News
Thailand's prospects and risks in 2020s
Notwithstanding recent worldwide celebrations to mark the arrival of 2020, Thailand should be seen as having entered not just a new year but a new decade. Since World War II, Thailand’s journey over the ensuing decades meandered through ebbs and flows, overcoming critical bumps and ...
Thitinan Pongsudhirak
Southeast Asia’s most critical river is entering uncharted waters
For months now, a single, rare Irrawaddy river dolphin, apparently entangled in a fishing net and disoriented, has been spotted in Southeast Asia’s struggling Mekong River, far from its normal habitat in northern Cambodia. Conservationists are scrambling to come up with a plan to help the ...
Stefan Lovgren
University research team makes rechargeable batteries out of rice husks
A team of researchers and students at the HCM City University of Science – Việt Nam National University – Ho Chi Minh City have succeeded at making a prototype lithium-ion rechargeable battery from rice husks, a common agricultural waste in Việt Nam, especially in the ...
NASA Satellite Images Show Mekong River Change From Brown To Green
NASA and the United States Geological Survey’s (USGS) Landsat 8 satellite captured images of the Mekong river before and after it turned from its signature brown to an unusual aquamarine color. According to authorities, it is possible for the green color to persist until the ...
Athena Chan
The disease burden on the Thai-Myanmar border
IN 2019, more than 1.3 million people in Southeast Asia were infected with dengue fever. The cyclical epidemic was exacerbated by poor state health infrastructure and constraints on access, as well as climate change and the increased movement of goods and people. In this context, and ...
Laure Siegel
Myanmar Shows Why Fixing The Plastic Crisis Is So Darn Complicated
Golden earrings swing from San San Thwin’s ears as she serves customers in her grocery store in Mingalun village, 90 miles from Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon. This is what she has done almost every day for 30 years, but there has been a striking change ...
Sara Perria
WB supports Laos in disaster reconstruction, resilience
The Lao Ministry of Finance and the World Bank signed a financing agreement of 50 million U.S. dollars on Tuesday, extending support to the ongoing Lao People’s Democratic Republic Southeast Asia Disaster Risk Management Project and Lao Road Sector Project II. Bounchom Ubonpaseuth, Lao Deputy Minister ...
Xinhua
The Truth About Hun Sen and the Media in Cambodia
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen seems to have forgotten who he is. Praising journalism and defending reporters? That is not the Hun Sen of yore. Yet this month, amid a trial of two Radio Free Asia reporters on “baseless espionage charges,” according to Human Rights Watch, the ...
David Hutt
Dried-up Mekong forces boats to reroute
The Mekong River has almost dried up in That Phanom district, forcing boats that transport goods and passengers across the Thai-Lao border to find other routes. The provicinial harbour office reported that water in the Mekong River as it flows through the province dropped to between ...
Pattanapong Sripiachai
Land Dispute Victims Point To Military Police Beatings In Tuy Sros Death
Tuy Sros, 34, was one of the hundreds of people at a land protest in late December last year, in the northwestern border province of Banteay Meanchey. The dispute was similar to other land conflicts in the country; villagers had been displaced from land they ...
Sun Narin
