Canberra – Australia and East Timor today signed off on a deal to share revenue from the Timor Sea's lucrative energy reserves, resulting in a potential $US10 billion windfall for the tiny nation.

"The Australia East Timor Friendship Association (SA) [AETFA SA) Inc joins the Timor Sea Justice Campaign and other NGOs in expressing concern that the Australian Government is again shortchanging Timor Leste (TL), the poorest nation in the SE Asian region.

Semarang – A group of Timorese-Indonesians living in Central Java demanded on Wednesday a thorough investigation into an incident on Friday in which three former militia members were killed by Timor Leste border police.

"We strongly condemn the shooting," said Batista Sufa Kefi of the National Committee for East Timorese Political Victims.

With the Governments of Australia and East Timor today signing another interim resources sharing agreement for contested petroleum resources in the Timor Sea, an Australian lobby group has vehemently attacked the Australian Government's failure to address the larger and more important issue of permanent maritime boundaries.

Dmli – The Timorese dioceses of Dmli and Baucau and 12 non-governmental organizations today criticized in Dmli the initiative of the Government to sign Thursday an agreement to share petroleum revenues from the Timor Sea with Australia.

Dili – Police in East Timor who shot dead three ex-militiamen trying to enter the country last week were acting in legitimate self-defense, Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said Wednesday.

Dili – East Timor Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said Wednesday that his country's police force had acted in self defence when they shot dead three former pro-Jakarta militiamen near the border.

He also criticised Indonesia for failing to prevent militiamen from infiltrating East Timor.

Jakarta – The Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR) on Wednesday denounced the shooting of three Indonesians by Timor Leste border police last Friday (Dec. 6).

"We should remind (the Timor Leste police) that the shooting should be the last. Don't repeat it, or face the consequences," Hopuse Speaker Agung Laksono said.

Journalists and freedom of expression advocates in East Timor are calling for international opposition to a new law that would punish defamation with jail time and unspecified fines.

Nigel Wilson – The Maritime Union of Australia is threatening an international industrial campaign to force oil giant ConocoPhillips to employ more East Timorese on projects north of Darwin.

However the first step in the campaign – a bid to disrupt the loading of the first cargo from the new Darwin Liquefied Natural Gas project – appears to have failed.

The Australian lobby group that has been calling on the Australian Government to negotiate permanent maritime boundaries with East Timor, is now hoping that the temporary resource sharing agreement set to be signed in Sydney this week, will pave the way for Woodside Petroleum to commit to an onshore processing facility in East Timor.

Atambua – Around 1,500 protesters burned pictures of East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao on Monday following the killing of three former pro-Jakarta militiamen by East Timor police near the border with Indonesia.

Dili – A UN-sanctioned panel investigating human rights violations during Indonesia's 24-year occupation of East Timor found that as many as 183,000 people were killed, disappeared, starved or died of illnesses linked to the conflict, an adviser said.

Jakarta – Atambua Bishop Mgr Anton Pain Ratu feels the allocation of 1,500 TNI personnel from the Army's Strategic Reserves Command (Kostrad) on the borders of Indonesia and Timor Leste is too much.

Canberra – It may have become a big deal later, but East Timor did not figure prominently in the deliberations of the Whitlam government in its final year.

Mark Dodd – Notorious former East Timorese militia leader Eurico Guterres is to return home with a personal guarantee for his safety by the country's President, despite a UN war crimes panel indicting him for murders committed in 1999.

East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao and former pro-Jakarta militia leader Eurico Guterres agreed Tuesday to work toward reconciliation in the first meeting of the two former arch-foes.

"None has won, none has lost, because we both lost our fighters, so reconciliation is the best way for us," Guterres told reporters after the meeting.

Kupang – East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao has said some 16,000 refugees from his country living in Indonesia's neighbouring West Timor province would be welcome to return home.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Dear President Gusmco,

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.

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.

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

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".

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 – 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Delivering justice for Timor: 31 years and still counting

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.

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.

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.