By 2030, more than 40% of the population in the Greater Mekong Subregion will be living in cities. Photo: ADB.

greatermekong – The subregion is one of the least urbanized areas in the world, but its cities are growing and their economic impact is being felt. 

Urbanization levels in the Greater Mekong Subregion are low, ranging from 19.5% in Cambodia to 44.2% in Thailand. However, in all GMS countries, urban areas account for a much larger percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP)—at least half in most countries and about 75% in Thailand—than the share of its national populations.

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Last update 16:46 | 10/04/2018  vietnamnet

Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh will oversee an urgent investigation into bribes to speed up customs clearance procedures at ports in the northern city of Hai Phong.

Customs officers in Haiphong found to have taken bribes

The request was made following an article published on Lao Dong Newspaper on April 9.

A group of Lao Dong Newspaper reporters played the role of being apprentices at a company in Hai Phong which specializes on rapid customs clearance.

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asiafoundation.org March 14, 2018

By Barbara Rodriguez, Sofia Shakil and Adrian Morel

Globally, one in three women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime. On March 6, The Asia Foundation in Washington, D.C., hosted a panel discussion on why gender-based violence remains so prevalent in Asia and the legal frameworks that exist (or don’t, but should) to protect women and girls. Here are four key takeaways from our presentations and the ensuing discussion.

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greentechmedia – Lithium Australia is the latest in a series of firms looking downstream.

JASON DEIGN MARCH 09, 2018

vnexpress.net By Dat Nguyen   April 7, 2018 | 05:00 am GMT+7

The poor faces a widening gap in terms of access to upper secondary education and improved water and sanitation.

Nine million Vietnamese people are still living in extreme poverty, according to a World Bank report released on Thursday which calls for more alleviation efforts despite the success so far.

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technologyreview – Here are the real reasons we’re not building clean energy anywhere near fast enough.

• by James Temple
• March 14, 2018

Fifteen years ago, Ken Caldeira, a senior scientist at the Carnegie Institution, calculated that the world would need to add about a nuclear power plant’s worth of clean-energy capacity every day between 2000 and 2050 to avoid catastrophic climate change. Recently, he did a quick calculation to see how we’re doing.

Not well. Instead of the roughly 1,100 megawatts of carbon-free energy per day likely needed to prevent temperatures from rising more than 2 ˚C, as the 2003 Science paper by Caldeira and his colleagues found, we are adding around 151 megawatts. That’s only enough to power roughly 125,000 homes.

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