Sydney – The Australian government will "vigorously defend" arbitration proceedings initiated by Timor-Leste in relation to their treaty, which determines jurisdiction over oil and gas resources in the Timor Sea.

In a statement released Friday, Australian Attorney-General George Brandis and Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop expressed disappointment that Timor-Leste had initiated arbitration against Australia, disputing its right to tax the gas pipeline from the ConocoPhillips-operated Bayu-Undan field, located in the two countries' Joint Petroleum Development Area.

The pipeline transports gas from the field to the northern Australian city of Darwin, where it is fed into a 3.7 million mt/year LNG facility.

"Australia and Timor-Leste had been pursuing amicable consultations in an attempt to resolve this dispute through dialogue rather than legal action," Brandis and Bishop said. "This remains Australia's preferred approach."

According to the ministers, successive Australian and Timor-Leste governments have acted on the basis that Australia has exclusive jurisdiction over the pipeline, including for taxation purposes, consistent with the 2002 Timor Sea Treaty.

They cited Article 8(b) of the Timor Sea Treaty as stating: "A pipeline landing in East Timor shall be under the jurisdiction of East Timor. A pipeline landing in Australia shall be under the jurisdiction of Australia."

Under an agreement between both sides, Timor-Leste has received A$8 million from Australia every year since the pipeline came into operation in 2006 in lieu of Timor-Leste receiving tax revenue from the pipeline, the Australian ministers added.

"Despite this, in 2012 Timor-Leste started imposing retrospective taxes on companies that use the pipeline," they said.

"Timor-Leste's new position on this arrangement is not only inconsistent with our agreement, but also undermines established arrangements for operators in the Timor Sea. Australia will vigorously defend this and other arbitration proceedings commenced by Timor-Leste."

Timor-Leste gave notice to Australia last week that it was initiating new arbitration proceedings under the Timor Sea Treaty. In its latest action, Dili is challenging Australia's assertion that it has exclusive rights over the entire length of the Bayu-Undan pipeline.

The maritime boundary between Timor-Leste and Australia has been the subject of a long-running dispute, dating back to a 1972 agreement between Indonesia and Australia that placed the line much closer to Timor, rather than on the median point between the two coasts.

The dispute has held up the development of the Woodside Petroleum-operated Sunrise gas field, which is being eyed for an LNG project. Jurisdiction over the disputed area is defined by the Timor Sea Treaty and the Treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea, signed in 2006.

The treaties defined the Joint Petroleum Development Area, which covers part of Sunrise and all of Bayu-Undan, but put off the finalization of permanent maritime boundaries for first 30, and then 50, years.

Timor-Leste first instituted proceedings against Australia in the Permanent Court of Arbitration in April 2014, claiming that the CMATS treaty was invalid because its larger neighbor had engaged in espionage during its negotiations.

Source: http://www.platts.com/latest-news/natural-gas/sydney/australia-to-vigorously-defend-timor-leste-pipeline-27837327

Australia, East Timor in gas pipeline row

Australian Associated Press - September 25, 2015

The Australian and East Timor governments are embroiled in an oil and gas controversy involving the pipeline to Darwin from the Bayu Undan gas field.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Attorney-General George Brandis issued a statement on Friday saying Australia will vigorously defend legal action initiated by the government of East Timor which disputes Australia's right to tax the pipeline.

They say the treaty that covers the project states: "A pipeline landing in East Timor shall be under the jurisdiction of East Timor. A pipeline landing in Australia shall be under the jurisdiction of Australia."

The field is in the Joint Petroleum Development Area. The government of East Timor is being sought for comment.

Source: https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/29638531/australia-east-timor-in-gas-pipeline-row/

East Timor scraps sea-border talks with Australia

Dow Jones - September 24, 2015

Canberra, Australia – East Timor has abandoned talks on a maritime boundary with Australia and renewed a legal challenge to gain a larger share of potentially lucrative undersea oil-and-gas fields.

East Timor's government said Thursday it had advised Australia that it had reopened a challenge in the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague to contest the validity of the Treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea, or CMATS.

"Given the inability to discuss the degrees of jurisdiction in the disputed waters, [East Timor] is now of the view that the only way to resolve this matter is by submitting the dispute to an arbitration tribunal," Agio Pereira, a spokesman for the East Timor government, said.

Australia's Foreign Affairs Ministry wasn't immediately available to comment on the renewed legal challenge.

Canberra and Dili have been involved in a long-running dispute over allegations of Australian spying ahead of negotiations on the 2006 sea- border treaty. East Timor argues that CMATS should be renegotiated because Australia had an unfair advantage during the talks because listening devices were allegedly placed inside the Timorese Cabinet Office.

Under the terms of the pact, both countries agreed to carve up billions of dollars in royalties from the Greater Sunrise field, which holds more than 5 trillion cubic feet of gas and condensate being jointly developed by partners including Australia's Woodside Petroleum Ltd., ConocoPhillips of the US and Royal Dutch Shell PLC.

Almost 80% of the area designated for development of the oil-and-gas fields lies within Australian waters, while the rest is in territory jointly administered by the two nations along a boundary set in 1972 when East Timor was still occupied by Indonesia. The field is 93 miles south of East Timor and more than 280 miles off Australia's northern coastline.

The development has been delayed by a number of clashes, including over East Timor's insistence that gas be piped and processed onshore to help create employment and a petroleum industry in the country, officially known as the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste. The venture partners prefer to process the gas more cheaply using a floating vessel at sea.

Dili is also seeking to place the maritime border at an equal distance between the two countries-giving East Timor's government a greater share of royalties from a resource it hopes will help the impoverished nation underwrite future development.

The current treaty has underpinned a national sovereign wealth Petroleum Fund totaling $17 billion, but it could run out as soon as the middle of the next decade with the legal dispute expected to last years. East Timor is 90% dependent on oil and gas revenue for its economy.

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop in June told Parliament that Canberra wouldn't renegotiate the treaty, arguing the existing maritime treaty already gave East Timor 90% of the revenue from the joint- development area and 50% from the Greater Sunrise field itself, most of which lies in exclusive Australian territory.

Stephen Grenville, an analyst at the Lowy Institute, an independent Australian foreign-policy think tank, said Canberra had good reasons to stand its ground, as the current arrangements also involved Indonesia and could have implications for Australia's wider undersea territorial claims.

"It is certainly true that Sunrise is closer to Timor than it is to Australia, but it is closer to Indonesia than it is to Timor," Mr. Grenville said in a briefing note last month. "If you want to draw this border with a view to getting Sunrise into Timor's territory, you will surely open up the issue of Indonesia's border."

Shifting the treaty boundary with the objective of giving Timor all of the potential Sunrise revenue could likely put the field eventually in Indonesian territory.

It seems unlikely Indonesia would be ready to give 50% of Sunrise revenue to Timor," Mr. Grenville said. "Timor would get nothing."

Source: http://www.nasdaq.com/article/east-timor-scraps-seaborder-talks-with-australia-20150924-00142

Health & education

30% of medicines out of stock, SAMES holds health ministry responsible

Dili Weekly - September 12, 2015

Paulina Quintao – The National Director of Autonomous Service for Medicines and Medical Equipment (SAMES), Odete Maria Belo said it has run out of some medicines because it is the responsibility of the Ministry of Health to inform SAMES when it is running out of medicines and to tender for new stock given that SAMES is only responsible for disbursing medicines.

Despite not stating which medicines are out of stock, Director Belo confirmed that some key medicines are out of stock and that a report was submitted to the Ministry to purchase.

"Our duty is to distribute medicines based on requests received. In terms of the items out of stock, we have already informed the Ministry," said Director Belo in Dili.

She added that according to 2014's performance indicators outlined by the Ministry of Health, medicine stock cannot be lower than 15% nevertheless, it is also important for the ministry to have contingency funds to attend to emergency requests from the health facilities.

Meanwhile the National Director for Hospital Services at the Ministry of Health Horacio Sarmento said the medicine and consumables tenderization process has been working but the delays are due to an assessment being conducted by the National Procurement Commission.

"We will allocate $5,000 to health facilities to be able to purchase their own medicines in the meantime but another problem is that some of the medicines are not available in the private pharmacies across Dili," said Director Sarmento.

He added currently three tenders have been issues, the first to purchase medicines, another to purchase laboratory reagents, and the other one to purchase a blood transfusion machine. The tender for the purchase of medicines is still being assessed by the National Procurement Commission due to the large sums of budget requested.

Dr. Sarmento also said that in 2014 the Ministry of Health awarded the contract for the purchase of medicines to company Kimia Farma Indonesia and the contract ran out in May 2015.

Source: http://www.thediliweekly.com/en/news/health/13258-30-of-medicines-out-of-stock-sames-holds-health-ministry-responsible

Community urges consumer protection law

Dili Weekly - September 12, 2015

Paulina Quintao – Dili resident Rosaria Martins da Cruz urges the national parliament to create a consumer protection law to regulate the import of foods into the country.

"The food we eat contains chemicals that lead to chronic diseases so the government has to create legislation that controls food imports," said resident da Cruz at the National Parliament in Dili. "Currently we have Timorese people aged in their 40s (for women) and 60s (for men) dying."

She also urged the establishment of a food laboratory to test all imported food and that domestic food production increases to ensure food nutrition and safety for people's health.

She also urged the National Parliament to draft articles that force imported foods from using foreign languages that are not understood by the Timorese.

"We have to ban labels that use foreign languages for instance some labels are written all in Chinese with a picture of a Chicken but we do not understand what we read but buy because it is cheaper," she added.

Meanwhile Member of the National Parliament MP Josefa Alvares Pereira Soares said Commission D (for Economy and Development affairs) has drafted a Consumer Protection Law No.6/III that is scheduled to be discussed at the plenary of the parliament.

She said, the context of the law is excellent and provides for sanctions to be applied to producers and importers of poor quality food that is harmful to people's health. "Consumers will also have the right to return food and get compensated for it," added the MP.

Source: http://www.thediliweekly.com/en/news/capital/13254-community-urges-consumer-protection-law

Darwin and Dili doctors to switch places

Australian Associated Press - September 11, 2015

In East Timor's national hospital in Dili, an Australian doctor checks the vital signs of an impossibly tiny baby girl, six months old, born prematurely and struggling to breathe through an acute respiratory infection.

An oxygen tube covers most of her face as her miniature lungs pump at double time as she struggles for breath. Across the ward, a boy with stitches in his leg after a nasty fall is examined by a Timorese paediatrician.

An exchange program will send two Timorese paediatric registrars to Darwin for six months to learn about Australian medicine, while next year, four Darwin doctors will travel to Dili to do the same.

In East Timor, half of the one million-strong population are children, and doctors face enormous challenges in treating them.

It is the poorest country outside of Africa and the ninth-poorest country on the poverty index, said Professor David Brewster, head of paediatrics at the national hospital.

He says about 1000 doctors have been trained in Cuba, and the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons is now helping them to specialise in fields such as surgery, obstetrics and paediatrics.

"There really are major challenges because of the low education level," Prof Brewster told reporters on Friday.

"Patients often come late to hospital, there's a great deal of malnutrition, a great deal of infectious disease, tuberculosis, so they're really very major public health and clinical challenges.

"It's also a post-conflict country that's gone through a very difficult time during colonisation and particularly during Indonesia times... We're just getting over that and making progress."

He said a fifth of the country's health budget had been cut by the Timorese government. "We're short of drugs and short of staff, nursing staff, and other supplies; things are a little bit disorganised, so yes, there are frustrations," Professor Brewster said.

"I am particularly disappointed with our inability to deal with severe malnutrition as well as I would have liked, and we need to get our immunisation program going; rheumatic fever and tuberculosis are pretty much out of control."

He said Timor had been successfully reducing the infant and child mortality rate, but that took time.

"Given that there is significant oil in Timor, one would have hoped more money could have been put into health and education because in order to improve the health of the population we need schooling.... There's an enormous amount of unmet needs in Timor that we can't deal with, but progress is being made slowly."

Dr Carla Madeira will soon travel to Australia to begin her exchange, and said she was excited to take up the opportunity.

"If you treat them from when they're born until they're growing... If they're okay they will be a good future for us," she said of her young patients.

She said it was very different compared to western countries, where there was a lot of equipment to support them that Timor did not have. "It's very hard; sometimes we have to let go (of a patient) because we cannot go further in treatment."

Australian paediatrician Joshua Francis said the Northern Territory and East Timor had a lot in common, with malnutrition and rheumatic heart disease affecting indigenous children in remote communities.

Professor Brewster said the Australian doctors would also benefit from being exposed to the poverty of Timor. "It's important for doctors in Australia to see how the other half live, and die," he said.

Source: http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/09/11/darwin-and-dili-doctors-switch-places

Xanana Gusmao receives WHO public health award

Jakarta Post - September 9, 2015

Jakarta – Former Timor Leste president Kay Rala Xanana Gusmao has won the Excellence in Public Health Award from the World Health Organization (WHO) South-East Asia Region for his breakthrough work in improving the health and well-being of his people.

"Mr. Kay Rala Xanana Gusmao, former president and currently the Minister of Planning and Strategic Investment, has been recognized for building sustainable health services, specifically for training medical doctors," WHO said in a statement on Wednesday.

The UN health body also presented an Excellence in Public Health Award to former Bhutan health and education minister Lyonpo Sangay Ngedup. The former minister was recognized for setting up the Bhutan Health Trust Fund to fund vaccines and essential drugs.

"The awards show our appreciation and acknowledgment of their significant contributions to health care services," WHO South-East Asia Region director Poonam Khetrapal Singh said.

She was speaking at the award ceremony on the sidelines of the WHO regional committee meeting in Dili, Timor Leste, on Tuesday evening.

In 2003, Gusmao signed a historic agreement with Cuba for building a sustainable health system and training medical doctors in Timor Leste while he was serving as president of the country.

Two years later, Gusmao signed another agreement with Cuba to train 1,000 Timorese medical doctors. Today, all 42 villages in Timor Leste have at least one doctor in each of their health centers and health posts.

Meanwhile, Ngedup brought about significant developments in the health sector in Bhutan while he served as the director general of health services in 1992 and the health and education minister in 1998.

"His most important contribution was the Bhutan Health Trust Fund, which was set up to ensure continued funding of two critical components of health services, namely vaccines and essential drugs," said WHO.

Health contributions from all employees in Bhutan are now channeled through the fund, ensuring a sustainable supply of vaccines and essential drugs for its citizens.

Initiated last year, the WHO award is aimed at recognizing public health professionals, institutions or programs whose works have resulted in far- reaching impacts and gains.

The Timor Leste Malaria Control Program and Saima Hossain of Bangladesh were the first recipients of the award. Hossain was recognized for her efforts to put autism on the global agenda. (ebf)

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/09/09/xanana-gusmao-receives-who-public-health-award.html

Disability rights

DATL: National council for disability must be independent

Dili Weekly - September 5, 2015

Paulina Quintao – The President of the Executive Council of the Disability Association Timor Leste (DATL) Joaquim Freitas dos Santos urges the independent establishment of the National Council for Disability in the country to advocate for the rights and needs of Timorese with disability.

According to DATL's President dos Santos, if the council is under a ministry it will be easily politicized and make any decision-making more difficult which will in turn make the lives of those living with disability much harder.

"It's better for the council to be independent in order to avoid political influences and so the council can play its roles more effectively," said dos Santos over the phone, in Dili.

President dos Santos said if the council is established independently it will get funding from the state budget annually to run its programs and activities and to promote the rights of disabled people. He added the council's establishment is essential to make advocacy towards the relevant ministry to develop programs and budget plans for development particularly considering the ideas and needs to people who have disabilities.

The chief of the Directorate for Disability and the Aged at the Ministry of Social Solidarity (MSS) Mateus da Silva said the Ministry has set up a team to analyze relevant information on particular issues such as disability and before any motion is presented to the Council of Ministers.

"Through our public consultations, we noted that most people agree that the council for people with disability has to be independent," said Director da Silva.

The council is scheduled to be established in 2015.

Source: http://www.thediliweekly.com/en/news/capital/13232-datl-national-council-for-disability-must-be-independent

Agriculture & food security

Permaculture being taught to Timorese coffee farmers, education curriculum

ABC Rural - September 28, 2015

Alex Blucher – The coffee country of Timor Leste is a world away from the birthplace of permaculture in northern Tasmania but it's taking off there in a big way.

The Timor-based NGO Permatil is working with the Timorese Government to train coffee bean farmers in permaculture, a self-sufficient and sustainable farming system.

Permatil is also raising funds to update its Permaculture Guide Book to suit farmers in developing countries growing produce in a tropical climate.

Northern Territory-based Permatil volunteer Emily Gray said permaculture is being taught by both government agronomists and in the education system.

"Government's started using the guide book...and they are giving it to all their farmer trainers," Ms Gray said.

"These books are being sent across the country and they are up-skilling trainers, they've just started introducing permaculture into the education system as a way of teaching about culture and farming.

"It's actually going into the national education curriculum, which is a step above Australia." Agriculture dominates the economy, accounting for about 25 per cent of the GDP and 75 per cent of employment.

But in 2011 the United Nation's Human Development Index ranked Timor Leste 147 our of 187 countries, and states that 37 per cent of the population live below the international poverty line of $US1.25 a day.

Also a community garden educator in Darwin, Ms Gray said permaculture's organic and low-input principles means local Timorese farmers don't need to buy expensive fertilisers.

"The farmers in East Timor really struggle financially and they get many pressures put on them to buy commercial fertilisers," she said.

"Permaculture and organic farming gives them a way to be able to afford to do it themselves in a way that's better for them and the land."

"Timor's soils are degrading quite considerably and the knowledge of organic farming is really quite low, so permaculture gives them a really easy simple way of improving their land and plant fertility."

One farm Permatil works with in Timor Leste set up an organisation selling coffee beans to Australia under the name WithOneBean, which partly funds updating and republishing the guide book.

"It's a 500 page book that has 2000 detailed illustrations that visually take illiterate people through the skills and the knowledge of permaculture. It's been used by Oxfam and Timorese Government to train people.

"We've decided to reproduce this book and refine it to make it appropriate for not just Timor but the tropical world, and so people in Fiji or Vanuatu or different parts of Africa can have really relevant information."

Some chapters of the book, which are free online have been downloaded more than 200,000 times.

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-28/tch-coffee-timor-leste-permaculture/6809932?section=nt

Communication & transport

Citilink opens new route to Timor Leste

Jakarta Post - September 19, 2015

Dylan Amirio, Dili, Timor Leste – Low-cost carrier Citilink Indonesia has opened a new route connecting Denpasar in Bali to Dili in Timor Leste in cooperation with Air Timor as part of efforts to boost visitors to the neighboring country.

The scheduled charter flight started operations on Monday. The company will fly the route three times a week using Boeing 737-500 jets.

Citilink's vice president of corporate communications Benny Butarbutar said that the company expected Timor Leste to benefit from the new route and that the country could further develop its economy, especially the tourist sector, with international visitors continuing their holidays from the resort island of Bali to Dili.

"One of the reasons we chose to open a route to Timor Leste is to try and tap into unrealized markets," Benny told The Jakarta Post.

Timor Leste became an independent nation in 2002 following an independence referendum in 1999.

Benny added that to begin with, Citilink would opt for scheduled charter flights instead of a regularly scheduled flights.

According to Benny, Timor Leste may be able to take advantage of the new route to develop its tourist industry by hosting conventions and events such as marathons, festivals and other exhibitions.

In addition to the Denpasar-Dili route, Citilink is looking into opening other hubs connecting Denpasar to regional routes such as Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Perth by 2016.

The low-cost carrier, a subsidiary of Garuda Indonesia, has control of 13 percent of the total market share of national flights and aims to increase that figure to 30 percent over the next three to four years.

As reported earlier, Citilink now operates 35 Airbus A-320 aircraft to serve 190 domestic and regional flights daily. In 2014, Citilink carried 7.6 million passengers. In 2015, Citilink aims to carry 11.2 million passengers, a one-and-a-half-fold increase from the previous year.

Meanwhile, Air Timor's deputy chief operating officer Andisuari Dewi said that the market for Bali was large in Dili.

Andisuari said that since the route opened on Monday, flights going from Dili to Denpasar had been full, while the route from Denpasar to Dili had an average load factor of 50 percent.

Andisuari attributed the low load factor to Dili to Timor Leste's underdeveloped tourist infrastructure as well as its lack of marketing. Most of the flights coming out of Dili were made up of government officials, businesspeople or consultants.

"If we are talking tourism, tourism in Timor is still very low. Tourism only made up around 5 percent of our load factor this past year. The rest is mostly business and government," Dewi told the Post.

Despite the lower numbers, Timorese visitors to Bali for leisure purposes remained active, with Air Timor noting that Bali was an affordable destination for Timorese vacationers.

Air Timor is currently the only airline operating from Timor Leste and serves only two destinations: Denpasar-Dili and Dili-Singapore, the latter of which is also a partnership with Singapore Air subsidiary Silk Air.

The airline owns no planes but is leasing an Airbus A319 for its Singapore route alongside the Boeing 737-500 operated by Citilink.

In addition to Citilink, Sriwijaya Air is the only other Indonesian airline that has scheduled flights to Timor Leste.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/09/19/citilink-opens-new-route-timor-leste.html

Border & security issues

Indonesia, Timor Leste to discuss border area issues

Antara News - September 15, 2015

Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara – The Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs will meet the government of East Timor in Dili to discuss issues related to several border points located between the two countries.

"The meeting will be held in Dili on September 28," Head of the Border Management Office of Kupang district Kain Maus revealed here on Tuesday.

He noted that a discussion will be held on an issue related to Naktuka village in East Amofoang sub-district, which is inhabited by Indonesians, yet the Timor Leste government had issued identity cards to them.

According to Maus, traditional and community leaders, with in-depth knowledge about East Amofoangs social history, should be invited to attend the meeting as they are the owners of the lands in Naktuka village.

He suggested that the local traditional and community leaders should be involved and must have the right to voice their opinion in order to solve the border area issues in a fair and just manner, and hence, the meeting will ensure that justice is meted out to both sides.

"Involving the leaders is important to gain a fair result and to avoid social conflicts among the local people living in border areas," he noted.

Head of the Inter-State Border Management Division Gerardus Naisoko stated that several deputed border points still exist.

Technical teams from Indonesia and Timor Leste still hold differing opinions on some points along the Noel River in Kupang district, which borders Citrana, Oecuse District, Timor, based on a treaty agreed between the Dutch and Portuguese colonial governments in 1904.

The different interpretations have led to a land dispute along the Noel River, access to which is still closed and not maintained by both countries. "Noel River is a border crossing point, including those in Naktuka area," he added.

Source: http://www.antaranews.com/en/news/100505/indonesia-timor-leste-to-discuss-border-area-issues

Foreign affairs & trade

Xi meets East Timor president

Xinhua - September 2, 2015

Beijing – Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday met with East Timor counterpart Taur Matan Ruak, who is in Beijing for activities marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.

China and East Timor are friendly partners, and their relations have been strong since the establishment of diplomatic ties 13 years ago, Xi said.

Both sides need to maintain close high-level exchanges, strengthen cooperation in fields including the economy and trade, agriculture, tourism and petrochemicals and expand people-to-people exchanges, he urged.

Meanwhile, the two countries should enhance collaboration in climate change, the United Nations' post-2015 development agenda and other major international affairs, according to Xi.

The Chinese government is willing to encourage more enterprises to invest in East Timor to support its infrastructure construction, he added.

Ruak voiced appreciation for China's support in East Timor's national development, saying his country remains committed to cooperation with China.

Source: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-09/02/c_134581192.htm

Balibo five

War reporters honoured with memorial

Australian Associated Press - September 23, 2015

Without war correspondents to tell the truth, all we'd be told are official lies, says Shirley Shackleton, widow of reporter Greg Shackleton who was murdered while reporting from East Timor.

So for her, the dedication of a new memorial to Australia's war correspondents in the grounds of the Australian War Memorial was a deeply moving occasion.

This was the culmination of more than a decade of work by the CEW Bean Foundation, named after Charles Bean – official correspondent throughout World War I and later editor of the WWI official history.

Mrs Shackleton, a tireless campaigner for justice over the murder of her husband and four other Australian correspondents in East Timor in 1975, laid a wreath on the memorial on behalf of all those reporters who have lost their lives.

"If it hadn't been for Mr Bean we would have got an official version of Gallipoli which would have been lies, as official versions are," Mrs Shackleton said. "Journalism is as important as any other great profession in the world, highly underestimated especially by governments."

Accompanying her was Peter Greste, representing Australia's current war correspondents. The Al-Jazeera journalist spent 13 months in an Egyptian jail on trumped-up charges of collaborating with a terrorist organisation.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, himself a former journalist, said Australia is one of the oldest democracies in the world, and it depends on many institutions.

"But none is more important than a free and courageous press and today we are honouring war correspondents and, in doing so, we are honouring the freedom they have worked so hard to preserve," Mr Turnbull said.

The event attracted several veteran correspondents, among them Tim Page, the colourful British-born photographer who captured some of the iconic images of the Vietnam War.

Page lost his best friend, photographer Sean Flynn, son of actor Errol Flynn, when he disappeared in Cambodia in 1971.

So what is it about being a war correspondent that appeals? "There is an incredible sense of when you survive a moment, when you survive a battle, you can walk proud and tall," Page told reporters. "You have something to come back to the bar and talk about."

Source: http://www.9news.com.au/national/2015/09/23/15/55/war-reporters-honoured-with-memorial

Balibo 5: Rappers visit Timor to mark 40th anniversary of journo' deaths

ABC News - September 13, 2015

Jessica Longbottom – It is almost 40 years since a group of Australian journalists known as the Balibo Five were gunned down by Indonesian forces in East Timor on October 16, 1975.

There will be ceremonies across Australia and East Timor marking their deaths, but the brother of killed sound recordist Tony Stewart wanted to do something more.

Paul Stewart said he wanted to mark it in a happy way rather than a sombre gathering at a cemetery. "And I knew I just had to get these boys up there because the locals will go off," he said.

The "boys" are Fablice Manirakiza and Frolent Irakiza, two former child soldiers from Burundi in East Africa, who rap about their experiences under the name Flybz. The duo now call Melbourne home.

Stewart, a former member of Melbourne band Painters and Dockers, has become their mentor and helped record some of their music.

To mark the 40th anniversary of his brother's death, Stewart decided to take the pair on a tour of East Timor to perform around the country. Manirakiza said it was a surprisingly emotional experience.

"It was completely mind-blowing because we told him 'Paulie, you said you'd never been in Burundi. But this is exactly like Burundi'," he said. "It gave us [the same] sort of emotional kind of reaction of being back home. It was so joyful."

'Like touring with Jay-Z and Kanye West'

Stewart and Flybz toured East Timor for nine days recently, visiting four schools including one for children with a disability. "We had Jesuits dancing on stage, kids doing backflips, it just went off," Stewart said.

On their first night in East Timor, Flybz played to 4,000 people in the capital Dili in a concert televised live across the country.

Stewart said it was like touring with Jay-Z and Kanye West. "You couldn't go anywhere without them being swamped by fans," he said.

Irakiza said the trip reminded him of life growing up in a refugee camp in Tanzania, and made him think about how far he had come since arriving in Australia eight years ago.

"It felt like I was performing for the kids I grew up with, and the parents who helped my mum raise me up. So all of it was too good," he said.

"After the performances, I even had a big think afterwards about my past life and everything that had happened. I just had a little prayer and appreciated everything I had."

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-13/rappers-visit-east-timor-to-mark-balibo-five-deaths/6768962

Analysis & opinion

I thought Australia wanted to help East Timor, not take its oil

ABC The Drum - September 21, 2015

Chip Henriss – Sixteen years ago on September 20, I was with the Australian Army's 3rd Brigade, the Townsville-based ready Deployment Force. We were some of the first soldiers to land in Dili, East Timor as part of the INTERFET mission.

We were sent in to restore peace in the wake of the Indonesian-led violence that engulfed the country following the historic ballot for independence.

Like the beginning of any mission, it was tense. There was a lot of apprehension about how things might unfold. But it was also an optimistic mission and my conviction that it was a just mission was rock solid. The Australian government had finally reversed a decades-long policy of callous disregard to the plight of the Timorese. This was Australia standing up and doing the right thing to help out our friends in the region.

It's not an overstatement to say I was profoundly proud of Australia's role at the time. It seemed to capture the notion of "a fair go" that my country so embraces.

In the years that followed however, I began to ask myself, was our government's motivation as pure as it would have us believe?

Were we in East Timor to selflessly end the bloodshed? Could it be that we were also eying off East Timor's vast oil and gas reserves?

East Timor's oil had long been Australia's weakness when it came to its unprincipled policies towards its small neighbour during the 1970s and '80s, but I had hoped the intervention was the beginning of a new chapter.

My doubts started growing in March 2002 – just two month's before East Timor would finally become an independent nation – when Australia withdrew its recognition of the maritime boundary jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice.

Why is Australia walking away from the independent umpire that helps settle disputes arising about maritime boundaries, I thought to myself. Unfortunately the answer became clear.

Through some very lopsided negotiations, in which the Australian government took a hard-nosed – some would call belligerent – approach, Australia managed to short-change East Timor out of billions of dollars of government revenue. It refused to set maritime boundaries with East Timor and instead cornered Timor into a series of dodgy "temporary resource sharing agreements".

I felt betrayed. It was as if we had stepped in to chase off a schoolyard bully, but were now stealing the victim's lunch money.

I didn't like it. I joined with other concerned Australians in a grassroots campaign calling for our government to give East Timor a fair go.

During the "Timor Sea Justice Campaign" in 2006, I had the honour of meeting a number of World War II veterans. They had fought the Japanese in East Timor and explained to me that none of their mates would have lived had it not been for the help they received from the local Timorese.

They too were angry by our government's betrayal and in television ads funded by businessman, Ian Melrose, the Diggers said they'd prefer if prime minister John Howard didn't attend their ANZAC day parade.

Even though permanent maritime boundaries still have not been established, I believe the campaign contributed to the fact that East Timor was eventually offered a larger share of the $40 billion Greater Sunrise gas field. But even this has now been tarnished.

Two years back, an Australian whistleblower spy came forward alleging that Australia had bugged East Timor's cabinet room during the negotiations. As such, East Timor took steps to have that particular treaty nullified arguing that it was not signed in good faith. In response, ASIO raided the offices of the lawyers representing East Timor and seized the whistleblower's passport.

Sixteen years ago I thought INTERFET would have a great and lasting legacy in East Timor, but today I'm concerned the greed of successive Australian governments and big oil companies is slowly but surely eroding the goodwill that the Australian Defence Force soldiers I served with helped to create.

If the Australian government wants me to believe Australia went into East Timor to help them transition to independence – it needs to prove it.

It needs to finish the job that John Howard supposedly began. It needs to draw the line and set permanent maritime boundaries with East Timor so our neighbours can benefit from the natural resources that they are entitled to.

In situations such as this one, international law calls for a "median line" solution. This simply means drawing a line half way between the two coastlines. It's fair and simple.

If an oil or gas field is located closer to East Timor then it should belong to East Timor. The Timorese fought for 25 years for their independence. They don't want or need our charity, they simply want what is theirs by law.

I urge our Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, to resubmit Australia to the maritime boundary jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and sit down with his Timorese counterpart and finish the job that we began in 1999 – draw the line.

[Chip Henriss served as a commissioned officer in the Australian Regular Army and Army Reserve between 1991 and 2001. He is a member of the Timor Sea Justice Campaign which is on Twitter@TimorSeaJustice.]

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-21/henriss-address-the-oil-injustice/6790978