Disasters and emergency response

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 ...

The General Statistics Office (GSO) of Vietnam said on Friday an estimated five million workers and nearly 85 percent of companies in the country were negatively affected by the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in the first quarter of 2020. Turbulence was observed in the Vietnamese labor market in Q1 2020 and ...

Southeast Asian countries would have likely experienced a much less severe drought last year if it were not for China’s dams, a new study says, prompting a pushback from the intergovernmental Mekong River Commission (MRC). The 4,000-km (2,485-mile) Mekong is one of the world’s longest rivers – ...

Cracked riverbeds, empty fishing nets and, snaking its way through the parched landscape, a beautifully clear, blue-tinted river. This was the view of the mighty Mekong River earlier this year, when record-low water levels revealed a striking vulnerability to the main artery of Southeast Asia, a ...

The following is a translation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha’s letter sent to Thailand’s 20 richest people following a special 10-minute speech broadcast on national TV at 6pm last Friday. The letter was dated April 20. “Thailand is facing a Covid-19 outbreak which is one of ...

Health officials in Laos say the government has implemented effective measures to prevent the spread of the deadly coronavirus, but that authorities must ensure they continue to be upheld because the impoverished nation with limited medical resources remains at risk. The small landlocked country of 7 ...

“Well I can tell you, all my fish are dead now.” Nguyen Thi Bach Vien sounds more resigned than anything else. She is calling from her home in Ben Tre province, a few hours drive south of Ho Chi Minh City in the belly of Vietnam’s ...

Eleven massive dams straddle the mighty Mekong River before it leaves China and flows into Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and on into Vietnam. Yet I have long been skeptical  that China could use those 11 upstream dams, massive as they are, to turn off the ...

Thailand has found the largest number of nests of rare leatherback sea turtles in two decades on beaches bereft of tourists because of the coronavirus pandemic, environmentalists say. From wild boars patrolling the Israeli city of Haifa to deer venturing into London suburbs, virus closures are ...

Vietnam is the ninth safest place in the Asia-Pacific to get through Covid-19, a study released by Hong Kong’s Deep Knowledge Group says. It scored 594.91 to become one of only three Southeast Asian nations to make the top 10 along with Singapore and Thailand, the ...