Nigel Wilson – Australia's relations with East Timor have been tested by claims Foreign Minister Alexander Downer verbally abused Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.

The Australian has learnt that at a meeting in Dili on November 27, Mr Downer was strongly critical of Dr Alkatiri and his officials.

Sidney Jones – The war on terror is well under way in Southeast Asia, leading to concern among many civil rights leaders. Over the last two decades, the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia have removed authoritarian leaders, curbed the power of the politicised military and expanded civil liberties.

Yemris Fointuna, Kupang – At least 8,000 East Timorese families seeking refuge in West Timor had decided to stay in Indonesia, a local military commander said Thursday.

The government was now preparing a transmigration scheme and developing housing complexes for them, Kupang military chief Col. Moeswarno Moesanip said.

Jakarta – Indonesian prosecutors on Thursday demanded a 10-year jail term for a senior army intelligence officer, the minimum sentence by law if he is found guilty as charged of crimes against humanity in East Timor in 1999. Lt. Col.

The Indonesian army has ordered an inventory of its TNT stocks after quantities of the explosive were found in two of six plastic pipes buried close to the East Java home of a key suspect in the October 12 Bali bomb attacks.

Prangtip Daorueng, Jakarta – Tuesday's peace accord signed between the Indonesian government and Acehnese rebels is not the first attempt at peace, but many Acehnese who are gathering and praying together, many in tears, after hearing news of the pact hope it will be the last.

Washington wants Jakarta to quickly wrap up its investigation of an ambush near the world's largest copper and gold mine that left two Americans and an Indonesian dead some three months ago.

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – Indonesia's failure to uphold human rights this year was due to simultaneous policies of the executive, legislative and judicial institutions, the National Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) disclosed on Tuesday.

Debbie A. Lubis and Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – The country's failure to conduct a fair and impartial human rights trial will become the subject of an international discourse next year, including at the International Human Rights Commission in Geneva, a rights activist warned on Tuesday.

Jon Land – Dili, the capital of East Timor, was hit by a wave of protests and riots on December 3-4. The unrest culminated in at least two deaths and scores of injured, when police fired tear gas and live ammunition to disperse angry crowds of students and youth.

United Nations – A preliminary inquiry into last week's riots in East Timor has found that some of the people behind the violence fled afterwards to neighboring Indonesia, the tiny new nation's UN ambassador says.

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Tim Shorrock, Washington – The killings last August of two Americans, allegedly at the hands of Indonesian soldiers with the apparent consent of the high command, haven't dampened enthusiasm within the Bush administration and the US business community for closer US ties with the Indonesian military.

Jennifer Hewett – One of Indonesia's most influential moderate Muslim leaders has criticised the Australian Government's flirtation with the idea of working with the Indonesian special forces unit, Kopassus, to combat terrorism.

Jake Skeers – Despite considerable opposition from ordinary people, particularly in the northern city of Darwin, the Australian government has resumed the process of deporting about 1,800 East Timorese who fled Indonesian rule during the 1980s and 1990s.

Tapol warmly welcomes the agreement on the cessation of hostilities signed today in Geneva by the Government of the Republic of Indonesia (GoI) and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

By Richard C. Paddock, Binjai – It was the kind of rescue the Indonesian army was trained to carry out. Hundreds of soldiers from the 100th Airborne Battalion, wearing war paint and armed with bazookas, grenade launchers, mortars, tanks and a mobile antiaircraft gun, attacked in the dead of night.

[International monitors have arrived in Indonesia's troubled province of Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra island, to help enforce a landmark peace agreement. Eventually, there'll be a full complement of 150 peace monitors – one-third from overseas, one-third from the Indonesian military and one-third from the Free Aceh Movement, or GAM.

Dili – East Timor's government promised Tuesday to tackle the fledgling state's chronic youth unemployment but warned that a repeat of last week's deadly and destructive riots would only drive foreign investors away.

Paul Toohey – The Timorese woman with the seen-it-all face, owner of a street stall in Dili, is joined by other local women as she demands in a maternal way that Kirsty Sword Gusmao hand over her baby boy.

Sword Gusmao obliges and passes four-month-old Kay Olok to the woman, who suddenly beams with pride at the opportunity to cradle the President's son.

Jakarta – A joint team of police and Indonesian Military (TNI) personnel stormed the headquarters of the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement (OPM) over the weekend, arresting one rebel fighter, Julius, and confiscating seven homemade firearms and several documents.

[While the Indonesian government seems to be making progress in Aceh, moderate Muslims say President Megawati's denying them a role in determining the place of Islam in the country's political life.

Geoffrey Barker – Prime Minister John Howard's offer of extra aid to East Timor's police and judicial services was a necessary but hardly sufficient response to last week's violence in Dili.

When an independent East Timor was finally proclaimed in May, everyone wanted to come to the party. Australians, particularly, felt a strong affinity with the East Timorese because of the role Australian troops and civilians played in restoring stability after the carnage of 1999.

Dili – East Timor, still grappling with chronic unemployment and poverty six months after independence fuelled unrealistically high hopes, was according to one analyst "a dry field into which someone threw a match."

United Nations and government officials are investigating who threw the match which sparked off a day of rioting, arson and looting last Wednesday.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – The United Nations may be facing new embarrassment in East Timor following reports that people arrested in last Wednesday's riots had been beaten in custody.

William Nessen, Cot Trieng, Aceh – Inside a 20-kilometre circle of marsh and shoulder-high grass dotted by thick patches of rattan and palm trees, Indonesia's military, the TNI, has aimed to end the nation's most persistent rebellion.

Antony Funnell – East Timor's Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri, refused my interview request when he landed in Australia last Friday. We had just traveled from Dili on the same plane. His refusal came as little surprise. Even then, people in the East Timorese capital were bracing themselves for the possibility of street protests and violence.

Matthew Moore, Jakarta – With as many as 12,000 people killed in Indonesia's Aceh province over the past 26 years, a ceasefire agreement due for signing on Monday is long overdue.

Despite the years of bloodshed, it is hard to be confident that the Indonesian Government and the Free Aceh Movement, or GAM, will both turn up in Geneva and put their names on the line.

Bill Guerin – In the past three years Japanese electronics giant Sony has shut down 16 plants across the globe and laid off thousands of its workers. Sony said last month it would stop making audio-visual products at its Indonesian subsidiary, PT Sony Electronics Indonesia, as part of its "overall, global restructuring effort".

Jakarta – Timber tycoon Mohammad "Bob" Hassan and Hutomo Mandala Putra, the son of former president Soeharto, received a one month cut in their jail terms as Idul Fitri from the state.

Jakarta – Two home-made bombs were detonated at a vacated behind a hotal in Ambon, Maluku, on Thursday night as Muslims in the area were preparing to celebrate Idul Fitri, the end of the Ramadhan fasting month. There were no fatalities as the area, near the Batumerah-Mardika bridge behind Hotel Wijaya II, happened to be empty at the time.

Dili – East Timor said on Friday that Indonesian-backed militiamen responsible for hundreds of deaths in 1999 were regrouping and may have been behind this week's violent rioting in the capital.

Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific is alarmed, but not surprised, at the violence that has erupted in East Timor in recent weeks. It is directly linked to the growing nation-wide frustration at continuing high unemployment, poverty and corruption in the Fretilin-led government.

Rod McGuirk, Dili – The operator of a central Dili supermarket razed in riots this week vowed today never to do business in East Timor again.

The Hello Mister Supermarket has become an icon of the reconstructed city since it opened in March 2000.

Prime Minister John Howard's comments on November 29, December 1 and since then about the validity of Australia launching a pre-emptive strike against anyone from another country planning a terrorist strike on Australia have understandably angered many.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – As residents of Dili swept up the debris yesterday, they wondered how things could have gone so wrong. The toll from the previous day's rioting was two students dead, more than 20 people injured, buildings and cars burnt out and a vicious attack on the Dili mosque.

Tim Dodd, Jakarta – UN administrator Sergio de Mello, who ran East Timor for 2 1/2 years until its independence in May this year, believes the country's 30-year history of violence is the main factor behind this week's riots.

Dili – Foreigners fled East Timor as security forces fired warning shots in clashes with students yesterday, a day after two people were killed in riots that prompted angry mobs to loot shops and torch the prime minister's house.

David Shanks – Dr Dan Murphy is at his most passionate when describing the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder on the resilient people of East Timor.

The former Governor of East Timor, Mario Carrascalao, says the Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri must prove his claim that people with political aspirations are behind this week's violence in Dili.

[East Timor is quiet today after mob violence in the capital Dili, left at least two dead, scores injured, and key buildings burnt to the ground. The unrest began a few days ago with the arrest of a student at Dili University, and exploded after the killing of another student during protests outside UN police headquarters.

The explosion which killed three people at a McDonald's restaurant in the Indonesian city of Makassar was caused by a bomb, according to national police chief Da'i Bachtiar.

He told reporters a bomb was also the cause of a second explosion Thursday evening in the city in South Sulawesi province.

The Indonesian military's (TNI) assault on armed elements of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) is bringing splits in the rebel movement to the fore, with one moderate leader accusing another leader of being a TNI agent.

Mark Egan, Washington – The International Monetary Fund on Thursday approved a $365 million loan payment to Indonesia under the nation's $4.8 billion loan and urged the nation to undertake further economic reforms.

Devi Asmarani, Yogyakarta – The authorities in this cultural hub of Indonesia have declared war on militant Muslim groups whose presence in the city has given rise to a negative image of it being a "breeding ground for religious radicals".

John Martinkus – In a swamp in North Aceh usually home only to snakes, leeches, and the large biting iguanas the locals call Biawak, the Indonesian military has deployed roughly 3000 combat troops from five battalions backed up with armoured vehicles, three attack helicopters and light artillery.

Kathy Marks, Sydney – East Timor was placed undera virtual state of emergency yesterday, witha curfew in the capital, Dili, after student riots in which up to five people were killed and the Prime Minister's house was burnt down.

As many as five protesters were shot dead in the East Timor capital, Dili, yesterday when hundreds of students clashed with police near parliament, witnesses said.

United Nations peacekeepers surrounded the parliament as the crowd torched a supermarket and damaged other buildings. The witnesses said it was the police who had opened fire on the demonstrators.

Jill Jolliffe (with Mark Forbes, agencies), Dili – East Timor's capital, Dili, was torn by riots yesterday in the worst violence since 1999, after police shot dead at least two student protesters.

The government last night imposed a state of emergency with a 7pm curfew after student rioters trashed the parliament building and torched hotels, shops and a mosque.