Land
Ratanakkiri official defends disputed land
A Ministry of Interior immigration official at the centre of a long-running land dispute in a gem mining district of Ratanakkiri spoke out for the first time on 29 October, just days after 200 villagers protested what they termed their illegal eviction. The villagers from Bakeo ...
From bombs to bracelets, this jewelry line is clearing land mines
“After the war, we live afraid of unexploded bombs, and we’re very careful when we go and do anything,” says Somechit Phouangsavat, an artisan from Ban Naphia, also known as War Spoon Village, in Laos. The 32-year-old works alongside 30 other artisans at Article 22, a company ...
Rights report decries Thai sugar firm’s tactics
Asia’s largest sugar producer, Mitr Phol, is responsible for violating the rights of hundreds of villagers in Oddar Meanchey who saw their land grabbed, homes destroyed and livestock killed to make way for plantations, according to the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand (NHRCT). The Thai ...
The Vietnam War's 'time bomb' legacy for Laos
The confrontation is immediate — a hundred cluster bombs suspended from the ceiling on fishing wire. This is the display that greets visitors to the Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise (COPE) centre in Vientiane. Between 1964 and 1973, more than 580,000 US bombing missions made the once-tranquil ...
Ratanakkiri minorities say land stolen
Ethnic minorities in Ratanakkiri province have accused local authorities of selling community forest land to a provincial court official and threatening to put them in jail, according to a complaint filed on 27 October. The complaint was filed to the provincial office of rights group Adhoc ...
Gem miners protest in Ratanakkiri
About 200 villagers gathered in Ratanakkiri’s provincial capital of Banlung town on 26 October, calling for a resolution to a longstanding land dispute in the province’s gem-rich Bakeo district. In 2013, a man named Heng Socheat sued five village representatives from the district’s Keh Chung commune, ...
China aims to develop border area with Laos
China has announced that it will invest US$31.4 billion in the Mengla economic zone in Yunnan province of the country, which shares a border with Lunag Namtha and Phongsaly provinces in northern Laos. The investment will cover more than 240 projects in such fields as transportation, ...
Migrant workers fear impact of Mae Sot economic zone
The development by the Thai government of a special economic zone at Mae Sot, which is intended to improve trade and communications between Thailand and Myanmar, could have devastating consequences for local inhabitants. Keep reading ...
Cambodian Government pledges to step up land titling pace
The government 19 October vowed to finish distributing all land titles currently under consideration by 2020. In a speech, Im Chhun Lim said the government was committed to improving land security in Cambodia in its bid to address issues ranging from poverty to deforestation. Keep reading ...
China eyes $31bn of investments in Laos border economic zone
China is eyeing total investment of more than 200 billion yuan ($31.45 billion) in 240 projects in a pilot economic zone on the border with Laos, the government of the southwestern province of Yunnan said late on 19 October. Poor and remote, Laos has traditionally been ...
