THE DIPLOMAT February 08, 2017

Lessons learned from last year’s disaster can shape a climate-resilient approach in the Mekong Delta.

A farmer burns his dried-up rice on a paddy field stricken by drought in Soc Trang province in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam (March 30, 2016).

Image Credit: REUTERS/Kham

 

The Tet Holiday (Vietnamese lunar New Year) has come to an end, marking the commencement of a new dry season in Vietnam’s lower Mekong Delta. Right now in coastal provinces around the Delta, thousands of farmers, especially those who miserably suffered during last year’s historic drought, are mobilizing to prepare for another similarly devastating drought, which is expected to arrive in the Delta in a few weeks.

Continue reading on CVD

Jurist

JURIST Contributing Editor, Professor Emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, and author Marjorie Cohn discusses the constitutional violations resulting from the executive order banning nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries …

On January 27, 2017, President Trump made good on his campaign promise to institute a ban on Muslims entering the US. Trump’s executive order (“EO”) is titled “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States.”

Continue reading on CVD

Isabel Hilton. The Guardian

The US president has dismayed the world; Xi Jinping has wooed it. This could be a huge win for Beijing

‘Xi Jinping reminded his audience of China’s contribution to global economic stability since the financial crisis, of an average of 30% of global growth each year.’ Photograph: POOL/Reuters

Friday 3 February 2017 01.30 EST Last modified on Friday 3 February 2017 06.15 EDT

Two years ago, some European and US experts gathered to discuss China in an elegant English country house. The setting was seductive, but the mood was dark. Two years into Xi Jinping’s presidency, China’s politics were turning away from the liberalising trend of the previous three decades, towards a hard-edged nationalism that was discomfiting China’s immediate neighbours and their western allies.

Continue reading on CVD