Timor-Leste
Timor-Leste, 20 years on
This month, Timor-Leste is in a festive mood, celebrating the 20th anniversary of its independence referendum. On 30 August 1999, the people of Timor-Leste cast their ballots in a…
Letter from Dili: languid days, broken barracks, and a surprise
There has always been something of a ghost-like quality to languorous Dili, capital of Timor-Leste with its Portuguese-era buildings and statues from Indonesian times still…
Timor-Leste’s forgotten Chinese
There used to be thousands of them – the children of the children of the first Chinese people to migrate to Timor-Leste in the 1800s and their indigenous Timorese husbands and…
Timor-Leste: refining agreements in the Greater Sunrise
The recent agreement by Timor-Leste’s government to purchase US energy group ConocoPhillips’ 30% stake in the Greater Sunrise syndicate, which has rights to exploit the…
Timor and Australia: a new chapter or a stalemate?
Last week, an Australian leader visited Dili for the first time in five years. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop spent 36 hours in Timor-Leste as part of a four-country diplomatic…
Julie Bishop’s new Timor-Leste chapter
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop arrived in Timor-Leste at the weekend, on her first official visit and the first by any Australian minister to the country in five years…
A new path to dispute settlement
On 9 May, the United Nations Conciliation Commission (UNCC) concerning the Timor Sea dispute between Timor-Leste and Australia released its final report. This was the first…
Timor-Leste election: the generation gap
After ten months of political gridlock and one dissolved parliament, Saturday’s decisive parliamentary election result represents one kind of victory for Timor-Leste’s fledgling…
Timor Trough: the rumpled carpet on the sea floor
John Carlson says Australia approached maritime boundary negotiations with Indonesia in 1972 by arguing the Timor Trough was the meeting point of two geologically distinct…
Timor Gap: a boundary, yet disputes linger
The signing of a treaty between Australia and Timor-Leste marking maritime boundaries in the Timor Sea represents a huge step forward in resolving the two states’ long-standing…