Social development
Study links deforestation, malaria
New research conducted in Malaysia has drawn a link between deforestation and a rise in a specific strain of malaria often carried by macaques, a link the study’s lead author says could hold true for Cambodia as well. The results of the study, published in Emerging ...
Expert calls for diabetes campaign
Diabetes is harming more people than landmines, a leading expert says. U Tint Swe Latt of the Myanmar Diabetes Association told The Myanmar Times that most amputations of hands and legs resulted from the disease, and not from the landmines that still litter parts of the ...
Fighting continues to expand in Shan State
Fighting is spreading over larger areas of northern Shan State as the Tatmadaw and a newly allied ethnic armed group move in reinforcements, according to the Ta’ang National Liberation Army. Villagers forced to flee the conflict are reported to have scattered across five townships. The current round ...
New group aims to help cut Myanmar road deaths by half
Road deaths need to be cut by 2000 a year or they will exceed regional targets, a new traffic-safety NGO says. ASEAN has called on member countries to reduce road deaths by half over the next five years, and the Myanmar Organisation for Road Safety, which ...
Civil societies call for more space at table
Civil society organisations have called for more representation around the negotiating table when the government and ethnic armed groups launch the next stage of the peace process in early January. CSOs from across the country meeting in Yangon on 17 December complained that they had been completely ...
Armed group embroiled in illegal housing scam
People duped into buying government-owned land beside the Yangon-Mandalay Highway on 17 December urged police to take action against those responsible, shortly after the authorities moved in and evicted thousands from the Hlegu site. More than 1600 acres had been subdivided and sold in 2400-square-foot plots since ...
US should withhold trade, aid from Laos barring rights improvements: Advocacy leader
Washington must withhold trade agreements and assistance from Laos until its government can demonstrate concrete progress on human rights and democratic reform in the one party communist country, the head of an advocacy group has recommended to U.S. lawmakers.Mutually beneficial trade arrangements and political exchanges ...
Deaths in childbirth plunge
The number of mothers who died in labour has nearly halved over the past four years, down from 182 fatalities in 2011 to 100 this year, the Ministry of Health’s research commission into maternal mortality revealed on 17 December. The dramatically reduced death rate was largely ...
Overcrowding plagues Cambodia's classrooms
A primary school teacher’s complaint this week that his class numbers nearly 70 students in Oddar Meanchey’s Anlong Veng town has shed light on the broader issue of overcrowding in Cambodia’s rural schools. The Ministry of Education acknowledges a severe shortfall of teachers, and has tried to ...
Myanmar still behind ASEAN peers in UN report
Despite continuing its positive trend and rise through the ranks, Myanmar remains identified as a country with low human development in the annual United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Human Development Report, released on 16 December. The report – titled Work for Human Development – ranks Myanmar ...
