When President Xi Jinping of China visited President Obama at the White House last September, he startled many with reassuring words about his intentions for the Spratly Islands, a contested area where the Chinese government has been piling dredged sand and concrete atop reefs for the past few years and building housing and runways on them.
By Vaidehi Shah
NCCS – The “grow now, clean up later” approach which has dominated economic development for the past century just isn’t working anymore as multiple environmental crises prove. Green growth may be a better way forward for Southeast Asia and the world.
Solar panels on Sumba Island, Indonesia. Over 8.1 million people are now working in renewable energy worldwide. Image: Asian Development Bank, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
AN – Using a track from Parisian artist Birkii, the four minute YouTube clip tells the story of three different instances of human trafficking.
‘Broken Dreamers’ MTV EXIT & BIRKII
To solve land shortages, many Asian countries have encouraged “eco-burials” that involve the cremation process. But considering the environmental effects of cremation, the benefits may be short-term at best.
eco-business: In the crowded cities of Asia, the lack of space isn’t just a problem for the living: cemeteries are filling up faster than ever and governments are scrambling to solve the sensitive yet urgent problem of where to put the dead.
Seema Bansal forged a path to public education reform for 15,000 schools in Haryana, India, by setting an ambitious goal: by 2020, 80 percent of children should have grade-level knowledge. She’s looking to meet this goal by seeking reforms that will work in every school without additional resources. Bansal and her team have found success using creative, straightforward techniques such as communicating with teachers using SMS group chats, and they have already measurably improved learning and engagement in Haryana’s schools.
– Addressing antibiotic resistance will require a global political response similar to the way the world has reacted to climate change or HIV / AIDS, Sweden’s Minister of Public Health Gabriel Wikstrom, told IPS recently.
“(These problems) began with a small group of experts discussing and trying to warn the rest of us and it was not until it was politically addressed that it really became an issue that was solvable.”
theguardian _ The Palestinian residents of Bilin have come up with a novel use for the teargas canisters left over from clashes with Israeli soldiers during the weekly protest against the West Bank separation barrier
Sabiha Abu Rahmeh waters the plants. Her son, Bassim, was killed in the weekly protests five years ago Photograph: Fadi Arouri/Xinhua Press/Corbis
Who was the biggest mass murderer in the history of the world? Most people probably assume that the answer is Adolf Hitler, architect of the Holocaust. Others might guess Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, who may indeed have managed to kill even more innocent people than Hitler did, many of them as part of a terror famine that likely took more lives than the Holocaust. But both Hitler and Stalin were outdone by Mao Zedong. From 1958 to 1962, his Great Leap Forward policy led to the deaths of up to 45 million people – easily making it the biggest episode of mass murder ever recorded.
worldwatch – Cities are the world’s future. More than half of the world’s people live in cities, and the urbanization trend is continuing. Will the world invest in shaping livable, equitable, and sustainable cities?
“The path to a sustainable city starts with a vision,” explains Gary Gardner, co-director of the our newest book, Can a City Be Sustainable? “A well-crafted vision can rally public support and mobilize civic energy for a long-term urban makeover.”
By Dam Tuan July 28, 2016 | 02:35 pm GMT+7
A Singaporean company plans to tap the potential for wind power in southern Vietnam.
e.vnexpress – Southeast Asia’s leading renewable energy developer, The Blue Circle, has been awarded an Investment Certificate from Vietnamese authorities for a 40 Megawatt (MW) Dam Nai wind project worth $60 million in the southern province of Ninh Thuan.
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Ninh Thuan has great potential as a wind energy source in Vietnam. Photo by Tran Thi Thu Yen/VnExpress Photo Contest |
Huynh Anh Dung, 34, at his family farm in Soc Trang Province, Vietnam. His rice crop failed in February because of salty water. Credit The New York Times
nytimes – SOC TRANG, Vietnam —When the rice shoots began to wither on Lam Thi Loi’s farm in the heart of the Mekong Delta, a usually verdant region of Vietnam, she faced a hard choice: Let them die in the parched earth, or pump salty water from the river to give them a chance..
Một bài viết rất thú vị về tâm lý thuộc địa của người Phillipines. Trong cùng một bối cảnh của bài viết, nếu thay người Phillipines thành người Việt Nam, chúng ta sẽ thấy rất nhiều điểm tương đồng trong tâm lý thuộc địa của người Phillipines, người Việt Nam và các nước thuộc địa khác như thế nào.
This is a very interesting article. In the same context, if we replace the Filipinos by the Vietnamese, we’ll see many similarities of the colonial mentality of the Filipinos, of the Vietnamese and other colonial countries.
ĐTH
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“Tangkilikin ang saraling atin,” (Patronize what is ours), we hear this statement spoken quite often. Cliché as it may sound but Filipinos do not live by it.
TĐH: Hillary Clinton đã làm nên lịch sử như là người phụ nữ đầu tiên được đề cử ứng cử tổng thống. Nếu Hillary thắng, Hillary sẽ nên lịch sử như là nữ tổng thống đầu tiên của nước Mỹ, và sẽ tốt cho VN vì Hillary rất quý VN.
Updated 1:02 PM ET, Fri July 29, 2016
Story highlights
Philadelphia (CNN)As Hillary Clinton playfully batted away an avalanche of balloons Thursday night, she appeared proud, happy and reconciled to her historic moment.
TUOI TRE NEWS – UPDATED : 07/24/2016 19:04 GMT + 7
A septuagenarian woman in the central Vietnamese province of Quang Binh has raised and taken care of her two disabled sons who are victims of Agent Orange (AO)/dioxin on her own for more than four decades.
Nguyen Van Hai, 44, and Nguyen Van Hien, 41, who are both victims of dioxin, have been in the loving care of their 73-year-old mother Tran Thi Dang, of Le Thuy District, in the last 44 years.
FORBES – JUL 25, 2016 Brett Davis CONTRIBUTOR
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
Vietnam has been ranked the fifth happiest country in the world
in a study by the UK think tank the New Economics Foundation.
The Happy Planet Index report measured elements that contribute towards a happy life in 140 countries and looked at factors such as life expectancy, wellbeing, inequality and ecological footprint. The list was topped by Costa Rica, followed by Mexico, Columbia and Vanuatu, making Vietnam the happiest country in Asia.
By 
Đọt Chuối Non 