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Efforts in foreign affairs boost Lao image

HANOI, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Laos' efforts in foreign affairs boosted the country's image in the international arena in 2008, the Lao newspaper Vientiane Times reported Monday.

The remark was made by Lao Foreign Affairs Minister Thongloun Sisoulith at the review on the country's diplomacy achievements this year.

The 2008 diplomacy has seen Lao enhancement its relationship with Latin America, Europe and Middle Eastern countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, Egypt, Turkey, Switzerland and Kuwait.

Another significant achievement was Laos' success in hosting Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meetings and summits. Laos hosted the third Greater Mekong Sub-Region Summit in March and the recent Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam Summit, said Thongloun.

Thongloun said initiatives proposed by Laos to regional and international bodies were highly valued by international community and Laos was considered to be a suitable venue for important meetings in the future.

While highlighting the achievements, Thongloun also talked about challenges in the foreign affairs arena. These include ineffective coordination between the ministry and other sectors, and slow progress implementing agreements between Laos and foreign countries.

Thongloun said Lao embassies in foreign countries should do more to promote tourism and encourage foreign companies to invest in Laos. He also said there was a shortage of qualified diplomats and many foreign affairs officials had limited skills.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/29/content_10576178.htm

More Hmong Refugees Repatriated from Thailand

Thai authorities recently sent back to Laos a group of 103 Lao Hmongs from 29 households, whohad been languishing for four years in Ban Huay Namkhao detention camp in Khao Khoh district, Thailand’s Phetchaboun province, hoping they would be accepted for resettlement in the United States. This is the 9th group of Hmongs refugees repatriated to Laos since the beginning of 2008, increasing the total number of Hmongs returned to Laos so far to over 1,800 people with more than 6,000 remaining at the camp. The repatriation was implemented in accordance with an agreement between the Lao and Thai governments aiming at completing the repatriation of all Hmong refugees from Thailand by mid-2009 at the latest. Both governments have consistently maintained that they do not consider the Hmongs in Huay Namhkao as refugees but illegal immigrants who must be returned to Laos without third party intervention, an argument that is totally different from the international community’s perception. And they assert that the refugees were not forced to return.

Issue of Illegal Labor in Thailand Is Increasingly Serious

Authorities in Vientiane acknowledge that Lao illegal labor in Thailand is becoming an issue of increasing concern. The number of these workers in Thailand, according to Thai authorities, is approximately 300,000, as opposed to Lao authorities’ estimate of only 200,000. Nonetheless, this situation has resulted in an increase in the number of Lao youths, especially young women, being forced into prostitution and at risk of falling into the trap of transnational human trafficking.

As admitted by Major Khamkeo Manola, Deputy Director of the Transnational Human Trafficking Department of the Ministry of Interior, the number of victimized Lao youths from 2001 to 2008, totaled more than 2,000; the majority of them were women. And just last year alone, Thai authorities sent over 28,000 illegal workers back to Laos via the Vangtau-Chongmek border checkpoint in Champassack province.

The fact that the Lao government is unable to create enough jobs for its workforce will certainly contribute to the increase of the number of Lao youths, between the age of 14 and 49 years old, sneaking into Thailand to seek jobs and work illegally there. Lao officials have planned to create and find at least 100,000 jobs for its workforce during the fiscal year 2008-09; of which 25,000 were to be found in neighboring countries, especially Thailand, while the rest would be created domestically. However, during 2007-2008, the government was able to create barely 40,000 jobs domestically and 8,000 abroad. Of the 8,000 workers who were sent to work abroad. 1,000 of them have been returned by Thai employers who said the workers lacked the skills they required.

The concern for finding employment for Lao workers in Thailand is further augmented by the fact that the Thai government has decided to limit the number of legal foreign workers from Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia, to no more than 800 thousands beginning next year, to reserve jobs for Thai workers due to the impact of the global economic crisis. Thus job opportunities for Lao workers in Thailand will inevitably become more scarce.

http://www.voanews.com/lao/2008-12-29-voa4.cfm

Hmong chief Vang Pao blamed for Refugee Problem

Vientianne say the refugee problem in Thailand is work of the pro-US leader

Laos yesterday blamed overseas Hmong leader Vang Pao for the influx of ethnic Hmong refugees into Thailand.

"We have had the Hmong problem for a long time at Ban Winai camp, Wat Tham Krabok and now Phetchabun, and it is because of Vang Pao," Lao Ambassador to Thailand Hiem Phommachanh said.

Vang Pao is the Hmong leader who led the community in helping the US Central Intelligence Agency fight Communists in the 1960s and 1970s. He has been living in the US since the end of the Vietnam war.

Thailand has sheltered Hmong ethnic refugees since the fall of Vientiane to the Communist Pathet Lao movement in 1975.

They used to live in the Ban Winai refugee camp in Northeastern Nakhon Phanom province and at Wat Tham Krabok in Saraburi, but these facilities were shut down after the refugees were resettled in the US. About 6,500 Hmong are now living in Phetchabun's Ban Huay Nam Khao.

They say they are associated with the CIA's fighters and that they recently fled suppression in Laos recently.

Hiem said, "They came to Phetchabun only in the hope of resettlement to the US."

He made the comments as part of a special lecture to the National Economic and Social Advisory Council on relations between Thailand and Laos yesterday.

It is rare for a Lao official to speak about the ethnic Hmong refugees in Phetchabun.

The Hmong in Laos, most of whom live in remote areas, did not know about resettlement opportunities in the US until agitators told them about the possibility, the ambassador said.

Officially, Vientiane says the Hmong in Phetchabun are Thailand's domestic problem and has refused to take them back saying Bangkok has failed to prove they are really Lao citizens.

To solve the Hmong problem at its root, the ambassador said, the human traffickers who urge and facilitate their entry into Thailand need to be dealt with.

"We have to find out who is behind the migration of the Hmong: Thais, Americans or people in Laos," Hiem said, stressing that all three countries are obligated to deal firmly with any of their citizens involved in human trafficking.

Supalak Ganjanakhundee

The Nation
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2006/07/14/regional/regional_30008666.php

Thai PM says he accepts court ban on him, his party

Thailand's Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat said Tuesday he accepted the ruling by the constitutional court banning him from politics for five years and dissolving his party for electoral fraud.

Somchai reacted calmly to the verdict by saying: 'I did my best to administer the country.'

Thailand's Constitution Court Tuesday ruled the three constituents of the ruling coalition -- People Power Party (PPP), Chart Thai Party and Matchima Thipataya Party guilty of electoral fraud and ordered them to be dissolved.

The ruling also banned the executives of the three parties from engaging into politics for five years.

The verdict effectively removes Somchai from his post as the government leader.

The verdict was handed down while Somchai was chairing the weekly Cabinet meeting in Chiang Mai, which he made a temporary government seat since his return from a summit of the Asia-Pacific counties in Peru last Wednesday.

The opposition People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) occupied the Government House, and then besieged the Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang airports in a showdown to topple his government, which the protesters said was a proxy of ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

DPA added: The verdict was rejected by hundreds of pro-government demonstrators wearing red shirts who had gathered outside the court house to protest the controversial case, which was widely predicted to go against the PPP.

'Today the court has dissolved the PPP, but PPP followers nationwide will not accept the ruling,' said a leader of the Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorship (DAAD), as the pro-government supporters have dubbed themselves.

'We don't accept the verdict,' said Paporn Boonkhan, a 46-year-old pro-government protestor from Chiang Rai province. 'We will only accept democracy.'

The nine Constitution Court judges on the case had to shift the venue to the Administrative Court building in northern Bangkok to avoid a gathering of the pro-government DAAD, but the protesters quickly moved to the new court.

The Administrative Court was initially under the protection of Thai soldiers armed with M-16 rifles who were later replaced by riot police, eyewitnesses said.

The DAAD is a pro-government movement that is a reverse image of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), the anti-government protesters who have occupied Bangkok's two airports, closing off the capital to air traffic in their bid to topple the administration.

The Constitution Court speeded up the final hearing of three election fraud cases involving the People Power, Chart Thai and Matchimathipataya parties, which comprise the current coalition government. The court's critics see the hasty sentences as an effort to end Thailand's political crisis through the judiciary.

The three parties were charged with colluding in violating election laws in the Dec 23, 2007 polls, by allowing top party executives to participate in vote-buying.

Under the Thai constitution, parties must be dissolved and their key executives banned from politics for five years if even one of their members is found guilty of election fraud.

In the ensuing power vacuum, several scenarios are possible, political observers said.

The remaining members of the People Power Party, which won about 230 out of 480 contested seats in the 2007 general election, are expected to shift to the Puea Thai party, which would hold enough seats to form a new coalition government with remnant members of the Chart Thai and Matchimathipataya parties.

A parliament session will need to be held to elect a new prime minister.

Another possibility is that certain clauses in the constitution may be used to allow the judiciary to appoint a non-elected prime minister and interim government to rule the country on an interim basis prior to a new election.

Such as option might require an endorsement by Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who is head of state under Thailand's constitutional monarchy.

While that option is favoured by many Thais as a means of placating the anti-government protesters who are holding Bangkok's two airports hostage, it is not expected to be accepted by government supporters.

The pro-government DAAD, or 'red shirts,' are expected to protest any guilty verdict against the People Power party and reject any effort to establish a non-elected government.

Government politicians suspect the Constitution Court of working hand-in-hand with the PAD, a loose coalition of groups united only in their desire to prevent a political comeback by fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinwatara, a populist politician who dominated Thai politics during his two-term 2001-06 premiership and now lives in self-exile.

The PAD is known to have the support of members of Thailand's political elite, including leaders of the army, which toppled Thaksin with a coup in September 2006.

There are worries that the DAAD will launch the kind of street protests and civil disobedience tactics practiced by the PAD over the last six months that have brought the country to its knees.

http://www.laosnews.net/story/437228

Fresh Bird Flu Outbreaks in Laos

Lao officials have been ordered to be on the lookout for new bird flu outbreaks throughout the country, according to Mr. Bounkhouang Khambounheuang, Director of the Livestocks and Fishing Department of the Ministry of Forest and Agriculture, who confirmed that his ministry has issued orders to all involved parties to take necessary measures to closely and thoroughly monitor the bird flu epidemic across the country, especially in Sayaboury province where the deadly H5N1 strain has been detected in seven villages of Sayabouly District, resulting in the culling of several thousand poultry. The same measures have been enforced in Oudomxay and Luang Namtha provinces, which are considered high risk areas where bird flu outbreaks could reoccur. Both provinces suffered bird flu epidemics earlier this year.

Moreover, as a nation linked to other countries such as Thailand, China, and Vietnam where the bird flu epidemic has been an issue of concern, Laos is also closely monitoring this disease along its borders, especially at check-points in high risk provinces, mainly Savannkhet, Champassack, and Vientiane Prefecture. This preventive measure was taken after reports of fresh bird flu outbreaks in Soukhothai and Outhai Thany provinces in northern Thailand, which prompted Thai officials to declare nine other northern provinces as areas that need to be closely monitored. Lao officials believe that smuggling of poultry from neighboring countries, especially Thailand, is the main cause of the bird flu outbreaks in Laos. The problem is furthermore aggravated, as claimed by a high ranking Lao official, by the lack of cooperation from local people in disclosing the number of their poultry, which makes it difficult to prevent and monitor this deadly disease.

Laos first faced the bird flu epidemic in 2004, which lasted until early 2005. Vientiane Prefecture was the area most gravely affected, followed by Champassack, Savannakhet and Khammouane provinces. Oudomxay, Luang Namtha and Sayaboury were the northern provinces where the Avian flu was also detected in 2004 and where it is now recurring.

Lao officials have so far destroyed poultry and poultry products worth several trillion kips. However, due to severe budget constraints, the government can only compensate poultry owners up to 60% of their losses. As a result, throughout the four-year period, the Lao government has to rely mainly on the assistance of foreign countries in funding projects aimed at intervening and preventing the spread of bird flu. So far, Laos has received assistance from different external sources, including the United Nations and the United State, worth as much as US$20 million.

http://www.voanews.com/lao/2008-11-25-voa4.cfm

HIV/AIDS Infection on the Rise

National Committee officials report that the HIV/AIDS infection in Laos has increased every year since 1990. Random blood tests conducted on almost 175,000 people so far have shown that 2,858 people are HIV/AIDS positive, with 1,837 having full-blown AIDS. Of that number, 873 have died.

Although the number of HIV/AIDS positives is less than 2% of the total number of people screened, Lao officials believe that the HIV/AIDS epidemic is in a rising trend, given the fact that Lao workers have increasingly flowed from rural to urban areas, combined with the fact that more and more young Lao leave home to sneak across the border into Thailand and illegally work there, especially women who are often forced into prostitution. As a high-ranking Lao official points out, “There are many risk factors contributing to the rise of HIV/AIDS infection. Migration of the people is one. In a developing country such as ours, conditions facilitating the mobility of the people are many, whether from rural areas to urban, as well as from abroad into our country and vice versa. ”

The rise of the HIV/AIDS infection among Lao population also stems from
the majority of Lao male workers, between the age of 15 and 49 years old, tend to have unprotected sex. Thus, Lao officials predict that the number of infected people will reach 50,000 by 2015.

According to the Thai Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, there are currently over 300,000Lao workers working illegally in Thailand. More than 60% of that number are women and children, who are at very Asia's IDS - patienthigh risk of falling victims of transnational human trafficking because, since 2001, Thai officials have been able to rescue and return to Laos a mere 1,229 Lao children and women victims of labor and human trafficking. Thai officials further say their studies show most of the restaurants, night clubs and karaoke bars along the border between Laos and northeastern Thailand, often are fronts for prostitution businesses, creating a favorable condition for HIV/AIDs transmission. And prostitutes are mostly Lao women and girls.

Also, according to VOA-Lao stringer in Bangkok, the increase of HIV/AIDS epidemic is especially significant in Laos’ border provinces such as in Oudomxay province which experiences an influx of foreign workers, namely from China.

http://www.voanews.com/lao/2008-11-27-voa2.cfm

Nepal 'Buddha Boy' returns to jungle

KATHMANDU (AFP) – A young man believed by followers to be a reincarnation of Buddha has returned to Nepal's jungles to meditate alone, police said Saturday, as scholars cast doubt on his supporters' claims.

Known as the "Buddha Boy," Ram Bahadur Bomjam, 18, became famous in 2005 after supporters said he could meditate motionless for months without water, food or sleep.

"Bomjam went back into the jungle late Friday and all the devotees have left," police officer Gobinda Kushwaha told AFP from Neejgad, a town in Bara District, 60 kilometres (37.5 miles) south of Kathmandu.

The "Buddha Boy" reappeared earlier this month after supporters said in March 2007 that he was going to meditate for three years in an underground bunker, although he was spotted on two occasions.

For the last 10 days, he has been blessing thousands of devotees who came daily to the site in dense jungle close to Neejgad.

The president of the Nepal Buddhist Council said claims by his supporters tha he was a reincarnation of Siddartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, were not credible.

"We do not believe he is Buddha. He does not have Buddha's qualities," said Mahiswor Raj Bajracharya, president of the Nepal Buddhist Council, a centre for Buddhist study and research in Kathmandu.

"He may have achieved great heights in meditation, but that alone does not make him a Buddha. A Buddha needs life experience, a young man who has not seen the world at all cannot be a Buddha," said Bajracharya.

Despite being officially secular under the new Maoist government, Nepal -- where around 80 per cent of people are Hindu and 11 per cent are Buddhist -- remains a deeply spiritual place.

"This is a country where people worship idols and stones, and everyone educated or not believes in the supernatural," the Buddhist scholar said.

Some 7,000 people gathered Friday to hear the youth speak.

"Materialism has brought forth fear, worry and disputes and has created war in this country. One should follow religion and philosophy for inner happiness," Bomjam told the crowds in a 15-minute address.

People joined a six-kilometre (3.75-mile) queue to be blessed, a wait that 43-year-old farmer Singha Bahadur Tamang said was worthwhile.

"This is a miracle and he is the reincarnation of Lord Buddha himself," said Tamang, who traveled eight hours by bus to hear Bomjam speak.

"I've been here for the last 10 days and the feeling is amazing. I really feel at peace here," he said.

The head of the committee that organises events around Bomjam insists he survives without food and water.

"We have never seen him eat or drink and we believe he's a god in human form," said Bed Bahadur Thing, president of the Buddha Jungle Meditation Conservation and Prosperity Committee.

At the height of Bomjam's fame, a French TV crew filmed the youth eating fruit and an AFP correspondent caught him napping.

On Friday, visitors to the jungle site put money into collection boxes, though Thing declined to say how much had been collected.

"Many people say we're just doing this for the money, but we have expenses for volunteers, food, security and maintenance," he said.

"After he has gone back into the jungle, we will make our accounts public."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081122/wl_afp/nepalreligionbuddhism_081122100332;_ylt=AghVN4vDH9tmD6bO2ONm9IjuOrgF

Mystery "Buddha boy" in Nepal vanishes, again

KATHMANDU (Reuters) – A teenage Nepali boy many believe is an incarnation of Lord Buddha went missing after blessing thousands of supporters, police said on Saturday.

Ram Bahadur Bamjon, 17, blessed devotees for nearly 10 days in the remote forest of Ratanpuri, 150 km southeast of Kathmandu before disappearing on Friday, junior police officer Santosh Budhathoki said.

Bamjon came into the limelight in 2005 when tens of thousands of people turned up to see him sitting cross-legged under a tree in a dense forest for nearly ten months. The Buddha is often shown in sketches sitting under a tree in a similar posture.

Ten days ago Bamjon reappeared after almost a year when he had disappeared in order to meditate in the jungle. This is the third time Bamjon has disappeared since his first appearance three years ago.

Thousands of people, some out of sheer curiosity, including many from neighbouring India walked to the site in the middle of dense forests to see him this time.

"He gave a 25 minute religious discourse to more than 5,000 people on Friday then went into an underground site for meditation," Budhathoki said.

He said the boy had wrapped a white cloth around his body and sometimes sat for more than 12 hours at one stretch during the discourse.

"Not everyone can do this without any special power which he has," Budhathoki said. "Whether he is a Buddha I can't say."

Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, was born a prince in Lumbini, a sleepy town in Nepal's rice-growing plains about 350 km southwest of Kathmandu more than 2,600 years ago.

He is believed to have attained enlightenment at Bodh Gaya in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, which borders Nepal.

(For the latest Reuters news on Nepal see: http://in.reuters.com, for blogs see http://blogs.reuters.com/in/)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081122/india_nm/india366415_1;_ylt=AmpUP18vyzrbgrAnK0sRgFfuOrgF

PM: Cambodia not to wage war against Thailand

Cambodia won't start a war against Thailand, although both sides have border dispute unsolved and an armed clash occurred at the border in October, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Thursday at a scholarship-awarding ceremony.

"We don't wage war against any country. We knew war clearly because we used to have civil war. And we took years to seek peace. We have political stability now and don't want to lose it," he said.

"We need peace and want to avoid any war at the border with Thailand in order to ease tension. Both sides are continuing talks for a peaceful deal," he said.

The history made the situation complicated and the current or next generation has to solve it, he added.

Meanwhile, according to the draft 2009 national budget, the Cambodian government intends to increase funding for the defense and internal security sector to 223 million U.S. dollars, a 64 percent rise over 2008.

The Cambodian-Thai border was demarcated according to the maps drawn almost 100 years ago by the French colonists. There are now only 73 demarcation posts along the 805-km border between the two countries, 50 percent of which are recognized by the Thai side.

Dispute over the ownership of some borderland and the 900-year-old Preah Vihear Temple has triggered tension between the two troops since July this year, which climaxed in October when two Cambodian soldiers were shot dead during the military confrontation.

The International Court of Justice decided in 1962 that the temple and its surrounding area belong to Cambodia.

Source: Xinhua
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/6537492.html