By Simon Jessop, Leigh Thomas and Tommy Wilkes June 23, 20237:05 PM GMT+2Updated 11 days ago
- Summary
Analysis: Paris climate summit gives fresh impetus to development bank reform
Tác giả: Đào Thu Hằng
I'm from Hanoi, Viet Nam.
I'm an author of Dot Chuoi Non (dotchuoinon.com/author/hangbelu/), a blog on Positive thinking, founded by Dr. Tran Dinh Hoanh, an attorney in Washington DC.
I'm a co-founder of Conversations on Vietnam Development - cvdvn.net, a virtual think tank. I am a co-founder of two companies in Viet Nam working on children education services. I advise companies on STEAM education, English language education for children and students in Vietnam.
I'm studying the Buddha's teaching and the teaching of Jesus. I practice mindful living including meditation.
I hold a PhD on Sustainable Energy Systems from University of Lisbon and Aalto University.
I graduated from Hanoi University of Technology on Environmental Engineering. I obtained a Master degree of the same major from Stanford University and Nanyang Technological University.
My English-language blog at: hangbelu.wordpress/.
I play table tennis as a hobby.
In Vietnam, IKEA-style wind turbines are powering off-grid communities
By Vuong Thi Hao Linh 3 July 2023 at 10:53
The 1% of Vietnamese households without electricity rely on decentralized, micro renewable systems for power supply. Are such innovations sustainable?
A mini wind turbine set up in the countryside of Vietnam. PHOTO: 1516 energy
LAI CHAU, VIETNAM – In November 2019, teachers and students at the Pa U elementary boarding school in Muong Te district in Vietnam’s Lai Chau province had electricity for the first time.
The power came from a rudimentary micro wind turbine system, which was sold and delivered to the school by a local startup named 1516 and assembled by the teachers.
The setup was simple: aluminum tubs affixed to a sturdy wooden rod, linked to a sun box that contains a charge controller, a solar battery and an inverter to generate electricity.
“The children were so excited to see those turbines in action,” recalled teacher Bui Thi Minh Khuyen. Despite a limited output that can only sustain the school’s energy needs until 10pm, the new power supply has made a vast difference.
Previously, the school only had light bulbs powered by cheap solar panels imported from China. Fans, radios, TVs, phones and laptops were luxuries the school could not power.
Tiếp tục đọc “In Vietnam, IKEA-style wind turbines are powering off-grid communities”
Can YOU spot a deepfake from a real person? World’s first ‘certified’ deepfake warns viewers not to trust everything they see online
- An AI studio has created the world’s first cryptographically signed deepfake
- Its tamper-evident seal declares that the video contains AI-generated content
- It is hoped this will eliminate confusion as to where online videos originate
By FIONA JACKSON FOR MAILONLINE UPDATED: 10:43 BST, 5 April 2023
For the last 30 years or so, children have been told not to believe everything they find online, but we may need to now extend this lesson to adults.
That’s because we are in the midst of a so-called ‘deepfake‘ phenomenon, where artificial intelligence (AI) technology is being used to manipulate videos and audio in a way that replicates real life.
To help set an example of transparency, the world’s first ‘certified’ deepfake video has been released by AI studio Revel.ai.
This appears to shows Nina Schick, a professional AI adviser, delivering a warning about how ‘the lines between real and fiction are becoming blurred’.
Of course, it is not really her, and the video has been cryptographically signed by digital authenticity company Truepic, declaring it contains AI-generated content.
The world’s first ‘certified’ deepfake video has been released by AI studio Revel.ai. This appears to shows Nina Schick, a professional AI adviser, delivering a warning about how ‘the lines between real and fiction are becoming blurred’.
Revel AI claims to have released ‘world’s first certified deepfake’
Political Apologies Across Cultures
In the past decades, there has been a considerable rise in the number of apologies offered by states for injustices and human rights violations. But are such gestures a viable reconciliatory tool and do they have a universal potential to redress injustice or restore harmony? Or do people across cultures have different notions about what political apologies mean, what purpose they serve, or how they can or should be expressed?
In this five year project funded by the European Research Council, we bring scholarship on transitional justice together with cross-cultural psychology and anthropology to address these questions and to investigate how political apologies are viewed across cultures. The overall objective is to understand whether political apologies can be a universal reconciliation tool, or whether a tailored approach based on cultural variation is more appropriate.
The Value and Meaning of Political Apologies across Cultures
A central idea behind political apologies is that collectivities such as states can and should take responsibility or express remorse for past wrongdoings, and that this will help restore justice or promote harmony. But are such notions regarding collective moral responsibility and collective guilt shared across cultures? And is there a similar understanding about the function and meaning of political apologies across cultures? The aim of this subproject is to analyze whether key assumptions regarding political apologies hold across cultures, or whether this varies as a function of cross-cultural differences in key values (collectivism and individualism) and norms (face and honor). For this, we rely upon an interdisciplinary and mixed-methods approach using in-depth interviews, vignette studies, and surveys. Data have been collected using community samples (incl. people aged 18 and above from both urban and rural regions with mixed educational backgrounds) across 33 countries.
The Expression and Reception of Political Apologies across Cultures
Over the past years, there has been considerable debate about the role of political apologies in reconciliation processes. Although some have heralded such gestures as a meaningful step, others have described them as political rituals that may be appropriate in some (cultural) contexts but not in others, as people may have different notions about what they mean, what purpose they serve, or how they should be expressed. What has been lacking, however, is a systematic analysis of how political apologies are expressed and received across the world. In this subproject, we aim to fill this gap by mapping and comparing the political apologies that have been made across the world, and by analyzing whether there are universals in how they are valued, expressed, and interpreted or whether this varies as a function of cross-cultural differences in key values (collectivism and individualism) and norms (face and honor). For this, we rely on a broad range of methods, varying from content analyses and in-depth interviews to (experimental) surveys. Data have been collected using community samples (incl. people aged 18 and above from both urban and rural regions with mixed educational backgrounds) across 32 countries. The Political Apologies Database is available on this website under the Database page.
THE POLITICAL APOLOGIES DATABASE
CASE STUDIES: EL SALVADOR, REPUBLIC OF KOREA, AND THE UNITED KINGDOM
LARGE-SCALE MULTI-COUNTRY EXPERIMENTAL SURVEY
The Expression and Reception
How debt-for-climate swaps can help solve low-income countries’ crushing debt and environmental challenges at the same time
Published: October 31, 2022 12.34pm GMT
Debt-for-climate swaps allow countries to reduce their debt obligations in exchange for a commitment to finance domestic climate projects with the freed-up financial resources.
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley spoke passionately to the United Nations General Assembly in September about the mounting debt many developing countries are shouldering and its increasing impact on their ability to thrive.
The average debt for low- and middle-income countries, excluding China, reached 42% of their gross national income in 2020, up from 26% in 2011. For countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, the annual payments just to service that debt averaged 30% of their total exports.
At the same time, these countries are facing a “triple crisis of climate change, of pandemic and indeed now the conflict that is leading to the inflationary pressures that lead regrettably to people taking circumstances into their own hands,” Mottley said.
Rising borrowing costs coupled with high inflation and slow economic growth have left developing countries like hers in a difficult position when it comes to climate change. High debt payments mean countries have fewer resources for mitigating and adapting to climate change. Yet climate change is increasing their vulnerability, and that can raise their sovereign risk, increasing the cost of borrowing. Declining productive capacity and tax base can lead to higher debt risks. It’s a vicious cycle.
Bê bối thu gom đồ cũ để tái chế của H&M nói gì về thời trang bền vững?
Nguồn: USA Today
1. Chuyện gì đã xảy ra?
Ngày 19/6 vừa qua, một nhóm phóng viên của Thuỵ Điển đã phát hiện nhiều nghi vấn và đặt ra các câu hỏi về chiến dịch tái chế quần áo cũ của hãng thời trang H&M nước này.
Để thể hiện thiện chí phát triển bền vững với môi trường, H&M đã bắt đầu thực hiện chiến dịch quyên góp quần áo cũ và tái chế vào năm 2013 tại 40 thị trường trên toàn thế giới, trong đó có Việt Nam.
Những khách hàng đem quần áo cũ của hãng đến bỏ vào thùng sẽ nhận được phiếu giảm giá cho lần mua hàng sau. Tuy nhiên các cáo buộc đã chỉ ra, đa phần quần áo cũ bị bán lại sang Châu Phi hoặc những nước nghèo, để rồi phần lớn trong số đó bị vứt bỏ hoặc đốt.
Những lời nói dối hoa mỹ vừa bị phát giác của hãng này sẽ làm cho người tiêu dùng sẽ càng dè dặt hơn khi mua sắm quần áo, đồng thời mất niềm tin vào những cam kết bền vững của các hãng thời trang khác.
2. Bê bối của H&M đã được phát hiện từ đâu?
Cụ thể, nhóm phóng viên của báo Borsen đã giấu thiết bị theo dõi gắn chip GPS vào trong 10 sản phẩm còn dùng tốt và bỏ vào thùng thu gom tại các cửa hàng của H&M. Dữ liệu thu được cho thấy quần áo cũ được đưa tới 3 cơ sở phân loại tại Đức, sau đó 3 trong số 10 sản phẩm đã theo tàu biển tới Beni – quốc gia ở Tây Phi.
Bên cạnh đó, tờ Vasterbottens cũng cho hay từ đầu năm 2023 cho tới nay, 3 công ty nhận quần áo cũ của H&M đã xuất khẩu 5.711 kiện quần áo sang châu Phi, tương đương hơn một triệu sản phẩm may mặc. Tuy nhiên, một nửa trong số đó đã bị vứt bỏ vì nhiều lý do như rách hỏng, không phù hợp với khí hậu châu Phi, quá rộng, quá chật hoặc màu sắc, kiểu dáng không phù hợp với văn hóa địa phương.
Kết quả là thay vì bị bỏ đi ở châu Âu, số quần áo cũ của H&M đã di chuyển tổng cộng 60.000 km bằng tàu biển và xe tải, tương đương với một lần rưỡi vòng quanh thế giới, để bị vứt bỏ ở châu Phi.
Thêm nữa, lượng chất thải cho việc chuyên chở số sản phẩm này sang các nước châu Phi và nước nghèo, để rồi sau đó một nửa bị vứt bỏ bừa bãi ra môi trường mà không được xử lý khiến cho các “chiến dịch xanh” của H&M trở nên khó chấp nhận trong mắt công chúng.
3. Các chiến dịch vì môi trường của H&M từng gây tiếng vang thế nào?
UN chief: fossil fuels incompatible with human survival
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres calling out the deadly fossil fuel industry on climate catastrophe 15th June 2023
Seven years after the Panama Papers, the country sees a dramatic decrease in corporate registrations
A new study shows registrations going down and dissolutions going up in Panama
ICIJ by Carmen Molina Acosta May 23, 2023
Registrations of anonymous corporations in Panama have dropped by more than half in the last decade, according to a new investigation by Bloomberg Línea.
These corporations, known as sociedades anónimas, pay minimal to no tax and have served as the backbone of Panama’s offshore industry for decades.
A Bloomberg analysis based on data extracted from the Panamanian public registry shows a 63% decrease in registrations from 2012 to 2022, ICIJ member Mary Triny Zea reported. Similarly, the number of dissolutions of companies and private-interest funds per year has also increased; in 2013, there were seven. In 2022, that number had jumped to 5,575.
Bloomberg’s analysis also included data on Delaware and the British Virgin Islands – two other secrecy jurisdictions long considered competitors to Panama. While the British Virgin Islands also saw a decrease in company registrations over the last decade, registrations in Delaware have steadily risen over the past decade, with 62,510 new ones in 2021. The U.S. currently tops the Financial Secrecy Index, the Tax Justice Network’s ranking of jurisdictions most complicit in helping people hide their finances.
Panama Bar Association president Juan Carlos Araúz attributes this change in the country to its poor reputation after the ICIJ’s Panama Papers investigation. That investigation, based on 11.5 million leaked records from the now defunct Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, blew open a system of offshore banking that enabled tax avoidance, money laundering and corruption.
ICIJ accepts information about wrongdoing by corporate, government or public services around the world. We do our utmost to guarantee the confidentiality of our sources.
“Despite the efforts Panama has made to set a standard of control at a higher level than any other jurisdiction in the world, it’s still impacted by the country’s reputation,” Araúz told Bloomberg.
The same year ICIJ published the Panama Papers, 2016, Panama saw its highest number of anonymous corporation dissolutions in the last decade: 14,172. More recently, the Panamanian government has cracked down on the industry, suspending – and then dissolving – hundreds of thousands of companies, mostly for not paying fees.
Mayra Rodríguez, a Panama-based lawyer, also credited ICIJ’s investigation but argued the decline could be due to increased regulations implemented as a result. These regulations impose higher obligations on law firms, which Rodríguez says increases risk and potentially drives down demand.
Similarly, pressure from international entities such as the Financial Action Task Force may have also contributed to the change. Panama is currently on the FATF’s “greylist” – a list of jurisdictions that the organization monitors closely and which have agreed to resolve certain financial loopholes within a specific time frame.
FATF has tasked Panama with ensuring “adequate verification of up-to-date beneficial ownership information by obliged entities and timely access by competent authorities.” And the window of time to do so is closing soon. The FATF has issued a warning to Panama to complete the country’s action plan by June 2023, or face further censure by the organization and its members.
Topics: Latin America, Mossack Fonseca, Offshore finance, Offshore secrecy, Pandora Papers
EVN đang mua điện giá bao nhiêu?
EVN mua điện từ nhiều nguồn như thủy điện, nhiệt điện than, điện gió, điện mặt trời, tuabin khí, nhập khẩu. Trong đó, thủy điện đang có giá rẻ nhất, còn nhiệt điện than lại rất đắt do giá than cao.
Điện than đang đắt lên
Thông tin từ Tập đoàn Điện lực Việt Nam (EVN) cho thấy, giá mua điện bình quân các loại hình nguồn trong 3 tháng đầu năm 2023 là 1.844,9 đồng/kWh. Đây là thời điểm giá bán điện vẫn ở mức 1.864,44 đồng/kWh. Như vậy, giá mua điện của EVN gần ngang bằng với giá bán điện của tập đoàn này khi chưa được điều chỉnh tăng.
Nếu cộng thêm các chi phí khác như phân phối, truyền tải, dịch vụ phụ trợ, điều độ… thì giá điện mua vào sẽ cao hơn giá bán ra.
Biểu đồ dưới đây cho thấy nhiệt điện than có giá lên tới gần 2.000 đồng/kWh. Nguyên nhân là giá than vẫn duy trì ở mức cao.
Ngoài ra, EVN còn mua gián tiếp trên thị trường điện. Mức giá cụ thể như biểu đồ dưới đây cho thấy giá điện than cũng lên tới hơn 2.100 đồng/kWh.
Can Vietnam Replace China? No, But it was Never Supposed to Either
March 27, 2023Posted by Vietnam BriefingWritten by Pritesh SamuelReading Time:
An opinion piece in Bloomberg titled ‘Trying to Replace China’s Supply Chains? Don’t Bother?’, published March 1, 2023, claims that ‘Vietnamese factories were supposed to save globalization’ but that they cannot. This is incorrect and here’s why, writes Dezan Shira and Associates, Head of Business Intelligence, Pritesh Samuel.
Vietnam’s factories were never supposed to save globalization. They offer businesses an alternate location for manufacturing – in line with a China+1 strategy that myriad companies now pursue due to rising costs in China.
Globalization is shaped by several factors, including geopolitics, national interests of governments, regional trade and investment initiatives, public policymaking directives by key trade bodies, and so on. It cannot be trivialized into the assumption that a single country can save it.
China’s advanced supply chain and supplier network, driven by the government’s long-term national policies, make it a manufacturing giant. At present, no single country, including Vietnam, can fully replace China’s manufacturing capacity.
Tiếp tục đọc “Can Vietnam Replace China? No, But it was Never Supposed to Either”
3 Nuclear Superpowers, Rather Than 2, Usher In a New Strategic Era
China is on track to massively expand its nuclear arsenal, just as Russia suspends the last major arms control treaty. It augurs a new world in which Beijing, Moscow and Washington will likely be atomic peers.
By David E. Sanger, William J. Broad and Chris Buckley David E. Sanger and William J. Broad have covered nuclear weapons for The Times for four decades. Chris Buckley reports on China’s military from Taiwan.
- April 19, 2023
WASHINGTON — On the Chinese coast, just 135 miles from Taiwan, Beijing is preparing to start a new reactor the Pentagon sees as delivering fuel for a vast expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal, potentially making it an atomic peer of the United States and Russia. The reactor, known as a fast breeder, excels at making plutonium, a top fuel of atom bombs.
The nuclear material for the reactor is being supplied by Russia, whose Rosatom nuclear giant has in the past few months completed the delivery of 25 tons of highly enriched uranium to get production started. That deal means that Russia and China are now cooperating on a project that will aid their own nuclear modernizations and, by the Pentagon’s estimates, produce arsenals whose combined size could dwarf that of the United States.
This new reality is prompting a broad rethinking of American nuclear strategy that few anticipated a dozen years ago, when President Barack Obama envisioned a world that was inexorably moving toward eliminating all nuclear weapons. Instead, the United States is now facing questions about how to manage a three-way nuclear rivalry, which upends much of the deterrence strategy that has successfully avoided nuclear war.
China’s expansion, at a moment when Russia is deploying new types of arms and threatening to use battlefield nuclear weapons against Ukraine, is just the latest example of what American strategists see as a new, far more complex era compared to what the United States lived through during the Cold War.
China insists the breeder reactors on the coast will be purely for civilian purposes, and there is no evidence that China and Russia are working together on the weapons themselves, or a coordinated nuclear strategy to confront their common adversary.
But John F. Plumb, a senior Pentagon official, told Congress recently: “There’s no getting around the fact that breeder reactors are plutonium, and plutonium is for weapons.”
It may only be the beginning. In a little-noticed announcement when President Xi Jinping of China met President Vladimir V. Putin in Moscow last month, Rosatom and the China Atomic Energy Authority signed an agreement to extend their cooperation for years, if not decades.
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Is Australia quietly quitting the LNG business?
One of the major investors in Australian LNG, INPEX, has recently suggested that the country is quietly quitting the LNG business. This is in the context of increasing government regulation, including the possibility of gas intended for LNG projects being diverted into the domestic market. The federal government has responded by reassuring major buyers that Australia will continue to be a reliable LNG supplier.
However, there are a number of fundamental challenges for the government in living up to its promise. First, Australian gas reserves are not being replaced, with some important legacy gas fields reaching the end of their lives. This includes both LNG and domestic gas fields. This leads to the possibility that shortfalls in the domestic market will have to be met by diversions from LNG projects that also face gas supply challenges. Second, the LNG projects are significant CO2 emitters and many Australian gas fields, including those with the potential to backfill LNG, contain significant volumes of CO2. The new federal government has adopted more ambitious emissions reduction targets. Third, coal-fired generation is being closed faster than it can be replaced with renewables, increasing demand for gas in key periods such as winter and pushing up gas prices.
Tiếp tục đọc “Is Australia quietly quitting the LNG business?”
Ma túy “thế hệ mới” đã tấn công và xâm nhập học đường như thế nào?
Một học sinh cấp 3 tại Hà Nội sau khi được một huấn luyện viên thể hình (PT) cho một chiếc “bánh lười” – loại bánh trộn cần sa đã mang về… chia cho các bạn cùng sử dụng. Hậu quả, một nhóm học sinh đã bị ngộ độc ngay sau đó.
Thứ sáu, ngày 07/04/2023
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| “Nước vui”, “bùa lưỡi”, “bột dâu”, “bột xoài” với hình thức bắt mắt dễ dàng qua mặt lực lượng chức năng. (Ảnh: Cơ quan chức năng cung cấp) |
Đây chỉ là một trong những thí dụ không hề hiếm gặp cho thấy ma túy “thế hệ mới” đã và đang xâm nhập vào học đường hiện nay.
Nguy hiểm rình rập học đường
Theo thống kê của Bộ Công an vào tháng 6/2022, 60% số người sử dụng trái phép chất ma túy lần đầu ở độ tuổi từ 15-25 tuổi, trong đó nhiều người đang là học sinh, sinh viên. Người nghiện ma túy đang có xu hướng ngày càng trẻ hóa đặt ra không ít thách thức cho công tác phòng, chống ma túy cũng như cai nghiện.
Một điều tra viên lâu năm trong lĩnh vực phòng, chống tội phạm ma túy chia sẻ, bản thân anh đã từng chứng kiến nhiều vụ việc “dở khóc, dở cười”.
“Chúng tôi từng nhận được thông tin về việc một nữ học sinh cấp 3 được huấn luyện viên thể hình đưa cho một chiếc bánh lười (loại bánh tẩm cần sa-PV). Tuy nhiên, cô bé không sử dụng ngay mà mang về… chia cho các bạn cùng lớp ăn cùng. Kết quả, cả nhóm học sinh đều bị ngộ độc và phải đưa đi cấp cứu”, điều tra viên kể lại.
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| Ma túy tổng hợp cơ quan chức năng thu giữ. (Ảnh: Cơ quan công an cung cấp) |
Các đối tượng tội phạm về ma túy thường lợi dụng tâm sinh lý của học sinh, sinh viên nói riêng; giới trẻ nói chung để lôi kéo, dụ dỗ.
Tiếp tục đọc “Ma túy “thế hệ mới” đã tấn công và xâm nhập học đường như thế nào?”
Giải quyết bài toán thiếu điện bằng cách nào?
BRIBES FOR BIAS: CAN Artificial Intelligent – AI BE CORRUPTED?
The potential abuse of artificial intelligence for private gain has profound implications for our economic, political and social lives
Recently your social media feed may have been flooded with headlines on the advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) or even AI-generated images. Text-to-image algorithms such as Dall-E2 and Stable Diffusion are becoming hugely popular. ChatGPT, a chatbot developed by OpenAI, is now the world’s best-performing large language model, reaching 1 million users in its first week – a rate of growth much faster than Twitter, Facebook or TikTok.
As AI demonstrates its ability to craft poetry, write code and even pollinate crops by imitating bees, the governance community is waking up to the impact of artificial intelligence on the knotty problem of corruption. Policy institutes and academics have pointed to the potential use of AI to detect fraud and corruption, with some commentators heralding these technologies as the “next frontier in anti-corruption.”
Tiếp tục đọc “BRIBES FOR BIAS: CAN Artificial Intelligent – AI BE CORRUPTED?”
CVD 