News

China’s dams are worsening drought conditions downstream the Mekong River, storing and controlling up to 50 percent of its waters, experts say. China on average contributes around 14 percent of the Mekong River’s flow, “but an annual average can be misleading,” says Brian Eyler, director of ...

Access Now, a non-profit digital rights advocacy group, has released its annual report on global internet shutdowns. The report reveals governments around world increasingly shutting down the internet, often to stifle dissent, and frequently doing so during times of protest or elections. The annual report, entitled ...

Universities and their buildings and infrastructure are more than just the physical space where students and their professors meet for lectures. These learning institutions improve and rejuvenate the areas they are situated in, and become inexorably linked to the communities which they serve. One recent example is ...

Unseasonal drought, floods and the negative impact of hydropower projects on the Mekong River’s ecology were major concerns raised by residents of northeastern provinces at a public hearing on the Luang Prabang Dam on Tuesday. Pradap Klatkhemphet, deputy secretary-general of the Office of the National Water ...

ANZ has agreed to compensate hundreds of Cambodian families who were forcibly evicted from their land to make way for a controversial sugar plantation and refinery. Phnom Penh Sugar, owned by tycoon and ruling party senator Ly Yong Phat, received a $40 million loan from ANZ joint ...

A total of 4,225 registered accounts on messaging app Line, including two in Thailand, have been hacked in the last two weeks, with some used for phishing scams, according to the operator. Line Corp said 4,073 accounts in Japan, two in Thailand, 81 in Taiwan and ...

Access to research in Myanmar will increase thanks to a new collaboration agreement between national and international partners, signed in Yangon today, and paving the way for a new national open access portal. The Myanmar Education, Research and Learning (MERAL) portal, to be launched in March, ...

A top-ranking Chinese official declared that the country is releasing more water from its dams on the upper Mekong River in order to aid drought-stricken downstream neighbors.  The announcement from Foreign Minister Wang Yi, made at a meeting of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation group, comes as the beleaguered ...

In a nod to green diplomacy, Vietnam is raising the geopolitical stakes over the Mekong River, Southeast Asia’s largest body of water, which has dropped to record lows due to a severe drought and construction of large dams. Hanoi has signaled its intent to raise the issue this ...

Some 60 million people rely on Southeast Asia’s Mekong River for their sustenance. But the Mekong is under threat. While China is building dams that sharply reduce the water flow and sediment downstream, other countries along the river share some of the blame. Cambodia, for instance, is experiencing a ...