Mark Dodd, Dili – The UN has admitted holding talks with the lawyers for East Timor army fugitive Alfredo Reinado after twice denying it was involved in negotiations to secure his surrender.

Dili – Street violence and worries about renegade soldiers are disrupting preparations for next month's elections in East Timor – polls seen as crucial to the tiny nation's future – an official said Wednesday.

[The following letter was written by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Progressio and TAPOL.]

Francisco Guterres (Lu'Olo)
President of the National Parliament
National Parliament
Dili Timor-Leste

14 March 2007

Dear Mr Guterres,

Jeff Kingston – East Timor is an ill-starred land that has endured more than its share of violence, neglect and deprivation. Since February 2007 there has been a renewed surge in violence, initially due to gang turf battles and increasingly aggressive clashes between gangs and international peacekeepers.

Dennis Shanahan – It used to be a proud boast of Australian troops on the ground in East Timor in the latest security assignment that they had never fired a shot. Not one; not into the air and certainly not at people.

A measure of calm has returned to the streets of Dili after the violence which erupted again last weekend in the wake of the failed attempt to capture fugitive rebel leader Alfredo Reinado. Some fear this is merely the calm before a bigger storm. And calm is a relative term.

Rod McGuirk, Dili – East Timorese election authorities said Saturday that all eight candidates had been approved to contest this divided nation's presidential polls next month.

Hannah Beech, Dili – Every day, the fancy jeeps cruise past Palmira Pereira's shack on the northern coast of East Timor. Sometimes, the passengers inside the air-conditioned vehicles raise their hands in greeting, and Pereira, or one of her 10 children, waves back.

Damian Kingsbury – The decision by East Timor's courts to convict and jail former interior minister, Rogerio Lobato, on charges of manslaughter and arming gangs last year should come as a welcome sign that this small, teetering state can still pull back from the brink.

Roy Callinan, Same – A few hours before dawn on Feb. 26, East Timor's most wanted man, rebel leader Major Alfredo Reinado, drove into the small town of Same, 50 km south of Dili, with about 70 armed supporters. Many residents of the town sympathized with Reinado, who has been a focus of anti-government feeling since he led a mass desertion from the Army last April.

Vannessa Hearman – Australian soldiers fired on three youths in Dili on February 23. One youth died at the scene – a camp for internally displaced people (IDP) near Dili Airport. The others were injured; one later died in hospital.

Damien Kingsbury – The assault in East Timor by Australian troops on outlaw Major Alfredo Reinado and his gang in Same, and the worsening of violence and destruction in Dili, has highlighted that political conflict in East Timor is a long way from over.

Lindsay Murdoch in Dili and agencies – About 20 youths attacked the Dili Club, a restaurant-bar owned by an Australian and popular with foreigners, roughing up patrons before United Nations police arrived. No one was seriously injured.

Sydney – Reporters Without Borders has hailed the warrant issued on 1 March 2007 by Sydney coroner Dorelle Pinch for the arrest of Yunus Yosfiah, the former Indonesian army officer who led the attack on the East Timor border town of Balibo on 16 October 1975 in which five journalists working for two Australian TV stations were killed.

Lindsay Murdoch and Mark Forbes in East Timor – Security forces in East Timor were bracing last night for escalating violence after Australian soldiers killed four Timorese men in a botched raid to capture the rebel leader Alfredo Reinado.

Guido Goulart, Dili – East Timor's president invoked emergency powers on Monday to quell unrest after hundreds of young men blockaded roads with burning tires and concrete blocks, demanding that foreign troops pull out. Australia said it would evacuate nonessential government workers and the US issued a travel warning.

Hamish McDonald – It was the week the Balibo inquest cut to the chase. After 15 days of hearing from those outside the intelligence tent, some of its former inhabitants were brought into the open. But only with the greatest nervousness by the present-day masters of the intelligence community, despite the passing of more than 31 years since the Balibo Five journalists died.

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – Street gangsters have a favourite place on Dili's waterfront. Just past the fortified Australian embassy residential compound, they run to hide behind a high fence on a building site with an unending supply of rocks.

Karen Michelmore, Jakarta – The Indonesian government today declared the case of five Australian journalists' deaths in East Timor more than 30 years a closed matter.

Dili – Rebel East Timorese soldiers raided a police post and seized a large haul of automatic weapons, the United Nations and local officials said Monday, raising fresh security concerns in the tiny nation ahead of elections in April.

A former Indonesian cabinet minister implicated in the deaths of five Australian and British journalists in East Timor in 1975 is remaining defiant in the face of calls for his arrest.

An Australian coroner has issued an arrest warrant for Mohammed Yunus Yosfiah after hearing evidence that he was seen shooting at the journalists in the town of Balibo 32 years ago.

Hamish McDonald – Within seven minutes of an Indonesian army radio message being intercepted in Darwin, saying five Australian journalists had been deliberately killed in East Timor in 1975, it was translated and sent to prime minister Gough Whitlam, senior ministers and officials.

Sydney – An Australian coroner on Thursday issued a warrant of arrest for a retired Indonesian cabinet minister in an inquiry into the death of five journalists in East Timor 32 years ago.

Stephen Fitzpatrick, Mark Dodd – Renegade East Timor military leader Alfredo Reinado has threatened to defend himself "to the death" from a heavily armed post in the central town of Same, where he was yesterday surrounded by Australian SAS troops.

At the beginning of this month's long overdue inquest into the deaths of the five Australian-based newsmen at Balibo in 1975, the Crown counsel heralded the hearings as the first "open, public and completely independent" inquiry of a judicial nature into the case.

Adam Bennett, Sydney – A Sydney coroner has invited a former Indonesian general and government minister to give evidence about the deaths of the Balibo Five, as he was again linked to their killings.

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – A US court has cleared the way for the hearing of a challenge to the rights over the Timor Sea's vast oil and gas reserves.

Lawyers for oil explorer Oceanic Exploration are preparing to take the company's claim against US-giant ConocoPhillips to the US District Court in southern Texas.

Adam Bennett, Sydney – A NSW coroner hearing an inquest into the death of one of five Australian journalists in East Timor more than 30 years ago has agreed to hear some evidence in secret.

Hamish McDonald – Australia's spooks are often aghast at the way highly classified intelligence material and techniques leak out into the public domain in the United States.

A government intelligence chief destroyed documents revealing the deaths of Australian-based journalists in East Timor in 1975 to stop news of the killings spreading.

The Commission of Truth and Friendship (CTF), set up by Indonesia and Timor Leste, has finally begun to show its face with its inaugural public hearings.

There is apprehension all around as we follow testimonies regarding the violence before and after the 1999 referendum which led to Timor Leste's independence.

Paul Mulvey, Sydney – Three decades on, Shirley Shackleton still wakes in fright, sitting bolt upright in bed as she relives the moment she sensed her husband had been killed. It's a recurring, but now rare, nightmare.

Human Rights Working Group (HRWG), Kontras, ELSAM, Imparsial, PBHI, Yayasan HAK and FORUM-ASIA have closely viewed the 19-21 February 2007 hearing process of the Commission of Truth and Friendship (CTF) as an instrument of impunity on cases of human rights violations that occurred in Timor Leste in 1999.

Paul Mulvey, Sydney – A mystery Australian intelligence officer from the 1970s could prove whether the federal government knew five Australian journalists were executed by Indonesian forces in East Timor in 1975. But, despite extensive inquiries and searches, nobody knows where he is.

Michelle Nichols, United Nations – The UN Security Council voted on Thursday to keep peacekeepers in East Timor for another 12 months as the Asia-Pacific's newest nation struggles to overcome an east-west divide and gang violence.

The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) said today that the joint Indonesia-East Timor Commission of Truth and Friendship (CTF) can not further either goal its name suggests.

Emma Alberici Mark Colvin: The Coronial Inquest into the death of Brian Peters in Balibo, East Timor today heard startling evidence from a former senior federal government official.

Paul Mulvey, Sydney – The Whitlam and Fraser governments have been accused of lying over the deaths of five Australian-based journalists in East Timor in 1975.

Mark Forbes, Denpasar – Tales of blood and tears are flowing from a Commission of Truth and Friendship hearing into the atrocities committed in East Timor about the time of the 1999 independence vote.

Paul Mulvey – The widow of one of the Balibo Five has renewed calls for former prime minister Gough Whitlam to appear as a witness at the inquest into the death of one of the journalists killed in East Timor in 1975.

Dili – UN police have arrested 148 people suspected of involvement in a resurgence of street violence in the East Timorese capital, the UN envoy to the troubled country said today.

"In the past three days, the police have arrested 148 people, all related to the security situation in Dili," Atul Khare said.

Brett Morris – On Monday, a commission set up by Indonesia and East Timor began its first hearing to further reconciliation between the two countries over the violence that occurred during 1999 when East Timor voted in a referendum to declare independence from Indonesia.

Stephen Fitzpatrick, Bali – A plain-clothes Indonesian soldier gave the order to attack an East Timor churchyard where thousands of civilians were sheltering in 1999, resulting in more than two dozen deaths, a survivor of the atrocity claimed yesterday.

Mark Forbes Denpasar – Australia was overzealous and "gung-ho" towards East Timor, the former Indonesian foreign minister, Ali Alatas, has said at an inquiry aimed at healing the wounds left by the bloody aftermath of Timorese independence.

Dili – Parliament agreed to ratify an agreement with Australia over the management of oil and gas resources in the Greater Sunrise field in the Timor Sea.

"I am glad because after one year, the parliament finally has approved this agreement," Prime Minister Jose Ramos-Horta told reporters after the vote, with 48 in favor, five against and three abstentions.

Karen Michelmore and Olivia Rondonuwu, Bali – Indonesia could not have anticipated the scale of violence that followed East Timor's historic 1999 vote for independence, Indonesia's former foreign minister insisted today.

Reporter: Geoff Thompson

Mark Colvin: Indonesia's former Foreign Minister, Ali Alatas, has identified a letter from John Howard as the factor that pushed former President Habibie to support a referendum on East Timor's independence.

Hamish McDonald – When nominations close at the end of this month for East Timor's April 9 presidential election, expect to see the start of a process aimed at shaking up the foundations of the new nation's politics.

Hamish McDonald – Indonesian special forces knew five Australian newsmen were in Balibo before they attacked the East Timor village 31 years ago, and intended to kill them, a Sydney court heard yesterday.

David Nason, Mark Dodd – The riches from the Greater Sunrise gas field in the Timor Sea are set to be unlocked with East Timor's parliament expected to vote on the project next week.