People and government

The borrowing is a part of an executive emergency decree empowering the Thailand’s Finance Ministry to seek loans up to one trillion baht ($32 Bln) to combat economic and social problems resulting from COVID-19 . Finance Minister Arkhom Termpitayapaisith and Hideaki Iwasaki, country director for the ...

A Cambodian newspaper publisher who made critical comments about Prime Minister Hun Sen on Facebook has been sentenced to 18 months in prison.  A Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday jailed Ros Sokhet for incitement and ordered him to pay a fine of $500 (2 million riels), said Sam Sokong, ...

For the first time in a year and a half, a confirmed human case of avian influenza A(H5N1) has been reported. The case involves a one-year-old girl from Salavan, aka Saravane province, in the south of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Laos). She became sick on ...

A multinational technology company recently held its annual “Seeds for the Future 2020” event in Bangkok to offer talented and motivated university students the opportunity to enhance their digital skills through a hands-on training program with leading ICT experts. A group of 15 students from Chulalongkorn ...

President Moon Jae-in on Friday held a summit with leaders of Southeast Asia’s Mekong River nations via video links, in which he promised to contribute US$10 million to help provide new coronavirus vaccines to developing nations. “We will contribute $10 million for coronavirus vaccine support to ...

Thailand finds itself in a pressure cooker these days, dealing with pre-Covid-19 economic weaknesses, the lack of longer-term responses to the economic and social crises from the pandemic, and uncertainty about how much longer people can hold on before falling into poverty, losing jobs or ...

Health officials in Nakhon Ratchasima admit that eight children have been infected with Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) but deny there’s been an outbreak of the airborne disease in nurseries. The children were aged 2-5 and are recovering after receiving hospital treatment, said Dr Narinrat Pichayakamin, a ...

Lao children will benefit from a project to strengthen education, funded by Room to Read at a cost of more than US$3.6 million. The ‘Enhancing Education for Lao Children Project phase V’ is also financing the Reading Promotion Project in Attapeu province, with US$135,935 provided by ...

Lao officials and representatives of the local office of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) have discussed progress on the first draft of the forestry strategy till 2030 which aims to push the country’s forest coverage by 70 percent. The two sides held the 6th Joint ...

The summit and related meetings, slated for November 12-15, “are the most important activity of ASEAN this year, attracting widespread attention both inside and outside the region,” Nguyen Quoc Dung, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and General Secretary of the National ASEAN 2020 Committee, said ...