Social development

Rice crops in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar have taken a hit from flooding and conflict this year, casting a shadow on a mostly sunny outlook for Southeast Asia’s output of the key grain as the region deals with other potential longer term supply troubles, farm ...

With electricity exports to Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Malaysia and even Singapore, Laos has arguably realised its ambition to be the battery of Southeast Asia. The bulk of these exports are from hydropower. Nearly 80 dams dot the landlocked country, and more along the Mekong River are in ...

Since its adoption of a market economy in the last 1980s, Vietnam has become what some have referred to as a new “Asian Tiger.” Over the last 25 years, Vietnam’s economy has enjoyed an average annual growth rate of more than 6 percent. Between 1994 and 2014, ...

From cries of “fake news” in the United States and Brazil to the Marcos family’s return to power in the Philippines, the growing role of misinformation and disinformation in the global political landscape is a very real concern. The spread of deliberately deceitful and unintentionally ...

Houa* sat on the doorstep of her bamboo house helping her grandmother pluck a chicken. She is not even ten years old, but she is learning how to become a ‘good wife.’ As the Covid pandemic and economic crisis hit the family hard, Houa dropped out ...

In the remote and densely forested northeastern province of Mondulkiri in Cambodia, Song Pro, a member of the indigenous Bunong community, stares at a rubber plantation that was once a sacred forest. When the war in Indochina came to Cambodia in the 1970s, the forest saved ...

Twelve teams of directors and producers from Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar have been selected to take part in a ten-day filmmaking workshop this December. This is the second year running that Netflix is a major sponsor of the Short Film Camp led by Purin ...

On a sunset wander through Hanoi, you may be surprised by the peculiar sight of men haphazardly perched in nooks and crannies playing the ancient game of xiangqi. The strangely spectacular Chinese strategy game has for generations been hugely popular in Hanoi, though interestingly it seems only ...

In an attempt to continue promoting young women’s rights and gender equality, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs led the commemoration of International Day of the Girl Child in the Kingdom in partnership with Plan International Cambodia. The celebration presided over by Im Sithe, Secretary of State ...

Thailand took a momentous step on 24 August  —not only because of a shock decision by the Constitutional Court to suspend Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha from his duties, but also because parliament finally passed a historic anti-torture bill. Once fully enacted, the Bill, formally known as ...