News
World Food Program extends aid program to end of 2017
The UN World Food Programme will extend its current Myanmar operations into the end of 2017, despite a funding shortfall of US$40 million. The announcement comes as the organisation continues its early recovery missions in areas affected by the monsoon floods in August, as well as internally ...
Authorities introduce new safety measures in Hpakant
Amid warnings of fresh disaster beneath the lowering waste tips, Kachin State government officials and civil society are mobilising to protect local residents and demand accountability from the companies they blame for the death of more than 100 people. Rescuers have abandoned attempts to recover any ...
Myanmar Central Bank in spotlight over coins
The ire of MPs over the 11.95 percent supplementary budget request from the outgoing government was directed on 3 December toward the Central Bank. While its request for K59.059 billion represents just 2.3 percent of the K2.464 trillion budget proposal, MPs said it was a prime example ...
China signs rice, rubber deals with Thailand
China has signed rice and rubber purchase deals with Thailand as part of the Thai-Sino railway development agreement. Negotiations over the railway are continuing. The deals were signed at the ninth meeting of the Joint Committee on Railway Cooperation in Bangkok on 3 December. Keep reading ...
Cheapest Thai fragrant rice for six years
The global price of Hom Mali fragrant rice has dropped to the lowest in six years as growers sell their grain direct to millers-cum-exporters instead of joining a state-run bank’s scheme to increase rice prices. Keep reading ...
Financial illiteracy persists as banks blossom
Most Cambodians continue to have low financial literacy even as an increasing number of them are beginning to embrace the formal banking sector, according to a recent Standard & Poor’s report. The international credit rating firm’s Global FinLit Survey showed that only 18 per cent of ...
Cambodia's labour law delayed after protests
The government has agreed to delay the passage of a controversial law governing the trade union sector, announcing it would set up a national workshop to work out the legislation’s thornier clauses on 15 December. The decision comes after repeated protestations from a coalition of 23 ...
Cambodian Government touts internet record despite telecom law concerns
Government officials defended Cambodia’s record on internet freedom on 3 December, despite concerns that recent and proposed legislation could curtail the rights of those speaking out online. Addressing a conference on the issue in Phnom Penh, Meas Sophorn, undersecretary of state at the Ministry of Information, ...
New fisheries office inaugurated in Kep
The Fisheries Administration (FA) plans to strengthen its presence in Kep province with the opening of a new cantonment there, officials announced in an official ceremony on 3 December morning. The move comes after what conservationists say has been a steady increase in illegal trawling in Kep ...
Vietnam coffee industry in trouble as prices plunge
Despite efforts to reduce costs and increase yields, Vietnam’s coffee exports have faced a difficult year, delegates heard at a seminar in Ho Chi Minh City on 2 December. “The international coffee market has seen unexpected trends and seriously impacted Vietnamese exports,” Deputy Minister of Agriculture ...
