Radio Free Asia
Cambodia, China to Kick Off Annual Joint Military Exercise Amid Waning Western Influence
Cambodia and China will kick off preparations for their third annual joint “Golden Dragon” military exercise on Feb. 28, Cambodia’s National Defense Ministry announced Wednesday, highlighting improved ties between the two countries as Western influence in the Southeast Asian nation wanes. Keep reading ...
Provincial Lawmakers in Laos Call for More Scrutiny of Foreign Firms
Lawmakers in Laos are urging the government to be stricter on foreign business entities in the country in an effort to protect the environment and protect the livelihood of the people. Khamsaphone Xayavong, a member of parliament from Oumxay district, Oudomxay province in northern Laos, called ...
Myanmar Opposition And Military MPs Submit Nominees For Constitutional Reform Committee
Lawmakers from Myanmar’s main opposition party and the military on Thursday said they submitted a list of nominees to be included on a new joint committee focusing on constitutional reform, despite their ongoing opposition to the panel which they claim has not been formed according ...
Southeast Asians See China Replacing US as Regional Power, Survey Finds
Three-quarters of educated professionals surveyed across the ASEAN bloc say China is the country most likely to fill a vacuum created by a perceived growing lack of American interest in the region, according to a report published by a Singaporean think-tank recently. More than 1,000 ...
Thousands of Protesters Call For Termination of Dam Project in Myanmar’s Kachin State
About 10,000 people in northern Myanmar’s Kachin state staged a massive protest Thursday against the controversial Chinese-backed Myitsone Dam and recent calls by China for the suspended project to resume. Kachin activists, leaders from Kachin political parties, religious leaders, local civil society groups, Buddhist monks, ...
China Pledges Nearly US $600 Million in Aid to Cambodia Over Three Years: PM Hun Sen
China will provide Cambodia with 4 billion yuan (U.S. $587.6 million) in aid over the next three years, Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen said Jan 22, as Phnom Penh further cements ties with Beijing in the face of sanctions threats from the European Union. Hun ...
Lao Protest Villager Freed, 11 Still Held
Lao authorities have released a villager held since 2017 with a group arrested for protesting the loss of land awarded by the government to a Vietnamese rubber company, sources in the communist Southeast Asian state said. Phonesawai, the fourth villager of the group to be released, ...
China's Belt And Road Initiative Faces Obstacles in 2019
China is confronting multiple setbacks, flaws, and failures in President Xi Jinping’s ambitious overseas infrastructure project—the Belt and Road Initiative. Experts note that more than five years after its launch, three of the six economic corridors planned for the massive initiative, often referred to as ...
Protected Forest in Cambodian Commune Illegally Logged Through Official Collusion: Mother Nature
Around 1,200 hectares (2,965 acres) of protected forest from a commune in Cambodia’s Ratanakkiri province has been illegally logged for timber and sold to businessmen from neighboring Vietnam through collusion with Cambodian authorities, an environmental watchdog group said Wednesday. An investigator with the Cambodian nongovernmental organization ...
Lao Dam Collapse Creates Hardship for Student Far From Floodwaters
Laos’ worst flooding in decades — the rupture of a dam in July that inundated 12 villages and killed at least 43 people, leaving hundreds more missing – is still reverberating far away in the capital of the poor, landlocked country. Survivors of the flooding ...
