People and government

With so many supporters soon to be in high places, the Former Political Prisoner Society has high expectations of the incoming National League for Democracy government. About 100 of the MPs preparing to take their seats on 1 February, including NLD leader Daw Aung San Suu ...

A collection of houses and other structures belonging to nine families living alongside a canal in the capital’s Russey Keo district was destroyed on 18 January by a large group of men sent by local authorities. The Beung Salang villagers had been previously told to vacate a ...

Despite rapid and complex changes in the world, Laos has been able to accomplish its socio-economic development plans over the past five years (2011-15) under the leadership of the Party. Secretary General of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party and President of the Laos, Mr Choummaly Sayasone, ...

Ethnic armed groups or militia may have abducted 15 young men and women who went missing in late December, local residents fear. The men, from the Shan and Ta’ang communities in Nant Onn village, Muse township, Shan State, had gone out celebrating the Shan New ...

Hard-line Buddhist monks and their supporters again took to the streets on 17 January to protest the conviction of the two Myanmar migrant workers condemned to death for murder and rape on Koh Tao island in Thailand. The Committee to Protect Race and Religion, better known by ...

Japanese government will lend 95 billion yen (US$811.53 million) in official development loans (ODA) for three transport infrastructure projects and one climate change response plan in Vietnam, the government website has reported.   The loans, whose agreements were signed in Hanoi on 15 January, were part of ...

The Defence Ministry will invest in high-technology devices to protect state agencies’ websites from being hacked again, says Gen Prawit Wongsuwan.   Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Gen Prawit said on 14 January the government is looking at various high-tech options to protect the websites from hackers ...

The Thai Public Broadcasting Service (Thai PBS) has appointed a former manager of Thai Health Promotion Foundation (ThaiHealth) as its new chief. Two-thirds of the nine-member ThaiPBS policy committee voted Krissada Raungarreerat in as the new director-general of Thailand’s first public broadcasting service. The panel had ...

Legal cases will be opened against 175 candidates in the November 2015 general election for failing to submit their campaign expenses on time, according to the Union Election Commission. “The election tribunal will start hearing those cases on 21 January in Nay Pyi Taw,” said U ...

Organisers of makeshift camps for villagers fleeing a military offensive in remote areas of Rakhine State are appealing to the international community for aid. More than 300 civilians, all of whom are said to be ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, have fled to the safety of monasteries following ...