Hamish McDonald – Dressed in dun-brown overalls and boots, Fitar dos Reis, Gil Nelson Belo and Gulio Freitas line up under the baking afternoon sun to take their place on a mat and prac

Jakarta – Indonesia's president will attend next month's independence celebration in the country's former territory East Timor, a palace spokesman said Saturday.

Tim Dodd, Dili – With independence only a month off, how bad is the economic problem facing East Timor?

Tim Dodd, Dili – In Dili's old commercial heart is an Javanese bakso (meatball soup) restaurant that does a thriving trade at $US1 a bowl, proving the East Timorese have not lost their

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, Jakarta – Defendants in alleged crimes against humanity in East Timor blamed on Thursday the policy of then president B.J.

Dan Murphy, Dili – Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao is a figure of such legendary stature here that no viable challenger ran against him for the presidency of the world's newest nation.

Lee Kim Chew – East Timor's newly-elected President Xanana Gusmao, a poet and freedom fighter, loves the Portuguese language. It gives him a sense of identity.

Michael Kessler – Next month East Timor will become the world's newest nation when the former Portuguese colony, which voted for independence from Indonesia in 1999, formally adopts its

Hamish McDonald – On a roadside in rural Balibo, among knots of people lingering to chat after casting their vote in their country's first presidential election last Sunday, different t

Rod Myer – The impasse between joint venture partners in the Sunrise gas deposit in the Timor Sea highlights doubts over plans to pipe gas from beyond Australia's north coast to SouthEa

Jakarta – Indonesia's parliament speaker on Thursday urged President Megawati Sukarnoputri to snub next month's celebrations marking the formal independence of East Timor, which Jakarta

Joanne Collins, Dili – Less than three years ago East Timor's seaside capital was a charred ruin, but now Britney Spears CDs, Singapore noodles and beauty salons are easily found in wha

Barry FitzGerald – Woodside Petroleum yesterday turned on United States oil and gas giant Phillips Petroleum, accusing it of delaying a $5 billion development of the Sunrise gas fields

Yemris Fointuna, Kupang – The more than 140,000 East Timorese refugees living in West Timor can not return home till March 20 at the earliest due to transportation problems.

The trial of five Indonesian officers accused of failing to prevent a 1999 massacre in East Timor hit a snag when six witnesses failed to turn up.

Jakarta – The Indonesian Military (TNI) rejects an UNTAET (United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor) proposal that East Timorese public buses be allowed to pass through

Dili – Almost anywhere else there would be unalloyed delight in an 86-per cent turn-out for a presidential election.

Hamish McDonald, Maliana – For Isobelle de Araujo it was a bittersweet day.

Sydney – Foreign Minister Alexander Downer dismissed a claim Monday that Australia had been less than friendly towards East Timor, arguing it had been generous over sharing oil revenues

Dili – The government buildings around it are gutted, but surviving intact as a minor miracle in the center of Dili is a billboard urging the locals to speak good Indonesian, the langua

Jill Jolliffe – Guerrilla hero Jose "Xanana" Gusmao is expected to win a sweeping victory today in a poll for East Timor's first elected head of state, despite an organised attempt to r

Jill Jolliffe – It could have been a Meet the Press show anywhere in the world – two presidential candidates on stage in elegant suits fielding questions before an audience of politicia

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – Tomorrow, East Timor votes for its first president, taking its final steps towards independence.

Hamish McDonald – A tropical cyclone has been hovering close to East Timor, dumping frequent rain on a mountainous island still in wet-season green and leaving officials wondering if th

Hamish McDonald, Dili – A last-minute dispute has blown up over the treaty that will unlock oil and gas resources worth billions of dollars in the seabed between Australia and East Timo

Dan Murphy, Jakarta – An investigator has uncovered new evidence in the murder of a Dutch journalist in East Timor in 1999 that bolsters the case against an Indonesian Army unit accused

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – The Indonesian Military (TNI) seems to be trying to use the on-going ad hoc human rights trial to wash its hands of gross human rights violations in East Timor,

[East Timor approaches the last formal step in its long hard road to democracy and independence – on Sunday the people go to the polls to elect a president.

East Timor's two presidential candidates publicly embraced each other Thursday in Dili, appealing to voters to cast ballots in Sunday's election, the last political milestone before the

Indonesia's powerful former military chief, General Wiranto, has published a book giving his version of East Timor's bloody 1999 breakaway, as he campaigns to clear himself of responsib

Jakarta – The highest-ranking Indonesian officer implicated in a wave of violence that swept East Timor in 1999 defended its former police chief on Thursday, telling a court he had save

Jakarta – Former Indonesian Military (TNI) commander Gen.

UN transition administrator Sergio Vieira de Mello went to East Timor's border with Indonesia Wednesday to welcome a group of returning refugees, marking the repatriation of 200,000 peo

Tony Parkinson – Former Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid is planning to attend East Timor's independence celebrations next month, amid increasing doubts that his successor, Megawa

Claire Harvey and A'an Suryana, Jakarta – The United Nations' reconstruction effort in East Timor will continue for at least the next decade, a military expert said on Monday.

Dili – East Timor independence hero Xanana Gusmao rode on horseback through streets lined with adoring supporters here Monday as the campaign for the presidency of the world's newest na

Jon Land – Two-and-a half years after East Timor's referendum on independence, the effect of the Indonesian military and militia's post-ballot destructive rampage are painfully apparent

Dili – Francisco Xavier do Amaral, 66, only had nine days as East Timor's first president in 1975.

Sydney – East Timorese voters go to the polls next week to pick the person who will declare their country independent next month.

1512 - Portuguese explorers reach Timor, an island already known to Chinese as a source of sandalwood

1556 - Dominican friary opens at Lifau, in the Oecussi-Ambeno enclave

Dili – The candidates are on the campaign trail, polling staff are ready and the stage is nearly set for East Timor's first presidential election, UNTAET's election chief announced toda

Why is Francisco Xavier do Amaral running for president of East Timor when he knows he has no chance of winning?

Joanna Jolly, Aileu – On a soccer field in East Timor's central mountains, thousands came to hear Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao make his campaign pitch.

Jill Jolliffe, Atambua – The East Timorese presidential candidate Xanana Gusmao has joined forces with a former enemy soldier in an attempt to repatriate about 60,000 refugees trapped i

Jakarta – The UN authority in East Timor said on Friday it was "incredulous" at reported remarks by former Indonesian military chief Wiranto that bloodshed there in 1999 was allegedly s

Dili – Nearly 2,000 refugees have already returned to East Timor from refugee camps in West Timor, Indonesia, during the first five days of this month, UN refugee officials said today.

Hamish McDonald – It will stand on a hill overlooking Dili, the capital of newly independent East Timor: a massive flagpole entwined with the trunk and branches of a symbolic banyan tre

Atambua – East Timor independence hero Xanana Gusmao on Thursday urged East Timorese refugees in Indonesia's West Timor to come home now, saying he guaranteed their safety.

New York – The East Timor government and the United Nations on Wednesday launched an AIDS awareness campaign on television, radio and print media, hoping the country can avoid the explo

Jason Koutsoukis – Negotiations between the Australian Government and US-based Phillips Petroleum over the tax treatment of a gas project in the Timor Sea remained deadlocked last night