Experts from the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) last week conducted a preliminary study on improving access to maternal and child healthcare services in villages through mobile clinics, under the Korea Aid Project.
Hor Pha Keo Restoration Continues
The first phase of the Hor Pha Keo Museum renovation project has reached completion successfully following more than a year for works.
Pakxong Adventure Revs Up its Southern 4wd Tours
The new four-wheel-drive adventure tours by Pakxong Adventure are being heralded as the first of their kind in southern Laos, with the venture leading 4×4 tours of coffee farms on the Bolaven Plateau in southern Champassak province.
Laos Reaffirms Continuing Cooperation under ACD
Laos will continue to work with other member countries of the Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) to promote trade, investment, tourism and other related fields.
EU Provides Relief to Flood-Affected Families In Laos
The European Union has released more than 82,000 euro in humanitarian funding to assist the most vulnerable communities affected by floods since August in Laos.
The aid will directly benefit some 5,000 people heavily impacted across Lao northwestern Oudomxay province, Lao state-run news agency KPL reported Monday.
This EU funding supports the Lao Red Cross in delivering much-needed humanitarian assistance through the provision of food and non-food items, including rice, noodles, canned fish, blankets and mosquito nets.
In addition, training sessions on hygiene are also being organized alongside with the delivery of soap and sanitary items, in order to ensure good hygiene practices in affected households.
Laos witnessed heavy downpours in mid-August as the annual monsoon season reached its peak. The situation, aggravated by tropical storm Dianmu which brought more rains to the country, forced families in affected localities to evacuate to safer ground and left swathes of agricultural land inundated.
Although floodwaters receded in many areas, many houses sustained damage and crops have been destroyed. According to the Lao Red Cross, floods have affected nearly 20,000 people across in provinces of Luang Prabang, Oudomxay, Saravan, Xayaboury and Xieng Khuang.
Source: Xinhua
Official: Vietnam to Continue Import of Electricity From China and Laos
Vietnam will continue to import 2 percent of its electricity demand from China and Laos in the coming years, according to an official of Vietnam Electricity (EVN).
Vietnam’s total output of produced and imported electricity is forecast to reach 184 billion kWh in 2016, higher than that of 164 billion kWh in 2015, the Saigon Economic Times reported Monday, quoting EVN’s Production Engineering head Nguyen Hai Ha as saying.
Currently, the country is importing electricity that accounts for 3.1 percent of its demand from China and Laos, said Ha.
Till the end of 2015, Vietnam’s total installed capacity of power hit 38,642 megawatt (MW), some 41.6 percent of which was hydropower and 33 percent was coal-fired thermal power.
Gas turbines contributed some 18.7 percent, some 3.1 percent was imported while the rest was from other sources.
The country is running out of hydropower sources so it will focus on developing coal-fired thermal power. The proportion of thermal power will rise to 49 percent by 2020 and 55 percent by 2025, said the official.
Vietnam targeted to increase the national power capacity to 60,000 MW by 2020, some 96,500 MW by 2025 and 129,500 MW by 2030.
Source: Xinhua
DEAREST SISTER – Movie Review: London Film Festival 2016
Dearest Sister is a terrific, delicately-paced tale of second sight and morality gone askew, helmed by a master of slow burning menace and wry observation.
Here are some absolutely astounding facts about Laos, the Southeast Asian Peninsula officially known as the Lao People’s Democratic Republic that has a population of 7 million. And no, those aren’t the ‘astounding facts’. I clearly just pasted that first sentence over from Wikipedia.
My own astounding facts about Laos are based around the Laos film industry…
Number of films produced by Laos: 13. That’s 13 in total, In its entire history. Which means that Dearest Sister, directed by Mattie Do, is the 13th film ever to be made in her country. It’s also her second feature, which means Do is responsible for 15% of the entire film industry.
Also Mattie Do is the only female filmmaker in the Lao film industry.
And Mattie Do is the only horror filmmaker in the Lao film industry.
Which basically makes Mattie Do our new hero.
Finally, for all you newly converted Laos film industry fact fans, there’s only one cinema in the whole of Laos. Which means that if you’re potentially travelling 236,800 km to see one of only 13 films made in the only cinema in the country, it had better damn well be a good one. Also you should definitely pre-book tickets before you leave.
Luckily for you, the 13th ever film produced by Laos, Dearest Sister is a terrific and chilling morality tale, full of quiet terror and black humour.
In Dearest Sister, a young village woman called Nok is sent to help her visually impaired cousin, Ana, in the city to earn some money to send back home. Nok is an impudent, materialistic woman who will spend the film straddling either side of a moral divide.
Ana’s encroaching blindness comes with some terrifying and lucrative side effects. Ana can see dead people. That’s the terrifying part, especially when they emerge from the blur of daylight surrounded by ghostly ash. The dead people have a habit of whispering a series of three numbers to Ana. That’s the lucrative part. These ghoulish apparitions are telling her next week’s winning lottery numbers.
When Ana emerges from one of her ‘episodes’, Nok hears her recanting these numbers, but later Ana will have no memory of them. Nor will Nok reveal to Ana that this is how the village girl sent to help her blind cousin is quickly, and secretly, amassing a small fortune.
At its heart, Dearest Sister is an incredibly deft morality tale, but one that comments on many wider social and economic disparities. Nok’s moral ambivalence isn’t quite as cut and dry as it sounds, she’s just young, opportunistic and hasn’t been afforded the financial security of her cousin. Although her cousin’s wealth tied up with her husband, a clearly very shady Estonian businessman.
Nok also experiences a great deal of prejudice. From the man in the mobile phone store who immediately tells Nok they “don’t sell counterfeits here,” to Ana’s friend who publicly tells Nok not to stand on the toilet as this “is a nice restaurant.” You understand and sympathise with Nok, even when she’s taking selfies with her new mobile phone, or dying her hair and heading out to find herself a nice rich Western man. The fact that actor Amphaiphun Phommapunya manages to elicit even a modicum of sympathy while screwing over her cousin is impressive.
Don’t go into Dearest Sister expecting a straight-up horror film though. Creepy moments are sparing, and certainly nothing as intense as similarly ocular based horror The Eye. Instead Dearest Sister is a delicately paced and playfully constructed film, full of quiet menace that ends with a very satisfying pay-off. 4/5
Source: Methods Unsound
Prime Minister Thongloun Joins in Celebration of National Teacher’s Day
Over 1,000 teachers in Vientiane Capital celebrated the 22nd anniversary of National Teacher’s Day on October 7 at the National Culture Hall.