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COVID-19 Updates

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

COVID-19 Impacts on Women’s Economy, Women’s Rights and Livelihood in Thailand

In 2020, Thailand was the first country in the world to detect COVID-19 transmission outside China. Since then, the Government has aggressively exercised executive and judicial measures, especially on the infinite extension of COVID-19 state of emergency decree, to...
The Far Right: Formidable but not Unbeatable

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...

The Race to Replace a Dying Neoliberalism

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?

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

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

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...

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