News

On Thailand’s border with Myanmar, also known as Burma, a malaria research and treatment clinic is stepping up efforts to eliminate a drug-resistant form of the parasite before it spreads abroad. Artemisinin medicines have been highly effective against malaria when used in combination with other drugs. ...

Laos has suspended the construction project of controversial 260-megawatt Don Sahong hydropower dam on the lower Mekong River following requests from other countries, newly-designated Laos ambassador to Cambodia Prasith Sayasith said Tuesday. ...

Muang Thai Insurance is looking at acquiring portfolios from non-life insurers and selling non-life products to individuals in neighbouring countries as part of its plan to keep its premium income growing by 15 per cent annually in the next three to five years. “The merger model ...

Cambodia and Laos have so far achieved 86 percent of joint border demarcation and the two neighbors vowed to fully complete it as soon as possible, a spokesman said Tuesday. ...

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, has sold its 12.25 percent stake in Acleda bank to Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) in an undisclosed amount after having supported Acleda for over 15 years, said an IFC news statement ...

Most of the infrastructure required for enhanced connectivity in the Greater Mekong Subregion has been put in place, particularly the transport links that form the base of the envisaged economic corridors, Bindu Lohani, vice president of the Asian Development Bank, said yesterday. He made the remark ...

The Mekong River Commission issued flood warnings on Wednesday for Kratie, Kampong Cham and Stung Treng as well as the southern Lao city of Pakse. After surpassing alarm levels in recent days, the Mekong is expected to reach the flood stage in Kratie on Saturday, according ...

Four people have died in flooding that has affected nine provinces over the past week, officials said Sunday. Two people died in flooding in Kratie province, one in Stung Treng province and another in Kandal province. The flooding has risen above the emergency levels in Kratie ...

Defense Minister Tea Banh expressed confidence in the Thai junta’s leadership in the first meeting between top-ranking military officials from the two countries since Thailand’s army seized power two months ago, according to Thai media reports. ...

Cambodia has achieved border demarcation of 80 percent with Vietnam and 75 percent with Laos, Keo Piseth, a spokesman for Cambodian Parliamentary President Heng Samrin, said Thursday. The spokesman told reporters after a meeting between Heng Samrin and delegations of Vietnamese lawmakers led by Nguyen Kim ...

The number of passenger arrivals at the Kingdom’s airports rose to 1.37 million in the first six months of the year, up 10 per cent from 1.24 million visitors in the same period in 2013, according to figures from Cambodia Airports. The figures include both international ...

Villagers who will be displaced if the controversial Lower Sesan II dam is built called on the developers yesterday to postpone construction for five years, allowing time for a comprehensive resettlement scheme to be devised. But a government official dismissed their request as “beyond the pale”, ...

The Lao government has agreed to a lengthy public consultation process with its neighbors before building a controversial hydropower dam on the Mekong River, within 2 km of the Cambodian border, according to the environmental group WWF. Laos announced the 256-MW Don Sahong dam last year ...

The Lao government said yesterday that it would have the controversial Don Sahong dam undergo a formal process of prior consultation – a decision that will probably delay the project further. “The government has already demonstrated that it is committed to developing the Don Sahong project ...

A top court in Thailand agreed on Tuesday to hear a lawsuit brought by villagers against the country’s decision to purchase power from the planned Xayaburi mega dam in neighboring Laos, which green groups say could threaten the region’s environment and food security. Overruling a lower ...

Members of Parliaments (MPs) of the Asian Parliamentary Assembly (APA) gathered here on Tuesday to promote ties and draft internal regulations to strengthen APA Secretariat. Leng Penglong, Secretary General of the National Assembly of Cambodia, said the two-day meeting is participated by 29 MPs from Bahrain, ...

Malaysia’s Mega First Corp Bhd says it increased spending on a controversial dam project in Laos and a new rubber project in Cambodia by 45 percent to MYR 50.4 million ($15.7 million) in 2013. Project development expenditure on the Don Sahong dam on the Cambodian border ...

A conservation group has said its recent trip to Laos revealed that construction on a controversial hydropower dam decried by neighbouring Mekong countries is already under way. International Rivers representatives visiting the proposed site of the 260-megawatt Don Sahong Hydropower Project earlier this month say they ...

Thailand’s capital market should aim to be a funding base for Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar to gain the full benefit from high growth in the Greater Mekong Subregion and a more integrated region through the Asean Economic Community (AEC), panellists at a Euromoney Conferences forum ...

Laos will push ahead with its ambition to become the “battery of Southeast Asia,” planning a Mekong River dam that has drawn opposition from neighbors and threatens to involve China and the U.S. Four Mekong River nations are scheduled to meet June 26-27 in Thailand to ...

Cambodia’s largest financial institution, Acleda Bank, has been adopted into the World Economic Forum’s group of Global Growth Companies (GGC), an exclusive club made up of some of the world’s fastest-growing medium-size firms. The WEF yesterday announced that 20 companies from the Asia-Pacific region had been ...

Cambodia received 424,300 visitors from Asean countries in the first quarter of the year, up 4 per cent year-on-year. Data from the Tourism Ministry showed tourist arrivals from Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) accounted for 33 per cent of 1.27 million overseas arrivals from January ...

Cambodia’s tourist arrivals registered a 4.7% growth in March according to the country’s statistics and tourist Information Department. The country attracted 400,076 visits compared to 382,206 during the same month last year. Released by the Ministry of Tourism, late last week, data showed Vietnam led the field ...

Being landlocked and poor has always placed Laos at a disadvantage to its more powerful neighbors. The only body of water that offers Vientiane an international reach is the Mekong River, which flows through the heartland of Southeast Asia. Now, that river, which laps the western ...