News
Vietnam border sealed against loggers
Cambodia’s military police said on 18 January that they have sealed the Vietnam border against wood transport following a major crackdown on two tycoons’ logging warehouses on 17 January. Local observers and experts, however, suggested the actions were little more than a hiccup for a long-tolerated ...
Ma Ba Tha continues to lead charge against Thai verdict
Hard-line Buddhist monks and their supporters again took to the streets on 17 January to protest the conviction of the two Myanmar migrant workers condemned to death for murder and rape on Koh Tao island in Thailand. The Committee to Protect Race and Religion, better known by ...
Five Cambodian fishermen die at sea
Five Cambodian fishermen died at sea from an undetermined illness, while 20 more are currently hospitalised in Thailand’s Ranong Provincial Hospital, officials at the Cambodian Embassy in Thailand said on 17 January. Lamatin Cheam, the counsellor in charge of Cambodian labour at the embassy in Bangkok, ...
China launches new AIIB development bank as power balance shifts
Chinese President Xi Jinping launched a new international development bank seen as a rival to the U.S.-led World Bank at a lavish ceremony on 17 January, as Beijing seeks to change the unwritten rules of global development finance. Despite opposition from Washington, U.S. allies including Australia, ...
As ASEAN takes symbolic step toward unity, Vietnam officials want new labor barriers
Now that the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) has officially been launched, with the goal of creating a common regional market where skilled workers can move freely, officials in Vietnam began to fear that many Vietnamese are not ready for the tough competition ahead. Speaking at a ...
Court of Justice says cyber attacks will not change verdict
The Court of Justice (CoJ) has insisted that the cyber attacks taking Thai court websites offline on 13 January would not force the court to change the guilty verdict in the Koh Tao murders case. The attackers also got away with cyber-theft of extensive legal records, including ...
AEC could provide 14.5% more jobs for Vietnam by 2025: ILO
Vietnam’s participation in the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) will create 14.5 per cent more jobs by 2025, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) found in a survey. Deputy Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Doan Mau Diep said at a workshop on 13 January in Hanoi that ...
Donors slash funding for MRC
As disputes multiply over the use of the Mekong, including over planned upriver dams in Laos contested by Cambodia and Vietnam, and a newly unveiled Thai plan to divert water to its drought-ravaged farms, the body tasked with mediating among the four nations is losing ...
Dammed if they don’t: Mekong countries face crucial choice
In the wake of COP 21 and a new global climate accord, now is the time for the countries of the Lower Mekong Basin to redouble their efforts to protect the rice bowl of Southeast Asia. This region is among the world’s most vulnerable to climate ...
'No dodging' EIA on water plan
The development of two controversial water diversion projects would comply with an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study requirements, the Thai government insists. Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Gen Chatchai Sarikulya said on 12 January the government wants to study the prospects of diverting water from rivers forming a ...
