Not only is he wearing a Vespa T-shirt and a towel on his head, but I have no idea what kind of homemade cigarette he is smoking. It looks like a piece of bamboo. From the rice fields of Baucau…

You'll never guess who owns this place.

From Radio Timor-Leste:

President Jose Ramos Horta has said that political leaders of the coalition and opposition parties have agreed to postpone elections for municipality systems to 2012.

President Horta made the comment yesterday after he held a meeting with political leaders at Hotel Timor discussing about the government's plan to implement municipality systems in the country this year.

President Horta added that there was lack of infrastructure and human resources that could support the government to implement municipality systems in the 13 districts.

Although this is a couple of weeks old, it still warrants a mention, if only because I don't foresee another opportunity where I might justifiably be able to use a picture of the world's favourite blue robot cartoon cat, Doraemon.

This from Diario on March 30:

Japanese Ambassador to Timor-Leste Iwao Kitahara and his delegation were stoned by an unidentified group in Los Palos last Saturday (27/3) following a screening of Doraemon at a local market there.

Lawmakers then got involved:

Members of Parliament have called on the national police force to thoroughly investigate the case in Los Palos in which a delegation of the Japanese Ambassador to Timor-Leste was stoned during a screening of the animated [show] Doraemon last week.

The stone hit Mrs Kitahara [ambassador's wife], who was also present during the screening.

After? During? Who cares?! It's Doraemon! For those not in the know, Doaremon has been hailed as "the cuddliest hero in asia". Doraemon is a blue robot cat who travels back in time from the 22nd century to help a schoolboy called Nobita Nobi. Doraemon was sent back in time by Nobita's great-great grandson to lend a hand to the hapless child. Luckily for everyone, Doraemon has a number of magic gadgets at his disposal. Hilarity ensues every episode.

You know when people say you should never believe what you read in the papers? This week I've been writing about four newspapers making a pact to boycott stories about the minister of foreign affairs. The four newspapers in question are STL, Timor Post, Tempo Semanal and Diario — or so I thought.

I first read about this in a story printed by Diario. The story was clear enough and it came from the horse's mouth, so to speak. What I've heard more recently is that that story was never supposed to be printed. There was allegedly a level of last-minute fiddling that went on behind editor Jose Gabriel's back. There is something fishy going on and fingers are being pointed at the director general of the paper.

Furthermore, on Thursday, Timor Post on page 19 declared that it was not part of this pact and that it would continue to report news about the foreign minister. The story called on the public not believe the other stories ran by other newspapers about the pact. It sounds very much like Timor Post wants no part of this madness, and I'm glad to hear it.

So if Timor Post and Diario are not on board, why then did Tempo Semanal run with this on Wednesday?

Timorese newspapers the Suara Timor Lorosae, Tempo Semanal, Timor Post, and Diario Nasional will boycott to cover any story put out by Foreign Minister Zacarias da Costa. This is because he disrespected many Timorese journalists as a result of his actions subsequent to stories published about his threat to resign by SMS to the Office of the Prime Minister.

A plot is unraveling here and the media has taken a major blow to its credibility because of certain individuals. I don't want to get too deep into this because it would be easy enough to make myself public enemy number one, but when I said the following, clearly I was mistaken:

You have to think that the facts are accurate as Diario is essentially reporting about itself…

Who can we believe? Who can we trust? Who can we rely on? Those are the questions the 1.1 million people of this country must ask themselves on a daily basis. The actions of some individuals are going to do irreparable damage to the press in this country if something isn't done about it. This whole mess has completely diverted attention from whatever tension has been brewing between the prime minister and the foreign minister.

Again, thoughts are welcome on this. Information is also welcome as I am unable to track everything from one day to the next, but this needs to be talked about.