Noeleen Heyzer and Minh H. Pham, Jakarta

It was both a hopeful and a sobering visit we had recently to the Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise (COPE), an innovative local organization in Vientiane, Lao PDR, that provides rehabilitation services to survivors of Unexploded Ordnance (UXO).

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The impact of cluster munitions lasts forever, says the Ambassador of the Lao People's Democratic Republic to the UN.

Saleumxay Kommasith stresses that nearly 30 years after the end of the Viet Nam war, which also affected Laos, unexploded ordnance kill and injure more than 100 people every day in his country.

Laos is a state party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions and one of the leading advocates for this treaty.

Foreign Minister Bob Carr has announced Australia will contribute $5.4 million to help Laos clear unexploded ordnance (UXO) and care for survivors of explosions.

Senator Carr announced Australia’s continued support for UXO clearance in Luang Prabang, one of nine heavily contaminated provinces.

Laos remains the most heavily bombed country per capita in history, the result of millions of tonnes of ordnance dropped on it during the Indo-China war.

Edward Winter, Director of Institutional Funding at Handicap International US, sent this report on Feb. 12, 2013, from a field mission to Laos:

People in Laos have been living with unexploded ordnance (UXO), most of it from the U.S., for more than 40 years. The scrap metal is collected to sell, the shell casings used for cooking, the explosives used to fish and the fuse wire as a fishing line.

Food security issues lead to disagreement over concerns that dam will hit livelihood of tens of millions

Vietnam urged Laos to halt construction of a $3.5bn (£2.2bn) hydropower dam on Mekong River pending further study, environmental activists said on Friday.

Cambodia, downriver from the Xayaburi dam, accused Laos of failing to consult on the project, activists said. The Mekong River commission (MRC), made up of member states Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, held a three-day meeting in northern Laos to discuss river development projects.

By Guy Hubbard

TONGWAI, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, 20 December 2012 – The rice is in harvest. As ears ripen, the landscape turns from green to gold. Farmers are hard at work, harvesting, threshing and pounding the grains.

Rice is a staple food for over half of the world’s population. Nowhere is rice more ingrained in diet and culture than here, in Southeast Asia.

Lao villagers have a special name for the last months of the rainy season, from August to October: Suang Khaad Khao Kin – the time when there is no more rice. While the new harvest is ripening in the fields, food stocks run low. Also called the ‘lean season’, this time is coming to an end for this year, but for close to 40,000 people in Khammuane province, central Laos, it would have been a lot tougher without help from WFP.

Prime Minister

Vientiane

Thousands of the poorest families in Laos will be given assistance to generate thriving small businesses and to improve their incomes, under a new $41.5 million rural livelihoods program.

Laos is reducing overall poverty but poor families in rural communities, particularly in remote and difficult-to-access regions, are vulnerable to shocks and crises like natural disasters.

On 4th October, The HALO Trust and the National Regulatory Authorities for Mines / UXO Sector in Lao PDR start a new UXO Clearance project in Laos. The NRA’s Director General, Mr Phoukhieo Chanthasomboune issued the MOU.

HALO’s Programme Manager, Armen Harutyunyan, highlighted plans in Laos with funding initially provided by the United States Department of State and the Canadian Foundation, Grapes for Humanity.