News
As waste-to-energy incinerators spread in Southeast Asia, so do concerns
In 2016, Bangkok opened its first waste-to-energy incinerator in the district of Nong Khaem, turning up to 500 metric tons of solid waste into electricity every day. The 9.8 megawatt incinerator uses technology from Japan’s Hitachi Zosen, and the project aims to be a model ...
Nicha Wachpanich
Erosion continues to destroy Mekong Delta homes
A dozen homes and adjacent fruit farms and fishponds were swept away into a river in Vinh Long Province recently, which is just another episode of destructive erosion in the Mekong Delta. Erosion swallowed up much of the banks of the Chien River on Monday afternoon, ...
Cuu Long
UN urges Southeast Asia governments to rescue stranded Rohingya
The United Nations Refugee Agency has urged countries in Southeast Asia to rescue some 200 Rohingya refugees whose unseaworthy boat has been reported drifting in the Andaman Sea. The UNCHR said in a statement on Thursday that it had received reports that the Rohingya had been ...
AL JAZEERA
Cambodia’s Mekong dolphin is dying despite efforts to save it
The fishing gangs visit the river at night and the rangers do nothing to stop them. Working in large groups, the boatmen use fishing methods that have long been outlawed in this part of the mighty Mekong River like gillnetting, which uses nets that hang like ...
Saqib Rahim
Traders defy the law to import more teak into the USA from Myanmar than before the coup
Despite sanctions put in place against the brutal military junta in Myanmar, US traders continue to source precious teak from the country for luxury yachts and flooring. The allegations are made in the new EIA report Acts of Defiance – How US traders are ignoring sanctions to import ...
Opinion: The Mekong Delta is drowning in ‘sand debt’ – it urgently needs a sand budget
any people will be familiar with the dread when your income no longer covers your expenses; when you’ve exhausted your savings and are sinking ever deeper into debt. In the Mekong Delta, a similar downward spiral is happening. But it’s not the delta’s finances that ...
Marc Goichot
A year on, Laotians say high-speed rail link with China has brought them few benefits
A year ago, a U.S.$6 billion high-speed railway was completed between Laos and China amid much fanfare and hopes that it would fuel exports from Laos and spur growth in the impoverished, landlocked country. But one year later, most of the trade has been one-way: from ...
RFA Lao
Cambodian plan to allow hunting in protected areas worries conservationists
Hunting in Cambodia’s protected areas and forests would be legal in some cases under a proposal from the country’s Ministry of Environment that conservation groups fear could lead to abuses that threaten wildlife populations, according to drafts of rule changes seen by RFA. The ministry is ...
Jack Adamović Davies
Ho Chi Minh City’s plastic ‘habit’ leaves piles of waste
Kieu Anh Tran heads down a small alley to her workshop in Ho Chi Minh City’s Binh Thanh District. Inside, her team is busy washing used plastic tarpaulins, cutting patterns, and sewing the discarded material into backpacks, tote bags, and wallets. In Vietnam’s southern city and ...
Govi Snell
Myanmar’s junta stays quiet as climate change hits
On November 13, as country delegates at the UN climate summit in Egypt, known as COP27, continued their negotiations, Duwa Lashi La, the acting president of the National Unity Government (NUG), Myanmar’s parallel administration, sent a letter to the meeting reaffirming its commitment to reduce climate-warming emissions. He added that ...
Thin Lei Win
