As the novel coronavirus continues to spread across the world, close to four billion people in over 90 countries are under mandatory lockdowns. The virus has in its wake taken both tens of thousands of lives and millions of livelihoods. Countries continue to grapple with the challenges of testing, quarantines and lack of medical facilities and equipment. It is also evident that global trade and national economies will take a much worse battering than expected. Focus created this special section of the website to capture some of the impacts of COVID-19 in Asia
Latest Articles/Statements
The Far Right: Formidable but not Unbeatable
By Walden Bello* The Covid-19 pandemic has frozen much social and economic life throughout the world, but it has not stopped political polarization. In the US, there has been a welcome push-back from the left as millions of people throughout the country went to the...
Webinar on COVID-19: Deglobalisation and the opportunity for food sovereignty
COVID-19 has exposed multiple weaknesses and failures of the corporate and finance capital dominated, globalized world we live in. As lockdowns around the world kicked in, global and national supply chains of essential goods and services were disrupted. Decades of...
RCEP WILL UNDERMINE FIGHT AGAINST COVID19 PANDEMIC
*ASIAN GROUPS CALL FOR IMMEDIATE HALT TO SECRET NEGOTIATIONS* 18th June, 2020 Bangkok, Thailand In an online press conference held today, trade unions and civil society organisations from the Asia Pacific have urgently demanded a halt to secret trade...
Breaking the Neoliberal Consensus in a COVID-19 World: An Agenda for India
9 May 2020 Economies around the world, and those in the developing world in particular, face monumental challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences. The unprecedented lockdown announced by Governments in order to contain the spread of the virus has...
Statement From Feminists in India Against The Police Violence That Killed George Floyd
We, feminists in India, strongly condemn the murder of George Floyd, an African-American, by a white officer of the Minneapolis Police Department, and express our deep solidarity with the people’s resistance against police violence presently raging in the US and many...
The Race to Replace a Dying Neoliberalism
The world’s prevailing socio-political models aren’t going to survive this pandemic. What’s going to replace them? By Walden Bello, May 13, 2020 The morning will come When the world is mine. Tomorrow belongs to me! From Cabaret In response to the cataclysm occasioned...
COVID-19 Pandemic: Rethink on the Pacific Trade Pact?
Supatsak Pobsuk 26 May 2020 Debate on CPTPP in Thailand The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP)[i] is a glaring issue again in Thailand since the government attempted to propose that the cabinet consider joining the...
How to Improve Myanmar’s Covid-19 Emergency Relief Program
By Walden Bello, Doi Ra Lahkyen, Jenny Franco, Pietje Vervest and Tom Kramer* The Covid-19 Economic Relief Plan (CERP) that the government rolled out in the last week of April is a welcome initiative for a country that is suffering from both the assault of the novel...
Cambodia COVID-19 Situationer
By Galileo de Guzman Castillo[i] 2020 June 4 This situationer provides a general overview of COVID-19 in Cambodia, as it impacts on four broad dimensions: health, political, economic, and socio-cultural. The data and information were compiled from various sources...
How Thailand Contained Covid-19: Why a Public Health System with Popular Support Matters
By Walden Bello* It was not authoritarian decrees from above but a strategy of persuasion built on a tradition of cooperation between public health authorities and civil society that made the difference. When the novel coronavirus began its swift spread from China in...
Videos and Webinars
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VIDEO: Filipino Activist Walden Bello: Global Vaccine Disparity Shows “Irrationality of Global Capitalism”
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Janta Parliament confront’s Modi’s ‘delusional’ agrarian reforms
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The New Dictators – Featuring Walden Bello
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COVID And Impact on Women: The Kerala Response
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COVID and Kerala: Role of Local Governments and Women’s Collectives