Christine T. Tjandraningsih, Dili – Francisco Guterres, a veteran of East Timor's long struggle for independence, was elected the territory's first speaker of the Constituent Assembly on Monday.

Jakarta – A senior UN refugee official rapped Indonesian authorities Monday for failing to properly punish the "cold-blooded" killers of three of its staff.

Mark Dodd, Tumin – On a barren ridge just outside the village of Tumin, hundreds gathered last weekend to commemorate one of the most shocking mass murders that occurred in the violence following East Timor's 1999 referendum.

Vaudine England in Jakarta – Children snatched from refugee camps in East Timor and taken to central Java two years ago were reunited with their parents yesterday.

Independence hero Xanana Gusmao also welcomed home the families of former pro-Indonesian militiamen. His move came as mass refugee returns resumed across the border with Indonesian West Timor.

Dili – The UN administration in East Timor on Saturday inaugurated the newly elected assembly that will draft the territory's first constitution, bringing it one step closer to full independence.

The 88-member assembly, which was voted in last month, will have three months to draft the charter and adopt East Timor's new political system.

Kupang – The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has decided to reopen its base in West Timor to help channel humanitarian aid to some 290,000 East Timorese refugees currently settling in West Timor, East Nusa Tenggara.

Jakarta – In a gesture of reconciliation, East Timor's independence hero Xanana Gusmao welcomed home the families of former pro-Jakarta militiamen Friday as mass refugee returns resumed across the border with Indonesian West Timor.

Ian Timberlake, Dili – Police officers in smart blue uniforms confidently direct traffic. Newly refurbished government buildings sparkle with white paint, and a constituent assembly will be sworn in tomorrow following East Timor's first democratic elections.

Jakarta – A senior East Timor official said on Wednesday that the country would not prosecute the alleged human rights violations by Indonesian Military (TNI) troops in the international court of justice.

[The following is the officially certified list of East Timorese who were elected to the Constituent Assembly on the August 30 ballot. Some of these people will probably be selected to serve in the cabinet, in which case they must resign from the Assembly. The next-ranking person on the slate of the party they were elected under will fill the vacancy. The assembly has 88 seats.

Dili – Opposition leaders in East Timor criticized the United Nations on Thursday for favoring one political party and not creating the framework for democracy in their fledgeling nation.

Jana DK, Dili – In its first major mobilisation since the beginning of East Timor's election campaign, on August 25 some 5000 Timorese Socialist Party members and supporters gathered at Dili's Independence Field for one of the most energetic, enthusiastic and political rallies the country has yet seen.

Jon Land – Fretilin, the party which declared East Timor independent in 1975 and which was the largest single force in the long fight against occupation, has won 57% of the vote in the country's first elections since the end of Indonesian rule – but the result is well short of the 85-90% the party had been predicting.

Jill Hickson – "Where are our missing children? We have nothing – no land, no houses, nothing to do, no materials to work with to make an income. The women here are dying from childbirth because they have no money for doctors, there is little food and in some camps little water.

Vaudine England – The barefoot children were scrambling up the bougainvillea bushes to gather fresh clusters of the flowers – the only bright spot in the dry, dusty and still-devastated landscape of the East Timorese town of Memo.

Yemris Fointuna, Dili – The United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) is planning to forge economic cooperation between the former Portuguese colony and Indonesia's province of West Timor, the other half of the island of Timor. This is one of the programs to be tackled by a development commission to be set up here this month.

Vaudine England, Jakarta – Pressure is building on Indonesia to return 124 East Timorese children taken from their parents in West Timor refugee camps following East Timor's 1999 independence vote.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – There is a palpable mood of relief in East Timor this week after the election in which the country voted overwhelmingly in favor of the leftist nationalist party Fretilin.

The tension in the air has dissipated after the vote went ahead in an orderly manner nationwide. It is as though the population has passed a strenuous test, as indeed it has.

Mark Dodd, Dili – What's in a word? Quite a bit if you are considering running for president of East Timor.

Ambiguous comments from Mr Mari Alkatiri, secretary-general of the election-winning Fretilin party, have cast doubt on the independence leader Mr Xanana Gusmao's offer to stand.

Mark Dodd, Dili – Fretilin, the party that led East Timor's 24-year struggle for independence from Indonesia, has won the fledgling nation's first democratic election. But it fell short of the two-thirds majority in the new Constituent Assembly needed to draft unilaterally the country's Constitution, and may be forced into a coalition.

• Total Votes Cast: 384,248
• Total Valid Votes: 363,501
• Invalid Votes: 20,747

National Ballot

Despite its decision to contest the election process, East Timor's UDT party congratulated Thursday the Fretilin party for its victory in last week's voting for the 88-member Constituent Assembly.

Dili – The Chief Electoral Officer of the East Timor's Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), Carlos Valenzuela, today presented the full and final results of the 30 August Constituent Assembly elections.

Results of last week's elections in East Timor indicate that the territory's new 88-seat Constituent Assembly will have a total of 24 women members.

The Deputy President of the Dili District Court Rui Pereira dos Santoas stressed that the Timor Lorosae Judiciary will continue using Bahasa Indonesia and Tetun in all proceedings for about 10 to 15 years despite Portuguese being made the official language of the Constituent Assembly.

The leader of East Timor's ASDT party, Fransico Xavier do Amaral, told Lusa Wednesday in Dili that he would not be a future candidate for president.

Xavier do Amaral, whose party's strong performance in last week's Constituent Assembly elections surprised many observers, said his decision was due to a lack of adequate funds and support.

For Fretilin [East Timor Revolutionary Front] – the party most likely to win the recent Timor Lorosae (TL) elections – there are three main things which need to be maintained [from 1975] should the new country finally become a reality.

Xanana's interview with Tempo magazine:

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

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 the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT), Joao Carrascalao.

Lincoln Wright – Two star witnesses behind the allegation that Defence knew beforehand of the murder of five Australian journalists at Balibo in 1975 now maintain they never saw an intelligence intercept warning that Indonesian forces were planning the killings.

East Timor's Defense Force would be willing to accept Indonesian military aid if the offer was made by Jakarta, the force's commander said on Monday. "If they decide to help us, then we are willing to accept the offer because we want to improve relations with Indonesia", Brigadier General Taur Matan Ruak said.

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.

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 Joao Carrascalao, after the (30 August) elections (for the constituent assembly).

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 turbulent history.

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 assembly.

At the Toko Lay hardware store in central Dili, Charles Tan was checking a newly arrived generator to sell to the burgeoning construction industry. "We will close the shop for the election but we are not expecting any trouble," he said. "Everything is safe here now and we only want it to continue."

Rowan Callick – The emergence of democratic government in an independent East Timor is a miracle. The obstacles in its path, through erratic and often cruel Portuguese, Japanese and Indonesian rule, have been horrendous.

Five people arrested Thursday in the East Timorese capital had various weapons in their possession, the UN civil police spokesman said, adding that the operation had nothing to do with the elections occurring on the same day.

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 toward nationhood for East Timor.

Christine T. Tjandraningsih, Kupang – As hundreds of thousands of East Timorese went to the polls Thursday in the UN-administered territory's first legislative elections, pro-Jakarta refugees sheltering in West Timor lowered Indonesia's red-and-white national flag to half-mast to mark what many there see as a black day.

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 Aborigines.

The United Nations was imposing Thursday's election for a constituent assembly on a people who were not yet ready to stand alone, he told AFP.

Woodside Petroleum, Australia's biggest independent oil and gas group, is to evaluate competing proposals from Royal Dutch/Shell and Phillips Petroleum of the US in an attempt to resolve differences over how the substantial deep sea gas fields between Australia and East Timor should be developed.

Joe Leahy – Building a central bank from scratch in one of the world's poorest countries was never going to be easy.

But Fernando DePeralto, general manager of the Central Payments Office, East Timor's de facto monetary authority, manages to put a gloss on it.

Dili – Justice must come before amnesty for people guilty of human rights violations in East Timor, a lawyer working to establish a truth commission said Wednesday.

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. As the UN starts to gradually wind back operations and hand over more direct control to the East Timorese, new and old social tensions are coming to the fore.

Don Greenlees – The Indonesian army has extended an olive branch to East Timor's fledgling defence force, by offering to train former Falintil guerilla fighters and inviting East Timor's military chief, Taur Matan Ruak, to Jakarta for talks.

Joe Cochrane, Ermera – The farmers of Ermera are fiercely proud of their long tradition of growing East Timor's finest coffee, but these days that is not enough to fill their stomaches.

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. But Dili's bishop, Nobel peace laureate Carlos Belo, disagrees, as do most victims of political violence in East Timor.

Vamasae – In one of the thousands of charred and gutted buildings that still scar East Timor's landscape, 200 villagers squat before the man who won a Nobel peace prize crusading for their independence, Jose Ramos Horta.