(April 29, 1999) The World Bank inaugurated an office in impoverished Laos this week, saying it would help strengthen its efforts to ease the country’s economic troubles.

(April 24, 1999) The Asian Development Bank is poised to stop funding controversial dam construction in Laos amid fears of poor viability and rampant illegal logging of some of the region’s last rainforests.

(April 21, 1999) This project completed in 1994 has proved to be a social and environmental disaster. It is a monument to bad development thinking and bad government. It has enough moral potential to magnify the importance of this remote protest.

(April 16, 1999) At a recent symposium on the ‘Comprehensive Development of the Greater Mekong Subregion’ here, representatives mostly from the private sector, government and regional funding agencies complained that the Asian economic crisis had further put off chances of rapid growth for the Mekong Basin.

(April 1, 1999) More than 5,000 villagers have set up camp at the Pak Mun Dam site on the Mun River in Thailand and are demanding compensation from the Thai government and the World Bank for their losses due to development projects. The eight groups of villagers have been affected by various development projects, including six dams which have depleted fisheries, in northeast Thailand.

(March 26, 1999) Eight villager groups affected by various development projects have united in struggle at the Pak Mun dam site in Thailand.

(March 25, 1999) MORE than 3,000 villagers, who have been affected by the Pak Mool Dam project in Ubon Ratchathani, have gathered at the dam site demanding compensation for a permanent loss of their occupation — freshwater fishing.