News
Why the Mekong matters
China’s growing influence – through its new multilateral institution – is reshaping the environmental and economic future of Southeast Asia. The countries of the Mekong should build a “community of shared future”, said China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in December last year. Keep reading ...
Winter is coming: Nakhon Phanom residents thrill to the Mekong chill
Residents in downtown Nakhon Phanom are pulling on their winter clothes and flocking to riverside parks to enjoy an unseasonal cold snap. Temperatures beside the Mekong River in the northeastern province have plunged to a chilling 15 degrees Celsius, drawing out large numbers of local ...
A tonne of marijuana seized on the banks for the Mekong
Thai authorities have seized 1,000 kilograms (1 tonne) of marijuana from a spot along the Mekong River in Nakhon Phanom province around midday yesterday (Sunday). The Tha Uthen district chief Bhumisak Khampu conformed the discovery. He joined the officials in inspecting the drug stored in ...
Japan is putting quality over quantity in the Mekong
Japan has revamped its strategy in the Mekong. Earlier this year, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s diplomatic right-hand man Kentaro Sonoura delineated Japan’s foreign aid policy for the region, stressing the importance of the aid’s ‘quality’ rather than ‘quantity’. Accordingly, Japan has changed its strategy ...
How Taming the Mekong Could Give China Unprecedented Power
The deadly collapse of one of the dozen or so dams dotted along the Mekong River and its tributaries has highlighted the rapid development of a waterway that is increasingly important strategically for China and its neighbors. For hundreds of thousands of people living on ...
Time’s running out for the Mekong giant catfish
Vietnamese restaurants are openly violating the law to include a critically endangered giant catfish on their menus. An expose by Rachel Nuwer in the National Geographic documents the precarious situation that the Mekong River’s giant catfish faces as a result of willful violations by both ...
Beijing’s grand economic strategy for the Mekong
China’s consolidation of the South China Sea remains the easiest component of its expansionist policy of pushing foreigners out of the eastern Pacific. The second phase of this consolidation is far more daunting, namely the control of the Mekong Delta and its diffused conglomerate of ...
Ganga initiative brings culture into new Asian trade routes
A recent conference at Thammasat University in Bangkok brought together Indian and Southeast Asian scholars to discuss re-building cultural links along two major rivers in Asia – the Ganges and the Mekong – that in ancient times provided transport links to build great civilizations influenced ...
Kalinga Seneviratne
Activists alarmed after PM promotes Don Sahong
As construction on the Don Sahong dam near the Cambodia-Laos border passes its halfway point, activists and locals are increasingly concerned over the disappearance of Irawaddy dolphins and incidences of illness they suspect are caused by the muddied water. “The waters downstream in Cambodia have ...
Mekong delta prepares for dry season
Many provinces in the Cửu Long (Mekong) Delta are taking measures to secure freshwater for farming and household use since drought and saltwater intrusion is expected to be severe in the 2016-17 dry season. Nguyễn Thiện Pháp, head of the Tiền Giang Province Irrigation Sub-department, ...
