Brunei symbolically handed the gavel to Cambodia on Thursday, to take over the stewardship of the ten-nation bloc.
Ambassador W Patrick Murphy says Prime Minister Hun Sen’s leadership of ASEAN in 2022 gives Cambodia the opportunity to set an exacting agenda.
It sought to enhance capacity among national authorities to conduct inspections of valuable timber shipments, to correctly identify species, detect illegal consignments, conduct related investigations, and appropriately dispose of confiscated illegal consignments.
Besides the regin’s expanding physical connectivity, the 7th GMS Summit Meeting2 included a commitment by the participants to push forward other mechanisms to help facilitate transport and trade flows across borders.
The projects to benefit are TSV and Asia Renewables’ onshore wind farms (350MW) in Gia Lai Province in the Central Highlands, INGINE Pacific’s pilot off-grid wave technology project in the central Quang Ngai Province, and the Bamboo Capital Group’s (BCG) offshore wind farms in Ca Mau (300MW) and Tra Vinh (200MW) provinces in the Mekong Delta.
Vietnam is expected to achieve at least five of the 17 goals (SDGs) by 2030 on poverty, hunger, quality education, climate action, and global partnerships, according to the 2020 National Report on the 5-year implementation of the country’s targets released by the Ministry of Planning and Investment.
Thailand ranks 20th on the global emission scale and then ranks ninth when it comes to vulnerability from climate change. The alternate waves of floods and droughts have damaged our agriculture and industry sectors while rising seawater will make low-lying areas like Bangkok harder places to live in and work in. Yet, our climate change plan does not reflect a sense of urgency.
Laotians have taken umbrage at those plans because the Buddha statue will be built in the Mahayana style in the sprawling $5 billion That Luang Marsh special economic zone, funded by the Chinese property developer.
Blessed with sunshine, Thailand’s embrace of solar energy seems a no-brainer. But the entrance of the country’s powerful military into the sector may be doing the cause more harm than good. Critics fear that once the army gets a slice of the pie, it could use its stake to gain political influence – an idea that does not sit well in a land rocked by pro-democracy protests.
Those who want to dispose of plant matter by burning may make a request via the app and wait for approval from the district-level coordination center. The application provides information on the amount of airborne dust as well as air quality, which are used by officials to consider whether or not to approve burn requests.
Environmentalists believe huge hydropower dams, many built by China, are to blame. Bloomberg speaks with Thai activist and educator Niwat Roykaew who has made it his mission to protect the river.
