Social development
Myanmar must boost efforts to eliminate malaria: study
Myanmar needs special strategies to meet its goal of eliminating the mosquito-borne disease malaria by 2030, a recent study has said. Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through the bites of infected female anopheles mosquitoes, according to the World ...
Hmue Angel
Indigenous peoples network to propose new bill to protect indigenous rights
The Network of Indigenous Peoples in Thailand (NIPT) is calling for voters to back their Council of Indigenous Peoples in Thailand bill, which proposes to set up a formal indigenous peoples’ council to give Thailand’s indigenous population the opportunity to resolve community rights issues in ...
Prachatai
Concern rises after Karen indigenous community returns to ancestral land
Concern continues to rise among civil society for the safety of members of the Bang Kloi Karen indigenous community who returned to their ancestral land at Chai Phaen Din in the Kaeng Krachan forest, after reports of a possible military operation to evacuate them from ...
Prachatai
National Human Rights Commission to remain Grade B for next 18 months
The National Human Rights Commission of Thailand (NHRC) will remain in Grade B for the next 18 months because the current constitution deprives them of independence and obliges them to speak in defence of the government, says the Sub-Committee on Accredition (SCA). Its rank was lowered ...
Prachatai
Karen People Cut Off From Help in Myanmar After Fighting Drives Them From Their Homes
Around 1,000 ethnic Karen villagers have been cut off from help in Myanmar’s Kayin state by renewed fighting between government troops and rebel forces, with relief groups now unable to reach them with badly needed food, blankets, and medical supplies, sources say. Fighting between the Myanmar ...
Reported by Saw Nyunt Thaung for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Richard Finney.
Vietnam jails environmental activist for seven years
Vietnam has clamped down on freedom of expression ahead of a Communist Party congress by imposing a harsh jail sentence on an environmental activist and blogger for an anti-state campaign. On Jan. 20, the People’s Court of Hau Giang province in the southern Mekong Delta sentenced Dinh ...
UCA News reporter, Ho Chi Minh City
Parks Dept rejects Karen call to return
The Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP) has rejected a request by a group of evicted Karen villagers to be allowed to resettle in their ancestral home deep into a forest at the Kaeng Krachan National Park in Phetchaburi. “As long as there ...
APINYA WIPATAYOTIN
Myanmar Closes Eight Temporary COVID-19 Hospitals in Yangon
Yangon has closed eight temporary hospitals, out of 15, as the number of COVID-19 cases drops in the city. In mid-September, Myanmar rapidly opened temporary hospitals and converted public housing into COVID-19 hospitals in Yangon as up to 1,900 cases were reported per day. Myanmar opened about ...
ZAW ZAW HTWE
Younger children struggle with distance learning
Like many Thai students, Tanwa Ngernpot, a six-year-old student in Nonthaburi province, can’t return to school after the New Year holiday. The Education Ministry last week ordered all public and private education providers in the “maximum control zones” of 28 provinces to be close until Jan ...
DUMRONGKIAT MALA
OPINON: Under cover of COVID, new laws in Asia threaten environmental and social protections
In addition to its devastating toll on public health, COVID-19 has exacerbated global food insecurity and economic crises. These costs have been particularly acute for Indigenous Peoples and local communities on customarily governed territories and lands. Yet some of the worst impacts have originated not from the crisis, but from ...
Kundan Kumar
