Thailand Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra is calling for all political factions to unite as soldiers and workers struggle to shore up dikes protecting Bangkok against raging floodwaters.
Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen signed an order in recent days that bars recruitment firms from sending domestic workers to Malaysia after numerous reports of abuses.
Help is starting to pour into Thailand and other parts of Asia where rising floodwaters are swamping entire communities and threatening to overrun even more. United States Marines arrived in Bangkok Saturday with equipment, sandbags and other relief supplies. The U.S.
The National Assembly on Monday approved a government payment guarantee to a power company planning to build a coal-fired plant in Preah Sihanouk province. The guarantee obliges the government to pay the Cambodia International Investment Development Group, which is owned by ruling party senator Lao Meng Khin, in case the state-owned Electrucite du Cambodge, fails to pay them for their power. The development company plans to build a $181 million plant capable of producing 135 megawatts of electricity in Preah Sihanouk
Cambodian youth are not so keen on journalism careers, believing the job to be dangerous and underpaid, a journalism mentor says. “Some young graduates still fear that they might be in danger, or face legal consequences, if they work as journalists,” said Tieng Sopheak Vichea, director of the Cambodia Communication Institute, which offers the country’s only four-year journalism program
Never in her life did Chhea Vat imagine she would have such an occasion: meeting her husband again after 36 years. The 73-year-old Cambodian-Canadian had always thought her husband, Peou Nam, was killed when soldiers of the regime took him away, so many years ago. “I never imagined this meeting before, because I thought the Khmer Rouge never left their captives alive,” Chhea Vat said in a recent interview in Phnom Penh, where her family had found him at long last
As Southeast Asia copes with some of the worst flooding in decades, there are also worries over the environmental impact of a series of new hydroelectric dams now under construction. One dam in particular in Laos has drawn attention because of its impact on millions of people living in the Mekong Basin. The Laos government’s proposed Xayaburi Dam, located in mountainous regions of Northern Laos, is just one of 11 dams planned for the lower Mekong River.