March 2009

The Rohingya: 'Just' People?

Rosalia Sciortino*

BANGKOK, Jan 25 (IPS Asia-Pacific) – The perilous flight of the nearly 1,000 Rohingya who made it to Thailand in December before they were sent back to sea is a sign of worsening humanitarian crisis in the region.

Cooperation, the Other Side of Competition

Duong Quang

Vietnam has long aimed to overtake Thailand as the world’s top rice exporter, but it faces a number of challenges, including the creation of internationally recognised rice brands, before it can attain this goal.

LAOS-THAILAND: Deeper, Better Links

Vayorath Xayasomroth

Laos and Thailand have agreed on the construction of a third and fourth Friendship Bridge over the Mekong River. Thailand remains Laos’ largest trading partner, and the two countries benefit from tourists and visitors who go their border areas, especially where travel is easy. Already linked by land, air and water, a new bus route was added in early 2008 between the Lao capital Vientiane and the north-eastern city of Khon Kaen in Thailand.

Through the Trails to the ‘Chinese Fair’

Photos and Text by Le Ha

“For ten years now, I’ve never missed a single Chinese fair,” says Ly Thi Xuan, who is of the Hoa ethnic group from Pho Bang town in Dong Van district, Ha Giang province in north-eastern Vietnam.

 The ‘Chinese fair’ is a weekly one held just five kilometres from this town -- but across the border in Yunnan, China, with which mountainous Ha Giang shares a border. Like Ly Thi Xuan, Pho Bang residents consider this fair in Ma Pung commune in Dong Cac district in Yunnan a big event, akin to a fair.


‘Where Have the Young People Gone?’

Photos and Text by Wang Ying

I saw only elderly people and children when I arrived in Nali village, home to some 200 people of the Tai ethnic group in northern Honghe valley in Yuanyang county, China’s Yunnan province. “Where have the young people gone?” I asked Li Xiaomei, a Tai woman who at 91 was busy making a clay pot in the same way her ancestors have done pottery for generations.

Planting Risks in Cambodia

Meun Sothy

TAKHMAU, Cambodia - Hem Savoun is mixing plants inside a jar in order to turn them into organic pesticide. Next to where he works is a row of vegetables, testimony to Hem’s success in organic farming on his land on the outskirts of Takhmau near the capital Phnom Penh.

Mixing pesticides in Cambodia.

Harmful Fishing Hurts the Mekong, Livelihoods

Le Huyen

When the floodwaters in Vietnam’s southern Dong Thap Muoi region start to recede in late November and early December, it is a sign that the busiest time for fishing communities will follow shortly.

CHINA-VIETNAM: Learning Across Borders

Kim Ngan

In Vietnam, many high school students often pick China as a destination for furthering their education. But only a few Chinese students come to study in universities in the cities of Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh. Nevertheless, the Chinese student community in Vietnam is growing, reflecting the deepening economic and cultural cooperation between the two neighbouring countries.

A Life Turned Inside Out

Kim Ngan

HEKOU, China - Packed in my luggage for a trip across the Vietnamese border to this town in Yunnan province was a scrap of paper with the name of a woman who works there as a welder. There was also a note from a colleague who works for ‘The Labourer’ newspaper in Vietnam: “You must try your best to meet with the mother and her son, and help them fulfill their wish.”

Thai Tourism Survives Bird flu

By Liu Kunzhe

BANGKOK - The airlines and five-star hotels appear to be fully booked, the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Reclining Buddha are filled with visitors and the night market in the Patpong red-light district is crowded. These scenes here in the Thai capital convey the message that the worst fears that bird flu would seriously hurt tourist arrivals into the country did not really happen.