Vietnam and Laos have scaled up bilateral relations to the highest level of friendship and cooperation, known as “Great friendship, special solidarity, comprehensive cooperation and strategic cohesion”. It is a new framework between the two former Indochinese countries. The emphasis is on strategic cohesion.

Vietnam’s Party General Secretary To Lam’s state visit early this month to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic was not headline news. On the surface, it was a symbolic visit to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the LPDR and its strengthened party-to-party relations.

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BANGKOK — A new satellite analysis from U.S. think tank the Stimson Center has identified 517 suspected mines along rivers in Laos, including major tributaries of the Mekong, Southeast Asia’s longest river, heightening concerns about contamination of waterways that sustain local communities.

Stimson has not ground-truthed the mine sites identified through satellite imagery, but Mongabay spoke by phone with several government officials in Laos’s southern border province of Attapeu, home to 188 mines in the data, who said illegal mining remains widespread despite recent crackdowns.

“We still see officials carrying out inspections and confiscating equipment” from illegal mines in Attapeu, said one government official who spoke to Mongabay on condition of anonymity due to the limited press freedoms in Laos.

The analysis shines new light on the scale of mining in river basins across mainland Southeast Asia. The issue previously caught the spotlight in northern Thailand earlier this year after dangerous levels of arsenic were found to be flowing downstream from unregulated gold mines in Myanmar’s Shan state.

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Satellite data show at least 27 new rare earth mines have opened across Laos since 2022, mostly in protected areas and many within the Mekong River Basin, raising transboundary pollution risks for Vietnam and the wider Mekong system.

New data show a recent proliferation of rare earth mines across river basins in Laos, potentially posing a transboundary water pollution threat to Vietnam and the entire Mekong River system. The new findings suggest that Chinese demand for rare earth minerals has led to the industry’s expansion into Laos, even though rare earth mineral extraction is currently illegal there.

Research from U.S.-based think tank the Stimson Center has identified 27 rare earth mines that have opened across river basins in Laos since 2022, including seven identified via satellite imagery analysis as having opened this year. Twenty-three of these mines appear to be in protected areas, but it’s unclear whether or not they’re operating with permission from officials.

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The Ministry of Finance Party Committee has intensified its anti-corruption efforts, taking action by inspecting and freezing 50 accounts while recovering substantial sums of lost revenue.

On 18 March, Ouban Suphida, Deputy Chairman of the Party Committee Inspection, presented the 2024 annual inspection report, outlining the committee’s recent investigations.

In close coordination with the State Inspection Agency, authorities seized assets and froze bank accounts linked to corruption, recovering LAK 12.3 billion (USD 569,405), USD 265,919, and THB 24.8 million (USD 740,118).

As corruption remains a serious issue, the committee is focusing on stricter monitoring of financial activities, particularly at customs checkpoints, both locally and internationally. Ouban emphasized that these preventive measures are vital to curbing illicit transactions and ensuring accountability within government operations.

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Many households in Vientiane are struggling with water supply issues, including shortages and low water pressure. Residents are growing increasingly frustrated, as water disruptions continue despite repeated calls for conservation.

On 5 March, the Water Supply Department issued an announcement urging residents to save water due to high consumption, frequent power outages, and a prolonged heatwave. These factors have disrupted water production and caused delays in distribution, particularly in elevated and suburban areas.

In response to these challenges, the government has advised residents to store water in containers as a precaution against future disruptions. However, despite these efforts, frustration is mounting, and many residents have turned to social media to voice their dissatisfaction.

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Hanoi (VNA) – General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee and President of Vietnam To Lam held talks with visiting General Secretary of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP) Central Committee and President of Laos Thongloun Sisoulith following an official welcome ceremony for the Lao leader in Hanoi on September 10.

The two leaders informed each other about the situation of each Party and country and exchanged views on international and regional issues of mutual concern. They also agreed on orientations, policies and measures to develop the bilateral great friendship, special solidarity and comprehensive cooperation to a new height.

The Lao leader, his spouse and a high-ranking delegation of Laos are paying a state visit to Vietnam from September 10-13 as guests of Party General Secretary and President To Lam and his spouse.

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Some twenty representatives of the Ubon Monitoring Group on Flood and Mekong Dams (UMFD) have travelled to Bangkok to file their petition to concerned entities including Lao PDR and the lead dam developer via their representatives in Bangkok in the hope that they will review the project and scrap it

The representatives over the past two days have visited the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the dam developer’s company, Parliament, and other concerned agencies to file their petition to call for the review and scrapping of the Phou Ngoy dam, planned on the Lower Mekong mainstream 70 kilometres away from the Mool-Mekong confluence in Khong Chiam district, Ubon Ratchathani province.

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The United Nations’ cultural agency recommended Thursday that Laos invite a monitoring mission to the historic city of Luang Prabang, a World Heritage Site where a nearby dam project on the Mekong River has raised concerns it could lose the coveted status.

While the World Heritage Committee welcomed Laos’ efforts to improve data collection on the possible effect of the dam and mitigate any harm to the UNESCO site, it recommended the country invite a new team of experts to assess the state of conservation first-hand.

Laos seemed agreeable to the idea, with its delegate telling the group at its annual meeting in New Delhi that authorities were prepared to work “hand in hand” with UNESCO to preserve the site.

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The fifth Thai – Lao friendship bridge, which links Bueng Kan province of Thailand with Pakxan town of Laos, is scheduled to open this November.

Deputy Transport Minister of Thailand Manaporn Charoensri said recently that the project features a 1.35km crossover with a dual-lane road traversing the Mekong River and a four-lane bypass on the Thailand side.

The bypass links Highway No.222 (Bueng Kan – Phang Khon) with Nong Khai, Nakhon Phanom and Sakon Nakhon provinces of Thailand. Additionally, a 2.86km dual-lane bypass in Pakxan is also included in the project.

Manaporn noted the project, worth 3.9 billion THB (105 million USD) in total, aims to facilitate transportation between Thailand and Laos. When operational, the bridge will help transporters decrease costs and time spent on cargo transportation between the two countries, thus benefiting logistics and tourism.

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The Mekong was once a river teeming with fish, providing food security for millions of poor farmers as well urban centers. These days, that river of abundance has disappeared, replaced by forlorn fishers who say they’re lucky if they can secure a catch at all, as more and more hydropower dams are being installed.

A peer-reviewed academic paper by Richard Friend et al, “Hydropower Development and the Neglect of Inland Capture Fisheries,” looks at how the importance of freshwater fisheries has been sadly overlooked and marginalized by Mekong policymakers.

Friend, an associate professor at the University of York and a former Mekong River Commission (MRC) consultant told The Diplomat, “Despite the substantial scientific evidence on the critical importance of fisheries to food security, nutrition and the devastating impact of dams on fisheries, there has been no shift in hydropower policy.” 

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The post Where Have All the Mekong River’s Fish Gone? first appeared on Open Development Mekong.