Dili – East Timor's political parties have agreed to sign a non-violence pact to avoid bloodshed before and after historic elections next month, the United Nations said yesterday.

Jakarta – Australia and East Timor signed a multi-billion dollar agreement Thursday on dividing royalties from oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea despite an unsavoury row between key

East Timor's big hope for independence was signed yesterday – a pact ensuring the soon-to-be nation has economic security through oil and gas revenue.

Mark Dodd, Saburai village – After leaving the squalor of a refugee camp in West Timor, one of militia leader Victor Lopes's first acts on returning to his mountain village was to regis

Nigel Wilson – Billions of dollars in Timor Sea investment remain in doubt despite the signing in Dili today of a framework agreement on sharing revenues from oil and gas developments.

The Prime Minister, Mr Howard, says it is "generous". The Northern Territory Chief Minister, Mr Burke, calls it "extremely generous".

The new Timor Gap agreement was signed today with the tensions of tough negotiations still apparent.

[This is an exclusive extract from "Appeasing Jakarta: Australia's Complicity in the East Timor Tragedy", the second in the Quarterly Essay series published by Black Inc., Melbourne,

Vanya Tanaja, Liquica – Amidst the rubble of government offices which the jungle is starting to reclaim stands a flagpole flying, not the Indonesian red and white, but the red flag, the

Craig Skehan – East Timor will receive $7 billion over 20 years under a historic agreement with Australia on the sharing of oil and gas revenues from fields in the Timor Sea.

Geoffrey Barker – It will be the ironic fate of independent East Timor to have its key international economic and security relationships with three countries responsible for much of its

Ten political parties, out of the 16, registered with the Independent Electoral Commission are disappointed with the aid package made available by Untaet.

East Timor's 16 parties and UN transition administration have completed the draft of a "National Unity Pact", which expresses support for the election of independence leader Xanana Gusm

The first major trial of atrocities committed in East Timor by Indonesian forces and proxy militias got underway in Dili Tuesday, with a three-judge panel hearing preliminary issues beh

Approximately 93 per cent of the estimated population in East Timor have been registered in advance of upcoming elections, the United Nations mission in the territory announced today.

Wendy Pugh, Melbourne – In an upheaval of Australia's energy market, petroleum and pipeline companies are racing to nail down multi-billion-dollar projects to deliver new supplies of ga

Mark Dodd, Dili – The United Nations has told the people of East Timor they will be virtually self-governing from September 15 – but that the UN will decide who will form the government

The UN administration in East Timor has prepared a package of wide-ranging logistical and material aid for 16 parties and independent candidates contesting the territory's first electio

Paula Doran – For half of his 30 years Domingos lived chained to a wooden bench behind his village home in the hills of East Timor.

Mark Dodd, Dill – The United Nations in East Timor will encourage staff to volunteer for HIV tests but cannot make them compulsory on human rights grounds.

Ray Brindal, Canberra – Australian and East Timorese representatives have resolved many of their outstanding differences about a planned new treaty covering royalties from energy produc

Atambua – Facing the prospect of resettling tens of thousands of East Timorese refugees, an Indonesian government delegation on Thursday appealed to pro-Jakarta militia leaders to retur

The head of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) today presented the first State of the Nation address to the East Timorese National Council, giving an

A group of presumed anti-independence militiamen opened fire Thursday on a patrol of UN peacekeepers in the East Timorese district of Maliana, near the border with Indonesia.

A group of unidentified youths set fire Wednesday to a school in the East Timorese city of Baucau, 130 kms east of Dili, causing serious material damage.

A leading Timorese aid worker has branded as a "sham" an Indonesian canvassing drive which found that 98% of East Timorese refugees confined to camps in West Timor did not want to go ho

Joanna Jolly – East Timorese independence leader Xanana Gusmao said he supports pardons for militiamen who are found guilty of committing atrocities during the territory's 1999 vote for

Sixteen political parties have nominated candidates to run in the August elections for East Timor's Constituent Assembly, meeting the deadline set for noon local time on Wednesday, UNTA

Jane Counsel – A United States company is stepping up efforts to settle a 25-year dispute over the oil and gas riches of the Timor Gap, announcing yesterday it would launch legal procee

Geoffrey Barker – A wizened brown man with black teeth squatted in the dusty Balibo roadside with eight 5-litre plastic jerry cans of kerosene he had lugged 8 kilometres up steep jungle

Maputo – Guterres, visiting president of the Timorese liberation movement (Fretilin), declared here on Tuesday that he is confident his party will win in the country's first presidentia

The civil registration process has been a success.

George Quinn – Personally I don't think Indonesia will break up, but we are talking here of probabilities, and there is an outside chance, but a real chance, that current stresses will

Geoffrey Barker – An armada of big, white four-wheel-drive vehicles cruises and clogs the dusty roads of Dili carrying the army of United Nations soldiers, policemen and civil servants

Geoffrey Barker – Sergio Vieira de Mello says emphatically, perhaps too emphatically, that he is convinced East Timor's coming constituent assembly elections will be free of violence de

A group of protesters has demonstrated outside the Indonesian consulate in Melbourne on the first day of Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid's Australian visit.

Dili says it does not recognize claims by an American petroluem company that it obtained concession rights to exploit oil and natural gas in the Timor Gap from Portuguese colonial autho

Hamish McDonald – Indonesian submarines and combat aircraft shadowed so closely ships carrying Australian and New Zealand troops into East Timor in 1999 that escorting warships went ont

Mark Dodd, Dili – East Timor's de facto government, the National Council, has backed the formation of an international war crimes tribunal to prosecute leaders of anti-independence mili

The United States Senate approved Thursday a resolution condemning the "disproportionate" sentences an Indonesian court recently applied to the self-confessed killers of three UN aid wo

The secretary-general of the Socialist Party of Timor (PST) Avelinho Coelho said Tuesday if the party gets majority seats in the 30 August election it will make Tetun the national langu

An angry mob of street vendors stoned UN police and administrative personnel at a Dili market Tuesday, injuring three people and damaging three vehicles.

Rod McGuirk, Darwin – The HIV virus had taken hold in East Timor and spread into Australia, a Dili-based doctor said today.

Brian Robins – From being only rank hopefuls among offshore gasfields, Timor Sea projects backed by Phillips Petroleum and Woodside are racing off the starting blocks.

Lindsay Murdoch – Antonio da Silva rarely smiles.

Mark Dodd – Negotiations between Australia and East Timor to conclude a new agreement on revenue sharing from the oil- and gas-rich Timor Sea have run into last-minute problems, a senio

Karen Polglaze, Canberra – International donors today signed-off on East Timor's 2001-02 budget, the blueprint that will take the new country through elections to independence.

Mark Dodd – East Timor is set to get up to 90 per cent of Timor Sea oil and gas revenue in a move Australia hopes will ensure the new nation does not become dependent on foreign aid.

Canberra – Economic prospects for East Timor remained low in the medium term, the World Bank said ahead of a two-day meeting of donors to the emerging nation that began in Canberra on T

Tony Jenkins – East Timor has acquired a powerful and unexpected new ally, a man some Americans still refer to as Dr Death: Henry Kissinger.