A woman wearing a protective mask walks outside a village that was placed under lockdown due to the number of COVID-19 cases among residents in Manila, Philippines on Thursday, March 11, 2021. The Philippine capital placed two villages and two hotels on lockdown Thursday and police have renewed warnings against kissing and other “public display of affection” after a new surge in coronavirus infections. (Photo by Aaron Favila/AP Photo)

A general view of the residential area is pictured during dusk at Jodhpur in Rajasthan, April 5, 2015. Jodhpur, also known as the blue city in the desert Indian state of Rajasthan, which residents say originally, was used to show where the highest caste of priestly Hindus live, who wanted to set them apart from the rest of the population. Later the rest of the population followed suit. Another reason for the city to be blue is to keep the buildings cool during the summers, local residents said. (Photo by Adnan Abidi/Reuters)

One-day-old baby giraffe calf Gus looks at the camera at Noah's Ark farm on May 12, 2017 in Bristol, England. The baby giraffe was born yesterday at the zoo farm in North Somerset. In the wild, populations of giraffes are suffering from a continuing decline, with 97,500 estimated in Africa in 2015. Since 1985 the total giraffe population has fallen by 35%. New arrival Gus joins brothers George, 4 and Geoffrey, 2. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

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.

A Thai veterinarian sterilizes a monkey in a bid to control the birth rate of the monkey population in Hua Hin city, Prachuap Khiri Khan Province, Thailand, 15 July 2017. (Photo by Narong Sangnak/EPA/EFE)

Members of the Maori community march in a protest rally to criticise the government for its policies affecting the Indigenous Maori population in Wellington on November 19, 2024. (Photo by Sanka Vidanagama/AFP Photo)

A worker roasts a row of pigs on bamboo poles at a roasting pit, in Manila, Philippines, December 21, 2020. (Photo by Lisa Marie David/Reuters)

The Taal Volcano in the central Philippines boomed to life on Sunday, January 12, 2020 spilling ash and causing evacuations in nearby communities – and officials warn that a more powerful eruption is imminent. One of the world’s smallest volcanoes, Taal is among two dozen active volcanoes in the Philippines, which lies along the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, a seismically active region that is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. (Photo by Kester Ragaza/Pacific Press/Rex Features/Shutterstock)