Environment and land

Villagers in Namai, central Laos, are unanimous in saying that the greatest threat facing Namai now is natural disaster – in the form of cyclones, storms, floods and drought. Over the past 10 years, say village leaders, they have seen record floods, droughts and landslides, ...

Thailand will clarify its commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20-25% within 2030 at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP 21, in Paris next month. Prasert Sirinapaporn, director of Climate Change Management and the Coordination Division of the Office of Natural Resources and Environmental ...

A Kachin civil society network is seeking to bring charges against the operator of the Hpakant jade mine which dumped the tailings that collapsed in a massive landslide on November 21, according to an area resident. The confirmed death toll from the landslide had risen to ...

Migrants processing Thai chicken for its biggest export market, Europe, face widespread abuse by their employers, partly because foreign auditors have focused on food safety rather than workers’ conditions, researchers said on 25 November. Chicken is set to become the world’s most consumed meat, within the ...

A report released on 23 November by the United Nations and the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters shows that Cambodia’s population is among the world’s 10 most affected by natural disasters. Published on Monday, The Human Cost of Weather Related Disasters considers 20 years ...

A Thai ship has been caught selling oil illegally to a Vietnamese fishing boat in southwestern waters, the Vietnam Coast Guard said in a statement.   V.Lucky with five Thai crewmen was carrying 170,000 liters of diesel and pumping the oil to a Vietnamese fishing boat that ...

Ca Mau, which once benefited from coastal accretion, is now asking for US$6.7 million from the government to deal with relentless erosion.   Vietnam’s southernmost province has a coastline of more than 250 kilometers and the sea has eaten along 80 percent of it, by 50 meters ...

With the slowdown in domestic auto sales ebbing and strong exports, Thai automobile production is expected to reach 2 million units next year, the Federation of Thai Industries projects. Surapong Paisitpatanapong, a spokesman for the FTI’s automotive industry club, said the production in 2016 likely will grow ...

Nestle, the world’s largest food company, has acknowledged that it is almost certain that seafood bought from Thailand by itself and other large Western firms is produced by what are effectively modern-day slaves, many of them Cambodian. In a report, released by Nestlé on 23 November, ...

A Japanese grant aid project will see the operation of a new waste transfer station in Vientiane and the addition of 70 new garbage trucks, to be put to use in the capital as well as Luang Prabang and Xayaboury provinces. Director General of the Department ...