Australian Prime Minister John Howard will visit East Timor this week before going on to Indonesia and a meeting with its leader on the tourist island of Bali, DPA QUOTED officials in Canberra as saying Thursday. In Dili, the East Timor capital, Howard will hold talks with President Jose Ramos Horta and greet Australian troops serving as peacekeepers in South-east Asia's poorest country and the world's newest nation. East Timor, a Portuguese colony for 400 years, split from Indonesia in 1999 and became fully independent in 2002. On Friday, Howard plans to fly to Bali to open an eye hospital funded and built by Australia as a permanent memorial to the victims of the October 2002 terrorist bombings that killed 202 people, 88 of them Australians. He will have lunch with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
