The collective challenge for Asean

BANGKOK: The Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) badly needs to pay more attention to new challenges in the security landscape of both this and more far-flung regions of the globe, addressing them with intensive collective discussion.

Though a few commercial airliners have been shot down over the past decades, the downing in Eastern Europe last month of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was especially shocking for our region. On board were not only South-East Asians but also Europeans and Australians, making it an international incident involving many countries and their governments.