People and government

Candidates for Myanmar’s main opposition party are continuing to face hurdles campaigning in Arakan State, with local administrators in several townships reportedly declining to facilitate the party’s activities. The Irrawaddy spoke with six candidates from the National League for Democracy (NLD) competing in races in northern Arakan ...

A United Nations rights investigator raised concern on 28 October about whether Myanmar’s election next month could be considered free and fair because dozens of candidates had been disqualified and hundreds of thousands of people denied the right to vote. Yanghee Lee, UN special rapporteur on rights in ...

Laos and the Republic of Korea have enjoyed growing bilateral relations and cooperation over the past two decades since they established diplomatic ties on 25 October 1995. Officials of both sides hailed the diplomatic and cooperation achievements at a ceremony this week at the Lao Embassy ...

Bokeo provincial authorities held a groundbreaking ceremony on 27 October for a new hospital including inpatient as well as maternal and child healthcare facilities in Huayxai-neua village,Huayxai district. Actual construction work on the new hospital building commenced in June and it is expected to be completed in ...

Laos and Thailand have made progress in their cooperation on border demarcation as well as collaboration in economic, health and social development efforts. This was the conclusion of the 20th Lao-Thai Joint Commission meeting held in Chiang Rai, Thailand, earlier this week, co-chaired by Laos’ Deputy ...

Asia’s largest sugar producer, Mitr Phol, is responsible for violating the rights of hundreds of villagers in Oddar Meanchey who saw their land grabbed, homes destroyed and livestock killed to make way for plantations, according to the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand (NHRCT). The Thai ...

Cambodia has been named among states accused of using counter-terrorism measures to clamp down on human rights and civil society in a report released this week by the United Nations’ special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism. Speaking in New York on 26 October, the British ...

Laos failed attempt to win a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council in a secret vote in New York was greeted with relief on 29 October by a leading Lao human rights group, which urged the communist government to adhere to U.N. rights treaties ...

Rising temperatures and humidity due to climate change are likely to increase the number of days with unsafe “heat stress,” putting Thailand at risk of a significant drop in productivity, a research firm said on 28 October. Thailand – with three of the 50 highest-risk cities ...

The confrontation is immediate — a hundred cluster bombs suspended from the ceiling on fishing wire. This is the display that greets visitors to the Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise (COPE) centre in Vientiane. Between 1964 and 1973, more than 580,000 US bombing missions made the once-tranquil ...