Look at these men and women.
They’re praying to the Buddha.
Perhaps they’re asking the Buddha take care of their wishes.
They’re asking the Buddha to love them?
…
If they know the Buddha loves them,
if they know the Buddha knows their thinking,
their every tiniest thinking,
if they know the Buddha stands by them,
they’ll be at peace.
Just outside of Hanoi is a rich artisanal history of craft villages with colorful workshops and handcrafted goods.
Ehrin Macksey / Project Bly
The Red River Valley
The Red River valley in Vietnam has a long and rich artisanal history, and this was one of the reasons why Emperor Lý Thái Tổ picked Hanoi as the imperial capital in 1010. Hundreds of specialized craft villages, like Ha Thai surround Hanoi. After it was declared the capital, craftsmen from these villages began to establish workshops in what is now known as the Old Quarter. Today, each street in the Old Quarter is still known for a specific craft and linked to the village where it it originated.
You’re sitting in front of me, facing me.
Your hands are on my hands.
Your stillness is being moved from you to me.
All my thinking disappears.
My mind only has you and your stillness.
A new form of misinformation is poised to spread through online communities as the 2018 midterm election campaigns heat up. Called “deepfakes” after the pseudonymous online account that popularized the technique – which may have chosen its name because the process uses a technical method called “deep learning” – these fake videos look very realistic.
Hydropower is commonly considered as a clean energy source to fuel Southeast Asian economic growth. Recent study published in Environmental Research Letters finds that hydropower in the Mekong River Basin, largest river in Southeast Asia, might not always be climate friendly.
The median greenhouse gas (GHG) emission of hydropower was estimated to be 26 kg CO2e/MWh over 100-year lifetime, which is within the range of other renewable energy sources (<190 kg CO2e/MWh). The variation between the individual hydropower projects was, however, large: nearly 20% of the hydropower reservoirs had higher emissions than other renewable energy sources and in several cases the emissions equalled those from fossil fuel energy sources (>380 kg CO2e/MWh).
The study concludes that hydropower in the Mekong cannot be considered categorically as a clean energy source; instead, the emissions should be evaluated case-by-case together with other social and environmental impacts.
GENEVA (Reuters) – Myanmar’s military carried out mass killings and gang rapes of Muslim Rohingya with “genocidal intent”, and the commander-in-chief and five generals should be prosecuted for the gravest crimes under international law, United Nations investigators said.
A report by investigators was the first time the United Nations has explicitly called for Myanmar officials to face genocide charges over their campaign against the Rohingya, and is likely to deepen the country’s isolation.
Senators John McCain, at right, and John Kerry, both veterans of the Vietnam War, in 1985. Photograph by CBS Photo Archive / Getty
“He’s not a war hero,” Donald Trump said two years ago, speaking at a Republican Party candidates’ forum in Iowa. “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” Trump’s insult to Senator John McCain—and, by extension, to every American P.O.W.—drew a gasp of rebuke from across the political spectrum. The initial indignation, however, did not last; in hindsight, it seems one of the final instances of a broad cultural unity that now seems lost to this country forever.
VNE – By Viet Tuan August 21, 2018 | 10:06 am GMT+7
The Hmong royal family’s palace which has been handed over for use to a local culture department. Photo by VnExpress/Ngoc Thanh
Vietnam authorities have agreed to “look into” how the former Hmong royal family’s palace was handed over for use to a local culture department.
The decision came following angry demands by the family in the northern highlands’ Ha Giang Province.
Vuong Duy Bao, grandson of the last Hmong King, Vuong Chi Sinh (or Vuong Chi Thanh, 1886-1962), wrote a letter to Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc last month asking for the century-old palace to be returned to the family.
As ever-increasing levels of traffic congestion and air pollution turn many of Ho Chi Minh City’s road junctions into choking bottlenecks, many hopes are pinned on plans to construct a new urban railway network in the southern metropolis. Yet urban railways are hardly a new concept in this city, which was once home to one of Southeast Asia’s largest urban tramway networks.
Indochina’s first mechanized rail-guided transportation system was the one-meter gauge Saigon–Cho Lon “high road” steam tramway, operated by the Societe Generale des Tramways a Vapeur de Cochinchine (SGTVC) and opened to the public on December 27, 1881.