News
New Laos-Vietnam shared border crossings soon
Laos and Vietnam are preparing to upgrade two more local crossing points to official border crossings to facilitate international visits between them. The facilities to be upgraded are the Pa Hang-Long Sap crossing point between Laos’ Huaphan province and Vietnam’s Thanh Hoa province, and the Dak ...
Leading NGOs urge Vietnam to scrap new coal-fired power projects
12 organizations specializing in health and environment together have called on Vietnam to scrap 14 new coal plants. Concerned by the environmental and health toll that coal-fired power plants exact, leaders of 12 networks and non-government organizations collectively urged Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc to stop ...
Sen
Reintegration shelter for human trafficking victims in Lao Cai
Nguyen Thi Van (not her real name) from the northern mountainous province of Lao Cai was lured across the border to China and sold off as a wife when she was 16 years old. Three months later, she escaped from her husband and returned to Vietnam, but it ...
Việt Nam, Laos hold sixth ministerial consultation
Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Phạm Bình Minh and Lao Foreign Minister Saleumxay Kommasith co-chaired the sixth ministerial consultation in the northern province of Quảng Ninh on Wednesday. Both sides expressed their delight at the considerable development of bilateral ties in various areas, with ...
Electricity consumption in Mekong delta rises
Electricity consumption in the Mekong delta averagely rises by 10.7 percent during 2010-2018, according to a seminar organized by GreenID Company and the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations in the Mekong delta City of Can Tho yesterday. Furthermore, electricity consumption in the region is forecast ...
Tuan Quang
Vietnam’s Internet Control: Following in China’s Footsteps?
On January 1 of this year, a new cybersecurity law entered into effect in Vietnam after its passage in the Vietnamese National Assembly in June 2018. The law (original; unofficial translation) had a number of concerning elements, which included granting the government relatively unchecked authorities to ...
Justin Sherman
Vietnam Utility Dares Mekong Devastation
Inertia and the inherent tone-deafness of an authoritarian regime have set Vietnam on a course toward economic and political disaster. It is not too late, however, for the ruling party’s top leaders, the Politburo, to disavow support for state-owned PetroVietnam’s plans to build a huge ...
David Brown
Vietnam to stop licensing large-scale solar projects
In a newly published policy document, Hanoi has urged regional governments and the country’s state-run utility, EVN, to suspend authorizations for new solar parks until further notice. Around 8.93 GW of utility-scale solar capacity is already approved for development in Vietnam, according to the Ministry ...
Emiliano Bellini
How the scramble for sand is destroying the Mekong
A crisis is engulfing the Mekong River, its banks are collapsing and half a million people are at risk of losing their homes. The entire ecosystem of this South East Asian river is under threat, all because of the world’s insatiable demand for sand. Extracted from the ...
Beth Timmins
Vietnam, EU boost comprehensive cooperation
Vietnam always treasures relations with the European Union (EU), and is willing to discuss with the bloc issues of mutual concern, said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Binh Minh on December 15. He made the statement while meeting with EU High Representative ...