News

A coalition of NGOs has called on Cambodia’s National Mekong Committee (CNMC) to push for the Xayaburi dam to be added to the agenda of a regional Mekong River meeting next week. Chhith Sam Ath, executive director of NGO Forum on Cambodia, said it was disappointing ...

From a devilish-looking bat to a frog that sings like a bird, scientists have identified 126 new species in the Greater Mekong area, the WWF said Tuesday in a new report detailing discoveries in 2011. But from forest loss to the construction of major hydropower projects ...

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 ...

The planned construction of hydropowered dams on the Mekong River in South-East Asia could jeopardise livelihoods, water access and food security for 60 million people, across Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, according to a study. The study reports that dams will block fish migration routes and ...

Several groups are calling for the ASEAN summit to address the regional discord caused by the Xayaburi dam, which Laos began constructing earlier this month despite opposition downriver from neighbours Cambodia and Vietnam, as well as from conservation groups. On Friday, the Rivers Coalition in Cambodia ...

Along the Phnom Penh waterfront the city’s landmark flags have been raised and the street children and beggars are being removed – an unwanted sight for a government out to impress the biggest gathering of world leaders this country has ever seen. At the center of this will ...

Cambodia has decided to go ahead with the construction of a dam on a Mekong tributary, but conservation groups are concerned that not enough study has been done on the hydropower project’s environmental consequences. Construction on the 400 megawatt Lower Sesan 2 dam in northwestern Cambodia’s ...

Laos began construction last week on a multi-billion dollar hydro dam project that is opposed by other countries along the Mekong River, and activists who say the project will significantly impact the environment and the economies of four countries that rely on the river for ...

Viet Nam has urged Laos to continue its research on the environmental impacts of the planned Xayaburi Dam on the Mekong River. Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Luong Thanh Nghi made the statement at a regular press briefing in Ha Noi yesterday when answering a question ...

Lao officials and executives of a Thai construction company conducted a groundbreaking ceremony yesterday in Xayaburi to inaugurate the first dam to be built on the lower mainstream Mekong, putting to one side concerns that the dam could devastate fisheries in Cambodia and Vietnam. Prior to ...

Construction of the Lower Sesan 2 Dam in Stung Treng province will begin in 2014 and the government will spend next year relocating some 5,000 people from villages that are located in the dam’s future reservoir area. Located near the confluence of the Sesan and Srepok ...

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 ...

The United States on Monday criticized a decision by the struggling Asian nation of Laos to build the first dam across the mainstream of the Mekong River, a project that environmentalists warn could affect tens of millions of livelihoods and trigger a dam-building spree along ...

Officials in Laos announced that construction of the controversial Xayaburi dam will begin with a kickoff ceremony at the construction site Wednesday. Protests from human rights activists and environmental groups have delayed the project for 18 months, but the joint Laotian and Thai project is apparently ...

The Finnish government will investigate multinational consulting and engineering firm Pöyry over its involvement in Laos’s Xayaburi dam project, a letter obtained by the Post yesterday reveals. According to the letter from Finland’s Ministry of Employment and the Economy, dated October 16, a complaint filed by ...

Even as its controversial Xayaburi Dam project is still drawing protest from Mekong river downstream countries such as Cambodia, Laos has inked a deal with South Korean firms to build and operate another large hydropower plant on the Mekong River network. According to the Phnom Penh ...

Cambodians were among anti-Xayaburi dam protesters who demonstrated outside Thai Parliament in Bangkok yesterday, urging Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to halt construction and tear up an agreement to buy the proposed dam’s power. A group of Cambodians travelled to Bangkok especially to raise their concerns about ...

Laos’ energy minister announced last week that the country will sell energy supplied by the controversial Xayaburi Dam to Cambodia. It is already planning to sell power to Thailand, where last month a lawsuit was lodged to stop the country from buying electricity produced at ...

Cambodia has been asked to send a delegation to the site of the proposed Xayaburi hydro-electric dam in northern Laos, Minister of Water Resources and Meteorology Lim Kean Hor said yesterday. Kean Hor, who is also chairman of Cambodia’s National Mekong Committee, said the equivalent body ...

Thirteen percent of more than 2,500 freshwater species of fish, crabs and plants profiled across the region are under threat of extinction, a report released on Wednesday says. According to an International Union for Conservation of Nature study of freshwater biodiversity in the “Indo-Burma” region, which includes Cambodia, ...

Thai construction company Ch Karnchang has continued work on the controversial Xayaburi dam in Laos, even as the Lao government has assured other Mekong River nations that the project is postponed pending further environmental studies, the company’s CEO said yesterday. Ch Karnchang’s CEO Plew Trivisvavet told ...

Construction of the main structure of the supposedly on-hold Xayaburi dam could begin by the end of this year, the Thai company contracted to build it said yesterday. Ch Karnchang chief executive Plew Trivisvavet said preparatory work at the site of the proposed US$3.8 billion, 1,285-megawatt ...

Work has resumed on a controversial $3.5 billion dam across the Mekong River in Laos, its Thai developer said on Thursday, contradicting Laotian assurances it had been suspended following protests over its environmental impact. Laos agreed in December to suspend the Xayaburi dam project and said ...

Fishermen bring their boats to shore, pack away their traps and hand over the day’s catch to their awaiting families on the banks of the Mekong River in Kratie province’s Chitra Borei district. “When my husband arrives home each day, we eat some of what he ...