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Thailand reports daily record of COVID-19 cases, including jail clusters
Thailand’s COVID-19 task force also recorded 25 new deaths, bringing the total number of fatalities to 614 since the pandemic started last year. Excluding the jail clusters, Monday’s new cases of 2,782 are close to a record high of 2,839 recorded late last month. Thailand has administered ...
Reuters/dv
UN Envoy Meets Thai PM, Asks for Help in Ending Myanmar Crisis
The U.N.’s special envoy on Myanmar met behind closed doors with Thailand’s leader Friday, trying to find solutions to the Burmese crisis, as ASEAN dithered on naming its emissary to the coup-ridden country, which has already blocked the proposed visit. Christine Schraner Burgener, the United Nations ...
BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
$97-mln upgrade proposed for Mekong Delta highway linking to Cambodia
National Highway 62 running through Long An Province should be renovated to shorten the journey from Ho Chi Minh City to the Mekong Delta and the Cambodian border. In its proposal sent to the Ministry of Transport on Thursday, Project Management Board 7, in charge of ...
Hoang Nam
Trafficking of banned Myanmar teak lands German company with $4m fine
WOB Timber, a logging company based in Hamburg, Germany, has been ordered by a court to pay a $4 million fine for illegally trading Myanmar timber. The April 27 decision was one of the highest financial penalties for this type of crime in the European ...
Nicolás Bustamante Hernández
COVID-19 Hits Prisons in Thailand, as Nearly 3,000 Cases Detected
Yesterday, Thailand’s Department of Corrections announced that nearly 3,000 inmates at two prisons in Thailand’s capital had tested positive for COVID-19, amid the country’s ongoing outbreak of the virus. In a statement, the department said that 1,785 of the 3,274 inmates tested positive at Bangkok Remand Prison, which ...
Sebastian Strangio
Myanmar’s COVID Response Is Collapsing
As Myanmar’s national COVID-19 response collapses following a 1 February military coup, one ethnic armed organisation in the country’s north has quietly vaccinated 20,000 people in areas it governs, with support from across the border in China. The vaccines, produced by the Chinese company Sinovac Biotech, ...
'Untie knots' in Mekong Delta infrastructure growth: PM
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh Saturday called on Mekong Delta officials to “untie knots’ in infrastructure development, stressing that this was key for the region to fulfill its full potential. He also said the region should give priority to developing port and aviation infrastructure. The PM was ...
Cuu Long
Cambodian farmers can no longer rely on the Tonle Sap lake
“I’ve seen lower yields on my farm each year since maybe 2017 or 2018 – there just isn’t enough water,” says Yoeum Yoeut. Yoeut, 52, is a lifelong resident of the Baran district in Cambodia’s northwest Battambang province. Her livelihood has always depended on the natural flooding ...
Gerald Flynn, Phoung Vantha
Govt prepares to tackle weather emergencies in rainy season
The National Disaster Management Committee is preparing to respond to emergencies caused by heavy rainfall through the prompt provision of assistance and subsequent recovery. Numerous countries around the world including Laos suffer from weather extremes such as floods and earthquakes as well as crop pests and ...
Phomphong Laoin
Arrest of journalists a litmus test for how Thailand treats those fleeing persecution in Myanmar
Three senior reporters who fled Myanmar for Thailand after the brutal military coup “face certain arrest and persecution” if they are deported following their arrest in Chiang Mai on Sunday, journalist groups say. The three are prominent journalists with the independent Burmese news agency Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) and were detained in ...
Helen Regan and Kocha Olarn,