Deborah Snow – Charges are understood to have been laid against a former senior soldier in the Special Air Service after a long investigation into allegations of serious misconduct by m

Australia's Immigration Minister Phillip Ruddock has been asked to establish a special visa category in a bid to allow a group of East Timorese to stay in the country.

Jakarta – Former foreign minister Ali Alatas said on Wednesday that the offer of secession from Indonesia to the East Timorese in the UN-organized ballot in August 1999 was a "premature

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – Noted religious leaders grouped in the National Moral Movement (GMN) called on the government to halt the East Timor human rights trials, claiming that they wer

East Timorese asylum seekers have a special case to be allowed to stay in Australia.

Jakarta – A former Indonesian military chief for East Timor said Monday he tried to prevent massacres in East Timor in September 1999 and that none of his own men were involved.

Zakki Hakim, Jakarta – A coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) will use the occasion of the annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) in Genev

Yemris Fointuna, Kupang – West Timorese people have demanded the United Nations to revoke a security status imposed on the province after a mob killed three UN humanitarian workers in 2

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – A small group of East Timorese ex-prisoners listens, transfixed, to the text of the UN's 1987 Convention on Torture.

Paul Toohey – Critically needed containers of medical, health and school supplies have been stockpiled on Dili's wharf because of heavy smuggling and what East Timorese-based aid worker

Jakarta – Former Indonesian military chief General Wiranto on Thursday defended his record over East Timor's bloody 1999 breakaway from Jakarta, saying he had helped prevent a civil war

Royal Abbott, Melbourne – Five Melbourne mayors have joined the Victorian government in appealing to Canberra to halt plans to forcibly deport 1,400 East Timorese who have been denied p

Canberra – The United Nations and Australia agreed it was too early to withdraw peacekeepers from East Timor after riots in December but its police must be strengthened so they can take

Stephen Steele, Washington – More than three years after East Timor voted for independence, access to adequate health care, education and basic human rights remains out of reach for mos

Dili – The commander of Australian UN peacekeepers in East Timor has dismissed reports that former anti-independence militiamen have infiltrated from Indonesia and were behind recent at

John Ward and Peter Symonds – The Australian government is deliberately delaying the signing of an agreement with East Timor, known as the Timor Sea Treaty, as a means of blackmailing t

The UN Special Crimes Unit in East Timor has charged former militia commander, Joao Tavares, and four Indonesian TNI, or military, officers for atrocities in the territory before and af

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – United Nations investigators have indicted ageing militia chieftain Joao Tavares and two senior Indonesian officers for crimes against humanity committed in the Ma

Ralf Scharmann, Darwin – Traditional owners in several Top End communities have offered sanctuary to 84 Darwin-based East Timorese asylum seekers who are facing deportation.

Jakrta – Indonesian prosecutors demanded on Wednesday that the former military chief in East Timor be jailed for 10 years for failing to halt massacres when the territory voted to split

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

To East Timor, where a reported militia insurgency has put a spotlight on Australia's peacekeeping efforts in properly securing the border.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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 – 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

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

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

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