News

International donors, including the U.S., Australia, the European Union and the World Bank, have urged the Cambo­dian government to redesign a massive hydropower project in Stung Treng province that environmentalists say will deplete fisheries and submit it to the Mekong River Commission (MRC) for consultation. In ...

The parent company behind a firm constructing the Lower Sesan 2 dam in Stung Treng has repeatedly violated Chinese law by building “massive” power projects without prior approval, China’s national auditor has found. State-owned China Huaneng Group, of which Lower Sesan 2 partner Hydrolancang International Energy ...

Logging baron Try Pheap’s MDS Import Export Co, Ltd has been granted a licence to collect and process the controversial plant known as yellow vine around the Stung Atay hydropower dam in the Cardamom Mountains, according to documents received by the Post yesterday. The vine has ...

Workers in Stung Treng province have begun clearing forested land with chainsaws in order to make way for the reservoir of a massive hydropower dam that has drawn ire from local villagers who say they have not been informed about the dam’s construction plans. The National ...

Advocacy groups, environmentalists and policy-makers have wrapped up five days of events surrounding Mekong River issues in Washington. “Mekong Days,” a series of talks, films and other forums that ended Tuesday, highlighted issues in the region, where some 60 million people live. The Mekong River, a major ...

Cambodia’s national electricity provider yesterday appealed to the public to unplug from the national energy supply in an effort to alleviate chronic seasonal power shortages that are causing blackouts across Phnom Penh and the rest of the country. Eletricite du Cambodge (EdC) published an announcement asking ...

In the past four years, families in Anlong Chrey village, in Kampong Speu provinces’s Thpong district, have watched a small multipurpose dam being built at their back doors. For village chief Soung Pao, 59, who gave up two hectares for the dam – one of ...

The government's guaranteed bailout of major infrastructure projects, such as the future 400-megawatt hydropower dam in Stung Treng province, requires a thorough assessment of forecasted risks - a capacity which the government currently does not possess, an Asian Development Bank (ADB) official said yesterday. Speaking on ...

Cambodia’s parliament on Friday approved a law providing financial guarantees for the developers of a planned hydropower dam on a Mekong River tributary, despite opposition from civil society groups seeking to delay the project. Villagers campaigning against the Lower Sesan 2 dam in northeastern Cambodia’s Stung ...

With three workers still missing after a major breach at a chinese built hydropower dam in Pursat province on Saturday, the Government's investigation into what went wrong and why appears to be moving slowly. A large set ion of a concrete tunnel at Stung Atai ...

Four workers have gone missing after the collapse of an in-progress hydropower dam in Western Cambodia, apparently due to a leak in the structure. The Associated Press reports that the Saturday collapse occurred at the Stung Atay Hydroelectric Project, a $255-million dollar dam on the Atay ...

Laos held a "groundbreaking" ceremony on Wednesday for a $3.5 billion hydropower dam on the Mekong River that is opposed by environmentalists and some neighbouring countries because of the possible impact on livelihoods, fisheries and agriculture. But it was unclear when actual construction of the contentious ...

A decision on whether to build the Xayaburi dam on the Mekong River in northern Laos is a life and death one that will affect Cambodians downstream, according to Foreign Minister Hor Namhong. Speaking to reporters on Friday, Namhong said the controversial 1,260-megawatt hydropower dam has ...

The Thai company set to build Laos’s Xayaburi hydropower dam will not begin construction until a study determines the dam’s environmental effects on the Mekong River, Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said on Friday. Yingluck reaffirmed her commitment to the study, which Mekong River Commission countries ...

A delegation of Chinese officials yesterday donated two airplanes and signed an agreement to provide Cambodia with loans for a new hydropower dam in Battambang and the renovation of two national roads. The deals were made during a meeting in Phnom Penh between He Guoqiang, a ...

The Cambodian military has concluded that one of its own police officers killed a prominent environmentalist then took his own life in an incident in a forest rife with illegal logging. Chut Wutty had been taking photographs on Wednesday in a forest where a Chinese company ...

For hundreds of years, the ancestors of Vam Sovann have lived in Koh Kong province’s remote Araeng valley. Some 70 km from the nearest national road, Mr. Sovann’s village has no electricity or phone coverage, no paved roads or running water; instead, it has access ...