Social development

On the eve of World Press Freedom Day, journalists in Cambodia expressed concern that a new law authorizing a state of emergency to contain the spread of the coronavirus will be used by the government to restrict their ability to work. The “Law on Governing the ...

Myanmar has seen COVID-19 confirmed cases rising to 151 with 6 deaths and 31 people recovering. Despite the increase in cases, the country has been able to trace the majority of transmission chains, maintaining that the virus spread is “manageable”, said Dr Stephan Paul Jost, World ...

The government may employ public health volunteers to advise on how to prevent disease transmission as certain business activities reopen from the lockdown today. Speaking at the Ministry of Public Health, Sathit Pitutecha, the ministry’s deputy minister, said the government is concerned about the large number ...

The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has touched people from all walks of life. Across Thailand, children have been home from school, employees have been working from home, and business owners have struggled to remain viable. All of us have been learning to conduct our daily lives. ...

A leading United Nations human rights expert claims the Myanmar military is carrying out “war crimes” against ethnic minorities, emboldened by special extended powers intended to help control the spread of the coronavirus. Yanghee Lee, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, accused the military ...

Businessman Phan Quoc Viet was making his usual prayers at a pagoda in Tay Ninh, a province in southern Vietnam, when the government official’s call came. It was late January, just after the Lunar New Year. Vietnam had detected its first two cases of the new ...

Before the COVID-19 outbreak, Thailand’s capital was the world’s most visited city. Now Bangkok’s once-bustling streets are quiet. With its struggling economy, the timing of the crisis could not be worse for Thailand. Exports have been falling since 2019 while the GDP growth rate remained one of the lowest ...

In late 2018, following a series of demonstrations and confrontations, indigenous communities primarily from the Rawang ethnic minority expelled the Myanmar Forest Department and its international partner, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), from an area known as the Hkakaborazi Landscape, amid mounting dissent over a ...

Thai authorities should immediately stop using “anti-fake news” laws to prosecute people critical of the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Human Rights Watch said today. A state of emergency, slated to go into effect on March 26, 2020, heightens concerns of greater repression of free ...

While frantically reading news about COVID-19, I wonder why the voices of social scientists and even public health specialists seem so subdued. Clearly, they have a contribution to make in the fight against the coronavirus based on their disciplinary core principles and what has been ...