News
Laos eyes more rice sales to China
Laos’ Savannkhet province is looking to increase rice exports to China to more than 10,000 tons a year after the first order for 8,000 tons was received from the Chinese market this year. Laos on 10 December officially exported its first batch of rice to China from ...
Bagan hotels in limbo as government blocks licences
More than 40 hotels in one of the country’s prime tourist attractions cannot accept a single guest – because the authorities refuse to grant them licences. The “limbo hotels”, some of which are still under construction, are located in the protection zone declared by the Ministry of ...
Land tensions rise after talks snub
Already tired of lengthy delays on the promised return of confiscated land, farmers in Pyin Oo Lwin district are now furious officials stood them up at a negotiation meeting. The farmers said they were summoned by the Township Farmland Management and Statistics Department to discuss a ...
Court rejects plea to free detained student activist
The Criminal Court on 15 December dismissed a petition filed by the head of a student activist group seeking to have the arrest of Thammasat University student Thanet Anantawong ruled unlawful. Keep reading ...
Prayut kills 'unnecessary' GMO bill
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on 15 December dropped a controversial bill regulating genetically modified organisms (GMOs), saying the bill currently was unnecessary. The legislation was initiated long ago and its consideration should stop as there was no pressing need for it, the prime minister said after the ...
Red-shirt arsonists' light jail terms upped to life sentences
The Supreme Court on 14 December handed a life sentence to the man who led red-shirt protestors to torch Ubon Ratchathani’s provincial hall in 2010, overruling a lower court’s sentence of only one year. The high court initially gave the death penalty to 60-year-old Pichet Thabutda, a ...
Vietnam state firms sit on mountain of foreign debt
A new report from the Vietnam government says power monopoly Electricity of Vietnam tops the list of entities with foreign debts with debts of VND162 trillion (US$7.2 billion) as of the end of 2014. Vietnam last year signed 41 agreements for $4.7 billion worth of official development ...
UN urges Myanmar to tackle causes of opium scourge
Opium production in Myanmar has “stabilised” at stubbornly high levels, the United Nations said on 14 December, adding the government must address poverty and end the conflicts which drive farmers to grow illicit poppies. Myanmar, the world’s second largest opium producer after Afghanistan, has struggled to ...
Vietnam falls short on forestry protection plan
Vietnam is facing a critical reduction in forest areas five years after it implemented the national forest protection and development programme, forest authority officials said. Deputy Director of Viet Nam Forestry Administration, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) Nguyen Ba Ngai said nearly 1.2 million ...
EU gives boost to nutrition, food security in Xekong
The European Union is assisting the Laos Partnerships for Poverty Reduction and Women’s Empowerment Project in Dakcheung district, Xekong province, with a view to ensuring that children have access to nutritious food. As with other EU funded nutrition and food security projects in many provinces across ...
