FAR EAST CORRESPONDENT — Timor-Leste wants help. Australian troops are pulling out of the country leaving it much to its own security devices as it wallows as the poorest in Asia, with a recent report revealing 54 percent of the nation’s children under the age of five are stunted because of malnutrition.

With that in mind, East Timor’s Foreign Minister Zacarius Albano da Costa has been scouting for support, with the country increasingly pitching its future on joining the 10-member trading bloc, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). Read more in The Diplomat.