Items filtered by date: July 2019

DILI: Parliamentarians have voted resoundingly to reduce national parliament’s recess from two months to one month, to discuss Timor-Leste’s ratification of a maritime border treaty with Australia.

DILI: Duarte Nunes has insisted that leaders of the National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction (CNRT) party, the biggest party in the current three-party coalition government, will meet with Fretilin leaders when the President of the Republic ends the stand-off over ministerial nominations and inaugurates the nine proposed CNRT candidates.

DILI: Mari Alkatiri, the President of the Special Administrative Region of Oecusse (RAEOA) as well as Secretary-General of the Fretilin party, has called on the government to confirm who will take on his position at RAEOA when his contract expires July 30, saying he “has a right” to know how the project will continue. 

DILI: A Timorese couple detained in Indonesia on allegation of drug smuggling into the country face a lengthy extradition battle that may not end well, Minister of Justice Manuel Cárceres da Costa, has said.

Drug trafficking in Indonesia is a crime punishable by execution under the country's tough smuggling laws.

DILI: Timor-Leste’s opposition party, Fretilin,  has called on the government to present

proposals for amending laws that have to be changed before the ratification of the treaty to delimit the maritime borders can be signed on the proposed 30 August deadline.

DILI: The Anti-Corruption Commission (CAC) has rejected claims the organisation was acting illegally when it confiscated “several” state vehicles being driven by public servants in a joint operation with Timor-Leste national police (PNTL) in Dili over the weekend.

DILI: Prime Minister Taur Matan Ruak has rejected a proposed design to rehabilitate Presidente Nicolau Lobato airport in Dili presented by the Japanese Ambassador in Timor-Leste, Hiroshi Minami, as “simple”, saying he wants  the international airport to be superior to the new airport in Oecusse.