Upstream-Downstream

PHNOM PENH, Jun 9 (IPS) - An explosion of dam building projects along the Sekong River in Laos, the Mekong river’s largest tributary, is prompting Cambodian and foreign experts to warn of significant downstream impacts and call for new approaches to governing the cross-border issues that arise from the use of the Mekong’s water resources.

VIENTIANE, Mar 31 (Newsmekong) - Cross-border highways were the talk of many at the Mekong Summit that ended here, even as a key link in the North-South corridor linking Kunming to Singapore was opened Monday and Mekong governments pledged to step up regional integration and cooperation over the next five years.

PHNOM PENH, Mar 21 (IPS Asia Pacific) - For the government, it represents great economic opportunities. But for non-government organisations and the communities they work, it will come with major social and environmental impacts. Whatever the case, Cambodia is on the threshold of a major experiment with hydropower development.

SYDNEY, Oct 3 (IPS Asia-Pacific) – Over the last decade or so, China’s deft use of soft power has seen South-east Asian neighbours’ view of it change from a looming threat to a largely friendly, if still imposing, giant to the north.

   But while that much is clear, what is not is whether China’s ‘kinder’ profile will allow countries downstream of the Mekong River it shares with Laos, Burma, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia real opportunities to discuss the fate of this shared resource – and sensitive issues like hydropower construction on it.

BANGKOK, Nov 14 (IPS Asia-Pacific) - The campaign to save South-east Asia's largest waterway from being blocked by a series of massive dams picked up pace this week, with activists accusing a regional river authority of abandoning its mission to protect the Mekong River.

The arrival of the dry season and the emergence of two mega-dam
projects in China have contributed to the drying up of the Mekong
river, with water levels dropping to less than one metre in many
sections, the 'Bangkok Post' reported on Apr. 1.

BANGKOK, Mar 22 (IPS Asia-Pacific) - A planned survey to check the economic pulse of fishing communities living on the banks of South-east Asia's largest freshwater lake -- the Tonle Sap in Cambodia -- threatens to expose serious shortcomings in an Asian Development Bank (AsDB) anti-poverty initiative.

Oliver Cogels, chief executive officer of the Mekong River Commission (MRC), wrote to the 'Bangkok Post' to explain his views on China's dams along the Mekong/Lancang, saying that their negative impact is often exaggerated and that China's dams are not the culprit behind the drought felt in downstream countries in recent years.

CHIANG MAI, Thailand, Feb 10 (IPS/Newsmekong) – In the town of Bo Ten in Laos, near the border with China, local people are now busy being trained to be card dealers, as they prepare for their new jobs at a soon-to-rise casino owned by a Chinese company.

PHNOM PENH, Jan 14 (Newsmekong) - Forty-six year-old Chao Chantha, one of 10 community representatives from the north-eastern Cambodian province of Stung Treng, took many deep breaths, sighing as officials of the Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) fielded questions at the meeting to discuss Vietnam’s plans to build more dams across the border.