News
Children of Vietnamese expats in Laos receive scholarships
Sixty-two scholarships were awarded on 15 February to children of Vietnamese expats living in Laos who wish to study in Vietnam, taking the total number of such grants this year to a record 92, according to newswire VietnamPlus. The scholarships are jointly sponsored by the Vietnamese Embassy ...
ANZ still owes villagers over sugar loan: Oxfam
Australian banking giant ANZ has come under fire for its response to a scandal over its financing of a sugar plantation previously linked to forced evictions and child labour in Kampong Speu province. Titled Still Banking on Land Grabs, Oxfam’s Australia branch released a report on ...
Fighting infant mortality with phone alerts
A new Cambodian maternal-health initiative is seeking to patch a persistent knowledge gap among new mothers by providing information via mobile phone alerts on optimal post-natal care during the first 1,000 days of a baby’s life. Cambodia’s national infant mortality rate, despite improvements, remains stubbornly high ...
Vietnamese language website for diaspora to be upgraded
Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam has approved the education and training ministry’s plan to upgrade the website tiengvietonline.com.vn, meant for teaching of the mother tongue to the Vietnamese disapora. Dam said the upgrade work would meet the increasing demand for learning of the mother tongue ...
Lao people fighting for change 'deserve better than silence'
Anne-Sophie Gindroz, a former Swiss humanitarian worker in Laos, observed forced displacement and evictions of rural populations to make way for dams and other controversial infrastructure and plantation projects in the impoverished Southeast Asian country. Gindroz, who was the country director for Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation, ...
Seven community-based tourism projects planned in Myanmar
Myanmar’s first community-based tourism (CBT) project, one of seven planned, is up and running in Magway region, much to the delight of local residents. At a recent launch event here, community leader San Htun said the members of four villages joining the scheme threw full support ...
Thai food exports to Myanmar surge
The National Food Institute of Thailand’s Ministry of Industry says small and medium-sized food processing businesses should target Myanmar given the jump in Thai food imports. The institute revealed that Thai food exports to Myanmar increased 24 per cent last year. That makes Myanmar the world’s fourth largest importer ...
Making Bangkok a little bit safer
The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration is drawing up additional regulations to raise the standards of car park safety barriers and to control the brightness levels on electronic billboards. Taiwut Khankaew, director of the BMA’s Building Control Division, said discussions were under way about the new regulations ...
Vietnamese Government tightens purse strings in 2016
Vietnam’s Prime Minister has approved the Government’s overall programme to practice thrift and avoid wasteful expenditure in 2016. The programme is one of the key tasks in 2016, the first year in which the resolution of the 12th National Party Congress and the socio-economic development plan for ...
Vietnam Government calls on local firms to improve foreign market strategies
The Government has approved a plan to help Vietnamese businesses directly participate in foreign distribution networks through 2020 to help Vietnamese goods penetrate international markets, a senior Government official said. The project aims to promote exports by ensuring that Vietnamese products are directly sold into major ...
