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| | | | | | | | | Laos: Laos: Crimes on the Rise in Vientiane Capital | |  Lao authorities admit crimes have been on the rise in the capital city of Vientiane and increasingly violent in nature.
Security officials reveal that, in the past three months alone, they arrested more than 320 members of various organized crime groups, adding that since then they have been able to make more and more arrests as a result of their extensive interrogations of suspected criminals who incriminate fellow gang members. Officials say during a recent 20-day period, they were able to arrest 192 people involved in more than 160 crimes.
However, the head of the Vientiane Public Security Department, Col. Bounthieng Chanthamounkhoune, acknowledges that it is impossible for his men to make quick arrests of the majority of gang members because the criminals are heavily armed and confront them with assault weapons, as in the case of a recent raid in the That Luang area which resulted in the loss of one of his men and three serious injuries caused by shrapnels from a bomb thrown at them by the criminals.
Beside robberies, burglaries and thefts, drug smuggling and trafficking are also on the rise. In the most recent case, Vientiane's Wattay Airport authorities seized four kilograms of opium hidden in a package of soaps and facial creams destined for the United States.
In a related development, the Lao People's High Court reports that, in the past year, it has received more than 6,690 indictments against people suspected in various crime cases, of which 43% are drug-related.
Public security officials blame the increase in the number of criminals and the rise in crimes on the current economic situation, unemployment, and lack of educational opportunity for the majority of Lao youth, making them vulnerable and easily lured into organized crimes.
Songrit Pongern reported in Lao. Dara Baccam summarized in English.
http://www.voanews.com/lao/2009-08-25-voa4.cfm
| | Posted by vlianemany on Wednesday, September 02 @ 02:33:11 EDT (7 reads) (comments? | Score: 0) | | | | | | Laos: Lao Deputy PM: Lao Mass Media Needs to Improve | | Lao leaders say Lao mass media needs to improve their quality in both substances and human resources, while firmly adhering to the Party’s political lines.
Presiding over a recent ceremony marking the 59th Lao National Mass Media Day in Vientiane, Deputy Prime Minister Boungnang Vorachit stressed that with 8 press agencies, 35 radio stations and 32 television stations across the country, Lao media has developed and grown in every aspects, playing a vital role in disseminating information to the public and promoting the country’s socio-economic development.
However, in the current borderless era of information technology, Lao people are able to enjoy broader access to up-to-date information from abroad, and that inevitably affects their political ideas. Therefore, Lao media needs to address its weaknesses and limitations in all aspects in order to meet the challenges.
In response to the expanding demand for media service in the country, Laos has set a goal in its 2009-10 socio-economic plan, which will be implemented beginning this coming October until next September, to expand its radio signals to cover 90% of the country’s land areas, and increase the areas covered by Lao national television signals up to 70% .
In addition, the government has announced plans to develop an optic fiber cable system across the country, at an estimated cost of US$ 100 million, to enable media transmissions via Internet and allow public and private communication services across the country to link to each other and to the rest of the world by 2012 at the latest.
http://www.voanews.com/lao/2009-08-31-voa5.cfm
| | Posted by vlianemany on Wednesday, September 02 @ 02:26:46 EDT (8 reads) (comments? | Score: 0) | | | | | | Laos: Issara visits rescued female Lao workers | | By: LAMPHAI INTATHEP
Published: 23/05/2009 at 12:00 AM
Social Development and Human Security Minister Issara Somchai recently visited 20 young illegal Lao workers rescued from a sweatshop where they were forced to work 15 hours a day making garlands without pay or any days off.
The migrants, all females aged from 12-18, were sent to the Kredtrakarn Protection and Occupational Development Centre after police raided the sweatshop and rescued them on May 14.
The raid followed the police arrest on May 8 of a 15-year-old Lao girl who was selling flower garlands at Wat Rai Khing in Nakhon Pathom province.
The girl, an illegal migrant, told the police that 19 other Lao girls were being kept as slave workers at a house in Samut Sakhon's Krathum Baen district.
Police raided the house on May 14. The house owners, Kasem Pensuk, 48, and Thawanrat Sukprasertngam, 42, were arrested and charged with human trafficking, housing and employing illegal workers, and illegal use of child labour.
The girls said they were forced to make flower garlands from 5am to 8pm every day without pay or days off.
Nang, 14, whose fingers were severely blistered because of the hard work, said she came to work in Thailand to help ease the financial burden of her poor parents back in Laos.
| | | | | | | Laos: Laos Briton 'impregnated herself' | | A British woman to be tried in Laos for heroin trafficking secretly impregnated herself with the sperm of another prisoner in an effort to escape the death penalty, according to a government newspaper.
Samantha Orobator's trial, originally scheduled for early May, had been delayed while authorities tried to determine how she could have become pregnant inside the prison.
The 20-year-old was arrested last August, but her case didn't draw international attention until news of her pregnancy became public and concerns initially grew that she could be executed by firing squad if found guilty.
Under criminal law in Laos, a pregnant woman cannot receive the death penalty.
According to Lao officials, Orobator initially told authorities she was pregnant by her boyfriend in Britain, but tests showed no signs of pregnancy.
It was not until March 2 that a hospital test showed she was pregnant, verified by a second test on April 4, police said. That meant she must have become pregnant while in prison.
Orobator's mother recently said her daughter had not been raped by prison officials or fellow prisoners, as some media had reported.
The Vientiane Times quoted police as saying Orobator told authorities she secretly obtained sperm from a fellow prisoner to impregnate herself to avoid the death penalty. The newspaper did not name the sources or give other details.
Orobator was in jail and so could not be reached to confirm or deny the newspaper account. Orobator's mother Jane has said her daughter told her that she had not been sexually assaulted while in prison and that the father of her unborn child was not a Lao prison official.
But Jane Orobator did not reveal the identity of the father.
Copyright © 2009 The Press Association. All rights reserved.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5iC0w7amObYPOtrK4MVj21-uv1t7Q
| | | | | | | Laos: Pregnant Briton's drug trial to open in Laos | | HANOI (AFP) — The trial of a pregnant British woman charged with drug trafficking was due to start Wednesday in Laos, a British embassy spokesman said, ending weeks of waiting and false starts.
The case of Samantha Orobator, 20, was expected to begin at 0630 GMT. A British legal charity brought her case to light early in May, saying at the time that her trial could be imminent and fearing she could be executed.
"The Lao authorities informed us yesterday that the trial will be going ahead," said the spokesman, who is in the Lao capital Vientiane with three other consular officials who flew there from Bangkok.
The Lao government spokesman, Khenthong Nuanthasing, could not be reached and his office said he was out of the country.
Orobator was detained in August after allegedly being caught with 680 grams (1.5 pounds) of heroin while trying to board a plane to Thailand. Normally, anyone found with more than 500 grams of heroin faces the death penalty.
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