Social development

A coalition of civil society organisations (CSOs) has produced a document laying out in detail the projected dire effects of climate change on Cambodia, in the hopes it will help their voice be heard among the 25,000 delegates attending the upcoming Paris Climate Talks in ...

Domestic violence is one of the issues that might be brought up now that the number of female representatives in Mandalay Region Hluttaw has risen from one to four. The election of three new female members in last week’s election – all members of the National ...

Draft changes to a law outlawing prostitution have been sent back to committee after an upper house MP objected and argued that the law should be amended to protect, rather than punish, sex workers. Yangon Region parliamentarian U Phone Myint Aung urged MPs to look past ...

Myanmar’s political parties will meet on 21 November to select 16 representatives to take the lead on the peace process, but it remains unclear how they will be chosen. The 16 will sit on the 48-member Union Political Dialogue Joint Committee, which is drafting the framework ...

Internally displaced persons living in camps on the outskirts of Sittwe have expressed hope the National League for Democracy’s election landslide will pave the way to ensuring their human rights and ending discrimination against them, saying little has improved in the three years since the ...

Within seven days of being treated at Binh Chanh District Hospital’s paediatrics ward, a 13-year boy diagnosed with dengue fever was able to return home, fully recovered, a testament to the hospital’s improved capacity to treat the disease. Dr To Thi Kim Phung, the ward’s head, ...

The UN refugee agency criticised Thailand on 17 November for deporting two refugees who were about to be resettled in a third country. Rights groups identified the two as Chinese pro-democracy activists, although the Bangkok office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees did not give their ...

Thailand’s Education Ministry plans to kick off its six-week “train-the-trainer” programme for the first group of 500 Thai teachers to teach English in state-run schools in March next year. Deputy Education Minister Teerakiat Jareonsettasin, who oversees the programme, said on 17 November the teachers will be trained ...

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on 17 November that an arrest warrant issued against Cambodia’s opposition leader Sam Rainsy was a worrisome development and called for dialogue.  Meanwhile, in Geneva, a UN watchdog questioned Chinese officials over alleged widespread use of torture in the country’s prisons, deaths ...

Two young girls, aged 13 and 8, have died after accidentally detonating a landmine near a small village in central Shan State. The victims died at the bank of the Tein Creek, on the outskirts of Mat Lan village in Laihka Township. According to a third child, ...