Year in Review 2023

Wars,Trump’s courtroom dramas and our new King:The world in 2023

From the Israel-Hamas conflict,China’s growing influence in the world,to the COP28 climate summit and beyond - our correspondents look back at the events that have shaped the world in the past year.

  • Eryk Bagshaw,Chris Barrett,Lucy Cormack,Rob Harris,Farrah Tomazin,Lia Timson andJames Lemon

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Foreign Minister Penny Wong appointed Ewen McDonald as Australia’s first special envoy for the Pacific.

Wong concedes Australia’s treatment of Timor-Leste ‘not in the spirit of friendship’

ASIO allegedly installed listening devices in Timor-Leste’s cabinet room to gain an edge during hotly contested negotiations over maritime boundaries in 2004.

  • Matthew Knott
Former resistance leader Xanana Gusmao became East Timor’s first post-independence president and its fourth prime minister. He’s now heading back to the PM’s office.

Election romp gives Gusmao ticket to press Australia for gas project

The independence hero and first president of Timor-Leste is poised to return as prime minister after his party scored a resounding win in parliamentary polls.

  • Chris Barrett
The Timor-Leste election will take place on May 21.

‘We’ve lost 20 years’:The future of Asia’s youngest nation hinges on a multibillion-dollar payday

Australia’s near neighbour heads into an election on Sunday with very real concerns about its future economic prosperity.

  • Chris Barrett
Xanana Gusmao is campaigning to return as prime minister in Timor-Leste.

‘Australia behaved very badly’:Gusmao turns up heat for Timor gas deal

Timor-Leste’s resistance hero says Australia can make amends for “exploiting” its smaller neighbour by backing a long sought-after pipeline to the country’s south coast.

  • Chris Barrett
Jose Ramos-Horta casts his vote at a polling station in Dili on Saturday.

Ramos-Horta on brink of claiming presidency in East Timor elections

With the backing of independence hero Xanana Gusmao,another of the country’s founding fathers was seeking a return to the post a decade after he last held it.

  • Chris Barrett
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Former East Timor president Jose Ramos-Horta is eyeing a return to the post in next year’s elections.

‘Thousands pleading with me to run’:Jose Ramos-Horta eyes return as East Timor president

The Nobel peace prize-winning former East Timor prime minister and president is weighing up a return to the political stage.

  • Chris Barrett
Xanana Gusmao is not helping his people with his recent behaviour.

East Timor’s independence hero risks his legacy and the lives of his people

East Timor needs Xanana Gusmao more than ever,but his recent conduct is not helping.

  • Michael Rose
ormer East Timorese president and prime minister Xanana Gusmao slaps a mourner at least three times outside a COVID isolation facility in Dili yesterday.

Xanana Gusmao slaps mourners,demands body of East Timor COVID victim,disbelieving cause of death

The independence hero and former president led a tense stand-off with the country’s health minister on behalf of the man’s family at the gates of an isolation facility.

  • Chris Barrett
An emotional video posted on social media shows East Timor's first president hugging former Indonesian President Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie.

Touching farewell for the man who gave East Timor freedom

The moment East Timor's former president Xanana Gusmao kisses the forehead of former Indonesian President Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie before his death has been captured on video.

  • Laura Chung