The Mekong River

Mizzima News Four Chinese cargo ships and a Burmese patrol boat were attacked last week on the Mekong River in Burma. Chinese media reported that the attack on January 4 has heightened security concerns, following an earlier attack in which 13 Chinese sailors were murdered in October. The People’s Daily reported that a group of [...]

Scott Learn for The Oregonian When Robert Costanza and colleagues traveled to Laos earlier this year, the decision to build the lower Mekong River’s first mainstream dam seemed close to done. Then the researchers, most from the Northwest, pointed out the poor history of predicting environmental and social damage from big hydropower dams. Their study [...]

By Edward Wong for The NYT BEIJING — Chinese border guards began joint patrols Saturday on the Mekong River with counterparts from Laos, Myanmar and Thailand, according to Xinhua, the state news agency. The effort is a significant step by China toward playing a larger role in regional security. The joint patrols came about after [...]

Gayathri Vaidyanathan for Nature Scientists are hoping to stall plans to erect a string of dams along the Mekong River. This summer, a crew of strangers arrived in the tiny village of Pak Lan along the Mekong River in northern Laos. They sat around in shorts, examining technical drawings, and then surveyed the area, measuring [...]

Teerapong Pomun, Director at Living River Siam via Stimson The Mekong River is very important for millions of local communities along the mainstream and its tributaries who depend heavily on the river’s natural ecosystem functions. The health of the river is the health of the communities. Changes in the river basin mean a lot to [...]

Say Mony, VOA Khmer | Siem Reap The race for hydropower development among Mekong countries could lead to conflicts or even war over water, regional security experts say. Hydroelectric projects have begun to spring up across the Mekong River, with some already under way and other already creating tensions between Southeast Asian neighbors. Experts on [...]

Peter Bosshard for the Phnom Penh Post China counts half of all the world’s large dams within its borders. During the last 10 years, Chinese companies have also successfully conquered the global market for hydropower projects. With the Kamchay Dam and five other projects under construction, Chinese companies are also the dominant player in Cambodia’s [...]

Thanh Nien News Activists in the ongoing fight against Mekong dams worry that recent US opposition has come too little, too late. Rising US interest in protecting the Mekong River from deleterious dams has been welcomed by environmentalists and non-governmental organizations. Some observers, however, worry that the recent US overtures will not suffice to shelve [...]

Edward Loxton reports from Kapok City for The Independent A playground for businessmen is thriving on land leased from the Laos government. It may be well down river from the People’s Republic, but the red flag of China flies prominently among other national standards at a jetty on the Thai bank of the Mekong River. [...]

The Economist Cambodia struggles to play China off against its other neighbours TWENTY kilometres (12½ miles) down the Mekong river from the capital, Phnom Penh, a new container terminal is taking shape on a 30-hectare site. Upstream, two new ports are planned. Whereas other countries that share the mighty waterway favour dams and power plants, [...]