Philip Dorling – The Australian Defence Force has begun a series of controversial exercises in East Timor involving Black Hawk helicopters firing live machine-gun rounds.

Police and security forces in East Timor are braced for a further day of protests outside the National University in Dili.

Since Monday, dozens of the students have been arrested as part of a continuing demonstration against what they say is government waste in the mid year budget review and a proposed new law that would allow civilians to carry guns.

Dili – Police in East Timor's capital fired tear gas Monday to disperse students protesting a plan by lawmakers to buy themselves new cars with state funds, authorities said.

Officers detained 21 students during the rally in Dili for "investigation purposes," said National Police Chief Inspector Afonso de Jesus. He did not elaborate.

Mark Dodd – East Timor Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao has signed a $US14.4 million ($14.9 million) food security contract giving sole import rights to the vice-president of his political party – a deal that is ringing alarm bells at the UN and among the impoverished country's main donors, including Australia.

Dili – East Timorese and UN anti-riot police arrested at least 16 students Tuesday during a second day of protests at the national university against a plan to import cars for lawmakers.

Around 500 students rallied outside the National University of Timor Leste to condemn the procurement plan, after 21 were arrested in a similar protest there on Monday.

Lindsay Murdoch, Darwin – The rebel named as having shot East Timor's President Jose Ramos Horta was apparently not the shooter after all, deepening the mystery that still surrounds the February attacks in Dili.

The Age can reveal that Mr Ramos Horta realised that Marcelo Caetano was not the gunman when he met him in Dili after he surrendered in April.

Lucy Williamson, Dili – "That's him," our guide told me. The man in the sagging brown vest was sitting at the entrance to his home, enjoying the morning sun. A mundane moment of freedom for a man convicted of the most serious crimes.

Dili – The East Timor Students Forum is threatening hunger strikes because its members feel deceived by the National Parliament about the agreement to purchase luxury motor vehicles being reduced from 65 to 26 vehicles.

East Timor's Prime Minister is supporting a new law that would allow civilians to own guns, less than five months after illegally armed rebel soldiers tried to kill him and the president

The proposal has sparked heated scenes in parliament, with MPs almost coming to blows over what some say is a dangerous development that could threaten the nation's fragile security.

Timor-Leste's President Jose Ramos-Horta yesterday unveiled his legislative plan for an ambitious reconciliation process covering the events of the 2006 crisis. The draft law, authored by his office, sets out a scheme whereby those charged, or even sentenced, for their role in the crisis could be excused from criminal responsibility.

Questions are being asked about a proposal to massively increase government spending in East Timor. A mid-year review has recommended that parliament approve a doubling of the state budget for this year. Dili says it needs to set up an Economic Stabilisation Fund to manage public anger over rising food and fuel prices. Critics say the extra spending is irresponsible.

East Timor's President Jose Ramos Horta has been accused of ignoring victims by granting clemency to militia members who killed nuns and priests during a bout of unrest in 1999.

The producer of a new political thriller about five Australia-based newsmen killed in East Timor in 1975 says the film will tell the truth about their deaths.

Cameras started rolling in Darwin today on the film Balibo, written by David Williamson (Gallipoli, The Year of Living Dangerously) and directed by Robert Connolly (The Bank).

Tito Belo, Dili – East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta said on Friday he would not pursue the job of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, confirming earlier media reports.

Paul Toohey, Dili – East Timor doesn't need any more confusion, but it got in doses yesterday.

Jose Ramos Horta announced he would no longer chase a job as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and would stay on as President – at the same time refusing to guarantee serving out his term.

Karon Snowdon for Radio Australia – The woman accused by the President of East Timor of fostering rebel resistance in the country says she fears for her life.

Regarding the decision of President of the Republic, Jose Ramos-Horta's, to grant executive clemency to 94 prisoners, today, Friday, 27 June 2008, eleven Timorese citizens delivered a petition to the Provedor for Human Rights and Justice (PDHJ) asking him to use his powers according to Section 150 of the Constitution to request that the Court of Appeals examine the constitutionality

Paul Toohey – Jose Ramos Horta had his country on tenterhooks last night as he asked for another 24 hours to decide whether he would stay on as East Timor's President or pursue a job in Geneva as the UN Human Rights Commissioner.

East Timor's president is considering taking the UN's top human rights job but must consider whether his early departure would disrupt his country's fragile peace.

Jose Ramos Horta told reporters he had a strong sense of duty to the young nation and was torn between that responsibility and taking the job of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

East Timor's president Jose Ramos Horta has called on Australia to be much more generous in providing access for East Timorese to work and study in Australia, describing Canberra's current stand as "embarrassing". He says he is disappointed with Australia's efforts, which are lagging far behind that of Portugal, the United States and even Cuba.

Jesse Wright, Dili – While East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta is on a shortlist of candidates to become the United Nations' next high commissioner for human rights, critics at home are fuming over his recent decision to grant early release from prison to 94 inmates, some of whom were convicted for crimes against humanity for their roles in the violent ransacking the country on it

Dili (Asia News/Agencies) - The government of East Timor has come under fire over its decision to turn over 100,000 hectares or a sixth of the country's arable land to a US$ 100 million ethanol project by an Indonesian company, GTLeste Biotech.

The mother of the woman linked to an East Timorese rebel leader says the country's President refused to meet her in Darwin today.

Former Darwin resident Angelita Pires, who was born in East Timor but grew up in Darwin, was in a relationship with rebel leader Alfredo Reinado.

Dili – Former East Timor militia chief Joni Marques, pardoned and released on parole this month after serving part of a long prison sentence for leading a massacre of nuns and priests in 1999, said Monday he was "repentant" for his crimes.

Dili – Joni Marques, former leader of East Timor's notorious Team Alfa militia, was released on parole earlier this month after controversially having a 33-year prison term commuted. He gave a long interview to Lusa Monday in a Dili refugee camp where he now lives with his family.

Jessie Wright, Dili – Buried deep in a neighbourhood of tin-roofed shacks, between a Christian church and an English-language school, sits one of the few mosques in East Timor.

Dili – East Timor's recent decision to pardon and release a former militia leader responsible for several murders has undermined the country's human rights commitment, a local watchdog said on Friday.

Philip Dorling – The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation has declassified hundreds of secret intelligence reports relating to the President of East Timor and Nobel Peace laureate Jose Ramos-Horta.

Philip Dorling – Declassified ASIO files on East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta shed new light on the complex diplomatic and intelligence games before and after Indonesia's invasion of East Timor in December 1975. The files also provide a rare insight into ASIO's highly sensitive foreign intelligence collection role.

Tara Ravens – Rebel leader Alfredo Reinado would still be alive today if his Australian lover had not stopped him from surrendering, says East Timorese President Jose Ramos Horta.

Angelita Pires, 33, was the first person to be arrested over the February 11 attacks which left the president critically wounded. Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao escaped a separate ambush unharmed.

This last week has seen the release of convicted militia leader Joni Marques, and others, from Dili's Becora prison.

Following Timor-Leste's first trial for crimes against humanity, in 2001, Marques was sentenced to 33 years 4 months jail. Marques led the Team Alpha militia who, in 1999, conducted attacks on civilians in the Lospalos area.

Angus Grigg, Jakarta – As soaring oil prices hit consumers and rattle global financial markets, one of the world's poorest nations, East Timor, is cashing in.

Thanks to the near-record cost of oil, East Timor has been transformed into a middle-income economy in just three years.

Lisa Macdonald, Sydney – Tim Anderson's new documentary on the East Timor-Cuba health cooperation program is an inspiration. The Doctors of Tomorrow, which was launched at a screening on June 12 hosted by NSW Greens MLC John Kaye, was filmed in both countries, and documents the human face of Cuba's profound international solidarity.

Jesse Wright – The United Nations, called in two years ago in the wake of a breakdown of East Timor's security forces that led to dozens of deaths, appears set to end its training of local police, many of whom are still unfit to be in uniform, leading to fears that carnage will begin again in a country ill-prepared for it.

Indonesia is refusing to give a date for the publication of a Truth Commission report on rights abuses during East Timor's 1999 independence vote, despite growing criticism of the delay.

Desy Nurhayati, Jakarta – A coalition of civil society groups is pressing the governments of Indonesia and Timor Leste to accept the final report from the Commission of Truth and Friendship (CTF) on human rights violations during the 1999 referendum in East Timor.

Jakarta – Human rights organisations the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), the Human Rights Working Group (HRWG) and Indonesian Human Rights Watch (Imparsial) have called on the Indonesia-East Timor Commission of Truth and Friendship (CTF) to immediately hand over the results of its work and those that the institution found liable for prosecution to t

Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta – UN police in East Timor will hand over responsibility to the national force sooner than expected, despite a high-level report casting doubt on Timorese policing capacity.

Lucy Williamson, Dili – Lily's wide, gentle face crumples when I ask her why she is doing it.

Sitting outside the corrugated tin walls of her temporary home, she holds my gaze as she wipes away tears, and explains that she wants her children to have a better life than the one they have now. She wants them to have qualifications, she says, to sleep easy at night.

One of the widows of the Balibo Five has expressed surprise at Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's decision to visit the cemetery where veterans of the Indonesian national revolution are buried.

Shirley Shackleton's husband Greg Shackleton was one of five journalists who were deliberately killed by Indonesian forces at Balibo in East Timor in 1975.

The widow of one of the Balibo Five killed in East Timor says she is offended Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is visiting an Indonesian cemetery for war heroes.

Mr Rudd is to lay a wreath later on Friday at the Kalibata Heroes Cemetery, the resting place of Indonesian military veterans and other prominent people.

Dili – In rural Timor-Leste, who owns the land and who uses the land are often two very different things.

Pedro da Costa Xavier is a 24-year-old subsistence farmer from Liquica District. He lives about an hour away from Dili, the capital, in a thatched hut near the sea. He grows tobacco next to his house – he says vegetables do not grow in the thin, salty soil.

Aubrey Belford, Tibar, East Timor – East Timor, which gained formal independence in 2002 after a long history of occupation under Portugal and Indonesia, is Asia's youngest country in more ways than one.

Tito Belo, Dili – About a thousand students rallied outside East Timor's parliament on Wednesday to protest against a decision to buy 65 Toyota Land Cruisers – one for each member of parliament – in one of the world's poorest nations.

Dili – At night Tomas Agusto and his family lie in their tent hoping nobody will set it alight. When he was moved out of the displacement camp in April, he was given US$4,500 to rebuild his house, but he is still too scared to do so.

Paul Toohey – A vindicated but bitter Mari Alkatiri, East Timor's Opposition leader, has vowed to sue political figures and journalists for reporting allegations he had received $2 million in bribes from Timor Gap's leading producer, ConocoPhillips.

Matheos Viktor Messakh, Jakarta – Human rights activists have sent a letter to the United Nations calling for an international tribunal to try those responsible for human rights violations during the Indonesian occupation of Timor Leste.

In a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, an international coalition of more than 90 human rights and other organizations urged the UN and the international community "to fulfill their long-standing commitment to see that justice is done for crimes against humanity committed in Timor-Leste" during Indonesia's two and one-half decade occupation.

His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary-General
The United Nations
1 United Nations Plaza
New York, New York 10017-3515

Your Excellency,

Setyo Budi, Dili – East Timor President Jose Ramos Horta's decision to pardon those involved in the 1999 killings, and the violent incidents of 2006, has thrown a shadow over the fledgling country's justice system and efforts at reconciliation with former occupiers Indonesia.