Thailand’s Energy Minister Pongsak Raktapongpaisal has urged Burma to speed up construction of the US $12-billion Tasang hydropower dam on the Salween River in Shan State, The Bangkok Post reports. Thailand is looking import electricity from Burma supplied by the 7,000-Mw dam—in which Thailand a 56-percent stake—and by a 3,000-Mw coal-fire plant in Dawei Special Economic Zone. “The cooperation is to the mutual benefit of both countries,” Pongkak was quoted as saying. The NGO Salween Watch said about 300,000 people were forcibly evicted from the dam site in 1996 and that systematic human rights abuses continue in the area.
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