CIVIL REGISTRATION RESUMES AFTER VOTING ROLL EXHIBITION

The UN’s Civil Registration Unit today resumed its registration campaign after a pause in the process due to the challenge period held after initial registration was completed.

Registration can now continue as scheduled throughout the territory in order to keep regularly updated and accurate records of the population. Any new registrants will not be entitled to vote in the 30 August Constituent Assembly elections. People who had registered up to the 23 June deadline and lost their blue “proof of registration” can receive a duplicate in order to help identify them on polling day.

Registration offices have been set up in all thirteen districts throughout the territory. Visits to sub-districts will be organized according to the different requirements of each district.

Also beginning today, East Timorese can apply for birth, wedding and death certificates in all districts. The documents will be printed in the Central Civil Registry in Dili.

When the registration unit’s nationwide campaign concluded on 23 June for the Independent Electoral Commission to prepare its voter lists, 737,811 people had been registered at 350 sites throughout East Timor.

In related news, the International Electoral Commission has printed 50,000 color posters to be distributed next week that show the ballot papers for the 30 August election. These posters, which will be used for voter education, display both the national and district ballots, and include photographs and symbols of the candidates.

DEPUTY SRSG MEETS PORTUGAL’S LEADING OPPOSITION OFFICIAL

Deputy SRSG Dennis McNamara this evening met with José Durão Barroso, the leading opposition party leader of Portugal and its former Foreign Minister.

Durão Barroso, who heads the Partido Social Democrata (PSD), is in East Timor for a three-day visit. Before meeting with McNamara, Durão Barroso met with Xanana Gusmão and Bishop of Dili Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo.

The PSD leader is scheduled to travel tomorrow to Baucau where he will meet with Bishop of Baucau Basilio do Nascimento. He will then visit the East Timor Defense Force training center at Metinaro, near Dili, where 350 cadets are currently undergoing basic training with East Timorese and Portuguese instructors.

TRANSITIONAL ADMINISTRATION DISTRIBUTES BABY CHICKENS

More than 150 households in Liquiça district have been receiving baby chickens from the East Timor Transitional Administration’s Division of Agriculture through its Agriculture Rehabilitation Project. This project, funded by the World Bank, will benefit 20,000 households in all 13 districts over the next six months.

Some 800 chickens have been delivered to beneficiaries in four villages in Liquiça since Tuesday and the distribution will continue through the month of August in other villages. Each household receives five chickens and 25 kilos of chicken feed.