News

Following an at-times turbulent process, Cambodia on 8 October set the 2016 minimum wage for garment workers at $140 per month, a $12 increase from the current rate of $128 but well below union demands for $160. Labour Minister Ith Samheng announced that the government’s wage-setting group, ...

Laos’ World Heritage town of Luang Prabang is on target to hit 500,000 visitors by the end of this year after reaching 470,279 in the first nine months. Keep reading ...

After beginning in 2012, the construction of the US$3.5 billion Xayaboury dam is now about 50 per cent complete, according to a report by Vientiane Times. When it becomes operational in 2019, about 95 percent of the 1,285-megawatt electricity produced will be sold to Thailand.  The dam, ...

The wife of a jailed Polish citizen of Lao heritage has asked Poland’s justice ministry to request the Lao government to transfer her husband from a detention center in the Southwestern Asian nation to one in his European home country. Barbara Paklak-Thammavong told RFA’s Laos Service ...

The fate of the last surviving Irrawaddy river dolphins on the Laos-Cambodian border hangs in the balance after a Laos government official was reported as saying this week that construction of the dam would begin by the end of the year.Keep reading ...

Hydropower dams in parts of Southeast Asia are being canceled or suspended as governments face stronger opposition, forcing them to take greater responsibility for environmental and social impact or look to other sources of energy. The resistance, in a region where vast hydropower potential remains untapped, ...

Japan’s official development assistance to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has been an effective “investment in the future” for the 10-nation region and Japan, bolstering development and prosperity for both parties, according to a government paper released Friday. The ODA White Paper for 2013 calls ...

Efforts are being scaled up to stem a further spread of drug-resistant malaria in Southeast Asia. “The emergence of resistance threatens worldwide malaria control and treatment since there is no alternative to this drug if its efficacy decreases further and the resistance spreads outside the ...

More than 120 Myanmar fishermen arrested by the Indian navy for illegally plying India’s waters were returned to Myanmar last week, a government official said. U Aung Kyaw, deputy director of the Department of Relief and Resettlement, said on 10 July that the return of the ...