News stories by Matt Crook

In a small city where most of the 22,000 inhabitants rely on subsistence farming to put food on the table, one young woman has gone against the grain with a business venture that embodies the changing times in Timor-Leste, South-east Asia's newest and poorest nation.

Calls by fragile states for greater focus on addressing conflict and fragility have been largely ignored in the outcome document of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Summit in New York, but critical donors are at least listening to the growing rumble of voices from developing nations.

The prickly issue of where to pipe and process gas from the Timor Sea between Australia and East Timor must be resolved through open dialogue, say members of civil society in East Timor.

An international dialogue meeting in East Timor Saturday saw fragile states make giant steps in showing developed nations how aid can be more effectively channelled to achieve their key development goals.

'Work with us, not against us' was the message for international donors that came out of the g7+ meeting of fragile states, which met in Dili this week to discuss how they can make better use of the foreign aid they get.

When the Group of Seven (G7) industrialised nations hold meetings, the first thing many people think of is protests. But when the g7 - with a lowercase G - get together for their first meeting in East Timor next week, it could revolutionise how donor countries give assistance to fragile states.

East Timor’s leaders say bringing to justice perpetrators of atrocities committed during the Indonesian army’s occupation would sour relations between the neighbouring countries, but not everyone is so keen to forgive and move on.

If you order a beer, sit back and relax at one of the expat bars dotted along the coastal Pantai Kelapa road in this capital, you cannot help but notice the view: the stony beach, the swimming children and the grounded fishing boats. But that view is morphing — a visible sign of how climate change could be affecting East Timor.

A lack of political will to tackle corruption in East Timor is holding the country back, said Sebastiao Ximenes, East Timor’s Ombudsman for Human Rights and Justice.

Ten years since its people voted 78.5 percent in favour of independence, how has East Timor fared?