News
Four-nation joint patrol on Mekong River starts
The 89th Mekong River joint patrol led by China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand was launched Tuesday in southwest China’s Yunnan Province. In a bid to safeguard the security and stability along the Mekong River, the four countries will carry out joint patrols, visits, inspections and safety ...
Huaxia
The Mekong is on the cusp of an ecological catastrophe
People living along the banks of the Mekong River in Laos and Thailand were recently amazed to see the river’s water turn light blue and become so transparent that they could see the sandbars underneath. It was an eye-catching sight and the phenomenon boosted tourism ...
Darunee Sukanan
Looking for a fix for Asia's traffic woes
With no single cause, and no magic solution, the congestion of Asia’s cities requires government resolve and know-how to fix. Urban congestion, more commonly known as traffic, is probably the most painful daily experience for people living in modern cities. It costs our time, ruins our ...
Yi Jiang
Electricity consumption in Mekong delta rises
Electricity consumption in the Mekong delta averagely rises by 10.7 percent during 2010-2018, according to a seminar organized by GreenID Company and the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations in the Mekong delta City of Can Tho yesterday. Furthermore, electricity consumption in the region is forecast ...
Tuan Quang
'Beautifying Phnom Penh': Muslim Cham face eviction in Cambodia
On a good day, fish vendor Sen Ror can make about $7.50 but that is on a good day. Usually, she only makes about a third of that, taking home roughly $2.50, which is all she has to buy food for her four children and elderly ...
Leonie Kijewski
How To End Deforestation? Two Decades of Lessons Learned in the Greater Mekong
It’s home to spectacular beauty, abundant natural resources, and more than 300 million people spread across Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand, and China. Yet the Greater Mekong has been gripped by conflict and political crises, creating in many places conditions ripe for illegal forest ...
Michael Jenkins, Kerstin Canby, Genevieve Bennett
Myanmar’s ‘Rohingya’ vs ‘Bengali’ Hate Speech Debate
Rohingya activists have accused the Myanmar Press Council, a quasi-government media adjudication and ethics body, of defending the practice of using the word “Bengali” to refer to the Rohingya. Rights groups and Rohingya advocates argue that the term amounts to “hate speech” and that it is ...
Shafiur Rahman
Vietnam’s Internet Control: Following in China’s Footsteps?
On January 1 of this year, a new cybersecurity law entered into effect in Vietnam after its passage in the Vietnamese National Assembly in June 2018. The law (original; unofficial translation) had a number of concerning elements, which included granting the government relatively unchecked authorities to ...
Justin Sherman
Vietnam Utility Dares Mekong Devastation
Inertia and the inherent tone-deafness of an authoritarian regime have set Vietnam on a course toward economic and political disaster. It is not too late, however, for the ruling party’s top leaders, the Politburo, to disavow support for state-owned PetroVietnam’s plans to build a huge ...
David Brown
Govt pushes 2020 development plan in Laos
The government is holding a special meeting to establish common ground among state agencies about ways to ensure effective implementation of the national development plan for 2020. Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith presided over the opening of the two-day open government meeting at the National Convention Centre, ...