60948    At a ceremony to celebrate the completion of an Islamic school in the village of Sura, the women wore the hijab and the men wore white skullcaps.

60949    The school was built with 6,000 dollars in foreign aid.

60950    "For the revival of Islamic culture."

60951    Vice Minister of Religion and Cultural Affairs Usman gave a speech in front of 150 students aged eight to 20, and 50 villages in the province are in the process of building or rebuilding Islamic schools.

60952    Due to Cambodia's long war, the Mekong lagged behind in development and also remained isolated from such things as river pollution.

60953    Little garbage is found on the river's surface, which teems with the shadows of fish.

60954    "We've built a new school and a new temple. Islam is being cultivated in the younger generations."

60955    The voice of the Islamic school's principal, whom I met in a fishing village on the banks of the Mekong River, rings out.

60956    The Laotian capital of Vientiane, connected to Nong Khai in northern Thailand by the "Friendship Bridge," has changed completely in just half a year.

60957    The numbers of French and Thai tourists have jumped considerably and the shopping streets that used to close early are now open late into the night.

60958    Travel restrictions to rural areas have been loosened and tourists are being recruited for "adventure cruises" on the Mekong River, close to the Cambodian border.

60959    The Laotian government's two pillars of development are tourism development and hydroelectric power from the Mekong.

60960    Presently, electricity from the Nam Ngum Dam is exported to Thailand, accounting for one-quarter of Laos' foreign currency.

60961    There are plans to build large hydroelectric power plants in twenty-some locations by the beginning of the 21st century.

60962    Plans are being formulated to increase electrical capacity by approximately 40-fold and electrical volume by about 60-fold, and to sell the electricity to fund economic development.