News
Lights off in Myanmar
The energy sector has been a site of international investment in Myanmar, but, with foreign investors jittery and blackouts escalating, it is also a site of resistance against the military coup. Robert Bociaga reports. For people in Myanmar the energy sector has become an important battleground as they ...
Robert Bociaga
Online workshop on physical inspection of timber shipments in the Lower Mekong Region hosted by the CITES Secretariat
The Lower Mekong Region is home to around 100 CITES-listed tree species. These include CITES Appendix-II timber-producing species of rosewoods (genus Dalbergia), yew trees (genus Taxus spp.), and agarwood (genus Aquilaria), some of which are highly valuable for international trade. This has made some of these species a target ...
Villagers fear losing land as riverbanks continue to collapse
Some 50 years ago, Dul Han’s parents gave her and each of her four brothers and sisters a plot of land measuring 12 metres wide by 40 metres long in Kampong Cham province’s Sdao commune after they got married and had their own families. Unfortunately, like ...
Moeun Chhean Nariddh
Online child abuse spikes amid pandemic
Vietnamese children face greater risks of sexual abuse with prolonged school closures and online classes exposing them to exploitation via social networks. A month before graduating, Khanh Ngoc, a high school student in Hanoi, received a message from a strange Facebook account. Opening it, she encountered ...
Phan Duong
Back to the land: Thai forest draws young, green farmers
Like many locals, Matthana Abhaimoon left rural Thailand to study in the city. Unlike most, she chose to come back – and fight for her right to farm in the forest as her forefathers had done. After a 20-year campaign, residents of Mae Tha won a ...
Rina Chandran
Xi-Asean summit boosts China’s plan to upgrade Southeast Asia ties to comprehensive strategic partnership
China’s long-held plan to upgrade ties with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to a higher tier of diplomatic recognition could come to fruition during next month’s special summit between President Xi Jinping and the bloc’s leaders, observers have said. The prime ministers of Malaysia and Singapore signalled their readiness to participate ...
Bhavan Jaipragas
PM to present net-zero goal at COP26
Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha will attend the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in the United Kingdom next week where he will formally announce Thailand’s new pledge to achieve carbon neutrality by 2065. Natural Resources and Environment Minister Varawut Silpa-archa said Thailand’s delegates to the ...
PRATCH RUJIVANAROM
Cambodia ‘to achieve 20 percent of energy supplies from solar’
Scores of seven solar photovoltaic (PV) projects are in the pipeline for construction and ready to put into operation by 2023. The Cambodian government aims to generate 20 percent of energy from renewable energy. The news was revealed by Permanent Secretary of States at the Ministry ...
Chea Vanyuth
China's Xi launches $232 mln biodiversity protection fund for developing countries
Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the launch of a 1.5 billion yuan ($232.47 million) fund on Tuesday to support biodiversity protection in developing countries, as talks continue on a new post-2020 global pact to tackle species loss. Xi was virtually addressing the COP15 biodiversity summit in ...
David Stanway; Writing by Kanupriya Kapoor; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan
Simulated Vietnam rice fields produce rice alternatives in Wagga Wagga
A research project funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), through Charles Sturt University, has produced highly durable and sustainable food alternatives to rice by simulating international climates in a glasshouse in Wagga Wagga. The project ‘Farmer’s options for crops under saline conditions in ...
Alexandra Cooper