The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Switzerland might seem an odd pairing at first glance. However, relations between the two have just begun to intensify over the past year.In 2009, the European nation appointed its first ambassador to ASEAN and in 2016, it was conferred the status of sectoral dialogue partner of ASEAN at the 49th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (AMM) in Vientiane, Lao.

ASEAN this week This week The ASEAN Post covered a wide range of stories ranging from geopolitics to the energy sector.

India will be celebrating its 69th Republic Day celebrations on 26 January this year and for the first time ever, leaders of all 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have been invited as chief guests.This marks a huge step in ASEAN-India relations which would also be commemorated in a summit held at the same time.

The Southeast Asian region is deemed to be one of the most dynamic regions of the global energy system. Due to rapid urbanisation and burgeoning infrastructure and logistics, the energy demand in the region is growing at one of the fastest rates in the world.

The 21st edition of the Regional Outlook Forum (ROF) 2018 – the flagship event of Singapore based ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute – was held on Tuesday and attended by industry leaders, academics, diplomats and journalists alike.The one-day event focussed on macro trends, developments and challenges facing Southeast Asia in the immediate, short and medium-term, and expert insights from a distinguished panel of scholars and intellectuals.Here are some of the highlights from the discussions that

The arrival of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) requires more investments in nurturing students in the Southeast Asian region today. This being said, education policies in the region need to be revamped to produce a future workforce that is fully prepared to take on a number of challenges. These challenges include inequalities, increasing economic interdependency, technological development such as automation, rapidly changing labour markets, and shifting geopolitics amongst others.

The issue of overfishing is the greatest threat to ocean ecosystems today. Overfishing occurs where fish are netted at a more rapid rate than they can reproduce. Some reasons that have led to overfishing are advanced fishing technologies, increased demand for fish and illegal fishing.

What can we expect from 2018?The ASEAN Post began the year with an in-depth review of what to expect from the region throughout 2018. The review covered aspects including capital markets, energy, environment, real estate, general elections and the Belt Road Initiative (BRI).Last year, ASEAN was touted to admit its 11th member – Timor-Leste but failed to do so. The topic of ascension to ASEAN is easy enough to understand.

Vietnamese police have seized US$3 million worth of heroin hidden inside packets of tea and smuggled from Laos on Thursday, which is the largest recorded haul of the drug in the country.According to AFP, “a police sting in the mountainous northern Vietnamese province of Dien Bien on Tuesday caught a man aged 44 and a woman in her late 30s, carrying 170 kilogrammes of heroin on the back of their motorbikes.” The drugs were also said to be smuggled over from Laos and packed into scores of packe

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) needs to beef up its disaster management efforts after the region was hammered by deadly storms that left a path of destruction in their wake, its new chief said Friday.Secretary-general Lim Jock Hoi, a veteran Bruneian diplomat, pointed to a tropical storm that battered the southern Philippines last month leaving at least 240 dead and tens of thousands displaced.Also in December, a tropical cyclone pounded Indonesia's main island of Jav