News
Better Rice initiative to help Mekong farmers
About 3,000 farmers from three Mekong Delta provinces will benefit from a project called Better Rice Initiative Asia that has been launched in Can Tho City. Carried out as part of the Integrated Coastal Management Programme, the project aims to promote private-public partnerships along the rice ...
China, Laos to build $6.3 bln railway project by 2020
China aims to complete laying a 418-kilometre (260-mile) railway from a border town to Laos by 2020, the official China Economic Herald reported, as the economic giant seeks a new route into the emerging markets of Southeast Asia. The two countries agreed on 13 November to jointly ...
Vietnamese Deputy PM highlights importance of Mekong countries' partnership
Vietnam’s Deputy Prime Minister cum Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh has highlighted that co-operation among upper and lower Mekong countries for the sustainable management and use of the Mekong River should be the top priority for the Mekong-Lancang partnership. Speaking at the first Mekong-Lancang Foreign Ministers’ ...
Vietnam economy won’t be better next year: economist
Vietnam’s economy will continue to recover but at a slow pace next year, and the sustainability of its rebound appears weak, a senior economist has warned. Nguyen Dinh Cung, head of the Central Institute for Economic Management, said: “The recovery in 2013-15 was driven by the ...
Thousands sign petition against Mekong dam construction
Huynh Thi Kim Duyen said her community in Ca Mau Province has seen a significant decline in fish stocks and water levels in the Mekong River in the past decade. Duyen is among thousands of people in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand who have signed off on ...
Promotion of Lao local wood industry to improve livelihoods
The Value Adding to Lao PDR Plantation Timber Products 2 (VALTIP2) project is promoting the improvement of livelihoods for farmers and processing workers in the Lao wood industry. VALTIP2 on 11 November officially opened a veneer processing and products research centre at the Faculty of Forestry, National ...
New law to strengthen civil servant management in Laos
All Lao civil servants, including leaders will have new uniform regulations imposed on them if a newly drafted law on public service is promulgated. This is the perspective of Laos’ new proposed civil service management law drafted by the Ministry of Home Affairs, which is responsible for ...
Floating Vientiane pump stations to access river water
Water storage engineers in Vientiane are now installing pumps on boats moored over deep sections of the Mekong River as alternatives to riverbank pumps to access sufficient water supplies. Currently, riverbank pumps are still taking water from the Mekong to reservoirs but the level of water ...
Four die in southern Thailand bombing
A bomb blast at a village checkpoint in Thailand’s far south killed four people and wounded four others, police said on 13 November, in the latest deadly attack to strike the insurgency-plagued region. The bomb exploded late on 12 November evening in Khok Pho district of Pattani, ...
Myanmar President to meet political parties on 15 November
President U Thein Sein has called political parties to a meeting in Yangon on 15 November to discuss the post-election political situation, party sources say. U Nay Min Kyaw, secretary of National Democratic Force (NDF), said that an invitation letter sent to the party stated that ...
