Timor has come under attack for only hearing from so-called "insiders and bureaucrats".

DLP Senator John Madigan says the public hearings are limited and elitist. Academic Clinton Fernandez fears the inquiry will just "rubber stamp" whatever Australia's Foreign Affairs department has in mind.

TJ Burgonio – Timor-Leste Prime Minister Kay Rala Xanana Gusmao on Thursday thanked President Aquino for the latter's renewed expression of Philippine support for Timor-Leste's bid to join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).

The National Parliament of East Timor has voted in favour of ordering a review of excessive use of force within the national police force after a violent attack on a youth and member of Parliament last Friday.

Dili – 'Tara bandu', a traditional form of conflict resolution, can play a bigger role in mitigating conflict in Timor-Leste at the community level, local leaders and experts say.

Under tara bandu – oath ceremonies – traditional laws and rituals help regulate relations between people and rival groups.

Patricia Denise Chiu – The Philippines and Timor Leste have inked three bilateral agreements in areas of education, policy consultations and infrastructure to further strengthen the cooperation between the two countries.

Jakarta – The Timor Leste Democratic Republic (RDTL) government plans to cooperate with the Indonesian government by exporting goats and cows to help to fulfill the latter's need of meat during Idul Fitri and Idul Adha.

Clinton Fernandes – A parliamentary inquiry examining Australia's relationship with East Timor is underway and the proceedings so far do not make for comfortable reading.

It's a good time for an inquiry: East Timor successfully held elections last year and the Australian-led International Stabilisation Force completed its mission and withdrew in January 2013.

Children born as a result of sexual abuse by the Indonesian military during the occupation currently have difficulty obtaining official birth certificates and according to the Executive Director of HAK, this is discrimination

Members of Parliament are concerned because the number of people unemployed within the country continues to increase every year.

MP Maria Angelica Rangel said currently a lot of people, especially those who study at universities in Dili and overseas, can't find work when they finish

Singapore – Timor-Leste said it is committed to building its human resources in order to contribute fully to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Timor-Leste's Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao made these remarks during a lecture in Singapore on Tuesday, organised by the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

Ritchie King – That extreme outlier in the chart above, the one throwing off the entire scale – that's East Timor. The value shown is the percentage difference between the gross national product (GNP) and the gross domestic product (GDP), two slightly different measurements of the strength of a nation's economy.

According to an English translation of a report by newspaper Independente, the Deputy Prime Minister of East Timor, Fernando Lasama Araujo, has appealed to both the police and military forces to arrest citizens who are the "masterminds" of crime in the country.

Karen Barlow – Foreign Minister Bob Carr insists Australia and East Timor remain on good terms despite reports the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) broke into and bugged East Timorese cabinet rooms nine years ago.

President Taur Matan Ruak raised has concerns about the number of incest and domestic violence cases in Timor-Leste.

The Secretary of State for the Promotion of Equality Idelta Maria Rodrigues said she raised the issue during a meeting with the President at the Presidential Palace in Bairo-Pite, Dili.

Based on the statistics from the Confederation Syndicate of Timor-Leste (KSTL), from 2001 until 2012 a total of 35% of female workers had their rights violated in the workplace.

The Head of the Industrial Relations Division at KSTL, Joao Cabral said currently employers discharge workers without a reason.

Emma Masters, Dili – The Australian Government has returned two decades of weather data to East Timor, after it was rescued by a Darwin meteorologist amid civil unrest during the small island nation's move to independence.

Head of state: Jose Maria Vasconcelos (Taur Matan Ruak, replaced Jose Manuel Ramos-Horta in May)
Head of government: Kay Rala Xanana Gusmao

East Timor's Oil Fund grew by US$1.2 billion in the first quarter of the year to US$13 billion at the end of March, said the East Timor Central Bank in Dili Monday.

According to the bank's statement, gross monies paid into the Fund from royalties and taxes totalled US$946 million, and no funds were transferred to the State's general account in the period.

According to the plan of H.E.

"The government has been less interested in pursuing difficult reforms than in transforming the image of a country known for too long as a place of violence" – Jim Della-Giacoma, Crisis Group's Asia Program Director

Arif Nurdiansah & Hindijani Novita – Indonesia is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), ratified in Law No. 7 of 1984. But almost 25 years later, how well are we honoring this commitment, especially the participation of women in the political realm?

Rory Callinan – A war crimes investigation into the killing of five Australian journalists in East Timor appears in danger of stalling after a key witness is feared dead and investigators say they are unable to obtain key information from overseas authorities.

Karl Quinn – Kirsty Sword Gusmao answers the door of her mother's house on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula wearing flat-heeled boots, a patterned jacket, a hint of make-up and no hair. "It was starting to itch," she says of the short bobbed wig she's taken to wearing. "So I took it off. I hope it's OK."

Sara Everingham and staff – East Timor is seeking to tear up a treaty with Australia on oil and gas revenues in the Timor Sea, arguing Australia spied on it during negotiations in 2004.

The Australian Government says neither East Timor's claims about the treaty nor its allegations of espionage are new and the treaty remains in force.

East Timor is seeking to tear up a treaty on the sharing of oil and gas revenues with Australia because it says Australia spied on it during the negotiations.

ASEAN is currently studying Timor Leste's bid to become a member of the association, secretary-general Le Luong Minh said on Monday.

The recently created East Timor state oil company, Companhia Nacional de Petroleo de Timor-Leste (CNPTL) plans to start prospecting for oil under the terms of a partnership with Italian group ENI and Australian group Inpex, according to an official statement issued Friday in Dili.

Ted McDonnell – East Timor is now a peaceful and happy place. The scars of the brutal 24 year Indonesian reign still exist, but the East Timorese are forgiving people.

A decade into its independence, there are significant signs of change, the largest being, Timor Plaza, the nation's first major shopping centre, in the heart of one of Dili poorest suburbs, Comoro.

Woodside Petroleum Ltd is unlikely to pursue the use of floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) technology in its development of the Sunrise gas project in the Timor Sea and is instead leaning towards an onshore plant, according to The Australian Financial Review.

Program Manager, Rui Carvalho, of the ISEAN Hivos Program Satellite Office in Timor-Leste, accuses personnel working at the Volunteer Confidential Counselling Testing facilities of discriminating against MSM (men who have sex with men) and transgender Timorese when these clients go for HIV/AIDS tests.

John DeFore, New York – Presenting a surprising and privileged viewpoint on the climax of East Timor's long struggle for independence, Alex Meillier's "Alias Ruby Blade" introduces us to an aspiring filmmaker from Australia who wound up acting as the right hand of an imprisoned rebel leader.

After a private fact-finding visit to East Timor, Democratic Labor Party (DLP) Senator John Madigan says Australia must counter the rising influence of China in the country.

Senator Madigan said the amount of development funded by China was obvious during his tour last week.

The Inspector For Work of the Secretariat of State for Policy, Professional Training and Employment (SEPFOPE), Rofino Lopes, said there are more than 100 vulnerable children working along the streets of the capital in Dili trying to make ends meet.

Paul Toohey – Three months before Indonesia invaded East Timor in December 1975, Gough Whitlam dismissed an Indonesian proposal to send a joint international military force to restore peace to the civil-war-torn colony.

The National Director for Social Assistance said the government doesn't have plans to build more shelter homes for victims of gender based violence but will continue to give financial support to develop existing shelter houses.

Paul Toohey – Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser was anxious to assure Jakarta that the matter of East Timor was closed as far as Australia was concerned, less than a year after Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese colony.

East Timor is the second of only two countries in Asia that in 2013 and 2014 are expected to post economic growth of two figures, with 10 percent growth in both years, according to the 2013 report from the Asia Development Bank.

If the story of East Timor is one of success, of a small country claiming its independence over the incredibly stacked odds of an oppressive regime, it it also the backdrop of the extraordinary love story of its leaders, now told with incredible intimacy and personal footage in a documentary.

Operation Astute was launched in May 2006 in response to a request from the East Timor government following violence fanned by an army mutiny.

Chief of Joint Operations Lieutenant General Ash Power said the last ADF personnel deployed on Astute returned to Australia on Wednesday, following the ceasing of operations in November last year.

Journalists Oscar Salsinha and Raimundo Oki were given a $150 fine each at the Dili District Court on March 14 following the accusation of slanderous denunciations over an article published about a car accident in Oe-Cusse.

The Dili District Court absolved the two journalists accused of slanderous denunciations but issued them to pay $150 in compensation each.

GMPTL President MP Josefa Soares said abortion is a crime and it violates the rights of the child.

The President of the Women in Parliament of Timor-Leste (GMPTL), MP Josefa Alvares Soares, said those who voluntarily practice abortion are committing a crime and violating the rights of the child and could be sent to prison for three years.

The Portuguese secretary of state for Energy, Artur Trindade, is due Tuesday to begin an official visit to East Timor in the company of Portuguese businesspeople, the State Secretariat said in a statement issued in Lisbon.

All charges must be dropped against two Timorese journalists facing prison sentences for exposing alleged corruption in their country's judicial system, Amnesty International said.