Day: April 27, 2022

Lao officials will soon submit plans for the Phou Ngoy Dam and hydropower plant to the Mekong River Commission for review, but villagers whose livelihoods would be hurt by the construction worry they will be left out of the process.

“We can’t tell you what day or when exactly we’re going to do that,” said an official at the Ministry of Energy and Mines, who declined to be named to speak freely. “We think we’ll do it at the end of this year. Right now, we’re preparing the paperwork.”

The 728-megawatt Phou Ngoy Dam in southern Laos’ Champassak province will be the seventh of nine existing or planned large-scale hydropower projects on the Mekong River mainstream. Thailand’s Charoen Energy and Water Asia Co. Ltd. is the lead developer of the U.S. $2.4 billion hydropower dam project, whose power is anticipated will be sold to Thailand.

The hydropower dam would be built by two South Korean construction companies: Korea Western Power Co., Ltd. and Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co., Ltd. It is slated to be completed in 2029. A power purchase agreement has not yet been signed.

Laos’ government believes that it came greatly boost the country’s economy by becoming the battery of Southeast Asia by selling power generated by dams along the Mekong to its neighbors. But villagers whose lives have been disrupted by the plans say they haven’t been fairly compensated for being forced to move to make way for the progress.

The Mekong River Commission (MRC) is an intergovernmental organization that works with the governments of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam to jointly manage the Mekong.

The Phou Ngoy Dam will be located about 18 kilometers north of Pakse, the capital of Champassak province, and 50 kilometers from confluence of the Mekong River and Mun River, a tributary of the Mekong that flows through northern Thailand.

During the MRC’s consultation process, states and other stakeholders will discuss and review the benefits and risks of proposed water-use projects that may have potential significant cross-border impacts on water flow, water quality and a host of other environmental and socioeconomic conditions.

Surasri Kidtimonton, secretary-general of Thailand’s Office of National Water Resources, told RFA that the consultation depends on all MRC members.

“As for Thailand, we’re right now looking at a lot of documents about the Phou Ngoy Dam project,” he said.

“We’re doing our best to protect our interest,” he told the National News Bureau of Thailand.

‘The losers are the local people’

A representative of the Love Chiang Khong Group, a Thai NGO, expressed concern that project investors and Lao authorities will exclude communities that will be affected by the dam from the ongoing review.

“The Lao government keeps pushing many projects forward, and the investors keep looking for more benefits. The losers are the local people,” the source, who requested anonymity so as to speak freely, said.

The investors and the Lao government have not paid any attention to past studies on the project’s impact and did not allow locals to participate in the decision-making process, he said.

“The Phou Ngoy Dam is being built not for the benefit of the locals in the area, but for the benefit of the investors,” the person said. “This large dam will block the Mekong River, which is the international mainstream river that goes through many countries. It’ll destroy our livelihoods, our jobs and our ecosystem.”

An official at the Lao Ministry of the Information, Culture and Tourism said he was worried in particular about the dam’s impact on Vat Phou, a ruined Khmer Hindu temple complex at the base of a mountain about six kilometers (3.7 miles) from the Mekong River in Champassak province, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Though the Phou Ngoy Dam is more than 30 kilometers from the city of Pakse, capital of Champassak province, it could have an impact on the Phou Phaphin area close to Vat Phou, he said.

“If the Lao government and the Phou Ngoy Dam developer really want to build this dam, they’ll have to do the Heritage Impact Assessment, similar to the one for the Luang Prabang Dam Project that has been submitted to UNESCO,” he said.

Plans for the Phou Ngoy Dam and hydropower plant have also sparked concern among residents of Khonken village in Champassak province, who fear they may get a raw deal from Lao authorities and the project developer when it comes to compensation for lost land and forced resettlement in other communities.

The project will affect 88 villages, including 57 villages above the dam, and 31 villages below the dam.

About 800 residents in more than 140 households in Khonken village are expected to be the most heavily affected by the project. Most of the villagers are farmers who grow rice and vegetables and raise livestock, while others run small businesses like restaurants and guesthouses to accommodate growing numbers of Thai tourists to the area.

One resident told RFA in late December 2021 that local Lao authorities and the dam developer had conducted a survey asking villagers about their property, shops and fruit trees. Since then, however, they have not heard anything more about the impending relocation.

“We don’t want to be relocated,” he said. “We don’t know where to move to. We’ve been here for years, and we believe that this is our permanent home.”

Another villager said he wants the Lao government to reconsider building the dam.

“Yes, the government builds dams for business, but this dam will destroy the natural beauty and our property.”

Pak Beng Dam MOU

Meanwhile, two investors in another hydropower project on the mainstream Mekong signed a tariff memorandum of understanding for the Pak Beng Dam, Laos’ Vientiane Times reported on Wednesday.

China Datang Overseas Investment Co., Ltd. and Gulf Energy Development Public Co., Ltd. as project cosponsor inked the deal with the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) on Monday in Bangkok.

The China-backed Pak Beng Dam will be built in the Pak Beng district of Oudomxay province in northern Laos. RFA reported on April 13 that China Datang Overseas Investment had begun moving machinery to prepare the site and to set up workers’ camps in anticipation of a power purchase agreement with EGAT.

Reported by RFA’s Lao Service. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

A Uyghur educator and high school principal in Ghulja in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region who went missing nearly a year ago is being detained in the city, municipal education officials told RFA.

Dilmurat Abdurehim has been missing since the Eid al-Fitr Muslim religious holiday on May 13, 2021, that marked the end of the holy month of Ramadan. He left his home in the city’s Dongmehelle area but never returned, said the source who requested anonymity for security reasons.

Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining) is the third-largest city in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) after Urumqi (Wulumuqi) and Korla (Kuerle) and the seat of the Ili Kazakh (Yili Hasake) Autonomous Prefecture.

Abdurehim’s family members did not give any information to their friends and neighbors about the principal’s disappearance, the source said. Nevertheless, friends and neighbors began to suspect he had been abducted by police, who warned his family not to disclose his whereabouts, the source added.

Abdurehim graduated with a degree in history from Xinjiang University in 1990. He began teaching at Ghulja’s No. 7 high school and later became a principal at the Nos. 3, 8 and 9 high schools, the source with knowledge of the matter said.

A staff member at the No. 3 High School told RFA that Abdurehim had worked at the school but moved to another school years ago. The official also said he was aware that Abdurehim was in custody.

An official at No. 8 High School, where Abdurehim had his longest tenure, said the educator had been detained while he was working at the No. 9 High School. He did not mention the reason for Abdurehim’s arrest and suggested that RFA contact officials at the No. 9 High School for more information.

“I don’t know how long has it been since he was detained,” he said. “I don’t know the reason behind his arrest since he was not detained while he was in our school.”

After calls to No. 9 High School went unanswered, RFA again contacted the No. 8 High School and asked whether Abdurehim was being held in a prison or an internment camp.

The official said the information was a “state secret” and that the school was not authorized to comment.

Authorities have targeted teachers and intellectuals in Xinjiang as part of an effort to weaken Uyghur culture and identity, Abdureshid Niyaz, an independent Uyghur researcher based in Turkey, told RFA in a 2021 report.

More than 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities are believed to have been held in a network of detention camps in Xinjiang since 2017. Beijing has said that the camps are vocational training centers and has denied widespread and documented allegations that it has violated the human rights of Muslims living in in the region.

The United States and the legislatures of some Western countries have said Chinese policies toward the Uyghurs constitute a genocide and crime against humanity.

Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte announced his intention to skip the U.S.-ASEAN summit in Washington next month, telling Filipinos he doesn’t want to take a stance that could go against his successor who will be elected the same week.

Previously, Duterte had repeatedly said he would not travel to the United States, a country which he has not visited as president and with which he’s had a stormy relationship because of Washington’s criticism of his administration’s deadly war on drugs. As he prepares to leave office in June, Duterte faces an International Criminal Court investigation over the drug war, which has left thousands of Filipinos dead.

“If it is a working conference, there might be some agreements or commitments that will be made and I might take a stand that will not be acceptable to the next administration,” he said, without elaborating.

In his weekly televised speech to the nation late Tuesday, Duterte cited the May 9 General Election as the main reason for declining the invitation to attend the summit between U.S. President Joe Biden and leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations scheduled for May 12-13.

“By that time, the elections will be over and we will find out who the next president will be,” Duterte said, according to transcripts released Wednesday. “So I told them it would not look good if I attend and there will be a new president.”

Duterte’s six-year term will end when his successor takes office on June 30.

Duterte also cited “personal reasons” for declining President Biden’s invitation, adding that U.S. officials had wanted him to attend but he refused “as a matter of principle.”

During the meeting with Southeast Asian leaders in the U.S. capital, Biden is expected to seek to strengthen relationships with ASEAN members to counter China’s perceived aggression and military expansionism in the contested South China Sea.

Missed meetings

This is not the first time that Duterte will be missing an ASEAN-related meeting. Last year, he cited “pressing domestic concerns in light of the surge of COVID-19 cases” as an excuse to not attend an emergency summit of ASEAN leaders who met in Jakarta to discuss the post-coup crisis in Myanmar.

As president, Duterte pivoted the Philippines’ foreign policy closer to China and away from the United States, the country’s staunchest military ally for the past seven decades. He has traveled to China six times as president and called leader Xi Jinping a close friend while insisting that Manila cannot go to war with Beijing. 

Duterte also banked on Chinese money to fund his infrastructure projects, and of late, he has profusely thanked Beijing for sending COVID-19 vaccines ahead of other nations. 

In 2020, Duterte vowed to skip a U.S.-ASEAN summit – which was later postponed indefinitely because of the global pandemic – after the U.S. Embassy refused to issue a visa to Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, the former police chief who implemented his administration’s brutal war on drugs. He also threatened to scrap an agreement that allowed American troops to hold large-scale joint military exercises here, but later reversed his stand.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.

News photos from the aftermath of the blast showed the Confucius Institute building with shattered windows.

Pakistani military personnel and police cordoned off the area, with news photos showing the remains of a charred, white Toyota van near the gate of the Confucius Institute on the Karachi University campus.

The van, according to local media reports, had been carrying several teachers to the Institute when it was attacked, escorted by several motorcycles.

The injured Chinese national was rushed to a local hospital for treatment, along with several injured security personnel and other staff.

The Chinese Consulate General in Karachi confirmed that the three deceased were staff of the Confucius Institute at the University of Karachi.

Security alert raised

“First of all, from a political point of view, Chinese people are a very big target and an influential target that can make the Pakistani government pay a high level of attention,” a Chinese national living in Pakistan told RFA.

“The Chinese government will also always pay a high level of attention to security issues,” said the person, who asked to remain anonymous. “So these are some of the reasons for this terrorist attack against the Chinese.”

Vietnamese citizen journalist and political prisoner Le Trong Hung was allowed to see his wife for the first time since his arrest more than a year ago, a 40-minute meeting last week, his wife told RFA. 

Born in 1979, Hung is known for livestreaming on Facebook and YouTube videos on controversial social and political issues, particularly land rights cases that have been at the center of controversies in Vietnam.

He was arrested in March 2021 on charges of “disseminating anti-State materials” under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code shortly after nominating himself to run for Vietnam’s National Assembly elections in defiance of the ruling Communist Party and sentenced in December to five years in prison and five years of probation. 

Hung was able to see his family on April 22, three days after an appeal’s court in Hanoi upheld his sentence in a hearing that neither his lawyers nor his family were informed about in advance, said Hung’s wife, Do Le Na.

“My husband said that on April 19, the trial day, he was ‘kidnapped; and sent to the court. He did not agree to stand the trial as he hadn’t got a chance to see his lawyers,” she told RFA.

Her 40-minute meeting was closely monitored, Na added.

“They repeatedly reminded me and my husband not to mention the appeal trial,” she said. “They warned that our talk over the phone would be stopped and we would be kicked out if we talked about the trial.”

Na said that she would keep fighting for her husband.

“I myself will keep speaking up and reaching out to human rights organizations and civilized countries which pay attention to the human rights situation in Vietnam. I want to point out how my husband has been treated and expose all of the Vietnamese government’s wrongdoings.”

Before his candidacy, Hung was a chemistry teacher at Xa Dan junior high school in Hanoi, but he quit teaching after unsuccessfully petitioning for reforms to the educational system.

He had also participated in protests for environmental conservation, as well as sharing news about protests in Myanmar and the cases of other activists targeted by Vietnam’s government.

Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Nawar Nemeh.

Residents fled Beijing on Wednesday amid rising COVID-19 cases and growing fears of an imminent citywide lockdown, according to social media reports and local residents.

Photos and video uploaded to social media showed traffic jams and people wheeling suitcases on the city streets on Tuesday night.

“They’re scared. Taking their luggage and leaving,” says one man on a video clip showing cars queuing up in the street, at a standstill.

“They can’t leave because the police have sealed off the road,” a woman’s voice adds.

The apparent mass movement of people out of the city comes despite an official ban on any non-essential travel out of the city, as residential compounds in Chaoyang, Xicheng and Haidian districts were ordered into lockdown after locally transmitted cases were confirmed there.

A Beijing resident who gave only his surname Ye said police have blocked main thoroughfares leading out of the city towards neighboring Hebei province.

“I live in Baishun, Xicheng district, and we’re under lockdown right now,” Ye said. “I’m only allowed into the garden of my bungalow, but I can’t go out.”

“It seems infections in Beijing are on the rise, and now I have to apply to buy supplies,” he said. “It’s been four days now.”

“They delivered some vegetables to each household, as well as ten pounds of rice and a small barrel of cooking oil,” Ye said.

The lockdown in Xicheng extends across Baishun, Dabaishun and Xiaobaishun alleys as well as Shaanxi Lane and Shitou alleys, residents said, all of which now have large numbers of white-clad disease-prevention personnel patrolling around in full PPE, residents told RFA.

Local resident Zhang Hong said most of those who are trying to leave the city are in middle- or high-income groups with good access to information, and may have been tipped off about future lockdowns by friends or relatives in official jobs.

“A lot of people have left because of issues with the government’s restrictions … now that a lot of them, both big and small, have seen the light of day,” Zhang said.

“Shanghai is one example, where we saw people jumping off buildings due to starvation,” Zhang said. “So some rich people are leaving without waiting for the government’s decision [on whether to lock down more of the city].”

Online comments suggested Beijing residents could be denied access to accommodation outside the city, however, because they can be identified by the COVID-19 Health Code app on their phones, which is needed to access key services and public transportation.

The city is currently undergoing three waves of mass, compulsory testing from April 26-30, according to official announcements.

Group-buying schemes

The news website Caixin reported that the online shopping and food delivery platform Meituan had shut down group-buying schemes, which have been widely used by residents of Shanghai to get food and other essential supplies in the face of a ban on individual delivery riders or shopping in person.

A link to the group-buying function was removed from the homepage of the app and the service shut down from April 26, according to an announcement posted in the app.

One comment said similar group-buying functions on other delivery apps had also been shut down.

“Just when I need you, you’re not there,” wrote social media user @duoyun_kuanyin.

Others said local neighborhood committees who control access to residential communities were well-placed to make money from delivery operations.

“They won’t let [these platforms] operate … but the neighborhood committee’s own trucks will get through,” @Lenin’s_little_brain_axe commented.

The Beijing Municipal Health Commission announced 31 newly confirmed, locally transmitted cases, and three asymptomatic infections on Wednesday.

Testing halted

Meanwhile, in Shanghai and other affluent eastern cities, the test and trace service has ground to a halt under the sheer weight of data being processed about infections, as the authorities restarted mass testing in several parts of the city from April 26.

“The app in Shanghai is frozen, because there are so many volunteers on the front line,” one testing volunteer from Suzhou told RFA. “We’re like front-line troops, and yet the system they gave us to work with seems to be crumbling.”

“Why is this happening?”

A Shanghai resident surnamed Li said lockdowns are currently seen as the politically correct thing to do.

“They are trying everything they can think of, but to be brutally frank, they really haven’t a clue,” Li said. “Who really knows what to do?”

“They built all of those makeshift hospitals in Shanghai, the biggest of which had capacity for 40,000 people, but now the policy has changed again.”

“It used to be that you had to go to a makeshift hospital for 14 days’ quarantine, but now they are letting people out after just a week, to make room for infected people to come in,” Li said. “It used to be that nobody who tested positive was taken there.”

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.