News

The newly-built Xayaburi dam has raised some key concerns about Lao PDR’s hydropower strategy. While hydropower is one of the country’s main exports, Lao PDR still has to import electricity. And although the government says the Xayaburi dam will improve access to electricity for its citizens, ...

Recently, 39 people were found dead in a refrigerated trailer in Britain. While the victims were initially identified as Chinese, it has since been found that at least 20 were, in fact, Vietnamese, and almost all from the same – considered poor – province of ...

The Mekong River is possibly the most important waterway in Southeast Asia. It feeds 60 million people in six countries and there have been long-standing concerns that China is trying to control it. China recently halted plans in March to blast rapids along the river ...

LOEI, Thailand: The once-mighty Mekong river has been reduced to a thin, grubby neck of water in stretches of northern Thailand – record lows blamed on drought and a recently completed dam far upstream. The US$4.47 billion Thai-owned Xayaburi hydro-electric power plant went into operation this ...

Thailand, Chair of ASEAN in 2019, successfully gained the agreement of all 10 member states for “The Bangkok Declaration on Combating Marine Debris in the ASEAN Region” at the 34th ASEAN Summit in Bangkok. The aim of the joint declaration is to address the problem ...

Thailand plans to seek talks with the United States on a decision to end preferential trade privileges on a range of Thai exports including seafood, officials said Monday. Keerati Rushchano, acting director-general of the Commerce Ministry’s Foreign Trade Department, said his office has been warning exporters ...

Countries in the Lancang-Mekong Basin, including China, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, recently announced they would launch a joint operation against precursor chemicals in November. The Lancang-Mekong Integrated Law Enforcement and Security Cooperation Center said officials from the six countries made the announcement in Kunming, ...

Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are gathering for their 35th summit in Bangkok this week to chart a course for the region’s economic future. As we’ve argued before, Southeast Asia is re-emerging as a theater for major powers to exert geopolitical ...

Xayaburi Dam has been nine years in the making and the 135-billion-baht project. It was built and financed by Thai companies and banks, has been controversial since inception. The first hydro-power dam on the lower Mekong River began commercial operations in Laos on Tuesday. The opening ...

Academics say Thailand has not been adequately protecting workers’ rights – both Thai and foreign – and though there is some improvement, existing laws and regulations still limit their rights. Their comments came after the US Trade Representative (USTR) announced last week that President Donald Trump ...