My dear fellow compatriots. Don't worry, just stand by, for the time to come The white Elephant's power just rising, The bamboo curtain of Lao-Viet just shaking, and then will be soon to swallow into the White Elephant stomach, Lao-people is still waiting for white Elephant to judge the social dilemma in Laos. White Elephant power league. P. Sayarad.
Sapphires from the Ban Houay Xai mining region in LaosLike many of its Asian neighbors, Laos has its share of sapphire deposits. This is not surprising given its location, situated between Vietnam and Thailand, both significant sapphire producers. Since the 14th century, gems have been mined in the Bokeo Province of northwestern Laos. In fact, the literal translation of Bokeo is “gem mine.” Sapphires in Laos have come from great depths in the earth and are found in gem gravel created from eroded alkali basalts. In general, blue, green, and yellow sapphires from Laos have properties and characteristics similar to those of sapphires from other alkali basaltic sources. In most cases, these sapphires can be readily distinguished from metamorphic sapphires by their higher iron content. The presence of iron also influences other gemological features and characteristics such as spectra, chemistry, and the type of mineral inclusions. Laos’ most famous sapphire mine, Ban Houay Xai, has been worked sporadically since the late 19th century, but it was closed in 2000 due to charges of corruption, and significant production has not resumed. Small-scale mining is reportedly occurring in the region however, as well as other locations around the country. In many instances, farmers dig huge holes in the middle of their rice paddies with the hope of finding a fortune in gemstones.
Now the people you see on the video are probably dead because the international community has done nothing over the past year, since the dissemination of this documentary on french TV.Imagine those peoples are yours childrens,your parents, brothers and sisters who live there hounded by the Laotian army, then you will not be able to sleep in your lap...Help them
You are wrong. Lao authority will grab the land or farm of the poor people so we Lao Nork cannot do anything just watching and discussing that issue. If the issue related to against Lao PDR and the members shut mouth up to scare Lao PDR does not allow people who speaks against the regime to visit Laos.
The Lao Political Organizations should do a short statement and send to LaoDemocracy Group so our team can publish in the Freelaosnetwork forum.
If the fighting for democracy in Laos cannot use the media or communication center to publish the thought and how can people know what Lao Political Organizations Abroad doing.
Je pense que serichon lao a raison car les héritiers du Neo Lao sont sourds et muets. Ils n'entendent pas et ne comprennent pas la raison. Ce qui rest c'est la force. Oui ils seront chassés sûrs et certains par la force. La Chine va abolir le communiste en 2017 et en 2012 Xi Jinping, futur Président, changerait complètement le langage,plus de"camarades"etc...
Bref ils préparent à devenir "normaux". Quant au Laos,ils verront leur"Xi Jinping". Actuellement c'est Khampheuy qui a donné le signal ou ira le pays.
Actuellement une minorité amasse une fortune pour eux même sans partage.Ils préparent à quitter le pays ou ils cachaient leur argent. Ils deviendront votre voisin et qu'allez vous faire?
Regardez 7tha, il était membre du Parti Socialist Laotien,et il est toujours parmi nous. Je connais bien son chef Ai Na Srimoukda et Ai Chou Norin.
Sabaydi C’est vrai à que vous pensez. On connait notre force et les forces de ceux qui gouvernent le Laos ; Mais çà ne nous empêche pas de réclamer une justice. Vous savez très bien que les forces des différents Partis politiques des pays libres sont inégales mais ils continuent à se débattre pour leur pays !!! Je sais par Exemple en France, les écolo..et communistes ont perdu en avance mais ils sont courageux de mener leurs Campagnes avec leur détermination remarquable. !!! Vivre la démocratie dans le monde…abat la dictature Avec le parti unique. La démocratie avec un parti unique est une invention communiste des fous Max-Lénine. lmhx
Chinese take a gamble on the pleasures of sin city
A playground for businessmen is thriving on land leased from the Laos government. Edward Loxton reports from Kapok City
Tuesday, 12 July 2011 SHARE PRINT EMAIL TEXT SIZE NORMAL LARGE EXTRA LARGE REUTERS
The extravagant and lavish Chinese-owned casino in Kapok City, with its golden crown, rattles to the sound of gaming chips
It may be well down river from the People's Republic, but the red flag of China flies prominently among other national standards at a jetty on the Thai bank of the Mekong River. Visitors check out with Thai immigration officials, before being ferried upstream in a sleek speedboat to a world of ostentatious casinos and half-built hotels.
Welcome to the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, a Chinese-leased playground on the Mekong River border between Laos and Thailand – or Kapok City, named after the tree that provided the area's main source of income before the Chinese moved in.
The 25,000 acre site – larger than China's famous gambling playground Macau and billed as a new city destined to be the throbbing heart of the fabled Golden Triangle region – was leased by the Laotian government to a Chinese business group, KingsRomans.
They are only a few years into that 99-year lease, and new buildings are springing up fast.
When complete, developers claim the site will be home to two casinos, a dozen or more hotels, an international airport, up to six golf courses, holiday residences and a network of services that will include shopping malls, supermarkets, restaurants and bars.
Right now, most of the people who visit the area are Chinese who brave the day's road journey along a mountainous route from the Sino-Laotian border at Boten to spend a weekend in what Thais on their side of the Mekong are dubbing "sin city".
"With time, we hope to attract more visitors from Thailand and also Western tourists," Ebahim Abbas, president of the main casino in Kapok City, told The Independent.
The formalities of entering Kapok City from Thailand are as streamlined as the courtesy speedboat provided by the KingsRomans Group for the brief river crossing. A Thai exit permit costs the equivalent of £10 – well worth parting with for the pleasure of the exhilarating ride across the Mekong.
A wide staircase leads from a waterfront pier on the Laotian side to a spanking new Laotian immigration building, sporting an ostentatious golden dome. Gold is the predominant colour and theme of this extraordinary development.
Visitors hand in their passports and Thai exit forms to the Laotian officials, who return them unstamped on departure. Entry formalities take a few minutes – opening the doors to the pleasures and enticements of Kapok City, which include the inevitable casinos, tax-free shopping and, for male visitors, cheap, barrack-like brothels.
Although slated to become the second largest city in Laos with a projected population of 200,000, bigger even than the world heritage city Luang Prabang, Kapok City appears on no maps. It is virtually self-governing, with its own security forces patrolling wide roads bearing such names as Park Avenue, where even the cruising limousines are Kapok City registered vehicles.
Chinese is the official language, which can make life difficult for visitors, who find hotel room instructions written only in Mandarin. Chinese Yuan are the preferred currency, although Thai Baht are accepted. There are no banks or ATMs, while credit cards are carefully screened before payment is accepted.
The main casino – a vast, vulgar building reminiscent of the excesses of Las Vegas – is the first construction to be completed in Kapok City. A huge golden crown and a golden cupola sit atop the palatial building, whose main entrance is flanked by a dozen statues of Greek and Roman deities.
A huge statue of Zeus welcomes punters into an entrance hall where glittering chandeliers hang between soaring Corinthian pillars and walls covered with oversized reproductions of European Renaissance masterpieces. The surrounding land is piled high with building materials – sand, bricks and concrete drainage pipes. There's a sense that nobody is in a hurry to complete the job – after all, the Chinese own the place for the next 90-plus years.
The tax-free status of the new city keeps prices down – a room in a comfortable hotel costs the equivalent of £15 pounds while an enormous Chinese buffet at the casino can be enjoyed for just £2.
Two Laotian villages, complete with their temples, were relocated to make room for Kapok City. The Laotian farmers who once grew rice, beans and garlic on the alluvial Mekong soil were replaced by a small army of construction workers needed to create Kapok City.
The main casino alone employs 2,000 people to keep the gaming tables staffed and the roulette wheels spinning around the clock. The staff includes croupiers from Sino-Burmese border towns, where the once-thriving casinos have suffered from an official Beijing clamp- down. Kapok City is presumably far enough from China to escape official attention from Beijing.
Some of the casino workers have been flown in from Russia's far east to boost the numbers of qualified staff needed to maintain the 24-7 routine. Olga, from Vladivostock, is one of the Russians employed to work the roulette and blackjack tables. Is she happy working at Kapok City? The young woman smiles weakly and signals with her hand "so so".
Mr Abbas, a Malaysian-born Australian citizen, admits it's difficult keeping foreign staff happy in a city that's still a construction site. "They get homesick very easily," he says.
Wandering the deserted streets at night, it's easy to understand the Russian woman's unhappiness. Apart from the casino and one or two of the livelier restaurants, there's not a lot to do in Kapok City. Single men in search of sex head for the primitive brothels that have sprung up to cater for gamblers who have struck it rich at the gaming tables. Outside the reach of most official law enforcement, there is little protection for the women working in the sex trade here.
Even hotels have plugged into the sex trade, and unaccompanied male visitors staying at bourgeois "boutique" establishments are asked when checking in: "Would you require the company of a young woman during your stay?" The equivalent of £40 is charged for two hours of "service" from a Thai sex worker, while young Chinese women command a higher rate – £50. Hotel rooms have bedside packets of condoms and sex aids. The television – showing only Chinese programmes – offers hardcore porn.
Male visitors who resist the reception desk offerings return to their rooms after an evening on the town to find that explicit "calling cards" have been slipped under their doors in their absence.
"The Chinese are persistent, in everything," said a visiting Thai businessman. "They have to be, to take out a 99-year lease on this place."
China in Laos: Busted flush - How a Sino-Lao special economic zone hit the skids
AT HOME and abroad, China is a byword for fast-track development, where yesterday’s paddy field is tomorrow’s factory, highway or hotel. Less noticed is that such development can just as quickly go into reverse. Golden City, in Boten, just over the border from China in tiny Laos, is a case in point.
When a Hong Kong-registered company signed a 30-year, renewable lease with the Lao government in 2003 to set up a 1,640-hectare special economic zone built with mainland money and expertise, Golden City was touted as a futuristic hub for trade and tourism. The builders promptly went to work, and a cluster of pastel blocks rose amid the green hills of northern Laos. Thousands of Chinese tourists and entrepreneurs poured into the enclave, drawn largely by the forbidden pleasures and profits of gambling, which is illegal in China, except in Macau. Today the main casino, inside a three-star hotel, lies abandoned, its baize tables thick with dust.
The trouble started in December, when Chinese gamblers found that the operators refused to let them leave until they had coughed up for betting losses. Officials from Hubei province apparently negotiated the release of several “hostages”, but many more continued to be held against their will. Accounts in the Chinese media say that casino recruiters lured gamblers with offers of free travel and hotel rooms, only to be kept captive and beaten when their credit ran out. Lao villagers swap grisly tales of corpses dumped in the river.
Chinese authorities have since put the boot into Boten. In March the foreign ministry warned citizens not to gamble in Laos and accused Golden City of cheating its cross-border customers. It said it had demanded that Laos close down the casino. Last month the casino duly shut, and the smaller gaming halls have since gone too. The 232-room hotel, which is almost empty, will be next.
Most shop and restaurant owners have packed up and left, as have the Thai transvestite show and the legions of prostitutes. Stricter visa rules for Chinese tourists have added to the squeeze. A Lao policeman, who admits to having nothing to do, puts the town’s dwindling population at 2,000, down from 10,000 at its peak. The enclave’s economy seems to have collapsed just as the builders hit their stride with a new high-rise hotel and a shopping centre bristling with columns in the classical style.
Golden City says it has pumped $130m into the project’s first phase, including funds from outside investors. A company official, Ginger He, puts a brave face on things, arguing that the slump is a chance to rebrand the enclave as a wholesome tourist destination and import-export zone. She blames the bad publicity on shady Chinese concessionaires who ran the card games in the casino—as if the company had expected angels. Golden City has since declared force majeure to revoke its contracts. Investors might wish to sue under Lao law. But Miss He points out that China had ordered Laos to close the casino. “Little brother cannot fight with big brother,” she says.
At the best of times, cross-border casinos are risky investments, since China often cracks down on outbound gamblers. Warlords in Myanmar have previously felt the consequences, with gambling dens left to rot in the jungle after borders grew tighter. Business folk in Boten say the action may have moved to casinos elsewhere in Laos and Myanmar. A Macau-based company has recently completed a giant riverside casino in the so-called Golden Triangle, where Laos meets Thailand and Myanmar.
But Golden City was supposed to represent more than just a fast buck. The developers persuaded Laos of the benefits of allowing a Chinese-run enclave. Its residents, they said, would “form a huge community and a modern society”, in the words of their brochure. The zone also took on some of the trappings of the Chinese state, including uniformed security guards, development slogans and even the Chinese currency. This gave the false impression that it enjoyed official backing. Instead, it became an irritant that Beijing had to put in its place.
_________________ "Life is what happens to you while busy making other plans"