Page 2 - Mong Ton News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Ethnic peoples in Myanmar and Thailand have been working for two decades to keep the Salween River flowing freely.

On a sandy beach by the Salween River on the Thai-Myanmar border in March 2006, boats carrying Karen villagers and other ethnic groups such as Karenni, Yintalai and Shan from various areas in the Salween Basin are arriving to join an important yet simple ceremony.

International isolation following the coup may now force the government to move closer to Beijing than it would like.

In mid-June, the Thai military government and its Myanmar counterpart signed a memorandum of understanding on energy, with an eye to expanding Thailand's import of electricity from Myanmar, by up to 10,000 megawatts. The initial agreement also promotes overseas investment by Thai state-owned and public companies in numerous coal and hydropower projects in Myanmar, including the Hat Gyi, Ywathit, and Mong Ton dams on the Salween River. Significantly, these projects are all situated in ethnic states, namely the Shan, Kayah, Karen, and the Tanesserim divisions, which make up some of the country'...