Vietnam is betting $65 billion on high-speed rail to help transform its economy. A journey on the existing line reveals the obstacles in its way.

Min Aung Hlaing can’t promise what he doesn’t control

There is an even more basic flaw in asking Min Aung Hlaing to guarantee the “safe return” of the Rohingya: he no longer controls most of the places they would return to.

The AA now rules most of Rakhine State, including Buthidaung and Maungdaw, from where most Rohingya refugees fled. No agreement struck in Kuala Lumpur can guarantee safety in territory where Min Aung Hlaing’s writ does not run.

The United League of Arakan, the AA’s political wing, has sought to present itself as capable of governing a multiethnic Rakhine, establishing Muslim advisory bodies, placing Muslims in parts of the local administration, and promoting a common “Arakha” identity. AA chief Tun Myat Naing has said his group is building relations “step by step with the Muslim people” and building trust through actions rather than words.

But the AA leadership has also struggled to recognize Rohingya identity, often referring instead to “Muslims” or using the politically charged term “Bengali.” It too faces allegations from rights monitors of forced displacement and abuses against civilians.

A genuine return mechanism will eventually need the AA, Bangladesh, Rohingya representatives, and international agencies at one table. No mere handshake in Kuala Lumpur can settle citizenship, security, property, freedom of movement and accountability for abuses by all sides.

Malaysia Can’t Trust Min Aung Hlaing to Solve the Crisis He Created

By Nyein Chan Aye

https://www.irrawaddy.com/opinion/guest-column/malaysia-cant-trust-min-aung-hlaing-to-solve-the-crisis-he-created.html

In 2007, Singapore’s founding leader Lee Kuan Yew told American diplomats that dealing with Myanmar’s generals was like “talking to dead people” and he “had given up on them a decade ago.”

Now, nearly two decades later, Min Aung Hlaing has replaced his uniform with a suit and added “President” to his title. Yet the old habit statesman Lee identified remains: take what outsiders offer, concede as little as possible and wait for the pressure to fade.

Tiger Woods-designed fairways and a $1.5 billion Trump resort are helping make Vietnam one of the world’s fastest-growing golf markets.

Interview with human rights defender Su Mon.

Farmers go to extraordinary lengths to shield their perfect strawberries and grapes from the elements. But the industry hasn’t been able to protect itself as well from intellectual property theft abroad.

AAAS: "North Korean nuclear test sets off years of earthquakes," by Richard Stone.

"Seismic activity around the Punggye-ri test site has increased since a large nuclear explosion in 2017." 

Years later, the crust around the Punggye-ri test site is still restless, according to a study published recently in Science. "Rather than fading away, earthquake [EQ] activity increased over the following years." Even in 2025, small EQ were occurring along 2 suspected faults near Mount Mantap, some as far as 20 to 30 km from the test site.

Finding adds a striking example to a growing catalog of human-induced EQ.  Injecting wastewater from oil + gas operations, mining, filling reservoirs, geothermal energy projects, + subsurface nuclear detonations have all been shown capable of triggering earthquakes, though typically not so persistent.

North Korea conducted six underground nuclear tests at Punggye-ri from 2006 to ’17. The final explosion, estimated to be equivalent to 100 to 250 kilotons of TNT, registered as a magnitude 6.3 seismic event by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). About 8 minutes later, a magnitude 4.1 event was interpreted as the collapse of its underground blast cavity. Apart from an isolated small earthquake soon afterward, there were no immediate aftershocks. 

Sustained activity in the area began about 3 weeks later. The researchers searched through seismic recordings collected in China + South Korea between 2008 + ’25, using the wave forms of known earthquakes as templates to find much fainter events buried in background noise. They identified 1399 earthquakes near the Punggye-ri site + determined precise locations for 955. Most were tiny earthquakes below magnitude 2. 

But instead of fading after 2017, their frequency increased through 2025, as did the total "seismic moment" released by the sequence—the combined size of all the earthquakes.

I have no data—if any exist—on radiation releases following these tests, but the cloud of dust in the photo is impressive, + we do know US testing in Nevada clearly released radionuclides ultimately affecting downwinders. One more good reason not to resume testing as the current administration has clearly signaled it wants to do.