Joe Leahy – Building a central bank from scratch in one of the world's poorest countries was never going to be easy.

Don Greenlees – The Indonesian army has extended an olive branch to East Timor's fledgling defence force, by offering to train former Falintil guerilla fighters and inviting East Timor'

Joe Cochrane, Ermera – The farmers of Ermera are fiercely proud of their long tradition of growing East Timor's finest coffee, but these days that is not enough to fill their stomaches.

Vaudine England, Dili – East Timor's president-in-waiting, Xanana Gusmao, yesterday restated his belief that amnesties should be considered for people who committed serious crimes.

Derwin Pereira, Jakarta – The economic crunch in Indonesia is spurring a new deadly handicraft in its eastern islands: bomb-making.

The upcoming Constituent Assembly elections in East Timor serve "only to comply with the calendar and are neither free nor fair", the leader of the historic UDT party, Joao Carrascalao,

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – Nobel Peace Prize-winner Bishop Carlos Belo has made a new appeal to the international community to establish a war crimes tribunal to punish Indonesian military

Vamasae – In one of the thousands of charred and gutted buildings that still scar East Timor's landscape, 200 villagers squat before the man who won a Nobel peace prize crusading for th

Mark Dodd, Dili – He was East Timor's first president, the head of the short-lived Fretilin administration that unilaterally declared independence in November 1975, 10 days before Indon

Dili – East Timor's president in waiting, Xanana Gusmao, said Tuesday that amnesties must be considered for those who led the violence surrounding the territory's independence vote two

The leader of East Timor's Social Democratic Party (PSD) said Monday in Dili he hoped his party would obtain between 30 and 40 percent of the vote in Thursday's Constituent Assembly ele

Jakarta – Thousands of activists of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) on Monday staged a rally at the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR)/House of Representatives (DPR), demanding the

Jakarta – Two soldiers were killed and five people were wounded in a shootout between police and troops in Indonesia's easternmost province of Irian Jaya, police said Tuesday.

Jakarta – Authorities in a haze-shrouded Indonesian city will make artificial rain to wash away choking smoke from forest and ground fires, the state Antara news agency said Thursday,

Jakarta – An Indonesian court ordered mining giant PT Freeport Indonesia on Tuesday to improve its toxic waste management after it was found guilty of giving false information over a fa

Predicting his Fretilin party would win East Timor's first free elections by a landslide, Mari Alkatiri warned the territory's UN transition administration Monday his party could refuse

Fretilin Party Secretary-General Mari Alkatiri has guaranteed there would be no radical behaviour on the part of his party as Fretilin were no longer a communist or socialist party.

Bronwyn Curran, Baucau – In a good month Carlos Bovida makes 20 dollars selling sweet potatoes and bananas on a lonely road, winding through the sparse mountains of this half-island nat

Jakarta – Drastic restructuring measures introduced by the new leadership of the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) to improve the agency's efficiency has left the agency mired

Jakarta – Following are the key points of Indonesia's agreement with the International Monetary Fund Monday.

Jakarta – Activists have urged the government to reform the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas-HAM), which they said was ineffective as it was dominated by a "conservative grou

Jakarta – A coalition of watchdogs on legal affairs has lashed out at two court's decisions to dismiss cases against three Supreme Court justices who allegedly accepted bribes, arguing

Banda Aceh – At least 11 more people have been killed in clashes between Indonesian troops and police and separatist rebels in Aceh province, police and residents said Monday.

[Speaking for the first time, former Indonesian president B.J.

Lisbon – East Timor's UN administrator said in a newspaper interview Friday that a broad-based government will be named to govern the territory following next week's elections.

Mark Dodd, Dili – The East Timor independence leader Mr Xanana Gusmao has decided not to retire from politics to grow prize pumpkins for the Dili show.

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – East Timor's leaders are planning an international campaign to pressure the Indonesian Government to allow Timorese children separated from their parents at t

James Fox – Parliamentary elections will be held in East Timor on Thursday, two years from the day when the East Timorese turned out en masse to vote for their independence.

David DeVoss – The East Timor branch of Portugal's Banco Nacional Ultramarino in Dili looks like a modern financial institution.

Dili – It is easy to be optimistic about East Timor's future when you are sitting at the villa of its de facto king – UN diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello.

Jakarta – Clothes make the man, or the governor, in this case.

Jakarta – Indonesia's intelligence chief has confirmed US government warnings that American interests in the country face possible terrorist attacks.

Derwin Pereira, Jakarta – Indonesian police have said they will question an entertainer for allegedly inciting hatred against the state by defaming government and national symbols.

Mark Dodd, Dili – East Timor's Cabinet member for foreign affairs, Mr Jose Ramos Horta, has blasted the United Nations mission in Dili for obstructing the implementation of Portuguese a

Jakarta – Indonesian newspapers yesterday rapped Jakarta city councillors for going on 'foreign junkets' at a time of economic crisis.

Lindsay Murdoch, Dare Mulo – Some people wept. Others sang national songs they had rehearsed for days and stamped their bare feet in the dust.

Jakarta – Indonesia's crude oil output is expected to fall by an average 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) next year due to security disruptions in its fields, a senior mines and energy min

Some East Timorese political forces have set up security-style partisan groups in preparation for next week4s elections but have not generated any problems, UN administration officials

Jakarta – Head of the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) Goenawan Ibrahim warned on Thursday that the haze problem in Kalimantan might worsen as forest fires could easily be sparke

Dili – A US-based election monitoring group said Friday it was satisfied with conditions for East Timor's first free elections next week, but expressed concern over cases of voter intim

Jakarta – Separatist guerillas in Aceh are increasingly cornered and disunited, Indonesia's top security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said yesterday.

Jakarta – As it is difficult to curb international terrorism in the country, the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) will focus on fighting its domestic accomplices, agency chief A.M.

Jakarta – Nearly 300,000 people were displaced by communal and sectarian conflict in various parts of Indonesia between January and August, further straining government resources, offic

Jakarta – Rights group Amnesty International urged Indonesia's new President Megawati Sukarnoputri on Friday to bring policemen and soldiers to book for grave human rights violations.

Bronwyn Curran, Dili – East Timorese voters are relishing their first-ever taste of democracy but some parties in next week's elections have tried to intimidate them, local poll watchdo

Mark Dodd, Dili – An East Timorese anti-independence leader said yesterday he would tell refugees in camps in West Timor that the world's newest country was on the road to democracy.

Mark Dodd, Dili – The UN Serious Crimes Unit, charged with investigating human rights violations in East Timor in 1999, says it is investigating 674 documented murders but has insuffici

Jane Counsel – Delicate negotiations over a new Timor Gap revenue sharing agreement were further unhinged yesterday, after a small American group launched legal action against the Feder

Tom Wright, Jakarta – Indonesia's independent debt restructuring review body issued a report late Thursday criticizing key deals which it said favored debtors over the government.