News

Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha this week publicly endorsed a proposed land bridge between the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea, apparently shelving a long-discussed project to build a canal across the Malay Peninsula. The dueling project ideas have generated debate, with some calling the ...

Reaching down into the Malay Peninsula, Myanmar’s southern Tanintharyi region is home to rainforests that support a unique assemblage of endemic and endangered species, including the endangered Malay tapir (Tapirus indicus), critically endangered Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) and endangered lar gibbon (Hylobates lar). But the relative ...

World Wide Fund for Nature in Laos (WWF-Laos) in cooperation with the Department of Livestock and Fisheries on Wednesday announced community fishery co-management regulations for Xebanghieng River’s 10 fish reservations of Savannakhet province, focusing on protection of threatened aquatic species. The announcement and official launch of ...

Border control police on Saturday night seized 270 kilogrammes of premium-grade dried marijuana on the Mekong river bank in Tha Uthen district, company commander Pol Lt Col Apisit Rodnoy said at a press conference on Sunday. Eight black plastic bags were found by officers of the ...

Authorities in Ben Tre Province have approved a plan to build the Mekong Delta’s largest freshwater reservoir to help tackle drought and salinity during the dry season. Construction of the Lac Dia Lake, which will have a capacity of 1.3 million cubic meters, is expected to ...

The United States said it would provide at least $153 million (119.43 million pounds) to Mekong countries for collaborative projects in the region, Vietnamese state television (VTV) reported on Friday, citing U.S. State Department officials. The pledges, made at the first Mekong-U.S. Partnership ministerial meeting, will ...

For almost a decade, Laos has been warned that its extravagant spending spree on infrastructure carried enormous financial risks that threatened to undermine its sovereignty and efforts to raise living standards among the poor. Those warnings fell on deaf ears as Vientiane — hell-bent on becoming ...

Cambodia’s Ministry of Labor on Thursday announced a new minimum wage of U.S. $192 per month for 2021, an increase of only U.S. $2 from this year, drawing criticism from workers struggling with inflation amid an economy devastated by the coronavirus pandemic. “Beginning on Jan. 1, 2021, garment ...

According to the Vietnam Institute of Seas and Islands under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MoNRE), plastic waste accounts for between 50% and 80% of marine waste. Currently, Vietnam is ranked fourth among the five countries which have the biggest volume of plastic ...

Meddling by the US in Mekong River water resource issues is an attempt to contain China in the region by hyping China’s “dam threat,” while citing only weak evidence and sources given by the US-backed institutions that blame China for downstream disasters, Chinese observers found. Chinese ...