News
Myanmar Military Targets Other Ethnic Groups After Driving Rohingya Out
Myanmar’s military, fresh off a bloody campaign that drove most of the country’s Muslim Rohingya minority into neighboring Bangladesh, has launched a new offensive against the armed forces of an ethnic group along the northern border with China using helicopter gunships, jet fighters and heavy ...
Revised sex education curriculum planned for secondary schools
The government and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), together with civil society organisations, are discussing the inclusion of comprehensive sexuality education in the curriculum at lower and upper secondary schools. Keep reading ...
A Fragile New ‘Normal’ Descends on South China Sea Claimants
The United States and China have apparently reached a tacit agreement to disagree and maintain a leaky status quo in the South China Sea. Not coincidentally, relations on this issue between Asean claimants and between Asean and China are more or less at the same place. Keep ...
Three new border gates on the way
Cambodia and Thailand have agreed to open three new border checkpoints to facilitate trade and the movement of people across the border, according to Thailand’s ambassador to Cambodia. Keep reading ...
Rural poor squeezed by land concessions in Mekong region - report
Companies acquired concessions amounting to the size of a small European country, while rural residents of Southeast Asia’s Mekong region saw their landholdings shrink or disappear over the past two decades, according to researchers. More than 5.1 million hectares of land – an area larger than ...
Farming in transition: How smallholder farms in the Mekong could thrive amid a changing landscape
Much of a smallholder farmer’s resources are already found in the farm. The key is knowing how to efficiently use and recycle these resources so that nothing is ever wasted and that everything goes back into the system. Farmers in the Mekong are getting help ...
Record drug haul in Malaysia
Customs officials in Malaysia have seized a record amount of crystal methamphetamine, worth 18 million dollars. It was concealed in a shipment from Myanmar. [] The UN Office on Drugs and Crime recently warned that the production of methamphetamine has reached an alarming level in the ...
Meth spreading across region as supply spikes
The Golden Triangle’s methamphetamine problem is spreading beyond the Mekong region, with high volumes of the drug being seized in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Malaysia and Indonesia. Figures revealed yesterday show that from 2008 to last year, meth tablet seizures in the region increased from 50 ...
Ban the plastic bottle
Pressure is mounting on hotel chains to join campaigns that will reduce the use of plastic in the hospitality and tourism industry. The Mekong Tourism Coordinating Office’s executive director, Jens Thraenhart, confirmed in his weekly despatch to travel partners that the blight of plastic pollution would ...
Secure access to land critical to achieve an end to hunger
Addressing fairly the challenges of land tenure for hundreds of millions of people in Asia and the Pacific is a critical step that policy makers must take if the region is to meet the 2030 deadline for zero hunger and eradication of poverty, the Food ...
