News

Cooperation key on Mekong issues

In the coming months, the Mekong River Commission (MRC) will host a unique competition for university students from our four member countries: Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. The objective is to see which team can develop the most effective, cost-efficient and sustainable technology to monitor water ...

ANOULAK KITTIKHOUN

GT investigates: Who are the mouthpieces of US-led war of public opinion on “Chinese dams’ threats” along Mekong River, and what are their typical methods?

US’ politicization of ecological water issues in the Mekong River for the purpose of tarnishing China’s reputation via launching rhetoric battles has become more trendy. The Stimson Center, a US-backed think tank, again bashed China in February for allegedly “holding a massive amount of water” ...

Hu Yuwei and Zhao Juecheng

Laos: Huge development project underway in Siphandone

Khong district, an island situated in the Mekong River in Champassak Province in the south of Laos is part of the area known as Siphandone, meaning Four Thousand Islands, and has long been popular with visitors for its laid-back bucolic feel. Siphandone is an archipelago of ...

Vientiane Times via Asia News Network

US lawmakers urge Thai govt to drop restrictive provisions in NGO bill

Two U.S. lawmakers are urging Thailand to drop provisions of a draft bill restricting NGOs, saying it would harm civil society and negatively impact the delivery of humanitarian assistance to neighboring Myanmar.  Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha’s government is seeking to pass a controversial bill regulating not-for-profit ...

Nontarat Phaicharoen and Subel Rai Bhandari

Journalist Taken to Court Over Report on Illegal Timber Factory

A video report alleging a Battambang timber factory was illegally processing luxury wood has landed a local journalist in court. Lim Phally, a reporter for Los Seng News, said he had asked for a delay for court questioning that was scheduled today. He was sued after a ...

Khut Sokun

OPINION: Thai agriculture needs reform from ground up

Thailand’s government badly wants the middle-income country to achieve advanced economy status. But it will fail unless it raises agricultural productivity and upskills rural workers for jobs in more productive sectors. This will demand hitherto unseen political commitment. For decades, political leaders have paid lip service ...

Craig Keating

Thai tourism elephants are ‘far better off’ in forests: Q&A with photographer Adam Oswell

An Asian elephant supports itself on one leg, completely submerged in garish electric-blue water, while a keeper tugs painfully at its ear. The photograph shows bubbles rising from its trunk as it offers a stick of sugarcane toward a crowd of onlookers on the other ...

Carolyn Cowan

Vietnam boosts satellite-based vessel monitoring to eradicate IUU fishing

Installing vessel monitoring systems (VMS) is one of the important measures the European Commission (EC) recommended for Vietnam to remove the EC’s “yellow card” warning against illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The Directorate of Fisheries has certified eight VMSs that meet the standards stipulated in the Government’s Decree No. ...

VNA

Chasing climate-ready glutinous rice for food security in Thailand and Laos

Origin of glutinous rice There are three groups of glutinous rice-based on grain sizes, small (japonica), medium (upland), and long slender (indica) grains. The origin of glutinous rice has become a hot topic for discussion by evolutionists who speculate that glutinous rice has two roots. Glutinous ...

Apichart Vanavichit

How hydropower dams impact the communities they're built in

Over the last two decades, almost 1,000 hydropower dams have been built around the globe. And while these dams provide many benefits to farmers, wildlife and the climate, the costs of their construction on local communities where they are built has largely been left out ...

Liz Schondelmayer, Michigan State University

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