AUSTIN (AP) — Politically crippled by the Vietnam War, President Lyndon B. Johnson still sounded like a candidate for re-election in private 1968 telephone conversations just before deciding to pull …

Washington - An independent US group that monitors religious freedom around the world on Friday urged the US government to put Vietnam back on its list of the most serious violators. In its annual rep…

MANILA, Philippines — Asian countries sought Friday to tame the spiraling rice market, with Thailand proposing an OPEC-style cartel for exporters and the Philippines shoring up supplies while aiming …

In the Arab World, the beauty pageant is one of the most conservative without a bikini in sight; this is Miss Arab World Beauty Pageant 2007. Women from across the Arab world came together to compete in Cairo, Miss Bahrain, Wafa Yaqoop (below) is crowned the winner.

Of course, showing sexy legs is a no [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Rare Beauty Contests”, url: “http://laovoices.com/2008/05/02/rare-beauty-contests/” });

Thailand's prime minister on Friday urged opposition supporters not to incite another military coup with their provocative rhetoric over proposed amendments to the country's constitution.Premier Samak…

A distant thunderstorm caused a power blackout for a few hours. It reminded me of the way things ‘used to be,’ as I sat on my back porch. When I first moved here in 1996, we had only a few hours of electricity in the evenings, provided by two 300 kW city generators. If one of them was out of commission, we had electricity every other night. We got 24 hour electricity in 2003.

Back before the

-based bank, which gets around 90% of profits from Asia and other non-U.K. markets, said it has bought 6.16% in ACB as well as 7.10% of ACB's convertible bonds. "This bank is growing at a phenomenal…

According to a facebook comment I read:

The white circle stands for the unity of Lao people
Blue signifies the richness of our soil
Red is the colour of blood our soldiers shed to protect our home land

I don’t know the validity of those reasons but it compares well against the Australian flag’s colours:

It’s red, white and blue [...]

An article about the one year anniversary of the disappearance of the Lao national owner of the famous Boat Landing restaurant in Luang Nam Tha and the Lao government’s fear of foreigners.