News
Province to build largest reservoir in Mekong Delta to cope with droughts, salinity
Authorities in Ben Tre Province have approved a plan to build the Mekong Delta’s largest freshwater reservoir to help tackle drought and salinity during the dry season. Construction of the Lac Dia Lake, which will have a capacity of 1.3 million cubic meters, is expected to ...
Hoang Nam
U.S. to give $153 million to Mekong countries for collaborative projects
The United States said it would provide at least $153 million (119.43 million pounds) to Mekong countries for collaborative projects in the region, Vietnamese state television (VTV) reported on Friday, citing U.S. State Department officials. The pledges, made at the first Mekong-U.S. Partnership ministerial meeting, will ...
Reporting by Phuong Nguyen; Writing by James Pearson; Editing by Catherine Evans
Laos on thin ice as China takes control of electricity grid
For almost a decade, Laos has been warned that its extravagant spending spree on infrastructure carried enormous financial risks that threatened to undermine its sovereignty and efforts to raise living standards among the poor. Those warnings fell on deaf ears as Vientiane — hell-bent on becoming ...
Luke Hunt
Cambodia Hikes Minimum Wage by US $2 as Workers Grapple With Inflation in Coronavirus Economy
Cambodia’s Ministry of Labor on Thursday announced a new minimum wage of U.S. $192 per month for 2021, an increase of only U.S. $2 from this year, drawing criticism from workers struggling with inflation amid an economy devastated by the coronavirus pandemic. “Beginning on Jan. 1, 2021, garment ...
RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
For a non-plastic waste marine environment
According to the Vietnam Institute of Seas and Islands under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MoNRE), plastic waste accounts for between 50% and 80% of marine waste. Currently, Vietnam is ranked fourth among the five countries which have the biggest volume of plastic ...
US-backed institutions' hyping China's 'dams threat' in Mekong River riddled with loopholes: expert
Meddling by the US in Mekong River water resource issues is an attempt to contain China in the region by hyping China’s “dam threat,” while citing only weak evidence and sources given by the US-backed institutions that blame China for downstream disasters, Chinese observers found. Chinese ...
Hu Yuwei and Lin Xiaoyi
The Last Free Flowing Mekong Tributary in the Northeast, Songkram, Subject to Regulation: ONWR
Conservationists, however, have expressed concerns over possible adverse impacts on the complex freshwater river system as well as the status of the country’s latest international Ramsar Site The Songkram River, one of the two prime Mekong tributaries in the Northeast, which is still free from any ...
B.Tribune
Indigenous voices raised
Minorities and indigenous people are often among the most marginalised communities in many societies. Systemically excluded from participation in the socio‐economic life of many countries, they lack access to political power and encounter obstacles to asserting their identity. Indigenous communities comprise 6% of the world’s population ...
APIRADEE TREERUTKUARKUL
Dow-DMCR-IUCN takes mangrove conservation to the next level in the fight against global warming and marine debris
Dow Thailand in collaboration with the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) recently held a signing ceremony for a cooperation agreement on the “Dow & Thailand Mangrove Alliance”. The collaboration ...
Rights groups slam Cambodia's proposed clean-up drive
For almost 20 years, Lom Rithy has walked the streets of Phnom Penh with her cart, selling cold beverages to Cambodians. Although she doesn’t earn much, it is enough for the 37-year-old to take care of her family. “On an average, I make a daily profit ...
Ate Hoekstra (Phnom Penh)
