Despite claims of progress and reform, East Timor's government is not putting the needs of its population first in planning for a future without oil propping up its economy. That decision blights the lives of many ordinary citizens.

The descent into A-grade Oceania begins barely an hour outside the Australian mainland. Silvery clouds, deep shades of green-blue ocean, and miles-long beaches appear against a backdrop of huge mountains cradling the capital, Dili.

Paulina Quintao, – Former comfort woman Ines Magalhaes Goncalves travelled to Japan late last year to give testimony at an international conference on human rights about the crimes committed against her by Japanese soldiers in Timor-Leste during World War II (1942-1945).

Paulina Quintao – The government is still unable to calculate annual medical supply needs accurately as hospitals are not providing a daily record of stock quantities and usage.

Minister of Health Maria do Ceo Sarmento Pina da Costa acknowledged that medication supply was an ongoing issue that the ministry still needed to resolve.

East Timor and Australia have agreed to a new maritime border which would give East Timor control of a $40 billion oil field. But not everyone is happy.

Sara Everingham – East Timor's former president Jose Ramos-Horta says after spending months considering whether to run in the country's next presidential election, he has decided to sit it out and make way for new leaders.

Ben Doherty – Timor-Leste has withdrawn its Australian espionage claims in the permanent court of arbitration as a "confidence-building measure", as the two countries continue to negotiate over their maritime border.In 2013 it was revealed the Australian government had bugged the Dili cabinet room of the Timor-Leste government in 2004 – under the guise of Australian aid-sponsored renovations.

Paulina Quintao – The salt brand Kapal which is produced in Indonesia and has been available in Timor-Leste for many years is intended to be used in pig feed rather than human consumption.

Tricia Aquino, Manila – The Philippines should use its chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) this year to accelerate the membership of East Timor in the 10-member regional bloc.

This is according to M.C. Abad, Jr., the former director of the ASEAN Regional Forum, housed in the ASEAN headquarters in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Venidora Oliveira – The majority of illegal fishermen in the Timor Sea detected during operations by the Maritime Police come from Indonesia.

The Commander of the Maritime Police, Superintendent Linho Saldanha said many illegal boats have been captured since they started operations.

Paulina Quintao – The Timor-Leste government has yet to build a statue honoring women who struggled for the country's independence.

The Secretary of State for the Socio-Economic Support of Women (SEM), Veneranda Lemos, said the government has plans to build the statue, but the project had not got off the ground because of a lack of funding.

Sara Everingham – A week of conciliation talks ends in East Timor dropping its spying case against Australia as part of negotiations to resolve the long-running dispute over permanent maritime boundaries in the Timor Sea.

Paulina Quintao – Data shows that 20% of Timorese companies producing bottled water do not meet international standards set by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Josephite nun and human rights advocate Josephite Sister Susan Connelly has urged Australians to maintain pressure on the Federal Government to negotiate a fair maritime boundary with East Timor.

Paulina Quintao – Many young women are marrying early due to a lack of adequate information about sexual and reproductive health issues.

Secretary of State for Youth and Sport (SEJD) Leovigildo da Costa Hornai said one of the most significant obstacles faced by young women was early pregnancy.

Paulina Quintao – The falling price of coffee makes has saddened growers in Ermera municipality who are struggling to improve their lives and send their children to school.

The President of Ermera municipality authority, Jose Martinho do Santos Soares, said the coffee price is a perennial problem for farmers, which has not been tackled so far.

Paulina Quintao – The National Parliament has approved proposed law no. 26/III/2015 on the prevention and fight against human trafficking. Of the 64 MPs, 34 were present, with 32 voting in favor, two abstentions and none against.

Felicity James – A survey of households in Timor-Leste has found most people in the country's capital Dili fear eviction from their land in the next five years.

Land conflict and dispossession in the country are "dormant giants" and pose an increasing threat to stability, according to an Asia Foundation report.

Thomas Ora, Dili, Timor Leste – Nothing unusual happened when Aitarak – not his real name – moved from Timor-Leste to Malang in Indonesia's East Java province to study law, three years before the country's independence referendum.

Bernardo Almeida, Todd Wassel – Voters in Timor-Leste will head to the polls twice this year for presidential elections in March and parliamentary elections in July – in what will be the first such elections to be held since the UN Mission departed in 2012.

Dili (AFP) – East Timor will hold a presidential election on March 20, an official said on Wednesday (Jan 18), and Nobel Peace laureate Jose Ramos-Horta may try to make a comeback as head of state.

It will be the third presidential vote in the tiny half-island nation since it won independence in 2002 following a brutal, 24-year occupation by neighbouring Indonesia.

David Hutt – With much of the population living in poverty and oil wealth running dry, Timor-Leste's upcoming elections could be the public's most important decision since independence

Hands up anyone who believes that the Sunrise gas project in the waters that separate Australia from East Timor will be developed in their lifetime, a challenge that Slugcatcher extends to any children who might be reading this column?

Frank Brennan – Without any media fanfare, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop published a statement on 9 January 2017 announcing that Australia and Timor Leste had agreed to terminate the 2006 Treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS).

Timor-Leste goes to the polls in 2017 with little in the way of a genuine policy debate. The political scene is dominated by former revolutionary leaders and the jostling between them.

Paul Cleary – When Australian commandos landed in the colony of Portuguese Timor in 1941, they immediately noticed that the gum trees, rocks and ochre-coloured earth were strikingly similar to home.

Steve Bracks – The revelation this week that Australia will negotiate a maritime boundary with Timor-Leste represents a significant and welcome policy shift within the Australian Government.

Progress in this decades-old dispute is long overdue. Australia's commitment to negotiations is a positive step for both countries, the broader region and the international community.

Michael Leach – Election year in Timor-Leste got off to an unexpected start with Monday's joint announcement that the government in Dili would terminate its 2006 treaty with Australia covering maritime arrangements in the Timor Sea. The decision, which Australia said it would not contest, opens the way for fresh boundary negotiations between the two countries.

Babs McHugh – Political and energy analysts have expressed serious doubts that East Timor will ever be able to benefit from a major gas project unless it changes its policy.

East Timor and the Australian Government on Monday announced they would abandon a 10-year-old treaty on maritime borders.

Ben Potter – The Greater Sunrise gas project in the Timor Sea – which has poisoned relations between Australia and tiny Timor-Leste – won't produce any revenue before the late 2020s if ever, experts say.

Tom Clarke – Australia's dodgy oil and gas treaty with East Timor is dead. Now it's time to negotiate fair and permanent maritime boundaries with our tiny neighbour.

Bec Strating – On Monday, a joint statement from the governments of Timor-Leste and Australia announced that Timor-Leste planned to officially notify Australia that it wished to terminate the 2006 Treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS).

Emily Stewart – It is back to the drawing board for a maritime agreement between Australia and East Timor.

At stake are oil and gas reserves worth up to $40 billion but, while both governments fight over future revenue sharing, development of the project has not even started.

Angela Macdonald-Smith – The fresh uncertainty that has enveloped the Timor Sea petroleum province comes at a critical time for the gas venture that currently provides most of the revenue for tiny, impoverished Timor-Leste.

John Martinkus – East Timor's cancellation of the 2006 Treaty between Australia and the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS), which centres on the oil between Australia and Timor, is not about money. It is not about the median line. It is not about whether Australia bullied the small country into making the agreement.

Hopes of a clean slate in developing the gas riches of the Timor Sea have now shifted to the international courts in The Hague.

Australia has backed down and agreed to scrap an existing 2006 revenue-sharing deal in the Timor Sea that in Dili's eyes had been hopelessly tainted by alleged Australian spying and bullying.

Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney – Australia and Timor Leste have agreed to walk away from a controversial deal over a lucrative A$50 billion (S$53 billion) oil and gas field, a step in resolving a long-running bitter dispute over their maritime border.

Kim Landers: Political leaders in East Timor say they're looking forward to capitalising on the new economic opportunities from oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea.

East Timor, also known as Timor-Leste, is on track to establish a new maritime boundary in the Timor Sea, after tearing up a controversial treaty with Australia.

Katherine Gregory reports.

Damien Kingsbury – East Timor has won a significant moral victory in the Timor Sea dispute, with Australia agreeing to scrap the controversial 2006 Timor Sea treaty. However, East Timor's hope that this now spells the beginning of the end of that dispute, much less that it will secure the country's economic future, might be overly optimistic.

Rebecca Strating – The government of Timor-Leste has officially notified Australia of its wish to terminate the 2006 Treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS). The treaty sets out the division of revenue from the Greater Sunrise oil and gas fields, an estimated A$40 billion deposit in the Timor Sea.

Kerrie Armstrong, Myles Morgan – Timor Leste will be no better off despite the cancellation of a treaty that divided resource revenues between the country and Australia, an expert says.

Daniel Flitton – East Timor will abandon the multi-billion dollar oil and gas treaty at the centre of sensational spying claims by Australia.

The two countries issued a joint statement on Monday declaring the deal to be dead, just over four months after East Timor took the unprecedented step to demand confidential conciliation talks with Australia at The Hague.

The Timor Sea Justice Campaign has welcomed the joint decision by the Australian and Timor Governments to abolish the 2006 Timor Sea Treaty.

Paulina Quintao – The Timor-Leste government has established a secretariat for youth from the Community of Portuguese Language-Speaking Countries (CPLP), with the aim of strengthening the friendship between member countries.

Timor-Leste government has established a secretariat for youth from the Community of CPLP, with the aim of strengthening the friendship between member countries.

Australia and Timor-Leste are engaged in the ongoing Conciliation under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The purpose of this process is to resolve the differences between the two States over maritime boundaries in the Timor Sea.

Sarina Locke – An Australian agricultural aid worker motivated to assist East Timorese people has helped farmers double crop yields and find useful time saving devices.

Yohanes Seo, Jakarta – President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has expressed his appreciation to the Public Works Ministry for establishing border outpost (PLBN) in the border between Indonesia and Timor Leste.

Pamela Sexton, Dili, Timor-Leste – Recently, thousands of U.S. military veterans travelled to North Dakota to support the peaceful struggle of the Standing Rock Sioux to defend their sovereignty and protect their land and water. I watched the veterans bend down to ask forgiveness from the many indigenous tribes gathered there.

Duncan Graham – Greig Cunningham wants to know how and why his brother Gary died. The New Zealand news cameraman was killed in 1975 by Indonesian Special Forces in what was then East Timor – now Timor-Leste.

In his four-decade fact hunt, the retired Australian accountant's latest stopover has been the brothers' birthplace, New Zealand.

David Hutt – I ask for no outpouring of sympathy, but those of us who spend our days jotting down opinions and making them available for public consumption face a perennial question of whether we want feedback. Perhaps, though, that's just me. A response might arrive in the inbox with sentiments of support but, more often than not, they come with the opposite intention.