ລາວໂຮມລາວ ເພື່ອປະຊາທິປະໄຕ

Date: Jul 27, 2011

ຄົນໄທ ສາມຄົນ ຖືກຈັບ ຍ້ອນຖ່າຍຮູບ ເອົາ ສະຖານີ ຣາດາຣ໌ ຂອງ ທະຫານ.

Date: Jul 27, 2011

RE: ຄົນໄທ ສາມຄົນ ຖືກຈັບ ຍ້ອນຖ່າຍຮູບ ເອົາ ສະຖານີ ຣາດາຣ໌ ຂອງ ທະຫານ.

Date: Jul 27, 2011

10 women rescued from alleged sex operation in Prachuap
Published on July 5, 2011

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/10-women-rescued-from-alleged-sex-operation-in-Pra-30159543.html

ໂຄດແມ່ ພວກໂຈນຂ້າ ຄມນ ລາວແດງ
ເຊີນມາອ່ານຂ່າວ ມືນ ຕາເບີ່ງ ຜົນສຳເຣັດຂອງພວກມືໝ36 ປິ ຜ່ານ
ມິ ຫຍັງ

ຂໍທານໂລກ ແລະ ລາວນອກແດກຫ່າ
ແຮງງານລາວ ແມ່ຈ້າງ ໃນຮູບລູກສາວຫັວແກ້ວຫັວແຫວນຂອງບັກຈູມ ທອງສິງໄຊສົມພອນ ເປັນ ສຶນຄ້າສົງນອກ

ເພື່ອ.....................

Date: Jul 27, 2011

I had always suspected that General Vangpao's arrest was manipulated behind the scene by some politicians. Read the report:

Posted on Fri, Apr. 22, 2011

WikiLeaks cables bare secrets of U.S.-Laotian relations
By MICHAEL DOYLE
McClatchy Newspapers

The 2007 U.S. arrest of the late Hmong leader Vang Pao hurt him, but it did wonders for U.S.-Lao relations, classified State Department cables show.
Vang Pao's arrest prompted widespread dismay among Hmong-Americans; at one point, an estimated 3,000 demonstrated outside a federal courthouse in Sacramento, Calif.

Lao officials were "pleased and surprised" by the arrest of the man who'd long denounced their regime, a U.S. diplomat reported. Suddenly, Lao military officers began talking. Bureaucratic barriers shrank. Cross-cultural exchanges became feasible.

"Since the arrests, we have made a surprising amount of progress in areas of our relationship with the Lao government where we had previously experienced difficulty," Mary Grace McGeehan, who was then the U.S. charge d'affaires in Laos, wrote in a June 22, 2007, memo.

The turnaround was such that some Western expatriates in the Laotian capital of Vientiane "speculated to us that the arrests were a positive gesture toward the Lao government by the U.S.," McGeehan reported.

Two years later, federal prosecutors dropped criminal conspiracy charges against Vang Pao. In time, the other men arrested with Vang Pao likewise saw all charges dropped.

Vang Pao died last January in Fresno, Calif., prompting widespread grief in the Hmong-American community he'd led. Long-term U.S.-Lao relations remain a work in progress, though some Hmong-Americans see gradual improvement.

"It seems the government has opened up more; they're reaching out more, to encourage tourism and to encourage business opportunities," said Fresno City Council member Blong Xiong, who visited his native Laos several months ago.

For their part, U.S. diplomats predicted in the 2007 memo that midlevel Lao officials eager for better relations with the United States eventually would "encounter bureaucratic resistance." In other words: Be prepared for stop-and-go.

The 2007 memo, classified "confidential," was obtained by WikiLeaks and passed to McClatchy Newspapers. It's one of many memos that shed light on the complicated relationship between the United States and Laos, a global odd couple with a war-torn past and many domestic offspring.

Lao Embassy officials in Washington didn't respond to requests for comment. State Department officials denounce the WikiLeaks release of documents.

The Hmong first began coming to the United States after the 1975 communist victory in Laos, concentrating in cities that include Fresno and St. Paul, Minn. Nationwide, more than 140,000 U.S. residents claimed full Hmong ancestry as of the 2000 Census, the most recent for which such data are available.

Isolated by language and culture, the Hmong have struggled to assimilate while community leaders have clashed over strategies and tactics.

"The politics of the Hmong communities in both Laos and the United States are extremely complex," a secret June 11, 2007, memo noted.

That summer, for instance, a U.S. diplomat reported that "protection from the local police and/or FBI" might be warranted if certain Hmong-Americans were to visit Fresno, because of the potential for violence.

Typically, the memos provide an unfiltered U.S. view of the Lao government. One March 31, 2006, classified U.S. cable, for instance, noted allegations of corruption and observed that "government ministers and officials with salaries of less than $75 per month sport villas and cars worthy of Monte Carlo."

The raw observations made in the classified memos are echoed publicly in the State Department's annual human rights report on Laos.

Last July, in one sign of warming relations, the Laotian foreign minister visited Washington for the first time since 1975.

"The United States is committed to building our relationship with Laos as part of our broader efforts to expand engagement with Southeast Asia," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said at the time.

Lao officials can seem conflicted sometimes. For instance, Lao authorities seemed intrigued and nervous about Fresno council member Xiong when he visited in November 2008. He was one of the first Hmong-American elected officials to visit the country.

A U.S. diplomat subsequently noted that the Lao government dragged its feet and limited the audience for Xiong's presentations, but then praised "extremely positive" meetings.

"I was the guinea pig for visits," Xiong said an interview. "They were extremely cautious."

Of all the Hmong in the U.S., the Lao government was most concerned about Vang Pao.

The longtime military leader had worked closely with the CIA during the Vietnam War. Once living in the United States, he vocally opposed the Lao government.

So did others. In April 2007, for instance, a secret State Department cable reported that "unidentified Hmong-Americans are said to be recruiting Hmong ... to return to Laos to stage incidents." Vang Pao wasn't named in that cable.

In June 2007, federal prosecutors charged Vang Pao and his allies with conspiring to overthrow the socialist Lao government. Before the arrests, U.S. diplomats in Laos were complaining of "bureaucratic obstructionism and veiled hostility" from Laotian authorities. Afterward, diplomats noted a "sudden and pronounced" improvement, even though some Lao officials suspected that the CIA was still in league with Vang Pao.

"The more forthcoming we can be with the (government of Laos) ... the longer the positive climate is likely to last," McGeehan concluded.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/22/v-print/2181179/wikileaks-cables-bare-secrets.html#ixzz1KLuJyspY

Date: Jul 28, 2011

ໂຄດແມ່ມ່ຶງເຂົາເວົ້າເລື້ອງນຶ່ງ

ມຶງໄປເວົ້າເລື້ອງນຶ່ງ ບັກຊາດໝາ

Date: Jul 28, 2011

Companies, People, Ideas
Bungle In The Jungle
Ron Gluckman, 07.27.11, 06:00 PM EDT
Forbes Asia Magazine dated August 08, 2011
The idea was a Chinese economic colony in the Lao wilderness, and that was okay with Laos. Then the gamblers, hookers and gangsters took over, and that was not okay with China.

The pink buildings were meant to serve as hotels and office space in Boten. Shops and housing in front were razed to make way for a new marketplace.

Across Asia, once-backward regions have surged in the boom that's lifted millions out of poverty--monuments to the Asian economic miracle. But there have been grand schemes that went spectacularly wrong. Few compare with Golden Boten City, a project that promised a beehive of economic activity in northern Laos by the Chinese border, but today sits lonely and desolate.

Route 3 in the Lao highlands cuts through rubber plantations and forests, a vast carpet of greenery interrupted only by tiny villages--groups of shacks on stilts and tribal people in bright blue, red and black garments. Then suddenly there's a clearing--and the surreal sight of a dozen enormous buildings erupting from the plateau in blistering shades of pink, orange and yellow.

At Boten's peak thousands of people each day poured across the border from China's Yunnan Province, thanks to unprecedented visa-free access. As gaming halls proliferated, rows of shops sprouted--a ramshackle market serving Sin City. A dozen lingerie shops catered to battalions of Chinese prostitutes, with the finest choice of stiletto heels in Laos. Pharmacies stocked sex potions alongside racks of X-rated DVDs and containers of bile from black bears fresh from a hilltop factory and used in traditional Chinese medicine. Next door to the factory was a massive pink entertainment hall that boasted transvestite shows. The ladyboys hailed from Thailand but everything else came from China: the beer, the police and practically all the dealers, even the currency that made it all possible. Hotel signs were in Chinese, and Boten's clocks didn't run at Laos' sleepy pace, but were set an hour ahead to China time. Boten was completely a Chinese colony.
This is Golden Boten City, a "Paradise for Freedom and Development," as the investment brochures called it. In 2003 a developer leased the 21-squarekilometer site from Laos for 99 years, and buildings started going up the next year. The plan called for a trade zone in what was expected to be a key growth corridor, with road and rail links from southern China to ports as far away as Bangkok and Singapore. Drawings depict a golf course, a resort and apartment blocks along picturesque lakes and lagoons. Instead, Boten quickly became a Gold Rush-style boomtown and, like many such towns, renowned for gambling, crime and bustling brothels.

Then, just as fast as gamblers from China turned this remote site into the Macau of the jungle, Golden Boten City melted down. Stories in the Chinese media talked about hostages held over gambling debts. Residents told FORBES ASIA of bodies dumped in the river. China cut off electricity and telecom service to the enclave and started requiring visas. "We heard reports of killings, of people disappearing," an official of Golden Boten City Ltd., the developer, told FORBES ASIA during a visit in May. (The developer said it didn't run the casinos; that was done by several little-known operators from abroad.) "We don't disagree that there have been problems here, but we are working to correct them."

Days later the last casinos shut down. The shops closed for a lack of customers, leaving behind a huge supply of stiletto heels along with a giant picture of American actor George Clooney gazing forlornly from an unopened luxury goods emporium, one of a half-dozen grandiose structures that had been completed but now stand unused. The bears were still packed in cages, milked of bile, but the ladyboys returned to Thailand, and Boten was left a ghost town.

The man behind Golden Boten City is Huang Minxuan, 56, who had been involved in a casino in Myanmar before it was shut down in a crackdown by Beijing on just-over-the-border gambling. (Gambling is banned in China outside of Macau.) Originally from Fujian Province, he operated a business in Yunnan for some years before registering a slew of companies in Hong Kong in 1997 and 1998--all long dissolved--and gaining Hong Kong citizenship; he's still the honorary chairman of the Fujian Chamber of Commerce in Yunnan.

Huang says between $200 million and $300 million was spent on Boten, but he doesn't say where it came from or how much of it was his money. Chinese media reports indicate that he served as the executive director of a Hong Kong company that pumped $36 million into the project when it began, but no record of the company can be found. The second-in-command, George Huang, 55, a Taiwanese national who worked with Huang Minxuan at the Myanmar casino, has said small investments came from Thailand, Singapore, the U.K., Russia and Ukraine. George could not be contacted; he is believed to have left for a job in Thailand after Boten collapsed.

Casinos began sprouting in Myanmar along the Chinese border in the 1990s, and eventually up to a hundred were operating. Most were modest in scale, sometimes featuring a hotel, but all followed the same formula: deploy fleets of boats to ferry gamblers along the Mekong River, mainly from China but also Thailand. But in Boten, the Huangs had grander designs. Laos had been eyeing the Myanmar tourist traffic and started touting its special economic zones to investors. "I was talked into the idea," says Huang Minxuan.