News

Ian G. Baird, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an expert on dams in Southeast Asia, tells of meeting a farmer  and his five-year-old son from a village in rural Laos in 2009. The two were sitting in a canoe as the sun rose ...

The US Agency for International Development (USAID)’s Green Annamites Project has recently equipped the central province of Thua Thien-Hue with a forest management system. As part of the nearly 10 million-USD-project, the system allows automatic connection to the Google Earth Engine (GEE) based-tool developed by the Japan International Cooperation Agency’s ...

The investors of a project to build the first coal-fired power plant in Koh Kong province are still looking for buyers, according to the Ministry of Mines and Energy. In 2017, Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, a government-owned utility, started negotiations on building a 2,400-megawatt coal-fired ...

Lao state media reported Tuesday that a woman who was arrested in Laos last week for criticizing the government on Facebook has confessed to her crime. In a Facebook Live video last week, Houayheuang Xayabouly, known by her nickname Mouay, had slammed the Lao government’s slow ...

Local empowerment has become the best prevention measure against diseases and accidents in two Chiang Mai communities, who have learned firsthand how collective grassroots action can keep them safe. Dengue fever has terrorised the communities in tambon Ban Luang in Chom Thong district for years. Locals ...

Every year, between May and October, floodwaters from the Lower Mekong Basin reverse the flow of the Tonlé River in Cambodia. That pushes sediment-rich waters into the Tonlé Sap Lake and its surrounding floodplains and forests, which support complex food webs, migration patterns and agricultural ...

The Changhaon village community claims that many hectares of mangrove forest in the coastal area in a village in Teuk Chhou district’s Prek Tnort commune, in Kampot province, were being cut down to grab land for private ownership. However, they claim that the authorities have not ...

Thailand’s government is delaying China’s ambitious high-speed railway project in the country as questions over financing and liabilities of the $9.9 billion infrastructure initiative remain unresolved. Sources within Thailand’s transport sector confirmed to the Nikkei Asian Review that behind-the-scenes negotiations between Bangkok and Beijing over the ...

Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation will act as financial partner for the Yangon Central Railway Station Development Project, replacing China’s Sino Great Wall as part of a consortium selected to implement the project, according to U Ba Myint, Managing Director of Myanma Railways. “Sumitomo approached us as a ...

Agriculture Minister Veng Sakhon has urged local authorities to follow the instructions of the Council of Ministers on how to prevent illegal land encroachment. On Thursday, the Council of Ministers issued a letter to Mr Sakhon, who is chairman of the National Committee to Prevent Illegal ...