Latest Timor Stories

Australia's research agency CSIRO reported on Friday that scientists hunting for fossils of giant rats in East Timor stumbled on unique rock carvings up to 12,000 years old. The experts were digging in Timor's Lene Hara cave when they came upon a group of stylized human faces etched in the rock.  The cave is known as a treasure trove of fossils and rock art. "Looking up from the cave floor at a colleague sitting on a ledge, my head torch shone on what seemed to be a weathered carving,"...

Archaeological research in East Timor has unearthed the bones of the biggest rat that ever lived, with a body weight around 6 kg.The cave excavations also yielded a total of 13 species of rodents, 11 of which are new to science. Eight of the rats weighed a kilogram or more."East Indonesia is a hot spot for rodent evolution. We want international attention on conservation in the area," CSIRO's Dr Ken Aplin says."Rodents make up 40 per cent of mammalian diversity worldwide and are a key element...

DILI, Timore-Leste, July 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The first-ever MTV concert held in Timor-Leste kicked-off the new, USAID-funded MTV EXIT anti-trafficking campaign last Friday night, June 25th. An estimated 20,000 people packed the city-center venue, about 15% of Dili's total population, for what was a lively, fun and trouble-free event. For the majority of young people, it was the first time they had attended a concert of this scale. (Logo:...

The world's largest living lizard species, the Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis), is vulnerable to extinction and yet little is known about its natural history. New research by a team of palaeontologists and archaeologists from Australia, Malaysia and Indonesia, who studied fossil evidence from Australia, Timor, Flores, Java and India, shows that Komodo Dragons most likely evolved in Australia and dispersed westward to Indonesia. The research, which also details new fossil specimens...

A national park established to protect groups of dolphins and whales - recently discovered mingling and feeding off East Timor - may soon be funded by the young Asian country's own government, AFP reported.However, some foreign assistance will be required to preserve the area and develop eco-tourism in one of the few places in the world with such a wide variety of large sea mammals, officials said.Officials in Dili said aerial surveys of the hotspot from scientists at the Australian Institute...

Local and Australian researchers said on Wednesday that one of the world's highest concentrations of dolphins and whales -- many of them protected species -- has been discovered off the coast of East Timor.A study by the Timor government uncovered a "hot spot" of marine cetaceans migrating through deep channels off the Timor coast, including blue and beaked whales, short-finned pilot whales, melon headed whales and six dolphin species.Principal scientist Karen Edyvane said the team...

Text of report in English by South Korean news agency Yonhap SEOUL, Oct. 14 (Yonhap) - East Timor signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that could permit the export of gas from its Greater Sunrise well to South Korea by 2013, the government said Tuesday. The pact was reached in Dili and marks the first time that East Timor, which gained independence in May 2002, has signed an energy- resources pact with a foreign country, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said. The MOU outlines giving...

By Paul Tait SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia said on Saturday it would contribute up to 130 police to a new U.N. mission in East Timor, in addition to troops sent to restore order after a wave of violence in the fledgling nation three months ago. The United Nations established the new mission, comprising 1,608 police, on Friday despite a dispute over whether Australian-led international troops already there should remain independent or be part of a U.N. force. "Australia, as a long-term...

By Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations established a new mission in East Timor on Friday but left Australian-led troops in place following a dispute over whether they should remain independent or be part of a U.N. force. The 15-member U.N. Security Council approved unanimously a Japanese-drafted resolution creating the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste, known as UNMIT, for at least six months. That operation would include 1,608 police and up to...

By Jerry Norton DILI (Reuters) - During the day, Fernanda Gomez stands at her tiny roadside kiosk selling canned goods and sundries in front of the blackened remains of burned-out houses in her village near Dili. At night, the 25-year-old mother of two retreats to a refugee camp near the city's airport. "It's difficult to return home in the evening," she tells Reuters, because people were still fighting. Nearly three months after an international force of soldiers and police arrived in...