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How prevalent is COVID-19 in Southeast Asia (SEA), and when will the region open its doors to foreign visitors? Following more than a year of global travel restrictions, these are the major concerns of potential visitors. The article examines border relations in SEA in the face of border restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. By 2020, the region had been successful in sustaining low COVID-19 rates. This began to change with the emergence of the delta strain, which forced numerous countries in the region to deal with large outbreaks. For this paper, we relied heavily on secondary data, including the most recent relevant literature and credible and reliable publications from reputable organizations, to ensure the data sources' validity, reliability, and quality.

The initial policy of the countries that developed vaccines has been to lock the vaccine by patent. This has been due to the fact that domestic demand for vaccine was mounting. Since only a few countries could invest in it, manufacturing and export remained at the behest of those few resulting in deep inequity in the global rollout. Pandemics are global health crises. Hence, calls for the patent waiver for the COVID-19 vaccine are growing to access the vaccine. The vaccine and its production, marketing and distribution have been politicized driven by the hegemonic aspiration. Both manufacturing and import-dependent countries are racing to win the diplomatic battle: the former has to win to gain hegemony and the latter to get the vaccine. Hence, the vaccine distribution has been marked with deep discrimination, and as a result, the migrant community is less likely to get their vaccine on time. This article engages in the decades-long debate over intellectual property rights and patenting life-saving vaccines. We argue that exemption of COVID-19 vaccines from intellectual property rights would improve global access and equity.

There is abundant research on surrogacy; however, migration scholars have not addressed surrogacy-driven migration. Policies related to surrogacy and surrogacy-led migration are under-researched. The paper argues that surrogacy-led migration or fertility/reproductive migration constitutes a significant part of mainstream migration. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the policy dilemmas in various countries.

A total of 9 surrogate mothers (4 from India; 2 from Thailand, 2 from Indonesia and 1 from Nepal) and 8 commissioning parents (2 from Japan; 4 from Europe; 1 from the USA; 1 from Australia) and 2 doctors (1 from India and 1 from Thailand) selected on snowball basis were interviewed between 2014 and 2016 by using a checklist.

The deficiency and inconsistency of laws regarding surrogacy facilitated the growth of the surrogacy market. Therefore, a uniform policy would help to define and improve the surrogacy and surrogacy-led migration management.

This paper demonstrates the interplay of surrogacy and mainstream migration. This is a fresh addition to the study of migration.

This article addresses some of the most pressing issues related to climate change and its potential consequences, namely population migration in Southeast Asia. It sheds light on how slow-onset events interact with other variables to limit the ability of people to adapt to stressors through human mobility.

The study adopts an analytical methodology to evaluate the extent to which the planning policy framework addresses these issues within the context of achieving resilient development.

Climate stressors will force millions of people to move within their own countries, while others will be forced to cross international borders, leaving others stranded. Desertification, sea level rise, ocean acidification, air pollution, changing rainfall patterns and biodiversity loss are all examples of slow-onset processes that the author believes will be exacerbated by climate change.

This will exacerbate many existing humanitarian issues, and more people may be forced to flee their homes as a result. This research helps improve the understanding of migration’s social, economic and environmental implications.

The research offers a novel perspective and analysis of the unique migration challenges arising from climate change in the Southeast Asian context.

This article examines the experiences of women leaders and their challenges in Brunei Darussalam. Globally, women are underrepresented in leadership positions. Though the Brunei government does not discriminate against any gender in delivering free education, medical facilities and healthcare, women in leadership positions are as well underrepresented. I try to understand the factors that challenge as well as motivate women to become leaders in Brunei. For this research, I conducted qualitative interviews with some respondents selected purposively. The study results show that women leaders in Brunei face challenges in obtaining financial support and accessing resources. Despite the challenges, there are some women who have been assuming and excelling in their leadership roles. The study identified that personal strengths have also been critical in contributing to their successful leadership.

The Ukraine crisis, which began with Russia's military intervention, has violently jolted the modern world. The egregious Russian invasion of Ukraine, on the other hand, has arguably altered the trajectory of the world order. This whiff of war does not exclude any state because all states in the world system are economically, politically, and socially interconnected and dependent on one another. Bangladesh is also feeling the effects of the Ukraine crisis. The crisis has highlighted some challenging aspects of Bangladesh's foreign policy, testing the robustness and independence of its decision-making process regarding United Nations resolutions. Myanmar, like Bangladesh, has appeared befuddled in its response to the crisis. This paper examines how Bangladesh and Myanmar's foreign policy anticipated an unwanted labyrinth by the crisis, which made its moral credibility critical to some extent. Furthermore, the paper discusses how these two countries’ foreign policy trajectories became entangled at a difficult crossroads. We used secondary data sources backed up by scholarly works on Bangladesh and Myanmar foreign policy, relevant books, recent reports, and writings on the subject for this article. This paper also sheds light on Bangladesh's U-Turn in supporting and speaking out in support of the UN resolution on Ukraine's humanitarian crisis.

The authors examine the impacts of corporate announcements on stock returns during the pandemic stress.

The authors employ the event study methodology with the market model on a sample of 90 events (announcement and ex-date).

The authors find that all the corporate announcements do not impact the stock returns in a similar pattern. While the bonus announcement, ex-bonus and ex-split events led to positive significant abnormal returns on the event date, the rights issue and stock-split announcements failed to influence the stock returns. The findings suggest that before making such announcements, the corporates should wait until the market recovers because even the positively impacting events result in negative market responses during pandemic stress.

This study will guide the policymakers to stimulate share prices during such pandemics with the help of various corporate announcements. The investors will be assisted in understanding the stock market mechanism and making wise decisions before reacting to corporate actions during a pandemic or emergency period. While the policymakers are concerned with influencing the share prices, the investors are concerned with the composition of the risk-return parameters in their portfolio. This study will act as an essential investment tool for both.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the authors conduct the first-ever study to examine the impacts of corporate announcements during a pandemic stress period that significantly contributes to the literature. The authors examine the announcement effects in India and accurately anticipate that this study will be a pioneer in this field. This study also paves the way for future researches in this area.

This research mainly intends to ascertain the stimulus of investor investment tendencies on the amount of capital investment in the share market.

Utilizing a sample of 477 individual investors who actively trade on the Bangladesh capital market, this empirical study was conducted. The objective of this examination is to ascertain the investment trading behavior of retail investors in the Bangladesh capital market using multiple regression, hypothesis testing and correlation analysis.

The coefficients of market categories, preferred share price ranges and investment source reveal negative predictor correlations; all predictors are statistically significant, with the exception of investment source. Positive predictive correlations exist between investor category, financial literacy degree, investment duration, emotional tolerance level, risk consideration, investment monitoring activities, internal sentiment and correct investment selection. Except for risk consideration and investment monitoring activities, all components have statistically significant predictions. The quantity of capital invested in the stock market is heavily influenced by the investment duration, preferred share price ranges, investor type, emotional toleration level and decision-making accuracy level.

This investigation was conducted exclusively with Bangladeshi individual stockholders. Therefore, the existing study can be extended to institutional investors and conceivably to other divisions. It is possible to conduct this similar study internationally. And the query can enlarge with more sample size and use a more sophisticated econometric model. Despite that the outcomes of this study help the regulatory authorities to arrange more informative seminars and consciousness programs.

The conclusions have practical implications since they empower investors to modify their portfolios based on elements including share price ranges, investment horizons and emotional stability. To improve chances of success and reach financial objectives, they stress the significance of bettering financial understanding, active monitoring and risk analysis. Results can also be enhanced by distributing ownership over a number of market sectors and price points. The results highlight the value of patience and giving potential returns enough time.

This study on the trading behavior of investors in Bangladesh is unique and based on field study, and the findings of this study will deliver information to the stakeholders of the capital market regarding the investors’ trading behavior belonging to different categories, financial literacy level, investment duration, emotional tolerance level and internal feeling.

This study aims to examine the impacts of climate change (CC), measured average annual rainfall, average annual temperature and carbon dioxide (CO₂e) on cereal production (CPD) in Bangladesh by using the annual dataset from 1988–2014, with the incorporation of cereal cropped area (CCA), financial development (FD), energy consumption (EC) and rural labor force as important determinants of CPD.

This study used an auto-regressive distributive lag (ARDL) model and several econometric approaches to validate the long- and short-term cointegration and the causality directions, respectively, of the scrutinized variables.

Results of the bounds testing approach confirmed the stable long-term connections among the underlying variables. The estimates of the ARDL model indicated that rainfall improves CPD in the short-and long-term. However, CO₂e has a significantly negative impact on CPD both in the short-and long-term. Results further showed that temperature has an adverse effect on CPD in the short-term. Among other determinants, CCA, FD and EC have significantly positive impacts on CPD in both cases. The outcomes of Granger causality indicated that a significant two-way causal association is running from all variables to CPD except temperature and rainfall. The connection between CPD and temperature is unidirectional, showing that CPD is influenced by temperature. All other variables also have a valid and significant causal link among each other. Additionally, the findings of variance decomposition suggest that results are robust, and all these factors have a significant influence on CPD in Bangladesh.

These findings have important policy implications for Bangladesh and other developing countries. For instance, introduce improved cereal crop varieties, increase CCA and familiarizes agricultural credits through formal institutions on relaxed conditions and on low-interest rates could reduce the CPD’s vulnerability to climate shocks.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first attempt to examine the short- and long-term impacts of CC on CPD in Bangladesh over 1988–2014. The authors used various econometrics techniques, including the ARDL approach, the Granger causality test based on the vector error correction model framework and the variance decomposition method.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influences of Shariah governance (SG) mechanisms on Islamic banks' performance and Shariah compliance quality in the context of Bangladesh.

A semi-structured personal interview tactic was applied to accomplish the research objectives. The data were collected from the regulators, Shariah supervisory boards, Shariah department executives and Shariah experts from the Central Bank (Bangladesh Bank) and Islamic banks in Bangladesh.

The study discovers that the quality of the Board of Directors (BODs), Shariah Supervisory Board (SSB), management and Shariah executives have both positive and negative influences on the Shariah compliance quality, image, goodwill and performance of Islamic banks' in Bangladesh. The compositions, formations and quality of SSB and Shariah officers positively influence the Islamic banks' fatwas, Shariah decisions, compliance quality and firm performance. The study also finds that prevailing banking pressure, current political situation, the willingness of BOD and management and social limitations impact Islamic banks' performance, Shariah compliance quality, image and goodwill.

Based on our findings, if the regulators, BODs and Islamic banks can manage effective and efficient executives, it will create a positive impact on Islamic banks' performance, image, goodwill and quality compliance. As the prevailing banking pressure, current political situation and social limitations hinder the functions and employment system of the Islamic banks as well as result the Islamic banks' image, performance, Shariah implementations and compliance. Thus, the theorist needs to consider these mechanisms in extending the agency, stakeholder and resource dependence theories.

This research extends the literature concerning the influences of Islamic banks' SG mechanisms in Bangladesh. The study also argued not only the efficient and effective mechanisms but also the prevailing banking pressure, current political situation and social limitations impact on Islamic banks' performance and Shariah compliance quality.