Southeast Asian nations have suffered “unprecedented” employment losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the International Labor Organization (ILO) said today, suggesting that the region faces a long road out of its current Delta-variant maelstrom. While the year 2020 marked the high-water mark of the COVID-19 pandemic ...

Cambodia has one of the world’s highest deforestation rates. But a group of Buddhist monks are stepping up efforts to save forests by publicly revealing wrongdoings and mobilizing local villagers. Ate Hoekstra reports. In Cambodia, where over 90 percent of the population is Buddhist, monks enjoy ...

A recent report from a multinational professional services firm praises China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as transcending beyond initial expectations by extensively boosting trade and commerce and supporting both physical and social infrastructures. It urged foreign businesses to join the game. The report Repaving ...

Kieu Anh Tran heads down a small alley to her workshop in Ho Chi Minh City’s Binh Thanh District. Inside, her team is busy washing used plastic tarpaulins, cutting patterns, and sewing the discarded material into backpacks, tote bags, and wallets. In Vietnam’s southern city and ...

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has asked the provinces of Tây Ninh, Bình Dương and Bình Phước to suspend sand mining operations at Dầu Tiếng Reservoir, following an order from the Government. The ministry told officials to adjust planning for construction sites and ...

The trade surplus in the first quarter of 2016 alone was five times higher than that of the entire year of 2012. But this could be bad news. In 2012, the country got trade surplus for the first time after 20 consecutive years of witnessing trade ...

Despite being linked to several disasters, the Asian Development Bank has reaffirmed its commitment to large hydro developments. Rishika Pardikar speaks to people holding it to account. Large hydropower projects, which use moving water to create electricity, can have destructive consequences for the environment – despite their seemingly ...

The project is called Xelanong 2 and is foreseen to generate 35 megawatts of power, or 140,700 megawatts of electricity annually. The Chinese company is the one which built the giant Gezhouba Dam in the Yangtze River which produces 2,715 megawatts of power. Lin Boqiang, director of the ...

Auto maker Vinaxuki recently announced plans to sell its plant in Hanoi’s Me Linh District to repay its debts amid prolonged losses.   It has laid off most of its employees leaving mainly security guards in a factory that used to employ hundreds of workers and engineers. It ...

UNESCO Hackathon at FOSSASIA Summit will take place from Saturday March 24, to Sunday March 25, 2018 at the Lifelong Learning Institute, Singapore. The event aims to bring together forward thinking citizens with innovators, hackers, scientists, and makers from around the world in Asia, create open ...

Deputy Prime Minister Trịnh Đình Dũng has urged the two ministries overseeing the Trung Lương-Mỹ Thuận expressway project to speed up construction of the Mỹ Thuận-Cần Thơ stretch so that the entire road can be open to traffic by 2019. Dũng asked the Ministry of ...

Việt Nam should implement polices to increase its export volume through its border gates with China by taking advantage of the Việt Nam-China Border Trade Agreement, experts said.The agreement has created favourable conditions for Việt Nam’s border provinces to change reasonably their economic structure, experts ...

In the first 5 months of 2016, Vietnam spent US$140 million for the import of Chinese pesticides, or nearly $1 million a day, according to statistics of the General Customs Administration. Specifically, in May alone, Vietnam paid $27 million to import materials and pesticides from China. ...

he ASEAN-Japan Centre (AJC) has awarded eleven tour products in six categories for the trips with destinations to the ASEAN Member States (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) as winners of the ASEAN Tourism Awards Japan 2018. With the ...

The tourism confidence index plunged to the lowest level in nine years, though the industry is optimistic about the final quarter of 2020, which could lead to a total of 26.6 million international arrivals this year, according to the Tourism Council of Thailand (TCT).The survey ...

Some timid but long overdue steps are now being taken towards reducing Thailand’s plastic waste. Baby steps to start with but there is no doubt that the issue has now entered the Thai national psyche. In reaction, so far, Thai businesses have, for the most ...

Thanks to the support from the State and efforts made by local authorities, many poor households in the central region have gradually gotten out of poverty.Quang Nam province is home to more than 140,000 ethnic minority people, accounting for 9.4% of the total population, bigger ...

Government MPs and a senator have separately proposed a special parliamentary session be convened in the light of the student flash mobs occurring across the country.In a letter, addressed to House Speaker Chuan Leekpai, Democrat party-list MP Issara Seriwattanawuth proposed an urgent motion for the ...

Thailand’s public debt will not exceed the 60% ceiling rate by 2025 if there is no more borrowing for COVID-19 management.Finance Minister Arkhom Termpittayapaisith said the government expects to manage the fresh outbreak and there is sufficient capital in government coffers to cushion the impact.He ...

(KPL) Mekong River Commission has urged lower Mekong countries to put in place a more proactive regional approach to basin planning and management, with an enhanced and systematic information sharing mechanism and robust monitoring of river flow.MRC said in its annual report “the State of ...