Conversations on Vietnam Development
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A man draws water from a solar-powered water ATM in New Delhi’s Savda Ghevra slum settlement. Thanks to these machines, which allow users to withdraw water with a rechargeable card, waterborne diseases have become less frequent here. Credit: Ranjit Devraj/IPS
Ehrin Macksey / Project Bly
The Red River valley in Vietnam has a long and rich artisanal history, and this was one of the reasons why Emperor Lý Thái Tổ picked Hanoi as the imperial capital in 1010. Hundreds of specialized craft villages, like Ha Thai surround Hanoi. After it was declared the capital, craftsmen from these villages began to establish workshops in what is now known as the Old Quarter. Today, each street in the Old Quarter is still known for a specific craft and linked to the village where it it originated.
Tiếp tục đọc “Discovering the Ancient Craft Villages of Vietnam”
International statistical resources
North Korean defectors speak out against atrocities
What I learned as a prisoner in North Korea
Mặc dù chưa có điện lưới quốc gia, nhưng người dân hai ấp Vồ Bà và ấp Tà Lọt của xã An Hảo, huyện Tịnh Biên, tỉnh An Giang vẫn thoải mái sử dụng điện vì 100% hộ gia đình ở đây đều lắp pin năng lượng mặt trời.
Có điện tăng thêm thu nhập
Xã An Hảo, huyện Tịnh Biên, An Giang là một vùng núi cao cheo leo. 52% người dân trong xã là người dân tộc Khơ me. Thời gian gần đây, những ngôi nhà đã có đèn sáng vào buổi tối. Nhiều người dân đã có điện để xem tivi và làm các hoạt động khác. Chị Tím – huyện Tịnh Biên, tỉnh An Giang chia sẻ, từ khi có điện bằng năng lượng mặt trời, buổi tối chị có thể làm thêm đũa để bán.
Tiếp tục đọc “Xã nghèo có 100% hộ dân sử dụng năng lượng mặt trời”
A new form of misinformation is poised to spread through online communities as the 2018 midterm election campaigns heat up. Called “deepfakes” after the pseudonymous online account that popularized the technique – which may have chosen its name because the process uses a technical method called “deep learning” – these fake videos look very realistic.
So far, people have used deepfake videos in pornography and satire to make it appear that famous people are doing things they wouldn’t normally. But it’s almost certain deepfakes will appear during the campaign season, purporting to depict candidates saying things or going places the real candidate wouldn’t. Tiếp tục đọc “Detecting ‘deepfake’ videos in the blink of an eye”
LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Nearly half the world’s schools lack clean drinking water, toilets and handwashing facilities, putting millions of children at risk of disease, experts warned on Monday.
Almost 900 million children have to contend with a lack of basic hygiene facilities during their education, putting their health at risk and meaning some have to miss school.
“You can’t have a quality learning environment without these basics,” said Dr Rick Johnston of the World Health Organization, a lead researcher on the project.
“Children may not come to school at all if there’s no toilets … Then, when they are at school, they are not going to at their very best if they not able to use a decent toilet or if they are not properly hydrated.”
World leaders have signed up to global pledges to provide safe water and hygiene facilities for all and ensure every child gets a comprehensive education by 2030 under the UN’s sustainable development goals.
Mathy Stanislaus –
If you need motivation to skip the straw at lunch today, consider this: Scientists found that even Arctic sea ice—far removed from most major metropolitan areas—is no longer plastic-free. According to Dr. Jeremy Wilkinson of the British Antarctic Survey, “this suggests that microplastics are now ubiquitous within the surface waters of the world’s ocean. Nowhere is immune.” Tiếp tục đọc “Reasons the World Wastes So Much Stuff (and Why It’s Not Just the Consumer’s Fault)”
A look at the country’s ongoing protests against the government of President Maduro and the current political situation.
Tiếp tục đọc “Gold mining suspected as cause of Cambodian mass poisonings”
When they first drew up plans for a citywide tramway network in 1894, it seemed as though the Hanoi authorities would follow Saigon’s example by opting for steam traction. Yet, by the time government approval was forthcoming in 1899, advances in technology made it possible to construct the entire system as a state-of-the-art, one-meter gauge electric tramway.
In 1900, the Compagnie des Tramways Électriques d’Hanoï et Extensions (CTEH) was to set up to build the first two tramway lines, which were jointly inaugurated in November 1901.
Tiếp tục đọc “The History of Hanoi’s Lost Tramway Network”
As ever-increasing levels of traffic congestion and air pollution turn many of Ho Chi Minh City’s road junctions into choking bottlenecks, many hopes are pinned on plans to construct a new urban railway network in the southern metropolis. Yet urban railways are hardly a new concept in this city, which was once home to one of Southeast Asia’s largest urban tramway networks.
Indochina’s first mechanized rail-guided transportation system was the one-meter gauge Saigon–Cho Lon “high road” steam tramway, operated by the Societe Generale des Tramways a Vapeur de Cochinchine (SGTVC) and opened to the public on December 27, 1881.
Tiếp tục đọc “A Throwback to Saigon’s Original Tramway Network”
> BETEL CHEWING IN SOUTH-EAST ASIA
> Vietnamese people’s betel chewing custom and its existence in today’s modern society
The ubiquitous red-stained lips and blackened teeth associated with betel chewing are sported by one-tenth of the human race and one-fifth of the global population. The custom pervades Asia, yet it is hardly known outside of the continent. It has no sex barriers and embraces all ages and classes. Even though it has long-established roots in Asian culture, history of the custom relies mainly on oral tradition, probably because it is most prevalent amongst the agrarian population. Since the eleventh century, however, the royal use of betel in South-East Asia is described in written records which provide a rich source of details about the protocol of sharing a quid with a king and the use of betel in royal ceremonies.From the sixteenth century onwards, when Europeans reached the East, accounts include descriptions of the royal use of betel but the custom has consistently been misrepresented by early western travellers who wrote about it, either from their own observations or those of others.
The custom, so alien to foreigners, was viewed from a western perspective. Nearly all of them were repelled by it and called betel chewing an ‘…unhygienic, ugly, vile, and disgusting…’ habit. Even the name given to the custom by Europeans, ‘betel-nut chewing’ is a misnomer. The term is incorrect because an areca-nut, not a betel-nut, is chewed. Tiếp tục đọc “Betel and areca chewing custom in Asia – Tục lệ ăn trầu cau ở Châu Á”
CVD 