In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

We started the drive to Vang Vieng early in the morning. It takes about three or four hours to get there from Vientiane on Highway 13, a long one-lane road that is bumper-to-bumper until you reach the city outskirts. Once out of the Lao capital, it becomes windy as Highway 13 stretches north. As the [...]

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Only a few hours’ drive from Laos’s capital of Vientiane, Vang Vieng is a small but growing town, and one of the country’s most popular ecotourism destinations. Here, the Nam Song River is the center of life. People from around the globe travel to Vang Vieng to enjoy kayaking, tubing, fishing, caving, and trekking along [...]

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The peoples of Southeast Asia are following the 2008 U.S. presidential elections with great attention and admiration, given the open and transparent primary processes. America’s real and vibrant democracy is reflected in the competing candidates’ travels to every corner of the country to win the hearts and minds of voters. This illustrates that the highest [...]

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With its GDP growing at an average of 6-7% annually since 2000, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) is a country on the move. Not very fast when compared to its rapidly-burgeoning neighbors China and Vietnam, but fast when compared to its historically languid pace. In meeting after meeting with senior Government officials and [...]

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Lao citizens have a limited understanding of laws, citizen rights, the legal system, and the role of lawyers in their country, especially in remote areas and among ethnic populations. With a total of only about 70 laws currently on the books, the Lao government has given increased attention to improving the rule of law. In [...]

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Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand ” For more than 800 km, the muddy brown waters of the Mekong River divide Thailand and Laos. Here at Khong Jiem, the easternmost point of Thailand, the Mekong drifts slowly into Lao territory, leaving Thailand for the last leg of its journey to the South China Sea. In this remote corner [...]

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The annual New York Times’ feature on hot travel destinations named Laos as number one on its list of “Places to Go in 2008.” The spotlight is now on Laos, and a recent spate of articles has been written about Lao tourism, notably Tuesday’s International Herald Tribune article by Seth Mydans and one a few [...]

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Women make up 25 percent of the National Assembly in Laos, but only two percent of local level government leadership. The Asia Foundation helped put on a workshop for women parliamentarians in an effort to increase women’s representation in public office and to help put women’s priorities on policy agendas. The training covered women’s constitutional [...]

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In recent years, the Lao government has given increased attention to improving the rule of law. Yet the public still has a limited understanding of existing laws, citizen rights, the legal system, and the role of lawyers. This is especially true in remote areas of the country and among ethnic community populations where there is [...]

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A quick look through the Vientiane Times or other local newspapers in Laos reveals help-wanted ads for all sorts of professional positions, from engineers to managers to financial officers. With few exceptions, the ads clearly state they are looking for “Lao nationals only.” Work permit restrictions, the need for Lao language capability, and tremendous bureaucratic [...]

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