As many as 15 foreign workers, mostly Africans, evacuated from East Timor for treatment at the Royal Darwin Hospital, have tested positive to HIV, Dr Dan Murphy said.

A Darwin woman contracted the virus that leads to AIDS from having sex with an East Timor -based expatriate.

"There was a case of transmission from an expatriate in East Timor to a woman in Darwin," the American volunteer general practitioner said. Territory Health Service confirmed one of the five cases of HIV reported among Darwin residents since the United Nations moved into East Timor in 1999 was contracted through heterosexual contract with a foreigner based there. That woman then infected another local.

Darwin has become a popular recreation destination for East Timor workers. Darwin sex workers report African clients refusing to use condoms. Dr Murphy said the HIV-positive expatriates detected in Darwin had probably been infected before they reached East Timor.

But these same UN and non-government organisation workers were also patronising a clandestine sex industry flourishing in East Timor.

"It's (HIV) a problem but no-one knows how extensive because we don't do testing," Dr Murphy said.

While the extent of HIV remained invisible, Dr Murphy said his Bairo Pite Clinic frequently treated men suffering the more obvious sexually transmitted diseases from prostitution such as gonorrhoea.

Unchecked, Dr Murphy feared a major blow out in HIV among the conservative Catholic population resistant to condom use and sexual discussion. AIDS would prove devastating with the high rate of tuberculosis among the East Timorese, he said.

"TB will become more active and it'll attack more strongly because with AIDS, you don't have any resistance," Dr Murphy said.

The new officers all underwent three months of basic training by the Portuguese military, and they will now take another three months of specialist training conducted by the Australian armed forces, while basic training will be given to another 350 recruits.

The East Timor Defence Force hopes to have its first battalion formed by the end of October.

A US study into defence needs in East Timor has recommended the creation of a light infantry force of 1,500 regulars and 1,500 reservists for the emerging country's defence.

The agency plans to consider in a positive light any request for participation in peacekeeping operations in East Timor, which may become independent from Indonesia by the end of this year.

Gen Nakatani, director-general of the agency, who will start a US visit Thursday, will brief U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette on his agency's study in a meeting in New York.

Japan's ruling coalition has been considering legislative changes to lift the nation's freeze in its participation into U.N. peacekeeping forces. East Timor has been under control of the U.N. Transitional Administration in East Timor since October 1999 after Indonesia gave up jurisdiction over the region following a vote in favor of independence.

Countries such as Australia and New Zealand are currently taking part in peacekeeping operations in East Timor, deploying a total of more than 9,000 personnel including civilian police and military monitors.

Besides assessing progress of the transition, the Brazilian UN diplomat is also expected to provide a detailed overview of the expected situation after the upcoming August elections and the subsequent steps to be taken before the full independence of East Timor.

Vieira de Mello begins this weekend a series of trips to the 13 regions of East Timor, as part of the campaign of civil and electoral education ahead of the August ballot, in which the East Timorese will elect members of a constituent assembly, charged with drawing up the future national constitution. He hopes to visit all the districts before the campaign period begins on July 15. The first trip, on Saturday, will be to Liquiça, 36 kms east of Dili.

The radios have likewise been distributed among some of the more than 20,000 East Timorese refugees across the border in the Belu district of Indonesia, enabling them to receive information on the situation in East Timor, independent of whether or not they have decided to return to their homeland.

In a note sent to Lusa Tuesday, the district administration of Covalima (capital Suai) indicates that 435 radios have been distributed by community leaders among the region's 48,000 residents, with the support of the Jesuit Relief Service (JRS).

"The impact is visible throughout the district. The participants in public meetings are better informed and regularly refer to information they have heard" on the radio run by the territory's UN transition administration (UNTAET), the text states.

The success of the initiative has led the district administration to request that Dili send more solar radios, particularly needed in the lead-up to the Aug. 30 elections of members of a constituent assembly, who will be charged with drawing up thefuture national constitution.

While radios are on sale in Suai, the city's power supply is limited to six hours a day and the price of batteries is too high for most residents.

The note sent to Lusa Indicates that Radio UNTAET reaches 85 percent of Covalima and covers a large part of the Belu district in Indonesian West Timor.

The district has also registered an increase in the number of programs on East Timor's TVTL television network that reach remote areas. Residents are said to be particularly interested in local news, a highlight of which has been the recent renovation of the Suai market.

The council voted overwhelmingly in support of the tribunal and also endorsed legislation to establish a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The moves were initiated by council member, Mr Aniceto Guterres, East Timor's best known lawyer, who also heads the country's Yayasan-HAK human rights foundation.

While it is expected a truth and reconciliation commission could be successful in East Timor, diplomats and human rights lawyers said they anticipate efforts to establish an international court would run into serious international opposition.

A truth commission could see militiamen involved in less serious crimes facing a community-based system of justice, rather than a court of law.

"This is in no way a move away from providing justice to those most heavily implicated in the crimes of 1999, but a means of providing a workable mechanism to bring communities together to deal with tens of thousands of minor offences that took place," said Mr Patrick Burgess, the United Nations head of human rights in East Timor.

Those who appeared before the commission would be required to undertake community service, pay restitution and make a public apology. "This commission will have the power to look into and hear testimony about human rights abuses dating back to 1974," Mr Burgess said.

It could deal with crimes which included involvement in the destruction of private property or low-level intimidation but not serious crimes of murder, rape, torture and organised violence. Those are being investigated by a Serious Crimes Unit, he said.

Human rights groups claim up to 1,500 East Timorese independence supporters were murdered in a reign of terror that followed the UN-brokered referendum held on August 30, 1999. Indonesia has promised an ad hoc tribunal of its own to try those responsible but its terms of reference are restricted to violence which occurred after the ballot and does not include a series of bloody massacres committed in the lead-up to the vote.

The UN warned it reserves the right to establish an international tribunal if Jakarta fails to bring those responsible for the violence to justice but increasingly that looks like a hollow threat.

The "aggressive probing tactics" by Indonesian aircraft against the Australian-led intervention force, Interfet, led to Australia placing F/A-18 fighters on readiness to patrol over Timor and having F-111 strike aircraft "bombed up" to knock out Indonesian communications as far back as Jakarta.

Revelations about the tensions caused by Indonesian deployments of submarines, missile-boats and fighters during the first two weeks of the operation cast a new light on the approach by Interfet's commander, the then Major-General Peter Cosgrove.

They should help dispel lingering resentment in Indonesian military and political circles that Interfet took an unnecessarily "aggressive" and "arrogant" posture during the transfer of control in East Timor.

Many details of the Indonesian manoeuvres are made public for the first time in the forthcoming issue of the journal Contemporary Southeast Asia, by the New Zealand defence expert Dr David Dickens, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies in Wellington.

His article cites highly placed Australian and New Zealand defence sources, and the Herald has independently confirmed some aspects of his account, including submarine movements.

Dr Dickens argues that despite the co-operation General Cosgrove received from the army and police when he landed in Dili, the naval and air threats meant "a show of overwhelming force was still necessary".

The Interfet force, which set off for Dili on September 19, 1999, initially comprised about 5,000 troops, mostly from Australia and New Zealand. It was transferred and protected by ships from Australia, New Zealand, Britain, France and the United States.

General Cosgrove flew into Dili ahead of his troops without a personal bodyguard or weapons, determined to strike a co-operative relationship with the Indonesian ground commander, Major-General Kiki Syanakri.

Indonesian forces in East Timor were about 15,000, outnumbering the Interfet force by three-to-one. When the forces arrived by air and sea the next day, General Cosgrove succeeded in making it seem like a routine exercise, despite the Indonesian-directed operation to raze the territory's buildings and infrastructure and deport its population.

At the same time, he aimed to show determination by bringing in his forces quickly, and immediately beginning security operations in Dili. "The shock generated by this force, professional and well-equipped, and deployed with speed, made it appear larger than it was when deployed," Dr Dickens notes. Behind the scenes, the Australian Defence Force made contingency plans in case the Indonesian military, the TNI, decided to contest the landing.

The Indonesian Navy's two German-built Type 209 submarines appeared around East Timor and the air force deployed aircraft, including a small number of fighters, to West Timor, from where they adopted "aggressive probing tactics".

"These tactics raised questions about the intentions of the TNI," Dr Dickens writes. "Various Interfet ships went to action stations during theseincidents." The submarines shadowed the Interfet fleet, with one of them detected by the frigate HMNZS Canterbury close to the landing of New Zealand soldiers at Suai. The submarine contacts were passed on to defence headquarters in Canberra, which took them up with Jakarta. "In response, and once the Australian higher level commanders had provided information on the location of the submarines that was convincing, the appropriate TNI commander admitted his submarines had been deployed and agreed to retire them from the area," the article said.

The air threats were tracked by the cruiser USS Mobile Bay, while the RAAF put combat units in northern Australia on a "very high" state of readiness. As well as preparing the F/A-18s of the RAAF's No 75 Squadron and New Zealand's Skyhawk fighters at Tindal air base to provide air cover and ground strikes, contingency plans included higher level threats.

Dr Dickens was told by defence sources, although he has not included this in his article, that the alert also involved the F-111 strike aircraft at Amberley air base, near Brisbane, which were "bombed up" and ready to knock out communications as far back as TNI headquarters on the outskirts of Jakarta if necessary.

The pattern of aggressive movements by Indonesian submarines, missile craft and fighters tapered off within two weeks. By September 28 the TNI had only 1,200 troops in East Timor. With the threat ebbing and Interfet gaining control outside Dili, the RAAF took its squadrons to a lower level of readiness, and several warships were withdrawn.

Mr Downer said including the third party in treaty negotiations, which resume in Canberra next week, would stall Timor Sea development for years. "If we were to start to take this particular new claim into account, we'd have to begin the whole of the process of negotiation all over again," Mr Downer said.

"If we were to do that, we'd probably destroy for many, many years any prospect of investment at all in the Timor Sea."

UN-appointed negotiator Peter Galbraith said Petro Timor's plan to pipe gas to the East Timor town of Suai rather than Darwin was preferable to the East Timorese people.

"That's very important to this very poor country," Mr Galbraith said. "It would provide infrastructure, it would bring about employment and the taxes from all that would bring very substantial revenues."

Phillips Petroleum, which plans to build a $1.5 billion gas pipeline to Darwin if a new treaty can be agreed by next month, has dismissed Petro Timor's claim.