Disasters and emergency response

The Thai Rice Exporters Association cut its projection for 2020 rice exports from 7.5 million tonnes to 6.5 million tonnes, the lowest in a decade. Thailand shipped 3.14 million tonnes of rice in the first six months of this year, down 32.7% from the same period ...

The Mekong River has become a new front in U.S.-China rivalry, environmentalists and officials say, with Beijing overtaking Washington in both spending and influence over downstream countries at the mercy of its control of the river’s waters. It’s a confrontation in which the Trump administration – ...

Forest fires are a major source of transboundary haze in the ASEAN region. It is particularly pronounced in the dry season during the first half of the year for the Mekong subregion and second half of the year, most notably from July to September, for the southern ASEAN region.  The ASEAN region contains over half of the world’s peatland, a valuable ecosystem critical for ...

Few places have suffered more from the COVID-19 pandemic than southern China, the region where the novel coronavirus was first detected in the city of Wuhan. But it turned out that the pandemic is not the only calamity to befall south China this year. The ...

Crucial water flows to the Tonle Sap, Southeast Asia’s largest lake, have been delayed for a second consecutive year according to river experts, severely disrupting fishing and threatening the food supply of more than a million people. The river reversal vital for Tonle Sap Lake may ...

As we are meeting today, the COVID-19 pandemic is raging in all corners of the globe. The pandemic has triggered a severe global crisis in multiple aspects, ranging from public health to tourism, trade and the disruption of global supply chains. Indeed, we are witnessing ...

There is no need for immediate public alarm about potential flooding of the Mekong River despite widespread reports of floods in neighbouring countries, especially China, a sector official has confirmed on Monday. The official from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment’s Meteorology and Hydrology Department, ...

China was one of the countries that suffered the most from a severe drought along the Lancang-Mekong River in 2019, hydrology researchers found, in contrast with allegations by some foreign researchers which blamed China for the drought in countries on lower reaches of the river. As ...

Government data released on July 17 showed water levels in the Mekong River are lower than at this time last year, on account of poor rainfall along the mainstream in Cambodia, with others pointing to hydropower dams in China and Laos. The Ministry of Water Resources ...

“I’m used to hearing the sound of laughter every morning as my customers come to buy fish,” says 37-year-old Huon Tim. “But it’s very quiet these days in the village.” For Huon, who runs a small fish and produce stall at the local market in Kampong Por, ...