Channel News Asia

Myanmar on Thursday signed an agreement with China’s state-run CITIC Group to begin work on a deep-sea port in the west of the country, after negotiations that saw the initial phase of the project scaled back over fears of a “debt trap”. Myanmar Deputy Minister of ...

A “mafia” of recruitment agents is trapping Myanmar migrants to Thailand in debt bondage despite a 2017 law meant to fight exploitation in the kingdom’s notoriously shadowy job market, activists and workers say. Keep reading ...

Chinese money has transformed the once-sleepy backpacker destination of Sihanoukville, Cambodia into a gambling resort hub with 30 casinos, and 70 more being built. It’s touted as the “New Macau”. But all that new wealth is eluding many local Cambodian businesses – which are being ...

Beyond concern for the undoubted human costs of the collapse of a dam in Laos, this event once again focuses attention on the long-term effect of the massive expansion of hydropower in the Mekong Basin.  Keep reading ...

Results from a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Cambodia Fisheries Administration census released on Monday (Apr 23) showed that the population of critically endangered river dolphins in the Mekong has slightly risen from 2015. Keep reading ...

Floodwater released by a recently opened Chinese hydroelectric dam in Cambodia has completely submerged a village, the campaign group International Rivers said on Friday (Feb 2). Hundreds of families from five villages in the northern province of Stung Treng had moved several months ago to designated ...

Thailand’s navy has seized 11 million meth pills from traffickers crossing from Laos via the Mekong River, a record bust from a communist state that is emerging as a key Asian drug route. Keep reading ...

Cambodian fisherman Sles Hiet lives at the mercy of the Mekong: A massive river that feeds tens of millions but is under threat from the Chinese dams cementing Beijing’s physical – and diplomatic – control over its Southeast Asian neighbours.Keep reading ...

The International Union for Conservation of Nature said on Tuesday it had changed the status of the Irrawaddy dolphin and finless porpoise, both living in Asian waters, to “endangered” from “vulnerable”, meaning they are closer to extinction.[]”In the Mekong River, for example, the majority of ...

It was not until he got to medical school that Narong Khuntikeo finally discovered what caused the liver cancer that took both of his parents’ lives – their lunch.Like millions of Thais across the rural northeast, his family regularly ate koi pla – a local ...