The poor

Despite its being a tiny landlocked nation, Laos has made some inroads in its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), particularly in providing primary healthcare to Laotian mothers and children in the country’s hinterlands. This will be the message that Laos President Choummaly Sayasone will bring to New ...

As the United Nations meets this week to draw up a new set of sustainable development benchmarks, the era of the body’s landmark Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is coming to a close, with some wondering – in spite of gains – what efficacy such targets ...

Farmers’ leaders have called for an interest-free debt moratorium of 5-10 years if the government bans the planting of a second rice crop for the third time this year. Thai Farmers Association chairman Wichian Puanglamjiak on 22 September said if the the government asks  farmers to not to plant second-crop ...

Provincial officials have 30 days to complete the inspection of rice stored at 1,800 warehouses nationwide under a deadline set by the National Rice Policy Committee chaired by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha. Keep reading ...

Four weeks after President U Thein Sein declared a national state of emergency, the disaster relief effort is still struggling to feed all the flood victims. Community leaders say gaps in the coordination of aid are to blame. More than 451,000 disaster-affected people in states and regions ...

Recently halted after severe flooding that inundated swathes of the country, Myanmar will resume rice exports as scheduled from mid-September, the country’s rice federation said on 31 August. Members of the Myanmar Rice Federation had agreed to a temporary pause on exports and to sell domestically at ...

The poverty rate has reduced dramatically in rural households from 27.1 per cent in 2012 to 13.2 per cent in 2014 while access to public services such as vocational and educational training and health care has improved. This was revealed at a workshop held on 26 ...

A ‘model village’ built by the government offers little improvement in living standards for several hundred families displaced by conflict in Kachin State. Ngwe Pyaw, which means “wealthy village” in Myanmar language, was founded in May 2014 as a pilot resettlement site. But it is wealthy ...

While street food vending is among Phnom Penh’s most visible cottage industries, proprietors are left in the legal dust as authorities demand unexplained “fines”. Dy Poch, the operator of a mobile grilled meat stall in front of the White Building tenements on Sothearos Boulevard, would rather ...

Myanmar halted rice shipments after floods over the past month inundated farmland, raising the specter of supply disruptions in the sixth-biggest exporter. The Myanmar Rice Federation voluntarily suspended exports to prevent an increase in prices after more than 200,000 acres (about 81,000 hectares) of paddy fields ...