The Mekong

Amid increasingly tense China-U.S. relations, a U.S. official alluded to China but did not specifically name China regarding “risks” and “challenges” imposed by approaches to dam building and cross-border riverine practices in the Mekong region. At a workshop in Phnom Penh by the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation ...

Development partners on Thursday asked the Mekong River Commission to prioritise policies to protect the basin in future development strategies, noting that the Mekong river basin is among the most vulnerable regions due to climate change. Representatives from European Union, Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Japan, Luxembourg, ...

When the state tabloid China Daily ran a paid advertisement in the New York Times extolling the virtues of Beijing’s proliferating dams in Laos, the piece sparked a new cold war controversy. Entitled “Employment on hydroelectric project in Laos delivers better lives”, the piece stated that ...

An international team from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam visited the Tennessee and Cumberland River Systems last week at the invitation of the United States in support of water development in the Lower Mekong River Basin. The U.S. State Department sponsored the sharing of information ...

EACH YEAR, HUMANS produce, prescribe, and ingest more antibiotics than they did the year before. Those drugs have done wonders for public health, saving millions from infections that might otherwise have killed them. But the drugs’ influence persists in the environment long after they’ve done their duty ...

The 7th Mekong River Commission (MRC) Regional Stakeholder Forum was held in Lao capital Vientiane over Monday and Tuesday, with participants discussing urgent issues facing the Mekong region, the Secretariat of the MRC has said. Attending the two-day event were 180 representatives from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, ...

Mr. Niwat Roykaew, founder of the Rak Chiang Khong Group in northern Thailand, has shared a letter he received on behalf of the Network of Thai People in Eight Mekong Provinces from Mr. Don Pramudwinai, the Thai Minister of Foreign Affairs, that confirms media reports in March ...

Narongchai, a volunteer tour boat guide on the Mekong river in northeast Thailand’s Nakhon Phanom, has been doing this job for 16 years. “The Mekong is our mother river, binding everyone in the basin,” said Narongchai, describing the cross-border river part of his life. “The water ...

An Irrawaddy dolphin, not seen in decades in Vietnam, was caught by a fisherman in the southern province of Ben Tre on Wednesday. Phan Van Thai, 49, and his wife were fishing on the Co Chien River in Cho Lach District when they heard a loud ...

The transboundary water crisis in the Lower Mekong Basin has been lingering for almost two decades without any certainty that it will be resolved soon. There have been many attempts at tackling this issue, including forming a regional governance body to facilitate policymaking conversations. However, ...