Jakarta – The UN on Tuesday indicted 32 people- including 15 Indonesian soldiers – for murdering and torturing East Timorese during the country's bloody break with Indonesia in 1999.

Sarah Crichton – The Federal Court has ruled it cannot hear a US oil company's multi-billion dollar compensation claim against the Commonwealth for loss of rights to vast oil and gas re

Karen Michelmore, Darwin – Players in the multi-billion dollar Timor Gas treaty are hopeful of an outcome within weeks, as negotiations drag on.

Jill Jolliffe, Hatolia – The United Nations is in a quandary after insecure border villagers demanded that it extend a controversial military operation that has resulted in mass arrests

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – The United Nations' police chief in East Timor is refusing to resign despite criticism from Fretilin government officials over his handling of riots in December.

Lisbon – The Bishop of Dili called Wednesday for the creation of an independent body to oversee the exploitation of Timor Sea oil reserves, the Portuguese news agency Lusa reported.

M.

Vannessa Hearman, Melbourne – Fivo Freitas is 28 years old, he sought asylum in Australia after leaving East Timor in 1999.

David Fickling – The spectacle of someone large and powerful picking on a weak and desperate neighbour passes as bullying in the average playground.

John Martinkus – Almost three weeks after a series of militia incursions into East Timor from neighbouring Indonesia left five people dead, the two largest contingents of the peacekeepi

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – Members of an armed militia group arrested here last week say they agreed to return as guerillas because Indonesian officials in West Timor had prevented them from

Jakarta – Father Raphael dos Santos, an East Timorese priest, said on Thursday Indonesian Military soldiers and policemen were among the attackers of his refugee-packed church in the to

Jakarta – Timor Leste faces the worst threat to its stability since independence as security forces counter raids by armed gangs from Indonesia's West Timor.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – President Xanana Gusmao has denied a report that East Timor is seeking increased Australian military involvement in the territory to curb militia infiltrations fro

John Kerin and Terry Plane – East Timorese Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta wants Australia's UN peacekeepers to be involved in joint operations with the East Timor Defence Force to co

The Army's elite Special Forces (Kopassus) is reportedly behind recent incursions into East Timor by militia fighters.

East Timor's Foreign Minister, Jose Ramos Horta, has warned that the United Nations peacekeepers stationed in the new nation are not managing to control border raids into East Timor by

Jill Jolliffe, Atsabe – The hamlet of Tiarlelo is only a few kilometres from Atsabe, itself 25 kilometres from the border with West Timor, but the rough jungle track that leads to it em

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta Former Dili police chief Lt. Col.

Mark Dodd, Darwin – Southeast Asia's poorest country, East Timor, could get its first royalty payments from the oil- and gas-rich Timor Sea by 2004, money which experts say will mean th

East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao said yesterday that it may be necessary to extend the mandate of the 5,000-soldier UN peacekeeping force in East Timor beyond June 2004, its schedu

Dili – Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri is studying a possible restructuring of East Timor's government ministries to improve their functioning and the performance of ministers, official so

Matthew Moore, Jakarta – Some of the 28,000 East Timorese who remain in West Timor after fleeing the carnage that followed East Timor's 1999 vote for independence will soon be leaving t

Dili – The atmosphere of instability looming over East Timor is leading to a deterioration of relations between national and UN security structures.

The Indonesian government made only half-hearted attempts during the year to hold accountable those responsible for TNI abuses in East Timor.

Dili – A captured former anti-independence militiaman has told interrogators in Dili that at least seven armed groups infiltrated East Timor from Indonesia in December, according to two

Tom Hyland – The accused sits with his seven lawyers in the listless heat of a Jakarta courtroom.

Australia's foreign minister Alexander Downer has meet his East Timorese counterpart, Jose Ramos Horta, to discuss recent unrest in the developing nation.

Dili – East Timor police said Thursday they arrested two former pro-Jakarta militiamen on weapons charges but declined to say if the men were linked to a recent surge in violence in the

Dili – The East Timor Defense Force (ETDF) is currently mounting counter-insurgency operations in an attempt to capture presumed anti-independence militiamen who raided two villages Sat

Recent unrest in newly-independent East Timor which claimed five lives is a purely domestic problem and has nothing to do with former ruler Indonesia, Jakarta's foreign minister said.

Dili – East Timor's defence force is to send 180 soldiers to a district where attackers killed four villagers over the weekend, a defence source said yesterday.

Jill Jolliffe, Darwin – United Nations officials and East Timorese government leaders are re-assessing security after a weekend border attack with all the hallmarks of a militia incursi

James Dunn – It is hard to feel sanguine about the latest acquittal of the Indonesian Human Rights Tribunal, which has been hearing charges against TNI (Indonesian armed forces) officer

Xanana Gusmao's first new year's address as president of an independent East Timor encapsulated the fragility of his young nation.

Dili – Screaming "We are coming back for you", a gang armed with automatic rifles raided two villages in newly independent East Timor, killing four people and injuring eight, witnesses

Jakarta – A former militia leader who is facing a jail term in Indonesia over atrocities in East Timor said Friday he plans to send a delegation to the new nation to promote reconciliat

Moch. N.

Shravanti Reddy – What began as a peaceful student protest on December 4 in the East Timor capital city of Dili ended in the largest violent conflict the nation has seen since independe

Berni K.

Jakarta – A court on Monday acquitted a military commander of crimes committed during East Timor's break from Indonesia, the ninth official to be cleared over the 1999 bloodshed.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – East Timor's President, Xanana Gusmao, has appealed to his people to reject violence in 2003 – but has also renewed criticism of the Fretilin-led government.

Jakarta – A court Friday sentenced a senior military commander to five years imprisonment for human rights violations during East Timor's break from Jakarta in 1999, the first time an I

Dili – President Xanana Gusmao on Friday urged East Timorese to remain calm as the country attempts to solve a slew of problems heading into its first New Year celebrations since gainin

Moch. N.

East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao has taken another swipe at the new country's politicians in a Christmas message to his people.

Simon Elegant, Venelale – During the bloody insurrection that produced the new nation of East Timor, Hasan Basri presented residents of the small town of Venelale with a proposition: gi

Dili – East Timor's outgoing bishop, Carlos Belo, hit back Friday at accusations he had made a fool of an Indonesian human rights court hearing charges against Indonesian military offic

John Ward and Peter Symonds – In the wake of violent protests in the capital of Dili on December 4, the East Timorese government, backed by UN officials, has attempted to deflect attent