American Buddhist Net

Sun, Jun. 15, 2008
By DENIS D. GRAY

LUANG PRABANG, Laos -- On a chilly pre-dawn in this wondrous and once-secluded place, scruffy European backpackers and well-heeled American tourists have staked out their firing positions.

A fusillade of flashing, jostling cameras and videocams is triggered the moment Buddhist monks pad barefoot out of their monasteries in a serene, timeless ritual. A forward surge breaks into the line of golden-yellow robes and nearly tramples kneeling Lao women offering food to the monks.

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May 4, 2008
By DENIS D. GRAY

CHALEUNSOUK, Laos (AP) -- The rice fields that blanketed this remote mountain village for generations are gone. In their place rise neat rows of young rubber trees - their sap destined for China.

All 60 families in this dirt-poor, mud-caked village of gaunt men and hunched women are now growing rubber, like thousands of others across the rugged mountains of northern Laos. They hope in coming years to reap huge profits from the tremendous demand for rubber just across the frontier in China.

As Beijing scrambles to feed its galloping economy, it has already scoured the world for mining and logging concessions. Now it is turning to crops to feed its people and industries. Chinese enterprises are snapping up vast tracts of land abroad and forging contract farming deals.

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Apr 27, 2008

LUANG PRABANG, Laos - On a chilly predawn in this wondrous and once-secluded place, scruffy European backpackers and well-heeled American tourists have staked out their firing positions.

A fusillade of flashing, jostling cameras and videocams is triggered when Buddhist monks pad barefoot out of their monasteries in a serene, timeless ritual. A forward surge breaks into the line of golden-yellow robes, and nearly tramples kneeling Lao women offering food to the monks.

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April 22, 2008

CHANTHABURI, (Bernama) -- Thai traders who until recently imported paddy (unmilled) rice from Cambodia are now suffering as the Cambodian government has started controlling rice exports in the face of steadily rising domestic prices, Thailand News Agency (TNA) reported.

...Meanwhile, consumers in Thailand's northeastern province of Ubon Ratchathani bordering Laos have switched to eat low quality rice as the price of 'Kao Hom Mali' fragrant rice has risen to Bt37 from Bt25 a kilogramme and the price of premium grade glutinous (sticky) rice has increased to Bt27 from Bt20 per kg.

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Sunday, April 20, 2008
BY MARY CATHARINE MARTIN

Sisomephone Chanthavong lives by a set of 227 rules.

He cannot kill anything - not even a fly. He can only eat one meal a day. He cannot touch girls, not even to shake a hand. And, he lives at a Buddhist Temple, not with his family.

Chanthavong is a monk at Wat Thammarattanaram, the Buddhist Temple in Coteau.

Now 25-years-old, Chanthavong made the decision to become a monk when he was only 9.

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April 15, 2008
By SETH MYDANS

LUANG PRABANG, Laos — As the sky grows light along the Mekong River here, it is no longer the quiet footfalls of Buddhist monks that herald the day but the jostling and chattering of hundreds of tourists who have come to watch them on their morning rounds.

“Here they come! Here they come!” a tour guide cries over his loudspeaker. “Hurry! Hurry!”

The monks appear, a column of bright orange robes as far as the eye can see, walking quickly and silently with their begging bowls. The tourists cluster around them with their cameras and reach out to hand them food.

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Monday, 14 April 2008

People in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Burma are celebrating the Buddhist New Year, by taking part in massive outdoor water fights, said to wash away the sins of the previous year.

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By Seth Mydans
Published: April 13, 2008

LUANG PRABANG, Laos: As the sky grows light along the Mekong River here, it is no longer the quiet footfalls of Buddhist monks that herald the day but the jostling and chattering of hundreds of tourists who have come to watch them on their morning rounds.

"Here they come! Here they come!" cries a tour guide over his loudspeaker. "Hurry! Hurry!"

The monks appear, a column of bright orange robes as far as the eye can see, walking quickly and silently with their begging bowls, and the tourists cluster around them with their cameras and reach out from rows of little stools to hand them food.

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April 06, 2008
By DENIS D. GRAY

A high-rise Chinatown that is to go up by Laos' laid-back capital has ignited fears that this nation's giant northern neighbor is moving to engulf this nation.

So alarmed are Laotians that the communist government, which rarely explains its actions to the population, is being forced to do just that, with what passes for an unprecedented public relations campaign.

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Religious persecution against Lao and Hmong Christians and religious minorites has dramatically increased in Laos in recent months. The Lao regime has been put on a watch list for its worsening religious freedom violations. U.S. Congressman Frank Wolf, U.S. Congressman Ron Kind, U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher and a bipartisan coalition in Congress have written the King of Thailand in opposition to the forced repatriation of refugees back to Laos where military attacks, mass starvation and persecution have created a Darfur and Bosnia-like crisis.

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Agreement to develop the Mekong region promises to boost trade, reduce poverty

April 1, 2008
By Nirmal Ghosh

BANGKOK - A NEW road now makes it possible to drive from Singapore to Beijing, connecting markets and also mirroring an ancient trade route that once linked South-east Asia to southern branches of the Silk Road in the 13th century.

Spanning thousands of kilometres, it winds along modern highways and through rice paddies and tea plantations, making its way through Malaysia, Thailand and Laos before entering China.

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By THOMAS FULLER
Published: March 31, 2008

LUANG NAMTHA, Laos — The newly refurbished Route 3 that cuts through this remote town is an ordinary strip of pavement, the type of two-lane road you might find winding through the backwoods of Vermont or sunflower fields in the French provinces.

But On Leusa, 70, who lives near the road, calls it “deluxe.”

As a young woman she traded opium and tiger bones along the road, then nothing more than a horse trail.

On Monday, the prime ministers of Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam will officially inaugurate the former opium smuggling route as the final link of what they call the “north-south economic corridor,” a 1,150-mile network of roads linking the southern Chinese city of Kunming to Bangkok.

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China the dominant force at Mekong region summit

Remote towns swap identity for cafés, shops

March 30, 2008
By Denis D. Gray

...Many of the old families have departed, selling or leasing their homes to rich outsiders who have turned them into a guesthouses, Internet cafés and pizza parlors. There are fewer monks because the newcomers no longer support the monasteries. And the influx of tourists skyrockets, the fragile town of 25,000 now taking in some 300,000 of them a year. Throughout Laos, tourism was up an astounding 36.5 percent in 2007, compared with 2006, with more than 1.3 million visitors in the first 10 months of the year, according to the Pacific Asia Travel Association.

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Mar 22, 2008
By HEATHER MILLER

LANEXANG VILLAGE — Buried within the heart of Cajun country, a Laotian community is using Easter weekend to observe the Lao New Year and celebrate their Southeast Asian culture.

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Monday, March 17, 2008
By Denis D. Gray

VIENTIANE, Laos — Connie Speight has swayed on elephant-back through unforgiving jungle and has adopted nine of the high-maintenance beasts. At 83, the retired American teacher is back in this Southeast Asian country to help save what remains of the once mighty herds.

Once so famous for its herds that it was called Prathet Lane Xane, or Land of a Million Elephants, Laos is thought to have only 700 left in the wild.

...In their heyday, elephants served as the country's trucks, taxis and battle tanks. Laos is communist-ruled today, but it used to be a kingdom that kept its independence by sending elephants as tribute to neighboring China and Vietnam.

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Ten years after first being mesmerised, Philip Sherwell returns to Luang Prabang, on the banks of the Mekong.

28/01/2008

Just about anywhere else in the world, a trip to the local Red Cross office would probably be a sign that your holiday had gone badly wrong. But not in the former Laotian royal capital of Luang Prabang, where the unprepossessing wooden structure tucked away behind Mount Phousi offers a surprisingly pleasant treat for the body and senses.

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By THOMAS FULLER
Published: December 27, 2007

LONG LAO GAO, Laos — The pineapple that grows on the steep hills above the Mekong River is especially sweet, the red and orange chilies unusually spicy, and the spring onions and watercress retain the freshness of the mountain dew.

For years, getting this prized produce to market meant that someone had to carry a giant basket on a back-breaking, daylong trek down narrow mountain trails cutting through the jungle.

That is now changing, thanks in large part to China.

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Posted: 25 December 2007

HANOI: Energy-hungry Vietnam is planning to build a two-billion-US-dollar mega-dam on the Mekong river of Laos and to construct several other large hydropower projects in the neighbouring country.

Vietnam's main energy company expects to wrap up a feasibility study by April for a dam near Luang Prabang, the former Lao royal capital, that would dwarf existing dams in the landlocked country, state media has reported.

Mountainous Laos, one of Asia's poorest nations, is seeking to exploit its hydropower potential to become the "battery of Southeast Asia" and sell electricity to its more industrialised neighbours Vietnam and Thailand.

But the plans for new Mekong dams by Vietnamese as well as Chinese and Thai companies have alarmed environmentalists, who say the projects will devastate the major Asian waterway that runs from Tibet to southern Vietnam.

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By Thomas Fuller
Published: December 16, 2007

VIENTIANE PROVINCE, Laos: They call themselves America's forgotten soldiers.

Four decades after the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency hired thousands of jungle warriors to fight communists on the western fringes of the Vietnam War, men who say they are veterans of that covert operation are isolated, hungry and periodically hunted by a Laotian Communist government still mistrustful of the men who sided with America.

"If I surrender, I will be punished," said Xang Yang, a wiry 58-year-old still capable of crawling nimbly through thick bamboo underbrush. "They will never forgive me," he said of the Laotian government. "I cannot live outside the jungle because I am a former American soldier."

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By Lawrence Ong
BBC World's Asia Business Report, Laos

For an Asian capital, Vientiane in the Lao People's Democratic Republic is a sleepy place.

The pace of life in the former French colony is slow, and time often feels as if it is standing still. The closest thing to rush hour is the morning market with every other stall selling baguette sandwiches.

Just minutes away from the capital, there is even a greater sense of serenity.

Like Cambodia, Laos is known for its tragic past. During the Vietnam War it became the most bombed country in history - and that has left a legacy of poverty and underdevelopment.

Four out of five people in this mountainous, landlocked country are subsistence farmers living hand to mouth.

According to the United Nations Development Programme, Laos is currently ranked 133rd out of 177 countries on the Human Development Index.

But Laos is blessed with a long stretch of the Mekong river, and the river's tributaries and the country's mountainous landscape offer huge potential for generating hydro-electric power.

The Lao government now dreams of becoming the "battery of South-East Asia", utilising the country's powerful natural resource to boost its development.

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By Simon Ingram

HOUAY NAMIEN, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, 16 November 2007 – Mid-morning on a Tuesday isn’t normally a time that you expect to see much activity in a Buddhist temple. But a recent Tuesday was different, and the brightly coloured temple in Houay Namien was thronged with mothers and young children.

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25 October 2007

Laos, one of the world's few remaining communist states, is one of east Asia's poorest countries. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 it has struggled to find its position within a changing political and economic landscape.

Communist forces overthrew the monarchy in 1975, heralding years of isolation. Laos began opening up to the world in the 1990s, but despite tentative reforms, it remains poor and dependent on international donations.

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09/06/2007

Castel Gandolfo (AsiaNews) – Pope Benedict XVI was generous in expressing his encouragement and affection to the bishops of Laos and Cambodia, whom he received in audience today at the end of their ad limina visit.

“When you return to Laos and Cambodia, convey the greetings of Peter’s successor to the priests, men and women religious, catechists and lay people of your communities,” he said.

So much affection for the Churches of these two countries is due to the fact that they are amongst the smallest in Asia; only those reborn in Central Asia after the collapse of the Soviet Union are even smaller.

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Posted by Djeyli

Between 6 and 9 p.m. on the full moon night of the eleventh lunar month (October), the final night of Buddhist Lent, smokeless, scentless, soundless fireballs begin to rise from the deep of the Mekong River up into the air. This year it will happen on the 26 and 27 October.

For centuries the fireballs were kept a closely guarded secret amongst the villagers, but now thousands of locals, tourists and skeptics gather to watch this phenomenon on the remote border between Thailand and Laos.

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Written by Thomas Schmid
Friday, 24 August 2007

Colonial building in VientianeMore than 50 years after the French, the tranquil capital Vientiane boasts refurbished colonial buildings, formerly the playgrounds of the elite...

After decades of neglect and deterioration under a communist regime, efforts to restore and preserve these witnesses of a bygone era have only started in recent times.

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