News
Robust river governance key to restoring Mekong River vitality in face of dams
Niwat Roykaew, an environmental activist based in Chiang Rai province in northern Thailand, described the Mekong as a naga, a mythical water serpent and symbol of fertility that brings abundance to the entire region. The river, which flows across the borders of six countries, supports a vast ...
Carolyn Cowan
As hydropower dams quell the Mekong’s life force, what are the costs?
The Mekong River carves a vast aquatic lifeline through Asia. Rising in glacial streams high in the Tibetan plateau, the river morphs as it tumbles south through rocky ravines, steep-sided valleys and expansive flooded forests to the South China Sea. Its influence is immense: over ...
Carolyn Cowan
Cassava export boom leading to deforestation and poor air in Laos
Farmers are encroaching on national parks and protected forests in Laos, burning and clearing large areas to make room for cassava crops. The demand for cassava has seen it become the most profitable agricultural product in Laos, as demonstrated by the country’s February trade figures: cassava ...
Laotian Times/ANN
Cambodian activists charged with insulting king on Facebook
Two Cambodian opposition figures have been charged under the country’s rarely used lese majeste law with insulting King Norodom Sihamoni for posts made on Facebook about a photograph of the king and Prime Minister Hun Sen. A judge at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday ...
NEWS AGENCIES
SE Asia’s COVID legacy is less wildlife trade, but more hunting, study finds
The COVID-19 pandemic, which began spreading in a seafood and poultry market in Wuhan, China, shone a spotlight on zoonotic diseases and the risks that markets selling wild meat can pose to human health. Following the outbreak, some countries like China temporarily closed down wet markets, while ...
Spoorthy Raman
Cambodian Women Vulnerable to Domestic Violence Due to Lack of Protection, Punishment
KAMPONG CHHNANG PROVINCE — When Sopheap married in 2018 she was happy to settle down and start a family with her husband, and she gave birth to a son soon after. But within a few years, her marriage descended into domestic abuse after her husband became ...
Kann Vicheika
New generation takes up cudgels against dam construction on Salween River
“When the Salween runs dry and we can cross it, that would be the end of the world,” is a saying widely believed by generations of locals who live on the banks of the river in Mae Hong Son province. In a proactive move, the ...
Thai PBS World
Cambodia records 1st rare Mekong river dolphin death in 2023
PHNOM PENH, March 22 (Xinhua) — A rare Mekong River Irrawaddy dolphin has been found dead after being entangled in fishermen’s illegal gillnets in northeast Cambodia, the Fisheries Administration (FiA) said in a statement. The 2.38-meter-long male dolphin, 160 kg in weight and aged about 20, ...
huaxia
China's Mekong dams turn Thai fishing villages into 'ghost towns'
CHIANG KHONG, Thailand: From February to April each year, Kam Thon spends most of her days knee-deep in the waters of the Mekong River by her village in northern Thailand, gathering river weed to sell and cook at home. Kam Thon and other women who live ...
RINA CHANDRAN, THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION
‘Tip of the spear’: Battling the Golden Triangle’s drug lords
In the far north of Thailand, a deadly conflict is playing out between drug syndicates and Thai security forces working to stop a flood of narcotics from the region known as the Golden Triangle. Drug shipment sizes are staggering and the body count rising in this low-intensity battle ...
Kevin Doyle