Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, Jakarta – Two of the survivors in the April 1999 incident at Liquica Church in East Timor testified here on Thursday that what happened on the day was an attack on scared people by armed pro-integration militiamen.

David Shanks, Dili – "The reconciliations are amazing. They sit in little huddles and cry and hug each other." A UN refugees' official was describing the work of Dili's La Quarantina transit centre for refugees returning to independent East Timor.

Joseph Nevins – East Timor became the world's first new country of the millennium on May 20 and, appropriately, the Bush administration poured salt on East Timor's deep wounds. Bush's salt took the form of Bill Clinton and Richard Holbrooke, Clinton's last United Nations ambassador. Bush tapped the pair to head the US delegation to East Timor's recent independence celebration.

Kupang – Col. Moeswarno Moesanip, chief of the Wirasakti Military District supervising security in East Nusa Tenggara, turned down East Timor's request for the province to allow overland public transportation from Dili to proceed its enclave Oecusi through Atambua for security reasons.

Associated Press in Jakarta – A notorious militia leader told a human rights court yesterday that his group's activities in East Timor were funded by an Indonesian government official – but denied knowing about killings allegedly committed by his men.

Eric Ellis – For most of the chic clientele at Dili's City Cafe, the awesome struggle facing the Democratic Republic of Timor Lorosa'e seems the least of their concerns.

Jakarta – Two East Timorese bearing scars from a 1999 massacre Thursday told Indonesia's human rights court of a day of terror when militiamen brandishing guns and machetes attacked a church and killed 22 people.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – A Portuguese company is poised to win a $US16 million contract to set up East Timor's new telecommunications network, further consolidating Portugal's commercial influence in the new nation.

Joe Leahy and Tom McCawley – When the veteran United Nations official Sergio Vieira de Mello went to Tokyo in late 1999 to lobby donors for funds to rebuild East Timor, he had no inkling of the task that lay before him.

Newly independent East Timor urged former ruler Indonesia to drop its compensation demand for assets left behind after Jakarta ended its two-decade occupation of the country.

But Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta played down Jakarta's decision to postpone indefinitely a visit by Dili's new leaders to Indonesia which had been scheduled for Wednesday.

Pandaya, Dili – There is a tragicomedy taking place in the East Timor's elementary schools. It revolves around the teachers' low proficiency of the Portuguese language, which the government has decided to use as the official language of instruction for grades one to three.

[The following is a slightly abridged version of a speech given by Sarah Stephen, a member of the Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific brigade to East Timor, at a protest organised by a number of East Timorese groups in Dili on May 19.]

[In the 2.5 years of UN administration in East Timor, the UN has been criticised for failing to pursue those responsible for the atrocities of 1999. With new president Xanana Gusmao's commitment to reconciliation with Indonesia and its former militia, there are fears that justice will be equally elusive in an independent East Timor. Dateline's Mark Davis reports.]

As East Timor struggles with its new relationship with Canberra, a book is being published on Australia's role in that extraordinary journey to independence from 1998. Titled "Deliverance – The Inside Story of East Timor's Fight for Freedom", it's the work of two Australian journalists, Don Greenless in Jakarta and Robert Garran in Canberra.

Review by Jon Land – This is a two-part series looking at how two different individuals begin new lives in East Timor following the August 31, 1999 referendum on independence.

Sarah Stephen, Dili – May 19 marked the turning point of a historic period of transition for the East Timorese people. It was the last day of operation for the UN Transitional Administration of East Timor (UNTAET), bringing to a close more than 400 years of foreign rule.

Geoffrey Barker – Life is cheap and law is scarce in East Timor. How effective justice will be remains to be seen as the new nation's police and legal systems are being put in place.

[Australia's decision not to negotiate maritime boundaries with East Timor has surprised the new republic's Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.

Geoffrey Barker – There are three forms of land title in East Timor, reflecting the country's long history of foreign occupation.

Some land, notably rural land, is held under customary communal title. During 450 years of Portuguese rule, 2,709 parcels of land were given to the colonial elites. During Indonesia's 24-year rule, some 44,000 land parcels were handed out.

[East Timor's adored first president says he welcomes the tough tasks ahead. Three years ago, Jose (Xanana) Gusmo was a political prisoner languishing in a Jakarta prison. Today he's president of the world's newest nation.

Don Greenlees, Jakarta – Foreign Minister Alexander Downer yesterday signalled Australia would dismiss any proposals from newly independent East Timor to radically change seabed boundaries because it would risk unravelling thousands of kilometres of boundaries that have already been settled with Indonesia.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute says disaffected members of East Timor's guerilla group Falintil are forming into armed groups and pose a serious threat to security in the new nation.

At the Northern Territory University in Darwin, the Institute's Elsina Wainwright has released a study on security and defence issues relating to the new nation.

Michael Richardson, Uotolari – Paradoxically, the neat figure of the Reverend Damianus Wagur seated behind a school desk in his office epitomizes the complexity of East Timor's recent history. Wagur, a missionary teacher from Flores, a predominantly Christian island of Indonesia, directs the senior high school in this town about 250 kilometers southeast of Dili.

Four Indonesian parliamentarians are hanging on to their positions despite their East Timorese electorate having broken away from the republic nearly three years ago.

Amid calls to give up their seats, the MPs insist they are representing the interests of the Timorese remaining in Indonesia.

Irwan Firdaus, Jakarta – Like most lawmakers in Indonesia's Parliament, Natercia Do Menino Jesus Osoria Soares insists she is the voice of her people. The only problem is that the people live in another country.

Jennifer Wells – On the news a few evenings back, CBC correspondent Patrick Brown contextualized the birth of the new nation of East Timor by emphasizing how small it is. With a population of just 800,000 souls, Brown made the point that the former Indonesian-occupied east end of an island is no bigger, people-wise, than Winnipeg.

HT Lee – When Howard claimed Australia is generous by giving East Timor a 90% share of the royalties – what he forgot to mention is that it is only for one of the three oil and gas fields off the Timor Sea – Bayu-Undan.

Reacting Thursday to calls from East Timor's religious leader for the expulsion of a Portuguese correspondent from Dili, Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said there will be freedom of the press in the new nation.

The head of East Timor's Roman Catholic Church, Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, has said that the Dili correspondent of the Portuguese Lusa news agency "should be withdrawn from East Timor" for having written an article on church power in the new country which was "full of insults and lack of education".

Jonathan Steele – It's a hard world to be born into, even for nation-states. This week East Timor, half of a small island a few hundred miles north of Australia, became the youngest member of the so-called international community.

Edith M. Lederer, United Nations – Acting with unusual speed, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution Thursday recommending that the 189-nation General Assembly admit East Timor as a new member.

Aaron Goodman, Dili – The unfurling of East Timor's flag and the lighting of fireworks on Sunday marked the formal coming out of the newest country of the millennium, one whose test of nationhood will be under way for many years to come.

Jon Land – As the official festivities wind down in East Timor following the May 20 independence celebrations and the international dignitaries fly back to their comfortable and privileged lifestyles, a beckoning question for most East Timorese remains, what does independence hold?

East Timor hailed its move to democracy May 20 by signing the Timor Gap Treaty with Australia just hours after becoming the world's newest independent state. However, the signing of the treaty was more an empty symbol of goodwill than a declaration of cooperation between the two on developing the Timor Sea's vast natural resources.

Lyall Johnson – As East Timor celebrated its nationhood yesterday, 1600 East Timorese asylum seekers living in Australia faced an anxious wait to see if they could remain in the country many have called home for more than a decade.

Aboeprijadi Santoso and Yemris Fointuna, Dili/Kupang – Despite reconciliatory gestures from their leaders, the future of ties between Indonesia and its new neighbor East Timor hangs in the balance due to a legacy of wide-ranging unfinished business.

Dean Yates, Dili – About the only thing pro-Jakarta militias didn't destroy in their rampage after East Timor voted in 1999 to break free was something they couldn't touch – the territory's stunning natural beauty.

Dili – Australian soldiers marred East Timor's independence day by stealing flags from outside a Dili hotel, an Australian businessman claimed.

Hotel Dili manager Gino Favaro also accused the six soldiers of threatening a local security guard with a rifle butt.

Vaudine England – Indonesian media greeted the birth of an independent East Timor with congratulations and the stated desire for better ties. But behind the positive rhetoric remains a Government and armed forces determined to avoid responsibility for past abuses in the new nation.

Jakarta – The Free Aceh Movement armed wing (AGAM) joined the worldwide chorus of congratulations for the people of East Timor on their independence and the inauguration of Xanana Gusmao as the country's first president.

Tom Hyland, Dili – On its first day as an independent nation, East Timor yesterday warned Australia of a tough fight ahead for a greater share of Timor Sea oil and gas revenue, even as the two sides signed a treaty to exploit resources in the energy-rich seabed area.

Lincoln Wright – To avoid provoking Indonesia, Australia should pull its 1450 troops out of East Timor after the United Nations leaves in 2004, according to a new defence report.

But the Howard Government should help upgrade East Timor's police force to improve security.

Joseph Fitchete, Lisbon – Bill Clinton presumably didn't notice any problems during East Timor's independence celebrations last week. After nearly two days' flying time to the Pacific as the Bush administration's representative, Clinton spent only a few hours in Dili, the new capital.

Jakarta – East Nusa Tenggara Military district chief Col. Moeswarno Moesanip consoled some 30,000 pro-integration East Timorese refugees who were politically estranged in West Timor following East Timor's independence on Monday, saying all sides, including the military must accept the reality.

As the East Timorese celebrated their hard-won independence overnight, spare a thought for the Jakarta lobby in Australia, including luminaries such as Dick Woolcott, Gough Whitlam, Gareth Evans and Paul Keating, to name only a few. How must they feel?

These men have dedicated much of their professional lives to opposing just such an event.

Ben Terrall – As the world's newest nation looks forward, the US must look back at its complicity in East Timor's bloody past. Recently declassified documents reveal that the United States gave a "green light" to Indonesian dictator Suharto before his invasion of East Timor. It's no time, writes PNS contributor Ben Terrall, to renew military aid to Indonesia.

Ben Terrall, Oakland, California – East Timor will celebrate its independence today after throwing off a 24-year Indonesian military occupation that killed 200,000 East Timorese.

Tom Hyland and Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – East Timor became an independent nation early this morning but a row over the unauthorised arrival of Indonesian warships highlighted the potential fragility of its hard-won freedom.

[East Timor has claimed its independence. How is the new nation viewed by its imposing neighbour, Indonesia? Tony Eastley speaks with Wimar Witoelar, who was spokesman for Indonesia's former president Abdurrahmin Wahid, and who is now a visiting professor of journalism at Deakin University, in Victoria. Compere: Tony Eastley Reporter: Tony Eastley.]

Dili – Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri was greeted by 50 silent protesters shortly after she arrived in East Timor late on Sunday to attend independence events for a territory Jakarta once ruled with an iron fist.