Time to admit Asean’s 11th member

SO near, yet so far. Timor-Leste has been trudging on for eight years but the road to membership in Asean remains a long and winding one for Asia’s youngest democracy.

Geographically, it is located within the ambit of Asean, which comprises 10 nations – Indonesia, Malay­sia, the Philippines, Singa­pore, Thailand, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.