Jonathan Head – It was with a characteristically unemotional performance that Mari Alkatiri announced the end of his – and East Timor's – first prime ministerial term.

Hamish McDonald – In Timor there is the politics of Dili – this lethargic little seaside capital of low white buildings and tall tropical trees, where Portuguese-speaking political leaders drive from meeting to meeting in dark-windowed luxury four-wheel-drives, followed by carloads of bodyguards.

M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – The Commission for Truth and Friendship (KKP) has identified 14 incidents of gross human rights violations it says occurred in 1999 around the time the former province of East Timor voted to split from Indonesia.

Kalinga Seneviratne, Sydney – A two month old rebellion by sacked army officials and police deserters in East Timor, one of the world's newest and poorest countries, has resulted in an Australian-led "peacekeeping" force arrival in its capital Dili, and a media-supported push for 'regime change'.

John Martinkus – The East Timorese Prime Minister has added to the murk surrounding the country's descent into violence by accusing opposition groups backed by foreigners of conspiring to overthrow his Government in an armed coup.

And his claims have been backed by senior sources within the Defence Force, who say there have been three coup plots in the past 18 months.

Jon Lamb – East Timor's foreign minister Jose Ramos Horta formally requested to a special session of the United Nations Security Council on June 14 that the UN Office In East Timor be extended by at least one month to August 22.

Tomas Freitas is the director of Luta Hamutuk (Fight Together), a research and advocacy institute focusing on economic issues, including East Timor's Petroleum Fund. The Petroleum Fund is a mechanism to regulate the expenditure of East Timor's oil and gas proceeds.

Minh Nguyen – Following a period of relative quiet, the notion of failed or failing states is again making headlines in Australia as its troops struggle to disarm warring gangs in East Timor.

Hamish McDonald, Boibao Fort – Clanging gongs and beating drums were background noise to testimony by leaders of an alleged political hit squad that might bring down East Timor's embattled Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri.

Shawn Donnan – To anyone who has followed East Timor's violent birth, the prefab trailer sitting just inside the entrance of the former United Nations compound known as "Crocodile Alley" is an uneasy reminder of the stalled judicial efforts that have followed.

Hamish McDonald, Dili – New details have emerged about an East Timorese Government minister's efforts to turn police into a private army for the ruling Fretilin party and arm civilian hit squads to cow voters and rivals before next year's elections.

Reporter: Liz Jackson

Shawn Donnan, Jakarta – The United Nations' efforts to seek justice for the 1999 atrocities in East Timor were plagued by mistakes and missteps, abandoned prematurely, and have contributed to the fragile state of the tiny country's fledgling judiciary, according to a forthcoming report.

Tom Hyland – Despite a publicised handover of a handful of weapons by rebel soldiers, mystery over the whereabouts of thousands of police guns is delaying efforts to resolve East Timor's security and political crisis.

Peter Boyle – Among the cynical circles of Australian foreign policy "experts" committed to Australia playing a neo-colonial role in the Asia-Pacific region, there are some differing views on the Howard government's military intervention in the East Timor crisis.

Jon Lamb – Political tensions within the East Timorese elite continue to simmer amidst preparation for the first sitting of parliament since the arrival of the Australian-led international security force. The parliament is expected to discuss and debate the next measures to resolve the nation's political and social crisis.

Estevao Cabral and Julie Wark – At a panel on the state of the world's media hosted by Columbia University in New York last April, the veteran journalist Robert Fisk expressed outrage at the semantic distortion that bedevils understanding of events that affect us all and, worse, affect a great many people in ways that are unimaginable, (thanks to media versions) in homes where the m

Tom Hyland – Listen carefully: that scratching you hear is the scribbling of commentators, furiously re-writing history. And if you look closely, you might glimpse a hint of schadenfreude among those who argued all along that East Timor could never be free and are now saying: we told you so.

Annemarie Evans – Australian armoured vehicles patrol the streets of East Timor's capital, Dili, amid the burned-out shells of houses and food warehouses looted by marauding gangs, who for weeks have laid waste to neighbourhoods and forced tens of thousands of terrified civilians into refugee camps.

Jon Lamb – While the fighting between different factions of the East Timor Defence Force (FDTL) and the East Timor National Police (PNTL) has ceased with the arrival of the Australian-led international security force, sporadic street skirmishes and violence by unruly gangs continue.

Peter Boyle – Commenting on the Australian troop deployment to East Timor on May 31, the Australian's Paul Kelly said, "this intervention is both military and political. Its primary purpose was to respond to East Timor's security crisis... But this is not just a military intervention. It is a highly political intervention...

Diane Farsetta – Is the Southeast Asian island nation of East Timor a success story or a basket case?

Up to 2,000 protesters paraded through Dili in a convoy of trucks and motorcycles to call for the dismissal of East Timor's prime minister Mari Alkatiri and his government.

Maryann Keady, Dili – East Timor Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri says that he is a marked man and vows to not leave his government post without a fight. As violent civil unrest in East Timor continues and an Australian-led intervention force digs in, Asia's youngest country's political future is very much in doubt.

The unfortunate thing about overseas is that it is full of foreigners, and they have different traditions from us. That seems to be the gist of some lamentations here about the state of East Timor.

Tom Allard – Rosinha Erica Nunes is the kind of young woman that East Timor needs to cherish if it is to emerge as a viable country. A final-year high school student from a neighbourhood where few bother finishing their secondary education, she had the marks, and the ambition, to go to university next year.

Mark Dodd – The column of unarmed East Timorese police had walked less than 100m when the shooting began.

Two soldiers stepped forward, one of them armed with an M-16 rifle. What happened next was random and mind-numbingly brutal.

Ian McPhedran, Dili – East Timor is a nasty little political jigsaw that will keep Australia guessing and engaged for decades to come. As rival gangs battled it out this week on the dusty back streets of the sweltering capital, former military officers sat stewing in the hills begging for dialogue and leadership, but refusing to lay down a single high-powered assault rifle.

Peter Symonds – Just over a week after its first troops landed in East Timor, the Australian government is conducting an unrelenting and barely disguised campaign of "regime change" in Dili. Two senior East Timorese ministers resigned on Thursday as part of a compromise deal brokered in a tense, two-day meeting of the country's consultative Council of State.

Tom Allard in Dili and agencies – Soldiers loyal to the East Timorese Government say rebels led by Major Alfredo Reinado ambushed them as they approached his stronghold for peace talks, casting new light on last week's fierce gunfight captured by a television crew.

Paul Toohey – Saturday morning, things went crazy. The Australians had landed but, apart from a group of some 30 commandos nursing SR-25 semi-automatic rifles who had taken position around the United Nations compound, they were nowhere to be seen.

Lindsay Murdoch and Tom Allard, Dili – Two of East Timor's most powerful ministers resigned from the embattled government in Dili yesterday, risking a further escalation of violence if security forces loyal to Rogerio Lobato, former minister for the interior, take revenge for his forced exit.

Helen Hill – The Australian Government and media have demonised East Timor's PM without knowing all the facts,

Jon Lamb – In response to ongoing clashes between the East Timor Defence Force (FDTL) and rebel soldiers and police, the East Timorese president, prime minister, foreign minister and speaker to the parliament sent a joint communique on the evening of May 24 to the Australian government requesting that it send troops as part of an international force to restore security.

It is almost a week now after the arrival there of Australian peace-keepers but peace, you'd have to say, still seems a way off.

What, earlier this year, started out as basically an industrial dispute between disgruntled soldiers and the East Timorese Government, in April escalated when the armed forces split along both ethnic and political lines.

Max Lane – On May 24, East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao, Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri and the speaker of East Timor's parliament Lu'olo sent a letter to the governments of Australia, Portugal, Malaysia and New Zealand as well as to the United Nations asking for assistance in the form of a military presence in order to respond to civil disorder in the East Timor capital Dili, and

Maryann Keady – Three years ago, I wrote a piece talking about attempts to oust Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri in East Timor, then a new struggling independent nation.

Dili – East Timor dumped its defense minister Tuesday and the government showed signs of further unraveling, as desperate residents scuffled over scarce food in the capital and looters ransacked the prosecutor's office of vast numbers of files.

James Dunn – East Timor's descent into violence and anarchy, and towards civil war, chaos came as a shock, including to this columnist who has been involved in the affairs of this community for more than 4 decades, especially their ordeal during Indonesia's harsh occupation.

Lawrence Bartlett, Sydney – The explosion of violence in East Timor was the result of an accumulation of ethnic, economic and historical grievances in the young country and the failure of the government to address them, analysts say.

Mark Dodd, Dili – East Timor President Xanana Gusmao has assumed sweeping new executive authority, invoking emergency powers under the country's constitution to help resolve the political crisis.

Tom Allard and Mark Forbes in Dili – A humanitarian and political crisis was escalating in East Timor last night, as mobs looted government food warehouses, burnt properties and shot and bashed ethnic enemies.

Washington – A US-based pressure group has warned Australia that its invited military intervention in East Timor to quell unrest did not entitle it to interfere in the country's government.

Tom Hyland – The UN, Australia and the East Timorese Government had multiple warnings of the looming internal security crisis that has plunged Dili into violent chaos.

Prime Minister John Howard had ignored the difficult task facing East Timor in the wake of the ruinous Indonesian occupation, Australian Democrats Leader Lyn Allison said today. Australia should have done more to help, she said.

Anthony Deutsch, Dili – East Timor's capital descended into chaos Saturday as rival gangs set houses on fire and attacked each other with machetes and spears, defying international peacekeepers patrolling in armed vehicles and combat helicopters. The prime minister said a coup attempt was underway.

We have watched the unfolding situation in Timor-Leste this past week with deep concern. We do not believe that events had to escalate to this point. Like others, we do not have complete information about the current situation and its causes. Below are our initial reflections:

George Quinn – On its independence day almost exactly four years ago, the people of East Timor seemed literally to be singing on the same page. The independence movement had grabbed a massive win in the referendum of 1999. Indonesia's sour response and the brutality of its militias had been a gift to the new country's sense of solidarity.

Mark Forbes – Wide-eyed youths brandish machetes, armed militias rampage through the streets, terrified civilians flee, soldiers lay siege to police headquarters and your sleep is broken by rifle bursts, heavy machine guns and the thump of grenades. Welcome to East Timor, the world's youngest nation on the brink of becoming its next failed state.

Hamish McDonald – Australian warships silhouetted in the calm blue waters, a squat Hercules on the airfield surrounded by young soldiers armed and wired to the teeth, and John Howard warning the nation that it's all very risky.

Aren't we seeing a bit too much of this in our region? What happened to preventive diplomacy and peacekeeping?