Long flight home
Dili-Singapore-Tokyo-Los Angeles. 37 1/2 hours straight in planes and airports. But I got a shower and five hours of sleep in Singapore, and overall a very comfortable flight on Singapore Air. Saw Mount Fuji at sunset coming into Tokyo. The experience of the Japanese in the airport made me want...
Last road trip in Timor-Leste
I expect this to be my last Sunday in East Timor. Brian Pinkowski, an anti-corruption expert on a project in Timor, goes out every Sunday snorkeling and diving, so this week I tagged along with him. I just splash around in the waves while he does serious stuff out by...
Just another day at the office
A few views of a typical (not that there’s anything typical about it at all, really) “work day” in Timor. Mostly working in the President’s office on a new web site and social media strategy. If you haven’t seen this one it’s more of an overview.
Photo gallery — Timor-Leste 2011
I have been pretty flat out since I arrived, working with his staff in the press office, and juggling work back in the US, a foot in both countries. I have an hour of downtime this afternoon. The US is sleeping. The President is arriving from China in an hour....
Breakfast with the President
I am staying in a guest room at the “Presidential compound” in Dili. I have known José Ramos-Horta for more than ten years. When I first met him in 2000 I don’t think he even had a post. But he was a Nobel Peace Prize winner and an international human...
1996 Jose Ramos-Horta, East Timor independence leader
In 1975 Indonesia took control of East Timor, known today as Timor Leste, a small island at the bottom of the Indonesian archipelago that had been a Portuguese colony for 400 years. In the period that followed, a twenty four year reign of terror, approximately one-third of the country’s citizens...
Building Democracy Salon
In February, 2009, TheCommunity.com co-hosted a salon with Nobel Laureate and President of East Timor Jose Ramos-Horta to introduce the Zones of Peace program to the Hollywood community. At the private salon, at the home of actress and human rights activist Anne Archer, President Ramos-Horta spoke to approximately 75 artists,...
Paul Simon in East Timor Day 1
In 2005, musician Paul Simon joined thecommunity.com to help launch distribution of 4000 mosquito nets for East Timor’s malaria prevention program. According to the Global Fund for Malaria, TB and AIDS, mosquito-borne malaria is responsible for approximately 40% of the deaths in East Timor. The island also has the largest...