Radio Free Asia
China Pledges Nearly US $600 Million in Aid to Cambodia Over Three Years: PM Hun Sen
China will provide Cambodia with 4 billion yuan (U.S. $587.6 million) in aid over the next three years, Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen said Jan 22, as Phnom Penh further cements ties with Beijing in the face of sanctions threats from the European Union. Hun ...
Lao Protest Villager Freed, 11 Still Held
Lao authorities have released a villager held since 2017 with a group arrested for protesting the loss of land awarded by the government to a Vietnamese rubber company, sources in the communist Southeast Asian state said. Phonesawai, the fourth villager of the group to be released, ...
China's Belt And Road Initiative Faces Obstacles in 2019
China is confronting multiple setbacks, flaws, and failures in President Xi Jinping’s ambitious overseas infrastructure project—the Belt and Road Initiative. Experts note that more than five years after its launch, three of the six economic corridors planned for the massive initiative, often referred to as ...
Protected Forest in Cambodian Commune Illegally Logged Through Official Collusion: Mother Nature
Around 1,200 hectares (2,965 acres) of protected forest from a commune in Cambodia’s Ratanakkiri province has been illegally logged for timber and sold to businessmen from neighboring Vietnam through collusion with Cambodian authorities, an environmental watchdog group said Wednesday. An investigator with the Cambodian nongovernmental organization ...
Lao Dam Collapse Creates Hardship for Student Far From Floodwaters
Laos’ worst flooding in decades — the rupture of a dam in July that inundated 12 villages and killed at least 43 people, leaving hundreds more missing – is still reverberating far away in the capital of the poor, landlocked country. Survivors of the flooding ...
Vietnamese-Cambodian villagers forced into new homes
A total of 2,300 ethnic Vietnamese, who had been living in a floating village on the Tonle Sap Lake in Kampong Chhnang province in Cambodia, will soon be settled in their new homes with help from the government and non-government organizations. Since October the villagers, ...
More Southeast Asian Dam Disasters Likely Unless Funders Ensure Higher Standards
The Lao dam disaster in July that resulted in heavy flooding in two provinces that left at least 40 people dead and displaced 7,000 others has drawn both regional and international attention to the potential dangers of Southeast Asia’s current dam-building spree. With plans for ...
Malaria Cases in Myanmar See Huge Drop, Thanks to Efforts by Community Health Workers
Instances of malaria in remote and rural locations in Myanmar have fallen dramatically during a six-year period as a result of trained community health care workers providing a wider package of services along with screenings for the disease transmitted by mosquitoes in tropical regions, a ...
South Korean CSOs Want Government, Company to be Accountable For Lao Dam Disaster
South Korean civil society organizations called for their government and the main partner in a joint venture to take responsibility for the deadly breach of an auxiliary dam at the South Korean-backed Xe Pian Xe Namnoy hydropower project in Laos, which left at least 40 ...
Regional CSOs Boycott Mekong River Forum Over Opposition to Lao Dam
Thai and Cambodian civil society organizations rejected an invitation from the Lao government to attend a regional stakeholder forum on the Pak Lay dam, saying that the prior notification and consultation procedures for the controversial hydropower project are not transparent. Keep reading ...
