The short video competition titled “Asean Against Trafficking, Humans Are Not For Sale” is open to Lao citizens aged 18-25.

Asean Youth Video Competition project coordinator of Asean Political-Security Community Division, Asean Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ms Niphonekham Khammounheuang said the short video must be 3-5 minutes in length and have English subtitles.

She said the short video contest was being held for the first time to celebrate the Asean 50th anniversary as well as to give Lao young people a chance to contribute to the fight against human trafficking in the region.

The video’s message must match with the Asean Human Rights Decree and international law, reflecting the campaign against human trafficking and the need for cooperation against it.

For entries, video makers must attach their name, address, and date of birth and contact email, phone number, video title, and a brief description about the video of not more than 300 words in English.

Video entries can be delivered to the Department of Asean, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or emailed to Aseanlao@gmail.com until August 15, or contact Ms Niphonekham Khammounheuang on 020 2811 8800 for more information.

This competition provides three prize categories with National Winner, Regional Winner, and People’s Choice Award Winner.

Announcement of the National Winner will occur on August 31 with the winning entry joining other counterparts in the overall regional competition.

Videos uploaded to aichr.org that receive the most likes will receive the People’s Choice Award.

Announcement of the Regional Winner and People’s Choice Award Winner will occur on November 1st through aichr.org.

National Winner will receive US$500, while Regional Winner will get US$2,000 and People’s Choice Award Winner will get US$500.

Regional Winner and People’s Choice Award Winner will receive their prizes at the 31st Asean Summit taking place in November in Manila, Philippines. The committee will cover airfares, accommodation and food expenses for the winners.

“A Marine Corps KC-130 transport aircraft crashed in LeFlore County, Mississippi, on July 10 at approximately 4 pm CDT (2200 GMT), claiming the lives of 16 service members,” the Marine Corps said in a statement.

The cause of the crash is under investigation.

US President Donald Trump, in a tweet, called the news “heartbreaking.” “Melania and I send our deepest condolences to all.”

The health of the prominent 61-year-old democracy advocate has deteriorated since authorities revealed last month that he had been transferred from prison to a hospital due to late-stage liver cancer.

But Chinese officials have ignored calls by international human rights groups, Western governments and local activists to grant Liu’s wish to be treated abroad.

A day after reporting that Liu was in a critical condition, the First Hospital of China Medical University in the northeastern city of Shenyang said on Tuesday that the patient was “still in active rescue”.

Liu has an abdominal infection, organ dysfunction and he went into septic shock, the hospital said in a statement on its website. He is undergoing kidney dialysis, and is getting anti-infection and organ function support therapy.

The back-to-back pessimistic reports from the hospital came after foreign doctors who visited Liu over the weekend concluded that it was safe to transport him to another country, which contradicted Chinese medical experts.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman had said on Monday that she hoped for a “signal of humanity” from China.

A British embassy spokeswoman said London expressed “serious concern at the treatment of Liu Xiaobo by the Chinese authorities” and called on officials to lift all restrictions on him and let him choose where to get medical treatment.

The United States has urged Beijing to grant him full parole.

Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang repeated on Tuesday that he hoped “relevant countries can respect the judicial sovereignty of China and not interfere in China’s internal affairs under the pretext of an individual case”.

Chinese authorities have insisted Liu is receiving top-notch care.

If he dies, Liu would become the first Nobel Peace Prize laureate to die in custody since German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky, who passed away in a hospital while held by the Nazis in 1938.

 – Medical evacuation ready –

Liu was arrested in 2008 after co-writing Charter 08, a bold petition that called for the protection of basic human rights and reform of China’s one-party Communist system.

He was sentenced to 11 years in prison in December 2009 for “subversion”. At the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo in 2010, he was represented by an empty chair.

Human rights groups have criticised the way Liu has been treated, with videos of him at the hospital being leaked to Chinese state-run media.

The German embassy complained on Monday that it seemed “security organs are steering the process, not medical experts” after the leak of apparent surveillance camera footage showing the Western physicians speaking to Liu, his wife and Chinese doctors.

Liu’s US-based lawyer, Jared Genser, said late Monday that he has arranged for a medical evacuation with life support for Liu.

“By denying him treatments that would extend his life, the Chinese government is intentionally hastening his death,” Genser said in a statement.

Amnesty International’s China researcher Patrick Poon voiced concerns that Liu will die in custody.

“There is little hope that the authorities will let him leave,” Poon told AFP.

“It’s very sad and outrageous to see how the Nobel laureate is being treated in such way,” Poon said.

Poon noted that the Communist Party is holding a key congress later this year and President Xi Jinping “might only have consolidation of his power in his eyes”.

Jakarta – A television commercial of local ice cream Indoeskrim has gained worldwide attention on the internet. The three-minute commercial ranked fifth on YouTube Indonesia’s trending videos list and has been watched by over 800,000 viewers.

Entitled “Kisah Legenda Nusantara” (The Legend of Archipelago), the video starts with a feud between two royal siblings over food. One of the guards grabs a walkie-talkie and reports the fight to the Queen, who immediately intervenes.

When she fails to stop the fight, she calls her husband using her intricately adorned iPhone for help.

The King, who receives the call aboard a giant computer-generated bird, finds his wife’s location using Google Maps. He then stops the children’s fight by showing them a cabinet full of ice cream.

The commercial is promoting new flavors from the Indoeskrim Nusantara series, such as es teler (a local traditional dessert made of shaved ice, syrup and fruits), mung bean and kopyor a traditional dessert made from coconut milk). It was directed by celebrated Indonesian filmmaker Dimas Djayadiningrat.

In an interview with The Jakarta Post, Dimas explained that, initially, his client wanted the ad to be set in a modern house and a family comes in while donning the same costumes and riding horses. However, under his treatment, Dimas transformed the concept.

“I thought that if you want to be nekad [reckless], then you’ll have to do it wholeheartedly,” he said. “So we tricked the viewers in the beginning and give them the twist at the end saying that it was a joke.”

Although the ad makes its viewers burst into laughter, Dimas was very serious during the production process.

Inspired by historical sinetron (soap operas) that he often watched on TV, Dimas utilized a DV Cam to create the same tonality as these sinetrons, and cast actors who often acted on similar soap operas.

“I tried not to mess up. In short, I just deconstructed [the sinetron]. If I had messed it up, it wouldn’t be funny,” he said, adding that if he had used different actors, the results would have been different.

However, Dimas, who loves history and antiques, said that he did not intend to make fun of any ancient kingdoms in Indonesia.

Meanwhile, the iPhone, refrigerator and walkie-talkie were props that he added.

“Those are the twists,” he said. “I, as a person who was never [involved] in that [historical soap opera], made jokes using smartphones, refrigerator – they are part of the joke.”

The official Instagram account of humor website 9gag.com posted a short version of the commercial on July 8.

So far, it has been watched by more than 9 million viewers and liked by more than 800,000 users. Meanwhile, on Twitter, some netizens highlighted the unique iPhone casing that was used by the characters.

However, it may be impossible for them to see them in stores.

“At first, I thought about it [selling the iPhone case], but it is too receh [shallow],” he laughed, adding that the case now belongs to the director of PT. Indofood Sukes Makmur, Tbk., Axton Salim, who shows it off on his Instagram account.

Head of Public Security Office of Samphan district Lieutenant Colonel Houmphaeng Khounsaniamphai told Vientiane Times on Monday that the landslide took place in Phearluang village of Samphan district at 4:20 am on Sunday, engulfing the house and most likely killing the six immediately on impact.

The victims were identified as Mr Lang, 58, and his wife Ms Lieng, 40, along with four children: Mr Khamler, 12, Mr Thai, ten, Ms Kern, eight, and Ms Song, aged six years old.

Lieutenant Colonel Houmphaeng said there were four dwellings located in the proximity of the disaster area, but only Mr Lang’s house which had backed onto the incline was in the path of the landslip.

It is not the first fatal landslide to occur in northern areas. In 2013, a total of 16 people were killed by flooding and landslides in the province of Oudomxay.

Estimates from that disaster put property losses at about 1,900 billion kip after houses were swept away or buried and farmlands, crops, livestock and other possessions were damaged or lost in the flooding.

Some 48 houses in Baeng district and nine dwellings in Xay district were swept away while others were severely damaged.

From May to October of this year, tropical storms are expected to be generated in the Northwest Pacific Ocean, according to the Meteorology and Hydrology Department of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.

A few of these storms could move across into Laos bringing torrential rains that increase the chance of landslides and flash flooding, particularly in northern and central regions.

All are advised to monitor the weather forecasts issued by the department.

From July 10-11, light rain is to be expected across some regions of the country, according to the daily forecast from the Meteorology and Hydrology Department released yesterday.

In the capital, Vientiane, temperatures are projected to range from a low of 24 to a high of 33 degrees Celsius.

In northeastern areas, temperatures are set to range from 18-30 degrees while in the north-west, temperatures within a 22-32 degree band are likely to prevail.

Central areas will see temperatures range from 24-31C while the south can expect temperatures varying from 23-32C.

Two Thais and one Malaysian were arrested as they drove an SUV with the animals hidden inside, according to local border security chief Syed Basri Syed Ali.

Authorities found 58 bearded dragons and eight African spurred tortoises.

Both animals are popular pets in Malaysia but it is illegal to bring them into the country without the correct permits.

If found guilty of breaking wildlife protection laws, the trio — who were arrested Thursday — could be jailed for up to 10 years, said Syed Basri.

Kanitha Krishnasamy, acting regional director for wildlife trade monitoring network Traffic, told AFP the discovery could help investigators probing pet smuggling.

“This case could potentially uncover connections to the exotic pet trade that appears to be booming in Malaysia,” she said.

African spurred tortoises are kept as pets due to their reputation for having a pleasant temperament. The world’s third-largest tortoise, they are classified as “vulnerable” by protection group the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Bearded dragons — which take their name from the scales under their head that resemble a beard — are popular pets due to their hardy and tame nature.

In a legal amendment, lawmakers agreed to ban political parties from “using the voice, images or written documents… of convicts prosecuted in criminal or civil cases for political interests,” according to a draft of the clause seen by AFP.

The move appears to directly target the opposition’s self-exiled former leader Sam Rainsy, who has a string of convictions in Cambodia that he says are politically motivated.

Rainsy has already resigned from Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), but still plays a behind the scenes role for an opposition that aims to end Hun Sen’s three decade rule in next year’s general election.

The tweaked law also bans parties from “openly or tacitly conspiring with convicts” with the threat of suspension for up to five years or even abolition by the courts.

The amendments still need approval from the senate and the King’s assent — both formalities.

Opposition lawmakers boycotted the parliamentary vote, decrying the amendments as politically motivated.

In a Facebook post on Sunday ahead of the vote, Rainsy accused Hun Sen of being afraid of him, “to the extent that just my name, photo, voice or even my shadow causes him insomnia”.

In last month’s local elections the CNRP used images of Sam Rainsy on party banners.

Rainsy has been at the forefront of the kingdom’s opposition movement for two decades.

Hun Sen faces crunch national polls next year and has dramatically ramped up his rhetoric in recent months.

Last month he called on critics to “prepare coffins” and warned he would eliminate “100 or 200 people” if stability was threatened.

The 2.5-tonne female was found dead Friday in her enclosure, with a post mortem examination concluding that Bertha, the zoo’s oldest resident, had died from multiple organ failure, zoo director James Dichaves said.

“Bertha was among the pioneer animals here. Her mate died sometime in the 1980s and the couple failed to produce any offspring,” he told AFP.

A seven-year-old Bertha arrived at the zoo in the Philippines’ capital the year it opened in 1959. The zoo has lost the records of where she came from, Dichaves said.

Fed a diet of grass, fruit, and bread, Bertha lived far beyond the 40 to 50 year lifespans which are typical for the species in the wild and in captivity respectively, Dichaves said.

Zoo officials believed Bertha was the oldest living hippo in captivity at the time of her death.

Donna, who died in 2012 at the age of 62 at the US Mesker Park Zoo and Botanic Garden in Evansville, Indiana, was previously said to be the world’s oldest hippo, according to media reports at the time.

Two years ago, an adult male hippo named Bertie was euthanized at the Denver Zoo in Colorado at the age of 58, the reports said.

The common hippopotamus of sub-Saharan Africa faces a “high risk of extinction in the wild” from habitat loss and illegal hunting for meat and ivory from its teeth, according to the Swiss-based International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Bertha’s death leaves Mali, a 43-year-old Asian elephant, as the oldest remaining animal among the some 500 residents at the Manila Zoo, Dichaves said.

Animal rights groups around the world have called for Mali, an adult female elephant, to be retired from the zoo and sent to a Thai sanctuary in a seven-year campaign, alleging it suffered from cruelty and loneliness.

However, the country’s environment department eventually allowed the zoo to keep the elephant after experts ruled it was healthy and said it was uncertain how Mali would react to the other elephants at the Thai sanctuary, Dichaves said.

But it is not a joyous homecoming for the truckloads of men and women, who fled Thailand in fear of a new law that hardens penalties on the millions of undocumented migrant workers underpinning its economy.

Thailand’s sudden rollout of the labour decree, which hikes up fines on unregistered workers and their employers, sent a lightning bolt of panic through migrant communities.

“If we were arrested, we would have to pay money to police. If this happened, all of our money would disappear,” Thu Ya, who worked in a Thai plastics factory, told AFP while preparing to cross back into Myanmar’s eastern border town of Myawaddy.

The mass exodus of migrants — estimated to be more than 60,000 — is only the latest chaos to highlight the precarious lives of migrant workers who take up difficult and dangerous jobs in Thailand’s factories and fishing boats.

Much of the work force lacks proper documentation and lives in constant fear of exploitation from police, bosses, and traffickers.

And yet many Myanmar migrants scrambling across the border said these hardships still beat the prospect of dire poverty in their homeland, where jobs and good wages are difficult to come by.

“I will consider coming back in a legal way, with the full documents,” said Thu Ya, 32, who has spent much of his life in Thailand.

‘We have a problem’

Myanmar’s new civilian government, which came to power last year, was expected to usher in a windfall of foreign investment into a resource-rich country that was closed off to the world during the former junta’s 50-year reign.

In a jubilant visit to Thailand in June 2016, de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi vowed to drive the economic growth that would bring her countrymen home.

But a year on the gains have fallen short of expectations and Myanmar is still years away from offering wages that rival those in Thailand.

A steep decline in foreign investment — down 28 percent in the last quarter of 2016 — sounded alarm bells over an economy whose initial opening in 2011 was met with a rush of investor excitement.

The country’s GDP growth also fell below seven percent for the first time in five years in 2016, clocking in at 6.5 percent.

Having fleetingly become the fastest-growing economy in the region, Myanmar now lags behind the Philippines, Laos and Cambodia.

Economists blame the slump on a lack of clarity from the new government on its economic policies, as well as the ponderous progress in passing a new investment law.

“We have a problem because the ministers have no economic culture, and then the reforms are done too slowly,” said Myanmar economist Khin Maung Nyo.

The young civilian government, stacked with political novices, faces the monumental challenge of trying to unpick the junta’s devastating economic legacy.

“We need to create thousands of jobs but I doubt we will be able to do it quickly,” Khin Maung Nyo added.

‘They’ll be back’

In the meantime, Thailand looks set to continue to be a magnet for its neighbour’s workers.

Huge sections of Thailand’s economy, especially construction and food production, rely on migrants to do jobs that comparatively wealthier Thais have long since eschewed.

And while the country has one of the slowest growth rates in Asia, the minimum wage of 305 baht ($9) a day is more than three times the equivalent in Myanmar.

Since coming to power in 2014 Thailand’s junta has unveiled a series of campaigns to clean-up abuses in its migrant labour sector, which also attracts significant numbers of workers from Cambodia and Laos.

But rights groups say the drives are often short lived and ad-hoc, creating more confusion. This time was no different.

Caught off-guard by the mass exodus, Thailand’s junta ruled last week to suspend its new law for six months.

Junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha called for calm and reassured business owners: “Don’t panic, they will come back soon.”

He is likely to be right.

Silar, a Myanmar nurse working in Bangkok, went home full of hope in 2015, eager to reunite with her husband and daughter.

But she struggled to find work and is now back in the Thai capital — gripped with fear after misplacing her work permit.

“In Myanmar, there is still not enough work, especially in the countryside, and wages remain very low,” she told AFP, using a pseudonym for anonymity.

“I do not know what I’m going to do.”

The hills around the revered Tibetan Buddhist academy Larung Gar were once a seamless carpet of vibrant red, dominated by the homes of thousands of monks, nuns and devotees who crowded the remote valley in southwest China to explore their faith.

Today the landscape is riven with scars, with many houses destroyed and some neighbourhoods torn apart after demolition crews were sent in by authorities, who have ordered a mass clear out of the area.

More than 10,000 people – including many Han Chinese devotees – were living around Larung Gar, the world’s largest and most important institution for Tibetan Buddhist learning, but the government believes the area had become dangerously overcrowded.

Chinese tourists have partially demolished houses as the backdrop for photos at the Larung Gar Buddhist Institute in Sichuan. The government, citing overcrowding, wants to halve the population. Photo/AFP

Rights groups, however, see the demolitions as a ploy by the atheist ruling Communist Party to tighten its grip on religious practice in Tibetan regions.

Bulldozers began crushing homes last year, but the process has escalated in the past few months. The properties are being razed to make way for tourism infrastructure, parking and better roads leading down the steep hills to the central monastic buildings.

“They tore down so many houses – he government said there were too many people,” laments Tibetan Buddhist student Gyatso, 26, as he hands freshly sawed planks to a red-robed friend hammering them onto an extension to a house they now share metres from his old one.

Inside, a small tape player quietly chants mantras. Tibetan-language books line the walls next to framed photographs of Jigme Phuntsok, the charismatic lama who founded the academy in the 1980s.

“It’s freezing here in the winter, but I’m used to it and wouldn’t live anywhere else,” says Gyatso, who came to Larung Gar as a boy with his family of poor nomadic herders.

He received 5,000 yuan (Bt25,000) in compensation for his old home.

E’deng, who like Gyatso withholds his full name for security reasons, was not so lucky. Last autumn he was ordered out of Larung Gar, his home of two decades, and now rents a room near a monastery two hours away.

“Of course I didn’t want to move, but when the Khenpos decide something, you have to listen. There was nothing I could do,” he says, referring to revered Buddhist teachers who manage the encampment and have mediated the government request to reduce numbers.

Departing residents have to sign pledges promising never to return to live at Larung Gar, and some have been subject to intensive political re-education once home, according to Human Rights Watch.

HRW has condemned the evictions as a “fundamentally abusive campaign that has prompted suicides, public humiliation, and serious disruption to the community”.

The European Parliament called on China in December to stop the demolitions and respect freedom of religion.

Six United Nations rights experts expressed “grave concern” in a November letter to the government, recalling a previous demolition campaign in 2001, when 8,000 residents were driven out as homes were destroyed, sometimes with people inside.

Larung Gar has grown in unprecedented size and influence for a Buddhist academy on the Tibetan plateau. Authorities said last year its population, estimated at between 10,000 and 20,000, would be cut to 5,000 by this September to improve fire safety and sanitation.

A blaze destroyed around 100 houses in 2014, without causing casualties, according to the International Campaign for Tibet.

“Of course fire safety isn’t the issue – all they want is to control things very easily,” says Lobsang, a monk now living in a neighbouring county who studied at Larung Gar for seven years.

“The government doesn’t like so many people – over 10,000 people – opening their minds because the school is so good. They think these people are very dangerous,” he adds.

An excavator clears debris from the partially demolished monastery complex. Photo/AFP

Some 4,500 nuns and monks had been expelled as of March, according to a senior abbot cited by campaign groups, and more than 3,000 homes are thought to have been destroyed as of this spring.

Authorities have made the area nearly inaccessible to foreigners with checkpoints and a heavy security presence, while temporarily limiting flows of Chinese tourists.

In a neighbouring valley, nuns have been placed in square rows of blue-roofed temporary housing.

But locals say demolitions cannot take away the strong pride in Tibetan identity, language and religion the academy has instilled.

Villagers in hamlets hours away carry cards and wear pendants distributed by Larung Gar, representing a vow to live by a moral programme of “10 virtues” espoused by its Khenpos.

For Lhamo, a Tibetan county government employee charged with convincing elderly devotees to leave Larung Gar for retirement homes, imposing the current order has been emotionally taxing.

People yell and curse at her, she says, but she understands their frustration.

“That little house is their everything. Even though some are very, very crude, they don’t have anything else in the world,” she says.

“When I tell them there are better living conditions elsewhere, they say they only care about studying Buddhism, not material things. What can you possibly say in return?”