Mataram – Inhabitants of Belu and Timor Tengah Utara (TTU) districts located in the border area shared by East Nusa Tenggara and Timor Leste urgently need the government's help to get out from their misery.

Ahkmad Kusaeni, Jakarta – A decision made during an emergency situation could make a history. If Xanana Gusmao who was arrested in 1992 were executed, East Timor might never secede from Indonesia and the leader of the security disturbance group, Fretilin, would not become an East Timorese president.

John McBeth – It was five years ago. Sitting at the kitchen table in a small, nondescript house on Dili's sun-baked foreshore, the soon-to-be president of Timor Leste was talking about the future.

Ainslie Chandler – Despite its war-ravaged past, East Timor has all the hallmarks of a tropical paradise. Swaying palm trees, pristine beaches, coral reefs, misty mountains, hot springs and stunning architecture are dotted around the chaotic landscape that is the world's newest nation.

Sydney – The sister of one of the Balibo Five journalists shot dead in East Timor 30 years ago wants their remains exhumed for examination.

Maureen Tolfree, sister of Brian Peters, whose death is the subject of a NSW coronial inquest, believes the remains may hold clues about the manner and cause of the men's deaths.

Dili – Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri acknowledged Wednesday that his FRETILIN party forces committed "errors" and "excesses" during East Timor's brief civil war in 1975, but he vehemently denied an official report's findings that 3,000 people died in that conflict.

President Kay Rala Xanana Gusmco
President, Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste
Palacio Das Sinjas Rua Caicoli
Timor Leste

Dear President Gusmco,

Jeff Kingston – The legacies of Indonesia's brutal occupation of East Timor from 1975 to 1999 – when there were at least 102,800 conflict-related deaths – remain divisive in this small, impoverished nation of 800,000 people.

Yemris Fointuna, Kupang – Hundreds of displaced persons from East Timor taking refuge in East Nusa Tenggara province demanded on Monday that the central government compensate them with Rp 263 billion (US$26.3 million) for the assets they left behind in East Timor following the 1999 autonomy plebiscite.

John McBeth – The commission formed to investigate human rights abuses during Indonesia's bloody 25-year occupation of the former East Timor, now Timor Leste, has just issued its report. There are gory details aplenty, but it is interestingly circumspect about the role of theUS and Australia, as John McBeth discovers in an exclusive preview of the report in Jakarta

Mark Dodd – At his war crimes trial in Dili in 2001, East Timorese militia leader Joni Marques, facing 13 counts of murder, assault, kidnapping and torture including the cold-blooded killing of a nun, fingered Australian SAS and Indonesian Kopassus special forces as his former trainers.

Anthony Hubbard – Greig Cunningham has learned the hard way about governments and foreign affairs. His brother Gary, a television cameraman, was killed during Indonesia's attack on Balibo in East Timor in 1975.

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – The Indonesia-Timor Leste Truth and Friendship Commission (CTF) plans to summon former Indonesian Military chief Gen. (ret) Wiranto and several other generals in relation with the violence that took place in the then East Timor in 1999 prior to and after an independence referendum.

Dili – The head of East Timor's Catholic Church has written to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to reaffirm the need for an international tribunal to bring justice for victims of violence during Indonesia's quarter-century occupation of the territory.

Jakarta – A joint truth commission on violence surrounding East Timor's independence vote from Indonesia will try to summon people who may have been involved in the bloodshed next month, the commission said on Friday.

Dili – President Xanana Gusmco Thursday criticized the East Timorese government's decision to begin paying benefits to former guerrilla freedom fighters as premature and destined to provoke "more confusion".

Havana – President Fidel Castro has confirmed that Cuba is prepared to receive another 400 young people from Timor Leste for medical training, and to extend the new literacy method Yo sm puedo (Yes, I can do it) to that country.

Alex Chadwick, host:

The Southeast Asian Press Alliance has expressed alarm over the media situation in East Timor after Prime Minister Mari Altakiri signed an executive decree approving a penal code that criminalises defamation.

Havana – Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of East Timor, Mari Bim Amude Alkatiri, praised Cuba's development and breakthroughs in its health system and its successful cooperation program with other nations.

In an open letter to East Timorese President Josi Alexandre Gusmco, Human Rights First congratulated the Timorese leadership and called for the prompt release of the full report of that country's truth commission.

Adirito de Jesus Soares, Dili – This week marks the 30th anniversary of the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, with the people of East Timor organizing different activities to commemorate this historic moment.

Sonny Inbaraj, Dili – Cecelia Soares' eyes glaze over, each time she remembers the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. Thirty years ago, on Dec. 7, 1975, she had just been married for a year and three months earlier had given birth to a baby girl.

East Timor's Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri, has announced (on Friday 9 December, 2005) that a resource sharing agreement has been reached between East Timor and Australia.

Dili – East Timor and Australia will sign a deal on Jan. 12 to share billions of dollars in revenues from disputed oil and gas reserves beneath the sea that divides them, East Timor's prime minister said Friday.

Adam Gartrell – The sister of one of the Balibo Five journalists, shot dead in East Timor 30 years ago, wants former prime minister Gough Whitlam and several other high profile witnesses to front an inquest into his death.

Dili – About 300 East Timorese called for an international tribunal to try soldiers accused of human rights violations as they marked the 30th anniversary of Indonesia's invasion of the tiny territory.

The protesters marched through the capital Dili, waving banners and shouting slogans demanding justice for victims of the occupation.

Sian Powell, Jakarta – Exactly 30 years after Indonesia sent a major invasion force into East Timor, the tiny half-island has come full circle in relations with its giant neighbour: from guerilla resistance to friendly neighbourliness.

On the 30th anniversary of Indonesia's invasion of East Timor, the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) today called on the world to listen to East Timor's victims and act on their demands for justice.

Amy Goodman: We're going to turn first to a documentary I did in 1992. It was a year after the Santa Cruz massacre, in which the Indonesian military gunned down more than 270 Timorese. I had gone to East Timor with my colleague, journalist Allan Nairn. We produced this document when we came back. It's called Massacre: The Story of East Timor.

Carmela Baranowska – Thirty years ago today, on 7 December 1975, nine US-supplied C-130 aircraft took off from Madiun in East Java, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Suakadirul. It was five minutes past midnight. Suakadirul's operation was highly secretive and he'd only had two days to prepare his crew and aircraft.

Keith Suter – Thirty years ago, one of last century's most brutal conflicts began when Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese colony of East Timor.

About 10 per cent of the East Timorese people were killed. Their resistance lasted until 1999, when Indonesia finally packed up and left. Much of Timor's history is a story of invasion.

Delivering justice for Timor: 31 years and still counting

James Dunn – The 30th anniversary of the invasion of Dili by a large Indonesian force, is a time for sober reflection in Australia as well as in East Timor. While the invasion began earlier with the Balibo attack, it was the assault on Dili that captured world attention, an operation that claimed an estimated 200,000 Timorese lives in the following years.

Dili – East Timor's president should make public a UN-commissioned report that recommends troops who carried out atrocities during Indonesia's 24-year rule be prosecuted, one of the authors said Tuesday.

Richard LLoyd Parry Blog – It is a law of guerrilla wars that they are morally murky affairs, in which it is impossible to separate right from wrong or to sympathise unconditionally with either side.

The Indonesia Human Rights Committee has called on the Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister to urge the Government of Timor Leste to release the report of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation

East Timor's Foreign Minister, Jose Ramos Horta, says his Government hopes to sign the full agreement with Australia over the Greater Sunrise gas field in early January.

Mr Horta says both countries have signed an in-principle agreement over the division of revenue from the gas field in the Timor Sea.

Krishnadev Calamur, Washington – Critics of a deal between Australia and Timor Leste on disputed undersea oil and gas reserves say Asia's poorest nation is giving away too much in exchange for too little.

Australia and East Timor have struck agreement on how to carve up lucrative Timor Sea energy reserves worth up to $41 billion.

The in-principle agreement brings to a close more than a year of negotiations between the two countries and will culminate in a signing ceremony next month.

Timor has rejected a government commission's recommendation that Australia, Britain and the United States pay compensation for their part in Indonesia's 24-year occupation of East Timor.

Presenter/Interviewer: Sen Lam

Speakers: Jose Ramos Horta, East Timor's foreign minister

The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) today called for the quick release of the full report of East Timor's truth commission, the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor (known by its Portuguese initials, CAVR).

The Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, has told Parliament that officials had initiated a resource sharing agreement with East Timor that is expected to be signed at a ceremony in mid January.

Sydney – The widow of one of five Australia-based journalists shot dead in East Timor in 1975 says she is not surprised by new documents revealing the Australian and British governments colluded to cover up the killings.

Pip Hinman – The Melbourne-based Timor Sea Justice Campaign on November 23 described the Howard government's decision to discontinue funding to 13 East Timorese NGOs as "political interference".

Jakarta – Indonesian rights activists have condemned a recommendation by East Timor's president that a probe into past human rights violations in the world's youngest country be kept under wraps.

Sian Powell and Richard Lloyd Parry – The Australian, British and US Governments and international arms makers should pay compensation for their part in Indonesia's brutal 24-year occupation of East Timor, a commission of inquiry has demanded.

Sean O'Neill – For 30 years Maureen Tolfree has suspected that the British Government lied to her about the death of her brother, Malcolm Rennie.

The release of the Foreign Office documents has whetted her appetite for more disclosures so that she knows the full truth about the deaths of Brian Peters and his colleagues.

Richard Lloyd Parry – The British Government knowingly lied about Indonesian atrocities in East Timor, including the killing of British journalists in 1975, according to newly released diplomatic documents.

Sarah Stephen – When seven asylum seekers from West Timor waded ashore near the Western Australian Aboriginal community of Kalumburu on November 5, immigration minister Amanda Vanstone declared that they were fishing, not seeking asylum. This fiction was maintained for 10 days by the immigration department (DIMIA).