People and government

The National League for Democracy-led government’s first crack at formulating an annual Union budget has proposed only a modest increase in defence spending, with the lion’s share earmarked for the Ministry of Planning and Finance. Submitted to parliament yesterday, the K20.896 trillion budget for the ...

The issue of illegal tenants and land compensation remains a major challenge for the Yangon Region government, and, in the absence of solutions, the matter has taken a new turn with factory owners now accusing farmers of trespassing and extortion. U Aye Thaung, chair of the ...

A public consultation on the regulations that will accompany Myanmar’s new investment law threw the spotlight onto the country’s complicated land legislation once again. But although they acknowledge the barriers that land rules present to potential investors, officials in charge of the investment law regulations ...

The waves of the Indian Ocean crash against the breakwater at Bawur Bay, a protective arm shielding the Pacitan coal-fired power plant. A few meters away, a barge full of coal is berthed. Its cargo is unloaded onto a conveyor belt and transported about 500 ...

While Cambodia in theory offers full citizenship to members of its Khmer Krom minority, in practise, many members of the community remain in a legal shadowland, unable to access a wide range of rights, a new report released yesterday shows. Despite a professed open-door policy ...

The Education Ministry wants to upgrade its Office of Higher Education Commission into a ministry to lift university standards. The goal is to turn Thai universities into research and innovation drivers, and highly skilled and qualified workforce providers, in line with the 20-year national strategy and ...

Vietnam ranks 19th among 20 countries which have students gaining the best achievements in the latest OECD rankings. The Independent, in its article titled ‘The best countries in the world to get an education’ published on December 8, 2016, named 20 of the best performing countries ...

Laos is making hectic preparations for the building of one more hydropower dam – Pak Beng – on the Mekong river section which runs through Oudomxay province, despite strong warnings about the influence on the lower course, especially in Vietnam’s Mekong River Delta. The Mekong ...

Health experts from across the country met in Vientiane on January 26 to discuss the interventions undertaken and lessons learnt over the past year in an effort to plan the fight against dengue in 2017. Within the third week of January this year there have been ...

The final master plan of Hin Nam Nor National Protected Area in Khammuan province for submission to the World Heritage list will be sent to UNESCO early next year for assessment. An official for the Hin Nam Nor National Protected Area, who asked not to ...