Hydropower dams

A top court in Thailand agreed on Tuesday to hear a lawsuit brought by villagers against the country’s decision to purchase power from the planned Xayaburi mega dam in neighboring Laos, which green groups say could threaten the region’s environment and food security. Overruling a lower ...

Hundreds of families due to be displaced by the planned 108-MW Stung Chhay Areng dam were called to a meeting Tuesday with provincial authorities, who presented a plan for relocation and then distributed gifts of shrimp paste and MSG. Heng Samnang, a staffer for local NGO ...

The army created a new platoon on Monday to guard an area near the Areng Valley in Koh Kong province, where hundreds of ethnic minority residents have fiercely resisted plans by a Chinese company to build a hydropower dam that would flood their ancestral lands. The ...

The National Assembly plans to summon three ministers for questioning over compensation to families who will be displaced or harmed by development projects, officials from the National Assembly said Sunday. Cheam Yeap, a senior CPP lawmaker, said the National Assembly would write to Environment Minister Say ...

Malaysia’s Mega First Corp Bhd says it increased spending on a controversial dam project in Laos and a new rubber project in Cambodia by 45 percent to MYR 50.4 million ($15.7 million) in 2013. Project development expenditure on the Don Sahong dam on the Cambodian border ...

A conservation group has said its recent trip to Laos revealed that construction on a controversial hydropower dam decried by neighbouring Mekong countries is already under way. International Rivers representatives visiting the proposed site of the 260-megawatt Don Sahong Hydropower Project earlier this month say they ...

Cambodia’s energy minister allayed concerns in parliament over inadequate compensation offered to villagers who face relocation for a proposed China-backed dam on a Mekong River tributary, saying the government has allocated to villagers more than four times the area taken over for the project. Minister of ...

Energy Minister Suy Sem will answer in the National Assembly (NA) on Thursday this week over the construction plan of Se San 2 dam in Stung Treng province, according to a press statement by the General Secretariat of the National Assembly. ...

The minister of mines and energy on Monday said a new private-public working group will study the impacts of a proposed hydropower dam in Koh Kong opposed by hundreds of resident ethnic minority families and find them an adequate resettlement site. A Cambodian consultancy, SBK Research ...

Filthy trucks loaded with luxury timber rule the red-earth roads in this heavily deforested district. Each day, dozens of 10-wheelers bounce along the pot-holed roads, carting logs of the much-sought Thnong timber. And while some of the cargo is legal, much of it is not. ...

Laos will push ahead with its ambition to become the “battery of Southeast Asia,” planning a Mekong River dam that has drawn opposition from neighbors and threatens to involve China and the U.S. Four Mekong River nations are scheduled to meet June 26-27 in Thailand to ...

A group of 15 local and international rights groups Tuesday sent a slew of letters to the Chinese government and companies involved in the Lower Sesan II hydropower dam in Stung Treng province seeking a halt to dam construction due to serious environmental and social ...

Two draft laws on judicial reform were easily passed by the single-party National Assembly on Friday but the session was overshadowed by a rookie lawmaker’s attack on lax enforcement of forestry laws in Stung Treng province. On the fourth day of the third plenary session of ...

Accompanied by his wife, Bun Rany, Prime Minister Hun Sen continued his trip to China on Tuesday evening by attending a dinner reception hosted by Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to state news agency Agence Kampuchea Press. Mr. Hun Sen and his delegation of high-level officials ...

A group of 20 ethnic minority Chong villagers in Koh Kong province’s Areng Valley blocked the road Friday to prevent a group of Chinese engineers from reaching the site of a controversial proposed dam. A number of Chong villagers have been intermittently camping near the road ...

Being landlocked and poor has always placed Laos at a disadvantage to its more powerful neighbors. The only body of water that offers Vientiane an international reach is the Mekong River, which flows through the heartland of Southeast Asia. Now, that river, which laps the western ...

A meeting at the Ministry of Mines and Energy on Friday about plans for a controversial hydropower dam in Koh Kong province failed to assuage fears among those trying to stop the project that construction had already been approved. During Friday’s meeting, officials from the ministry ...

The Ministry of Mines and Energy invited the head of an NGO battling to stop construction of a highly criticized dam in a remote area of Koh Kong province to meet with ministry officials Friday. Signed by Mines Minister Suy Sem and dated April 25, the ...

A little more than two years after signing off on a scheme aimed at improving protection of the critically endangered Irrawaddy dolphin, experts said last week they were concerned that Mekong dams would see wholesale destruction of the population. During a two-day workshop that closed on ...

Villagers from an ethnic minority community in Koh Kong province’s Areng Valley continued their blockade over the Khmer New Year holiday of an access road leading to the site of a proposed dam they say would destroy their way of life. Members of the ethnic ...

Members of an ethnic minority in Koh Kong province’s Areng Valley stood watch Thursday to block a road leading to the site of a proposed dam after they heard that Chinese workers would inspect the site, community representatives said. Villagers believe that the Chinese company Sinohydro ...

Representatives of more than 250 ethnic Lao families in Stung Treng province, near the border with Laos, met under a mango tree Monday and decided to reject a compensation package offered by the developer of the Lower Sesan II dam. In January, the government approved a ...

Environmentalists have expressed disappointment at the outcome of the second Mekong River Commission (MRC) summit, which wrapped up yesterday. International Rivers, an environmental and human rights organisation, yesterday released a statement slamming regional leaders’ failure to address concerns over the proliferation of dams on the mainstream ...

Cambodia will probably call for a moratorium on the Laos’ 260-megawatt Don Sahong dam development project on the lower Mekong River during the second Summit of the Mekong River Commission (MRC), to be held on April 4 and 5 in Ho Chi Minh City of ...