News
Thailand wants to be the first Asian nation to legalize medical marijuana
“Thailand has the best marijuana in the world.” So claims Jet Sirathraanon, chairman of the country’s National Legislative Assembly’s standing committee of public health, who is pushing to legalize cannabis for medical use. A draft bill to permit medical marijuana had been sent to the ...
Malaria Cases in Myanmar See Huge Drop, Thanks to Efforts by Community Health Workers
Instances of malaria in remote and rural locations in Myanmar have fallen dramatically during a six-year period as a result of trained community health care workers providing a wider package of services along with screenings for the disease transmitted by mosquitoes in tropical regions, a ...
Minister talks climate change response in Mekong Delta
Climate change response in the Mekong Delta, a region vulnerable to this global phenomenon, continued to be one of the issues that legislators grilled Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Tran Hong Ha about on November 1. At the question-and-answer session, part of the ongoing ...
Why the Mekong matters
China’s growing influence – through its new multilateral institution – is reshaping the environmental and economic future of Southeast Asia. The countries of the Mekong should build a “community of shared future”, said China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in December last year. Keep reading ...
Extortion and abuse: Myanmar workers arrive debt-laden in Thailand
A “mafia” of recruitment agents is trapping Myanmar migrants to Thailand in debt bondage despite a 2017 law meant to fight exploitation in the kingdom’s notoriously shadowy job market, activists and workers say. Keep reading ...
Thailand bets on neighbors' rising incomes to lift exports
Thailand is working to increase trade with its neighbors, betting that their rising purchasing power will cushion the blow from exports lost to the U.S.-China trade war. Keep reading ...
Winter is coming: Nakhon Phanom residents thrill to the Mekong chill
Residents in downtown Nakhon Phanom are pulling on their winter clothes and flocking to riverside parks to enjoy an unseasonal cold snap. Temperatures beside the Mekong River in the northeastern province have plunged to a chilling 15 degrees Celsius, drawing out large numbers of local ...
What’s in the First Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia Trilateral Border Exchange?
Later this week, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia will hold the first iteration of a new trilateral border exchange between them in Vietnam. Though the event was just one among many developments within the management of border relations between these countries, its significance nonetheless bears noting ...
Thai post-coup foreign policy
On the surface, it seems that Thailand has been able to exploit its relationship with China to offset Western sanctions. But reconciliation with the West was also perceived as a success of Thailand’s pro-China policy. Keep reading ...
Water resources planning in Mekong Delta should be prioritised: official
Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Le Cong Thanh has underlined the need to focus on the planning and investigation of water resources across the country, especially in the Mekong Delta region. Keep reading ...
