General News

More than 6,400 residents of Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia have signed and thumb-printed a statement on the Don Sahong Dam project, airing concerns ranging from the river’s diminishing fish stocks to the lack of transparency of the Mekong River Commission.

An innovative “drinkable book” with chemically altered pages which can filter out bacteria may have brought us nearer to a low-cost solution to a problem plaguing more than 750 million people worldwide: access to clean drinking water.

A team of energy regulators from the four Lower Mekong countries and the United States began a three-day forum yesterday in the capital to try to coordinate a clean energy strategy for the region.

Leadership in Beijing is set to consolidate a new model of economic development for China that could curb energy use and emissions even earlier than expected.

Preliminary findings from a soon-to-be released comprehensive report have reinforced dismal projections for the future of Cambodia’s fisheries if 11 planned mainstream hydropower dams are built on the Mekong River.

The National Center for Hydro-meteorological Forecasting has reported unusual flooding in the Red River in northern Vietnam since October 11 following heavy inflows from China, where massive volumes of water have allegedly been discharged from dams.

International experts have warned that the atmosphere in Vietnam may become as polluted as that in Beijing, China now when the Southeast Asian country increases the number of coal-powered thermoelectricity plants from the current 12 to 70 in 2030.

VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnam continues to open thermal power plants despite a warning about pollution and the lack of coal in the future.

VietNamNet Bridge - Research has shown how to use coal residue to make building materials, but thermal power plants have not applied the findings on a large scale.

Jakarta, Indonesia - Existing coal plants in Indonesia cause an estimated 7,100 premature deaths every year according to research by Harvard University and Greenpeace Southeast Asia – the first of its kind to look at illness and deaths associated with Indonesia’s coal-fired power plants.