North Korea’s secret money | 101 East
Al Jazeera English – 17-1-2019
One man was sent to a construction site in Kuwait.
Another went to work in a bank in Singapore.
Over the years, an estimated 150,000 North Korean workers have been sent abroad to raise money for the ruling Kim family. Continue reading North Korea’s secret money
Fernandez: Cuba is not ready to ‘sacrifice’ socialism
Al Jazeera English – 28-5-2022
Leaders of the Americas prepare to gather in Los Angeles on June 6 for their ninth regional summit. But Washington has announced Cuba will be excluded, arguing the Caribbean nation does not meet the required democratic standards.
United States-Cuban relations have been hostile ever since Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution. In 2016, President Obama visited the island, calling the occasion an “historic opportunity” to leave the Cold War behind.
But under President Trump, all opportunities were lost. And now, under President Biden, relations remain tense.
So, what is next for the two countries? Cuba’s deputy foreign minister, Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, talks to Al Jazeera.
Matt Haldan, SCMP, Global Impact 20 August 2022
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The chip war between Washington and Beijing has never felt so real as it has in the past few months, which has seen a deluge of news related to the semiconductor industry as the United States seeks to reshore fabrication and China vies for technological self-sufficiency.
Not since the early days of the chip shortage in 2020 has there been so much related news, although that now feels like a teaser for what was to come.
The biggest news for the US this month was President Joe Biden signing the Chips and Science Act. The new law will pump US$53 billion into the domestic chip industry, incentivising companies to build and expand fabrication capacity in the country. Continue reading Chipping away at China
VNE – By Luu Quy August 19, 2022 | 09:00 pm GMT+7
An incoming call with an unknown caller from outside of Vietnam. Photo by VnExpress/Luu QuyMinh Huy, a university student in Ho Chi Minh City, said he and his family have been terrorized by phone calls demanding repayment of loans he never took.
Someone has been calling Huy repeatedly over the past month, saying he owed money with high interest that will balloon to tens of millions of dong (VND10 million= $427.26) if it is not paid back quickly. When he denied ever using the service, the caller brought out a screenshot of an apparent contract with accurate personal information like ID card numbers, phone numbers and email addresses, even relevant information on Huy’s family members.
“This is information I’ve shared with multiple services online when I signed up for various accounts, but I have never submitted them to any credit service,” Huy said.
Continue reading Vietnam has major data leak problem, citizens suffer
Illicit industry traffics thousands of victims from China through Southeast Asia
“The videos provide a window into the dark world run by transnational criminal networks able to smuggle people from China, through Vietnam and into Cambodia and Myanmar”
SHAUN TURTON, Contributing WriterSEPTEMBER 1, 2021 06:00 JST
PHNOM PENH — The first punch lands on the left side of the young man’s face, the second on the right.
Several more follow. Knees strike his stomach. He cannot defend himself, his hands are cuffed. His attacker, face outside the frame, has his fist wrapped in cloth.
He drags his victim by the lapels into the middle of the frame, faces him to the camera and tells him to speak.
Continue reading Cyber slavery: inside Cambodia’s online scam gangs
Al Jazeera English – 28-6-2020
The Trump administration has imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court. But why now? Start Here looks into the case.
Why is the US targeting the International Criminal Court?
31/07/2022 08:52
(KTSG) – Trước thông tin TPHCM thu hút nhân tài: 19 người vào làm việc, 14 người ra đi, ba năm qua không tuyển thêm được người nào, thực sự tôi không lấy làm lạ vì bản thân đã từng tham gia vào công việc này. Tôi bàn về nó với tư cách là người trong cuộc và kể những câu chuyện rời rạc để mọi người xâu chuỗi lại và tự rút ra kết luận thì tốt hơn.
31/07/2022 12:56 GMT+7
TTO – Báo cáo tổng kết 10 năm công tác phòng, chống tham nhũng, tiêu cực của Bộ Chính trị (2012 – 2022) nêu rõ đã có 37 cán bộ thuộc diện trung ương quản lý đã bị xử lý hình sự, trong đó từ đầu nhiệm kỳ XIII đến nay là 21 cán bộ.
Từ trái qua, trên xuống: các ông Đinh La Thăng, Nguyễn Bắc Son, Trương Minh Tuấn, Trần Văn Minh, Vũ Huy Hoàng, Nguyễn Văn Hiến, Nguyễn Đức Chung, Tất Thành Cang đã bị xử lý hình sự – Ảnh ghép: LÊ HIỆP
Thay mặt Bộ Chính trị, Thường trực Ban Bí thư Võ Văn Thưởng vừa ký báo cáo tổng kết 10 năm công tác phòng, chống tham nhũng, tiêu cực giai đoạn 2012 – 2022, nhiệm vụ giải pháp thời gian tới.
Updated 31st July 2022
Credit: Sidus Studio X
Written byJessie YeungGawon Bae, CNNSeoul, South Korea
She’s got more than 130,000 followers on Instagram, where she posts photos of her globetrotting adventures. Her makeup is always impeccable, her clothes look straight off the runway. She sings, dances and models — and none of it is real.
Rozy is a South Korean “virtual influencer,” a digitally rendered human so realistic she is often mistaken for flesh and blood.
“Are you a real person?” one of her Instagram fans asks. “Are you an AI? Or a robot?”
According to the Seoul-based company that created her, Rozy is a blend of all three who straddles the real and virtual worlds.
She is “able to do everything that humans cannot … in the most human-like form,” Sidus Studio X says on its website.
That includes raking in profits for the company in the multibillion-dollar advertising and entertainment worlds.
Since her launch in 2020, Rozy has landed brand deals and sponsorships, strutted the runway in virtual fashion shows and even released two singles.
China cosmetic surgery apps: Swipe to buy a new face
And she’s not alone.
The “virtual human” industry is booming, and with it a whole new economy in which the influencers of the future are never-aging, scandal-free and digitally flawless — sparking alarm among some in a country already obsessed with unobtainable beauty standards.
The CGI (computer-generated imagery) technology behind Rozy isn’t new. It is ubiquitous in today’s entertainment industry, where artists use it to craft realistic nonhuman characters in movies, computer games and music videos.
But it has only recently been used to make influencers.
Sometimes, Sidus Studio X creates an image of Rozy from head to toe using the technology, an approach that works well for her Instagram images. Other times it superimposes her head onto the body of a human model — when she models clothing, for instance.
An image of Lucy, the Korean virtual human used by Lotte Home Shopping. Credit: Courtesy Lotte Home Shopping
South Korean retail brand Lotte Home Shopping created its virtual influencer — Lucy, who has 78,000 Instagram followers — with software usually used for video games.
Like their real-life counterparts, virtual influencers build a following through social media, where they post snapshots of their “lives” and interact with their fans. Rozy’s account shows her “traveling” to Singapore and enjoying a glass of wine on a rooftop while her fans compliment her outfits.
Older generations might consider interacting with an artificial person somewhat odd. But experts say virtual influencers have struck a chord with younger Koreans, digital natives who spend much of their lives online.
Lee Na-kyoung, a 23-year-old living in Incheon, began following Rozy about two years ago thinking she was a real person.
Rozy followed her back, sometimes commenting on her posts, and a virtual friendship blossomed — one that has endured even after Lee found out the truth.
“We communicated like friends and I felt comfortable with her — so I don’t think of her as an AI but a real friend,” Lee said.
Dior hosts runway show in South Korea for the first time
“I love Rozy’s content,” Lee added. “She’s so pretty that I can’t believe she’s an AI.”
Social media doesn’t just enable virtual influencers to build a fanbase — it’s where the money rolls in.
Rozy’s Instagram, for instance, is dotted with sponsored content where she advertises skincare and fashion products.
“Many big companies in Korea want to use Rozy as a model,” said Baik Seung-yup, the CEO of Sidus Studio X. “This year, we expect to easily reach over two billion Korean won (about $1.52 million) in profit, just with Rozy.”
He added that as Rozy grew more popular, the company landed more sponsorships from luxury brands such as Chanel and Hermes, as well as magazines and other media companies. Her ads have now appeared on television, and even in offline spaces like billboards and the sides of buses.
Lotte expects similar profits this year from Lucy, who has brought in advertising offers from financial and construction companies, according to Lee Bo-hyun, the director of Lotte Home Shopping’s media business division.
The models are in high demand because they help brands reach younger consumers, experts say. Rozy’s clients include a life insurance firm and a bank — companies typically seen as old-fashioned. “But they say their image has become very young after working with Rozy,” Baik said.
It also helps that, compared to some of their real-life counterparts, these new stars are low-maintainance.
It takes Lotte and Sidus Studio X between a few hours and a couple of days to create an image of their stars, and from two days to a few weeks for a video commercial. That’s far less time and labor than is required to produce a commercial featuring real humans — where weeks or months can be spent location scouting and preparing logistics such as lighting, hair and makeup, styling, catering and post-production editing.
And, perhaps just as important: virtual influencers never age, tire or invite controversy.
Lotte decided on a virtual influencer when considering how to maximize its “show hosts,” said Lee.
South Korean men lead the world’s male beauty market. Will the West ever follow suit?
Lotte Home Shopping hires human hosts to advertise products on TV — but they “cost quite a lot,” and “there will be changes when they age,” Lee said. So, they came up with Lucy, who is “forever 29 years old.”
“Lucy is not limited to time or space,” he added. “She can appear anywhere. And there are no moral issues.”
South Korea isn’t the only place to have embraced virtual influencers.
Among the world’s most famous virtual influencers are Lil Miquela, created by the co-founders of an American tech startup, who has endorsed brands including Calvin Klein and Prada and has more than 3 million Instagram followers; Lu of Magalu, created by a Brazilian retail company, with nearly 6 million Instagram followers; and FNMeka, a rapper created by music company Factory New, with more than 10 million TikTok followers.
But there’s one major difference, according to Lee Eun-hee, a professor at Inha University’s Department of Consumer Science: virtual influencers in other countries tend to reflect a diversity of ethnic backgrounds and beauty ideals.
Virtual humans elsewhere have a “uniqueness,” while “those in Korea are always made beautiful and pretty … (reflecting) the values of each country,” she added.
An image of Rozy, the virtual influencer developed by Sidus Studio X in South Korea. Credit: Sidus Studio X
And in South Korea — often dubbed the “plastic surgery capital of the world” for its booming $10.7 billion industry — there are concerns that virtual influencers could further fuel unrealistic beauty standards.
Younger Koreans have begun pushing back against these ideals in recent years, sparking a movement in 2018 dubbed “escaping the corset.”
This ‘imperfect’ virtual influencer is challenging beauty standards in China
But ideas of what is popularly considered beautiful in the country remain narrow; for women, this usually means a petite figure with large eyes, a small face and pale, clear skin.
And these features are shared by most of the country’s virtual influencers; Lucy has perfect skin, long glossy hair, a slender jaw and a perky nose. Rozy has full lips, long legs and a flat stomach peeking out under her crop tops.
Lee Eun-hee warned that virtual influencers like Rozy and Lucy could be making Korea’s already demanding beauty standards even more unattainable — and heightening the demand for plastic surgery or cosmetic products among women seeking to emulate them.
“Real women want to become like them, and men want to date people of the same appearance,” she said.
An image of Lucy, the Korean virtual human used by Lotte Home Shopping. Credit: Courtesy Lotte Home Shopping
The creators of Rozy and Lucy reject such criticism.
Lotte representative Lee Bo-hyun said they had tried to make Lucy more than just a “pretty image” by crafting an elaborate back story and personality. She studied industrial design, and works in car design. She posts about her job and interests, such as her love for animals and kimbap — rice rolls wrapped in seaweed. In this way, “Lucy is striving to have a good influence in society,” Lee said, adding: “She’s giving a message to the public to ‘do what you want to do according to your beliefs.'”
Baik, the Sidus Studio X CEO, said Rozy isn’t what “anyone would call beautiful” and that the firm had deliberately tried to make her appearance unique and veer away from traditional Korean norms. He pointed to the freckles on her cheeks and her wide-set eyes.
“Rozy shows people the importance of inner confidence,” he added. “There are other virtual humans that are so pretty … but I made Rozy to show that you can still be beautiful (even without a conventionally attractive face).”
But concerns go beyond Korean beauty standards. Elsewhere in the world there is debate over the ethics of marketing products to consumers who don’t realize the models aren’t human, as well as the risk of cultural appropriation when creating influencers of different ethnicities — labeled by some as “digital blackface.“
Facebook and Instagram’s parent company Meta, which has more than 200 virtual influencers on its platforms, has acknowledged the risks.
‘Beauty is freedom’: The North Korean millennials wearing makeup to rebel against the state
“Like any disruptive technology, synthetic media has the potential for both good and harm. Issues of representation, cultural appropriation and expressive liberty are already a growing concern,” the company said in a blog post.
“To help brands navigate the ethical quandaries of this emerging medium and avoid potential hazards, (Meta) is working with partners to develop an ethical framework to guide the use of (virtual influencers).”
But one thing appears clear: the industry is here to stay. As interest in the digital world booms — ranging from the metaverse and virtual reality technologies to digital currencies — companies say virtual influencers are the next frontier.
An image of Rozy, the virtual influencer developed by Sidus Studio X in South Korea. Credit: Sidus Studio X
Lotte is hoping Lucy will move from advertising to entertainment, perhaps by appearing in a television drama. The firm is also working on a virtual human that will appeal to shoppers in their 40s to 60s.
Sidus Studio X has big ambitions, too; Rozy will launch her own cosmetics brand in August, as well as an NFT (non-fungible token), and the firm hopes to create a virtual pop trio to take on the music charts.
Baik points out that most fans don’t meet real celebrities in person, only seeing them on screens. So “there is no big difference between virtual humans and the real-life celebrities they like,” he said.
“We want to change perceptions of how people think of virtual humans,” Baik added. “What we do isn’t to take away people’s jobs, but to do things that humans can’t do, such as work 24 hours or make unique content like walking in the sky.
Cho Eun-young contributed to this report.
TTO – Từ khi xây dựng kinh thành Huế, cùng với cồn Dã Viên – “hữu Bạch Hổ”, vua Gia Long đã coi cồn Hến là “tả Thanh Long” – biểu trưng cho quyền uy của vương quyền. Thế nhưng, 24 năm kể từ khi có quy hoạch đầu tiên, “rồng xanh” nằm giữa chính đạo sông Hương vẫn bị treo trên bản vẽ.
Hơn 1.000 hộ dân với 4.500 nhân khẩu sống chen chúc “đi không được ở không xong”. Hữu Bạch Hổ đã thành công viên tuyệt đẹp, còn tương lai nào chờ tả Thanh Long?
Quy hoạch đầu tiên cho cồn Hến (phường Vỹ Dạ, TP Huế, Thừa Thiên Huế) ra đời năm 1998 và cho đến nay, qua không biết bao đời chủ tịch tỉnh “vấn đề cồn Hến” vẫn chưa thể tìm ra lời giải phù hợp.
Continue reading Cồn Hến – nỗi khát khao 24 năm bên kia thành Huế
JULY 14, 2022 | FP Situation Report
By Robbie Gramer and Jack Detsch
Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s SitRep!
Before we get to our regularly scheduled programming, if you haven’t done so already, take a few minutes to marvel at the new high-definition imagery coming out of deep space, courtesy of the James Webb telescope.Alright, back to more earthly matters, here’s what’s on tap for the day: How South Korea is becoming a top global arms exporter, a new report warns of laggard U.S. missile defense capabilities, and Congress sours on F-16 sales to Turkey.
The Business of Booms Is Booming in South Korea
There’s been a not-so-quiet revolution taking place in South Korea in recent years, and it’s all about the defense industry.Since former President Moon Jae-in first took power in 2017, South Korea has turbocharged its arms sales abroad, positioning the country to become one of the world’s leading arms exporters and vastly outpacing the rest of the world in increasing the volume of its arms exports. Under the new conservative government, led by Yoon Suk-yeol, that trend shows no signs of slowing down.
Continue reading How South Korea is transforming into a top global arms exporter
The military relies on advanced semiconductors. The U.S. doesn’t make any.
NYTimes – July 14, 2022
The most advanced category of mass-produced semiconductors — used in smartphones, military technology and much more — is known as 5 nm. A single company in Taiwan, known as TSMC, makes about 90 percent of them. U.S. factories make none.
The U.S.’s struggles to keep pace in semiconductor manufacturing have already had economic downsides: Many jobs in the industry pay more than $100,000 a year, and the U.S. has lost out on them. Longer term, the situation also has the potential to cause a national security crisis: If China were to invade Taiwan and cut off exports of semiconductors, the American military would be at risk of being overmatched by its main rival for global supremacy.
HONG KONG’S SUBDIVIDED UNITS (Part 1) SCMP
By Fiona SunPublished June 8, 2022
Hong Kong’s poor and destitute have long been unable to afford anything but subdivided living spaces. Now Beijing wants the local government to rid the city of these tiny units and “cage homes” by 2049. John Lee Ka-chiu, who will be sworn in as the city’s next leader on the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule on July 1, has pledged to resolve housing woes. In the first of a three-part series, Fiona Sun looks at the city’s worst homes and speaks to the people living in them. Read Part 2 here and Part 3 here.
After a long night shift, security guard Leung returns to the tiny space he calls home in an old residential building in Sham Shui Po.
Continue reading Life in Hong Kong’s shoebox housing (3 parts)Allies and rivals are striking new deals while the U.S. loses ground.
WSJ – By The Editorial Board
Updated July 5, 2022 7:16 pm ET
Listen here
The news leaking from the White House is that President Biden may finally ease tariffs against some Chinese goods—a mere 18 months into his Administration. The extended indecision underscores that Mr. Biden essentially has no trade policy while the rest of the world moves ahead with new trade deals.
25 years after taking control of the territory, how is Beijing trying to change Hong Kong — and how is Hong Kong pushing back?
Nikkei staff writersJuly 2, 2022 07:23 JST
NEW YORK — Welcome to Nikkei Asia’s podcast: Asia Stream.
Every other week, Asia Stream tracks and analyzes the Indo-Pacific with a mix of expert interviews and original reporting by our correspondents from across the globe.
Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube
This episode, we take measure of the economic impact of China’s stringent laws in Hong Kong and then take a deep dive into the social and political costs of Beijing’s crackdown on the special administrative region.
Continue reading Asia Stream: the struggle for Hong Kong’s identity
Đọt Chuối Non 