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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Dili – East Timor will use a fraction of its oil fund worth over $2 billion to protect the poor from rising food and fuel prices, Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao said on Thursday.

Dili – East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta is confident about his young country's future, despite lingering poverty and swirling mistrust over rebel attacks three months ago that left him near death.

Dili – East Timor's President Jose Ramos-Horta said Wednesday he had slashed the seven-year jail sentence handed out to a former minister for distributing weapons during violent unrest in 2006.

Rebels who attacked the East Timorese leadership in February were trying to seize control of the country, President Jose Ramos-Horta says.

Dili – It is 8am and Star King in Dili, Timor-Leste's capital, is about to open. For most of the year, Star King, a dimly lit warehouse that sells tinned milk, noodles and cooking oil, is a store among a dozen just like it. But today police have been called to help manage the 100 or so anxious people waiting outside.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – East Timorese citizens are celebrating the sixth anniversary of their independence today, but with an edge of uncertainty about their political and economic future.

Dili – East Timor is set to celebrate six years of independence Tuesday, with bursting national pride and dreams for the future contending with the harsh realities of poverty, violence and instability.

Dili – East Timor's army will receive military training from Portuguese-speaking countries such as Brazil and Portugal as part of a military pact signed between the countries today.

Defence ministers of eight Portuguese-speaking countries signed the military agreement in former Portuguese colony East Timor's capital, Dili, in a bid to prevent conflict in their regions.

We will see how serious Kevin Rudd is in bringing the Balibo Five case to its logical conclusion, writes Paul Daley.

A week before the last election, Kevin Rudd placed on record his unambiguous views about a crime that many Australians have come to regard as perhaps the most shameful recent episode in Australian diplomacy.

Dili – The advantages of Cuban basic reading and writing teaching method Yes, I Can, which combines the student's basic learning primer with video classes, outstood here Saturday on occasion of the National Reading Day in this capital.

Paul Toohey – Xanana Gusmao, his Australian wife Kirsty and their kids haven't been back to their home in the hills overlooking the East Timorese capital, Dili, since the morning of February 11, when his prime ministerial convoy was ambushed by a group of rebels. The family will never return to that home.

[The following comment was posted on the East Timor list in response to a May 14 report that appeared in Green Left Weekly titled "East Timor: Governing coalition on brink of collapse".]

The factual inaccuracy of this report is worrying. The AMP government is not on the "brink of collapse". It may be challenged next year – the "brink" is still some way off.

Tony Iltis – A realignment of political forces appears to be underway in East Timor, with the signing of an agreement for a strategic alliance for future elections between the largest party in parliament, the Revolutionary Front of Independent East Timor (Fretilin), and the Timorese Social Democratic Association (ASDT) – the second largest party in the coalition of non-Fretilin part

Stephanie March – The United Nations in East Timor is on the defensive after being lambasted by its own top lawyer in New York for hiring disgraced former defence minister, Roque Rodrigues, as a presidential security adviser.

Paul Toohey – The UN will wait until February to consider whether it will continue its peacekeeping mission in East Timor, despite President Jose Ramos Horta asking it to commit until at least 2012.

Mr Ramos Horta, still recovering from being shot in February, views his country as volatile despite the apparent calm following the surrender of rebels a fortnight ago.

The family of the lover of rebel leader Alfredo Reinado has called on the Australian government to withhold aid to East Timor until she is "charged or exonerated".

Angelita Pires, 33, was the first person to be arrested over the February 11 attacks on President Jose Ramos Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao.

High food and oil prices will put thousands in the Pacific at risk this year and could spark fresh violence in East Timor, an economist has found.