News

‘Thousands of trees’ burned and logged in Cambodia: Q&A with filmmaker Sean Gallagher

In January 2020, filmmaker Sean Gallagher traveled to Cambodia with a camera, drone, and a mission: to create a film revealing the impacts of deforestation. Riding on the backs of motorbikes driven by local activists, Gallagher spent several weeks venturing deep into protected forests in ...

Elizabeth Claire Alberts

Foreign economists: Vietnam has many driving forces for 2022 growth

There are many driving forces for growth for Vietnam in 2022, and the growth target of 6.0 – 6.5 percent for 2022 is quite feasible, according to foreign economists. In an interview recently granted to the Dau tu (Vietnam Investment Review), lead specialist and group head ...

VNA

Thailand Keeps Quarantine-Free Entry Ban as Omicron Cases Surge

Thailand’s main Covid-19 task force will meet later this week to review the suspension of its quarantine-free entry program for vaccinated visitors amid an uptick in new omicron cases among foreign tourists. The Center for Covid-19 Situation Administration, headed by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha, will meet ...

Randy Thanthong-Knight

How can illegal timber trade in the Greater Mekong be stopped?

Over the past decade, the European Union entered into collaborative agreements with tropical timber-producing countries to fight forest crime and verify the legality of wood imported into the EU. Within the Greater Mekong, Vietnam was the first (and to date, only) country to sign such a voluntary ...

Sheryl Lee Tian Tong

Environmental activist group suspends work in Cambodia

A Cambodian environmental protection group is suspending operations in Cambodia amid concerns for the safety of its activists, many of whom have been detained and jailed on charges widely thought to be politically motivated, the group’s founder said in an interview this week. Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson, a ...

Reported by RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Persons with disabilities given opportunities for income generation

Persons with disabilities and their households in Xieng Khuang and Savannakhet provinces are set to benefit from income generating activities, thanks to support from the Okard project. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Okard Community Based Inclusive Development (CBID) project has provided 520 million ...

Times Reporters

The Completed China-Laos Railway: Bringing Opportunities for ASEAN and the Asia Pacific

In early December 2021, Laos inaugurated the Boten-Vientiane railway, a 414-kilometer (km) electrified high-speed railway that runs between the capital Vientiane and the town of Boten on the Laos-China border. This US$6 billion project (equivalent to one-third of Laos’ GDP) is backed by China as part ...

Ayman Falak Medinav

Gov’t says satellite images don’t prove sand dredging crisis

The government responded to criticism that sand pumping in the Mekong river is more than the amount being reported and that it has increased over recent years. The reaction is to respond to an article published in Eos, a science news magazine, titled “Satellites Spy on ...

Son Minea

How does political instability in the Mekong affect deforestation?

Myanmar’s rainforests, home to the endangered Malayan tapir (Tapirus indicus), critically endangered Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) and endangered lar gibbon (Hylobates lar), are some of the most biodiverse in the world. But the relative flatness of the terrain, and the valuable timber species found here, ...

Sheryl Lee Tian Tong

New megadams threaten world’s biggest fish

There was a time when scores of some of the world’s largest freshwater fishes swam up the Mekong River, past the Laotian town of Luang Prabang, now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Giant catfish the size of grizzly bears, seven-striped barb, giant pangasius, and other huge fish once made ...

STEFAN LOVGREN

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