Infrastructure

Phones require face scans in Thailand’s Muslim Deep South

At first, Haslina Awae was willing to stop using a phone to avoid providing a scan of her face to the Thai government. Awae and other residents of Thailand’s Deep South, which comprise the three southernmost Malay-Muslim majority provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala, were required ...

JACK BROOK

Extension to HCMC-Mekong Delta expressway opens to traffic

A ceremony was held Wednesday to put Trung Luong – My Thuan Expressway into service for the upcoming Lunar New Year. Nguyen Tan Dong, CEO of BOT Trung Luong – My Thuan JSC, which built the expressway, said vehicles can travel from Ho Chi Minh City ...

Hoang Nam

Junta says hefty new telecoms taxes will curb ‘extreme use of internet services’

The price of accessing telecoms services in Myanmar is set to soar after the junta announced it will levy a 20,000 kyat commercial tax on the sale of SIM cards and a 15% tax on the incomes of internet providers.  The new tax law comes after ...

Aung Naing

The Completed China-Laos Railway: Bringing Opportunities for ASEAN and the Asia Pacific

In early December 2021, Laos inaugurated the Boten-Vientiane railway, a 414-kilometer (km) electrified high-speed railway that runs between the capital Vientiane and the town of Boten on the Laos-China border. This US$6 billion project (equivalent to one-third of Laos’ GDP) is backed by China as part ...

Ayman Falak Medinav

Gov’t says satellite images don’t prove sand dredging crisis

The government responded to criticism that sand pumping in the Mekong river is more than the amount being reported and that it has increased over recent years. The reaction is to respond to an article published in Eos, a science news magazine, titled “Satellites Spy on ...

Son Minea

Construction of fifth Lao-Thai Mekong bridge 23% complete

Work on the fifth Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge across the Mekong River, linking Pakxan district in Borikhamxay province to Bueng Kan province in northeastern Thailand, is now 23 per cent complete. The bridge is expected to be fully complete in 2024 and will serve to boost trade ...

Why has Da Nang taken the lead in digital transformation?

The central city of Da Nang topped the Digital Transformation Index (DTI) rankings in 2020 for localities nationwide in all three key pillars of digital government, digital economy and digital society, according to the DTI 2020 Report released several days ago by the Ministry of ...

Ho Giap - Nguyen Hien

Facebook removes accounts targeting critics of Vietnam’s government

Facebook’s parent company removed a network of accounts on the platform that coordinated attacks against Vietnamese activists who criticized the government, but Hanoi said the removed accounts belonged to “anti-state” elements. In its Adversarial Threat Report published Wednesday, Meta said users of the accounts abused Facebook ...

Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Mekong-Lancang nations collectively fight fake news

Mekong-Lancang nations are cooperating well to fight fake news in the region, according to the National secretariat of Cambodia for Mekong-Lancang Cooperation. “Mekong-Lancang nations have been sharing information with each other to prevent fake news in the region, especially in the context of the spread of ...

Sar Socheath

Laos Will Open $5.9 Billion Railway as Debt to China Mounts

Laos, a nation of 7 million people wedged between China, Vietnam and Thailand, is opening a $5.9 billion Chinese-built railway that links China’s poor southwest to foreign markets but piles on potentially risky debt. The line through lush tropical mountains from the Laotian capital, Vientiane, to ...

Kurtenbach contributed from Bangkok

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