Social development
Govt launches '20-year strategic education plan'
The Education Ministry is launching the “20-year Strategic Education Plan” as it works towards its vision to revamp the education system and bring educational standards on a par with those of developed countries. The plan will be in line with the government’s 20-year national strategy, which ...
US builds blood centre for southern provinces
The US Embassy to Laos has built a blood centre in Champassak province as one of several major infrastructure assistance projects completed last year, at a total cost of over US$850,000. The new blood centre will provide emergency blood services to people in the southern ...
On the front lines of malaria elimination
Rural health centres throughout the country are leading the fight against the scourge of drug-resistant malaria. Can international organizations, local health officials and the government unite before the parasite spreads? Amid the sugar cane plantations and rice paddies of Kampong Speu, the Oral district health ...
Maternity leave: How Vietnam compares to neighbors
The ILO believes Vietnam has fairly progressive policies to protect working mothers. Vietnamese female workers are offered up to 26 weeks maternity leave, above the average level of 12-13 weeks seen in Southeast Asia, according to the International Labor Organization. Vietnam has a system of ...
Palm oil projects destroy local livelihoods: report
More than 1.8 million acres of palm oil plantations in Myanmar’s southern Tenasserim Division do more harm than good for local Karen villagers, causing land conflict, damaging livelihoods, destroying biodiversity, and polluting the environment, according to a new report. Companies and businesspeople have taken over ...
Youth, women key to economic growth
To join the “Asian Tiger” economies of the neighbouring countries, Myanmar must invest more in its youth, the UN Population Fund has said following a new examination of demographic trends from the 2014 census. “A unique window of opportunity opens when there are more people ...
PM wants ethics test for students
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has instructed the Education Ministry to add a moral and ethical sense test at all education levels and require students to write one page of Thai history. These steps would ensure they are aware of their social duties and responsibilities, and ...
Statistics indicate big problems in university education
MOLISA estimates that about 200,000 university graduates are jobless, and that the figure will not increase sharply in upcoming years but will stay the same. The Q2 Labor Bulletin released by MOLISA showed that 1.088 million people at working age had stayed unemployed by that time, an ...
Cambodia's water people pushed out of Phnom Penh sewer for billion-dollar ING City
For decades, the vast lakes and wetlands fringing Cambodia’s capital have been home to thousands of people making a living from the water — fishing and harvesting vegetables for market. Now they face eviction, as politically well-connected land speculators push them out. “If they fill ...
Special rapporteur barred from Laiza, Hpakant
Just a few days into her fifth visit and the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar has already encountered a few bumps in the road, with the government blocking her from going to Laiza and Hpakant, in Kachin State. Yanghee Lee and her ...
