17 01 2021
Asia Sentinel has a story about NUS Press being ordered – that’s the implication – to bin a book after taking through a production process to printing. Of course, the book is about the Thai monarchy, the dead king, and King Vajiralongkorn, and it is edited by Pavin Chachavalpongpun. This censorship would be remarkable for a proper university press, but that is not what NUS Press is. It is a press run by a state-dominated university in an authoritarian state. Academic freedom is not something that the university or the press uphold.
Because Asia Sentinel is often blocked in Thailand, here’s the full story, with just a couple of edits, by John Berthelsen:
Subject
An agroforestry system with trees, crops, horticultural crops, livestock and a farmer’s home. Photo: World Agroforestry/ Devashree Nayak
In 2014, India became the first country in the world to adopt a national agroforestry policy. The policy was designed to resolve bottlenecks with other policies on agriculture, forestry, water and environment, recognizing that land use by its very nature must be integrative. Agroforestry is the practice and science of the interface and interactions between agriculture and forestry, involving farmers, livestock, trees and forests at multiple scales. Agroforestry systems have been shown to provide many ecosystem services, helping to reverse environmental damage, while simultaneously improving farmers’ livelihoods.
January 8, 2021 Share
China informed downstream Mekong river neighbors of a 20-day water restriction at its southernmost dam on the waterway six days after it started holding back water on Dec. 31, drawing a mix of credit for sharing data with downstream governments and criticism for not giving Thailand, Cambodia and others advance notice.
A statement issued Wednesday by the Mekong River Commission, an intergovernment agency that works with the governments of Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia, to manage the 2,703-mile river’s resources, said that China promised that the river’s flow held back at the Jinghong Dam “will be gradually restored to its normal operation status on January 25.”
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Water levels on the Mekong River have fallen due to the filling of a Chinese dam on the upper reaches of the river in Yunnan province, according to locals and river monitors.
The fall was reported on January 4, when locals in the Thai port town of Chiang Saen, close to the Golden Triangle confluence with Laos and Myanmar, started sharing photos on social media showing a sudden and unexpected drop in the water level along the river.
The drop was quickly confirmed by the recently-launched Mekong Dam Monitor, which employs remote sensing and data from satellites to track water levels along mainland Southeast Asia’s great river.