Context:
Asia’s youngest nation, East Timor, also known as Timor Leste, holds the second and final round of its presidential election.
Relevance:
Facts for Prelims, Places in News
Dimensions of the Article:
- About East Timor
- Its geography
About East Timor
- Portugal colonised the area in the 18th century, and it remained under their hands until 1975.
- After the Portuguese left, Indonesian troops invaded and conquered East Timor as their 27th province.
- After a long and brutal war for independence, in which at least 100,000 people died, the East Timorese voted for independence in a UN-supervised referendum in 1999, but the violence escalated until peace-keeping forces were permitted to enter.
- In 2002, the United Nations formally recognised the country.
- East Timor has submitted an application to join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) (ASEAN). It is now classified as an observer.
- The Bayu Undan gas field, East Timor’s major revenue source, is scheduled to dry up by 2023, and the country is now looking to cooperate with corporations like Australia’s Santos to convert it into carbon capture facilities.
Its geography
East Timor is made up of the eastern half of Timor Island, with the western half belonging to Indonesia; it has a land area of 15,000 square kilometres (5,792 square miles) – slightly smaller than Israel – with a population of 1.3 million people who are mostly Roman Catholic.
-Source: The Hindu
