BANGKOK (AP) — Law enforcement officials in Thailand said Monday they seized more than a ton of crystal methamphetamine in a southern province last week that they believed was bound for Australia.
Authorities in Thailand Seize More Than a Ton of Crystal Methamphetamine Thought Bound for Australia

Laos Welcomes Over 1 Million Tourists in Four Months
Compared to last year, the country has reported an impressive number of over 1 million international tourists to have visited Laos between January to April.
Authorities Green Light Lao Dance Sport Federation
The Ministry of Education and Sports in Laos has officially recognized the newly-established Lao Dance Sport Federation to promote competitive dancing in Laos.
SwissCham Singapore Announces Ms Julie Raneda As New Chair
At 34th AGM, Ms Raneda commits to growing wider awareness of Swiss businesses in the republic
SINGAPORE – Media OutReach – 30 May 2023 – Swiss Chamber of Commerce and Industry Singapore (SwissCham) Board has elected Ms Julie Raneda as new Chairperson at its 34th Annual General Meeting.

Ms Raneda, Partner and Managing Director of Schellenberg Wittmer’s Singapore office, is a lawyer by training and has a degree in international relations. Julie has been deeply connected with the Chamber for a long time, and was recently the Co-Chair of SwissCham International Relations Subcommittee.
Upon her appointment, she welcomed her new role and thanked the Board “for entrusting (her) with the important role to lead the Chamber and represent the Swiss business community in Singapore.”
Emphasizing longstanding Swiss-Singaporean relations, she said: “Switzerland has an excellent reputation in Singapore, thanks in particular to the Swiss business community in the republic that has been around for a long time and represents Switzerland’s values, qualities, and innovation so well.”
She added that “SwissCham is at the tip of the iceberg of this community, a platform to showcase Switzerland’s excellence.” She aims to continue “the commitment to grow wider awareness about Swiss companies and their perspective in Singapore, and make SwissCham even more relevant for its members with fruitful collaborations and appropriate networking opportunities.”
SwissCham Singapore is one of the pillars of the Swiss community in Singapore and brings together the representatives of Swiss companies, encouraging networking and exchange of information and championing the establishment of Swiss values and quality through business. SwissCham Singapore is focused on advocating Swiss business in Singapore and bridging bilateral commercial interests.
Hashtag: #SwissCham
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
OctaFX and Ideas Academy partner to digitalise learning centres in Malaysia
OctaFX and Ideas Academy partner once again to advance education in Malaysia. This time, they join forces to digitalise multiple learning centres for refugees and underprivileged students.
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA – Media OutReach – 30 May 2023 – The international broker OctaFX and the educational organisation Ideas Academy have partnered once again. The joint initiative aims to effectively digitalise dozens of learning centres for refugees and underprivileged students in Malaysia to help advance their education.

Currently, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) oversees more than over 153 learning centres that cater to the needs of underprivileged individuals, particularly young refugees. Most of them lack the necessary software and structured curriculums that could greatly improve the quality of education and contribute to students’ academic success. Ideas Academy aims to provide those centres with essential software packages and online curriculums for two years.
The all-in-one digital packages will include the following pieces of software:
- school management system
- gamified learning application
- access to ‘Google for Education‘ services
- access to a structured online curriculum from Ideas Academy.
In addition to digitalising the learning centres, OctaFX and Ideas Academy will also hold a financial literacy workshop for underprivileged students. It will provide them with basic knowledge of personal finance that they can use to improve their financial situation.
‘Education has always been one of our core values, and it is especially important for us to contribute to it in an impactful way. We are grateful to Ideas Academy for the opportunity to take part in this project as one of the sponsors and help enhance education for underprivileged students in Malaysia,’ the OctaFX press office commented.
Here’s what the Ideas Academy representative had to say about the collaboration: ‘This project is a unique opportunity for advancing education in Malaysia, and we thank OctaFX for their much-appreciated support of this initiative. We look forward to providing the learning centres with software and learning programs!’
It will be the entities’ second collaboration to advance education in Malaysia. Recently, OctaFX sponsored the Cambridge IGCSE curriculum exam fees for students in Malaysia under the tutelage of Ideas Academy.
Hashtag: #OctaFX
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
About OctaFX
OctaFX is an international broker that has been providing online trading services worldwide since 2011. The company is involved in a comprehensive network of charity and humanitarian initiatives, including the improvement of educational infrastructure and short-notice relief projects supporting local communities.
About Ideas Academy
The Kuala Lumpur-based Ideas Academy has been active in the field of improving and raising the standard of education since 2012. They specialise in working with underprivileged children, including those with refugee backgrounds.
The people driving Ideas Academy forward believe in ‘Education for All’. It is their mission to ensure that every child between 12 and 18 years of age gains a strong secondary educational foundation. By safeguarding this, they encourage them to become confident, responsible, proactive, and compassionate adults. Ideas Academy is determined to be a force for high-quality, affordable virtual education— combined with physical classes for students in Kuala Lumpur.
ULI Releases 2023 Asia Pacific Home Attainability Index Covering Data from 45 Cities
- At their 2023 Asia Pacific Summit happening from 29 May to 1 June, ULI unveiled its 2023 APAC Home Attainability Index.
- The report compared housing prices against the median income across 45 cities in the APAC region and Singapore’s private sector homes have now greatly surpassed last year’s top runner, Hong Kong, as the most expensive in the region.
- Singapore’s private sector rental homes are now also the most expensive in the region at a US$2,600 (SG$3,500)/month on average.
SINGAPORE – Media OutReach – 30 May 2023 – The Urban Land Institute’s (ULI) recently released 2023 Asia Pacific Home Attainability Index report provides a high-level snapshot of the extent to which housing is attainable in cities in the Asia Pacific region. The report covers 45 cities in nine countries, namely, Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, and Vietnam, with a combined population of 3.5 billion or around 45% of the world’s total population, measuring home attainability for both home ownership and home rentals in relation to the median income of households.
Kenneth Rhee, Senior Director of ULI China and primary author of the report said, “Housing stocks and home attainability vary greatly in the Asia Pacific region. Key factors for home attainability include demographic trends, government policies related to land use and density, the ability to redevelop or regenerate urban areas in decay, availability of financing for home purchase, the government’s involvement in the home provision, and the impact of COVID on new home supply.”
In terms of home ownership, housing in Singapore is deemed most attainable with the median price of Housing Development Board (HDB) units at 4.7 times the median household income. Home attainability is severely challenged in Tier 1 and leading Tier 2 cities in mainland China, Hong Kong SAR, Metro Manila, Metro Cebu, Ho Chi Minh City, and Danang with median home prices at approximately 20 to 35 times median household income. Compared to home ownership, home rentals are deemed more attainable with monthly rent for most cities at below 30% of median household income. Cities in Japan and South Korea have the lowest ratio of monthly rent to income.

According to the report, Singapore’s private sector homes have surpassed Hong Kong SAR as the most expensive in the region with a median price of US$1.2 million. Also, with a nearly 30% increase in monthly rent, Singapore private sector rental homes are also the most expensive in the region with a median monthly rent of approximately US$2,600. For the sharp increase in home price and rent, the report cites as key causes (1) a large influx of immigrants into the city-state, (2) a growing trend of young professionals to move out of their multi-generational family homes for more space and freedom, (3) the government’s new measure that requires homeowners to serve a 15-month wait-out period after the disposal of their private properties before they are eligible to buy a non-subsidised Housing Development Board (HDB) resale flat, (4) a relatively limited stock of institutionally or individually-owned rental properties, and (5) a reduced new supply of housing in the past few years due to the disruption to the supply chain of building materials and labour due to COVID.
Homeownership varies significantly in the region, often a function of government policies and population migration. Singapore continues to have the highest homeownership rate of nearly 90%, thanks to the government’s decision and consistent commitment to enable its citizens to own homes at reasonable prices from the early years of the country’s independence in the 1960s.
In contrast, other gateway cities such as Hong Kong SAR, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Seoul have relatively low homeownership rates, reflecting high home prices and the more migratory nature of the populations in gateway cities.
David Faulkner, President of ULI Asia Pacific said, “This report explores the implications of shifts in housing demand and regional competitiveness, arising from wide-ranging factors that impact home attainability. Our goal at the ULI Asia Pacific Centre for Housing is to advance best practices in residential development and to support ULI members and local communities in creating and sustaining a full spectrum of housing opportunities. Through thought leadership, we aim to catalyse the production of housing and inspire a broader commitment to housing.”
Some key findings from the report:
- Australia: Home prices have declined in Australia’s top two cities, Sydney and Melbourne. COVID-19 has caused a migration of people from Sydney to smaller regional cities with people looking for more space; this has created a housing shortage in the regional cities, worsening home attainability for existing residents.
- Tier 1 and 2 cities in Mainland China: Similar to last year’s findings, mainland Chinese cities rank among the lowest in terms of home attainability. Home price is closely tied to new housing supply to population increase.
- Hong Kong SAR: Home prices dropped substantially in 2022, returning to 2017 prices, mainly caused by a drop in population and a rising mortgage interest rate.
- India: Among the eight cities studied in India, Mumbai has the highest median home price per square metre of US$3,383, with Delhi NCR trailing far behind at US$1,358. Compared to other developing countries, India’s housing price is relatively inexpensive compared to the median household income.
- Indonesia: Jakarta’s housing stock is predominantly landed homes, which contributes to urban sprawl and heavy traffic congestion and exacerbates the rate of soil subsidence as most landed homes rely on groundwater.
- Japan: The median monthly rent of Japanese cities relative to median household income is the lowest among all the cities in the report. The median monthly rent ranges from US$350 in Osaka to US$602 in Tokyo Ku. This is due to a relatively large pool of available housing for rent resulting from an ageing population and limited new household formation.
- Philippines: While Metro Manila allows a high FAR (Floor to Area Ratio) of 16 or even higher, it suffers from limited housing stock and poor urban transportation infrastructure for a fast-expanding number of young professionals. The government has recently embarked on an ambitious campaign to building 1 million homes per year for the next five years.
- South Korea: A recent home price drop has created problems for ‘Jeonse’, a unique form of home rental in South Korea where tenants put up a lump sum deposit of as much as 70-80% upfront instead of paying monthly rent during the lease period. With declining housing prices in recent months, a growing number of ‘jeonse’ landlords have been unable to return deposits to renters at lease expiration.
- Vietnam: Homes in Ho Chi Minh City are the second least affordable, at 32.5 times the median household monthly income. Many home buyers are speculative investors who own multiple units, further driving up house prices.
The 2023 Asia Pacific Home Attainability Index summary report can be found on ULI’s Knowledge Finder platform.
NOTE TO EDITORS: High-res versions of the charts in the press release are available for viewing in the full 2023 ULI Asia Pacific Home Attainability Index.
Hashtag: #RealEstate #Property #Housing #HomeAttainability #ULI
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
About the Urban Land Institute
The Urban Land Institute is a non-profit education and research institute supported by its members. Its mission is to shape the future of the built environment for transformative impact in communities worldwide. Established in 1936, the institute has more than 46,000 members worldwide representing all aspects of land use and development disciplines. For more information on ULI, please visit
uli.org, or follow us on
Twitter,
Facebook,
LinkedIn,
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YouTube.
About the ULI Asia Pacific Centre for Housing
Established in 2022, the ULI Asia Pacific Centre for Housing aims to advance best practices in residential development and support ULI members and local communities in creating and sustaining a full spectrum of housing opportunities. The Centre for Housing publishes the annual Asia Pacific Home Attainability Index.
The Centre for Housing acts as a think tank and provides a forum to explore the latest trends and to address housing issues relevant to the region. Our programme of work is delivered through events, research, education, and advisory services for government policymakers, developers, investors, occupiers, and communities at large.
Schneider Electric Releases New White Paper and TradeOff Tool Focused on How DCIM Addresses Hybrid IT Management Challenges
- White Paper 281 shows how the success of a CIO is rooted in a solid foundation of maintaining resilient, secure, and sustainable IT operations
- DCIM Monitoring Value Calculator for Distributed IT supports the White Paper and provides a simple framework to help users run “what-if” scenarios and quantify the ROI/payback of implementing monitoring software
HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach – 29 May 2023 – Schneider Electric, the leader in the digital transformation of energy management and automation, has released White Paper 281, “How Modern DCIM Addresses CIO Management Challenges within Distributed, Hybrid IT Environments” and a supporting TradeOff Tool, both available for immediate use. The new White Paper focuses on Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software and takes a close look at the rapidly-changing role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) as IT has taken center stage in the past few years. The document demonstrates how the success of a CIO is ultimately rooted in a solid foundation of maintaining resilient, secure, and sustainable IT operations. In an environment of highly distributed hybrid IT, this goal becomes harder to accomplish.
“Business requirements are forcing CIOs to hybridize their data center and IT portfolio architecture by placing IT capacity in colocation facilities and building out capacity at the local edge – sometimes in a big way,” said author Patrick Donovan, Senior Research Analyst at Schneider Electric’s Energy Management Research Center. “CIOs have always been tasked with managing and maintaining resilient and secure operations, but generally have been focused on core data center sites. Now, on top of having many more distributed sites needing resiliency and security, they are also being asked to report on the sustainability of their IT operations. This marks a real sea change in terms of their responsibilities.”
The need for resiliency, security, and sustainability
In the 16-page paper, Donovan describes the evolution of enterprise IT portfolios and explores the resulting management challenges. He explains how modern DCIM software has evolved and is more optimized for increasingly distributed environments. Distributed IT makes security a top concern along with the need for improved resiliency and tracking and reporting of the IT operation’s environmental impact.
An opportunity to “trade off” various DCIM scenarios with new calculator
A new Schneider Electric TradeOff Tool, the DCIM Monitoring Value Calculator for Distributed IT, supports the White Paper and provides user-selectable inputs and adjustable assumptions to perform “what-if” scenarios to see the ROI/payback of monitoring software. It considers factors like downtime, staffing, security and environmental incidents, and cashflow.
“We wanted to create a useful framework to help customers quantify the potential value of DCIM in their operations and we are excited for them to try our tool,” said TradeOff Tool creator Wendy Torell, Senior Research Analyst at Schneider Electric’s Energy Management Research Center. “We designed it to be user friendly and it easily adapts to the customer’s specific environment and level of maturity.”
Schneider Electric’s Energy Management Resource Center
Donovan, Torell, and fellow members of the Energy Management Resource Center conduct research that helps Schneider Electric and its customers make informed business and technology decisions backed by facts and research. Much of the research is made freely available to the public.
Related resources:
- Schneider Electric DCIM web page
- The DCIM 3.0 trend explained in 500 words
- EcoStruxure IT and DCIM 3.0 in 60 seconds
- EcoStruxure IT: Enabling Resilient, Secure and Sustainable IT Infrastructure
Hashtag: #SchneiderElectric #DCIM #DCIM3 #sustainability #ecostruxureit
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
About Schneider Electric
Schneider’s purpose is to empower all to make the most of our energy and resources, bridging progress and sustainability for all. We call this Life Is On.
Our mission is to be your digital partner for Sustainability and Efficiency.
We drive digital transformation by integrating world-leading process and energy technologies, end-point to cloud connecting products, controls, software and services, across the entire lifecycle, enabling integrated company management, for homes, buildings, data centers, infrastructure and industries.
We are the most local of global companies. We are advocates of open standards and partnership ecosystems that are passionate about our shared Meaningful Purpose, Inclusive and Empowered values.
Toyota Launches New Toyota Hilux Revo Prerunner Adventure in Laos
Toyota Laos Company, a leader in automobile manufacturing, has just unveiled the new “Hilux Revo Prerunner” at Toyota Square, located at Parkson Mall in Vientiane Capital.