#Laos

Earlier this month Duterte visited three Chinese warships on Mindanao island in the Philippines—the first Chinese navy port call to the country since 2010.

In downstream Vietnam, experts claim as much as 50% of the 2.2 million hectares of arable land in the delta had been hit by salinization due to the drought.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte latest rants have caused international concern, resulting in capital flight and drops in the stockmarket and currency.

Now that an arbitral court in The Hague has ruled in favor of Manila over Beijing’s claims to the South China Sea, will Hanoi be next?

Beijing attempted to quash any mention of the South China Sea dispute prior to Tuesday’s meeting in Kuala Lumpur of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

The threat the Islamic State (IS) poses to Western nations is very real — witness in recent weeks the thwarting of a public beheading in Sydney, the raids on terrorist cells in Melbourne, raids in The Hague and Brussels, possible threats to subways in Paris and New York, and the recent averting of a terrorist plot in London.

AP Photo: David Guttenfelder With the official death toll from Typhoon Haiyan topping 4,000 on Wednesday, nations from around the world are ramping up their efforts to help the Philippines deal with over 1,600 missing persons, 700,000 damaged houses and the nearly 10 million people affected.  Australia, Britain and the U.S. have so far each […]

Last week saw Laos formally become the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) 158th member.  Before the ink had time to dry on the agreement, Asia-based pundits were already weighing in about the potential benefits of such a move, which took fifteen years in the making. Gretchen A. Kunze, the Laos-based representative for The Asia Foundation writes […]

Do you remember the term “disappeared” from the Cold War days? It was a common phenomenon in countries with a less than stellar record on human rights and democracy in the second half of the 20th century. Many people — sometimes outspoken critics of the government, sometimes not — would simply vanish. One day they’d […]

  During the Vietnam War, the United States dropped as many as 2 million tons of cluster bombs on Laos. It was called a secret air war but was, of course, no secret to the Laotians. Thousands of people have been killed and wounded by the bombs, which continue to litter the countryside. What director […]

New Year’s is seen as a time of renewal, but it does not always bring desired changes. This week the Thai government forced over 4,000 Hmong over the border into Laos, despite the possibility that they will be persecuted upon their return. This action runs counter to international human rights law, as some of the […]

At the recent ASEAN Regional Forum in Thailand, U.S. Secretary of State Clinton, before the the 25 nations present, officially confirmed a substantial shift in U.S. foreign policy when she stated: ‘On behalf of our country and the Obama administration, I want to send a very clear message that the United States is back, that we […]