Southeast Asia feels the burn as virus keeps Chinese tourists at home

Yahoo – AFP, Aidan Jones, with Dene-Hern Chen in Pattaya, Thailand, February 16, 2020

Across Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, tourist takings have plummeted as
Chinese travellers find themselves subject to a host of travel restrictions (AFP Photo/
Mladen ANTONOV)

Elephant parks unvisited, curios at markets unsold as tuk-tuks sit idle: Southeast Asia is facing billions of dollars in losses from a collapse in Chinese tourism since the outbreak of a deadly new coronavirus.

From Luang Prabang in northern Laos to Pattaya in Thailand, Hoi An in Vietnam and the Cambodian casino town of Sihanoukville, takings have plummeted as Chinese travellers find themselves subject to a host of restrictions at home and abroad.

"We haven't had any Chinese for 10 days since they closed the road from Yunnan," says Ong Tau, 47, from behind her stall of fruit shakes in the temple-studded Laotian colonial town of Luang Prabang.

"Business is down 20-30 percent... it will get worse."

Tour guides, mall workers and restaurant staff are all feeling the burn as Chinese -- the world's biggest travellers -- stay at home in the middle of a global health crisis.

"My friend has lost four or five big tour groups... they would have paid for his low season," said Tee, a guide in Luang Prabang, giving only one name in the tightly-controlled communist country, a mass of tuk-tuks standing idle behind him.

Business is also slow at the Chang Siam Elephant Park in Pattaya, a few hours 

south of Bangkok (AFP Photo/Mladen ANTONOV)

But in one of Southeast Asia's least well-resourced countries, there may be one bright side to the sudden economic pain.

"We don't know how to protect ourselves," he added. "The government doesn't tell people anything... so maybe less Chinese is a good thing for now."

Loans and job losses

The slump is being felt sharply in Thailand, where tourism authorities say arrivals from China -- usually close to one million a month -- have plunged by 90 percent so far this February.

At the Chang Siam Elephant Park in Pattaya, a few hours south of Bangkok, owner Nantakorn Phatnamrob fears he will soon be pressed into debt to float a business which has lost nearly $65,000 since the outbreak.

"People are afraid to visit," he told AFP. "If it stays like this, I will have to get a loan from the bank."

In Cambodia's Sihanoukville, a southern beach resort known for its casinos, the 

tourist take has shrivelled (AFP Photo/TANG CHHIN Sothy)

Crocodile farms and tiger sanctuaries -- controversial tourist beacons where visitors can pet the animals -- are also deserted, leaving owners to feed expensive star attractions.

The outbreak has also spooked western tourists at the height of peak season in what has already been a tough period for Thai tourism thanks to a strong baht.

Thailand anticipates shedding five million tourists this year, taking with them "250 billion baht (over $8 billion) in revenue", according to Don Nakornthab, director of economic policy at Bank of Thailand.

"Our hopes that the economy will do better than last year are very low... it's possible it could grow below 2 percent," he added.

That will spell bad news for the untold number of Thais working in the tourism sector.

Ma Mya, 22, who sells trinkets in Pattaya, says she may soon have to return to her home in northern Thailand.

"There's no more profit -- everything has gone bad."

Vendors wait for customers at the main tourist market in Luang Prabang, northern 

Laos (AFP Photo/Aidan JONES)

Things can only get better

With so much riding on the seasonal influx, some Mekong countries are desperate not to deter those Chinese still travelling.

Thailand offers visa on arrival for Chinese tourists despite having one of the highest numbers of confirmed infections -- 34 -- outside of the mainland.

At least two of those cases were Thais who contracted the virus after driving infected Chinese passengers, raising fears that the economy was taking priority over tackling the health crisis.

For staunch Beijing ally Cambodia, where only one case of the virus has been confirmed so far despite a large Chinese presence, strongman leader Hun Sen has repeatedly played down the risk to his country.

Still, Cambodian tourism is taking a hammering.

Ticket sales at the famed Angkor temple complex in Cambodia have fallen
between 30 and 40 percent (AFP Photo/Manan VATSYAYANA)

Ticket sales at the famed Angkor temple complex in Siem Reap have fallen between 30 and 40 percent this year, while in Sihanoukville, a southern beach resort notorious for its casinos, the tourist take has shrivelled.

"I used to make $100 a day," said Chantha Reak, a ride-hailing driver. "Now it's $10."

Businesses are praying for a bounce back if and when the virus is controlled.

With 10 million Chinese visitors each year, Thailand hopes the pain will ease in a few months.

Regular visitor Yen Ran, 25, from Chengdu, came to Pattaya despite the health warnings.

"I am a little concerned how other countries perceive us," she told AFP. "But when there's a cure, things will get better."

Duterte diplomacy: Philippine leader's global insults

Yahoo – AFP, September 6, 2016

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte (pictured) expressed regret on September 6,
2016, that his comments branding US leader Barack Obama a 'son of a whore'
came across as a personal attack (AFP Photo/Ted Aljibe)

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte expressed regret Tuesday that his comments branding US leader Barack Obama a "son of a whore" came across as a personal attack.

The insult on Monday was the latest offensive comment to raise questions about Duterte's diplomatic skills, leading Obama to cancel a planned meeting with him at a regional summit in Laos.

Here are 10 of his most undiplomatic remarks from before and after his landslide election victory this year:

Respect me, son of a whore

"You must be respectful. Do not just throw away questions and statements. Son of a whore, I will curse you in that forum."

Duterte, who has launched a war on crime that has claimed more than 2,400 lives, warns Obama not to raise human rights issues with him in Laos.

'Gay' envoy

"I'm fighting with (US Secretary of State John Kerry's) ambassador. His gay ambassador, the son of a whore. He pissed me off."

-- Duterte in an August speech smarting over US Ambassador to Manila Philip Goldberg's criticism of his comment about wanting to rape a "beautiful" Australian missionary.

'Fuck you, UN'

"Fuck you, UN, you can't even solve the Middle East carnage... couldn't even lift a finger in Africa... shut up, all of you."

-- Duterte in a June press conference, a seemingly unprovoked attack on the world body.

UN pullout

"Maybe we’ll just have to decide to separate from the United Nations. If you are that disrespectful, son of a whore, then I will just leave you."

-- Duterte in an August news briefing after a UN human rights expert said orders in his anti-crime crackdown violated international law. He later said he was just joking.

'Inutile' Ban

"Ban Ki-moon, he should write to me so that I will tell him: 'You did nothing. People are being massacred by the thousands. You can't stop (the war) in Turkey, Syria.' So one useless, inutile body."

-- Duterte in an August press conference railing against the UN chief after Ban denounced his apparent endorsement of extrajudicial killings.

Jet ski policy

"I will go there on my own with a jet ski, bringing with me a flag and a pole and once I disembark, I will plant the flag on the runway and tell the Chinese authorities, 'Kill me!'"

-- Duterte in a February campaign speech explaining how he would handle Manila's row with Beijing over the South China Sea. He has since adopted a more cautious tone.

Suicide, genocide, upside

"That's the invention of a woman who wants to commit suicide. You can think of genocide, suicide or what, side by side, upper side, whatever, what if upper side or even upside?"

-- Duterte launches a rambling verbal assault on Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on summary executions, after she accused him of violating international law with his statements seen as inciting people to kill.

Burning Singapore flag

"I burned the flag of Singapore. I said: 'Fuck you ... You are a garrison pretending to be a country.'"

-- Duterte in a November speech, recalling how in 1995 he burned a Singapore flag to protest at the execution of a Filipina maid in the city-state.

Arab culture

"You are not a warrior if you do that. We are not Arabs. That is not our culture. We are all Malay."

-- Duterte in an August speech condemning how Philippine Islamic militants supposedly mutilated the bodies of slain soldiers.

Pope, go home

"It took us five hours to get from the hotel to the airport. I asked who was coming. They said it was the Pope. I wanted to call him: 'Pope, son of a whore, go home. Don't visit anymore.'"

-- Duterte in a November 2015 speech recalling being stuck in Manila traffic when Pope Francis visited the Philippines.

Related Articles:

US President Obama cancels meeting with Philippine leader after insult - New

Philippines 'Duterte calls Obama 'son of a whore'

FIFA bans Nepal, Laos football chiefs for corruption

The two Asian football officials have been found guilty of seeking and accepting bribes at elections to choose members of FIFA's Executive Committee. They have been handed 10 and two-year bans.

Deutsche Welle, 16 Nov 2015

All Nepal Football Association President Ganesh Thapa

FIFA has banned the president of Nepal's football association for 10 years after he was implicated for bribery at elections to choose Asian delegates on the world governing body's Executive Committee.

FIFA said All-Nepal Football Association President Ganesh Thapa (pictured above) was guilty of "solicitation and acceptance of cash payments from another football official, for both personal and family gain" connected to the 2009 and 2011 FIFA Executive Committee elections at the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) congress.

The decade-long ban on Thapa was a new blow to Nepal football after several national team players were accused of match-fixing earlier this month. Nepal captain, Sagar Thapa, and four other players have been charged with treason over alleged match-fixing in World Cup qualifiers. Prosecutors have sought sentences of life imprisonment for the five players, each of whom has denied the charges.

Thapa, who has lost his place on FIFA's Under-20 World Cup organizing committee, had been a vice president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) when it was led by now-banned Mohamed bin Hammam of Qatar .

The ban comes more than three years after a forensic audit of AFC accounts found that Thapa's son, Guarav Thapa, had received $100,000 (93,200 euros) from Bin Hammam in July-August 2009. Guarav was then an AFC staff member, the audit report said.

In May 2009, Bin Hammam won a bitterly contested election to retain his FIFA Executive Committee seat against Sheikh Salman Bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa of Bahrain , who is now a FIFA presidential candidate.

The 2009 election was marred by allegations of vote-buying by both sides.

Another Bin Hammam ally, Vernon Manilal Fernando of Sri Lanka, was later banned for life by FIFA for bribing voters. Fernando won his own seat on the FIFA ruling panel in a January 2011 election meeting in Doha, Qatar, where Bin Hammam was re-elected AFC president and three Asian delegates to FIFA were chosen.

The FIFA ruling on Thapa case did not specify which FIFA seats in 2011 were tainted by election bribery.

In addition to the 10-year ban, Thapa was fined 20,000 Swiss francs ($19,900, 18,500 euros).

Laos official barred

In a related case, the top soccer official from Laos has also been suspended from soccer for two years by FIFA's Ethics Committee.

Laos Football Federation President Viphet Sihachakr was found to have sought and accepted a payment from another official relating to the 2011 election for a place on FIFA's Executive Committee.

Sihachakr was also fined 40,000 Swiss francs (about $39,700, 37,000 euros). He will also lose his place on the FIFA Development Committee which allocates tens of millions of dollars annually in project funding.

ap/pfd (AFP, AP)

China politicians' tiger breeding ring busted

Yahoo - AFP, 19 March 2015

Three local politicians in China raised at least 11 endangered Siberian tigers, 

state media has reported, after one of the animals jumped to its death from a 

high-rise building ( Photo By Patrik Stollarz/AFP)

Three local politicians in China raised at least 11 endangered Siberian tigers, state media reported Thursday after one of the animals jumped to its death from a high-rise building.

The cub leapt from the 11th floor of an apartment building in the eastern city of Pingdu last month when it was spooked by fireworks set off to celebrate the Chinese New Year, officials said.

Investigations revealed that the seven-month-old cub was being raised by Yang Wenzheng, a member of a municipal People’s Congress, the Communist-controlled local legislature, state broadcaster CCTV reported, citing officials.

With one of his fellow deputies, Yang had obtained two tigers from a third councillor, who had eight of the animals but found the costs of raising them -- 1,600 yuan ($260) per day in total -- too expensive to bear.

They bred at least three cubs that later died, CCTV said.

Tiger meat and bones are said to have curative properties in traditional Chinese medicine and farming them can be lucrative -- the China Daily said tigers can fetch 1 million yuan on the black market.

East Russia and China's northeast are home to the big cats, also known as Amur tigers.

Hundreds of them once roamed the lush pine and oak forests of Manchuria, but due to centuries of poaching only a couple of dozen are believed to still survive in the wild in China.

All three have resigned from the municipal People's Congress and were each fined 3,000 yuan for the "bad impact" of raising tigers without official permission, but were not prosecuted, the reports said.

CCTV reported that the surviving animals have been moved to a local zoo.

A resort complex in northwest Laos targeting Chinese visitors has become a

 "lawless playground" for the trade in illegal wildlife ranging from tiger meat to bear

paws, an advocacy group says (AFP Photo)

Related Articles:

Tiger meat, bear paws openly available in Laos: NGO

Xi pledges US$40bn for Silk Road Fund

Want China Times, Xinhua 2014-11-09

The dialogue meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, Nov. 8. (Photo/Xinhua)

President Xi Jinping of China said on Saturday that China will contribute US$40 billion to set up a Silk Road Fund at a dialogue meeting on strengthening connectivity and improving cooperation in the country's neighborhood.

Xi made the pledge when making a five-point proposal aimed at promoting interconnected development in the Asia-Pacific region as he met with leaders of Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pakistan and Tajikistan.

Also attending the meeting were representatives of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

The new Silk Road Fund will be used to provide investment and financing support to carry out infrastructure, resources, industrial cooperation, financial cooperation and other projects related to connectivity for countries along the "Belt and Road", Xi said, referring to China's Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiatives.

He added that the fund will be "open" to active participation by investors from both within and outside of Asia.

According to Xi, the goal of the new Silk Road Fund is to "break the bottleneck in Asian connectivity by building a financing platform."

An Asian Development Bank report estimates that Asia as a whole needs as much as US$730 billion per year in infrastructure investment before 2020.

The Chinese president said funding stands out as the most challenging issue in Asia's connectivity development.

"To address these and other problems, the efforts by a single or several countries are far from adequate," said Xi.

"Only by building extensive partnerships where all will think and work in unison, can we expect to achieve positive results," he said.

His words were echoed by Yao Zhizhong, deputy head of the Institute of World Economics and Politics under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

According to Yao, funding is key to provide impetus to the infrastructure construction in the Asia-Pacific, which in turn contributes to inter-connectivity in the region.

He said the Silk Road Fund can also promote diversified use of China's foreign reserves and help China make full use of its funding advantages.

China has been pushing for an interconnected development in the Asia-Pacific region for some time.

Xi put forward the "Belt and Road" initiatives to build a Silk Road Economic Belt and a 21st Century Maritime Silk Road during two separate visits to Central Asia and Southeast Asia in 2013, in a bid to revive the historic trade routes by boosting cooperation between China and other Asian nations.

Last month, a total of 21 Asian countries inked a Memorandum of Understanding on the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) with an expected initial subscribed capital of 50 billion U.S. dollars.

Earlier reports said the AIIB was also established to finance infrastructure constructions along the "Belt and Road."

But according to Yao, unlike the AIIB which could only be put into operation by the end of 2015 at the earliest, the Silk Road Fund can be launched immediately.

Jin Zhongxia, head of the Research Institute of the People's Bank of China, also said the "open" nature of the Silk Road Fund gives it more flexibility in its future operation, and that the fund could constitute a fine alternative to the AIIB in financing Asian infrastructure constructions.

Connectivity is also a key theme of this year's APEC meeting, which prioritizes three topics: advancing regional economic integration, promoting innovative development, economic reform and growth, and strengthening comprehensive development in infrastructure and connectivity.

APEC members will work for the formulation of the APEC Blueprint on Connectivity in order to provide a strong backing for the Asia-Pacific's long-term development.

Nonetheless, Xi has in the meantime cautioned that connectivity is "not merely about building roads and bridges or making linear connection of different places on surface."

"More importantly, it should be a three-way combination of infrastructure, institutions and people-to-people exchanges and a five-way progress in policy communication, infrastructure connectivity, trade link, capital flow, and understanding among peoples," he said.

To further deepen the connectivity partnership between countries whose leaders were present at Saturday's dialogue, Xi stressed that efforts should be made to realize Asia's connectivity by making Asian countries a priority.

"Asian countries are just like a cluster of bright lanterns. Only when we link them together, can we light up the night sky in our continent," he said.

China is ready to provide more public goods through connectivity development to its Asian neighbors who are welcome "to get on board the train of China's development," he said.

Meanwhile, the basic framework of the Asian connectivity project should be developed by making economic corridors its support pillar, Xi said while pointing to the "Belt and Road" initiatives which have "basically taken shape."

"Such a framework accommodates the needs of various countries and covers both land and sea-related projects," Xi said.

The president continued to say that the countries should realize an early harvest in Asian connectivity by making breakthroughs in transport infrastructure development, and that China will provide neighboring countries 20,000 training opportunities for connectivity professionals in the coming five years.

These proposals showed China's resolve to promote the building of the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road and its willingness to take up its responsibility to contribute to the inter-connectivity in Asia, Yao said.

Laos military plane crash has political consequences

Deutsche Welle, 17 May 2014

Eighteen people were on board the Lao military plane which crashed in the Southeast Asian country on the way to an official ceremony. The passengers included the defense minister and other high-ranking party officials.

The plane, a Ukraine-made Antonov AN-74TK-300, left the Laotian capital of Vientiane early Saturday morning to bring those on board to an official ceremony in Xiangkhoung province, about 470 kilometers (290 miles) away.

They included Defense Minister Douangchay Phichit and his wife. Douangchay was also one of the country's deputy prime ministers and a high-ranking member of its Politburo, the main decision-making body for the country's all-powerful Communist Party, which has ruled the single-party state since 1975. The economically poor, landlocked country has a population of seven million.

Others killed included Minister of Public Security Thongbane Sengaphone, Vientiane Governor Sukhan Mahalad and at least one other senior ruling party official.

Information about the crash, and those on board, came from Foreign Ministry spokesman Sek Wannamethee in neighboring Thailand. Lao National Television showed images of the wreckage with smoke rising from its badly charred remains. The footage showed rescuers pulling away pieces of aircraft debris and trying to dig into the remaining fuselage with shovels, as medical crews stood by watching.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known, but the accident occurred as the plane was approaching Xiangkhoung's airport. The official Lao news agency KPL confirmed the crash and said the authorities were trying to rescue survivors: "The cause of the accident is under the investigation."

Laos has had 30 fatal air accidents since the 1950s, according to the Aviation Safety Network. In October last year, a civilian airplane operated by Lao Airlines plunged into the Mekong River in bad weather, killing all 49 people on board.

jm/slk (AP, dpa)

Deutsche Bank fund sells stake in controversial firm

DeutscheWelle, 3 December 2013

Germany’s largest bank, Deutsche Bank, confirms that one of its funds has sold its shareholding in a Vietnamese company accused of rights abuses in Laos and Cambodia.

Deutsche Bank's statement confirming the sale was brief. Spokesman Michael West said one of the bank's funds, which he did not name, had sold its “small shareholding” in the controversial Vietnamese firm Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group (HAGL).

West provided no further details of the sale, except to say that the fund in question was managed by Duxton Asset Management. West did not say whether the sale was linked to a campaign by UK-based non-profit organization Global Witness which had called for the bank to divest.

"Deutsche Bank upholds the highest standards in the area of sustainability,” West wrote. “The small shareholding referred to was through funds managed by a third party on behalf of external investors."

On its website, Duxton describes itself as “the delegated manager of Deutsche Asset Management's DWS Vietnam Fund and DWS Global Agricultural Land & Opportunities Fund.”

DW was unable to find information about the holdings of the second fund. However, the June 30, 2013 interim report of the DWS Vietnam Fund reports that it held 4.1 million shares in HAGL worth around 4.05 million US dollars, or around 1.5 percent of the fund's total value. That amount totals around 0.3 percent of HAGL. 

Deforestation has been 'the concern
of the world,' Son Chhay

Serious allegations

In May 2013, HAGL was the subject - along with the state-owned Vietnam Rubber Group - of a highly critical report by Global Witness. In the report titled “Rubber Barons,” HAGL was accused of numerous rights abuses in relation to tens of thousands of hectares of land the Cambodian and Laotian governments have granted it.

Global Witness' report assessed the environmental and social effects of HAGL's rubber plantations in Cambodia and Laos. It stated that the company was flouting the law when it came to protecting the land rights of indigenous people, was illegally clearing forest, and held tracts of Cambodian land nearly five times greater than the 10,000 hectare legal limit.

“Families affected are impoverished, face food and water shortages, and get little or no compensation,” Global Witness said at the time. “Indigenous minority peoples' spirit forests and burial grounds have been destroyed. When they resist, communities face violence, arrest and detention, often at the hands of armed security forces that are on the investors' payroll.”

For its part, HAGL has long denied the allegations, saying it abides by local laws. On Tuesday, December 3, HAGL's chief of finance, Vo Truong Son, reiterated that, adding too that the company was not “in receipt of any information from Deutsche Bank stating their capital withdrawal.”

“We take the view that we always show consideration and make every effort to assure HAGL stockholders of [the] highest profitability,” he wrote in an email. “We operate our business and investments in compliance with the laws of the home country towards international standards and practices. We confirm our compliance with that principle so far.”

Six months

Megan MacInnes, Global Witness' campaign leader on land issues, told DW on Tuesday, December 3, that when the organization's report was issued in May, it had given HAGL six months to make changes.

“We presented these problems to the company and made a series of recommendations for what HAGL needs to do to bring its operations in line with the law, provide compensation to households, for example, who have lost their fields, and to also provide greater disclosure about its operations in general,” MacInnes said.

“And we asked HAGL's investors like Deutsche Bank to use their leverage, their financial leverage, to also put pressure on the company to undertake these changes,” she said.

However HAGL's pledges made during its meetings with Global Witness, she said, had amounted to nothing of value.

“Communities have repeatedly told us since May that the problems have continued, and that HAGL is not willing to take their concerns around, for example, land disputes seriously.”

For that reason, Global Witness last month called on Deutsche Bank to sell its shares. Although Deutsche Bank would not say why its fund had sold its stake, “from the timing we do believe there to be a relationship between our call and the bank's action to get rid of its shares in the company,” MacInnes said.

Welcome news

Whatever the motivation, the chief whip of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), Son Chhay, welcomed the news. He said it showed that Deutsche Bank, which touts itself as a socially responsible corporation, would no longer continue with “its direct support to this deforestation in Cambodia.”

“It's quite encouraging because we know [that] what's happening in our forests – and which directly affects the indigenous people as well as our environment – has been the concern of the world, not just the Cambodian people,” Son Chhay said.

News of Deutsche Bank's divestment in HAGL comes shortly after the world's largest beverage company, Coca-Cola, promised “zero tolerance” for land grabbing by its suppliers and bottlers. Its decision follows a high-profile campaign by Oxfam to press the world's largest sugar purchasers - including Coca-Cola, Pepsico and the UK's ABF - to take responsibility for their products' supply chains.

Global Witness is optimistic that large investors are starting to view
environmental matters differently

In recent years, for example, hundreds of Cambodian families have lost their land to sugarcane companies. Those companies' exports to the European Union benefit from the Everything But Arms initiative, a trade preferences deal that allows unlimited duty-free imports to the wealthy bloc, and which has been linked directly to significant rights abuses in Cambodia.

Son Chhay, an outspoken critic of the Cambodian government's opaque land sales, says Coca-Cola's stance is commendable. However, he wants such companies to do more.

“They should also support those activists who are working on the issue – not just stopping it,” he said. “If they really care, they should also encourage and support those who work risking their lives to report all these problems in countries like Cambodia.”

Scrutiny driving change?

Global Witness says that since 2000, more than 3.7 million hectares in Cambodia and Laos alone have been handed to companies, with 40 percent of that land set aside to grow rubber. Stories of human rights abuses are commonplace.

But Global Witness is optimistic that large investors such as Deutsche Bank and some companies in the agricultural supply chain are starting to view matters differently, particularly when it comes to their environmental and social responsibility.

“From Global Witness' perspective - and we work on land issues not just in Cambodia but across the world and especially at the international policy level of discussions – we are definitely seeing some major changes,” says MacInnes.

And, she adds, recent decisions - Coca-Cola's in particular with regards to its sugar purchases – contain a timely message for the Cambodian government, which for years has been accused of complicity in land grabs and brutalising its own people.

“The actions … send a very clear message to the Cambodian government that if it wants to be seen as a safe place for investments in land and agri-business, the government really needs to take these kinds of issues seriously,” she said.

MacInnes stresses that the problem is not a lack of laws; they are already in place.

“It's just a case of implementing it on the ground,” she said, “and making sure that companies … are not allowed to get away with the bad practices that they are currently responsible for.”

Related Article:

UN Agency Adopts Global Guidelines Against 'Land Grabbing’

US posts $1 mln reward targeting Laos poaching ring

Google – AFP, 14 November 2013

Ivory tusks are displayed by the Hong Kong Customs in Hong Kong on October 3,

2013 (AFP/File, Philippe Lopez)

Washington — US Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday offered a $1 million reward to help smash a Laos-based poaching network slaughtering endangered elephants and rhinos for their precious horns and tusks.

The reward, the first of its kind by the State Department, targeted the Xaysavang network which operates from Laos as far afield as South Africa, Mozambique, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and China.

"The involvement of sophisticated transnational criminal organizations in wildlife trafficking perpetuates corruption, threatens the rule of law and border security in fragile regions," Kerry said in a statement.

He estimated that annual profits from wildlife trafficking reached as much as $8 billion to $10 billion, and were then pumped into other "illicit activities such as narcotics, arms, and human trafficking."

Another effect of poaching was that it "destabilizes communities that depend on wildlife for biodiversity and eco-tourism," he said.

Offering the department's first reward under the transnational organized crime rewards program, Kerry said the Xaysavang network "facilitates the killing of endangered elephants, rhinos, and other species for products such as ivory."

He revealed that several major seizures of illegal wildlife products had been traced back to the network.

The lucrative Asian black market for rhino horn, used in traditional medicine, and ivory has driven a boom in poaching across Africa.

Police in the semi-autonomous Indian Ocean island of Zanzibar on Wednesday said they had seized a 40-foot (12-meter) container hiding an estimated several tonnes' worth of ivory.

The seizure comes as authorities in Tanzania crack down on poaching amid a surge of killings of elephant and rhino in the east African nation.

Related Article:

'Blood ivory' worth $10bn to be crushed by US officials

Work underway on 'catastrophic' Cambodian dam

Deutsche Welle, 10 May 2013

Srekor village has stood on the banks of the Se San River in northeastern Cambodia for generations. In a few years it will be gone, submerged along with more than 300 square kilometres of surrounding farmland and forest.

Work has started on the Lower Se San 2 Dam, a 400-megawatt hydropower project whose vast reservoir will force thousands to move.

For 37-year-old rice farmer Pa Tou, the future looks bleak. The relocation site set aside for them is wholly unsuitable, he complains. There is no irrigation, it is miles from the river and the ground is either rocky or covered with trees. And at this stage it has no schools, no health clinics, no pagodas and no roads.

“Everyone here worries how we will make a living,” he says.

Fish highways

Scientists share Pa Tou's pessimism about the $800-million Lower Se San 2 Dam, but note that its effects will be felt far beyond Srekor. That is because the Se San River, which the dam will block, is a vital breeding ground for fish in the region.

Dr Eric Baran, the senior research scientist at WorldFish, an NGO focused on food security, describes the Se San River as one of four “fish highways” in the Lower Mekong Basin. Along with the Sre Pok River and the Se Kong Rivers, both of which flow into the Se San, this collection of three tributaries is known as the 3S network and is where migratory fish breed.

The fourth highway is the Mekong, into which the 3S network empties.

The Lower Se San 2 Dam, which will be built downstream of the confluence of the Sre Pok and Se San rivers, will completely block two of these fish highways. By the time its 8-kilometre-long wall is finished, only the Mekong and the Se Kong will remain open to the 40 percent of the fish in the Mekong Basin that are migratory. 

There will be agricultural losses
too, say development experts

Unable to breed, the replacement generations of fish will simply not be born, says Baran. He estimates that the Lower Se San 2 Dam will cut the annual fish catch of the entire Mekong Basin by 9.3 percent.

“So it's 9.3 percent of 2.1 million tons – which is a gigantic amount,” Baran says.

That amount of lost catch – around 200,000 tons per year – is more than Australia's annual marine catch.

Regional effects

The Lower Mekong Basin is home to tens of millions of people, many of them poor. For Cambodia, whose per capita freshwater fish consumption is higher than any other nation, hydropower dams will affect food security.

“People have become very reliant on [fish, which are] also by far the first source of animal protein,” says Baran. “[Fish] represent 81 percent of the animal protein consumption in the country.”

A paper published last year in the respected US journal The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences warned that the region's scramble for hydropower would have a “catastrophic” impact on the Mekong Basin, which is the world's richest freshwater fishery.

The researchers calculated that plans to build more than 70 dams in the Mekong River Basin would be disastrous. Baran, who co-wrote the paper, says the Lower Se San 2 Dam will be the most damaging of any tributary dam.

Global concern

The research has spurred global concern. Last year, the then US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, urged Mekong nations not to make the same mistakes regarding dams as the US had made.

International Rivers, a campaigning NGO, predicts the Lower Se San 2 Dam “will have a costly, catastrophic impact on the Mekong River's fisheries and biodiversity”.

“All of the research that has come out has proven that the impact of the dam will be much greater than the benefits of the project,” says Ame Trandem, the Southeast Asia program director for International Rivers.

Trandem says there will be agricultural losses too, with the Lower Se San 2 Dam calculated to block up to 8 percent of sediment flows on the Mekong. These nutrients are vital for fertilizing the fields of countless thousands of subsistence farmers.

“So this is something that will affect all of the rice fields in Cambodia going down to the Mekong Delta in Vietnam as well,” she says.

The expected effects of the Lower Se San 2 Dam are so severe that in late 2011 a group of 29 international scientists with expertise in fisheries wrote to Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen warning that the dam would harm hundreds of thousands of people in Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Laos.

 'Love Mekong, No Dam'

The letter stressed their “sincere concern” that this dam would cause “increased poverty and malnutrition over a wide area in Cambodia, thus working against the Cambodian government's development plans for the nation, including its efforts to achieve UN Millennium Development Goals”.

The scientists reportedly did not receive a response.

Government silence

Cambodia and its neighbors certainly need more power: three-quarters of Cambodians lack access to the grid, and power cuts in cities and towns are common.

Although hydropower is a source of clean electricity, its detractors say the social and environmental costs of large projects like this one outweigh the benefits. They say small schemes such as solar, wind and micro-hydro dams that generate energy locally are better because they cost less, lose less electricity in transmission and have fewer negative effects.

Yet, Cambodia has only a handful of such projects and they do not appear to be part of the government's energy policy. The Minister of Industry, Mines and Energy, Suy Sem, declined to be interviewed for this article, as did another senior ministry official. Questions emailed to the minister were not answered.

But media reports consistently show the government favors projects like hydropower dams and coal-fired power stations. More are likely to go ahead. On May 9, the Cambodia Daily newspaper said two more planned dams on the 3S network had been deemed economically feasible, moving them a step closer to approval. One would be a 370MW dam on the Se San River; the other a 100MW dam on the Sre Pok River. The first would flood 40 villages alone.

Meanwhile the Cambodian government has plans to build a hydropower dam on its stretch of the Se Kong River, which rises in Laos. Baran says that would block the region's third fish highway, leaving the Mekong mainstream as the sole route for migratory species, further harming fish stocks. The rush to hydropower risks inflicting profound and irreversible damage to many more people than the residents of Srekor village.

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