“We just want to stop the project” said U Zaya Kyaw, a member of Taungote community network. A Vietname based company named Myanmar SIMCO Song Da Limited Joint Stock Company (MYSICO) get the license for 25 years of Marble Tile production in Nay Pu Taung (Nay Py Mountain), which is situated in Taungote Townshiop, Rakhine, Myanmar. “According to the contract, they will employ 240 local workers, but they only hire 10 local people so far (with contract). The whole project operation is not transparent and accountable. It will spoil our environment and we don’t have much benefit from it.” U Zaya Kyaw continued. “The investment is 18.17 mn, but they didn’t say anything about EIA or SIA to us.” U Soe Win, another member of the community network said.
Vietnam
Stories on “Vietnam“
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Leaked WWF report on illegal logging in Laos: “A worst-case scenario”
A leaked WWF report exposes the scale of illegal logging in Laos. Almost all of timber exports from Laos go to Vietnam and China. In 2013, Laos exported 1.4 million cubic metres of timber to these two countries. That’s more than 10 times the official timber harvest in Laos.
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Residents suffering in polluting mineral mining areas
Authorities have collected huge amounts of environmental protection fees but the sufferings of residents in mining areas have remained unabated, heard a conference in Hanoi last week on mineral mining and rights of local communities.
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Mekong Dams Could Halve Fish Stocks: Study
Fish stocks in the Mekong River in Cambodia and the Vietnamese Delta could be halved if 11 planned hydropower dams go ahead, according to the preliminary results of an extensive study funded by the Vietnamese government.
Presented at a regional conference on water, food and energy in the Mekong River Basin, the study’s results are an in-depth look into what environmental groups and fisheries experts have been warning for years: that damming the Mekong extensively will have drastic impacts on one of the world’s most important aquatic ecosystems.
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Thermal coal: “The serial killer”
The operation of Thermal Coal factories has serious impacts on the health of people living in Binh Thuan province, Vietnam. The emissions from thermal coal including toxic gases that caused diseases such as respiratory, and pneumonia.
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Why the Mekong River Commission May Be In Peril
The fallout from the Great Fall in financial markets, equities and currencies is ricocheting through the regional economy and beginning to exact a toll – initially among badly-run companies and poorly-managed government institutions.
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Mekong Delta heads for troubled waters
Lush greenery in the lower Mekong region sprawls as far as the eye can see, an illustration of just how fertile the delta is. The endless green fields scored by the river’s nine tributaries, which the Vietnamese call “Nine Dragons”, explain why this area is one of the world’s major food baskets.
It houses the richest inland fishery and accounts for more than a fifth of the world’s rice exports, although looks can be deceptive. Encroaching sea water from the south, a proliferation of hydro dams in the north and large-scale sand mining are endangering the delta, officials warn.
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Delta through the lenses of foreign correspondents
In mid August, many correspondents from Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, China, and Britain came to Mekong River Delta. They wanted to witness the impacts of climate change, sea level rise and certainly mainstream dams upstream Mekong River, affecting the granary, fish, and shrimp of the world.
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Gradual loss of the Southeast Asian Rice Field
Hundreds of kilometers of riverbank and shoreline in the Mekong River Delta are being eroded dramatically with hundreds and even thousands of hectars of land swept away annually. The place widely known as the field of Southeast Asia, annually produces 24-25 millions tonnes of rice (6-8 million tonnes of rice export) and 1.2 million tonnes of catfish, and 500,000 tonnes of shrimp, mostly for export. That field is being lost.
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Greedy developers often to blame for floods
Streets were turned into riv-ers in Ha Noi and HCM City in a matter of hours over the last few days in what have been described as historic rainfalls. Traffic was thrown into chaos as thousands of residents scrambled to get home in the driving rain that lasted for hours at a time.
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China’s transport infrastructure initiative to have bad impact on Vietnam’s plan: expert
China’s transport infrastructure initiative, including the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and other related proposals, will pose a threat to Vietnam’s infrastructure development plan in the near future, an expert from the Vietnam Institute for Economic Research and Policy (VEPR) said at a seminar on the Chinese economy in Ho Chi Minh City last week.
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As China’s energy growth slows, coal-fired power blocks more wind, solar and hydro
China has made a big bet on renewable energy installation to wean the country off dirty fossil fuels and to meet its emission targets, but the latest government statistics show that a big portion of power generation from Chinese solar farms, wind projects and hydroelectric dams has failed to reach energy users.