News
Laos pushes ahead with sixth Mekong River dam project
Laos has submitted plans to build a new hydropower dam on the Mekong River, with construction expected to start later this year, the Mekong River Commission (MRC) said on Monday. The Sanakham hydropower plant, with an estimated cost of $2.073 billion (£1.7 billion), will be developed ...
Reporting by Panu Wongcha-um; Editing by Kay Johnson and Alexander Smith
Roving bandits and looted coastlines: How the global appetite for sand is fuelling a crisis
Next to water, sand is our most consumed natural resource. The global demand for sand and gravel stands between 40 billion and 50 billion tonnes annually, according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), and its scarcity is an emerging global crisis. The world may run out of sand if we ...
Melissa Marschke, Jean-François Rousseau, Laura Schoenberger and Michael Hoffmann
Cambodia considers licensing mining at four coal sites
The Cambodian Ministry of Mines and Energy is set to review applications soon for rights to four coal mining concession areas it opened late in March in the northern region of the country, the Phnom Penh Post reported. The ministry said in a press release that interested national ...
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
Indigenous People Protest Over Farmland in Keo Seima Sanctuary
More than 200 indigenous people in Mondulkiri province’s Keo Seima district protested on Tuesday for access to farmland inside a wildlife sanctuary, which the Environment Ministry banned them from last month, citing conservation laws. Bun Nat, a representative of the protesters, said 250 ethnic minority Bunong ...
Khan Leakhena
EU Lists Cambodia Among ‘High-Risk’ Nations for Money Laundering
The E.U. has listed Cambodia as one of 12 “high-risk” countries with deficient anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing efforts, but the government on Friday said officials were working hard to get the nation off international watch lists. The European Commission on Thursday adopted a new list ...
Matt Surrusco and Nhim Sokhorn
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
COVID-19: Why saving our forests can help stop the next pandemic
Preventing the further destruction of Southeast Asia’s forests will be a critical step to stopping the spread of future deadly viruses similar to COVID-19, according to leading experts studying the risk factors that have contributed to the current global pandemic. Over the past four decades, swathes of ...
Jack Board
Weapons, Viruses, and the New Defense Reality in Southeast Asia
What happens when the greatest threat to national security comes from a virus? What does that mean for defense spending, modernization, and civil-military relations? In Southeast Asia — where militaries have long had an outsized role in politics, economics, and society — the answers to ...
ZACHARY ABUZA
Thailand: Migrants Could Benefit from Moves to Ease COVID-19 Restrictions
Migrant workers in Thailand who could not return to their home countries because of the COVID-19 lockdown have lost jobs and suffered financial hardship during the pandemic, but could soon see their outlook improve as the country starts to reopen. Thailand has long been a regional ...
Nontarat Phaicharoen
