Category: National

The sunshine is still burning in a railing base in the northern outskirts of Lao capital Vientiane, but what Sida Phengphongsawanh, a trainee for China-Laos railway train driver, cares, is the jingle of the train maintenance which sounds like music.

The crisp sound in the China Railway No. 2 Engineering Group (CREC-2) of the China-Laos railway seems to celebrate her for one more step closer to fulfill her wish.

The 22-year-old looks gentle while holding a determined “steel locomotive dream”: being a train driver. To this end, as soon as she heard that the China-Laos railway was to be built, she thought about working on it in the future.

The China-Laos Railway, which connects Kunming in China’s Yunnan Province with Vientiane, is the first railway project built with Chinese investment, jointly operated by China and Laos and directly connected to China’s railway network. As the project enters the completion acceptance phase, Sida is getting more and more excited and earnest.

“I heard about the Laos-China railway for the first time in 2015. In 2016, I went to Kunming to study the knowledge of railways. After returning home, I went straight to the Laos-China Railway Co., Ltd. to apply for a position. I hope to be an excellent female driver on the Laos-China railway,” Sida told Xinhua recently.

Born in the hilly town in northern Laos of Muangxay, Sida came up with the idea of becoming a train driver at an early age. Her hometown is only about 100 km from Laos-China border gate, where the surrounding mountains block the way to China. Sida, who has hardly ever been out of the mountains, had always wanted to see what it looks like across the mountain.

It is also the common wish of Lao people. The country is known as the “roof of the Indochinese Peninsula” and the only landlocked ASEAN member with mountains and plateaus that account for about 80 per cent of the land area. Breaking through the blockade of the mountains and converting it from a landlocked country to a land-linked hub are the wishes of Lao people.

“Because of the mountains in northern Laos, the roads connecting the towns are winding and unsafe. Many old people have never walked out of the mountains where they were born,” Khamsai Phimvongsa, a farmer in Vientiane told Xinhua.

In 2015, the Chinese and Lao governments signed an intergovernmental railway cooperation agreement, marking the official entry of the China-Laos railway into the implementation phase, which has become an opportunity to realize the aspirations of the Lao people.

The China-Laos railway, as an important part of the trans-Asian railway network, is of great strategic and practical significance to Laos, according to a signed article entitled “Jointly build a community of shared future with strategic significance between China and Laos.”

The two sides should strengthen overall coordination and strive for the early completion of the opening of the railway, so that Laos and neighboring countries and the world can be better connected.

The Belt and Road Initiative “is an opportunity, through economic infrastructure, trade, investment and people-to-people’s connectivity to deepen the mutual trust and help between China and Belt and Road Initiative countries. Thus, we have the landed project, Laos-China railway project,” Lao Prime Minister Phankham Viphavanh said when interviewed with Xinhua in August.

The railway, hence, carried hopes and expectations of many Lao people.

“Personally, the Laos-China railway has given me a stable job, and at the national level, the Laos-China railway can drive the multi-level and all-round development of Laos. In particular, my hometown of Muangxay has a long history of importing from (China). The opening of the Laos-China railway will facilitate the importation for Muangxay,” Sida said.

Khamsai, the 60-year-old Lao farmer, said he hopes to sell local fruits and vegetables to China to improve the rural life in Laos. A middle-aged official in Xaythany District of Vientiane said, “I hope the railway will extend to Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, etc., to bring the neighbours to do business, invest and travel.”

The 1,013-km China-Laos Railway consists of two sections, the Chinese section and the Lao section. Along the way are mountains and deep valleys with complex geological situation.

Bridge and tunnel ratio is quite high with that in Chinese section up to 87 per cent and Lao section up to 63 per cent, including the 1,651-meter Ban Ladhan Mekong Bridge, 1,459-meter Luang Prabang Mekong Bridge, 9,384-meter Ban Sen No. 2 Tunnel, 9,296-meter Ban Nakok Tunnel. It is said that the China-Laos railway was not paved out, but erected and drilled through with numerous difficulties.

“I have found that the Chinese engineers are so wonderful. Confronting the complex terrain in the mountains plateaus, they can always use advanced technology to drill through every tunnel,” Thonglien Outhayod, a Lao employee in China Railway No.2 Engineering Group (CREC-2) Vientiane railing base told Xinhua in October.

Sida also noticed, “On the construction site, the busy Chinese engineers can always be seen 24 hours a day. The heat in Laos added difficulties to tunnel building, while the temperature in the tunnel is much higher than outside. Working in a tunnel needs great patience and perseverance.”

While building the railway, the Laos-China Railway Co., Ltd. has opened training course for around 600 Lao trainees to learn train driving, scheduling and maintenance. Sida is one of them.

The China-Laos Railway also carries the wishes and dreams of Chinese engineers.

Hu Bin, the project manager of the CREC-2 China-Laos railway railing base in Vientiane, has been working in Laos for four years. His team undertook the tasks of building bridges and laying rails for the whole Lao section, taking the lead in building the first overseas Chinese standard railway beam yard, and realizing the first bridge beam production and installation in a Belt and Road country with Chinese standard.

“I’m very proud to be able to join the Belt and Road project,” he told reporters. “We feel very proud to build a railway with Chinese standards and Chinese technology in a foreign country.”

Lei Chao, the CREC-2 Vientiane railing base executive manager, said “We feel much pleasure to see that the Lao trainees can grow up in the construction sites of the China-Laos railway, and then have their own stable jobs with full expectation for their future.”

The China-Laos railway will bring great convenience to trade and travel between the two countries and become an important part of the north-south artery of the Indochinese Peninsulas in overcoming land transportation difficulties and developing its economy.

Source: Lao News Agency

President Thongloun Sisoulith and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping launched via a video link the newly built Laos-China Railway this afternoon.

The event in Vientiane was also attended by Prime Minister Phankham Viphavanh, Vice President Pany Yathortou, other senior officials of Laos and China, the diplomatic corps, and representative of international organisations.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Phankham Viphavanh joined Buddhist monks and Vientiane residents in a Beuk Sokxayamoungkoun ceremony to bring good luck to the railway, built at a cost of US$5.98 billion.

The successful development of the multi-billion-dollar project resulted from the synergy of China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative and Laos’ strategy of turning itself from a land-locked country to a land-linked one.

Initially, 18 train trips will be operated a day with four trips for passenger and 14 for cargo transport.

Stretching over 426 km from Vientiane to the Chinese border, the railway is expected to cut the cost of transport by 30-40 per cent compared to travel by road, thus creating favourable conditions for trade, investment and tourism.

Source: Lao News Agency

The covid-19 pandemic has hampered efforts to remove unexploded ordnance (UXOs) in the country and this has resulted in increased number of UXO victims, according to the National Regulatory Authority for UXO/Mine Action Sector – NRA.

“Some activities couldn’t be implemented this year. So they have been listed in the 2022 plan for implementation,” NRA Director General Chomyaeng Phengthongsawath told a virtual meeting on Nov 30.

Some 31 UXO accidents were recorded so far this year along with 55 victims, including 11 deaths and 44 injuries.

At the meeting, Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Welfare and NRA Vice President Padeumphone Sonthany appreciated relevant authorities for their achievement in drafting a decree and a national strategy on addressing UXO issues for the 2021-2030 period.

The two documents are expected to be submitted to the government for consideration of their approval in the near future.

Discussion at the meeting was also focused on a report on the implementation of cooperation projects over the past year by the NRA, the National UXO clearance project, and a report on the preparation of documents related to the Laos-UNDP cooperation project 2022-2026 and the mobilization of funding for the new project.

Source: Lao News Agency

Laos has recorded 1,004 new cases of Covid-19 and five new deaths over the previous 24 hours, bringing the total to 77,500 including 12,170 active cases and 191 deaths, the National Taskforce Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control reported today.

The newly reported deaths included four documented in Vientiane, three in Vientiane (province) and one in Oudomxay.

Deputy Director General of the Department of Communicable Disease Control, Ministry of Health, Dr Sisavath Soutthanilaxay told a press conference today that the newly recorded infections were detected among 6,595 people tested for Covid-19.

Some 674 patients were discharged from hospital yesterday.

Of the new infections, only seven were classified as imported infections.

Most of the domestic infections were reported in Vientiane at 223, Vientiane (province) 107, Luang Prabang 93, Borikhamxay 71, Attapeu 64, Savannakhet 57, Champassak 52, Xaysomboun 45 and Bokeo 43.

Meanwhile, 40 each were recorded in Huaphan, Luang Namtha and Oudomxay, 36 in Xayaboury, 34 in Xieng Khuang, 31 in Phongsaly, 13 in Khammuan, five in Saravan and three in Xekong.

Source: Lao News Agency

ASA Foundation of the Republic of Korea in Vientiane has donated 160 boxes of facial masks (3D) to the Ministry of Health contributing to anti-Covid-19 efforts in Laos.

A handover ceremony was held yesterday between Korean Ambassador to Laos Moohong Im and Deputy Minister of Health, Dr Sanong Thongsana.

Source: Lao News Agency

White House Chief Medical Adviser Anthony Fauci said Friday it should be about two weeks before scientists fully understand how transmissible and severe the omicron variant of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 truly is, and until then, people need to get vaccinations and booster shots.

During a briefing by the White House COVID-19 Response Team, Fauci said South African researchers are leading the way but even their studies will take another week or two to get clinical data. The omicron variant was first identified in South Africa and there are more and longer-term cases to study there, he said.

The White House response team repeated a message delivered earlier this week by President Joe Biden, that omicron is a variant of concern. Fauci presented new data showing both the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines are markedly boosting antibodies and stressed the need for people to get vaccinated.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said her agency is working with health departments across the United States to help them quickly conduct the genome sequencing necessary to isolate and identify the omicron variant. She said the CDC is far more effective at this process than it was earlier this year.

Walensky stressed that while the focus is on the omicron variant, the delta variant of the virus is dominant in the U.S. and responsible for 99.9 percent of all cases in the country, especially among the unvaccinated.

White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters that 2.2 million vaccinations – including more than one million boosters – were administered in the U.S. on Thursday, the highest single-day total since May.

Zients said Biden has outlined areas where his administration is taking action to address the potential threat posed by the omicron variant, including vaccinations and boosters for adults, getting kids vaccinated, providing free home testing kits, strengthening travel rules and getting the rest of the world vaccinated.

To the last point, Zients said the U.S. has donated 1.2 billion doses of vaccine for global distribution, more than all other nations combined. Friday alone, he said, the U.S. shipped 11 million doses of vaccine, nine million of which were designated for Africa.

Source: Voice of America