His Excellency Kofi Annan Secretary General
The United Nations
1 United Nations Plaza New York
New York 10017-3515

July 21, 2006

Dear Mr. Secretary General,

Morgan Mellish, Dili – Australian police have taken over patrolling the streets of Dili from the army, in a sign authorities are confident order has been re-established in East Timor's

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – Life in Dili's refugee camps isn't too bad. A boy sits on sacks of rice strumming his guitar. Mothers stir pots of boiling food.

Avelino Coelho da Silva, Dili – The conflict that arose recently in Timor Leste has caused more suffering for the nation's poor people, confronting them with an uncertain economic and p

United Nations – UN special envoy Ian Martin on Wednesday stressed the need for a "substantial" UN police presence in volatile East Timor to create the conditions for credible parliamen

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – Australia's military presence in East Timor will be wound back, starting with at least 300 personnel, the Prime Minister, John Howard, announced during a flying

Howard is off to East Timor today, allegedly to meet the Aussie troops and the new PM Jose Ramos Horta.

Mark Dodd and Stephen Fitzpatrick in Jakarta – On his first day in office this week, East Timor's new Prime Minister Jose Ramos Horta accepted a cache of illegal weapons from a former s

East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao has sworn in a new cabinet, taking the tiny nation a step closer to normalcy after deadly violence in May left it in disarray.

Kalinga Seneviratne, Sydney – East Timor's new Prime Minister Jose Ramos Horta has been warmly welcomed by Australia's foreign minister Alexander Downer as a leader who could help solve

Marianne Kearney, Dili – Mr Joao Cancio Freitas might be the director of Dili's Institute of Technology, but like almost three quarters of this city's population, he has spent weeks liv

John Martinkus – Three weeks ago in East Timor I was given information from senior members of the East Timorese military that confirmed what the now deposed prime minister had been sayi

Damien Kingsbury – The appointment of Jose Ramos Horta as East Timor's interim prime minister is a move towards installing a unifying figure for a small nation that, for a moment, appea

Dili – East Timor's new prime minister Jose Ramos-Horta is the candidate best placed to unify the traumatised nation but the Nobel laureate could still face opposition and challenges li

Dili – Nobel prize-winner Jose Ramos-Horta has been named as East Timor's new prime minister, President Xanana Gusmao announced Saturday, ending weeks of political uncertainty in the na

Dili – Jose Ramos-Horta, the Nobel peace laureate who spent decades campaigning for East Timor's independence from Indonesia, was appointed the nation's prime minister Saturday.

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – East Timor's deposed prime minister, Mari Alkatiri, last night lashed out at Australia, saying there was an attempt to demonise him in the media and that some go

Tim Anderson – "We did not expect that the elected leader of a party with an overwhelming mandate could be forced to stand down in this way in a democracy." – Fretilin press release, Ju

Jon Lamb – The political crisis in East Timor has deepened following the resignation of East Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri on June 26.

Lindsay Murdoch in Dili and agencies – East Timor's ruling Fretilin party has moved to restructure the office of the country's top prosecutor in a move seen by opposition MPs as an atte

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – Nobel laureate Jose Ramos Horta, who has taken control of East Timor's crippled Government, has called for Australia to lead a UN peacekeeping force for at least

Whit Mason – In the past few weeks, two Australian dreams have come crashing to earth. First, there was chaos in East Timor and then the Socceroos' defeat by Italy.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – A meeting of East Timor's parliament tomorrow will underline the surreal political world in which the troubled fledgling nation is now existing.

John McBeth – A descendant of Islamic-proselytising Yemeni traders, educated in the then-Marxist-ruled states of Angola and Mozambique, the newly deposed prime minister of Timor Leste M

Abdul Khalik, Jakarta – The joint Indonesia-Timor Leste Truth and Friendship Commission said Friday it received backing of Indonesian Military (TNI) and government officials to query al

Nick Everett – East Timor's current political crisis began when a group of soldiers from the country's west – which grew from 140 to 591 – signed a petition claiming discrimination insi

James Dunn – The reluctant resignation of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri yesterday may have eased the crisis in East Timor, but the situation will remain very unsettled until the underlyi

Singapore – Petty regional divisions have been stirred up for political gain in East Timor which is still struggling to define its identity after centuries of foreign domination, analys

Mark Colvin: I'm joined now by Damien Kingsbury, Associate Professor at Deakin University's School of International and Political Studies, a close follower of East Timor's politics for

Jonathan Head – It was with a characteristically unemotional performance that Mari Alkatiri announced the end of his – and East Timor's – first prime ministerial term.

Hamish McDonald – In Timor there is the politics of Dili – this lethargic little seaside capital of low white buildings and tall tropical trees, where Portuguese-speaking political lead

M.

Kalinga Seneviratne, Sydney – A two month old rebellion by sacked army officials and police deserters in East Timor, one of the world's newest and poorest countries, has resulted in an

John Martinkus – The East Timorese Prime Minister has added to the murk surrounding the country's descent into violence by accusing opposition groups backed by foreigners of conspiring

Tomas Freitas is the director of Luta Hamutuk (Fight Together), a research and advocacy institute focusing on economic issues, including East Timor's Petroleum Fund.

Jon Lamb – East Timor's foreign minister Jose Ramos Horta formally requested to a special session of the United Nations Security Council on June 14 that the UN Office In East Timor be e

Minh Nguyen – Following a period of relative quiet, the notion of failed or failing states is again making headlines in Australia as its troops struggle to disarm warring gangs in East

Hamish McDonald, Boibao Fort – Clanging gongs and beating drums were background noise to testimony by leaders of an alleged political hit squad that might bring down East Timor's embatt

Shawn Donnan – To anyone who has followed East Timor's violent birth, the prefab trailer sitting just inside the entrance of the former United Nations compound known as "Crocodile Alley

Reporter: Liz Jackson

Hamish McDonald, Dili – New details have emerged about an East Timorese Government minister's efforts to turn police into a private army for the ruling Fretilin party and arm civilian h

Tom Hyland – Despite a publicised handover of a handful of weapons by rebel soldiers, mystery over the whereabouts of thousands of police guns is delaying efforts to resolve East Timor'

Shawn Donnan, Jakarta – The United Nations' efforts to seek justice for the 1999 atrocities in East Timor were plagued by mistakes and missteps, abandoned prematurely, and have contribu

Peter Boyle – Among the cynical circles of Australian foreign policy "experts" committed to Australia playing a neo-colonial role in the Asia-Pacific region, there are some differing vi

Jon Lamb – Political tensions within the East Timorese elite continue to simmer amidst preparation for the first sitting of parliament since the arrival of the Australian-led internatio

Estevao Cabral and Julie Wark – At a panel on the state of the world's media hosted by Columbia University in New York last April, the veteran journalist Robert Fisk expressed outrage a

Tom Hyland – Listen carefully: that scratching you hear is the scribbling of commentators, furiously re-writing history.

Annemarie Evans – Australian armoured vehicles patrol the streets of East Timor's capital, Dili, amid the burned-out shells of houses and food warehouses looted by marauding gangs, who

Jon Lamb – While the fighting between different factions of the East Timor Defence Force (FDTL) and the East Timor National Police (PNTL) has ceased with the arrival of the Australian-l

Peter Boyle – Commenting on the Australian troop deployment to East Timor on May 31, the Australian's Paul Kelly said, "this intervention is both military and political.