News

More than 20 years ago, when two Chiang Rai-based environmentalists, Niwat Roikaew and Somkiat Kuenwongsa, learned that the Chinese government were blasting rapids in the upper Mekong River from Yunnan to Myanmar and Laos to clear the way for large commercial vessels, they started worrying.Back ...

The government threatened on Tuesday not to buy electricity from Sanakham dam in Laos after it learned the project might affect the Mekong River.“The country’s territory is our paramount concern,” Somkiat Prajamwong, secretary-general to the Office of National Water Resources, said on Tuesday after a ...

Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha proposed four major cooperation agenda in the virtual 3rd Mekong-Lancang Cooperation (MLC) Leaders’ Meeting, chaired by Laos on August 24.According to Thai Government Spokesperson Anucha Burapachaisri, PM Prayut said the four areas of cooperation that Thailand attaches importance to include ...

The latest reports from the Lower Mekong Basin are cause for growing concern that another period of drought will succeed that of 2019, affecting Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Expected rainfall from late May through June and July has not arrived, and the level of ...

Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon urged authorities concerned to discuss and find ways to mitigate the possible environmental impact from the Sanakham Dam project in Laos in the upcoming scheduled public hearings.“[The committee] is concerned about the impact of the dam, as it is located ...

In June of this year, the FAO’s annual State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture report ranked the Mekong Basin as the world’s most productive freshwater fishery, accounting for over 15% of global annual freshwater fish catch. Meanwhile, WWF Researchers estimate that the contribution actually accounts ...

On July 23, 2018, the villagers of Attapeu, a sleepy town in southern Laos, suffered their worst nightmare when the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy hydropower dam suddenly burst, unleashing massive torrents of water that swallowed local villages, killing 71. More than 7,000 were made homeless.The survivors lost ...

Two years ago this month, the villagers of Attapeu in southern Laos encountered their worst nightmare when the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy hydropower dam, which was under construction, failed. Massive torrents of water swept through several villages, causing 71 deaths, heavy damage to properties and left around ...

A dam planned for construction by Laos on the Mekong river will have negative impacts not only on Lao villages but also in nearby Thailand, a coalition of Thai environmental groups says, adding that the government in Bangkok should cancel plans to buy electricity from ...

Fish 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 ...