Nation & World Glance
In Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, the lure of moving to the city grows even stronger amid climate shocks
CAN THO, Vietnam — Dao Bao Tran and her brother Do Hoang Trung, 11-year-old twins growing up on a rickety houseboat in the Mekong Delta, have dreams. Tran loves K-pop, watches videos at night to learn Korean and would love to visit Seoul. Trung wants to be a singer.
But their hopes are “unrealistic,” said Trung: “I know I’ll end up going to the city to try and make a living.”
Such dreams have a way of dissipating in southern Vietnam’s Mekong, one of the most climate-vulnerable regions in the world.
For the poor, the future is especially uncertain. A U.N. climate change report in 2022 warned there will be more floods in the wet season and drought in the dry season. Unsustainable extraction of groundwater and sand for construction have made matters worse. And with rising seas gnawing away at its southern edge and dams hemming the Mekong River upstream, farming in the fertile delta is getting harder. Its contribution to Vietnam’s GDP has dropped from 27% in 1990 to less than 18% in 2019, according to a 2020 report by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The call of the city, where factory jobs promise better salaries, is often too hard to resist for the region’s 17 million inhabitants.
Haiti is preparing itself for new leadership. Gangs want a seat at the table
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Politicians across Haiti are scrambling for power after Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced Tuesday that he would resign once a transitional presidential council is created.
But elbowing their way into the race are powerful gangs that control 80% of Haiti’s capital and demand a say in the future of the troubled country under siege.
No one mentioned the armed groups as Caribbean leaders congratulated themselves late Monday for setting Haiti on a new political path, and experts warned that nothing will change unless gangs become part of the conversation.
“Even if you have a different kind of government, the reality is that you need to talk to the gangs,” said Robert Fatton, a Haitian politics expert at the University of Virginia, noting that gangs largely control the capital. “If they have that supremacy, and there is no countervailing force, it’s no longer a question if you want them at the table. They may just take the table.”
Gangs have deep ties to Haiti’s political and economic elite, but they have become more independent, financing their operations with kidnapping ransoms to buy smuggled weapons, including belt-fed machine guns and .50-caliber sniper rifles that allow them to overpower underfunded police.
Delete a background? Easy. Smooth out a face? Seamless. Digital photo manipulation is now mainstream
NEW YORK — It’s been a common refrain when seeking proof that someone’s story or some event actually took place: “Pics, or it didn’t happen.”
But in a world where the spread of technology makes photo manipulation as easy as a tap on your phone, the idea that a visual image is an absolute truth is as outdated as the daguerreotype. And a photo can sometimes raise as many questions as it was meant to answer.
That was seen in recent days when controversy descended upon an image of Kate, Princess of Wales, and her three children. News agencies including The Associated Press published, then retracted, the image given out by Kensington Palace over concerns it had been manipulated, leading to Kate saying on social media that she occasionally “experimented” with photo editing.
In that, she’s hardly alone.
From something that was time-consuming and required a great deal of technical expertise in the days of actual film and darkrooms, digital editing has become something practically anyone can do, from adding filters to cropping images and much more. Apps abound, offering the easiest of experiences in creating and retouching photos and videos which can then be easily transmitted online and through social media.
What to know about a settlement that clarifies what’s legal under Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law
The Florida law labeled by critics as “Don’t Say Gay ” is remaining in place under a settlement reached this week between the state and parents, students, teachers and advocacy groups who challenged it in court.
But the fallout that gave it that nickname is nixed under the deal.
Florida’s 2022 law was created to push back against what conservatives characterize as efforts to indoctrinate kids to a liberal ideology.
It is one of the highest-profile among dozens of measures adopted in Republican-controlled states to try to rein in what can be taught about LGBTQ+ issues — and the rights of LGBTQ+ people — in a movement championed by Florida governor and former presidential candidate Ron Desantis, among others.