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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Moch. N.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

New York – The Indonesian ad hoc court for East Timor has utterly failed to bring to justice the perpetrators of the 1999 violence in East Timor, Human Rights Watch charged in a new bri

[The United Nations and legal workers in East Timor have accused the international community, including Australia, of failing to offer continuing support to the country's reconstruct

Veronica Brooks, Canberra – The Australian government Wednesday said it welcomes the passage of East Timor's legislation implementing the Timor Sea Treaty.

Jill Joliffe, Dili – The recent resignation of Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo as head of the Catholic Church in East Timor has brought to a close a courageous and painful period in the life

Nigel Wilson – The East Timor parliament has ratified the Timor Sea Treaty with Australia, further embarrassing the Howard Government.

Yemris Fointuna, Kupang – Dominggus dos Santos, the suspected main actor in the deadly riot in Dili, East Timor on December 4, was arrested on Monday night in the Indonesian territory o

Dili – The parliamentary inquiry into Dili's deadly rioting found that street demonstrations began "spontaneously" but appeared to have turned into mob action for "political motivations

Chris Brummitt, Jakarta – Indonesian security forces looked on but did nothing when a pro-Indonesia mob attacked a church in East Timor, killing at least 27 people, a witness said Monda

Phil Zabriskie – When East Timor formally celebrated its independence in May, it closed the chapter on four centuries of stern Portuguese colonization and 24 years of brutal Indonesian

Jakarta – A human rights court trying an Indonesian army general heard the first live televised testimony Monday from witnesses in East Timor.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – Five gunshot victims interviewed by The Age in the Dili hospital yesterday say they were shot by roaming groups of special police in the capital's outer suburbs af

Mark Baker, Dili – The Federal Government is locked in a bitter dispute with East Timor over control of multi-billion-dollar oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea that is threatening to

Mark Baker, Dili – It is a simple but splendid house with whitewashed walls and a high-pitched roof of traditional timber and thatch.

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

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.

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

Jon Land – Dili, the capital of East Timor, was hit by a wave of protests and riots on December 3-4.

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

Debbie A.

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 onl

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 1,8

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

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 han

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

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.

When an independent East Timor was finally proclaimed in May, everyone wanted to come to the party.

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.

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 i

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.