Social development

Two journalists who were abducted and released by Border Guard Force (BGF) troops in Myawaddy Township, Karen State said they were tortured by the soldiers during interrogation. Naw Betty Han, a reporter for Frontier Myanmar, and Mar Naw, a photojournalist for Myanmar Times, were detained in the jungle ...

A project to improve access to, and quality of, basic education nationwide in Myanmar was approved today by the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors. The project, financed by a US$100 million credit from the International Development Association (IDA), will be implemented over four school ...

Laos government officials completed a three-week training course on advanced Geographic Information Systems, which was implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to enable them to undertake climate mapping and zoning. The training course, funded by the Global Environment Facility, covered spatial analysis, geo-databases, network ...

Rackety trucks rush across China’s border with its backwater neighbor, stirring up clouds of dust and drowning the tweets of tropical birds. Chinese projects to construct roads in one of Asia’s poorest countries date back to 1962 when Laos was subject to a proxy war between the global Cold ...

Civil society organisations yesterday identified physical, mental and sexual violence against women are still challenges yet to be addressed by the government. The NGOs also said the government has not done enough to open doors for women in institutions. Chak Sopheap, executive director of the Cambodian Center ...

Access to research in Myanmar will increase thanks to a new collaboration agreement between national and international partners, signed in Yangon today, and paving the way for a new national open access portal. The Myanmar Education, Research and Learning (MERAL) portal, to be launched in March, ...

The imprisonment of Houayheuang “Muay” Xayabouly, a young, female Lao environmentalist turned internet activist who simply asked for help for flood victims, should be a matter of deep concern to the international community. On Sept 5, 2018, Muay used her 17-minute-long Facebook Live broadcast to counter ...

Vietnam and the U.S. have announced that cooperation on cross-border crime has led to a U.S. grand jury indictment of an American teacher accused of traveling to the Southeast Asian nation to have sex with minors. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of California ...

Myanmar authorities on Wednesday arrested nearly 50 Rohingya Muslims in Yangon region as they attempted to flee the country for Malaysia, a lawmaker said, while a separate group of Rohingya detainees appeared in court in Ayeyarwady region to face charges on traveling without official permission ...

Members of Wisconsin’s Hmong community are speaking out after reports that the Trump administration is seeking authority to deport thousands of Hmong residents to Laos. A State Department spokesperson on Monday confirmed to Wisconsin Public Radio that the administration is calling on Laos to accept deported ...