The Deputy Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism, Mr Ounethouang Khaophanh,  told the Vientiane Times recently that the Lao World Heritage Site has the potentials to gain the certification.

“We expect the certification will be granted at the 2018 Asean Tourism Forum to be hosted by Thailand in January,” he said.

If the effort is a success, this will be the first time the ACTC certification is granted after Asean, the 10-member regional bloc, adopted the standard.

Mr Ounethouang added that other Asean members have voiced their support for the move by Laos to promote Luang Prabang as an ACTC.

The ministry has been working with authorities of Luang Prabang province to develop the well-known tourism site to meet the ACTC criteria.

After an initial assessment by Lao authorities based on the criteria, Mr Ounethouang said, “there is a possibility” to gain the certification.

The ACTA standards are based on seven indicators to evaluate a city, including environmental management, waste management, awareness-building about environmental protection, and cleanliness.

Availability of green spaces, health safety and urban safety, security and tourism infrastructure and facilities are also taken into account.

The Director General of the ministry’s Tourism Marketing Department, Mr Soun Manivong, said seminars had been organised to inform Luang Prabang provincial authorities how they could prepare the city to meet the criteria and two assessments had also been conducted.

“We have looked into not only tourism matters, but environmental protection, waste management, security standards and related facilities,” he said.

Asean members are required to submit their applicant cities to a body in-charge of certifying the ACTC award by October, before the 2018 Asean Tourism Forum scheduled to be held in Thailand’s Chieng Mai province.

If the  ACTC certification is granted, Luang Prabang will be in the regional and global tourism spotlight again after being voted as the world’s top tourism destination for many years, Mr Ounethouang said.

Readers of the influential US travel magazine “Travel + Leisure” voted Luang Prabang among the world’s top 15 cities in the Travel + Leisure World’s Top 15 Cities 2017.

In addition, readers of “Wanderlust”, a leading British travel magazine, voted Luang Prabang as the world’s best city to visit in 2015, and from 2006 to 2008 as well as from 2010 to 2012.

“Visitors to Luang Prabang enjoy diverse attractions, such as well-preserved culture, ancient cultural sites and numerous temples. There are awesome waterfalls and adventure treks in forests and caves that tourists can enjoy,” the Director of Information, Culture and Tourism Department of Luang Prabang province, Mr Soulithip Norkhounphon, said.

By dishing out a slew of incentives, such as cash rebates, free bus rides and even a chance to win gold, the companies are taking the cashless payment fever to new heights. The battle comes after UnionPay and Apple both rolled out similar programs in June and July to cultivate customer loyalty.

During the promotional period, consumers who use Alipay, the world’s top mobile payment tool, for their transactions stand to earn up to 4,888 yuan ($727) in cash rebates if they make purchases at any of the 10 million-plus brick-and-mortar stores across the country accepting the service.

Using the e-payment service automatically gives the consumer a chance to win a piece of the jackpot — an 18.888 kilogram slab of gold.

Tencent’s WeChat Pay (Wallet), which comes in as a close second in China’s red-hot mobile payment arena, also unveiled a raft of promotions during the same period.

Apart from a similar cash rebate scheme, WeChat users can accumulate savings and spend them on Aug 8. Consumers also gain additional cash rewards by sharing promotions with their WeChat contacts.

Alipay and WeChat Pay controlled more than 92 per cent of China’s 18.8 trillion yuan mobile payment market in the first quarter of 2017, according to Beijing-based research firm Analysys.

According to research group eMarketer, China is the world’s largest proximity mobile payment market — making payments by tapping, swiping or checking in with a mobile phone — and nearly half of smartphone users in the country are expected to use such payment methods by 2020.

“This widespread adoption is fueled by growing smartphone usage and the expansion of e-commerce to rural areas,” said eMarketer analyst Shelleen Shum.

A study by consultancy Ipsos and Tencent found that mobile payments have become an intrinsic part of life for many Chinese people today, with 14 per cent of them carrying no cash and 26 per cent carrying less than 100 Yuan, when they head out.

Eric Jing, chief executive of Ant Financial, the parent company of Alipay, said the main objective of mobile payments is “by no means to eliminate cash but to give equal access to a wide array of merchandise and services that were previously unattainable for an underbanked population.”

Chen Xuejun, a qipao seller in Shanghai, said more than half of his transactions are made through Alipay, and this has improved business efficiency while greatly reducing the risk of him being paid with counterfeit notes.

Currently China with 1.41 billion population and India with 1.34 billion remain the two most populous countries, comprising 19 and 18 per cent of the total global population, according to the UN report. And in about seven years, or around 2024, the population of India is expected to surpass that of China.

According to the UN estimates after 2024 India’s population is projected to continue growing for several decades to around 1.5 billion in 2030 and approaching 1.66 billion in 2050, while the population of China is projected to remain stable until the 2030s, after which it may report a slow decline.

The report by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs’ Population Division forecasts that the current world population of nearly 7.6 billion will increase to 8.6 billion by 2030, 9.8 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100.

After decades of the one-child policy, coupled with new economic and social pressures to succeed, many couples in China have decided to stop with one child, or to not have any at all.  China’s ageing population remains a cause for concern, with the number of elderly people growing rapidly.

India’s population, currently around 1.3 billion, has quadrupled since the country became independent in 1947 but the speed of growth – still very high at around 17.7 per cent in the decade to 2011 – is slowing significantly.

Other populous Asian countries are Indonesia (258 million), Pakistan (189 million), Bangladesh (161 million), Japan (127 million) and Philippines (101 million), as per data from UN.

Vietnam and Thailand have a total population of 93 and 68 million respectively. Even if  Mongolia, which has much larger land area as compared to other smaller Asian countries, like Myanmar (having population of 52 million), South Korea (50 million) and Malaysia(30 million), is comparatively less populated. Its total population is only 2.97 million.

Bhutan, Brunei and Maldives are the least populated countries in Asia.  With a population of 409,163, Maldives is the smallest Asian country.

The find was made on July 25 by two people climbing the Lagginhorn mountain, in southern Switzerland, police said in a statement.

A few hundred metres before reaching the peak, the hikers spotted “a hand and two shoes”, area police said.

Extracting the remains that day was impossible because of poor weather, but rescue workers arrived by helicopter the following day, removed the remains from the ice and brought them to a hospital in the capital Bern for identification.

Test have confirmed the climber was a German national born in 1943 who disappeared on August 11, 1987.

The discovery came just two days after a Swiss couple who disappeared while walking in the Alps in 1942 were found in a receding glacier.

Duterte has repeatedly defended police prosecuting his deadly war on drugs while singling out officials as “narco-politicians”. Three mayors have been shot dead after he accused them of involvement in the drug trade.

Rights groups and some lawmakers have called for an investigation into the killing of Reynaldo Parojinog, mayor of the southern city of Ozamiz on Mindanao island, and the 14 others in a raid on his home Sunday.

Duterte rejected criticism of the raid, including why it was conducted at night.

“The police can go there any time convenient for them to arrest (him). And I will stand by the police,” Duterte said in a speech.

“I will answer for it. I will say I ordered it. Why go after the police? Who would be stupid enough to carry a (drug) business in daylight?”

Duterte, 72, has launched an unprecedented crackdown on crime that is popular with many Filipinos but has drawn international criticism.

Since he took office just over a year ago, police have reported killing nearly 3,200 people in the drug war. More than 2,000 other people have been killed in drug-related crimes, according to police data.

Rights groups say Duterte may be overseeing a crime against humanity.

Duterte named Parojinog last year as being among mayors, policemen and judges who were involved in drug trafficking.

In Sunday’s raid, police said a firefight occurred after the Parojinogs shot at them — a claim denied by the family’s camp. None of the officers were hurt, apart from one who sustained a minor injury.

Several lawmakers and Human Rights Watch questioned the circumstances surrounding the raid, with top Duterte critic Senator Leila De Lima calling it a “massacre”.

On Wednesday Duterte said he had met mayors in the presidential palace to warn them to stop drug trafficking.

Duterte hinted at the Parojinogs’ reputation of allegedly leading a gang responsible for bank robberies.

“They were running the city as if it was a feudal state of the family,” he said.

Duterte also lashed out at critics, including his predecessor Benigno Aquino who had questioned the effectiveness of his drug war.

“Go ahead and enter the drug trade, PNoy, and I will cut off your head,” Duterte said, using Aquino’s nickname.

“The kidnapping of Vietnamese national Trinh Xuan Thanh on German soil is an unprecedented and scandalous violation of German and international law,” said foreign ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer, accusing Vietnam’s secret service and embassy of snatching the man.

“As a consequence of this completely unacceptable action, we are declaring the representative of the Vietnamese secret service at the embassy persona non grata, and giving him 48 hours to leave,” added the spokesman.

The foreign ministry had summoned Vietnam’s ambassador over the affair, said Schaefer, to underline that “this sort of action has the potential to seriously damage German and Vietnamese ties.”

According to German media, the asylum seeker was snatched on July 23 in central Berlin’s Tiergarten park — next to the Bundestag and the chancellery — by armed men.

The man had resurfaced on Monday in Vietnam, where state-owned newspapers reported that he had turned himself in to authorities.

Trinh headed the state-owned Petro Vietnam Construction Corporation but had been sought by Hanoi. Once a lawmaker, he was stripped of his seat and kicked out of the communist party.

According to German news agency DPA, he has been accused of having caused losses amounting to 125 million euros ($148 million) at the Vietnamese company.

Schaefer said Hanoi’s actions marked a “breach of trust” as talks had been underway during the G20 summit of world leaders in Hamburg about a “possible extradition in a legal manner”.

“We demand that Trinh Xuan Thanh be allowed to travel back to Germany without delay, so that Vietnam’s request for extradition and his request for asylum can be thoroughly examined,” said Schaefer.

Ofo said it had launched a trial at the Thammasat University in Bangkok and plans to partner with 10 other universities in the next three months. By then, the services will be available on streets.

The Beijing-based startup plans to operate a total of 6,000 shared bikes in Bangkok by the end of September. And the number is set to increase by 5,000 per month after that.

“We aim to promote a cycling culture and help improve the traffic situation in Bangkok and other Thai cities in the near future,” said Lawrence Cao, Ofo’s head of Asia-Pacific business. “The company has been committed to bringing localized service for riders and providing a sustainable last-mile solution for city dwellers.”

The bike sharing craze that took off in China is now going abroad, as bike-sharing companies eye expanding their overseas presence. Last week Mobike Technology Co Ltd officially rode into Italy, marking the company’s first major push into the European continent after launching services in the United Kingdom, Japan and Singapore.

Operating more than more than 6.5 million bikes in six countries globally, Ofo said it has over 100 million users and has recorded more than 2 billion rides since its debut in 2015. Its top competitor Mobike has rolled out more than 6 million bikes in over 150 cities globally.

The contraband was found in two separate raids in the cargo terminal of Kuala Lumpur’s main international airport on Sunday, customs officials said.

In the first raid, authorities found 23 ivory tusks, weighing 75.7 kilograms (167 pounds) with an estimated value of 275,000 ringgit ($64,150).

“Customs officers seized two boxes which contained a large quantity of elephant tusks,” senior customs official Pudzi Man said in a statement.

The tusks had been sent from Nigeria, and the cargo was listed as food items, he said.

Separately, officials found six sacks containing 300.9 kilograms (663 pounds) of pangolin scales worth 3.86 million ringgit ($900,500), said Pudzi. The cargo had originated in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

No arrests have yet been made over the seizures.

Elephant tusks are in high demand in parts of Asia, especially China and Vietnam, where the ivory is prized for decorative purposes and in traditional medicine. The global trade in elephant ivory, with rare exceptions, has been outlawed since 1989.

The scales of the pangolin, a critically endangered creature also known as the “scaly anteater” that is the world’s most heavily trafficked mammal, are highly sought after in some Asian countries for use in traditional medicine.

Pangolin meat is considered a delicacy in China and their scales are also sometimes used in the production of crystal methamphetamine.

The seizures underline Malaysia’s role as a major transit point in the global wildlife smuggling trade. Last month, a Vietnamese man was arrested at Kuala Lumpur airport and a large stash of elephant ivory found in his luggage was seized.

Anyone found guilty of importing rare animals or their parts into Malaysia can be jailed for up to three years and fined.

Cashlessness is a new Chinese characteristic. In a Monday report by Tencent, the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China, and French market research firm Ipsos, 84 percent of Chinese were “comfortable” going out with only mobile phones, no cash.

Gao Jingwen, in her 20s, can hardly recall when she last paid in cash.

“I do not need cash in a restaurant, seeing a doctor, paying electricity and water bills. I cannot think of any place I cannot pay with my smart phone,” she said.

Zhang Shucui, 67, always used to take a large amount of change when going to the wet market near her home in Beijing’s Haidian district, but that time has gone.

“The QR code replaced the change basket in front of the stalls,” she said. “Gone are the days when I had to search all my pockets for a coin.”

Monday’s report also showed more than 70 percent of the 6,500-plus respondents saying they could live more than a week with only 100 yuan ($15) in cash, and 52 percent only use cash for 20 percent of their total monthly consumption.

Mei Houdui, an electronic products dealer in Shenzhen, shared a recent “awkward” experience – he wanted to borrow some cash as pocket money for his child at a party, and failed as no one had any cash in their pockets.

A big cake 

The new payment pattern has won over Chinese consumers with its convenience and flexibility, squeezing the market share of card and cash payments.

“Alipay or WeChat?” This is the most often question posed up when a purchase is made in China. Cards and cash, the once dominant purchasing methods, have become a second option in less than half a decade.

“Mobile payment companies were worried about their future just four years ago, but the spread of technology has exceeded the imagination of almost everyone,” said Li Gang, a professor at the Tencent Research Institute.

Data from the People’s Bank of China showed a total of 157 trillion yuan of payments were made on mobile devices in China last year, more than 200 times that in the United States in the same period. The figure is expected to continue expanding by 50 percent each year, it said.

No big surprise

It is no accident that mobile payment have expanded so fast in China. According to a report by eMarketer, China’s lack of “credit card culture” has somewhat fueled the popularization of mobile payments, especially in small cities and underdeveloped areas.

In a remote mountain village of central China’s Hunan Province, one can easily buy a hen or groceries by scanning a QR code.

Payment and Clearing Association of China said in a report that mobile payment users in small towns and the countryside account for half of the total in China. The percentage of mobile payment users in the countryside is even higher than in provincial capitals.

“Mobile payment has become the norm and companies and brands cannot afford to ignore that fact,” said Li.

WeChat Pay has recruited several million offline vendors. Alipay announced 10 million brick-and-mortar shops have signed for their cashless life promotion.

Mobile payment has also helped improve the outdated, time-consuming services at government offices and public sectors.

In Xi’an, nearly 70 percent of the northwestern city’s drivers pay their traffic fines via WeChat instead of wasting time queuing in long lines in police departments.

Patients in Guangzhou are used to making an appointment with a doctor and paying by smart phone.

Statistics from WeChat showed that over 300 cities have public service platforms that accept WeChat payments.

Both the Internet giants have actively expanded their services overseas since last year. Alipay can be used in several hundreds of thousands of shops in over 70 countries, while Wechat has landed in 19 countries and regions, including Japan, Thailand and Republic of Korea – most popular destinations among Chinese tourists.

“The door to a new world has opened, and an infinite future awaits,” Jia said.

More than 70,000 undocumented Cambodians have registered in new centres in Thailand in their first week of operation, though experts yesterday warned the designated two-week window will be too short for all migrants to register.

On June 23, the Thai government passed a new royal decree imposing hefty fines on undocumented migrants and their employers, but in apparent response to backlash from civil society and employers, postponed the implementation of the fines until December 31. In addition, it granted a two-week window – ending on Monday – for migrants and employers to register at temporary centres in each province and Bangkok.

Amnaj Sangsrikaew, an official at the Thai Labour Ministry’s Department of Employment, said that as of Monday, about 70,000 Cambodian workers had registered since the creation of 97 new centres on July 24. Data published on the Labour Ministry’s website late yesterday, however, put the number at 80,851 Cambodians registered among a total of 288,954 migrants.

Mom Sokchar, programme manager at Legal Support for Children and Women, said the time granted was too short.

“I don’t think all migrants can register,” he said, adding that migrants also had to rely on employers. “If the employer doesn’t [want them to] register, how can the migrants get documented?”

Dy The Hoya, of labour rights group Central, said that once the deadline passed, the only way to get documented was to return to Cambodia. “In that case the employers do not have enough workers,” he said. “The Cambodian and Thai governments have to extend the deadline.”

Barry Jessen, senior manager at Samaritan’s Purse, echoed this assessment. “Seventy thousand is a large number – but the estimates [about the number of undocumented workers] are much, much higher than that,” he said. “If they don’t register, they have to keep their heads down and hide.”

He said there were at least 500,000 undocumented Cambodian workers in Thailand, and added that the registration alone wasn’t sufficient – they had to get passports and travel documents, for which the Cambodian Embassy was responsible.

“If these 500,000 irregular workers are heading home, employers will be 500,000 workers short, which is where we were in 2014,” he said, referring to a mass exodus of migrants caused by a previous crackdown. “And no one wants that.”

The Cambodian Embassy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Cambodian Labour Ministry spokesperson Heng Sour could not be reached yesterday.