COVID-19

Cambodia’s National Assembly approved legislation on Friday authorizing a state of emergency to contain the spread of the coronavirus despite widespread concerns that it would give unchecked power to Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has rolled back democratic freedoms in the country. The parliament’s 125 lawmakers, ...

COVID-19 has forced Laos to join countries around the world in closing schools and using online distance learning. But rural and urban poor students in the Southeast Asian country not only lack computers and access to the internet — some even live in homes without ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has slowed global trade and disrupted supply chains. The virus, which first started in China, shut manufacturing facilities for an extended period of time. As China, known as the factory of the world, shut factories, it resulted in a ripple effect battering ...

The Beijing-backed and financed China-Lao high-speed railway’s official inauguration was planned for December 2021, symbolically opening coincident with the 46th anniversary of the founding of communist rule in Laos. But the Covid-19 crisis has caused delays in the 414-kilometer railway’s construction, with progress on the link ...

The European Union (EU) said it will provide €5 million (K7.9 billion) in cash to support garment workers in Myanmar who have been affected by COVID-19. The Myan Ku (Quick Assistance) emergency cash fund will go directly to cut, make, pack (CMP) workers who have lost ...

With strong wind and fast-approaching forest fires, a group of forest dwellers on Doi Mon Dok mountain in Chiang Mai’s Samoeng District are racing against time to stop the flames from engulfing their village. “This is the ninth time the fires have erupted near our home,” ...

The Public Health Ministry has expanded the definition of “Patient Under Investigation” (PUI) to four cases where free tests will be administered, Dr Taweesin Visanuyothin, spokesman of the government’s Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration, said on Wednesday (April 8). 1. Passengers screened by international communicable disease ...

“The global coronavirus pandemic, which has already caused unimaginable devastation and hardship, has brought our way of life to an almost complete halt. The outbreak will have profound and lasting economic and social consequences in every corner of the globe. In the face of such turmoil, as ...

Officials are expecting the outbreak of COVID-19 to slow the development of Dawei Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Tanintharyi Region. “The virus is affecting the development process, including road construction,” said U Tin Htoo Naing, secretary of Dawei SEZ. Things are being delayed just as foreign investors ...

The coronavirus outbreak has upended our lives in unimaginable ways and prison inmates are no exceptions to the struggles. In light of the novel coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic, people globally are facing a multitude of challenges and problems. While the lethal virus is claiming lives in ...