Lao Voices

The story of the British Samantha Orobator has become a well known phenomenon in many media channels. Samantha has been caught muling drugs in Laos and was heading for a – rarely executed – capital punishment in Laos. In order to avoid the death penalty, Samantha became pregnant in prison. Of course, men and women [...]

What is the consequence of living a lifestyle of “out with the old, in with the new”? According to a special coverage of 60 Minute – Following The Trail Of Toxic E-Waste, we are generating a great deal of electronic garbage called “e-waste” annually. For example, in the United States, about 130,000 computers are thrown [...]

Video description: Battle for Oil investigates the new world geopolitics that is emerging around the needs of both the world’s leading superpower and the world’s fastest growing economy to secure future supplies of oil.

An Uholy Alliance is a 1996 documentary that “examines the relationship between the drug trade and war, detailing the involvement of the CIA in Vietnam and Afghanistan during the Cold War”. Regarding Laos, the French used heroin trafficking to finance the anti-communist guerrilla army (recruited Hmong tribes). When the American later took over the Vietnam [...]

There is new information available that further backs up my explanations that the fact finding organization and many others create a stream of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) in the image of genocide and other far fetched lobby-words to portray the Lao government as intrinsically evil and murderous.
Yes, there is a struggle going on between [...]

I think I have seen quite a few Republicans under the Lao American population but I never expected Vannasone Keodara to be one. She wrote an article on Voa news that is simply appalling. She is apparently very infatuated with Republican candidate John McCain after his selection of Sarah Palin as a veep. Vannasone wrote [...]

According to the World Food Program (WFP), half the children in rural Laos are chronically malnourished. Many of these children are from ethnic minorities and it is also a fact that policies of LAO PDR contribute to the problem.
A study released by the United Nations food agency in November 2007 estimated that 255,000 children [...]

The 25th Southeast Asian Games is scheduled to be held in Vientiane, Laos, in 2009. This will be the first time the country has ever held a Southeast Asian Games. However, there is an important condition for hosting the games: if Laos fails to meet the qualifications to hold this event, the games will be [...]

An episode with interview of leaders from Nell Lao Huk Sart and their escape from the prison during the revolutionary period.

Normally, I am not a big fan of conspiracy theories. I came across a documentary about one car, the electrical EV-1 of General Motors, that pulled me over to the conspiracy perspective. General Motors marketed the car in the mid 90s because Califonia’s law prescribed that 10% of its cars should be environmental friendly. The [...]

Laos is still littered with more than 266 millions of unexploded bombs, known locally as bombies. This is the legacy of the secret war, a covert operation conducted by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Between 1964-1973 the US dropped more bombs on this tiny country, more than the total amount dropped during World War [...]

There is a new wind blowing through Laos and it feels like the wind of change. The old structures of Lao society have been set up more than three decades ago and the international environment around Laos is changing. Adoption of new developments is needed. Neighbors Vietnam and Cambodia are opening their markets at a [...]

United States Agency for International Development (USAID) with the slogan of USAID From the American People is “the government agency providing US economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide for more than 40 years.”
To view a complete listing of U.S. foreign assistance to various countries, you can visit the USAID website for public access to data on [...]

Now and then it is useful to look back in history to see where the future will take us. A pivotal time in Lao history is the time between 1950 and 1975. During that time, the political regime in Laos was completely turned around. This was no coincidence. Laos was heavily [...]

Many rice fields that covered the mountainous North of Laos are gone. They are steadily being replaced by rubber trees. The Chinese are coming to Laos and they need their rubber products for their galloping economy. It appears nothing can stop the ever growing Chinese machine that seems perpetually hungry for manufacturing products supplies.
The Chines [...]