# Mekong Independent


## Posts

- [Waiting out the storm](https://mekongindependent.com/2026/01/waiting-out-the-storm/): During evacuations that stretched nearly a month, people in Cambodian displacement camps spoke of worries about their homes near the Thai border and challenges living in pagodas and emptied markets.
- [Thais and Cambodians speak out against the war](https://mekongindependent.com/2026/01/thais-and-cambodians-speak-out-against-the-war/): Underneath the noise of ultra-nationalist sentiment and hate speech, many Thai and Cambodian nationals are calling for an end to the border conflict and frozen relations. 
- [Cambodia's border residents wonder where to go next](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/12/cambodias-border-residents-wonder-where-to-go-next/): Civilians from border areas, some fleeing fighting between the Thai and Cambodian militaries two or three times, live out of motorized tractors, tents and the sporadic donations they receive.  
- [Border casinos targeted in week of shelling, locals say](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/12/border-casinos-targeted-in-week-of-shelling-locals-say/): Border casinos and associated scam-worker accommodations have been targeted by Thai troops, local Cambodian officials said, amid a week of clashes between the two countries.
- [Shelling, one dead at scam-linked casino in renewed border clash: local police](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/12/shelling-one-dead-at-scam-linked-casino-in-renewed-border-clash-local-police/): Explosions rocked the Thai-Cambodian border Monday, with tens of thousands of civilians evacuated amid renewed fighting at multiple border points.
- [Business owners fear loss of funds after NBC dissolves Huione Pay](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/12/business-owners-fear-loss-of-funds-after-nbc-dissolves-huione-pay/): Business owners who gathered outside the National Bank headquarters said they had tens of thousands of dollars in accounts with Huione, and some were worried their investments were lost forever.
- [Myanmar migrants pay for passports they fear they can’t use](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/11/myanmar-migrants-pay-for-passports-they-fear-they-cant-use/):   Passports issued to Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand now carry an unusual stamp: “For Thailand Only.” But the restriction may have no legal weight at international borders.
- [Karen community fighting corn and coal for clean air in northern Thailand](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/11/karen-community-fighting-corn-and-coal-for-clean-air-in-northern-thailand/): Northern Thailand is trapped in a cycle of air pollution driven by maize cultivation for the animal feed industry, with field burning each year choking the region in hazardous haze.
- [Memories of Phnom Penh crowd crush refuse to fade for some](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/11/memories-of-phnom-penh-crowd-crush-refuse-to-fade-for-some/): During Water Festival 15 years ago, more than 350 people died on a Phnom Penh bridge in one of the deadliest crowd-crush cases in recent history. Families and onlookers then and now spoke of ghosts, gangs and electric shocks to try to make sense of the tragedy. 
- [Wave of Cambodian casinos suspended after Prince sanctions](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/11/wave-of-cambodian-casinos-suspended-after-prince-sanctions/): Cambodia's gambling regulator suspended casino licenses, including some businesses connected to U.S. and U.K. sanctions, to investigate scams and other violations.
- [Red Shirt protester acquitted in all cases related to 2014 protests after a year in detention](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/10/red-shirt-protester-acquitted-in-all-cases-related-to-2014-protests-after-a-year-in-detention/): A Red Shirt protester has been released after being acquitted in all five cases related to explosives during the 2014 Yellow Shirt protests.
- [Indonesian island’s traditional residents face relocation for ‘sustainable’ project](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/10/indonesian-islands-traditional-residents-face-relocation-for-sustainable-project/): With relocation looming, a community in the Riau Islands is fighting to protect its ancestral villages and coastal environment from harm.
- [Anguish for residents as Thailand’s most polluting coal plant gets new lease of life](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/10/anguish-for-residents-as-thailands-most-polluting-coal-plant-gets-new-lease-of-life/): Thailand has announced it will delay the decommissioning of several coal-fired units at the 2,400-megawatt Mae Moh power plant in Lampang province, prompting fears among communities who have dealt with health problems linked to the plant for decades.
- [Prachatai reporter, photojournalist indicted as principals for damaging a historic site](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/10/prachatai-reporter-photojournalist-indicted-as-principals-for-damaging-a-historic-site/): Two Thai reporters, along with a pro-democracy activist, have been indicted as principals with regard to a 2023 incident where an activist sprayed graffiti onto the wall of the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. They have been granted provisional bail pending trial.
- [US indicts Cambodia’s Prince Group chairman, sanctions associates for sweeping scam network](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/10/us-indicts-cambodias-prince-group-chairman-sanctions-associates-for-sweeping-scam-network/): Striking new allegations suggest Prince Group gave bribes and a $3-million yacht to unnamed Cambodian officials to ensure the protection of scam-linked buildings. Its scammers controlled thousands of phones and tens of thousands of social media accounts in schemes that allegedly netted the group as much as $30 million a day.
- [Border-fuelled politics disrupts families’, businesses’ futures](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/10/border-fuelled-politics-disrupts-families-businesses-futures/): Mekong Indy and Prachatai talk to employers and migrant workers bracing for financial strain due to the ongoing Thai-Cambodia border conflict. 
- [Shrinking Mekong megafish underlines risks to the river, study finds](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/10/shrinking-mekong-megafish-underlines-risks-to-the-river-study-finds/): A study has found that the Mekong River’s largest freshwater fish are shrinking in size, with critically endangered species like the giant catfish and giant barb now averaging less than half their historical size.
- [Two activists sentenced to prison for royal defamation over APEC 2022 protest statement](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/10/two-activists-sentenced-to-prison-for-royal-defamation-over-apec-2022-protest-statement/): Two pro-democracy activists have been convicted of royal defamation over a statement referring to the political situation which was delivered during the APEC 2022 protest.
- [Cambodia’s new airport slowly breaks a rural community](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/09/cambodias-new-airport-slowly-breaks-a-rural-community/):  As Cambodia’s Techo International Airport rises, development blocks the fishing lakes that supported 400 families for decades. Without formal land titles, the community now faces forced eviction.
- [Deaf people in crisis during three-month sign language center blackout](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/09/deaf-people-in-crisis-during-three-month-sign-language-center-blackout/): For the past three months, the Thailand Telecommunication Relay Service, which provides online sign language interpretation services for people with hearing impairments, has been shut down due to delay in funding approval.
- [Indigenous communities fear impacts of Cambodian wind projects](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/09/indigenous-communities-fear-impacts-of-cambodian-wind-projects/):  Cambodia hopes wind farms can help solve its growing power needs, but opaque plans have left the Bunong people worried for their sacred land.
- [Finnish berry company CEO jailed for human trafficking over exploitation of Thai berry pickers](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/09/finnish-berry-company-ceo-jailed-for-human-trafficking-over-exploitation-of-thai-berry-pickers/): The District Court of Lapland has sentenced the CEO of a Finnish berry company to prison over 62 human trafficking cases involving Thai berry pickers.
- [Beyond the binary: Thailand’s intersex push for recognition bill](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/08/beyond-the-binary-thailands-intersex-push-for-recognition-bill/): Thailand’s success in legalising same-sex marriage has set the stage for the next frontier in LGBTQI+ rights: the Gender Recognition Bill. The proposed legislation faces political resistance as lawmakers grapple with recognising identities beyond male and female.
- [Cambodians crowd Chouk Chey village after civilian confrontation with Thai troops](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/08/cambodians-crowd-chouk-chey-village-after-civilian-confrontation-with-thai-troops/): A confrontation between Thai soldiers and Cambodian civilians at a disputed village leads Cambodians to bring food, water and support to the Banteay Meanchey border. 
- [As Thailand's monarchy reform movement wanes, ultra-royalists turn on migrants](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/08/as-thailands-monarchy-reform-movement-wanes-ultra-royalists-turn-on-migrants/): The number of prejudiced posts against Cambodian and Myanmar people is growing on Thai social media, as ultra-nationalists turn away from pro-democracy movements and toward migrant laborers. 
- [Burning: Viet Nam’s outdoor workers struggle in extreme heat](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/08/burning-viet-nams-outdoor-workers-struggle-in-extreme-heat/): Lacking social support, outdoor laborers are paying the price of rising heat with their health and their pocket
- [Thailand passes its first law to protect ethnic groups](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/08/thailand-passes-its-first-law-to-protect-ethnic-groups/): Thailand passed its first law to protect indigenous communities, making it the fourth country in Southeast Asia.
- [Specter of dams and diversion looms over Southeast Asia’s Salween River](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/08/specter-of-dams-and-diversion-looms-over-southeast-asias-salween-river/): The Thai-backed Hatgyi Dam and the Yuam River Diversion Project risk submerging villages, displacing Indigenous Karen communities, and diverting massive amounts of water for agriculture in central Thailand.
- [As Cambodia silences dissent, opposition wives rework their resistance](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/08/as-cambodia-silences-dissent-opposition-wives-rework-their-resistance/): They’ve lost homes, jobs and safety, but Cambodia’s opposition wives refuse to lose hope. As surveillance tightens and political space shrinks, these women represent the country’s dwindling but defiant resistance.
- [Their country denies they exist, they refuse to be forgotten](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/07/their-country-denies-they-exist-they-refuse-to-be-forgotten/): The Myanmar military burned villages but couldn’t destroy memories. Now Rohingya refugees are turning salvaged family photographs and faded certificates into evidence of their historical presence in a country that insists they never belonged.
- [Laos' illegal wildlife shops boom by duping Chinese mass tour groups](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/07/laos-illegal-wildlife-shops-boom-by-duping-chinese-mass-tour-groups/): Chinese tourists are tricked into paying high prices for illegal wildlife products they're led to believe are sustainable, and a new report suggests the trade in Laos is expanding. 
- [Indonesian palm oil company sues experts who helped secure $18m pollution ruling](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/07/indonesian-palm-oil-company-sues-experts-who-helped-secure-18m-pollution-ruling/): Two top Indonesian environmental experts, Bambang Hero Saharjo and Basuki Wasis, are being sued by palm oil firm PT Kalimantan Lestari Mandiri for their court testimony that helped convict the company for massive fires in Borneo.
- [Thai court rules eight defendants were trafficking victims, not criminals](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/07/thai-court-rules-eight-defendants-were-trafficking-victims-not-criminals/): A Thai court cleared eight defendants of criminal charges, ruling they were victims coerced by Chinese scammer groups rather than willing participants – a verdict that exposes systemic problems in victim identification.
- [Viet Nam’s mega tourism project threatens langurs, livelihoods](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/07/viet-nams-mega-tourism-project-threatens-langurs-livelihoods/):  Conglomerate Sun Group pushes forward with land reclamation plan on Cát Bà island that many fear will affect UNESCO-listed site
- [Behind closed doors: Thailand moves toward secret proceedings in trials of activists](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/07/behind-closed-doors-thailand-moves-toward-secret-proceedings-in-trials-of-activists/): A growing number of Thai activists facing charges for political expression are being tried behind closed doors. In several recent cases, the courts ordered in camera trials and prohibited the publication of information on the proceedings, raising questions about judicial transparency and concerns that defendants were not receiving fair trials. In response, the question of how judicial proceedings should be conducted has emerged as a matter of public discussion.
- [The cost of cloud: Viet Nam’s data center push comes with a price tag](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/07/the-cost-of-cloud-viet-nams-data-center-push-comes-with-a-price-tag/): This article was originally published on Mekong Eye as Creative Commons. Over the past year, global tech giants like Google, NVIDIA and Microsoft have expressed an interest in investing in data centers in Viet Nam. With many policymakers hopeful about the country becoming a key digital hub in Southeast Asia, some critical questions arise: Can Viet Nam’s power grid support this digital transformation, and at what cost? Why data centers matter? Data is often called “the new oil,” a term coined by British data scientist Clive Humby in 2006. Like oil, data must be refined – in this case, processed […]
- [Legal recognition at last for Thailand’s indigenous peoples?](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/07/legal-recognition-at-last-for-thailands-indigenous-peoples/): After decades of campaigning, Thailand’s six million indigenous people stand at the threshold of legal recognition. A landmark bill, set for July vote, could transform their struggle against statelessness, criminalisation on ancestral lands, and cultural erasure.
- [Refugees and Thai agencies address Hun Sen’s leaked audio on dissident crackdown in Thailand](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/07/refugees-and-thai-agencies-address-hun-sens-leaked-audio-on-dissident-crackdown-in-thailand/): A Thai House Committee discusses security risks related to reportedly leaked call audio alleging that Cambodian Senate President Hun Sen ordered actions against refugees. 
- [How Myanmar’s gold rush threatens international rivers](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/07/how-myanmars-gold-rush-threatens-international-rivers/): Satellite data suggests unregulated gold mines near the Thai-Myanmar border may be polluting transboundary waterways
- [Not a Burden, But a Bond — Let This Border Be a Bridge of Shared Hope and Humanity](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/07/not-a-burden-but-a-bond-let-this-border-be-a-bridge-of-shared-hope-and-humanity/): Rather than burdening systems in Thailand, a Myanmar refugee and community organizer explores how Burmese in the border town of Mae Sot contribute to community life. 
- [As Thailand’s fishing cats face habitat loss and conflict, experts seek resolution](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/07/as-thailands-fishing-cats-face-habitat-loss-conflict-experts-seek-resolution/): Fishing cats have lost vast swathes of their former range in Thailand, where decades of wetland conversion to fish farms, shrimp ponds and plantations have decimated their numbers.
- [Mistrusting the Myanmar junta, grassroots communities deliver earthquake aid directly to victims](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/07/mistrusting-the-myanmar-junta-grassroots-communities-deliver-earthquake-aid-directly-to-victims/): Thai and Myanmar nationals in Thailand are collecting and delivering donations through grassroots networks, navigating logistics challenges to avoid giving to Myanmar's junta government.
- [Battered in the creative city: the lives of Chiang Mai’s workers](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/07/battered-in-the-creative-city-the-lives-of-chiang-mais-workers/): Hear from Chiang Mai’s creative workers as they navigate rock-bottom wages, contract violations, and harsh working conditions, while employers cite obstacles to paying a living wage, and what makes it possible.
- [Fragile Peace Teeters at Metta Forest Pagoda](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/07/fragile-peace-teeters-at-metta-forest-pagoda/): Prum Socheat throws a meditation pad on the floor of the Metta Forest pagoda and squats, flipping through photos collected from pagoda events. The lead monk acts as a school teacher reciting a story to his class, and on April 8, his class was two journalists. The early photos are from community events: worshippers ceremonially washing a Buddha statue; visitors playing vai kor-orm, trying to smash a claypot while blindfolded for Khmer New Year; and residents constructing a small pond for the wild animals who pass through the pagoda boundaries. When the album reaches 2021, the photos take a dark […]
- [Young activists risk all to defend Cambodia’s environment](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/07/young-activists-risk-all-to-defend-cambodias-environment/): One year ago, Cambodia jailed five activists from the award-winning environmentalist group Mother Nature Cambodia for plotting against the government, after they had sounded the alarm about river pollution and land reclamation projects. THE CLEARING follows Chandaravuth – the group’s most outspoken member – and his colleagues in the months leading up to their incarceration as they continue on their collision course with Cambodia’s rulers and refuse to buckle under pressure.
- [As U.S. doors close, Vietnam’s religious refugees find limbo in Thailand](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/04/as-u-s-doors-close-vietnams-religious-refugees-find-limbo-in-thailand/): They escaped Vietnam seeking safety in Thailand, with many betting on eventual resettlement in America. But Trump’s refugee restrictions have left them stranded – their future more uncertain than ever.
- [Yarnapund workers enter third week of hunger strike for severance pay](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/04/yarnapund-workers-enter-third-week-of-hunger-strike-for-severance-pay/):   Six Thai autopart workers enter their third week of hunger strike, demanding accountability after hundreds were unfairly dismissed. 
- [Thailand ‘bringing back the bad old days’ for fisheries, say activists](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/04/thailand-bringing-back-the-bad-old-days-for-fisheries-say-activists/): As protestors scramble to prevent rollbacks to environmental and labour protections, a leading politician defends the changes
- [The Mekong Delta’s highway conundrum](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/04/the-mekong-deltas-highway-conundrum/): Expansion of the delta’s high-speed roads has been rocky, while the alternative, elevated highways, poses separate challenges
- [Southeast Asia’s environmental defenders on the frontline](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/04/southeast-asias-environmental-defenders-on-the-frontline/): Environmental defenders across Southeast Asia face threats, violence and legal hurdles in their fight for justice. Five share their struggles
- [Timber trade watchdog urges Poland to halt imports of Myanmar ‘blood timber’](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/04/timber-trade-watchdog-urges-poland-to-halt-imports-of-myanmar-blood-timber/): Environmental law watchdog ClientEarth is demanding immediate action from authorities in Poland to crack down on imports of sanctioned Myanmar teak into the country
- [Lost land, broken promises: Koh Kong’s evicted residents left in limbo after land deals](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/04/lost-land-broken-promises-koh-kongs-evicted-residents-left-in-limbo-after-land-deals/):   Families promised a better future at relocation sites offered by a Chinese developer now struggle with infertile land, disappearing jobs and unfulfilled development pledges
- [Cambodia’s LNG plans face energy security and cost issues](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/04/cambodias-lng-plans-face-energy-security-and-cost-issues/): The country should approach gas-fired power development with caution, write the authors of a new report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis
- [New dams call into question Cambodia’s commitment to REDD+ projects](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/03/new-dams-call-into-question-cambodias-commitment-to-redd-projects/): Three new irrigation dams have been approved in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains, overlapping with two carbon credit projects
- [Citizen scientists put land bridge plan under microscope](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/03/citizen-scientists-put-land-bridge-plan-under-microscope/): As Thailand’s ambitious land bridge project advances, grassroots efforts from citizen scientists and local researchers emerge to ensure that biodiversity and ecosystems are not overlooked
- [Underwater citizen science reveals the specter of ghost fishing in Thailand](https://mekongindependent.com/2025/03/underwater-citizen-science-reveals-the-specter-of-ghost-fishing-in-thailand/): Discarded or “ghost” fishing gear comprises 10% of all marine plastic debris in the ocean, persisting for decades and passively catching and killing species from sea snails to whale sharks

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