This drone shot shows Indian farmers collecting paddy saplings to replant in a field on the outskirts of Prayagraj, India, Thursday, July 2, 2020. Agriculture is the main livelihood of more than 50 percent of India's population. (Photo by Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP Photo)

Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south, and Thailand to the west. Its population was estimated to be around 6.5 million in 2012. A third (33%) of the country's population lives below the international poverty line which means living on less than U.S. $1.25 per day.

Hannah Prock, of Austria, prepares to start the luge women's singles run 1 at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Monday, February 7, 2022, in the Yanqing district of Beijing. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

Botswana's Ross Branch competes during the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge stage two on March 7, 2022. (Photo by Edoardo Bauer/AFP Photo)

A woman reacts after she was hit with pepper spray deployed by police as they cleared a street with protesters rallying against a new national security law in Hong Kong on July 1, 2020, on the 23rd anniversary of the city's handover from Britain to China. A man found in possession of a Hong Kong independence flag became the first person to be arrested under Beijing's new national security law for the city, police said on July 1. (Photo by Dale De La Rey/AFP Photo)

A resident digs out his walkway in St. John's Newfoundland on Saturday, January 18, 2020. The state of emergency ordered by the City of St. John's is still in place, leaving businesses closed and vehicles off the roads in the aftermath of the major winter storm that hit the Newfoundland and Labrador capital. (Photo by Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press via AP Photo)

Tourists play at a beach covered by a thick layer of green algae in Qingdao, China, on July 3, 2013. A large quantity of non-poisonous green seaweed, enteromorpha prolifera, hit China's Qingdao coast last month. More than 20,000 tons of such seaweed has been removed from the city's beaches. This has now become an annual summer event. (Photo by Whitehotpix/ZumaPress.com)

A man in “Red Army” garb hits the pavement during a simulated attack during a re-staging of part of the Long March in Jinggangshan September 14, 2017. The scene brings alive an extraordinary chapter in China's history that established the supremacy of Chairman Mao Zedong and the Communist Party. Deep in the mountains of Jinggangshan in the southeastern province of Jiangxi, a classroom of bank tellers participates in an ideological boot camp that plays into Chinese President Xi Jinping's drive to further consolidate his grip on power. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)