News
Unseasonal rain to bring more misery in flood-hit Thai south
Thailand faces more hardship from the unseasonable floods that have killed 40 people in the southern part of the country. More rain is expected in the major rubber-producing and tourist region in coming days, a top disaster agency official said on January 15. Heavy rain ...
US builds blood centre for southern provinces
The US Embassy to Laos has built a blood centre in Champassak province as one of several major infrastructure assistance projects completed last year, at a total cost of over US$850,000. The new blood centre will provide emergency blood services to people in the southern ...
China to buy 20,000 tonnes of organic rice from Laos
China has approved the purchase of 20,000 tonnes of organic rice a year from Laos, according to Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith. Mr Thongloun said in talks with Khong district authorities in Champassak province last week that Chinese premier Li Keqiang had agreed to the deal. The ...
Sleeker tax system nets more revenue
Efforts to introduce an effective, modern taxation system appear to be paying off as government coffers swelled last year, giving the state more revenue to use for development at a time when donor aid is drying up. Tax collection revenue grew by 15 percent to ...
New dam on Mekong looms
Representatives from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam gathered in Vientiane on Thursday to launch a six-month consultation process on what would be the third mainstream hydropower dam in Laos’s Lower Mekong River. Laos first signalled its intention to move ahead with the proposed 912-megawatt Pak ...
Experts call for water storage for Mekong Delta
Environmentalists have underscored the importance of finding ways to store and share water resources in the Mekong Delta as climate change is inflicting huge damage on the arable delta. At a seminar in Can Tho City on January 10, they agreed this was a measure to ...
Deconstructing China’s energy security strategy
Given continued American global naval supremacy, which is unlikely to be challenged successfully in the foreseeable future, Beijing’s highest strategic priority is to ensure energy security by connecting friendly major oil and gas producers to China via pipelines transiting through land routes beyond the effective ...
Vietnam facing water security challenges
Vietnam’s demand for water is skyrocketing while water resources are being depleted, certain river basins are being overexploited and competition for water resources is soaring. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment said in a report that the basins of some rivers like Ma, Huong and ...
Indonesia eases ban on mineral exports
Indonesia’s Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry on January 12 announced sweeping changes to mining regulations that allow exports of nickel ore and bauxite for another five years under certain conditions. The announcement illustrates the challenges facing the resource-rich country, which instituted a ban on mineral ore ...
Honda idles Thai auto capacity amid weak sales
Honda Motor will halt one of its three automobile assembly lines in Thailand by the end of March, a move that amounts to a capacity reduction in a market short on growth. One of the two lines at the Japanese automaker’s plant in Ayutthaya Province, ...
