The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Dili

Troops and police enforced a state of emergency across East Timor on Tuesday as President Jose Ramos-Horta recuperated from an assassination bid that doctors said he was lucky to survive. Residents packed local markets as usual, oblivious to the emergency imposed after audacious attacks by renegade soldiers on the president, who was hit in the chest and back, and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, who escaped unscathed. Gusmao told a meeting of communities from Portuguese-speaking nations at a hotel here that the situation in the fledgling nation was "normal, and all is stable." "We all hope that Dr Jose Ramos-Horta will soon recover from this difficult phase and resume leading the country," he said. The assaults heralded a renewed crisis for violence-weary East Timor, where Australian-led peacekeeping troops and UN police were deployed in 2006 to quell unrest between military and police factions that left at least 37 dead.