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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

The civil registration process has been a success.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

East Timor may be forced to apply its future revenues from oil and natural gas exploration in the Timor Gap to cover its operational budget, rather than in investing in the territory's

Karen Polglaze, Canberra – East Timor could not begin its life as an independent country by scaring off investors – so it would reach agreement with Australia on a Timor Gap Treaty, int

Brendan Pearson – East Timor's bounty from Timor Gap oil and gas revenues may hit $US1 ($1.95 billion) billion annually this decade, East Timor's interim Foreign Minister, Dr Jose Ramos

Virginia Marsh and Tom Mccawley – Australia and East Timor are edging towards agreement on a critical new treaty to govern the Timor Gap, paving the way for development of the substanti

Melbourne – Tough negotiations over a Timor Sea oil and gas production treaty are likely to resume between Australia and East Timor later this month in Dili as commercial deadlines loom

Hamish McDonald – Negotiators for Australia and East Timor yesterday began a secrecy-shrouded meeting in Brisbane in the search for agreement on the seabed boundary in the Timor Sea, af

Jon Land – In the wake of the second round of negotiations between Australia and East Timor on the Timor Gap Treaty and the disputed seabed boundary, Australia's big business press are

Craig Skehan – East Timor is set to receive a much larger slice of income from the rich oil reserves it shares with Australia.

Canberra – Australia and East Timor representatives are scheduled to resume negotiations in May on a new treaty covering the share of economic benefits from petroleum production in the

Jon Land – The Australian government is attempting to prevent East Timor from gaining full sovereign rights over vast oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea that are expected to generate

Jon Land – Speculation is increasing that, after the stalemate that occurred at the first round of talks in October, the federal government and representatives of the East Timorese are

Jeremy Bowden, Singapore – East Timor is raising the stakes in talks on sharing offshore oil and natural gas revenues with Australia, according to Australian government sources.

Hamish McDonald, Dili – The Australian Government is retreating from its tough opening stance on the oil revenue split in a new seabed boundary treaty with independent East Timor, a sen

Robert Garran – Australia and East Timor remain far apart in crucial talks over revenue from the Timor Gap oil and gas fields that could become a mainstay of the new country's economy.

Jon Land – Australian domestic demand for natural gas is projected to steadily increase over the next decade, with the fields off the coast of Western Australia and the Northern Territo

Jon Land – Companies operating in the oil and natural gas rich Timor Gap include some of the largest multinational and Australian-based energy corporations.

East Timorese solidarity activists in Australia have condemned federal government attempts to maintain control of large parts of East Timor's oil-rich seabeds, accusing it of being "sti

Jon Land – While little has been revealed about the discussions during the first formal round of negotiations between the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAE

Canberra – The Labor Party and Australian Democrats are urging Australia to change its national boundaries with East Timor to help the struggling country gain financial independence.

Jon Land – Negotiations on the future of the Timor Gap Treaty between the Australian government, the United Nations Transitional Administration for East Timor (UNTAET) and East Timorese

The Timor Gap Treaty signed between Australia and Indonesia during the rule of former president Suharto is illegal, and is not recognised by either the United Nations or the East Timore

Darwin – East Timor wanted a maritime boundary with Australia at the midpoint between the two countries, putting key petroleum projects in East Timorese waters, spokesman on Timor Gap i

Mark Dodd, Dili – Negotiations between the United Nations and Canberra for a new Timor Gap treaty could see up to $US100 million a year in oil and gas revenue flowing to East Timor, sen

Sonali Paul, Melbourne – Australian, East Timorese and United Nations officials have told oil companies renegotiation of the Timor Gap Treaty would not hurt their oil and gas plans, a P

Jon Land – Media reports during the recent visit to Australia by East Timorese leader Xanana Gusmao highlighted the improving diplomatic relations between Australia, East Timor and Indo

Comment by Andrew McNaughtan – When the Australian and Indonesian foreign ministers toasted the signing of the Timor Gap treaty in 1989 it was presented as a diplomatic coup and a sign

David Lague – An independent East Timor would have a powerful legal case to renegotiate the Timor Gap treaty and win a bigger share of potentially massive oil and gas revenues, accordin

Dili – The UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) has been appointed to replace Indonesia as Australia's new partner for oil and gas mining in the Timor Gap which lies be

Ray Brindal, Canberra – Australia and East Timor stand to reap hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties if oil and natural gas projects in the zone of cooperation in the Timor Sea p

With East Timor in a mess, what will become of the natural resources off its coast? It depends, writes Bernard Lane, on which country you speak to.

Sydney – Australia has begun talks with East Timorese leaders over the Timor Gap treaty under which Australia and Indonesia share oil revenue from the Timor Sea, officials said Wednesda

Jakarta – Indonesia's minister of economy, industry and finance has clarified Jakarta's position on the Timor Gap, a potentially oil-rich offshore region, saying that "if East Timor cho