Environment and land

Construction of dams on the Mekong continues. The river is 4,000 kilometers long, rising on the Tibetan plateau and flows through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. The stretch of this river that flows through the Chinese territory is 2,130 km. It’s called Lan-ts’ang River. Chinese ...

Modern China seems to have learned the ancient master’s lesson well. It has unleashed water wars on Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. Even as China’s neighbors deal with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, they are experiencing their worst drought in living memory. The mighty Mekong ...

River flow downhill, which in much of Asia means they start on the Tibetan plateau before cascading away to the east, west and south. Those steep descents provide the ideal setting for hydropower projects. And since Tibet is part of China, Chinese engineers have been ...

Mai Van Hao, 61, has lived on the 1.5-hectare islet at the heart of Khe Dien hydropower reservoir since 2003, three years before the investor blocked Nong Son River for construction in Que Ninh Commune, Nong Son District. “When the hydropower dam was built, my home ...

Environmentalists have urged Laos not to proceed with the construction of another “destructive” dam on the Mekong River, a vital Southeast Asian waterway that sustains about 60 million people. Last week, Laos’ communist government announced plans for the Sanakham dam – close to the northeastern border ...

A $17 million museum featuring Vietnam’s agricultural history and prowess will be built in the Mekong Delta province of Vinh Long. The museum will be constructed on an area of 11 hectares in Vung Liem, a rural district. In preserving the value and legacy of Vietnamese ...

Clear-cutting forests may provide short-term monetary gains, but the true costs of mass deforestation could be steep.  The novel coronavirus that has caused the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic is believed to be zoonotic, meaning it first spread from animals to humans. Not only is that a common ...

Food Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, the World Food Programme (WFP) are cooperating with the Lao Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to draft a response plan and provide direct assistance to farmers continuing to produce food for their communities. FAO, WFP now are completing ...

Hydropower projects must not affect people’s lives in riparian countries negatively, Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Thursday. Le Thi Thu Hang was responding to a query about Laos’s plan to build another dam on the Mekong River at an online press meet. “The development of hydropower projects ...

ish writhe frantically in the shallow pool, as their schoolmates stranded on the exposed sandbar breathe their last. It is November, the end of the monsoon season, yet the water in the Mekong river is perilously low. On this stretch, in north-eastern Thailand, the bank is ...