KOICA grants US$11 million for Nam Ngum River basin project
The Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) has agreed to provide a grant of US$11 million for a project to establish an effective water resources management system and enhance disaster response capabilities for the Nam Ngum River basin. According to the KOICA Office in Laos, the project ...
Mekong Water Levels continue to rise and more inundation feared
The Mekong River Commission (MRC) has forecasted a sharp rise in Mekong water levels in Kampong Cham and Kratie over the next five days. In its daily forecast, the MRC’s Regional Flood and Drought Management Centre in Phnom Penh projected an increase of more than two ...
Water is China’s Greatest Weapon and its Achilles Heel
When it comes to flood myths, China’s is not as well known as Noah’s Ark, but just as influential. Legend says that four millennia ago, the Yellow and Yangtze rivers frequently flooded, with devastating consequences for the ancient Chinese. However, salvation arrived when a distant relative ...
Jack Silvers
Golden Triangle Casino Baron Bankrolls New Mekong River Port
A sanctioned Chinese casino magnate is backing the construction of a new international port on the Mekong River in Laos, adjacent to his Golden Triangle gambling and tourism complex. Zhao Wei, the chairman of the Kings Romans Group, broke ground on the $50 million port development ...
Sebastian Strangio
The ailing Ayeyarwady
Born in Phaung Gyi village on an island near the shore of the Ayeyarwady River in Nyaung-U Township, just under 150 kilometers south-west of Mandalay, Ko Aung Zaw Oo feels agitated whenever he returns home. He is now 43. Throughout his life, his village has moved ...
Zon Pann Pwint
Mekong Delta braces for dry season with water storage arrangements
People living in the Mekong Delta are installing tanks to store water for the dreaded dry season, and authorities are building artificial lakes. Pham Van Tien opens the cement tank which has rainwater from the previous night. During the last dry season Tien’s family and some ...
Hoang Nam
Thao Nguyen Phan review – tribute to the Mekong River's myth and might
Thao Nguyen Phan’s Becoming Alluvium opens with sound: an outboard motor puttering in the dark. The tea-brown, silt-clouded water of the Mekong appears, gliding beneath the prow of a little boat. Lines from the great poet Rabindranath Tagore’s The Gardener lap the screen, concluding: “Why did the ...
Hettie Judah
Asean needs to act on Mekong River
Two events happened last month that went largely unnoticed by most of the mainstream media in Southeast Asia. One was the third Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) Leaders’ Meeting between China and the five Mekong members of Asean — Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. The other ...
CHEN CHEN LEE
Salween diversion project enters troubled waters
Over the past few months, the Irrigation Department and the House Committee Review of Integrated River Basin Management have been heavily promoting an inter-basin water diversion scheme. Planned projects will divert water across Thailand, incorporating international river basins, including the Mekong and Salween, to address ...
PIANPORN DEETES
India to aid water management projects in Mekong Delta
India will fund seven water management projects at a cost of around $350,000 in four Mekong Delta provinces. They are part of a non-refundable aid program for quick-impact projects under the framework of the Mekong-Ganga Cooperation (MGC), which aims to provide direct socio-economic benefits to communities ...
Phan Anh, Hoang Nam