Social development
Court rejects plea to free detained student activist
The Criminal Court on 15 December dismissed a petition filed by the head of a student activist group seeking to have the arrest of Thammasat University student Thanet Anantawong ruled unlawful. Keep reading ...
UN urges Myanmar to tackle causes of opium scourge
Opium production in Myanmar has “stabilised” at stubbornly high levels, the United Nations said on 14 December, adding the government must address poverty and end the conflicts which drive farmers to grow illicit poppies. Myanmar, the world’s second largest opium producer after Afghanistan, has struggled to ...
EU gives boost to nutrition, food security in Xekong
The European Union is assisting the Laos Partnerships for Poverty Reduction and Women’s Empowerment Project in Dakcheung district, Xekong province, with a view to ensuring that children have access to nutritious food. As with other EU funded nutrition and food security projects in many provinces across ...
UN: Poverty, conflict drive opium production in Myanmar-Laos
The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime’s latest opium survey for Myanmar and Laos, released 15 December, said poverty and conflict are the driving forces behind poppy cultivation, the second largest behind that of Afghanistan. In its latest production assessment, UNDOC said although Southeast Asia’s opium ...
More Montagnards opt to return home
More Montagnard asylum seekers are planning to return to home amid cuts in United Nations-provided food rations. Vivian Tan, regional spokesperson for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), said more than 10 indigenous Christian Montagnards had requested assistance in returning to Vietnam. She said the group had decided ...
Organiser arrested over march
The organiser of a protest by community members who face eviction from their homes to make way for a railway project in Banteay Meanchey province was detained on 14 December after demonstrators burned an effigy and dragged its decapitated body through the streets. About 50 protesters marched ...
Stateless Lao still struggling for basic rights in Thailand 40 years later
The 21-year civil war in Laos forced a large number of Lao people to seek refuge in Thailand, and many of them still live in the country today. Despite a long presence in Thailand, scores of them have not yet obtained Thai citizenship and are now more concerned ...
Poverty scheme moves to 2nd phase
The Pid Thong Lang Phra (doing good without any intention of getting anything back) royal programme seeks to secure the participation of educational institutions and private companies for its next five-year development plan to help address rural poverty. The project’s secretary-general MR Disnadda Diskul said the 2016-20 programme aims to tackle ...
Thai PM tells SRT to make mass-transit rail more affordable
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha told the State Railway of Thailand (SRT) on 14 December to make fares on new mass-transit rail lines affordable for the poor. Presiding over the start the test runs for the for the Purple Line between Bang Yai and Tao Poon, Gen Prayut said ...
Family of missing Laos activist Sombath Somphone reveal new evidence three years after disappearance
Fresh footage of an abducted activist’s classic American Jeep could crack open a three-year-old mystery in Laos, campaigners say. On 15 December 2012, Sombath Somphone was driving home when he was pulled over just metres from the Australian Embassy Recreation Club in the capital, Vientiane. Mr Sombath ...
