Radio Free Asia

Nearly 150 families in six villages in Khong district of southwestern Laos’ Champasak Province say they do not want to give up their homes and land to a special economic zone planned for their area and that they fear that project developers will not compensate ...

At least 1,000 families from 20-some villages in northwestern Laos’ Xayaburi province will be forced to relocate if infrastructure officials move ahead with plans to build a fourth hydropower dam on the Lower Mekong River, a provincial official said Monday. The Pak Lay hydropower project is ...

The Committee on Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (Comfrel), a respected independent vote monitor, will not sign up observers for July’s parliamentary elections in face of government restrictions on NGO activities, a senior election observer told RFA’s Khmer Service on Tuesday. Keep reading ...

China deserves credit for shutting down the illegal trading in elephant ivory that has contributed in recent years to the killing of thousands of African pachyderms. But much credit should also go to international nongovernment organizations that have championed the elephants’ cause and raised public ...

The governments of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) must intervene to end Cambodia’s ongoing slide from a democracy into a dictatorship, several human rights organizations said, as member states kicked off the 32nd ASEAN Summit in Singapore. Keep reading ...

The four member countries of the Mekong River Commission today confronted predictions of social and environmental disaster if damming and other development projects in the region are allowed to proceed as planned. The warnings, contained in a 3,600-page report prepared by the MRC Council, point ...

Myanmar’s agreement to receive a delegation from the United Nations Security Council is a positive step towards improving relations with the international community, which has been highly critical of the Southeast Asian nation for months over its handling of the Rohingya crisis, former politicians and ...

Owners of garment factories and other businesses in Laos are rejecting a proposal to raise the minimum wage by as much as one-third, saying the increase in expenses would force them to shut down operations, despite reports of workers seeking opportunities elsewhere due to low ...

An action plan agreed by the leaders of China and five Southeast Asian neighbors to step up industrialization and urbanization in their common Mekong River region has sharpened longstanding concerns about the environmental damage from Chinese dam-building on the key water source.Keep reading ...

Cambodia’s Tonle Sap, a lake known as the country’s “beating heart,” faces a more rapid decline than previously estimated, according to a new study. Experts say that urgent countermeasures are needed to save Southeast Asia’s largest freshwater lake, which has served Cambodia for millennia. Millions ...