APnews.com BY SYLVIA HUIUpdated 4:23 PM GMT+7, December 5, 2023
Britain’s polar research ship RRS Sir David Attenborough has crossed paths with the world’s largest iceberg as it was drifting out of Antarctic waters. (Dec. 5)Photos
BY SYLVIA HUIUpdated 4:23 PM GMT+7, December 5, 2023Share
LONDON (AP) — Britain’s polar research ship has crossed paths with the largest iceberg in the world — a “lucky” encounter that enabled scientists to collect seawater samples around the colossal berg as it drifts out of Antarctic waters, the British Antarctic Survey said Monday.
The RRS Sir David Attenborough, which is on its way to Antarctica for its first scientific mission, passed the mega iceberg known as the A23a on Friday near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.
This Nov. 12, 2018 photo shows The USS Carney in the Mediterranean Sea. The American warship and multiple commercial ships came under attack Sunday, Dec. 3, 2023 in the Red Sea, the Pentagon said, potentially marking a major escalation in a series of maritime attacks in the Mideast linked to the Israel-Hamas war. “We’re aware of reports regarding attacks on the USS Carney and commercial vessels in the Red Sea and will provide information as it becomes available,” the Pentagon said. (Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Ryan U. Kledzik/U.S. Navy via AP)Read More
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FILE – The guided-missile destroyer USS Carney in Souda Bay, Greece. The American warship and multiple commercial ships came under attack Sunday, Dec. 3, 2023 in the Red Sea, the Pentagon said, potentially marking a major escalation in a series of maritime attacks in the Mideast linked to the Israel-Hamas war. “We’re aware of reports regarding attacks on the USS Carney and commercial vessels in the Red Sea and will provide information as it becomes available,” the Pentagon said. (Petty Officer 3rd Class Bill Dodge/U.S. Navy via AP)
BY LOLITA C. BALDORUpdated 12:07 PM GMT+7, December 7, 2023 APnews
WASHINGTON (AP) — When Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen launched missiles and hit three commercial ships in the southern Red Sea last weekend, it triggered an immediate question: Will the U.S. military strike back?
The Houthis have sharply escalated their attacks against ships as they sail toward the narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait. And U.S. Navy ships have shot down an array of drones headed their way and believed to have been launched by the militant group from territory it controls in Yemen.
But so far, the U.S. has avoided military retaliation — a marked difference from its multiple strikes against Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria that have fired rockets, missiles and drones at bases housing American forces in both countries.
No one has been reported hurt in the Houthi incidents, although the commercial ships suffered some damage. And U.S. officials argue that the Houthis haven’t technically targeted U.S. vessels or forces — a subtlety that Navy ship captains watching the incoming drones may question.
By Jared Cohen, the president of global affairs at Goldman Sachs and a New York Times bestselling author of five books, and Ian Bremmer, the president of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media. He is also the host of the television show GZERO World with Ian Bremmer.
A globe with blocks and chunks missing from it sits atop the shoulders of a person looking into a dystopian horizon.
After decades of relative geopolitical calm, the world has entered its most volatile and dangerous period since the depths of the Cold War. Consider recent events. Despite U.S. President Joe Biden’s high-profile meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in San Francisco last month, relations between their two countries have deteriorated so sharply that a war between them, though unlikely, is no longer unthinkable. The COVID-19 pandemic, although largely in the rearview mirror, unleashed political and economic shocks that continue to reverberate across the global system. Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine plunged Europe into a destabilizing war with far-reaching consequences for trade and markets worldwide. And on Oct. 7, Hamas’s terror attacks against Israel sparked a new Middle East war that threatens to destroy years of progress toward economic transformation and regional stability.
These global shifts and shocks are often grouped together, and for good reason. According to International Monetary Fund (IMF) economists, they are among the drivers of a “policy-driven reversal of global economic integration” termed “geoeconomic fragmentation.” For some analysts, they are constituents of a so-called polycrisis, in which a series of disparate shocks “interact so that the whole is even more overwhelming than the sum of the parts.” And the White House itself has repeatedly highlighted how it helped crystalize thinking about the links between national security and economic policy to produce a “New Washington Consensus.”
(KTSG) – “Rủi ro đáng lo ngại nhất khi nó không rõ ràng và không đáng lo khi nó quá rõ ràng”
James Grant
Từ nhiều năm nay, dầu được coi là loại tài sản mang tính kinh tế vĩ mô và quan trọng từ góc nhìn địa chính trị. Nó thường bị ảnh hưởng bởi chiến tranh, chính sách tiền tệ và sức khỏe của nền kinh tế. Khí đốt thì thường bị ảnh hưởng nhiều bởi những biến động trong một khu vực nhất định vì vận chuyển khí đốt thường phức tạp hơn là vận chuyển dầu. Nhưng với chuỗi cung ứng hiện tại, khí đốt cũng bắt đầu bị ảnh hưởng bởi các sự kiện toàn cầu.
Raz Segal, an Israeli expert in modern genocide, calls Israel’s assault on Gaza a textbook case of “intent to commit genocide” and its rationalization of its violence a “shameful use” of the lessons of the Holocaust. Israeli state exceptionalism and comparisons of its Palestinians victims to “Nazis” are used to “justify, rationalize, deny, distort, disavow mass violence against Palestinians,” says Segal.
Giữa tháng 10/2023 Cơ quan An ninh điều tra – Công an tỉnh Kiên Giang đã ra Quyết định khởi tố bị can, thực hiện Lệnh bắt tạm giam đối với Trần Văn Luyến (sinh năm 1981 – ngụ phường Vĩnh Bảo, TP. Rạch Giá) và Phạm Chí Dũng (sinh năm 1965, ngụ xã Mỹ Lâm, huyện Hòn Đất, tỉnh Kiên Giang) về tội “Tổ chức cho người khác xuất cảnh trái phép” theo khoản 3 Điều 348 Bộ luật Hình sự.
Trần Văn Luyến (bên trái) bị bắt giữ và khởi tố
Theo cơ quan Công an, để điều tra xử lý vụ việc nêu trên, Cục Cảnh sát hình sự- Bộ Công an đã cử một tổ công tác gồm những cán bộ, điều tra viên nhiều kinh nghiệm phối hợp với Công an tỉnh Kiên Giang tổ chức điều tra. Ban chuyên án xác định việc các đối tượng đưa tàu, thuyền viên ra vùng biển nước ngoài đánh bắt hải sản có dấu hiệu hành vi “Tổ chức, môi giới cho người khác xuất cảnh trái phép”.
VNE – By Thanh Hang December 5, 2023 | 03:30 pm GMT+7
Still images from a video posted on social media show a teacher being cornered and picked at by her students at Van Phu Secondary School in Tuyen Quang Province in November 2023.
A group of seventh graders at a school in northern Vietnam locked their classroom to corner a music teacher, who they threw objects at while screaming.
The incident took place last week at Van Phu Secondary School in Tuyen Quang Province and was videotaped.
VNE – By Tat Dat December 5, 2023 | 08:58 am GMT+7
Workers at a garment and textile factory in Tan Do Industrial Park in the southern province of Long An. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran
Garmex Saigon Corporation, which recently laid off 1,945 workers, told the Ho Chi Minh Securities Exchange its losses have been increasing in direct proportion to output.
“We have reorganized our setup, cut our payroll, and temporarily ceased production to minimize losses,” CEO Nguyen Minh Hang said.
After the layoffs this year, the firm had only 37 employees left at the end of the third quarter.
Whether they return home or stay abroad, Vietnamese graduates of foreign schools often have difficulty finding their place.
A group of Vietnamese students take photos with their friends and teachers at a university in Australia. Photo by Dinh Phuong
For several months since she graduated with a marketing degree from a university in Canada, Thanh Thao, 26, has not been able to find a job on her chosen career path.
Thao said international students like her regularly learn the hard way that recruiters abroad tend to favor local employment candidates.
“It’s quite hard to find a job. And I could not find satisfying work that matches my qualifications.”
‘I would think that you would notice that you’re dragging an anchor behind you for hundreds of kilometers,’ says minister.
Finland and Estonia have since been in touch with Chinese authorities seeking their cooperation with the investigation | Heikki Saukkomaa/Lehtikuva/AFP via Getty Images
BRUSSELS — As the investigation into damage to Baltic Sea critical infrastructure continues, Finland’s Minister of European Affairs Anders Adlercreutz said it’s hard to believe sabotage to the undersea gas pipeline was accidental — or that it happened without Beijing’s knowledge.
“I’m not the sea captain. But I would think that you would notice that you’re dragging an anchor behind you for hundreds of kilometers,” Adlercreutz said in an interview Thursday in Brussels. “I think everything indicates that it was intentional. But of course, so far, nobody has admitted to it.”
Finland and Estonia have been investigating the rupture of the Balticconnector, a 77-kilometer-long gas pipeline that connects the two NATO members beneath the Baltic Sea. The pipeline was damaged around October 7-8, along with two telecoms cables connecting Estonia to Finland and Sweden.
An investigation by Finnish authorities identified as the main suspect Chinese container ship Newnew Polar Bear, which is believed to have dragged its anchor across the Baltic Sea seabed, cutting through the cables and gas lines. The anchor — which weighs 6,000 kilograms — was retrieved a few meters from the site of the damage.
Finland and Estonia have since been in touch with Chinese authorities seeking their cooperation with the investigation. The Baltic Times reported earlier this week that the two European countries have asked to send representatives to Beijing to investigate the vessel, which is currently en route to a Chinese port.
Adlercreutz said he can’t speculate on whether the action was approved by the Chinese government. But the vessel’s imminent return to China raises some questions, he said.
“If I as a captain would have done something that the Chinese government wouldn’t approve of, then I would be concerned about returning with my boat to China,” he said.
Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur expressed similar sentiment in an interview with Swedish public broadcaster SVT last month, saying the captain of the ship surely “understood that there was something wrong” after dragging an anchor for over 180 kilometers.
Coming more than a year after the Nord Stream gas pipelines connecting Russia to Germany were damaged by several explosions, the Balticconnector incident raises more concerns over the safety of undersea critical infrastructure and possible measures to protect them from external sabotage. No culprit has been identified for the Nord Stream attack despite an international investigation.
Adlercreutz said there should be “more protection” of these types of infrastructure, for example in terms of better surveillance of suspicious ships. But there are limitations to what can be done, he added.
Mourners carry the coffins of the two Al-Mayadeen TV journalists killed November 21 by an Israeli strike in Lebanon. The funeral procession is shown outside the station’s Beirut headquarters on November 22. (Photo: AP/Bilal Hussein)
Editor’s note: The list below is CPJ’s most complete account of journalist deaths in the war. Our database will not reflect many of these casualties until we have fully investigated the circumstances surrounding them. For more information, read our FAQ.
The Israel-Gaza war has taken a severe toll on journalists since Hamas launched its unprecedented attack against Israel on October 7 and Israel declared war on the militant Palestinian group, launching strikes on the blockaded Gaza Strip.
CPJ is investigating all reports of journalists and media workers killed, injured, or missing in the war, which has led to the deadliest month for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992.
As of December 4, CPJ’s preliminary investigations showed at least 63 journalists and media workers were among the more than 16,000 killed since the war began on October 7—with more than 15,500 Palestinian deathsin Gaza and the West Bank and 1,200 deaths in Israel. The deadliest day of the war for journalist deaths was its first day, October 7, with six journalists killed; the second-deadliest day occurred on November 18, with five killed.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told Reuters and Agence France Press news agencies that it could not guarantee the safety of their journalists operating in the Gaza Strip, after they had sought assurances that their journalists would not be targeted by Israeli strikes, Reuters reported on October 27.
Journalists in Gaza face particularly high risks as they try to cover the conflict during the Israeli ground assault, including devastating Israeli airstrikes, disrupted communications, supply shortages and extensive power outages.
theguardian.com Saltwater damage could see precious historical Buddhist artworks dating back hundreds of years slowly fade entirely from view
by Rebecca Ratcliffe and Navaon Siradapuvadol in NonthaburiWed 29 Nov 2023 02.37 GMT
If you look closely, you can just about see the characters and scenes that once stretched across the walls of Wat Prasat, a temple in Nonthaburi. There’s the dark shape of an elephant’s head, a figure slouching on its back; outlines of swords pointing upwards to the centre of the display; patches of curved roofs.
“The mural used to be more vivid,” says Phra Maha Natee, the abbot of Wat Prasat. Even when he was a novice monk, 20 years ago, the image – which shows one of the jātakas stories that recall the Buddha’s past lives – was easier to understand. “The colour was brighter and sharper,” he says.
The murals offer a glimpse into a past era – a time of prosperity but also social upheaval, when a more empowered nobility had emerged, as did a desire, say historians, for Buddhism to play a more stronger role in reinforcing discipline in society. They date back to the mid or later years of the Ayutthaya kingdom in Siam, which existed from 1351 to 1767, in what is now Thailand and are a treasured early example of the art form.
Two Phu Quoc Ridgebacks at a conservation center in Kien Giang Province in southern Vietnam. Photo by VnExpress/Ngoc TaiLe Quoc Tuan, 59, has spent nearly 30 years looking for and protecting the Phu Quoc Ridgeback, and now runs a conservation center with over 400 of the dogs.
Ever since he was young, Tuan, who lives in Kien Giang Province in the Mekong Delta, has been going into the buffer zone of the U Minh forest to look for plants and animals and support his family. One day, when he got lost in the forest, he climbed on top of a tree to sleep, and his dog refused to leave his side.
Since then he has been dreaming about finding rare dog species to conserve them.
Once after completing college he went on a business trip to Phu Quoc and learned about the Phu Quoc Ridgeback and its unique characteristics like webbed feet, dorsal ridges and great swimming expertise, and decided to protect this species.
In 1999 he bought 2,000 m2 of land in Phu Quoc for VND200 million (US$8,270) to set up a farm and looked for purebred puppies.
CVD 