Rita A. Widiadana, Sanur – The joint Indonesia-Timor Leste Truth and Friendship Commission will continue its work despite the outbreak of violence in Timor Leste, an official said Friday.

Damien Kingsbury – Australia's renewed intervention in East Timor will help defuse what was growing into an explosive situation, and which threatened the fledgling state.

Events in East Timor and the response internationally have given rise to a variation on gunboat diplomacy. It is gunboat democracy. In colonial times, a country would position a gunboat off the coast of a minion and that would be enough to sort out the native unrest.

Mark Forbes, Dili – The thud of grenades and chatter of machine-gun fire was drowned out by the drone of a huge, grey Australian Hercules yesterday carrying the men locals pray will deliver them from the carnage enveloping Dili.

Jill Jolliffe and Rob Taylor, Dili – Heavy casualties have been reported in the centre of Dili where a fierce gun battle raged between rival military factions today.

Dylan Welch – Fighting was raging around East Timor's capital today ahead of the promised deployment of up to 1300 Australian troops to restore order.

Rory Callinan, Dili – The large rock flying past the windscreen raised the alarm. For the previous two days I had travelled with impunity through the Dili suburbs of Becora and Fatuahi, where residents of the East Timorese capital had been engaged in running battles, armed with knifes, bows and arrows, spears and swords.

Ambitious politicians misjudge the mood in the military and soon the shooting starts, with the factions fighting over the pathetically small spoils of power. And an impoverished people scrambles to get out of harms way, while watching their aspirations for a better life disappear.

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – Widespread disenchantment with East Timor's government, a poorly led military and widespread poverty and unemployment are fuelling the worst unrest since the small country's 1999 vote for independence, analysts say.

Jon Lamb – Heightened tensions within East Timor and rumours of further violent clashes have subsided with the passing of the Fretilin congress, held in Dili on May 17-19. The congress was a test of support for Fretilin leader and East Timor's Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.

Vera Devai – The Australian Government was hampering the investigation into the death of a TV news cameraman in East Timor because of its political ties with Indonesia, NSW police said today.

Guido Guilliart, Dili – A surge in violence in East Timor's capital left one soldier dead and seven others wounded Tuesday, the government said, as Australia and New Zealand offered to provide troops to help restore calm.

Mark Forbes, Dili – Crowds danced to a cover version of Van Halen's Jump in the forecourt of East Timor's battered government headquarters on Saturday night – celebrating the anniversary of independence – the scene of last month's rampage by youths and rebel soldiers that left at least five civilians shot dead.

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – East Timor's Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri avoided a leadership challenge this week but it is doubtful his rule will ensure any peace in the world's youngest nation.

Katrina Strickland – There is a scene in the ABC's new mini-series, Answered By Fire, in which a journalist tells a couple of United Nations police that the Australian government received intelligence ahead of East Timor's 1999 independence referendum about the likelihood of post-ballot violence.

Graeme Blundell – David Wenham and a cast of East Timorese amateurs are stunning in a new ABC drama about the bloody history of the world's newest nation

It has been easy not to remember the tragedy of East Timor, so overwhelmed did we become by September 11, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and terrorist bombings in Madrid, Bali and London.

Stephen Fitzpatrick, Dili – Mari Alkatiri was so confident he had stitched up the leadership of East Timor's ruling Fretilin party that by morning tea at the party's national congress yesterday he was belting out a melancholy nationalist anthem over the PA system, accompanied by an organist with a push-button rhythm machine.

Mark Forbes, Dili – East Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri's leadership has been overwhelmingly endorsed in raucous, joyous scenes at the ruling Fretilin party conference, after a challenge collapsed amid allegations of intimidation and bribery.

Loro Horta – It was a hauntingly familiar scene. Large-scale riots broke out in East Timor late last month, attended by looting, arson and the murder of five civilians. But rather than a rebellion against foreign occupation, the recent melee in the capital, Dili, was purely a domestic affair.

Mark Dodd and Stephen Fitzpatrick, Dili – Police in East Timor have failed to restore law and order following last month's deadly violence because the Interior Minister is too preoccupied with his personal business interests, a damning UN cable has revealed.

Paul Toohey – The dirt roads and hills in the western districts of the country are now their home. In Australian terminology, the 591 East Timorese soldiers – a third of the military – who abandoned their barracks in protest in March would be mutineers or traitors. In the delicate language of East Timor, they are "petitioners".

Former People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) chairman Amien Rais said for the sake of justice former East Timor pro-integration fighter Eurico Gutteres should be freed from all legal penalties for the human right abuses he was accused of because other parties who were more responsible for the atrocities had been acquitted.

Dili – East Timor's foreign minister Jose Ramos-Horta said his country does not need foreign peacekeepers, shortly after Australia said it had sent two warships close to Timorese waters.

Jon Lamb – Fearing renewed violence, tens of thousands of East Timorese have fled Dili to outlying villages and districts. The situation remains extremely tense in the capital following the police crackdown on an angry demonstration of former Falintil independence fighters and disaffected youth on April 28.

Jakarta – A number of members of the House of Representatives' Commission I dealing with security, political and foreign affairs paid a visit to former commander of the pro-integration fighter force PPI Eurico Guterres in the Cipinang state penitentiary here on Tuesday.

Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta – An East Timorese policeman was stabbed to death yesterday after security negotiations broke down in the western district of Ermera, where more than 600 rebel soldiers and police are defying a government call to return to their posts.

Stephen Fitzpatrick – The would-be guerilla fighters playing hide-and-seek in misty highlands far beyond East Timor's capital, Dili, are a mixed lot but they have one thing in common: they're prepared to die violent deaths to get what they want.

Lindsay Murdoch, Darwin – An East Timorese police commander has moved to calm panicked residents of Dili, telling them he only took his armed men into the mountains to protect people who had fled there.

Bronwyn Hurrell, Canberra – Australia has an affinity with East Timor that dates back to World War II when Australian soldiers were supported and sheltered by the locals, who paid a high toll at the hands of the Japanese.

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – Last week's protests in East Timor were sparked by a group of sacked soldiers, but a combination of disaffected youth, poverty and anger as the government turned them into deadly riots, analysts say.

Guido Guilliart, Dili – Rumors circulated by mobile phone text messages of an imminent attack by disgruntled ex-soldiers who clashed violently with police last week prompted thousands of residents to flee East Timor's capital on Friday, officials and witnesses said.

Stephen Fitzpatrick and Mark Dodd – More than 20,000 East Timorese, fearing renewed ethnic violence, have fled the riot-torn capital of Dili as the Government made desperate calls for calm yesterday.

Stephen Fitzpatrick, Dili – Liandro de Jesus's body lay in the morgue at Dili's Guido Valadares hospital for four days before his family was allowed to see it. They claim they were warned that if they pushed the matter, they too, like the star university student so recently lost to them, would be shot.

Shawn Donnan, Jakarta – A former pro-Jakarta militia leader on Thursday began serving a 10-year jail sentence in connection with the 1999 violence in East Timor as the United Nations Security Council prepared to discuss on Friday extending the mandate of a UN mission to the world's newest nation.

Time and again, the Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID) continuously reminds that the East Timorese people's struggle did not end when it acquired its independence.

After an appeal process that dragged on for over three years, former East Timorese pro-Indonesia militia leader Eurico Guterres has finally begun serving his 10-year jail sentence for crimes against humanity, but the Indonesian generals who ordered and financed his crimes remain free.

Dili – When East Timorese guerrilla leader Xanana Gusmao languished in an Indonesian jail, Australian activist and English teacher Kirsty Sword was a crucial link to his fighters and the outside world.

Stephen Fitzpatrick, Dili – Thousands of East Timorese were pouring into makeshift refugee camps in Dili last night, fearful of being murdered in an outbreak of ethnic violence.

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – Hundreds of sacked soldiers whose anti-Government protests erupted in violence have fled into East Timor's mountains, where many of them spent years waging a guerilla war against Indonesian troops.

Dili – Troops have fanned out across the East Timorese capital Dili, a day after a violent protest left two dead, as the president called for calm and urged thousands who fled their homes to return.

One East Timorese police officer was killed by mobs during a protest in support of nearly 600 dismissed soldiers in the capital Dili, police said.

Dili – The government ordered the army to help restore order in East Timor's capital Friday, after two people were killed and 34 wounded, including three officers, in clashes between police and soldiers protesting their dismissal from the tiny Defense Force.

Dili – A protest rally by hundreds of former East Timorese soldiers sacked after deserting last month turned ugly Wednesday when at least five houses and a market in Dili were vandalised, witnesses said. About 2,000 protesters held a demonstration in support of nearly 600 soldiers who complained of poor working conditions and discrimination before they deserted.

Dili – Four years ago as East Timor became the world's youngest nation, hundreds of cars driven by UN personnel criss-crossed the streets of Dili as the nation's strife-torn people faced an uncertain future.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – A march by dissident soldiers through the East Timorese capital yesterday turned ugly when demonstrators attacked market traders from the eastern Lospalos region.

The soldiers, from the western regions, were fired last month after a long dispute in which they claimed commanders discriminated against them in favour of easterners.

Nancy-Amelia Collins, Jakarta – Some East Timorese soldiers who were fired last month vow to continue their protests in the world's newest nation unless the government takes action over their complaints.

Nearly 600 soldiers dismissed last month from East Timor's armed forces for striking over labour conditions have threatened to wage a guerrilla war if the government failed to resolve their dispute with the military leadership.

Dili – About 2,000 demonstrators, backing hundreds of soldiers dismissed from the East Timorese army, marched through Dili Monday, launching five-days of announced protests against alleged regional discrimination in the military.

Mark Dodd – East Timor's Government is under pressure to eradicate torture and ill-treatment of detainees by its police force amid fears of a return to Indonesian-era human rights abuses.

From correspondents in Dili – East Timor's government must urgently act to stop police torture and other ill-treatment of detainees before the practice becomes widespread, a Human Rights Watch report said today.