Ngày đăng: Tháng Chín 26, 2023

The Rules-Based International Order Is Quietly Disintegrating

~ Trần Đình Hoành ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

It hasn’t been this threatened since the 1930s.

Walter Russell Mead

By Walter Russell Mead

Sept. 25, 2023 6:06 pm ETS, WSJ

The most important fact in world politics is that 19 months after Vladimir Putin challenged the so-called rules-based international order head-on by invading Ukraine, the defense of that order is not going well. The world is less stable today than in February 2022, the enemies of the order hammer away, the institutional foundations of the order look increasingly shaky, and Western leaders don’t yet seem to grasp the immensity of the task before them.

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Net Zero Roadmap: A Global Pathway to Keep the 1.5 °C Goal in Reach

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

The path to limiting global warming to 1.5 °C has narrowed, but clean energy growth is keeping it open

IEA full report

Some key takeaways:

  • Record growth in solar power capacity and electric car sales are in line with a pathway towards net zero emissions globally by mid-century, as are industry plans for the roll-out of new manufacturing capacity for them. This is significant, since those two technologies alone deliver one-third of the emissions reductions between today and 2030 in the pathway.
  • Clean energy innovation has also been delivering more options and lowering technology costs. In the IEA’s original Roadmap in 2021, technologies not yet available on the market delivered nearly half of the emissions reductions needed for net zero in 2050. That number has now fallen to around 35% in this year’s update.
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Singapore energy appetite fuels ASEAN’s renewable power grid

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

asia.nikkei.com

Network taps Laos hydropower, solar and wind energy from Indonesia and Vietnam

Wind farms in southern Vietnam have the potential to generate 600 gigawatts of power, according to one estimate. (Photo obtained by Nikkei)

YUJI NITTA, Nikkei staff writerSeptember 20, 2023 06:02 JST

HANOI — A web of international renewable energy deals is spreading across Southeast Asia as the region works to transition away from fossil fuels, with electricity-hungry Singapore as a driving force.

The city-state, where natural gas makes up around 95% of the energy mix, aims to import 4 gigawatts of low-carbon electricity by 2035, equivalent to 30% of its supply. This ambitious plan, in turn, is creating an opportunity for neighboring nations that are expanding power generation from renewable sources.

Imports kicked off in 2022 with the start of hydropower transmission from Laos via Thailand and Malaysia, totaling 100 megawatts over two years. Regulators have approved plans to bring in 2 GW from five solar projects in Indonesia, and the country will also buy power from a floating solar farm off Indonesia’s coast.

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We Can Heal War’s Traumas; U.S. and Vietnam Show How

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

US Institute of Peace 50 years after a peace accord that wasn’t, one-time enemies salve a long war’s wounds.

Wednesday, March 1, 2023 / BY: USIP Staff PUBLICATION TYPE: Analysis and Commentary

This winter marks 50 years since U.S. and Vietnamese diplomats in Paris ceremoniously signed “peace accords” that did not end the Vietnam War, but that achieved America’s withdrawal from it. Thus, the accords permitted, a half-century later, what is now a durable American-Vietnamese reconciliation. In the face of seemingly intractable wars — in Ukraine, Afghanistan, the eastern Congo basin, Yemen or elsewhere — the growing U.S.-Vietnamese relationship shows that even a peace that seems impossible today can indeed be built for our children.

U.S. troops guard North Vietnamese prisoners in 1965, early in the Vietnam War. U.S. and Vietnamese veterans have led reconciliation work in decades since, notably in searching for remains of those killed in the war. (Neil Sheehan/The New York Times)
U.S. troops guard North Vietnamese prisoners in 1965, early in the Vietnam War. U.S. and Vietnamese veterans have led reconciliation work in decades since, notably in searching for remains of those killed in the war. (Neil Sheehan/The New York Times)
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What impact is Brexit having on the UK economy?

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

The UK’s trade has dropped in recent years, the pound has fallen considerably against the dollar and business investment is yet to return to its peak in 2016. While these factors are predicted to be a result of Brexit, ministers have blamed international issues.

The UK’s recent disastrous “mini” Budget can trace its origins back to Britain’s decision to leave the European Union. The economic costs of Brexit were masked by the Covid-19 pandemic and the crisis in Ukraine. But six years after the UK voted to leave, the effect has become clear. In this film, senior FT writers and British businesspeople examine how Brexit hit the UK economy, the political conspiracy of silence, and why there has not yet been a convincing case for a ‘Brexit dividend’.

“Spy” Virus Eavesdrops on Bacteria, Then Obliterates Them

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

scienctificamerican.com By Angus Chen on December 14, 2018

Viruses use bacteria’s chemical language to time their destruction; this might lead to new ways to fight infections 

"Spy" Virus Eavesdrops on Bacteria, Then Obliterates Them
Bacteriophage virus electron microscopy image. Credit: Getty Images

In the early experiments it looked like the virus called VP882 was doing something that should be impossible for a thing that is not a bacterium, and not technically even alive: intercepting molecular messages exchanged by its host bacteria, and reading them to determine the best time to annihilate the whole bacterial colony. “As scientists, this is just unimaginable to us,” says Bonnie Bassler, a molecular biologist at Princeton University. “We were delighted and skeptical at the same time. It was almost too good to be true.”

Not only did it turn out to be true for VP882; Bassler learned there is a family of bacteria-infecting viruses (a subgroup of a kind called bacteriophages, or just “phages”) that eavesdrop on their hosts’ routine molecular communications with other bacteria. That means VP882’s kill trigger could be easily manipulated to target any bacteria, Bassler says—opening the possibility that the virus could be engineered into an ideal killing machine for dangerous pathogens.

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