Representatives from six countries along the Lancang-Mekong River launched a joint crackdown on cross-border human abducting and trafficking Tuesday in Kunming, capital of southwest China’s Yunnan Province. Due to low risk and high profit, human trafficking has been on the rise in recent years in the ...

Last year, while parts of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and southern Vietnam experienced a devastating drought, China held abundant water on the Upper Mekong River back from downstream communities, wiping out crops and fishing stock and bringing one of the world’s great waterways to its knees. At ...

China Energy Engineering Corporation (CEEC), a multinational corporation specializing in energy solutions and services, is actively shaping the landscape of high-quality energy development in the Lancang-Mekong countries. As part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China Energy is deeply involved in the Southeast Asian ...

After a year of severe drought that hit the region, the inter-state agency Mekong River Commission (MRC) has laid out new measures to mitigate the effects of the crisis but experts have questioned the effectiveness of the plan. In its 2020-2025 strategy, adopted late last month ...

China last week agreed to share year-round data from the upper Mekong River with downstream countries, where its dams are being blamed for muting the natural rhythms of one of Asia’s great waterways and adding to the pain of recent droughts. For the past 18 years, ...

More than 20 years ago, when two Chiang Rai-based environmentalists, Niwat Roikaew and Somkiat Kuenwongsa, learned that the Chinese government were blasting rapids in the upper Mekong River from Yunnan to Myanmar and Laos to clear the way for large commercial vessels, they started worrying. Back ...

The Meteorological Department issued a warning on September 13 to people in 34 provinces in the North, Northeast and East to brace for heavy rain and stay tuned for weather updates. As of early Wednesday, tropical storm “Rai” was over Laos and the Northeast on September ...

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha may have been wrong when he said his government would clear the waterway for navigation in the Mekong River for the benefit of Thailand, suggesting that nobody should oppose this project. The Mekong runs through six countries in the region and ...

Thai communities living along the Mekong River have watched their land disappear before their eyes as riverbanks collapse. However, what has caused these riverbank collapses is unclear. Local residents link the riverbank collapses to the irregular water flows that have been seen since the commercial launch ...

Arriving late is always better than never. So, after years of witnessing the ecology of the Mekong River being choked by the development of hydro-powered dams, communities in this region can have some hope after the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and the Mekong ...

The Government of Japan Friday granted JPY 412 million or approximately US$3.9 million to the Mekong River Commission (MRC) to advance its flood and drought monitoring and forecasting functions. The funding will be spread over four years from 2020–2023. It is to transform the MRC’s Regional ...

Two leading experts on water issues in Asia warn that parts of Vietnam’s fertile southernmost areas bordering Southeast Asia’s longest river, the Mekong, are in danger of drying up. At the same time, they say, much of the Mekong is still flooded from seasonal monsoon rains. ...

Economic development zones in mainland Southeast Asia have contributed to a range of illicit activities, including drug trafficking and wildlife trafficking, according to a new report from C4ADS, a U.S.-based research organization. The report, which analyzes 110 economic development zones (EDZs) in the five lower Mekong nations – ...

Cambodian NGOs and trade unions called on Phnom Penh Wednesday to improve health and safety for workers in the country to combat its recent coronavirus outbreak, while the governments of neighboring Vietnam and Laos took precautions Wednesday to keep the virus from spreading within its ...

The Greater Mekong, a transnational region in Southeast Asia, spans six countries: China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. The region is home to more than 325 million people and, while it has survived the trauma of wars, it now faces mounting environmental threats from ...

Government officials and researchers from Mekong river countries on Wednesday agreed to assess plastic waste pollution in the region and take action to reduce it. The agreement was made by 50 government officials and researchers from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam during a meeting in Vientiane ...

On Thursday January 31st 2019, FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, and the Regional Centre for Social Sciences and Sustainable Development, Chiang Mai University (RCSD) will be holding a public workshop in Bangkok under the title Migration and Women’s Land Tenure Rights and ...

Are you a young Indigenous person who is making a difference through social entrepreneurship and community building? Sign up for the Regional Dialogue on Indigenous Youth Social Entrepreneurship to be held on 20-22 January 2020 in Bangkok, Thailand!  Join here: http://bit.ly/ISERD2020 by 27 November 2019. Applications are open to: Indigenous youth ...

An international team from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam visited the Tennessee and Cumberland River Systems last week at the invitation of the United States in support of water development in the Lower Mekong River Basin. The U.S. State Department sponsored the sharing of information ...

Countries in the lower Mekong basin are watching anxiously to see whether their “big brother” to the north will tackle the growing Mekong River crisis. China controls the upper section of the river, which rises on the Tibetan Plateau and runs through Laos, the North and ...