This photo provided by Jiji Press shows a Japan Airlines plane on fire on a runway of Tokyo's Haneda Airport on January 2, 2024. A Japan Airlines plane was in flames on the runway of Tokyo's Haneda Airport on January 2 after apparently colliding with a coast guard aircraft, television reports said. (Photo by JIJI Press/AFP Photo)

Women's Sabre Gold medalist Olga Kharlan (L) and bronze medalist in the Men's Greco-Roman Wrestling Zhan Beleniuk (R) react as they arrive at the railway station in Kyiv, Ukraine, 13 August 2024. Ukrainians meet and greet the members of National Olympic team as they return from Olympic Games 2024 in Paris amid the ongoing Russian invasion. (Photo by Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA/EFE)

In this photograph taken on September 1, 2024, a tea picker shows her hands whilst she reaps leaves at a plantation in Hatton. The backbone of the economy, Sri Lanka's tea pickers are determined to use their powerful vote to choose a president this month who will change grim working conditions for good. The pickers' main political party, the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), are backing the incumbent Wickremesinghe. (Photo by Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP Photo)

Revelers, covered in coloured powder, celebrate, during a Holi Run Festival in Madrid, Spain, Sunday, April 12, 2015. Thousands of revelers took part in the festival that includes a mini marathon. The festivals are fashioned after the Hindu spring festival Holi, which is mainly celebrated in the north and east of India. (Photo by Andres Kudacki/AP Photo)

An army tank fires during a firefight against militants linked to al Qaeda near the southern Yemeni city of Zinjibar May 30, 2012. (Photo by Reuters/Yemen's Defence Ministry)

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.