Word: rivering
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...places on the Mekong have changed so dramatically as has the northern Thai river port of Chiang Saen. Located near the Golden Triangle, the point on the Mekong where Burma, Laos and Thailand meet, Chiang Saen was for centuries a drowsy temple town. But when Chinese engineers opened up the river by blasting nearby reefs, trade exploded. Laborers from all three Golden Triangle nations converged on the docks looking for work. A few years ago, only boats carrying less than 100 tons of goods could navigate this stretch of the Mekong - hardly worth the trip. Now, ships can handle triple...
...Mekong basin is, in fact, one of the most fertile regions on earth. Because of the trade with Indochina, Wu's village now boasts a paved road linking it to the highway. Modern pleasures like electricity and television have followed. "I live a day's journey from the river," says Wu, "but my life still depends...
...verdant mountains of Yunnan province, an army of 10,000 workers, some wearing prison-labor uniforms, are toiling on a construction site of enormous proportions. In 2010, this remote section of the Mekong will be transformed into a placid reservoir, drowning the jagged gorges that now cradle the river. Constructed by the Huaneng Group, China's biggest power producer, Xiaowan dam is the nation's second-largest power project after the Three Gorges. As the biggest of the eight dams China plans for its portion of the Mekong, Xiaowan will dwarf the two hydropower projects that have already been built...
...many Chinese can't quite fathom the Mekong's importance to other countries. "This is our part of the river, so we should be able to do what we want with it," says Hu Tao, a geological engineer who has worked at Xiaowan for two years. "The other countries can do what they want with their sections of the river." In some ways, Hu's indifference is understandable. Roughly half the Mekong lies in China, but for most of that length its waters are too swift to support barge traffic or wide-scale fishing. (The Chinese name for the river...
...does the Chinese government feel the need to consult its southern neighbors. Beijing has refused to join the Mekong River Commission, which was formed 12 years ago by four other riparian nations. (Burma is also not a member.) "I think China doesn't want to join the commission because then there will be environmental expectations," says the International River Network's Middleton. "But when the biggest country at the source of the river isn't part of the commission, it makes the group basically toothless...