Social development

The United Nations World Food Programme will support flood-affected people in Chin State with 500 tonnes of rice, as they continue to struggle after landslides and flood waters ravaged swathes of land in the country’s poorest state last year. More than 9 million people were affected ...

Save the Children has agreed to support two projects for the Ministry of Education and Sports, aiming to develop education for Lao children. The first project is entitled ‘School Quality Improvement Programme II in Borikhamxay, Xayaboury and Luang Prabang provinces.’ It aims to improve the quality of ...

Less than a month after the government announced that more than 170 Montagnard asylum seek­ers would have their refugee applications processed, an Interior Min­istry spokesman said on 10 February that the group had not met the criteria for refugee status and would be returned to Vietnam. However, ...

After more than 40 men broke out of a Phnom Penh drug rehabilitation cen­ter on 5 February, officials said this week that they have called off efforts to arrest 18 es­capees who remain at large, in­stead asking for their families to re­turn them voluntarily. A total ...

Hanoi has targeted reduction in violations of safety regulations for the high-voltage grid by 30 per cent in this year, the municipal Department of Industry and Trade has said. Le Hong Thang, director of the department, who is also deputy head of the city’s steering committee ...

Journalists in Magwe blocked from parliament for the past five years have had their hopes of entering the chamber dashed. The previous hluttaw, dominated by Union Solidarity and Development Party representatives, refused to grant them access. But at the opening of the Magwe Region Hluttaw on ...

Residents violently evicted in Mingaladon township last week are to petition the National League for Democracy for a speedy resettlement. They also want an investigation into the violence with which they were driven from their homes. The long-simmering issue of unlawful residents has taken on new ...

The sight of bulldozers smashing shanty towns as police drive out squatters from their flimsy homes could be a thing of the past, as National League for Democracy MPs take the helm in Yangon and Mandalay regions, as well as in Nay Pyi Taw. NLD MP U ...

Mandalay witnessed a distinct changing of guard on 8 February as its new hluttaw took office, with the newly appointed Speaker stressing the importance of being accountable to the public. He added that human rights and economic and social development will be priorities, and promised to ...

Vientiane authorities are seeking measures to prevent dengue at the initial stages as the disease may return following the severe outbreaks in the country from 2010 to 2013. The authorities held a meeting last week to learn lessons from previous years in controlling the epidemic and ...