Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia. At the heart of the Indochinese Peninsula, Laos is bordered by Myanmar (Burma) and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast, and Thailand to the west and southwest. Its capital and largest city is Vientiane.
Evidence for modern human presence in the northern and central highlands of Indochina, that constitute the territories of the modern Laotian nation-state dates back to the Lower Paleolithic. These earliest human migrants are Australo-Melanesians—associated with the Hoabinhian culture—and have populated the highlands and the interior, less accessible regions of Laos and all of South-east Asia to this day. The subsequent Austroasiatic and Austronesian marine migration waves affected landlocked Laos only marginally and direct Chinese and Indian cultural contact had a greater impact on the country.
Laos developed its culture and customs as the inland crossroads of trade and migration in Southeast Asia over millennia. As of 2012 Laos has a population of roughly 6.4 million spread over 236,800 km2, yielding one of the lowest population densities in Asia. Yet the country of Laos has an official count of over forty-seven ethnicities divided into 149 sub-groups and 80 different languages. The Lao Loum have throughout the country's history comprised the ethnic and linguistic majority. In Southeast Asia, traditional Lao culture is considered one of the Indic cultures.
Iu Mien Americans are primarily former refugees of the Secret War in Laos and the Vietnam War. While some Iu Mien families were granted political asylum and the opportunity to resettle in the United States prior to 1980, the great majority of Iu Mien immigrants to the U.S. arrived following the Refugee Act of 1980. Between the late 1970s to the early 1990s, thousands of Mien immigrants resettled mainly on the West Coast of the U.S. Today, the Iu Mien American population is estimated to be at 50,000 - 70,000.
Dispatch News Service International is the news agency founded in 1968 by young journalists Michael Morrow, Dan Derby, Emerson Manawis, and actor Richard Hughes. Other reporters that either actively joined the news agency as full-time reporters, contributors, writers, artists, photo journalists and/or stringers included John Steinbeck IV, John Everingham, Sean Flynn, Don Luce, Thomas C Fox, Steve Erhart, Crystal Erhart, Gareth Porter, J.L. Rivera, Christopher Beck, Jonathan Unger, Michael Berger, D.E. Ronk, Boris Baczynskj, David Boggett and many others.
The French protectorate of Laos was a French protectorate in Southeast Asia of what is today Laos between 1893 and 1953—with a brief interregnum as a Japanese puppet state in 1945—which constituted part of French Indochina. It was established over the Siamese vassal, the Kingdom of Luang Phrabang, following the Franco-Siamese War in 1893. It was integrated into French Indochina and in the following years further Siamese vassals, the Principality of Phuan and Kingdom of Champasak, were annexed into it in 1899 and 1904, respectively.
The largest of the ethnic groups in Cambodia are the Khmer, who comprise approximately 90% of the total population and primarily inhabit the lowland Mekong subregion and the central plains. The Khmer historically have lived near the lower Mekong River in a contiguous arc that runs from the southern Khorat Plateau where modern-day Thailand, Laos and Cambodia meet in the northeast, stretching southwest through the lands surrounding Tonle Sap lake to the Cardamom Mountains, then continues back southeast to the mouth of the Mekong River in southeastern Vietnam.
Ananda Everingham is a Thai actor and model. Working primarily in Thai films, he is best known for his lead role in the 2004 horror film, Shutter.
Hall Bartlett was an American film producer, director, and screenwriter.
Chiang Khan is a district (amphoe) in the northern part of Loei province, northeastern Thailand.
The Indochina Media Memorial Foundation (IMMF) was founded in 1991 by British photographer Tim Page, who survived multiple wounds while covering the Vietnam War. The foundation was set up to honor the memory of the more than 320 journalists from all sides who died while covering the conflicts in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia from 1945 to 1975. Its other main aim was to assist colleagues in a region that was emerging from decades of war, poverty and isolation-remembering the dead by helping the living.
The Bru are an indigenous ethnic group living in Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam. They speak a Katuic language, kaubru unlike the Brao, who speak a Western Bahnaric language. The Bru are not found in northeastern Cambodia. The Lun, Kreung, Kavet, Amba and Brao Tanap groups in northeastern Cambodia are actually sub-groups of the Brao, not the Bru. The Brao sub-groups in Laos are the Lun, Kavet, Jree, Ka-ying, and the Hamong.
Savannakhet is a province of Laos. The name derives from Savanh Nakhone the province's original name. It bears the same meaning as Nakhon Sawan, a city in Thailand.
Love Is Forever is a 1982 adventure drama film based on the experiences of Australian journalist John Everingham in Laos and Thailand. It was written, directed and co-produced by Hall Bartlett and co-produced by Michael Landon, who played the lead role in the film. Filmed in Thailand, it was released outside the United States in cinemas under the titles Comeback and Passion and Valor and shown first in America on television.
William Young was a Central Intelligence Agency paramilitary officer born in Berkeley, California and raised in Burma and Thailand. Although he was Caucasian, he was reared in the local hill tribe culture. Because his father and brother already worked for the CIA and knew Bill Lair, the Agency knew of his extensive cultural contacts with the Lahu people and other Southeast Asian hill tribes. With command of several Asian languages, he was made a natural recruiter of local guerrillas for the CIA's covert operations in the secret war in the Kingdom of Laos. He was then considered for the position of case officer to the Hmong Vang Pao. He was passed over in favor of sending him on an extended reconnaissance of the Kingdom of Laos. His tour ranged westward from his start at Long Tieng, which he reported as well sited for operations in the Plain of Jars, back to familiar territory in the Golden Triangle.
The 1967 Opium War took place in northwestern Laos between February and August 1967; actual fighting took place from 29 July to 1 August 1967. A mule train, led by Burmese militia, carrying 16 tons of opium crossed into Laos to Ban Khwan, where they were attacked by rival drug smugglers from the Chinese Nationalists' Third and Fifth Armies. The intended recipient of the shipment, Royal Lao Army General Ouane Rattikone, bombed both sides while moving in troops to sweep the battlefield. With both Burmese militia and Nationalist Chinese defeated and expelled from Laos, the Lao general confiscated the opium for himself.
The Holy Man's Rebellion, took place between March 1901 and January 1936. It started when supporters of the Phu Mi Bun religious movement initiated an armed rebellion against French Indochina and Siam, aiming at installing their leader, sorcerer Ong Keo, as ruler of the world. By 1902 the uprising was put down in Siam, continuing in French Indochina until being fully suppressed in January 1936.
The Laos–Thailand border is the international border between the territory of Laos and Thailand. The border is 1,845 km in length, over half of which follows the Mekong River, and runs from the tripoint with Myanmar in the north to tripoint with Cambodia in the south.
Ban Phou Pheung Noi is a Laotian village located at the peak of Phou Pheung mountain in the Xieng Khouang province of Laos. Phou Pheung mountain is approximately 916 m (3,005 ft). During the Vietnam War, combat between the American allies, the Hmong, and the Pathet Lao, The Laos Marxist government, and the Communist North Vietnamese People's Army took place on the mountain. Phou Pheung mountain runs from east to west and is rocky, and is covered in tropical forests. It is south of Muang Soui - Nongtang-Nato, and west of Phou Douk, Muang Phuan, Phonsavan and Plain of Jars. To the east, about 10 miles from Ban Phou Pheung Noi, is the Num Ngum 4 hydroelectric dam.
