News

Member states of the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) will meet at an annual meeting in Hanoi on Dec 19 to explore measures to embrace tourism linkages, Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported. Cao Van Ban, development assistance committee head of Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia Association for Economic Cooperation Development (VILACAED), ...

The Mekong River Commission’s (MRC) study on the potential long-term effects of large-scale dam building on the Mekong River needs to be expedited, members of the MRC agreed at the Fifth Mekong-Japan Summit in Tokyo on Saturday. However, they did not set a date for the ...

High school students are increasingly using methamphetamines and other stimulants to relax or help them study, according to the UN. A spike in trafficking of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) across the borders with Thailand and Laos over the past two years has gone hand-in-hand with a rise ...

Heads of the national united fronts from three Indochina countries will meet in Vientiane on Wednesday for the Second Summit Meeting. The Lao Front for National Construction (LFNC) President, Dr Phanduangchit Vongsa, informed the media about the planned agenda last week. President of the Solidarity Front for ...

International car rental operator Avis is bringing its brand to Cambodia and Laos, according to a statement released last week from local licensee RMA Group. If the deal is seen through, Avis would be the first global car rental company to compete in the Kingdom. The company ...

A private agro-industrial company has come under fire from villagers in Ratanakkiri province who say it has illegally felled resin-producing trees that are their main source of income. More than 1,000 trees in the Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary in Ratanakkiri’s Lumphat district are under threat, the villagers ...

Against the backdrop of high electricity costs and energy imports, Cambodian businesses could save millions of dollars annually by implementing energy-efficient business practices, insiders said yesterday. “It is clear that energy efficiency has multiple benefits, not only to the tourism sector but also other economic sectors ...

For the first semester of 2013, Cambodia attracted 879, 782 tourist arrivals from ASEAN region, plus 23.5 per cent if compared in the same period of last year, a report from tourism ministry obtained on Tuesday said.  The figure of tourist arrivals from ASEAN for the ...

Forest land in Asia-Pacific countries has grown overall since 2002, according to a study released last week, but Cambodia was one of only three countries surveyed to buck the trend. Out of 14 countries included in the study by the Regional Community Forestry Training Center (RECOFTC), ...

The Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunization (GAVI) Board meeting was held here on Thursday to decide which new vaccines will be added to the organization’s portfolio. The two-day meeting brought together 160 people who are representatives of donors and developing countries, civil society organizations, vaccine ...

As Laos pushes toward its goal of becoming the “battery of Asia” through hydropower, its newfound claim that the location for the proposed Don Sahong dam is not on the Mekong River’s main stream is provoking incredulity from some observers. Less than two kilometres north of ...

Vietnam has joined Cambodia in questioning the sustainability of the planned Don Sahong dam project on the Mekong River in southern Laos, saying more environmental impact studies are needed before the scheme moves forward. Le Duc Trung, director general of the Vietnam National Mekong Committee under ...

A new study and accompanying short film released yesterday call for all lower Mekong dam developers to halt plans until further impact studies can be made. Hydropower dams will have a greater impact on river flows than even climate change, according to research by the University ...

Laos is pushing ahead with construction of a second dam on the Mekong River despite objections from environmental and civil society groups. Work on the main part of the Don Sahong hydropower dam near the Cambodian border in southern Laos will begin by the end of ...

An environmental group has hit out at the Lao government for organising a tour of the proposed Don Sahong hydropower dam site, saying it should not be trying to “sell” a project that has not been regionally approved. Other NGOs have also warned of the ...

Cambodia’s tourist arrivals registered a 16.9% growth in September according to the country’s statistics and tourist Information department. The country attracted 283,787 visits compared to 242,747 during the same month in 2012. Released by the Ministry of Tourism, late last week, data showed the percentage ...

Laos is taking steps to convince neighboring countries of the merits of the planned Don Sahong hydropower project over Mekong River. Lao government officials organized a site visit on Sunday and Monday so that interested parties could see the site first-hand and get a sense of ...

Environmentalists and NGOs are threatening to sue developers of a controversial hydropower dam, claiming the project would cause irreversible damage to the Mekong River. The Don Sahong dam, a 260-megawatt project proposed on a site less than two kilometres north of the Cambodian-Lao border, is expected ...

Forestry Administration officers sent two suspected wildlife smugglers to court in Stung Treng province yesterday after they were arrested while allegedly smuggling disembodied heads and hooves of the increasingly rare Chinese serow – a type of wild goat – into Cambodia from Laos, officials said. Provincial ...

The controversial Don Sahong hydropower dam, which Laos says it will soon build just a kilometre from the Cambodian border, will not have significant effects on the Mekong River, according to an environmental impact assessment paid for by the dam’s builder. Obtained yesterday, the report – ...

Danish beer giant Carlsberg, a partner in Cambodia’s largest brewery, Cambrew, said it is not concerned by a call to boycott its popular Angkor Beer brand over a partner company’s investment in a Laos dam. Ben Morton, vice president of Carlsberg’s international media relations and issues ...

As the director of one of Cam­bodia’s largest breweries, Malay­sian businessman Goh Nan Kioh has made millions selling Angkor Beer to Cambodians. But now his latest business venture, a controversial mainstream Mekong dam in Laos, is drawing the ire of environmentalists who believe that it will ...

Developing the Don Sahong dam on the Hou Sahong channel of the Mekong River in Champassak province does not breach the 1995 Mekong Agreement, a senior government official has told local media. Deputy Minister of Energy and Mines, Mr Viraphonh Viravong, made the comment on Thursday, ...

A day after the Cambodia National Mekong Committee (CNMC) received impact assessment documents from Laos for their controversial Don Sahong dam, Cambodian and Vietnamese officials criticized Laos’ lack of transparency on the mainstream Mekong dam. Located less than 1 km from the Lao-Cambodian border, the 240-MW ...