Me? Me? Me?... Yeah yeah yeah amigo... What can me say about me-self?... me-self...me-self... Ole ole ole... me me me... I'm a young banana shoot... My dad is Banana Pa... My mom is Banana Ma... I am happy happy happy... I run around... oops... I can't run... I sing aloud... all day long... I sing in the rain... I sing in the shine... I sing day and night... I sing all the time...
I watch the butterflies and the bees... and the cranes and the geese...
Aha aha aha... here we go again... this little swallow circling on my head... the little swallow on my head... is about to poop on me... Hey, little fella, don't cha know where to unload ya poopa?... But, that's alright... I can swallow my pride to befriend a swallow... Yup yup yup... swallow my pride to befriend a swallow...
Hiện nay, tại các chung cư cao tầng, có nhiều trường hợp những người sinh sống tại các khu chung cư bị mắc kẹt khi xảy ra cháy hoặc do trẻ nhỏ ham chơi mà bị mắc kẹt ngoài ban công, lô gia dẫn đến bị thương tích hoặc tử vong. Những tai nạn đó phần lớn đều do thiếu kỹ năng xử lý, theo đó, Bộ Công an hướng dẫn người dân cách xử lý khi bị mắc kẹt ở các tòa nhà cao tầng để di chuyển đến nơi an toàn, như sau:
Cable-cutting is a sabotage and harassment tactic in which a ship will attempt to sever the cable to another ship’s trailing equipment, such as trawler lines or towed array sonars.
Gaute Friis | JULY 26, 2023
Chinese fisherman using a boat hook pole in an attempt to snag the cable connecting U.S ocean surveillance ship USNS Impeccable’s towed sonar array, March 8, 2009. (Source: USN)
Gaute Friis, analyst
This tactic is an act of sabotage which aim to cut the cables to a ship’s trailing equipment, such as trawler lines or towed array sonars.
Cable-cutting is most frequently used against commercial research vessels conducting survey operations in disputed maritime zones, such as within China’s huge “nine-dash line” claim in the South China Sea.
A fire that broke out before midnight on September 12, 2023 in a Hanoi residential building took the lives of at least 56 people and injured dozens of others, according to authorities. The death toll made the fire Vietnam’s deadliest in 20 years.
Dazzlers are non-lethal laser weapons meant to cause temporary blindness in humans or confound sensors. Recently employed against the Philippine Coast Guard, laser dazzlers have also been employed against U.S. and Australian military helicopters and surveillance planes operating in the region.
Gaute Friis | SEPTEMBER 12, 2023
CCG 5205 firing laser at Philippine Coast Guard cutter BRP Malapascua, February 6, 2023 (Source: Philippine Coast Guard)
Gaute Friis Analyst
Dazzlers are an emerging category of non-lethal but potentially dangerous weapons and a relatively recent addition to China’s gray zone arsenal. They can be used as a harassment tool; for destroying sensitive electro-optical sensors as an electronic warfare component; or as a weapon of psychological warfare.
Dazzlers are not themselves considered illegal. The U.S. military — which refers to them as “non-lethal optical distractors” — considers them an essential capability to “minimize fatalities, protect the innocent and limit collateral damage” when the alternative is lethal force, with the caveat that:
“Prior to fielding, all previously and currently fielded lasers or distracter devices have undergone legal reviews to ensure compliance with obligations assumed by the U.S. under applicable treaties, customary international law, and the law of armed conflict.”
China has used dazzlers to temporarily blind the crew of other countries’ ships. Because dazzlers have both physical and psychological effects their use against vessels at sea is hazardous, eroding their crews’ ability to navigate and react to maritime contingencies.
As detailed in our “going dark” playbook entry, a Chinese Coast Guard cutter used a dazzler to harass a Philippine resupply escort mission on February 6th, 2023.
The Philippine Coast Guard later clarified that was the second time this had occurred during a resupply mission.
Note: Any use of lasers to permanently blind personnel is illegal under Protocol IV (Blinding Laser Weapons) under the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, which China joined in 1998.
While China’s use of maritime gray zone tactics is well known, few resources describe the actual tactics in detail. We’ve developed a publicly available systematic examination of these concrete tactics, which we will roll out for you in the coming weeks.
The latest “standard map” released by China on August 28, 2023, has sparked a rare display of unity among its neighbours against the expanded territorial claims by Beijing. Japan joined a list of countries, which also include India, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, that have lodged protests against territorial claims by China in disputed areas in the region. The release of the new map came ahead of the attendance of Chinese Premier Li Qiang at two key summits: Asean and the Group of 20.
Central Office of Communist Party of Vietnam Hanoi, Vietnam
6:33 P.M. ICT
GENERAL SECRETARY TRỌNG: (As interpreted.) Your Honorable Joe Biden, President of the United States of America, distinguished delegates, on behalf of the leaders of the party, state, and people of Vietnam, I’d like to extend my warmest welcome to his Honorable President Joe Biden, who has great affection for the country and people of Vietnam, and for his various contributions to the strengthening of the friendship and cooperation between Vietnam and the U.S. in different capacities.
His visit to Vietnam on this occasion is of great significance, for it coincides with the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Comprehensive Partnership between the two countries.
Tổng Bí thư Nguyễn Phú Trọng và Tổng thống Mỹ Joe Biden thông báo Việt Nam – Mỹ thống nhất nâng cấp quan hệ lên đối tác chiến lược toàn diện.
Chiều 10.9, tại trụ sở Văn phòng T.Ư Đảng, ngay sau khi kết thúc hội đàm, Tổng Bí thư Nguyễn Phú Trọng và Tổng thống Mỹ Joe Biden thông báo Việt Nam – Mỹ thống nhất nâng cấp quan hệ từ đối tác toàn diện lên đối tác chiến lược toàn diện – cấp cao nhất trong quan hệ ngoại giao nhà nước.
A vital regional river can be a route for U.S. diplomacy.
By Brian Eyler, the director of the Stimson Center’s Southeast Asia Program.
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SEPTEMBER 8, 2023, 4:38 PM
On Sept. 10, Joe Biden pays his first visit to Vietnam as U.S. president, where he is expected to ink a deal to elevate the U.S.-Vietnam relationship from “comprehensive” to “comprehensive strategic”—the highest level of Vietnam’s diplomatic hierarchy. Biden is forgoing this week’s twin summits in Indonesia—the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit and the East Asia Summit—to show the value Washington places on key bilateral partners, such as Vietnam, in the Indo-Pacific.
Some critics worry that China and Russia, two of Vietnam’s other comprehensive strategic partners, could punish Vietnam for its choice to upgrade relations with the United States. But Vietnam can come out of this complicated diplomatic competition a clear winner by centering the U.S.-Vietnam collaboration on the Mekong—the mighty river that keeps both Vietnam and much of the rest of the world fed.
Hồ thủy lợi Biển Lạc ở tỉnh Bình Thuận được đầu tư xây dựng hàng chục tỷ đồng từ năm 2006 nhằm chào mừng Đại hội Đảng toàn quốc lần thứ 10 rồi bỏ hoang từ đó đến nay.
Từ trên cao nhìn xuống, nhiều người sẽ nghĩ đây là những đầm nuôi tôm hay là thửa ruộng trên một cánh đồng nào đó ở đồng bằng. Nhưng thực chất đó là hồ thủy lợi Biển Lạc. Hồ thủy lợi Biển Lạc diện tích hơn 1000 hecta nằm trên địa bàn 2 huyện miền núi Tánh Linh và Đức Linh của tỉnh Bình Thuận. Những ô nhỏ là ao, hồ, di chứng do hoạt động khai thác khoáng sản vô tội vạ hàng chục năm qua tạo nên.
Trong lòng hồ, hàng chục con tàu khai thác cát neo đậu. Những núi đất sét, cát hàng nghìn m3 tập kết quanh lòng hồ khiến người ta khi nhìn vào không biết đây là một hồ thủy lợi.
Lòng hồ bị đào bới nham nhở, chia tách thành từng ô thửa nhỏ. Mặc sức ai mạnh thì bao chiếm, nơi khai thác khoáng sản, chỗ trồng lúa, nơi trồng sen, nuôi cá…
Cùng tìm hiểu vấn đề này mới quý vị và các bạn theo dõi nội dung chương trình!
Without a country to call their own, millions of people experience discrimination and persecution.
Last Updated January 10, 2023
Rohingya walk near the no man’s land area between Bangladesh and Myanmar in the Palongkhali area next to Ukhia on October 19, 2017. Source: MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP via Getty ImagesSHARE
Every two years, athletes from around the world gather to compete in the Olympic Games.
Competitions commence with host nations organizing spectacular opening ceremonies full of pageantry and, at times, peculiarities. At the 1992 Barcelona, Spain, opening ceremony, an archer lit the Olympic torch with a flaming arrow. At the 2012 London opening ceremony, organizers screened a film showing James Bond and Queen Elizabeth II, with stunt doubles later parachuting into the stadium. And in Sochi, Russia, in 2014, the Russian Police Choir kicked off the winter games with a rendition of Daft Punk’s disco-pop hit “Get Lucky.”
Author: Chih-Ling Liu Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Lancaster University
Disclosure statement: Chih-Ling Liu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Partners:
Lancaster University provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation UK.
China has a gender crisis. The country has a huge surplus of men – around 722 million compared to 690 million women in 2022. This is largely because of sex-selective abortions linked to China’s one-child policy, which ended in 2015.
Though popular belief is that the policy was strictly enforced, many Chinese couples managed to have more than one child by paying fines, accepting benefit deprivations, or proclaiming their membership of a minority ethnic group. Often, they chose to do so because their first child was a girl. The one-child policy lasted three and a half decades, replaced by the two-child policy in 2016 and the three-child policy in 2021. But even today, the belief that boys have more value than girls persists.