Conversations on Vietnam Development
May 24, 2025 #Meth#CNAInsider#DrugAddiction
An estimated 39.5 million people globally suffer from drug-use disorders — with a growing number hooked on synthetic drugs that are cheaper, more accessible, and far more lethal. We investigate the impacts of this synthetic curse, beginning in Karachi, where millions of young Pakistanis are caught in a deadly spiral of addiction and crime.
HOÀNG THI TTO – Các nhà khoa học cho biết không phải ngẫu nhiên mà sinh vật biển, đặc biệt là rùa, lại ăn rác thải nhựa…
DW.com Holly Young 05/20/2025May 20, 2025
The recent power outage in Spain and Portugal has raised questions about the stability of solar and wind power. It also reignited the debate around the phasing out of nuclear energy.
At 12:33 p.m. on April 28, swathes of Spain and parts of Portugal were plunged into darkness: trains were stranded, phone and internet coverage faltered, and ATMs stopped working.
The electricity blackout across the Iberian Peninsula is believed to be one of the worst in Europe’s history.
While most power was restored by the next morning, weeks later the investigation into the blackout is ongoing.
Last week, Spain’s energy minister Sara Aagesen said so far it was clear an abrupt loss of power at a substation in Granada, followed by failures in Badajoz and Seville, led to a loss of 2.2 gigawatts of electricity, but that the precise cause was unknown.
In the wait for answers, some have pointed the finger at Spain’s high reliance on renewables and reignited debates over plans to phase out nuclear power by 2035.
Tiếp tục đọc “What the blackout in Spain, Portugal says about renewables”
baotintuc.vn Thứ Ba, 13/05/2025 13:10 |
Theo ghi nhận của phóng viên báo Tin tức và Dân tộc, tại nhiều tuyến đường như Lê Lợi, Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai (Quận 1); Hồng Bàng, Thuận Kiều (Quận 5); Nguyễn Hữu Thọ (Quận 7); Trường Chinh (Quận Tân Bình); Lê Trọng Tấn (Quận Tân Phú) và khu vực huyện Nhà Bè… nhiều bảng đèn nhà chờ xe buýt hư hỏng, rỉ sét, bị vẽ bậy và bảng thông tin điện tử không còn hoạt động. Tình trạng này đặc biệt phổ biến trước các trường học, bệnh viện – nơi có lượng lớn người dân cần di chuyển bằng xe buýt.
Tiếp tục đọc “TP Hồ Chí Minh: Nhiều nhà chờ xe buýt xuống cấp, bảng thông tin hư hỏng nặng”
In “Freedom: Memoirs 1954-2021” (published by St. Martin’s Press), former German Chancellor Angela Merkel writes about two lives: her early years growing up under a Communist-controlled police state in East Germany, and her years as leader of a nation reunited following the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Read an excerpt below
Prologue
This book tells a story that will not happen again, because the state I lived in for thirty-five years ceased to exist in 1990. If it had been offered to a publishing house as a work of fiction, it would have been turned down, someone said to me early in 2022, a few weeks after I stepped down from the office of federal chancellor. He was familiar with such issues, and was glad that I had decided to write this book, precisely because of its story. A story that is as unlikely as it is real. It became clear to me: telling this story, drawing out its lines, finding the thread running through it, identifying leitmotifs, could also be important for the future.
For a long time I couldn’t imagine writing such a book. That first changed in 2015, at least a little. Back then, in the night between September 4 and 5, I had decided not to turn away the refugees coming from Hungary at the German-Austrian border. I experienced that decision, and above all its consequences, as a caesura in my chancellorship. There was a before and an after. That was when I undertook to describe, one day when I was no longer chancellor, the sequence of events, the reasons for my decision, my understanding of Europe and globalization bound up with it, in a form that only a book would make possible. I didn’t want to leave the further description and interpretation just to other people.
Tiếp tục đọc “Book excerpt: “Freedom: Memoirs 1954-2021” by Angela Merkel”
“Internal displacement refers to the forced movement of people within the country they live in.”
– 83.4 million people were living in internal displacement at the end of 2024, more than twice as many as only six years ago (2018).
– 90 per cent had fled conflict and violence. In Sudan, conflict led to 11.6 million internally displaced people (IDPs), the most ever for one country. Nearly the entire population of the Gaza Strip remained displaced at the end of the year.
– Disasters triggered nearly twice as many movements in 2024 as the annual average over the past decade. The 11 million disaster displacements in the United States were the most ever recorded for a single country.
GENEVA, Switzerland – The number of internally displaced people (IDPs) reached 83.4 million at the end of 2024, the highest figure ever recorded, according to the Global Report on Internal Displacement 2025 published today by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). This is equivalent to the population of Germany, and more than double the number from just six years ago.
“Internal displacement is where conflict, poverty and climate collide, hitting the most vulnerable the hardest,” said Alexandra Bilak, IDMC director. “These latest numbers prove that internal displacement is not just a humanitarian crisis; it’s a clear development and political challenge that requires far more attention than it currently receives.”
Tiếp tục đọc “Number of internally displaced people tops 80 million for first time”
Bộ Nông nghiệp và Môi trường vừa chính thức kiến nghị về áp dụng lộ trình kiểm định khí thải xe máy.
Bộ Nông nghiệp và Môi trường trình dự thảo Quyết định của Thủ tướng Chính phủ quy định lộ trình áp dụng quy chuẩn kỹ thuật quốc gia về khí thải xe mô tô, xe gắn máy 9 (xe máy) lưu hành ở Việt Nam.
Thời điểm bắt đầu thực hiện kiểm định khí thải xe máy đang lưu hành như sau:
Từ 1 tháng 1 năm 2027 đối với xe máy lưu hành trên địa bàn 2 thành phố trực thuộc Trung ương, gồm thành phố Hà Nội và Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh.
Từ 1 tháng 1 năm 2028 đối với xe máy lưu hành trên địa bàn 4 thành phố trực thuộc Trung ương còn lại, gồm thành phố Hải Phòng, thành phố Đà Nẵng, thành phố Cần Thơ và thành phố Huế.
Từ 1 tháng 1 năm 2030 đối với xe máy lưu hành trên địa bàn các tỉnh, thành phố còn lại. Tùy theo tình hình thực tế, các tỉnh, thành phố này có thể quy định áp dụng thời hạn sớm hơn.
Xe mô tô sản xuất trước năm 2008, áp dụng Mức 1 – Giới hạn lớn nhất cho phép của khí thải quy định tại Quy chuẩn kỹ thuật môi trường quốc gia về khí thải xe mô tô, xe gắn máy lưu hành ở Việt Nam.
Xe mô tô sản xuất từ năm 2008 đến năm 2016, áp dụng Mức 2 – Giới hạn lớn nhất cho phép của khí thải quy định tại Quy chuẩn kỹ thuật môi trường quốc gia về khí thải xe mô tô, xe gắn máy lưu hành ở Việt Nam.
Tiếp tục đọc “Chính thức đề xuất kiểm định khí thải xe máy từ năm 2027 ở Hà Nội và TPHCM”
The Caspian Report: How this Chinese canal traps Southeast Asia
NHK WORLD-JAPAN: Consequences of the Canal: Cambodia – Asia Insight
© WFP/Lena von Zabern
Hundreds of thousands of Sudanese have sought refuge in Chad due to the ongoing conflict and resulting food shortages.
In July 2024, famine was detected in the Sudan’s Zamzam IDP camp. In the following months, the official alert expanded to other camps in Darfur and Western Nuba Mountains. From December until now, famine has been confirmed in five other areas of the war-torn country. A further 17 areas are at risk.
It is the first time since 2017 that a famine has been declared anywhere on Earth.
In the 20 months since the war between rival militaries erupted, 13 million Sudanese have been forcibly displaced and over 30.4 million are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance, according to UN estimates.
Tiếp tục đọc “Another year, another rise in food insecurity – including famine”
Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Nick Ut, center, flanked by Kim Phuc, left, holds the” Napalm Girl”, his Pulitzer Prize winning photo as they wait to meet with Pope Francis during the weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square at The Vatican, May 11, 2022. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, file)
South Vietnamese forces follow after terrified children, including 9-year-old Kim Phuc, center, as they run down Route 1 near Trang Bang after an aerial napalm attack on suspected on Viet Cong hiding places, June 8, 1972. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File) Tiếp tục đọc “Photo group says it has ‘suspended attribution’ of historic Vietnam picture because of doubts”
Nhân 50 năm ngày cuộc chiến kết thúc, BBC News Tiếng Việt giới thiệu lại loạt phóng sự của các phóng viên BBC đã có mặt tại Việt Nam và tường thuật thời khắc lịch sử này.
Saigoneer.com Wednesday, 01 March 2023. Written by Hiếu Y. Graphic by Mai Khanh
The intricate histories and niche experiences that we love about Saigon can make it difficult to explore. If you enjoy reading about Saigoneer’s favorite destinations, Urbanist Travel can help create a tailor-made itinerary based on your requests.
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Read this article in Vietnamese at Sài·gòn·eer.From the very first discussions in 1868 regarding a new marketplace for Saigon, it was not until 1914, that Bến Thành Market became a reality. The birth of the market was like a dream come true, one that came together after nearly five decades of debate in search of solutions for the city’s infrastructure woes.
In her research conducted on the vendors of Bến Thành, anthropologist Ann Marie Leshkowich recounts the lengthy discussions of then Saigon’s colonial administration regarding the establishment of a new commercial center, one that, according to them, must become a place “worthy” of the metropolis they were helping to create.
In 1868, the French had only spent about one decade trying to install a colonial network in Vietnam. Members of the Municipal Council (Conseil Municipal) had the thought of building a new marketplace from metal, replacing traditional thatch markets. In 1869, a budget of 110.000 francs was greenlit, but by 1870, the estimated expenditure had ballooned threefold, causing them to reconsider the planned building methods and amount of materials.
Tiếp tục đọc “From Swampland to Heartland: The History of Bến Thành Market”
Friday, 25 April 2025. Written by Minh Ha and Lue Palmer. Photos by Minh Ha. Top graphic by Ngàn Mai.
AAANguyễn Văn Quại, 63, walked slowly on the muddy dirt path in his yard, his hands clasped behind his back. He stopped beside a tree split in half, its branches dipping into the stagnant water of a narrow moat, and gestured towards the rest of his leafless crop — their trunks yellow, their bark cracked and brittle.
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.
Nguyễn Văn Quại points to his durian trees in Ngũ Hiệp.
For decades, Quại has called Ngũ Hiệp home. The small island on the Mekong River in Tiền Giang Province is less than two hours inland from the sea. His family first farmed rice but turned to durian, a more lucrative crop, in the early 1990s. Now, more than 200 trees stand in his yard, their thorny fruit bringing in hundreds of millions of VND.
Tiếp tục đọc “As Saltwater Intrudes More of Mekong Delta, Durian Farmers Struggle to Stay Afloat”
laotiantime.com By Kheuakham Chanlivong May 8, 2025
Southern China is facing a surge in agricultural pests migrating from neighboring Southeast Asian countries, including Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia. This pest migration, driven by climate-related factors, poses a growing threat to regional food security.
A recent study highlights the role of extreme weather in this phenomenon. Researchers found that the ongoing El Niño event, marked by unusually warm ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific, is contributing to hotter and more humid conditions, which are ideal for pest breeding.
In addition to favorable breeding conditions, strong seasonal winds are carrying these pests into Southern China, facilitating their rapid spread and increasing the risk of crop damage.
While wind is a major factor in their movement, scientists note that insect migration is also influenced by environmental stressors such as extreme heat, drought, and the presence of predators.
Insects migrate in response to immediate environmental cues, the study explains. They may move to escape harsh conditions, find food, avoid overcrowding, or locate new habitats suitable for reproduction.
The problem isn’t confined to China. In Laos, climate change is also taking a toll. The country has experienced record-breaking heatwaves, reaching 43.2 degrees Celsius in 2024, along with persistent water shortages and weakened agricultural infrastructure.
These factors have led to crop failures, livestock losses, and growing food insecurity. An estimated 82 percent of households lack access to safe water, compounding the crisis for rural communities.
Globally, climate change is expected to worsen food insecurity. Rising temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns are already making it more difficult to grow crops in traditional farming regions.
By 2100, nearly 30 percent of the world’s food crops may be exposed to climate conditions they have never encountered before. While much of the focus is on staple crops like rice and wheat, many other plants grown in equatorial regions could also suffer under the changing climate.
CVD 