News

Vietnam urged Laos to halt construction of a $3.5 billion hydropower dam pending further study, environmental activists said on Friday after a meeting of the Mekong River Commission. The activists said Cambodia, also downriver from the Xayaburi dam, accused Laos during heated discussions on Wednesday and ...

More than 8,000 hectares of land was cut from economic and forest land concessions owned by some of the country’s biggest tycoons and awarded to villagers last month, according to documents from the Council of Ministers. Four sub-decrees signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen order that ...

On the heels of a year in which the deaths of endangered Irrawaddy dolphins rose – as much as 100 per cent by some estimates – the government is paving the way for greater enforcement of conservation measures along a protected stretch of the Mekong. Touch ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen asked for $57m concessional loan from India for two development projects and urged India to consider direct flights to Cambodia. He said the two projects are the electricity transmission line from Kratie province to Stung Treng province with an estimated ...

More than 100 families face the loss of their rice fields over a social land concession that was granted to the families of military veterans in Stung Treng province, local authorities and villagers said yesterday. Seven families, who depend on their rice and mango harvest in ...

Cambodian authorities announced yesterday they would release six Laos who were arrested in Cambodia last Thursday on suspicion of illegal logging, provided that Laos cooperates with broader border negotiations in Stung Treng province’s Siam Pang district, where the men were arrested. Svay Nhoun, a Stung Treng ...

A representative of Vietnamese state-owned electricity giant Electricity Vietnam International (EVNI) confirmed yesterday that their stake in a dam project in Stung Treng province has been bought out by their Cambodian and Chinese business counterparts. While Royal Group chairman Kith Meng has maintained that EVNI still ...

Following a dam breach in Pursat province, ruling CPP lawmakers yesterday defended the government’s primary plan to tackle its energy crisis by contracting Chinese companies to build hydropower dams on the country’s rivers. A section of concrete tunnel at the Stung Atai dam in Pursat province ...

Cambodia on Thursday inaugurated a China-funded national road No. 78 in the country’s northeastern provinces, which is expected to contribute to developing economy and poverty reduction. The 121-kilometer road, extending from Ratanakiri province to Stung Treng province, was built by China’s Shanghai Construction ( Group) General ...

Electricity Vietnam International (EVNI), a subsidiary of Vietnam’s state-owned electricity giant EVN, is no longer involved in the Lower Sesan 2 dam, a Vietnamese Embassy official confirmed yesterday. Cambodian conglomerate Royal Group and China’s Hydrolancang International Energy Co. Ltd. on Monday signed an agreement in Phnom ...

More studies should be conducted on the controversial Lower Sesan 2 dam in Stung Treng province in order to understand its potential social and environmental effects, Conservation International (C.I.) said in a statement. The Lower Sesan 2-as well as other dams planned for the Sesan, Srepok ...

Thousand of families that stand to be evicted when construction work on the Lower Sesan 2 Dam begins in 2014 will each receive a 1-hectare plot of land for a home as well as a 5 additional hectares for growing crops, provincial officials said yesterday. Provincial ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has said that the company responsible for building the Lower Sesan 2 dam in Stung Treng province will be in charge of constructing homes for thousands of villagers that will be displaced according to a statement Friday by the Council of ...

The government approved the Lower Sesan 2 dam project in Stung Treng province without any prior consultation with the most affected communities in Sesan district, where at least 5,000 people stand to be displaced, rights groups and villagers said yesterday. A study published earlier this ...

The Council of Ministers on Friday signed off on the Lower Sesan 2 dam project in Stung Treng province, despite long-standing criticism leveled against the project by environmental groups who say it would adversely affect 100,000 people as a consequence of reduced access to fish. The ...

Cambodia’s government has approved a controversial hydroelectric dam on a tributary of the Mekong River. The joint venture involves Cambodian, Chinese and Vietnamese investment of $781m (£488m) and is due to be completed within five years. The project in northern Stung Treng province is known as Lower ...

Kratie, a province in northeast Cambodia has seen an improvement in tourist arrivals and length of stay since the Mekong Discovery Trail project was established in 2007. The Mekong Discovery Trail is a co-operative effort with the Cambodia’s Ministry of Tourism and has the support of ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday approved a new sub-decree geared toward increased protection of the endangered Mekong river dolphin through a series of fishing and motorised transport restrictions in the Mekong river in Kratie and Stung Treng provinces. The Council of Minister’s sub-decree, obtained on ...

More than 100 families in Stung Treng province have returned to land they were evicted from in 2007, hoping to acquire property titles after student volunteers arrived in the area to demarcate land under the titling program announced last month by Prime Minister Hun Sen. Stung ...

Authorities in Stung Treng province have released the names of five government officials whom they arrested on Tuesday in Samki commune for interfering with a corps of youth volunteers sent to measure land as part of the prime minister’s national initiative to grant property to ...

Police in Stung Treng province on Tuesday arrested a Council of Ministers official and her husband for trying to cheat a land-titling program Prime Minister Hun Sen announced last month, according to local officials. It marks the second time this week that authorities arrested or detained ...

Military police in Stung Treng province arrested five government officials yesterday after they forcibly stopped student volunteers from measuring property lines as part of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s national initiative to help settle land disputes. ...

Forestry officials on Monday confiscated nearly two-and-a-half cubic meters of luxury grade Thnong wood in Stung Treng province from a military truck emblazoned with the insignia of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Bodyguard Unit, forestry officials said yesterday. An additional 100 pieces of luxury grade wood were ...

Participants at the Asean Peoples’ Forum have called on regional leaders to halt plans to construct two controversial hydropower dams in Laos and Cambodia because of the large number of people who will be affected and the lack of public consultation. The forum in Phnom Penh, ...