International
Howard visits troops in politically deadlocked East Timor

Dili, July 26 (AP): Prime Minister John Howard on Thursday visited more than 1,000 Australian troops stationed in East Timor, where political deadlock has set in following inconclusive parliamentary elections last month.

Around 3,000 peacekeepers, most of them Australians, were deployed to the tiny nation last year after clashes between rival police and army led to unrest that killed 37 people and forced 155,000 others to flee their homes.

Foreign troops fired tear gas and rubber bullets on Monday to disperse rampaging youths in the capital after several houses were set alight.

Howard arrived early morning at the airport in the capital, Dili, and is expected to fly back to Australia late Thursday after a series of meetings with political leaders.

Parliamentary elections on June 30 failed to give a majority of votes to any single party. Negotiations to create a power-sharing government between the ruling Fretilin party and a new coalition led by independence hero Xanana Gusmao collapsed over the weekend.

The sensitive decision on which party will lead a Cabinet will be taken by newly elected President Jose Ramos-Horta, possibly next week.

Ramos-Horta, a Nobel Peace prize laureate, has repeatedly urged the parties to form a national unity government amid fears that political tensions could again erupt into violence in the country, where tens of thousands still live in camps after last year's bloodshed.

Howard was expected to meet Ramos-Horta, Interim Prime Minister Aleixo da Silva of the Fretilin party and United Nations Special Representative Atul Khare.

East Timor, which broke free from Indonesian rule in 1999 in a U.N.-sponsored referendum, faces major security, humanitarian and economic challenges just five years after it officially became Asia's newest state.

Unemployment hovers at around 50 percent, and aid agencies have warned that a fifth of the population is threatened by food shortages after crop failures.