Jose Matheus – Authorities in Timor-Leste are pushing for Portuguese to be adopted as the sole medium of instruction in the country's schools, even though some 80 per cent of the country's educational establishments are currently teaching in other languages.

Joe Hoppe – Baron Oil PLC said Tuesday that a competent person's report for the Chuditch-1 gas discovery, offshore East Timor, shows the project is likely to be economically viable.

The London-listed oil and gas company – which has a 75% operated effective interest in Chuditch – said the report estimates Chuditch-1 contains 1,084 billion standard cubic feet of gas.

Cindy Frishanti Octavia, Kupang – Governor of East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) Viktor Bungtilu Laiskodat has said that 30-40 large industries will be built to support the development of economic zones along the border shared by NTT and Oecusse, Timor Leste.

The government of Timor-Leste has approved the demarcation of 7 mining zones, comprising 49 concession areas, and is drawing up conditions for tenders, the Portuguese news agency Lusa reports.

Parker Novak – On 21 May, voters in Timor-Leste will head to the polls for the country's fifth parliamentary election since 2002. Elections in one of Southeast Asia's most vibrant democracies are always a competitive affair, and the Timorese treasure their right to vote because the simple act of casting ballots secured their path to independence in 1999.

Jakarta – President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo welcomed on Monday Timor-Leste's membership of ASEAN and called for greater cooperation between the two neighboring countries in the future.

Fajar Pebrianto, Jakarta – Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and Timor Leste Prime Minister Taur Matan Ruak agreed on a number of commitments during a meeting at the Bogor Presidential Palace, West Java on Monday, February 13, 2023. One of the commitments was related to the establishment of a bilateral investment treaty.

Jayanty Nada Shofa, Jakarta – Close neighbors Indonesia and Timor Leste agreed to speed up their negotiations on the remaining land border disputes, following a meeting between President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and visiting Prime Minister Taur Matan Ruak at the Bogor Palace on Monday.

Riani Sanusi Putri, Jakarta – Director of the Indonesian Bureau of Logistics (Buloag) Budi Waseso, admitted that he had received reports concerning rice smuggling to Timor Leste. The rice was smuggled to neighboring countries through Atambua, East Nusa Tenggara. In Timor Leste, the smuggled rice are being sold at Rp20,000 per kilogram.

Henry Jom – In a show of friendship, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has reaffirmed the country's enduring relationship with Timor-Leste, also known as East Timor, during a visit by the island nation's prime minister and his delegation on Feb. 8.

The Catholic Church in Timor-Leste will assist to ensure upcoming parliamentary elections are peaceful after previous polls were marred by violence, says the country's top Catholic leader.

Melbourne – Woodside Energy Group and its partners on Monday formally committed to working rapidly to pick the best option for developing the Greater Sunrise natural gas field, factoring in for the first time the potential benefits for East Timor.

Hariz Baharudin, Jakarta – Asean members are supportive of observer Timor-Leste's participation in the bloc, but full membership comes with heavy responsibilities and obligations which can be a steep hill to climb, said Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan.

Jayanty Nada Shofa, Jakarta – Timor Leste, which finally got the green light to join ASEAN "in principle" last year, made its ASEAN meeting debut on Friday hosted by neighboring Indonesia which holds the current presidency.

Timor Leste's former president and four-time prime minister Xanana Gusmao has come under fire for joining the birthday party of a defrocked American priest jailed for child sex abuse.

Rosmalis Anuar, Kuala Lumpur – After more than a decade of seeking full membership of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Timor Leste was finally, in principle, given approval to join the regional bloc as its 11th member state by ASEAN leaders who gathered in Phnom Penh for the 40th and 41st ASEAN Summits and Related Summits in November last year (2022).

Malcolm Brown – Shirley Shackleton knew the risks. Married to journalist Greg Shackleton for just over nine years, and a mother of one, she was worried like any wife whose husband is about to embark on a dangerous assignment. But she resolved not to stand in his way.

Joanne Lin, Singapore – Timor-Leste may have received a consolation prize last year when it received in-principle approval to join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as its 11th member state. However, it may have a long way to go in to reach the ultimate prize – full membership.

Anne Barker, Jakarta – Shirley Shackleton once sat on her husband's grave and declared it a crime scene.

In the late 1980s in Dili, she personally confronted the army general who had led Indonesia's invasion of then Portuguese Timor.

Now she has been remembered as feisty, courageous and passionate, after dying at the weekend aged 91.

She was an unlikely hero.

Chris Barrett, Singapore – East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta has called on the Australian government to finally release secret documents relating to the Indonesian invasion and occupation of the south-east-Asian nation as he led tributes to Balibo Five widow Shirley Shackleton.

Daniel A. Fajri, Jakarta – Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi welcomed a visit by her Timor Leste counterpart Adaljiza Magno in Jakarta on Wednesday, January 11, 2023. A number of issues were discussed at the bilateral meeting, such as opportunities to boost economic partnership and settlement of land boundaries between the two.

Hunter Marston – At the 41st ASEAN Summit in Phnom Penh in November 2022, the leaders of the grouping agreed 'in principle' to admit Timor-Leste as their 11th member.

Rui Graca Feijo – In the past few years, everyday life in Timor-Leste has been disrupted by the multiple effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Conditions were imposed on the exercise of public liberties, the composition of government and the dynamics of political life were challenged, economic performance weakened and the wellbeing of the population suffered.

Fiona Gruber – Journalists' lives are often peripatetic, and few more so than foreign correspondent Jill Jolliffe, whose career included covering war in Angola, investigating secret Nazi gold in Portugal and documenting the sex-slave trade in Europe.

Henry Jom – East Timorese President Jose Ramos Horta has urged Australian PM Anthony Albanese to publicly support the development of a gas pipeline in the Timor Sea following Woodside Energy's new position on the project.

The US$490 million-Tibar Bay Deepwater Port, in Timor-Leste was inaugurated last week by the President of Timor-Leste Jose Ramos Horta and high-ranking officials from the government.

Aloysius L, Fardah, Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara – The number of people crossing the border between Indonesia and Timor Leste has increased to an average of 200 people per day, according to the Atambua Immigration Office in Belu District, East Nusa Tenggara Province.

Philip J. Heijmans – Timor-Leste President Jose Ramos-Horta said that Australia has shown no signs moving forward with a long-stalled gas pipeline project that runs through the Southeast Asian country, leaving around $100 billion in potential revenue untapped.

Hariz Baharudin, Singapore – Timor-Leste will work actively with the Asean Secretariat and others in the region to accelerate preparations for its membership to the regional grouping, said the country's president, Dr Jose Ramos-Horta.

Jean Iau, Singapore – Singapore on Thursday launched a training programme for Timor-Leste officials in support of the country's bid for Asean membership.

Hamish McDonald – When attorney-general Mark Dreyfus canned the long-running prosecution of Canberra lawyer Bernard Collaery he was praised widely by critics of Canberra's national security culture. Five months later, the praise is tempered by puzzlement: a subsequent legal move by Dreyfus may block efforts to answer lingering questions about the long-running case.

Timor-Leste has authorised a US$73.3 million finance agreement with Australia for works at Dili Airport.

"This is the last leg of the funding, so that progress can now be made on the project. We will now issue international tenders for this large-scale project," said Timor-Leste's Finance Minister Rui Gomes.

The Timorese state oil company Timor GAP, the majority partner in the Greater Sunrise consortium in the Timor Sea, has informed Australia's Woodside of its intention to replace it as operator of the project.

Timor GAP holds 56.56 per cent of the Greater Sunrise consortium, in which Woodside has 33.44 per cent, and Japanese Osaka Gas company has 10 per cent.

Damon Evans – The chief executive of Australia's Woodside Energy appears to have made a blunder with her comments that the company is open to revisiting a greenfield LNG export development in East Timor. Significantly, the melodrama around the project will likely continue.

Dili, Timor Leste – Timor Leste inaugurated a new deepwater port Wednesday operated by a French conglomerate, in the largest ever single foreign investment on an infrastructure project in Southeast Asia's youngest country.

The $490 million port at Tibar Bay near the capital Dili is expected to expand trade for Timor Leste, one of the poorest countries in the region.

Melbourne – Woodside Energy Group said for the first time on Thursday it was willing to consider sending gas from the huge Greater Sunrise field to East Timor, instead of its long-preferred option of Darwin in Australia.

Woodside Energy is reconsidering the potential development of Greater Sunrise via an onshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal in East Timor. This marks a significant about-turn for the Australian LNG developer.

The government in Catholic-majority Timor-Leste hosted the first music and cultural festival involving participants from across the country, part of an effort to promote tourism and diversify income sources.

In a November 17 statement, Jesuit Mission said thanks to the collaboration of many village leaders over the last four years, its partnership with

Kornelius Purba, Jakarta – ASEAN has eventually accepted Timor Leste Republic as its 11th member last week after years of debate that included initial reservations from Singapore. The inclusion of the young republic into the regional club looks like Indonesia's mea culpa confession and fulfillment of its debts to its former colony.

Phnom Penh – It was as a budding diplomat in the 1970s that Mr Jose Ramos-Horta, a man who would go on to win the Nobel Prize for his fight for East Timor's independence, first raised the idea of his country joining South-east Asia's economic and political bloc.

Annie Wu – The venue is brimming with cheers of excitement from the chicken owners. Despite bets being placed before the game started, the value of a bet can build up as the stronger chicken continues to win.

The atmosphere gets intense.

Hariz Baharudin, Phnom Penh – Timor-Leste will be admitted in principle as the 11th member state of regional grouping Asean, said leaders of its member states on Friday.

Two journalists have been summoned by the National Police of Timor-Leste (PNTL) after publishing two articles on a minister's request to dismiss Gastao Pereira, the Director of Internal Intelligence at the National Intelligence Service (NIS).

Ry Sochan – Prime Minister Hun Sen encouraged the competent authorities of both Cambodia and East Timor to continue to effectively implement the three documents that both countries had signed in order to boost economic cooperation, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

Rhiannon Hoyle, Adelaide, Australia – The chief executive of Woodside Energy Group Ltd. said she hopes a stalemate on the Greater Sunrise natural-gas project near East Timor can be broken following Australia's decision to appoint a special envoy to the project, but she highlighted challenges to the small nation's insistence that gas from the fields be processed in East Timor.

Ry Sochan – East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta arrived in Phnom Penh on October 19 for a three-day visit to boost ties.

Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Hun Sen will preside over the signing ceremony of two bilateral agreements – an air services agreement and a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the rice trade between the two countries.

Ry Sochan – Cambodia and East Timor signed two documents to boost bilateral trade cooperation on October 20. The two documents are an air services agreement and a memorandum of understanding on the rice trade between the two countries.

The signing ceremony was held at the Peace Palace, and witnessed by Prime Minister Hun Sen and East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta.

The Timorese government has reiterated its willingness to partner with Australian oil company Woodside to advance the development of the Greater Sunrise field in the Timor Sea.

The message was delivered by Timor-Leste's prime minister, Taur Matan Ruak, in a virtual meeting on Thursday with Woodside's CEO, Meg O'Neill, according to the prime minister's office.

The Vatican representative in Timor-Leste has urged Catholics to respect the sanctions that have been imposed on Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo for "the serious crimes" he has committed and asked them to maintain loyalty to the Church amid heated debates over the issue.