Pandemics

The Thai Rice Exporters Association cut its projection for 2020 rice exports from 7.5 million tonnes to 6.5 million tonnes, the lowest in a decade. Thailand shipped 3.14 million tonnes of rice in the first six months of this year, down 32.7% from the same period ...

As we are meeting today, the COVID-19 pandemic is raging in all corners of the globe. The pandemic has triggered a severe global crisis in multiple aspects, ranging from public health to tourism, trade and the disruption of global supply chains. Indeed, we are witnessing ...

“I’m used to hearing the sound of laughter every morning as my customers come to buy fish,” says 37-year-old Huon Tim. “But it’s very quiet these days in the village.” For Huon, who runs a small fish and produce stall at the local market in Kampong Por, ...

Thousands of Lao migrant workers who recently returned from Thailand after losing their jobs to COVID-19 have been facing fresh hardships in crowded, undersupplied quarantine camps,, Lao officials and migrants told RFA. During the coronavirus pandemic hundreds of thousands of the 2.8 million foreign workers in ...

Covid-19 has taken an enormous toll on women and girls around the world as a direct consequence of national lockdowns and the sidelining of sexual and reproductive health services. Health systems are struggling to respond to the pandemic. As the crisis rages on, the number of women ...

Thailand is ramping up domestic production of Covid-19 test kits to avoid a potential shortage, as it prepares for a possible second wave of infections after most businesses and services reopened. “Thailand has always received criticism for testing too few, and that was the case at ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on July 8 approved a $250 million loan to help the Cambodian government rebuild the country’s economy that has been severely affected by the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. According to the ADB’s press release, this loan will go toward strengthening ...

The number of illegal logs seized in the first nine months of the fiscal year shows that timber smuggling remains rampant in Sagaing Region despite the threat of COVID-19, the head of the regional Forest Department said.  U Aung Tun Win, director of the department, said ...

Vietnam and four other countries in the Mekong region will receive Japanese aid worth $115.3 million to combat Covid-19 and work for sustainable development. Japan announced the decision at the 13th Mekong-Japan Foreign Ministers’ Meeting held online on Thursday and co-chaired by Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister ...

Over 800 health-care workers in southern provinces of Laos are calling on authorities to pay them for extra hours worked this year in hospitals and quarantine centers while trying to control the spread of coronavirus, according to sources in the one-party communist state. However, official sources ...