Disasters and emergency response
Disasters
Frontline medical staff vaccinated, more Covid-19 vaccines expected
Some frontline medical workers have been vaccinated against Covid-19 thanks to China’s provision of 2,000 doses of vaccine, the Minister of Health has said. The first round of vaccinations has been administered to volunteer medical staff, according to Associate Prof. Dr Bounkong Syhavong. “The vaccinations produced good ...
Souksakhone Vaenkeo
Lao Dams Lower Water Levels on a Scenic River, Harming Tour Boat Operators and Other Local Businesses
Water levels lowered by seven dams along a stretch of the Nam Ou River in Laos are blocking boat travel in a scenic area popular with tourists, impacting tour and passenger boat operators and other local businesses, Lao sources say. Travel by water between Nong Khiaw ...
Reported by RFA’s Lao Service. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Richard Finney
Hail the warriors in white gowns
In every crisis, there is a hero. And for the annus horibilis 2020, no one deserves the “Person of The Year” title more than the “Warriors in White Gowns” — a term which the public use to praise medical workers and over a million health ...
APINYA WIPATAYOTIN AND ANCHALEE KONGRUT
Mekong river at lowest level this year
The water level in the Mekong river has dropped quickly and was only about 1.90 metres deep in this northeastern border province on Monday, the lowest this year. The lack of water is being blamed on the many dams upstream in China, and this year’s poor ...
PATTANAPONG SRIPIACHAI
Myanmar Migrant Worker Says His Seafood Market Boss Started Chain of COVID-19 Infections
A Myanmar migrant worker in Thailand who became infected with the coronavirus said Wednesday that he contracted the illness from his Thai employer in a huge seafood market compound in coastal Samut Sakhon province near the capital Bangkok. On Monday, Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and ...
Nayrein Kyaw for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Analysis: How Vietnam came to embrace a new vision of the Mekong Delta’s future
On any list of places menaced by climate change, Vietnam’s broad and fertile Mekong Delta ranks near the top. And yet, as I wrote for Mongabay four years ago, rising seas and changing weather patterns are not the only threats to the delta’s fabled fecundity. A spasm of ...
David Brown
Finding community at a COVID-19 quarantine centre in Myanmar
In another world, I could have been checking into a hotel. Only instead of staff, two fellow COVID-19 patients welcomed me at the door, with a plastic box filled with toiletries, snacks and masks, and showed me to a small room I would share with another ...
Reuters
2020 review: 10 resilience defining stories in Vietnam
2020 has been defined mostly by the dogged resilience of the Vietnamese people in confronting unforgettable disasters, positively heightening the nation’s international profile. United front against Covid-19 Perseverance as severe drought parches Mekong Delta The 37th ASEAN Summit – an online triumph Together in grief as disasters devastate central ...
Phan Anh, Dat Nguyen
Anti-Myanmar hate speech flares in Thailand over virus
“Wherever you see Myanmar people, shoot them down,” read one Thai comment on YouTube after a surge of coronavirus cases among workers from Myanmar. The outbreak, first detected at a seafood market near Bangkok, has prompted a flare-up in such online hate speech as well as ...
Reporting by Shoon Naing in Yangon; Writing by Matthew Tostevin; Editing by Sam Holmes
A New Surge of COVID-19 Infections is an Undesirable "New Outbreak": PM Prayut
The Public Health Ministry has conceded a new round of widespread Covid-19 outbreaks has occurred in the country now as Bangkok has come up with proactive measures against the possible widespread outbreak in the city PM Prayut Chan-o-cha has posted on his official Facebook Page this ...
B.Tribune
