News

Environmental groups have expressed alarm at the Laotian National Assembly’s approval of the concession for the Don Sahong Dam project, which has been described as an “ecological time bomb” about to be dropped on the Mekong River. The Laotian government and the project’s developer, Malaysia’s MegaFirst ...

Farmers in Ha Noi’s suburban Phuc Tho District are making more money after turning to a new crop, asparagus. Bui Thi Lang, head of the district’s Hiep Thuan Commune’s farmers’ association, said that they started to grow asparagus earlier this year after local authorities sought crops ...

A group of Thai football fans were arrested after violent clashes with Lao officials during a youth match in Vientiane.  Keep reading ...

Lao police on 5 September released 25 Thais who stirred up violence during a football match in Vientiane on 4 September, the Thai embassy said. The embassy said Lao authorities contacted Thai diplomats in Vientiane to arrange for the hooligans to be sent home and they ...

Thailand will prohibit family members from joining migrant workers coming to Thailand from neighbouring countries beginning in 2017, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said 4 September. He hinted that health insurance and education costs for non-working spouses and children of foreign workers was creating a burden on government ...

Police are giving weight to possible connections between the Erawan shrine and Sathon pier bombings and Uighur smuggling rings allowing migrants to flee China and head to Turkey. National police chief Somyot Poompunmuang on 3 September said as police pieced information together, it was becoming increasingly clear that those ...

Laos’ parliament has approved the concession agreement for a controversial dam project, with construction expected to begin before the end of 2015, media sources reported earlier this week. Keep reading ...

More than 1000 factory workers have lost their job in the wake of the new minimum wage, according to the Ministry of Labour. Just one factory has so far closed however. U Maung Maung Hlaing, head of the Labour Laws Inspection Department in Hlaing Tharyar township, said ...

Lack of funding is impeding a new – and potentially significant – mechanism for decentralising social services, a recent study has found. The Asia Foundation study, “Municipal Governance in Myanmar: An Overview of Development Affairs Organizations”, was released on 1 September. The findings focus on development ...

Nearly 100 experts on tourism gathered in a southern town of Laos on 4 September to discuss ways to promote the country’s eco-friendly tourism, a key to boosting its local economy. Under the theme of “Reinforcing sustainable Tourism in Laos,” the one-day workshop held in Pakse, offered ...