UN cultural agency calls for Laos, Cambodia to invite monitoring teams to contentious UNESCO sites

Associated Press

BANGKOK (AP) — The United Nations’ cultural agency is recommending that Laos invite a monitoring mission to the historic city of Luang Prabang. Concerns have been raised that the World Heritage Site could lose its coveted status because of a nearby dam project on the Mekong River. Laos seemed agreeable to the idea, with its delegate telling the group at its annual meeting in New Delhi on Thursday that authorities were prepared to work “hand in hand” with UNESCO to preserve the site. The Committee also recommended that Cambodia bring expert monitors to the Angkor UNESCO site, where the country’s efforts to relocate people has drawn allegations of human rights abuses.