Nikkei Asia Review March 15, 2018 11:20 am JST

Belated compensation for over 4,000 affected families involves opaque assessments

MARWAAN MACAN-MARKAR, Asia regional correspondent

Upgrading Southeast Asia’s dilapidated rail infrastructure comes with social costs.© Reuters

BANGKOK — Some 4,000 families in Laos affected by a China-Laos high-speed rail link, begun in 2016 as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, are to receive compensation, but the amounts involved and timing are unclear.

Channelled through new accounts at Banque Pour Le Commerce Exterieur Lao Public, the communist country’s largest state-owned bank, payments will be made to farmers who sustained crop damage, and to those with “residential properties surrendered to the government,” according to the Lao News Agency, the official mouthpiece of the one-party state.

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Rev. James Swarts, President of the Rochester chapter of Veterans For Peace, was a member of the VFP tour group which traveled Viet Nam for 18 days recently, with stops in Ha Noi, the former DMZ and Khe Sanh, Da Nang, My Lai (on the 50th anniversary of the massacre there), and Sai Gon.

Statements by Pres. Donald Trump and U.S. government (and British and French) officials to justify American military actions in Syria are painful reminders not only of lies we were told about Viet Nam a half century ago. We heard echoes of those same lies regarding Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and many other places in the world that are now much worse off after our military actions — actions that were illegal, no matter how we try to parse the meanings of the documents and international agreements that we signed.

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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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