Radio Free Asia

Two Chinese-owned cement factories in the Vang Vieng district of Laos’ Vientiane Province are covering approximately 900 local families in at least four villages with dust and smog, threatening their health, local sources say.The affected villages of the northwestern province include Khanmark, Houa Ngam, Phonesoung and ...

Survivors of July’s disaster at the Xe Pian Xe Namnoy (PNPC) hydropower project in Champassak, Laos are calling upon the local and national governments for relief, after failing to receive promised allowances for living expenses for the past two month., according to a local official.Two ...

The Lao government’s failure to strictly enforce foreign investment laws is allowing a growing number of Chinese entrepreneurs to dodge investment rules and avoid paying taxes while operating shops and restaurants in the Southeast Asian country, an official from the Ministry of Planning and Investment ...

The trafficking of Lao nationals to neighboring Thailand as undocumented laborers continues to be a growing problem with brokers arranging for thousands to be taken across the border for job opportunities that too often end up in situations where Laotians are abused by their employers.More ...

The Lao dam disaster in July that resulted in heavy flooding in two provinces that left at least 40 people dead and displaced 7,000 others has drawn both regional and international attention to the potential dangers of Southeast Asia’s current dam-building spree.With plans for 11 ...

The Lao-Chinese railway project has released polluted water from construction work into the Xong River in Vientiane province’s Vang Vieng district, one of the most popular destinations in the country for tourists, an local resident and an environmental official told RFA’s Lao Service.More ...

Police and military personnel rounded up and detained 53 Laotians–50 women and three girls who were allegedly employed as sex workers–during raids on karaoke bars in southern Thailand’s Narathiwat province, authorities said Friday.More ...

A civil society organization (CSO) in Laos has called on the government to proceed with its case against ten villagers jailed for more than a year over a land dispute in a transparent manner and demanded an update on their health conditions in prison.In July ...

A member of Cambodia’s Supreme Council for Recommendations on Wednesday told RFA’s Khmer Service that local authorities are utilizing legal loopholes to avoid adhering to regulations that would protect the biodiversity of the Mekong River.Kong Monika led the Council’s team in investigating the impact of ...

The governor of a province in Laos hit by flooding from a dam breach earlier this year has issued conflicting estimates of the projected cost to house displaced persons, giving figures deemed unnecessarily high by another official source and contradicting statements he himself had made ...