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 ...

Myanmar’s ongoing crisis was raised as a possible hindrance to regional cooperation to save the Mekong River, as other countries along the important waterway pledged on Wednesday to strengthen collaboration in efforts to conserve the water resource. At the quadrennial Mekong River Commission (MRC) Summit in ...

On October 29, Laos unveiled a new dam in the country’s north. The 1.3-gigawatt Xayaburi dam sits on the Mekong River, which flows the length of the country. Laos plans to build nearly a hundred like it by 2020—many with direct funding and support from ...

Mekong Institute (MI) is opening application for the Mekong Institute Young Scholars (MIYS) Program which aims to develop the human resource capacity of public institutions involved in the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) development and cooperation initiative by providing a structured learning opportunity and hands-on experience to ...

Sixty-six fortunate folk have been located alive as the Lao government task force headed by the Deputy PM reported 34 confirmed dead, 31 missing and another six post-flood disaster-related fatalities in Attapeu in final figures cited by to the nation’s news media Thursday.The search for the remains of victims from the ...

VIENTIANE (Vientiane Times/ANN) – Construction work is around 40 percent complete on an expressway linking the capital of Vientiane with Vangvieng, a well-known tourism district in Vientiane province.The construction of the 113.5-km road, which kick-started last April, is expected to take three years to complete, ...

Originating in the Tibetan highlands and running through China, Myanmar, Thailand, Lao PDR, Cambodia, and Vietnam, the Mekong and its tributaries provide water, food and income for 60 million people. The longest river in Southeast Asia is home to the world’s largest inland fishery. It ...

The Mekong River, a critical waterway for six countries in Southeast Asia, is registering critically low water levels this summer. The Mekong River Commission (MRC), which monitors Southeast Asia’s longest river, reported in mid-July that water levels over the previous month had fallen to “among the lowest ...

State land leases and concessions in Laos are an economic arrangement in which the Lao Government rents state land at a yearly fee to both domestic and foreign investors for a wide range of economic activities including, but not limited to, agricultural and tree plantations, ...

Recent weeks have seen new developments in the ongoing tension over the Mekong river and its waters, as the river basin faces ecological crises and its waters play an ever-larger role in geopolitics. Thailand has announced that it is reconsidering its decision to purchase power from the planned Sanakham ...

The young people sitting together in a classroom at Chiang Mai University came from countries across the region, yet they do not only identify as Cambodian, Lao, Myanmar, Thai or Vietnamese. Keep reading ...

Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Working Group on Health Cooperation will convene its first meeting in Luang Prabang, Lao on December 13-14.For more information, please visit here ...

Visa applications to Thailand from Laos via Vientiane are set to get a shakeup with the introduction of an online appointment system, Thailand’s Embassy has confirmed.Long queues into the Thai consulate in Vientiane are set to become a thing of the past, with all appointments to ...

Laos joined other countries and development partners at the Sector Ministers’ Meeting (SMM) which was convened by the Sanitation and Water for All partnership in San Jose, Costa Rica on April 4-5. Topics at the meeting centred on supporting the achievement of the water, sanitation and ...

Mekong River water levels that fell dramatically on Thursday under impact from dam operations will soon recover, says the national water management agency. Somkiat Prajumwong, secretary-general at the Office of National Water Resources (ONWR), offered the reassurance despite warnings from experts that the dams are destroying ...

Drastic ecological change of the Mekong is linked with hydropower development. Water fluctuation due to operation of upstream dams is indicating by the fish species and their stocks declined. We visited two communities located along the Mekong River. The first community is in Chiang Khan District, ...

The unchecked growth of freewheeling business enclaves and casinos in and around Laos is opening new money laundering and drug trafficking options for crime networks using the country to push spiraling volumes of narcotics across Asia, the United Nations warns. As China and Thailand tighten their ...

Development partners on Thursday asked the Mekong River Commission to prioritise policies to protect the basin in future development strategies, noting that the Mekong river basin is among the most vulnerable regions due to climate change. Representatives from European Union, Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Japan, Luxembourg, ...

Despite concerted efforts by officials to end the illegal wildlife trade through regular inspections at markets throughout the country, the trade continues to flourish. To reduce illegal wildlife trading in Laos, especially in the main towns, the authorities have asked various agencies to join the ...

This conference and exhibition will feature all aspects of water resources development of relevance to the Asian region. Vientiane, Laos, 1-3 March 2016. ...