News
Myanma railways to offer compensation for circular line upgrade affected
Compensation is on the agenda for Myanma Railways, as planned up- grades to the Yangon circular railway gather steam. Myanma Railways general manager U Htun Aung Thin told The Myanmar Times there would be negotiation and compensation for those affected by the project. “We held ...
Hydropower review taskforce stalls, waiting for instructions
A Commission member on the taskforce reviewing hydropower projects said the team has yet to hear back from the president about the first submitted report, which is believed to have advised cancelling the controversial, Chinese-backed Myitsone dam. The first report on hydropower projects along the ...
US President-elect Trump vows to withdraw from TPP on first day in office
US President-elect Donald Trump announced on November 21 that he will withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership on his first day in office. “I’m going to issue a notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country,” ...
Vietnam to host APEC gathering in 2017
As the APEC leaders’ meeting wraps up in Peru, attention now turns to Vietnam, hosts of next year’s APEC. “It’s ten years since the last time Vietnam hosted APEC, and a lot has changed with the country since then. In the last six or seven ...
Japanese aid package funding three JICA projects
Three projects funded by part of a recently announced US$7.7 billion Japanese aid package are under way, according to the Japanese International Cooperation Institute. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced earlier this month that his country would provide 800 billion yen in aid, loans and ...
Protest seeks K5600 minimum wage
More than 2000 factory workers staged a protest this weekend in Yangon’s Hlaing Tharyar township, demanding that the government increase the daily minimum wage in light of rising costs of living and inflation. “Unless something is done to stop increases to living expenses, soon workers ...
Small-scale farming threatens rainforests in Sumatra
Rainforest cover in the Indonesian archipelago has since declined rapidly in recent years giving way to large-scale plantations of rubber and oil palm. A recent study published in Nature Communications finds that small-scale farming can be just as damaging to biodiversity as the plantations, since ...
69m people breathed toxic smoke from 2015 Indonesian fires: study
Sixty-nine million people were exposed to toxic haze as a result of last year’s devastating wildfires in Indonesia, a new study has found. Little is known about the health impacts of Indonesia’s annual fires, which spread uncontrollably because the country’s vast peat swamp zones have ...
Military training areas can be important wildlife refuges: new study
Bombs and biodiversity can go hand in hand, a new study has found. Military training areas — used for the training of armed forces — can maintain biodiversity and even support species threatened with extinction, despite years of repeated bombing, fires and other disturbances, scientists ...
The 5 worst places to be an internet user in Southeast Asia
The power of the internet has been in the spotlight in the last few weeks thanks to the U.S. election – but while American netizens have to contend with fake news and annoying status updates, in many parts of the world just sharing an opinion can ...
