James Eyers – East Timor's Foreign Affairs Minister, Jose Ramos-Horta, has reassured investors that Timor is happy with the treaty on sharing the Timor Sea's oil wealth with Australia,

Quinton Temby, Perth – At an international conference on regional security held in East Timor last year, the frustration of many Timorese officials was obvious.

Joe Cochrane – When Indonesia and Australia agreed in 1989 to jointly exploit East Timor's offshore oil and gas fields, the countries' foreign ministers sealed the pact by sipping champ

Nigel Wilson – Negotiations are going ahead on the terms that will secure long-term gas supplies for Bayu Undan's $1.8 billion liquefied natural gas plant planned for Darwin.

Dili – An East Timor-Australia treaty that serves as the basis for the development of the major oil and gas deposits in the Timor Sea between the two countries came into force Wednesday

Nigel Wilson – The Timor Sea Treaty will formally come into effect next Tuesday with an exchange of notes between Australia and East Timor in Dili.

Rob Wesley-Smith – Much joy from NT government and business has accompanied the rushing of the Timor Sea Treaty (TST) through both houses of the Australian Parliament 2 weeks ago.

Australia promised East Timor millions of dollars in a secret aid deal that convinced the world's newest nation to give up claims to a huge undersea gas field, a newspaper reported.

Rick Kelly – The long standing plan of the Australian government to maintain control of East Timor's oil and gas reserves reached its dinouement late last week, as the East Timorese app

Tim Colebatch – They fooled me. Perhaps they fooled you, too. These days the spin doctors are everywhere, and they know how to pull the wool over our eyes.

Kalinga Seneviratne, Sydney – The Australian government is denying claims that it bullied the world's newest country, and one of its poorest – East Timor – to grab a large slice of a US

Prime Minister John Howard denied yesterday bullying East Timor over a lucrative gas project as Parliament passed the crucial Timor Sea Treaty.

Steve Lewis and Nigel Wilson – Relations between Australia and East Timor have deteriorated even as they signed a breakthrough agreement yesterday paving the way for billions of dollars

Mark Baker, Singapore and Mark Riley, Canberra – East Timor has bowed to intense political pressure from Australia and will today rush through the signing of an agreement to clear the w

Mark Baker – East Timor has bowed to intense political pressure from Australia and will today rush through the signing of an agreement to clear the way for joint development of the vast

The Australian Parliament is expected to ratify the Timor Sea Treaty this week, ensuring a 20-billion dollar contract for natural gas can go ahead.

Nigel Wilson – Last-minute negotiations are taking place on arrangements between Australia and East Timor that could result in legislation implementing the Timor Sea Treaty being introd

Mark Baker, Singapore – East Timor has warned that hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues vital for the country's development could be lost because of the Australian Government's r

John Ward and Peter Symonds – The Australian government is deliberately delaying the signing of an agreement with East Timor, known as the Timor Sea Treaty, as a means of blackmailing t

Sarah Crichton – The Federal Court has ruled it cannot hear a US oil company's multi-billion dollar compensation claim against the Commonwealth for loss of rights to vast oil and gas re

Karen Michelmore, Darwin – Players in the multi-billion dollar Timor Gas treaty are hopeful of an outcome within weeks, as negotiations drag on.

Lisbon – The Bishop of Dili called Wednesday for the creation of an independent body to oversee the exploitation of Timor Sea oil reserves, the Portuguese news agency Lusa reported.

David Fickling – The spectacle of someone large and powerful picking on a weak and desperate neighbour passes as bullying in the average playground.

Mark Dodd, Darwin – Southeast Asia's poorest country, East Timor, could get its first royalty payments from the oil- and gas-rich Timor Sea by 2004, money which experts say will mean th

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

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

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

Andrew Trounson, Melbourne – Plans to market natural gas from the Greater Sunrise fields in the Timor Sea to markets in Australia are to be abandoned, with the partners in the project n

[Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has returned to East Timor for the first time since the signing of the Timor Sea Treaty in May.

Bruce Hextall – The development of more than $10 billion of oil and gas projects in the Timor Sea moved a step closer yesterday as debate started in the East Timor Parliament to ratify

Neil Sands, Sydney – Australia and East Timor are locked in a David and Goliath struggle over spoils from Timor Sea gas fields, which analysts warn could jeopardise the entire project.

Paul Toohey – Three Timorese men working in the Darwin-based Timor Gap Joint Authority have been suspended on full pay after they asked their Australian bosses why they were paid less t

Jason Koutsoukis – The $3.5 billion Bayu-Undan natural gas project between Australia and East Timor received a major boost yesterday when a joint federal parliamentary committee recomme

Dili – Australia is using East Timor's vulnerability as one of the world's poorest nations to gain leverage in negotiations on the carving up of oil resources in the Timor Sea, Dili's p

Kupang – The people of the western half of Timor Island, East Nusa Tenggara, must also enjoy their traditional rights as owners of the Timor Sea, the site of oil and gas explorations kn

East Timor's Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta says his country is ready to ratify the Timor Sea Treaty and the Australian Government will owe his people an explanation if it decides to

Karen Polglaze, Canberra – Australian ratification of the Timor Gap Treaty could increase the risk of political instability in East Timor, a parliamentary committee was told today.

Adam Morton, Melbourne – Australia will have to step in and "sort out" East Timorese politics within five years unless the Timor Sea Treaty is balanced, the ACTU said today.

Jane Counsel – The key players developing gas resources in the Timor Sea have urged the Federal Government to ratify the Timor Sea Treaty without delay or risk losing billions of dollar

[The Australian government has begun four days of hearings into the Timor Sea Treaty it signed with East Timor on the day of that country's declaration of independence in May this ye

Ray Brindal, Canberra – East Timor doesn't recognize a claim by PetroTimor Comphanhia de Petroleos SARL over energy-rich concessions in the Timor Sea, according to a senior East Timor g

Jane Counsel – A former top executive with US oil and gas group Unocal is set to reopen the debate about the Sunrise gasfield in the Timor Sea by arguing its gas should be piped to East

Ray Brindal Canberra – East Timor has been poorly dealt with by Australia and companies wanting to develop vast natural gas resources in the Timor Sea, John Imle, a former president and

Mari Alkatiri – It is a truism of the developing world that the blessing of petroleum wealth can be a curse.

[Australia and East Timor are squaring off for their first serious disagreement, government-to-government.

Craig Skehan, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei – East Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri last night denied his government had tried to link negotiations on sharing oil and gas revenues to

Tim Dodd, Bandar Seri Begawan – East Timor has asked Australia to take over part of its maritime security in a new treaty that would substantially increase the ocean area in which the t

Bruce Hextall – East Timor's latest proposal in the sharing of the Timor Sea's vast oil and gas reserves could be viewed as a positive step in resolving some of the issues now subject t

Andrew Trounson, Melbourne – East Timor is getting down to business. And that means playing tough, even with your friends.

Nigel Wilson – East Timor's decision to pursue maritime boundaries that might include substantial Australian oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea will not derail talks aimed at definin