President of East Timor to visit

Prime Minister John Key has announced that the President of East Timor, Jose Ramos-Horta, is to visit New Zealand between 15 and 17 February. President Ramos-Horta's visit is mainly see the Police College at Porirua, where officers are training for their deployment to East Timor as part of the UN's mission to stabalise the country, following violence in 2006.

Back then, the Australians for Constitutional Monarchy made a lot of noise about the fact that East Timor was a republic, and claimed (without a shred of evidence) that the violence was due to the President and Prime Minister being in open dispute. Strangely they've been quiet since then, mainly because they were clearly wrong - the arrival of Australian and New Zealand troops ended the violence, and the Prime Minister resigned.