Xanana's interview with Tempo magazine:

Tempo: At first you dithered on being nominated as president. But you changed your mind later. Why?

Dili – The winners of last week's historic election in East Timor must listen to the people when drafting a constitution as a prelude to independence, two watchdog groups said Monday.

Jose Ramos Horta said Monday in Dili he was "profoundly sad" about the "unhappy", "lamentable" and "incendiary" criticism of the East Timorese election process leveled by the leader of

Presenter: Sergio Vieira de Mello, head of UNTAET, the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor, has replied to the fraud accusations, made by UDT (Timorese Democratic Union) leader

Lindsay Murdoch in Liquica and agencies – East Timorese kept what the United Nations had called a date with democracy yesterday, voting in the first democratic election of their turbule

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – Carlos first introduced himself as a driver. When none of Dili's dilapidated taxis could be found, he would always produce one.

Richard Lloyd Parry – Two years to the day after the 1999 referendum on independence, the East Timorese people vote again on Thursday in the first elections to a democratic national ass

Slobodan Lekic, Dili – Women nursed babies held in shoulder slings and people joked with UN monitors as they waited in long lines to vote Thursday in a election seen as a historic step

Christine T.

Jakarta – Feared ex-militia leader Eurico Guterres declared Thursday a "day of mourning for East Timor" and said its people could end up second-class citizens like Australia's Aborigine

Vaudine England, Dili – East Timor's president-in-waiting, Xanana Gusmao, yesterday restated his belief that amnesties should be considered for people who committed serious crimes.

Jon Land – The August 30 election for East Timor's Constituent Assembly signifies an important step towards the conclusion of the United Nations transitional administration.

The leader of East Timor's Social Democratic Party (PSD) said Monday in Dili he hoped his party would obtain between 30 and 40 percent of the vote in Thursday's Constituent Assembly ele

The upcoming Constituent Assembly elections in East Timor serve "only to comply with the calendar and are neither free nor fair", the leader of the historic UDT party, Joao Carrascalao,

Mark Dodd, Dili – He was East Timor's first president, the head of the short-lived Fretilin administration that unilaterally declared independence in November 1975, 10 days before Indon

Lisbon – East Timor's UN administrator said in a newspaper interview Friday that a broad-based government will be named to govern the territory following next week's elections.

Mark Dodd, Dili – The East Timor independence leader Mr Xanana Gusmao has decided not to retire from politics to grow prize pumpkins for the Dili show.

James Fox – Parliamentary elections will be held in East Timor on Thursday, two years from the day when the East Timorese turned out en masse to vote for their independence.

Fretilin Party Secretary-General Mari Alkatiri has guaranteed there would be no radical behaviour on the part of his party as Fretilin were no longer a communist or socialist party.

Predicting his Fretilin party would win East Timor's first free elections by a landslide, Mari Alkatiri warned the territory's UN transition administration Monday his party could refuse

Dili – It is easy to be optimistic about East Timor's future when you are sitting at the villa of its de facto king – UN diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello.

Lindsay Murdoch, Dare Mulo – Some people wept. Others sang national songs they had rehearsed for days and stamped their bare feet in the dust.

Some East Timorese political forces have set up security-style partisan groups in preparation for next week4s elections but have not generated any problems, UN administration officials

Dili – A US-based election monitoring group said Friday it was satisfied with conditions for East Timor's first free elections next week, but expressed concern over cases of voter intim

Bronwyn Curran, Dili – East Timorese voters are relishing their first-ever taste of democracy but some parties in next week's elections have tried to intimidate them, local poll watchdo

Vaudine England, Jakarta – The political party of East Timor's independence heroes, Fretilin, has been accused of using intimidation, threats and "Indonesian-style" campaigning ahead of

The number two in East Timor's Fretilin party hierarchy, Mari Alkatiri, strongly critized Wednesday the territory's Independent Eletoral Mediation Panel, which has complained about the

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – Apocalyptic predictions are rife in East Timor as the territory approaches political freedom after centuries of Portuguese colonial rule and a quarter century of I

United Nations civil police in the Suai region of East Timor have detained two people suspected of committing infractions of election campaign rules, a UN source told Lusa on Friday.

Mark Dodd, Dili – With an army of street kids recruited to plaster seafront coconut trees with stickers, and a UN vehicle pressed into service blaring raucous political messages, the Ti

[Source: RDP Antena 1 radio, Lisbon, in Portuguese. Excerpt from report by Portuguese radio on 14 August]

Unidentified assailants have thrown stones at a vehicle carrying Democratic Party (PD) supporters on a campaign tour of the Liquiga district west of the East Timorese capital.

[Source: RDP Antena 1 radio, Lisbon, in Portuguese]

Thousands of people made their way to Dili on Saturday to take part in the UDT mammoth campaign.

Certain political parties have resorted to door knocking campaigns forcing people to vote for them.

Mark Dodd, Dili – His name is distinctive, and in coming months Australians may hear a lot more of the East Timorese independence leader LuOlo.

Warren Caragata, Dili – The big UN Land Rover that carries Xanana Gusmao and his bodyguards from event to event should have a bumper sticker that says "I'd rather be doing practically a

Electoral officials in Dili said Thursday that final voters' lists for East Timor's August 30 constituent assembly elections contained 409,019 eligible voters, after additions made in c

Jakarta – Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) and the Indonesian Accountants' Foundation (YAI) urged the government on Tuesday to revise political party laws to allow party financial mana

Jon Land – With elections to the country's first post-occupation Constituent Assembly due on August 30, East Timor's socialists are building up their support across the country and are

Ongoing corrections to preliminary voters lists in East Timor have included an additional 18,000 names and will bring the total electorate for August 30 constituent assembly elections t

Four groups of international observers and eight East Timorese organizations have already registered with Dili electoral officials to monitor the territory's first free vote on August 3

Mark Dodd – The Nobel laureate Bishop Carlos Belo has indicated support for a Fretilin victory at the election for a Constituent Assembly on August 30.

East Timor's official television and radio station's have begun broadcasting the second round of campaign messages allotted political parties and independent candidates contesting the A

A joint campaign by seven political parties to hit the hustings in Lospalos Monday was called off because transportation promised by UNTAET failed to turn up.

Mark Dodd, Viqueque – East Timorese voters have sent their political leaders a strong message to end violence and work towards improving living standards and social services.

A team dispatched to verify rumors of planned election violence in East Timor reported Wednesday they had found the territory's "most vulnerable" areas "calm and serene".

Three days after the start of the official campaign period for August 30 elections, the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT) became the first party to publish an advertisement in the East Ti

East Timorese electoral officials Wednesday acknowledged "systematic failures" in the preparation of voters' lists for the August 30 constituent assembly balloting and appealed to the p

East Timor's Independent Electoral Commission has rejected more than 70 potential candidates for the August 30 constituent assembly elections.