Binh Dinh, a central coastal province with a stunning stretch of beaches and mountain ranges as well as beautiful islands, is a seriously underrated tourist destination.

Like many other Vietnamese regions, the province has its own special cuisine and traditions that should be better known.

Dishes that deserve to be included on the tourist culinary trail include banh xeo tom nhay (fresh savoury pancakes with shrimp), banh hoi chao long (thin rice vermicelli with rice porridge), banh it la gai (glutinous rice cake covered with pinnate leaves) and bun song than (dual-thread vermicelli).

But it is nem (pork roll) that is the real standout dish.

A snack that can be eaten as finger food or as an appetiser to a larger meal, nem appears everywhere in Binh Dinh, from vendors’ baskets to luxury banquets.

There are two kinds of nem: nem tuoi (grilled fresh pork roll) and nem chua (fermented pork roll). The latter can be grilled or eaten fresh after removing the leaf covering.

Traditional nem contains either grilled or fermented pork in addition to crispy greens, peanut sauce, garlic, chili and aromatic herbs. It usually comes wrapped and rolled in rice paper.

The mixture of sweet, sour, salty and spicy flavours make your mouth salivate with each bite.

The province’s speciality, Nem Cho Huyen, can be found in Tuy Phuoc’s District’s Phuoc Loc Commune.

The nem is named after Huyen market, which is located near a row of restaurants lining the 2km-long Highway 19 section that traverses the commune.

The restaurants’ barbecue fill the street air with the aroma of grilled pork, whetting your appetite even hours before dinner time.

In the cool weather of the final days of winter, the warmth from the grills is especially welcoming.

Finding the restaurants, Vo Thi Thanh Hoa, deputy chief of the commune, however, told me that Bon Lai restaurant might be the oldest nem maker and showed me how to get there.

Upon arrival, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Bon Lai was small but airy.

Welcoming me was Nguyen thi An, 76, the owner.

“My father-in-law was the one who created nem Cho Huyen,” she said. ” I’ve been making nem since I was 17 when I married his son. Now my daughter-in-law is managing the restaurant.”

The grilled nem tuoi and nem chua I ordered were served with a special sauce of peanuts, chilli, fish sauce, sugar and other spices.

I also had a side dish with fresh cucumber, dill, basil, lettuce, garlic and green mango, accompanied by rice paper for rolling the vegetables.

Some people like to eat nem tuoi fresh off the grill, but I prefer to add vegetables and roll it in rice paper as it helps to reduce the fatty taste.

A bit of fiery chilli paste from the condiment basket also adds a nice bite to the nem.

The fermented nem was covered with a guava leaf, which I like to eat. But some people take it off as it has a slightly acrid taste.

Bau Da wine, another famous speciality of the province, is often served with nem.

Handmade delicacy

Producing nem is a complicated process requiring patient, skilled workers.

Cook Le Thi Bay of Bon Lai restaurant told me that she and her workers visit the slaughterhouse each day as early as 4am to buy the best quality pork.

Only pork from the thighs of six- to eight-month-old pigs can meet the quality requirement.

To make nem, the pork is first sliced and ground with sliced pigskin, sugar, salt and garlic. For nem tuoi, the mix will be grilled over charcoal.

Fermented nem is wrapped with a guava leaf to absorb the moisture, and then covered with a banana leaf to make it look more attractive.

After three or four days, when it has a slightly sour taste, it is ready to eat. As it keeps well, it can be offered as a gift to family, friends or co-workers.

Nem is also made in other regions, especially during the Tet (Lunar New Year) season, as it is considered one of the must-have foods during the holiday.

Although nem Cho Huyen has been famous for nearly 100 years, it has yet to have a trade name.

The commune authority in Binh Dinh Province, however, has registered a copyright for nem Cho Huyen as part of its master plan to meet criteria for the national government’s new rural area programme, according to Hoa, the head of the commune’s people’s committee.

Though each region in the country has developed its own kind of nem, using most of the same ingredients, each version is a little different – crispier there, sweeter here and sour elsewhere. But all are indeed delicious.

The Ministry of Health and Singapore Work Development Agency announced on Saturday that they will be increasing the monthly training allowance for their five healthcare professional conversion programmes (PCP) which enables individuals to get qualifications and skills to work in this sector.

From April, the allowances will be raised by between $50 and $150.

Current allowances range between $1,300 and $1,900, but this will increase to between $1,350 and $2,050.

This is the second round of enhancements to the PCP following the increase in monthly training allowance and introduction of a career transition bonus in 2014.

From September, mid-career professionals can also apply for the Singapore Institute of Techonology’s (SIT) new full time four-year degree programmes in physiotherapy, occupational therapy and diagnostic radiography.

Trainees selected for the degree programmes will receive allowances of $2,100 to $2,420 each month, depending on their prior work experience, and a one-time bonus of $2,000 upon graduation.

These programmes will replace Nanyang Polytechnic’s three-year diploma programmes for the same areas of study, which took in their last batch of students in April 2015.

Since 2003, over 1,000 people have made the mid-career switch to the healthcare sector.

Dr Amy Khor, Senior Minister of State for Health and the Environment and Water Resources, said the changes “are aimed at enabling more mid-career professionals to join the healthcare family”.

“With an ageing population, we need to train and recruit more nurses, therapists and radiographers,” she said at the sidelines of a healthcare career preview for mid-career professionals at SIT on Saturday. Another preview will be held from 8.30am to 1pm on Feb 20 at the Academic Plaza in SITs Dover campus.

“We uphold the global standards, we filter culturally sensitive content,” Line Indonesia spokesman Teddy Arifianto said in a statement received by thejakartapost.com.

Teddy said that the company is sorry that the sensitive stickers were deemed as offensive as they were meant as an elaborate version of an emoticon, which are created by external parties from around the world and can be bought by Line users on its online store.

Line is reported to have subsequently removed all stickers considered to be culturally sensitive for users of the messaging app within the Indonesian market and would continue to monitor its search engine for any other inappropriate content.

Information and Communication Ministry spokesman Ismail Cawidu said Thursday that social media and messaging platforms should drop stickers that expressed support for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) community.

The government’s recent warning to Line is the latest in a string of visible discouragement shown toward homosexuality within the socially conservative country. Although homosexuality is not illegal in Indonesia, it remains a sensitive issue.

Technology, Research, and Higher Education Minister Muhammad Nasir previously said, on the basis that a university is deemed to be a moral safeguard, that LGBT students should be banned from university campuses following news that a proactive organization at the University of Indonesia (UI) named the Support Group and Resource Center on Sexuality Studies (SGRC) were organizing activities and offering counseling for LGBT students.

Nasir’s statement sparked a weeks-long public debate and other officials, including the Culture and Elementary and Secondary Education Minister Anies Baswedan, the People’s Consultative Assembly chairman Zulkifli Hasan, House of Representatives member Reni Marliawati and Bandung Mayor Ridwan Kamil, have voiced similar sentiment with regard to the LGBT community. The Indonesian Ulema Council, the influential board of Muslim clerics, also voiced their concerns.

Meanwhile, human rights groups with the National Commission of Human Rights (Komnas HAM), describe the statements made by the public officials as a violation of human rights and suggest that they are contradictory to the fundamental principles of the nation.

Refugees are taking shelter in camps in five townships: Namtu, Kutkai, Mongyai, Namhkam and Kyaukme.

Over 80 refugees are staying in makeshift tents in Namtu. The two camps in Kutkai shelter more than 700 refugees. Some 500 refugees take shelter in camps in Kyaukme. Some refugees escaped to Mogok and urban areas of Kyaukme in which the Thiho Monastery shelters hundreds of refugees.

“Some refugees returned to their homes but when they saw there was nothing to go back to, they decided to return to the camps,” said Lo Poe Kyinti from the Ta’ang Women Organisation.

Rebels reportedly kidnapped the villagers and burned houses in Lanaw village, Namhkam.

The battles started on February 7 and are still raging.

Refugees are in immediate need of warm clothes, blankets, food and other essentials.

The first tranche of the EU support of 11.5 million euros will be added to the 48 million euro Australian-Initiated Basic Education Quality and Access in Laos (BEQUAL) programme, which aims to enable more disadvantaged children to complete good quality basic education and achieve literacy, numeracy and other life skills.

This programme is expected to benefit 450,000 primary school children in 66 most disadvantaged districts. Programme activities include renewing the curriculum, developing new materials, upgrading teacher skills, sponsoring pre-service scholarships to villages suffering from a tea cher shortage, and improving school based management.

The programme also aims to improve school infrastructure, provide school meals, and undertake a range of other activities with the intention of improving the quality of primary education and improving the participation of children and their communities in primary education.

The second tranche of 3.5 million euros will be used to continue strengthening education sector governance, particularly planning and budgeting, according to a joint statement on the project.

This information was revealed during the launch of the programme in Vientiane yesterday.

Deputy Minister of Education and Sports Sengdeuane Lachanthaboun, EU Chargé d’Affaires to Laos Mr Michel Goffin, and Acting Head of Mission of the Australian Embassy in Laos Mr Andreas Zurbrugg took turns to address the ceremony.

The event was also attended by representatives of the government’s line agencies, diplomatic corps, international organisations and development partners to officially launch the EU financial support programme.

Speaking at the event, Sengdeuane said that improving the quality of education was one of the top priorities of the Lao government and was critical to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and helping Laos to graduate from Least Developed country status.

The BEQuA-BasED programme is well aligned with the priorities of the Education Sector Development Plan (ESDP 2016-2020) and will also actively contribute to implementation of the National Socio-Economic Development Plan (NSEDP 2016-2020).

“Education is a strategic sector for poverty reduction and sustainable development but first and foremost ‘Education for All’ is a main cornerstone of a fair society. BEQuA-BasED was built upon on the EU Agenda for Change and the strategic priorities of the 8th NSEDP 2016-20 and the ESDP 2016-2020. The EU will work closely with the Ministry of Education and Sports and Australia to deliver this programme fruitfully,” Goffin said.

Education is one of the EU’s three priority sectors under its development strategy for Laos from 2014-2020.

Other key sectors include nutrition and governance and human rights, while its support for the areas of trade and private sector assistance, agriculture and rural development, health, environment and natural resources and UXO assistance are also maintained.

Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution said the latest economic policy package was the government’s largest package yet.

He admitted, however, that bureaucratic problems continued to plague Indonesia and had become a serious obstacle to attracting investment. In response, the government would simplify the nation’s bureaucracies in forthcoming packages.

“Maybe a month from now, there will be more packages designed to tweak licensing procedures and bureaucratic matters,” he said at the State Palace in Jakarta on Thursday.

The sluggish economy, Darmin continued, had weakened investment. Therefore, Indonesia had undertaken special emergency measures such as deregulations and the issuance of various economic policy packages.

According to Institute for the Development of Economics and Finance (INDEF) executive director Enny Sri Hartati, negative investment list (DNI) revisions must be viewed from two sides; how to attract investment and how to make sure that changes contribute to the national interest.

“At the same time, the government must provide legal certainty to the investors,” she said.

On Thursday, the government revealed its tenth economic policy package, designed to boost investment by revising the DNI. Thirty five sectors have been removed from the negative list and became open to foreign investment up to 100 percent ownership, while 20 others have been added.

“It’s a package that the world has been waiting for. I can tell you that it is the biggest package yet of all the ten economic policy packages delivered so far,” Darmin claimed.

The emojis — which are available on the popular apps LINE and Whatsapp as well as Facebook and Twitter — depict same-sex couples holding hands and the rainbow flag, commonly used to symbolise the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

“Such contents are not allowed in Indonesia based on our cultural law and the religious norms and the operators must respect that,” Ismail Cawidu, spokesman for the Communication and Information Ministry, told AFP Friday.

He said of particular concern was that the colourful emojis and stickers could appeal to children.

“Those things might be considered normal in some Western countries, while in Indonesia it’s practically impossible,” he said.

Cawidu said the ministry had contacted all companies that used such content, including Twitter and Facebook, and failure to comply with the request to remove the emojis could lead to the apps being banned in Indonesia.

LINE Indonesia has already removed its gay emojis from online stores and issued an apology.

“LINE regrets the incidents of some stickers which are considered sensitive by many people,” the messaging app said in a statement.

“We ask for your understanding because at the moment we are working on this issue to remove the stickers.”

While homosexuality is not illegal in Indonesia, the topic remains a controversial subject.

In January, the University of Indonesia told a support group providing sex education and counselling for LGBT students that they did not have permission to hold meetings on campus.

And last year Aceh, the only province in Indonesia which implements sharia law, introduced caning as a punishment for gay sex.

Prominent gay activist Hartoyo said the move to ban the emojis was symptomatic of a wider crackdown on LGBT rights.

“This is just the latest in a series of incidents that have happened recently,” he said. “The government has let this ignorance go on for far too long and it has put our nation in danger.”

Valentine’s Day has become something of a favourite among young people in many Southeast Asian countries in recent years, with bunches of red roses and heart-shaped chocolates cropping up in stores and on street stalls each February.

But that has left some officials rattled, particularly in Cambodia and neighboring Thailand — both of which have become renowned in recent years for issuing warnings about the pitfalls of young love and premarital sex ahead of the 14 February holiday.

The Cambodian Ministry of Education directive, which was sent to private and public schools on on Tuesday, ordered teachers to “take measures to prevent inappropriate activities on Valentine’s Day”.

The ministry said the increasingly popular holiday was driving young people “to overjoy, to forget about studying and to lose the reputation and dignity of themselves and their families”.

“It is not a traditional event of our Khmer people,” the statement said according to a copy seen by AFP.

Social conservatives in both countries see the day as a foreign import which represents a moral threat to traditional Buddhist beliefs.

Cambodian women in particular are under intense pressure to retain their virginity until marriage.

At the same time the country has become notorious in recent years as a regional hub for selling young women’s virginity to wealthy men, something rights groups say underlines intense double standards over sexuality and gender.

Last year officials in junta-run Thailand also sounded a note of caution over Valentine’s day, calling on young people to have a special meal or visit temples instead of having sex.

While both Cambodia and Thailand have a seemingly anything-goes image among holiday makers and thriving sex work industries, they also have a conservative streak.

Health workers say sex education in both nations remains underfunded and of poor quality, partly because the subject of sex is so taboo.

According to the United Nations, the birthrate among Thai teenagers was 47 per 1,000 girls from 2006 to 2010 — roughly in line with neighbouring Cambodia, but significantly higher than Malaysia’s 14.

– AFP

In the video, Mr Chan says: “Please you must help me to stop electro-fishing, and you must all protect the Irrawaddy dolphin Give the baby dolphin a chance to live like all the children of the world.”

He said he also hopes to visit Myanmar and see the Irrawaddy dolphin one day.

Surveys by the commission over the last five years have shown that the number of dolphins living in the river between Mandalay and Bhamo is declining.

“The survey is conducted every year. The dolphins are mainly living in the river course between Mandalay and Bhamo. According to our statistics, there has been a gradual decrease in the number of dolphins,” said Han Win, the director of the Irrawaddy River Conservation Commission.

“We study the number of dolphins living between Mandalay and Bhamo along the Irrawaddy River, dividing it into three sections. The number of dolphins decreased mostly near Bhamo. In 2010, we found 15 to 16 dolphins near Bhamo. Now we see about eight there. About 10 dolphins are missing near Katha, Shwegu and Htigyaing,” Han Win said.

The survey showed that there were 73 dolphins in 2010, 72 in 2011, 67 in 2012, 51 in 2013, 63 in 2014 and 58 in 2015.

One of the main challenges to conservation tasks for the dolphins is the use of electro-fishing techniques in the Irrawaddy River.

“In the past, electro-fishing was only done at night, but now it is done all day due to the lack of effective actions against the fishermen,” Han Win added.

Fishing nets and waste disposal in the river also pose serious threats to Myanmar’s Irrawaddy dolphins.

Three candidates – Senator Grace Poe, Vice-President Jejomar Binay, and former mayor Rodrigo Duterte, all with agendas appealing to the masses – held political rallies in Manila’s poorest districts.

Former interior minister Mar Roxas retreated to his family’s bailiwick, Capiz province, 400km south of Manila, where Mr Aquino led a rally for his preferred successor.

Senator Miriam Santiago, 70, meanwhile, flew to the Ilocos region, a solid voting bloc of nine million north of the capital that has for decades remained loyal to the family of her running mate Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the 58-year-old son and namesake of the late dictator.

Some 56 million voting-age Filipinos are expected to troop to polling stations on May 9 to elect more than 18,000 national and local officials – from president down to city and town councillors.

“From now to May, the country may be witness to a wide-open, no- holds-barred presidential brawl not seen for quite a while,” said the Philippine Daily Inquirer in an editorial.

Ms Poe, 47, the adopted daughter of movie icon Fernando Poe, is leading in the latest surveys on who voters prefer to succeed Mr Aquino. But the Supreme Court could knock her out of the race if it rules that she is ineligible to run.

The elections commission has already disqualified her. Ms Poe lived in the United States for most of her adult life and had once taken up US citizenship.

Statistically tied in second place are Mr Binay, 73, Mr Roxas, 58, and Mr Duterte, 70.

With the race this close and unpredictable, pundits warn that massive fraud and violence could again soil the outcome of the elections. “With no runoff elections, the next Philippine leader could dangerously end up as a minority president, with limited mandate and a lot of tenuous allies,” political analyst Richard Javad Heydarian of De La Salle University told The Straits Times.

Already, there are concerns that vote-counting machines, still plagued with programming glitches, could be compromised.

Mr Aquino, 56, has presided over a period of robust growth since he assumed office in 2010. He has also managed to conclude a historic pact with Muslim rebels to bring peace to the war-torn southern island of Mindanao.

These gains “could evaporate if the elections end up in mayhem”, said Mr Heydarian.

Yesterday’s rallies began early in the morning and dragged on till late in the evening.

Popular singers, actors, TV celebrities and comedians shared the stage with the senatorial bets and political showmen of Ms Poe’s and Mr Binay’s political parties, keeping the audience entertained in between drawn-out speeches.

Boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao, 37, a candidate for senator, lent his celebrity star power to Mr Binay’s rally.