On September 12, 2008, US Ambassador Ravic Huso signed a US grant to contribute into assisting Laos’ efforts in preserving and protecting its rich culture and heritage. It is hope that this assistance will contribute into further fastening US-Laos friendship relation in the future, said Mr. Huso.The cultural and heritage projects include mapping, documenting standing stone sites or menhirs, building displays and trails for tourists at the Menhirs Archeological Park in Houaphanh Province, and the restoration the murals at historic Wat Sisaket and the creation an inventory and the display of artifacts in Wat Ho Prakeo in Vientiane, which are very important for the national culture and history.
This cultural and heritage preservation assistance has been extended to Laos with aim to further promote US-Laos’ cooperation in addition to the assistance in other fields, such as humanitarian and health implemented in the last 25 years. These include the Missing in Actions (MIAs), which has been successfully implemented 227 cases out of 522 cases; counter-narcotics cooperation, which the US has granted over 10 million dollars with aims to help Laos to achieve its goal of completely eradicate opium cultivation from Laos by 2015.They also consist of 9 million dollar-projects that the US government granted to Laos through the World Health Organization (WHO) and the unexploded ordnance (UXO) projects, which started since 1995.
Listen to Songrit's report for further details in Lao.