East Timor joined the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc as its 11th member state on Sunday, after 14 years of campaigning.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, whose country currently chairs ASEAN, said East Timor’s accession “completes the ASEAN family — reaffirming our shared destiny and deep sense of regional kinship”.

“Within this community, Timor-Leste’s development and its strategic autonomy will find firm and lasting support,” Anwar told an ASEAN summit in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur.

East Timor, also known by its Portuguese name Timor-Leste, is the youngest country in the region, having gained independence from Indonesia in 2002 after 24 years of occupation.

President Jose Ramos-Horta has long campaigned for ASEAN membership, and an application was first submitted in 2011 during his first term.

The signing of a declaration on East Timor’s admission on Sunday is also seen as one of the crowning achievements of Malaysia’s ASEAN chairmanship.

East Timor was granted observer status to the regional body in 2022 but its full membership was delayed by various challenges.

The country continues to grapple with high levels of inequality, malnutrition and unemployment.

It remains heavily reliant on oil, with little diversification into other sectors, and some concerns remain over its ability to participate meaningfully in ASEAN’s development agenda.

It also faces challenges in infrastructure development and human resource capacity, seen as critical for effective participation in ASEAN’s economic community.

In September, thousands of student-led protesters demonstrated against a multi-million dollar plan to purchase Toyota Prado SUVs for each of the country’s 65 members of parliament and lifetime pensions for former MPs.

Demonstrators and police clashed for two days, before the parliament cancelled the vehicles’ procurement.

The parliament has also bowed to public pressure over MPs’ pensions.

ASEAN began as a five-member bloc in 1967 and has gradually expanded, with Cambodia the most recent addition in 1999.

Dolly Parton is desperately attempting to sound upbeat.

However, insiders revealed the country legend is struggling deeply after her husband Carl Dean’s death.

According to RadarOnline.com, following Dean’s passing in March this year, Parton has been throwing herself into work, which is beginning to take a toll on her health.

“Dolly simply will not stop, and she’s hardly taken a breath since Carl passed away,” confided an insider.

“Only a few days after he died, she made an appearance at Dollywood to celebrate the park’s 40th anniversary, and she’s been going like that ever since.”

The source went on to share that Parton’s nonstop work ethic may be her way of coping. 

“She hasn’t broken a single commitment — at least not until she got sick,” they added.

Her friends are reportedly worried that the 79-year-old singer’s grief is catching up to her. 

“She’s trying to stay strong, but everyone can see she’s exhausted. Working nonstop isn’t healing her pain — it’s masking it,” the insider explained before moving to a new topic.

Now, it is revealed a Star Wars movie titled The Hunt for Ben Solo was pitched to the Disney execs, but it did not get the green light.

Steven Soderbergh, who serves as a director on the never-made movie, now writes about the project on the social media platform BlueSky.

“For the record, I did not enjoy lying about the existence of ‘THE HUNT FOR BEN SOLO’, but it really did need to remain a secret…until now!” he pens.

The filmmaker continues, “Also, in the aftermath of the ‘HFBS’ situation, I asked Kathy Kennedy if LFL had ever turned in a finished movie script for greenlight to Disney and had it rejected. She said no, this was a first.”

He also, in a previous interview with AP, said, “I really enjoyed making the movie in my head. I’m just sorry the fans won’t get to see it.”

Steven’s post comes after Adam Driver, who was set to star in the movie, earlier revealed the existence of such a project.

“We took it to Bob Iger and Alan Bergman, and they said no. They didn’t see how Ben Solo was alive. And that was that,” he told the news agency, adding that “the sequel idea was really cool. It is no more, so I can finally talk about it.”