Laos, a landlocked and obscure country of 6.8 million poverty-stricken people, is seeking to develop its way into prosperity through massive investment in dams, mines and plantations, hoping for jobs, rising incomes and revenues to end poverty. But development, a great deal of it by Chinese and other foreign interests, is "tearing at the environment, breaking down the foundations of food production and livelihoods," according to a new 130-page report, titled