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/ 10 December 2008
More than 100 countries last week signed a convention banning the use of cluster bombs. In Laos their lethal legacy is a part of daily life.
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/ 29 November 2008
Bangkok was effectively cut off this week as the city’s second airport was closed after it was stormed by anti-government protesters.
Thailand’s former prime minister appeared in court last week to defend his popular cooking show.
It is not the stuff of little girls’ dreams. Yet after the success of the inaugural Miss Landmine competition in Angola, the organisers plan to take the contest to Cambodia next year. It was the plight of the victims that prompted a Norwegian theatre and film director to come up with the challenging contest to spotlight the ongoing tragedy.
While prices of wheat, corn and other agricultural commodities have surged since the end of 2006, rice held fairly steady.Aware that shortages of such a vital staple could spell trouble at home, Asian governments have moved to ensure their people get enough to eat at a price they can afford, an insurance policy that has in turn raised prices further.
Dengue fever is sweeping South-East Asia in an outbreak of the mosquito-borne virus that is already threatening to become the worst in almost a decade. Hospitals across the region are filling up and the number of deaths mounting, with no country left immune, from the richest, ultra-modern Singapore, to the poorest, such as Laos and Cambodia.
With sad eyes, Om Som sits in her shack in the Cambodian countryside waiting for answers. The shoeless 70- year-old has clung on for half a lifetime hoping to find out what happened to her beloved husband, and why. She also prays for some scant justice for the man she never saw again after he was led away by three young Khmer Rouge cadres, falsely accused of stealing a chicken.