DOVER, Del., Aug. 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — xLean Robotics will showcase xLean TR1, the world’s first dual-form transformable floor-washing robot, at IFA 2026 from Sept. 4–8, following a preview at ShowStoppers @ IFA, on Sept. 3 at Messe Berlin.
xLean Brings AI Agent-Powered Floor-Washing Robot to IFA 2026
xLean TR1 returns to Berlin with four honors: Best of IFA Next and Best in Design Honoree at IFA 2025, followed by the Red Dot Award: Product Design 2026 and an International Design Excellence Award (IDEA).
More than 2,000 early backers pledged over $2 million to xLean TR1 on Kickstarter, validating xLean’s belief that home robots should address the messes people actually face.
Households face a familiar compromise: autonomous robots manage daily cleaning, but sudden spills, dried stains, and muddy paw prints still require another appliance. TR1 closes that gap by operating as an autonomous whole-home floor washer, then transforming in one second into a handheld cleaner for targeted messes, combining robotic convenience with immediate human control.
That raised a broader question: can a robot understand what someone needs rather than wait for a predefined command?
Central to xLean’s presentation will be live demonstrations of EvoMate™ OS, an AI Agent experience designed to make robot cleaning as natural as asking someone for help. Visitors will see TR1 interpret one-sentence requests, identify what needs cleaning, execute the appropriate task, and report completion. Demonstrations will also show simple visual assistance, including locating everyday items and checking whether pet essentials need attention.
Unlike voice systems limited to preset commands, EvoMate™ OS interprets intent and manages cleaning from request through completion, without complex maps, menus, mode selections, or manual settings. To support this intelligent experience, xLean TR1 is powered by the D-Robotics Sunrise™ X5 AI chips with 10 TOPS of computing power.
The same user-driven philosophy extends to product design. Following strong community support, xLean introduced two supporter rewards: a newly unlocked Space Silver TR1 and personalized top-cover laser engraving for names, messages, or graphics. Both will be shown at IFA as examples of community-driven personalization and the beginning of deeper European localization.
xLean invites European distributors, retailers, and service partners to discuss market launches, localized experiences, channel partnerships, and long-term service support and experience TR1 in action at IFA.
Visit xLean at ShowStoppers @ IFA on Sept. 3 and Booth 11.1-129 during IFA 2026, Sept. 4–8.
BEIJING, CHINA – Media OutReach Newswire – 24 August 2026 – HiDream.ai today launched HiDream-O1-World, a native omni-modal interactive world model that lets users generate complete, explorable 3D worlds from a single text prompt, image, or interactive control.
The model combines three core capabilities — roaming, editing, and interaction — and is built on HiDream.ai’s self-developed UiT (Unified Transformer) architecture. The upgraded UiT delivers a key breakthrough on two persistent challenges in the field: spatiotemporal consistency and physical consistency. As cameras pan, zoom, or track, scene geometry remains stable — objects don’t vanish or deform, and collisions, occlusions, and gravitational responses follow real-world causal logic rather than appearing as randomly stitched frames.
“The value of an interactive world model isn’t in generating a photorealistic 3D scene — it’s in AI beginning to genuinely understand the depth of space, the texture of objects, the inertia of motion, and the logic of light and shadow,” said Yao Ting, CTO of HiDream.ai. “This is a systematic reconstruction of how the physical world works. HiDream-O1-World is the first bridge in that reconstruction — every interaction leads to a world never reached before.”
Topping the Leaderboard on Debut
HiDream-O1-World’s first third-party benchmark results came from WBench, an interactive world model evaluation benchmark jointly developed by Meituan’s LongCat team and Fudan University. The model topped the core Navi sub-leaderboard with an average score of 80.9, ranked first in the Physical dimension at 73.3, and scored 88.0 on Consistency — the best overall performance on the board.
WBench covers 289 multi-turn interaction cases and 1,058 interaction turns across five dimensions and 22 metrics. Its Navi board, focused on spatial navigation and viewpoint control, is widely regarded as the core measure of a world model’s spatial understanding. Topping Navi on its first entry, HiDream-O1-World sets a new performance ceiling for interactive world models — outperforming established players including Tencent Hunyuan 1.5.
One-Click World Generation for Immersive Interaction
The model lets users generate structurally complete, stylistically diverse interactive worlds from a short description, a single image, or simple controls. Upload a photo of a room, for example, and the model rapidly constructs a high-precision digital twin, completing the full panorama with accurate proportions and fine-grained detail.
Users can explore worlds in first-person or third-person mode, freely driving a character and adjusting viewpoints. In a diving scene, light patterns on the water surface and refracted glimmers on the seabed shift in sync with the camera; coral textures remain crisp and drift-free throughout.
Beyond roaming, HiDream-O1-World enables real-time editing — directing characters to grab, run, crouch, or jump, or triggering environmental events like rainfall. Changes maintain globally unified coherence across geometry, lighting, materials, and physical logic, ensuring every interaction remains self-consistent.
The model generalizes across humans, animals, and fictional characters, adapting to each one’s form and motion. In a snow-climbing scene, footprints press realistic indentations into the snow, snowflakes drift at varied speeds, and distant ridgelines blend naturally with rock textures as the viewpoint shifts. It supports a wide scene and stylistic range — from real city streets and natural terrain to anime-style cartoons and AAA-game-grade rendering.
Two Core Breakthroughs: Spatiotemporal and Physical Consistency
Interactive world models have long been constrained by three problems: space, physics, and memory. Camera switches cause blurring and scene drift; physics violations undermine credibility; and without long-term memory, objects disappear when the view turns. HiDream-O1-World addresses these through two coordinated capabilities:
Long-horizon spatiotemporal consistency. The model pairs 3D priors injected into Memory context with Test-Time Training (TTT) online maintenance. The Memory mechanism encodes scene geometry and object relationships as 3D priors, letting the model “remember” explored structures across viewpoint switches — fundamentally eliminating drift and scene resets. TTT performs lightweight online adaptation during inference, dynamically optimizing adapters so internal representations stay aligned with the scene’s 3D constraints. Where conventional models act like a painter redrawing every frame — with errors compounding into drift and vanishing objects — HiDream-O1-World behaves like a director with spatial memory: it records scene structure rather than re-guessing the environment at each step, recalling the corresponding view when the camera moves.
Globally stable physical consistency. On the training side, a generative world simulator produces synthetic data covering rigid-body collisions, fluid motion, soft-body deformation, and gravity-driven projectiles — systematically reinforcing the model’s inductive bias through physics-simulated data. On the inference side, the same TTT mechanism enhances physical consistency online, adjusting representations when new object types or materials appear so subsequent frames better follow that scene’s physics. This dual-engine design delivers gains of 13.6% over the industry average on visual-plausibility evaluation and 12.7% on causal-fidelity evaluation across fluid, collision, and deformation dimensions.
The research has been accepted to ECCV 2026 (European Conference on Computer Vision), one of the three premier academic conferences in computer vision and AI.
Beyond technical breakthroughs, HiDream-O1-World opens new possibilities for industrial transformation:
AI interactive film and games. Users no longer follow a linear plot passively but become active participants, with worlds evolving along branching storylines — delivering cinematic visual quality, unprecedented immersion, and the enjoyment of multiple endings.
Embodied-AI simulation. The model builds physically grounded, high-fidelity simulation spaces — cities, factories, interiors — providing virtual testbeds for robotics training, autonomous driving, and smart manufacturing, replacing high-cost, high-risk real-world testing.
3D scene production. Creators can generate 3D figurines, home scenes, and art spaces with complete structure and rich detail, supporting structural fine-tuning and instant style switching. It even extends to the microscopic world — simulating cellular behavior and protein interactions for drug discovery and disease-mechanism research.
When the physical world can be generated at a click and explored freely, many industries deserve to be reimagined. These fields are only the tip of the iceberg — as more developers and creators join, the application boundaries of interactive world models will extend far beyond what can be described today.
Hashtag: #HiDreamAI
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
A pciture of education in Laos, used for illustration purpose only. (Photo by European Commission)
Attapeu is expanding its employment services as the province seeks to respond to labor shortages and help people who have left school find work, according to provincial media.
At a meeting on 20 August, Director of the provincial Department of Labour and Social Welfare Phonmany Khiengxayavong said the province will focus on linking jobseekers with employers and helping businesses recruit workers with suitable skills.
The push comes after provincial authorities recorded 5,237 students leaving secondary school, grade 6 to 12 between 2022 and 2026.
Attapeu’s labor market currently includes 47,420 workers, of whom 46,282 are employed. The province’s unemployment rate is 2.4 percent, equivalent to about 1,138 people.
Most workers remain in agriculture, which employs 26,315 people, or 56.8 percent of the workforce. Industry accounts for 15,242 workers, while 4,725 people work in services.
Looking ahead, Attapeu will expand employment services in the second half of 2026 by collecting information from jobseekers and employers, identifying workforce needs and improving coordination between government agencies and businesses to connect available workers with suitable jobs.
The province has 2,368 registered business units, providing a potential base for expanding job opportunities and matching workers with employers.
Enrollment Trend in Laos
The issue is part of a bigger challenge in the education field in Laos..
In late July, Vientiane announced plans to support disadvantaged students and reduce school dropouts by waiving school fees, providing free textbooks, redistributing teachers, and strengthening science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and information and communications technology (ICT) education.
During the 2024-25 school year, 2.38 percent of primary students dropped out, well above the city’s target of less than 0.4 percent. The lower-secondary dropout rate stood at 5 percent, also above the target of less than 4 percent. Officials linked the dropouts mainly to poverty, families moving, and students leaving school to work or help support their families.
The decline in school enrollment has continued for several years.
Laos has recorded three consecutive years of declining school enrollment. From 2022-23 to 2024-25 school year, primary enrollment fell from 741,976 students to 739,554, while lower secondary enrollment dropped from 388,019 to 378,457.
The sharpest decline was recorded at the upper secondary level, where enrollment fell from 169,523 to 144,050 over the same period.
Education authorities cite poverty, migration to work in the city or abroad and infrastructure challenges.
To Address This
The education challenges facing Attapeu are part of a wider national effort to reduce school dropouts and improve teaching quality.
During a meeting ahead of the 2026–27 school year, Education Minister Thongsalith Mangnomek identified enrollment, dropouts and teacher quality as key challenges. Reforms will strengthen teacher training and placement, while authorities prepare to introduce the 6+3+3 education system nationwide in 2028–29.
In early August, the ministry also announced plans to recruit 2,200 new teacher trainees for the 2026–27 academic year. The intake is based on the number of secondary schools nationwide, with provinces expected to select students with strong academic performance and an interest in teaching.
A 1,000 MW solar power facility in Oudomxay Province, one of the country’s largest renewable energy projects. (Photo credit: CGN Energy Laos)
Laos is moving to update its electricity sector as the government prepares to adopt a revised Electricity Law aimed at supporting a greener, more modern and sustainable energy system.
The current Electricity Law, adopted in 2017, no longer fully reflects changes in how electricity is generated, traded and managed, according to officials.
A seven-day meeting to review the revised law ran from 17 to 23 August.
Minister of Industry and Commerce Malaithong Kommasith said the government has long considered energy a strategic sector of the national economy, with electricity serving as the “backbone” of economic stability and competitiveness.
He said Laos needs to revise the 2017 law because the electricity sector has developed rapidly, with new investment models, market mechanisms and technologies emerging that the existing legislation does not fully cover.
Laos is working to change how it produces and uses electricity. The government wants to make it easier for households and businesses to generate their own power or buy electricity directly from producers. It also plans to prepare for power projects whose concessions will expire and return control to the state.
Resource Diversity
Another big plan is to diversify the country’s energy resources. This will help Laos not depend so much on hydropower.
Deputy Justice Minister Khamphan Bounphakhom also emphasized that the Electricity Law needs to be updated to reflect the changing times, both in terms of the economy and society, as well as keeping pace with developments in Laos and globally.
The meeting discussed several proposed changes, including new business models such as Build-Lease-Transfer (BLT) and Lease-Operate-Transfer (LOT), the establishment of an energy management agency, and measures to promote new technologies, clean energy and greener industries.
The revised draft contains 14 parts, nine chapters and 176 articles. Of these, 86 articles have been amended, 65 are new provisions and 25 remain unchanged.
The draft also introduces several new policies and mechanisms. These include an Electricity Regulatory Authority, rules for self-supply and direct electricity sales, and new measures for managing power projects when their concessions expire.
It would also establish a Lao Grid Code and Renewable Energy Certificates, while introducing registration requirements for electrical engineers and technicians.
Following the meeting, the revision committee will continue working on areas where officials disagreed to ensure the final law can be implemented effectively.
Broater Energy Transition
The proposed law comes as Laos begins to diversify its electricity system beyond its long-standing reliance on hydropower.
In April, Electricité du Laos (EDL) introduced a nationwide program to buy electricity from household rooftop solar systems at LAK 992 (USD 0.04) per kilowatt-hour, with contracts lasting up to 10 years. The program allows households with single-phase connections to install systems of up to 5 kilowatt-peak, while those with three-phase connections can install up to 10 kWp. EDL set an initial nationwide limit of 50 MWp for the program.
The government is also encouraging people to switch to electric vehicles.
In May, it suspended imports of most fossil-fuel-powered vehicles until the end of 2026 while introducing price controls for electric vehicles to keep them affordable. The measures aim to reduce fuel imports, make transportation cleaner and strengthen the country’s long-term energy security.
They form part of a broader push to build a cleaner and more sustainable transport system.
These policies match with the broader energy transition plan outlined in the revised Electricity Law. The draft would establish rules for self-supply, direct electricity sales and renewable energy certificates, while also creating a Lao Grid Code and a framework for managing power projects as existing concessions expire.
Following the recent seven-day review, the revision committee will continue working on areas where officials disagree before finalizing the draft for implementation.
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia, Aug. 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC) once again strengthened Malaysia’s presence in Indonesia through MHX Yogyakarta 2026, held from 20 to 23 August 2026 at the Grand Atrium, Pakuwon Mall Jogja. The four-day event came on the back of a record year for the Indonesian market, which generated RM2.2 billion in healthcare travel revenue in 2025, marking a 24% year-on-year increase. The four-day healthcare consumer event underscores Malaysia Healthcare’s commitment to bringing trusted, high-quality healthcare services closer to Indonesian communities while expanding its footprint in one of Indonesia’s fastest-growing regional centres. Held under the Malaysia Year of Medical Tourism (MYMT) 2026 campaign themed Healing Meets Hospitality, MHX Yogyakarta 2026 reinforces Malaysia’s position as the preferred destination for medical tourism by combining world-class medical expertise with compassionate patient care and seamless healthcare experiences.
Malaysia Healthcare returns to Yogyakarta building on a record RM2.2 billion in healthcare travel revenue from Indonesia in 2025.
Yogyakarta has emerged as a strategic market for Malaysia Healthcare, supported by a well-educated population, increasing demand for advanced specialty care, and convenient direct connectivity to Kuala Lumpur. These factors present strong opportunities to further strengthen healthcare collaboration between Malaysia and Indonesia and to provide greater access to specialised treatment options for Indonesian patients.
Speaking on the occasion, Rahmatullah Baragau, MHTC’s Head of Indonesia Market said: “Indonesia has always been Malaysia Healthcare’s closest and most valued market, and Yogyakarta represents an exciting opportunity as healthcare awareness and demand for specialised treatments continue to grow. Through MHX Yogyakarta 2026, we aim to strengthen public confidence in Malaysia Healthcare while bringing our trusted healthcare ecosystem closer to local communities.”
More than 15 member hospitals participated, showcasing Malaysia’s strengths across various medical disciplines including cardiology, oncology, orthopaedics, fertility, health screening, gastroenterology, and other specialised services.
Participating list of hospitals:
Island Hospital Penang
Institut Jantung Negara
Mahkota Medical Centre
Subang Jaya Medical Centre
Alpha IVF & Women’s Specialists
Ampang Puteri Specialist Hospital
GenPrime Everlink Fertility Centre
Hospital Picaso
Damansara Specialist Hospital 2
KPJ Klang Specialist Hospital
MSU Medical Centre
Optimax Eye Specialist Centre
Pantai Hospital Kuala Lumpur
Pantai Hospital Penang
Penang Adventist Hospital
Sunway Medical Centre Damansara
Sunway Medical Centre Penang
Sunway Medical Centre Sunway City Kuala Lumpur
Thomson Hospital Kota Damansara
Indonesia continues to be Malaysia Healthcare’s largest source market. Healthcare traveller arrivals from Indonesia reached 968,000 in 2025, a 16% increase from the previous year, reflecting sustained confidence among Indonesian patients in Malaysia’s healthcare offerings. MHX Yogyakarta 2026 forms part of MHTC’s broader strategy to strengthen long-term partnerships with communities, healthcare stakeholders, and local organisations across Indonesia, while supporting MYMT 2026’s goals to position Malaysia as the world’s preferred medical tourism destination.
For media inquiries and further information, please contact:
Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC), established in 2009 under the purview of the Ministry of Health (MOH) Malaysia, is entrusted with developing and nurturing the “Malaysia Healthcare” brand. MHTC enhances, coordinates, and promotes Malaysia’s healthcare travel industry by fostering industry collaborations and building valuable public-private partnerships both domestically and internationally. With 91 member hospitals nationwide, MHTC continues to elevate the healthcare travel ecosystem through strong branding, seamless patient experiences, and strategic market initiatives. In line with these efforts, MHTC is spearheading the Malaysia Year of Medical Tourism (MYMT) 2026, the nation’s first dedicated year to celebrate and advance healthcare travel. MYMT 2026 serves as a milestone initiative to showcase Malaysia’s world-class healthcare offerings, strengthen its position as the premier global healthcare destination, and highlight the industry’s significant contribution to the national economy.
MACAU, Aug. 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — World Youth Forum (WYF), an international nonprofit platform engaging 500,000+ young people annually across 30+ countries through education, competitions, conferences and youth-led initiatives, concluded WYF-FLALS 2026 in Macao, bringing together 400+ students for five days of interdisciplinary learning and cross-cultural collaboration at the Future Liberal Arts Leadership Summit.
WYF Brings Together 400+ Students for Future Liberal Arts Leadership Summit in Macao
Participants came from more than 10 countries and regions, including Cambodia; China, including Hong Kong SAR, Macao SAR and Taiwan region; India; Indonesia; Singapore; Thailand; the United States; and Vietnam (listed in alphabetical order). Following WYF-FELS in Hong Kong, WYF-FLALS concluded the 2026 summit series, bringing together more than 1,000 young people through economics, liberal arts and cross-cultural exchange.
Jointly initiated by WYF and the Organizing Committee of International Academic Decathlon (IAD), WYF-FLALS explored Our Changing Climate through social science, literature, fine arts, science, mathematics, economics and music. Through interdisciplinary challenges, projects, speeches and exchanges, students examined the scientific, economic, social and cultural dimensions of climate change.
Guests included Wong Yee Lam, Member of the Administrative Committee, Commerce and Investment Promotion Institute, Cheng Wai Tong, Deputy Director, Macao Government Tourism Office, Cheong Man Fai, Head of the Department of Youth Affairs, Education and Youth Development Bureau, Li Feilong, Director of the Taiwan Affairs Department, Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Macao SAR, Jia Qiong, Second Secretary, Department of Information and Public Diplomacy, Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China in the Macao SAR, Lao Ngai Leong, Deputy to the National People’s Congress, Si Ka Lon, Deputy to the National People’s Congress, Wong Kit Cheng, Vice-Chairperson of the All-China Youth Federation, Lam Ieng Pui, Founding President, Chinese Youth Advancement Association, Zhang Senhua, President, Chinese Youth Advancement Association, Zhao Gang, Director-General, Global Innovation Center, Amy Dosch, Executive Director, United States Academic Decathlon (USAD), Henry Peng, Global Council Member, World Youth Forum (WYF). Through academic sessions and exchanges with students, they connected classroom knowledge with global challenges and encouraged participants to approach complex issues from multiple perspectives.
Highlights included the Super Quiz, Academic Exploration Fair, Team Spark & Global Fusion Fest, U20–Master Call, U20–Idea Incubation, Themed Speech, U20–Youth Voice and Bridging Worlds: Real-World Learning Journey. Awards recognized excellence in academics, teamwork, communication and creativity.
WYF will continue working with IAD, schools, educators and international partners to expand access to interdisciplinary, challenge-based learning.
HM17321, a proprietary UCN2 (urocortin-2) analog, is being developed as a treatment for chronic-weight management and associated conditions, including obesity
Total deal value of up to $2.3 billion, including upfront, milestone payments and tiered royalties based on net sales
SEOUL, South Korea, Aug. 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Hanmi Pharm announced today that it has entered into an exclusive licensing agreement with Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, for the development, manufacturing, and commercialization of Hanmi’s novel metabolic treatment candidate, HM17321 (UCN2), for obesity and associated conditions such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, worldwide. The agreement excludes South Korea.
HM17321 is a proprietary UCN2 (urocortin-2) analog with a non-incretin mechanism of action and represents a potential first-in-class treatment designed to simultaneously promote weight loss and preserve lean body mass. In contrast, while existing GLP-1 based incretin therapies have demonstrated meaningful weight reduction, these therapies are associated with a reduction in lean body mass.
In preclinical studies, HM17321 has shown both quantitative and qualitative improvements in weight reduction when used as a monotherapy and in combination with GLP-1-based therapies. Furthermore, as a peptide-based therapeutic, HM17321 may have future potential for use in fixed-dose combination (FDC) products or combination regimens with incretin-based treatments.
In November 2025, Hanmi received IND (Investigational New Drug) clearance from the U.S. FDA (Food and Drug Administration) to initiate a Phase 1 clinical trial of HM17321. The ongoing clinical study is evaluating the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics of HM17321 in healthy volunteers and individuals with obesity.
Hanmi will be responsible for completing the Phase 1 clinical trial, after which Genentech will take over development starting with Phase 2 clinical trials.
In-Young Choi, Senior Executive Vice President, Head of R&D Division of Hanmi Pharm stated, “The paradigm of obesity treatment is evolving beyond simple weight reduction toward improving body composition and restoring metabolic health. We are very pleased that the differentiated scientific mechanism and development potential of HM17321 have been recognized by the global market. Hanmi Pharm will continue to dedicate its efforts to developing innovative medicines that can deliver more fundamental and differentiated therapeutic value to patients.”
“With our growing cardiometabolic pipeline and strong diagnostic expertise, Roche is advancing a portfolio designed to meet the diverse needs of people living with obesity and related health conditions,” said Boris L. Zaïtra, head of Roche Corporate Business Development. “By licensing this next-generation investigational therapy with first-in-class potential from Hanmi, Roche and Genentech will pursue a differentiated approach to selectively reduce fat mass while improving both muscle mass and muscle function. We look forward to further developing this medicine in order to address important unmet needs for people living with obesity and other metabolic diseases.”
Under the terms of the agreement, Hanmi will receive an upfront payment of USD 190 million from Genentech. Including development, regulatory, and commercial milestone payments, the total deal value could reach approximately USD 2.3 billion. In addition, Hanmi will be eligible to receive tiered royalties on future product sales following commercialization.
On 22 August, police raided several suspected cybercrime operations around the Sanjiang Market area in Vientiane, targeting activities run from hotels and apartments. Sikhottbaong district, Vientiane., Laos. (Photo: Ministry of Public Security)
gambling, and immigration violations across Vientiane, Bokeo, and Savannakhet provinces.
Authorities detained hundreds of suspects and handed over or deported nearly 150 foreign nationals in just a few days.
Drugs and Gambling Networks Targeted
On 18 August, in Savannakhet’s Kaysone Phomvihane City, police dismantled a drug trafficking ring following a tip from a local resident. Officers arrested three suspects and seized tens of thousands of amphetamine pills, packets of drug-laced coffee, a pistol, and a large amount of cash.
The following day, police raided an online gambling operation operating from an office at Royal Square in Vientiane’s Sikhottabong district. Officers arrested seven Lao nationals who worked as chat administrators for the illegal site and seized dozens of computers and mobile phones used to run the operation.
Foreign Suspects Handed Over
Authorities then turned their attention to border enforcement.
On 20 August, Bokeo authorities handed over 152 Chinese and Thai nationals in two separate operations. Officials transferred 145 Chinese nationals, including 136 suspected of telecommunications fraud, to China through the Mohan Checkpoint. Immigration police also handed over seven Thai nationals to Thai authorities at the 4th Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge to face legal proceedings.
The following day, authorities handed over another 64 Thai nationals to Thailand in connection with the ST Vegas case.
As of 24 August, Lao authorities had transferred 332 of the 373 Thai nationals detained in that case to Thai authorities, leaving 41 in Lao custody.
On 22 August, police also raided several suspected cybercrime operations around the Sanjiang Market area in Vientiane, targeting activities run from hotels and apartments. Authorities have not yet released details about arrests or seized evidence.
Part of a Nationwide Campaign
The latest operations form part of a broader government campaign against online scams and other cross-border crimes.
Lao officials say authorities arrested more than 4,400 cybercrime suspects from 25 nationalities during the first half of 2026, followed by more than 1,000 arrests in July and nearly 1,000 in August.
The government has stepped up cooperation with China and Thailand to target scam networks, drug trafficking, and illegal immigration, particularly in border areas.
Investigations remain ongoing, with authorities continuing to trace additional suspects and identify those allegedly running the networks.
