PHNOM PENH, May 2 (IPS) – The head of the Mekong River Commission has defended his organisation against charges it faces a crisis of legitimacy arising from hydropower development on the Mekong mainstream, and pledged to increase efforts to engage with more diverse groups in the region.
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read moreBetween Worlds
by Suvendrini Kakuchi
At Home in Two Worlds
COLOMBO - Looking back now while I sip a cup...Samizdat
by Johanna Son
A Culture Chameleon
BANGKOK - As I hopped into a cab here one...Noteworthy
Mekong Currents
by Rosalia Sciortino
The Rohingya: 'Just' People?
BANGKOK Jan IPS Asia-Pacific - The perilous flight of the...TechTalk
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The Mekong Region
BOOK REVIEW: Blood, Tears and an Accordion
By Bruce Lim
‘‘I cannot tell you how or why I survived; I do not know myself. It is like this: love and music and memory and invisible hands, and something that comes out of the society of the living and the dead, for which there are no words.’’ With these words, Daran Kravanh began telling his story about how he survived the Khmer Rouge years in Cambodia.
Mekong Commission Defends Itself vs Critics
By Andrew Nette
CAMBODIA: Concerns Rise with Planned Lao Dam on Mekong
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PHNOM PENH, Mar 28 (IPS Asia-Pacific) - The Lao government’s decision earlier this year to press ahead with plans to build the Don Sahong dam on the mainstream of the Mekong River in southern Laos is causing major concern in Cambodia and internationally.
Good for Business, But. . .
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QUANG TRI, Vietnam - Ho Long's family farm has 2,000 banana trees, from which they can pick some 20 bunches of the fruit each day. But unlike other families, Ho Long does not sell the harvested bananas in his mountain farm. Instead, twice a day, he hops on his Minsk motorbike and drives some five kilometres to the crossroads to sell their produce.
"They sell better here," the 24-year-old said, adding that he makes 160,000 to 200,000 dong (10 to 12 U.S. dollars) each trip.
An Unfinished Story
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Far from an ordinary river, the Mekong is rich with convoluted memories of conflicts past, rich with multiple identities and increasingly these days, also a cross-border route promising to deliver 'progress' and 'development' to riparian countries. Lia Sciortino* follows the unfinished story of the Mekong region.
Still Far Apart on Dams
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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
In Jail, Vietnamese Workers Wait to Go Home
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By Lan Anh Nguyen
BANGKOK, Sep 28 (NewsMekong) - Behind the iron bars of the Bangkok Immigration Bureau's detention centre, where they are waiting to return to their home countries, hundreds of foreign nationals scramble to get some air in crowded and suffocating jails.
In Jail, Vietnamese Workers Wait to Go Home
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By Lan Anh Nguyen
BANGKOK, Sep 28 (NewsMekong) - Behind the iron bars of the Bangkok Immigration Bureau's detention centre, where they are waiting to return to their home countries, hundreds of foreign nationals scramble to get some air in crowded and suffocating jails.
Aid Downstream to Laos
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By Qian Xiao Feng*
VIENTIANE - In the centre of Laos' leafy capital, just two blocks from where the Mekong River marks the border with Thailand, stands the Lao National Cultural Hall, a gleaming, modern structure trimmed with gold paint.
Ethnic Discrimination Extends to Widow Relief
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Marwaan Macan-Markar
BAN BO KO, Aug 29 (IPS) - With bright-coloured fabric and sewing machines, the Thai army is stitching together a relationship of trust with the Malay-Muslim villagers in this village that has, like others in southern Thailand, been bloodied by a conflict now in its third year.