Disasters and emergency response
Disasters
Water Becomes a Weapon in China’s Geopolitical Chess
Modern China seems to have learned the ancient master’s lesson well. It has unleashed water wars on Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. Even as China’s neighbors deal with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, they are experiencing their worst drought in living memory. The mighty Mekong ...
Mayank Singh
If China won’t build fewer dams, it could at least share information
River flow downhill, which in much of Asia means they start on the Tibetan plateau before cascading away to the east, west and south. Those steep descents provide the ideal setting for hydropower projects. And since Tibet is part of China, Chinese engineers have been ...
Thais 'most anxious' over virus
A global survey by Singapore’s social research company identified Thailand as the most anxious nation during the Covid-19 pandemic as of last month, but the kingdom is also optimistic about its economic recovery. Although citizens across 23 countries are largely unsatisfied with their own governments’ responses ...
Agriculture ministry, FAO, WFP ease COVID-19 food insecurity impacts
Food Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, the World Food Programme (WFP) are cooperating with the Lao Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to draft a response plan and provide direct assistance to farmers continuing to produce food for their communities. FAO, WFP now are completing ...
Times Reporters
South-East Asia’s biggest river is drying up
ish writhe frantically in the shallow pool, as their schoolmates stranded on the exposed sandbar breathe their last. It is November, the end of the monsoon season, yet the water in the Mekong river is perilously low. On this stretch, in north-eastern Thailand, the bank is ...
Did China turn off the Lower Mekong? Why data matters for cooperation
The Mekong is one of the world’s great rivers. At the centre of this system is the flood pulse – a seasonal cycling of water that sees flow in the Mekong swell in response to the monsoon transporting water, nutrients and sediments from the headwaters ...
TAREK KETELSEN, TIMO RÄSÄNEN, JOHN SAWDON
COVID-19 can fuel more anti-Chinese resentment than Mekong dams
The pandemic is likely to make life worse for Thai fishermen as well as Vietnamese and Cambodian farmers. Restrictions resulting from the virus could limit food supply. The food security of 60 million people in the lower part of the Mekong River is in danger. The ...
Vietnam’s low-cost COVID-19 battle shows the world what can be done
Daily, a staggering quarter of a million people use the public bus network in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s largest metropolis. This week, just a month after services were suspended, the distinctive green vehicles are back on the roads. That’s good news for the millions ...
Misha Coleman, Margaret Sheehan
Mekong nations face growing threat to food security amid claims China’s dams exacerbate effects of drought
Fishermen in northeast Thailand say they have seen catches in the Mekong River plunge, while some farmers in Vietnam and Cambodia are leaving for jobs in cities as harvests of rice and other crops shrink. The common thread driving these events is erratic water levels in ...
Laura Zhou
Water shortages in upper Myanmar
Kyar Kone Te Tike is a small town in Magwe division in central Myanmar, about 19 miles away from the Magwe Natmauk Road. Daw Mar Oo has lived here all of her life. Come summertime, finding drinking water is always a struggle. There are three small hand-dug ...
AUNG PHAY KYI SOE
