Social development

A new Cambodian maternal-health initiative is seeking to patch a persistent knowledge gap among new mothers by providing information via mobile phone alerts on optimal post-natal care during the first 1,000 days of a baby’s life. Cambodia’s national infant mortality rate, despite improvements, remains stubbornly high ...

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam has approved the education and training ministry’s plan to upgrade the website tiengvietonline.com.vn, meant for teaching of the mother tongue to the Vietnamese disapora. Dam said the upgrade work would meet the increasing demand for learning of the mother tongue ...

Anne-Sophie Gindroz, a former Swiss humanitarian worker in Laos, observed forced displacement and evictions of rural populations to make way for dams and other controversial infrastructure and plantation projects in the impoverished Southeast Asian country.  Gindroz, who was the country director for Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation, ...

The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration is drawing up additional regulations to raise the standards of car park safety barriers and to control the brightness levels on electronic billboards. Taiwut Khankaew, director of the BMA’s Building Control Division, said discussions were under way about the new regulations ...

The United States issued a warning on 12 February urging Americans to avoid a central Laos province popular with adventure travelers after a sudden spate of deadly bomb and gun attacks. Two roadside attacks killed three people last month in Xaisomboun province. Those attacks followed a series ...

Products of a popular Thai cosmetics brand were found to be “unfit for use,” according to an official announcement by Myanmar’s Ministry of Health on 10 February. “Two products of ‘Forever Young’ cosmetics were found to contain prohibited chemical ingredients that can harm people’s health and [we] ...

Hundreds of civilians in Myanmar’s northern Shan State are reported to have fled a sudden offensive by government forces and separate fighting between two ethnic armed groups, while senior monks are intervening to help villagers trapped in the war zone. The two days of fighting in ...

Thailand is ready to halt imports of prepacked salad products from Australia if salmonella bacteria is detected by Thai food safety officials. Keep reading ...

Striking what they hope will be a death blow against polio, Myanmar health officials are preparing for a nationwide assault. The Supplementary Polio Immunisation Campaign will take place from 20 to 22 February, National Immunisation Day. The campaign will target 4.6 million under-fives, administering both oral ...

The United Nations World Food Programme will support flood-affected people in Chin State with 500 tonnes of rice, as they continue to struggle after landslides and flood waters ravaged swathes of land in the country’s poorest state last year. More than 9 million people were affected ...