Viewing entries tagged
Laos
Observers predict the debate over how to tap the power of the Mekong River will become a contentious regional issue for the countries through which the waterway flows. In tiny Laos, authorities want dams on the Mekong's mainstream to fuel its energy strategy to becoming the battery of Southeast Asia. But downstream in neighbouring Cambodia, the consequences may be severe. A look at the conflicting aims between energy needs and food security concerns along one of the longest rivers in the world.
Mekong countries can't agree on a hydropower plan. But will that stop Laos from building?
A radio piece from Laos, where the sport of wheelchair basketball has become a source of strength for one athlete who had spent his life living in the shadows.
"I just felt like I was different from others," says Samnieng Thommavong, whose extended family shunned him when he lost the use of a leg to polio as a child. "I even felt that I was not fully a human being."
In Laos, a farmer picks through a deadly harvest while distrust stalls political action on a cluster bomb ban.
