World
Putin Signs Deals With Vietnam In Bid To Shore Up Ties In Asia To Offset Moscow’s Growing Isolation
HANOI, Vietnam — Russian President Vladimir Putin signed at least a dozen deals with his Vietnamese counterpart on Thursday and offered to supply fossil fuels, including natural gas, to Vietnam on a long-term basis during a state visit that comes as Moscow seeks to strengthen ties in Asia in response to its growing international isolation over its military actions in Ukraine.
Putin and Lam agreed to strengthen cooperation in education, research and technology, oil and gas exploration, sustainable energy, and health. The two countries agreed to collaborate on a road map for a nuclear scientific and technology center in Vietnam.
None of the 12 officially announced agreements specifically addressed defense. However, Lam stated that additional deals had not been made public.
Following their talks, Putin stated that the two countries are interested in “developing a reliable security architecture” in the Asia-Pacific region that does not allow for “closed military-political blocs.” Lam also stated that Russia and Vietnam wished to “further cooperate in defense and security to cope with non-traditional security challenges.”
Putin | AP News Image
Putin Signs Deals With Vietnam In Bid To Shore Up Ties In Asia To Offset Moscow’s Growing Isolation
According to Nigel Gould-Davies, a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London and a former British ambassador to Belarus, the agreements between Russia and Vietnam were not as significant as the pact Putin signed with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un the day before, which promised mutual aid in the event of an invasion.
Putin’s recent visits to China, North Korea, and Vietnam attempt to “break the international isolation,” according to Nguyen Khac Giang, an expert at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.
Giang stated that Russia is vital to Vietnam for two reasons: it is the largest provider of military weapons to the Southeast Asian country, and Russian oil exploration technologies assist Vietnam in retaining its sovereignty claims in the disputed South China Sea.
Putin landed in Hanoi on Thursday morning from North Korea after signing the strategic pact. The pact comes as both nations face rising standoffs with the West and may symbolize their deepest ties since the end of the Cold War.
According to the Vietnam News Agency, Putin also met with Vietnam’s most powerful politicians, Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.
Putin drove to Vietnam’s Presidential Palace on Thursday afternoon, where he was met by schoolchildren waving Russian and Vietnamese flags.
Much has changed since Putin’s previous trip to Vietnam in 2017. Russia is now facing a slew of US-led sanctions for its invasion of Ukraine. In 2023, the Foreign Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Putin for alleged war crimes, making foreign travel difficult for the Russian president. The Kremlin dismissed the warrant as “null and void,” emphasizing that Moscow does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction.
The U.S. Embassy in Vietnam sharply criticized Putin’s trip, stating that “no country should give Putin a platform to promote his war of aggression and otherwise allow him to normalize his atrocities.” Allowing Putin to travel freely “could normalize Russia’s blatant violations of international law,” according to a statement.
The United States and its allies have expressed growing concern about a potential arms deal in which North Korea provides Russia with much-needed munitions for use in Ukraine in exchange for Russian economic assistance and technology transfers, which could exacerbate the threat posed by Kim’s nuclear weapons and missile programs.
Both countries dispute claims of weapons deliveries, which would violate many U.N. Security Council sanctions that Russia has previously supported.
According to Ridzwan Rahmat, a Singapore-based analyst with the defense intelligence business Janes, Vietnam is unlikely to give Russia major quantities of weaponry, putting at risk the progress it has made with NATO allies on military equipment, mainly the United States.
Putin | AP news Image
Putin Signs Deals With Vietnam In Bid To Shore Up Ties In Asia To Offset Moscow’s Growing Isolation
“I would imagine Vietnam wouldn’t want to take a risk, inviting the wrath of Western countries by supplying the Russians,” Rahmat told reporters.
Hanoi and Moscow have enjoyed diplomatic relations since 1950, and this year, they celebrate the 30th anniversary of a treaty that established “friendly relations” between Vietnam and Russia. According to Prashanth Parameswaran, a Wilson Center’s Asia Program fellow, Vietnam is “reinforcing” its partnership while diversifying with newer partners.
Evidence of the lengthy relationship and its effect may be found in Vietnamese cities such as the capital, where numerous Soviet-style apartment complexes have been replaced with skyscrapers. A statue of the Soviet Union’s founder, Vladimir Lenin, stands in a park where children skateboard every evening. Many of the Communist Party’s top leaders in Vietnam, including party boss Trong, attended Soviet universities.
In an article published in Nhan Dan, the official newspaper of Vietnam’s Communist Party, Putin thanked “Vietnamese friends for their balanced position on the Ukrainian crisis” and praised the country as a “strong supporter of a fair world order” based on international law, equality, and geopolitical non-interference.
Vietnam’s pragmatic stance of “bamboo diplomacy” — a term coined by Trong to describe the plant’s suppleness, bending but not breaking in the shifting headwinds of global geopolitics — is under growing scrutiny.
Vietnam, a manufacturing powerhouse and increasingly vital in global supply networks, will host US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in 2023.
According to former ambassador Gould-Davies, Putin’s visit is significant diplomatically for Hanoi.
“Perhaps for Vietnam it’s a matter of just showing that it’s able to maintain this very agile balance of its bamboo diplomacy,” the foreign minister suggested. “Already in the course of a year they’ve hosted visits by the heads of state of the three most powerful countries in the world, which is pretty impressive.”
He believes Russia’s visit was more about optics than anything else, as Moscow strives to interact and influence other countries, particularly those in the so-called Global South.
“Since the war began, Putin has not been able to travel much or very far, and he’s made very few trips beyond the countries of the former Soviet space,” he told reporters.
Putin | AP News Image
Putin Signs Deals With Vietnam In Bid To Shore Up Ties In Asia To Offset Moscow’s Growing Isolation
Vietnam has remained neutral about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But neutrality is getting difficult.
Parameswaran stated that Vietnam requires US assistance to pursue its economic objectives and diversify its defense relationships. “It has to carefully calibrate what it does with Russia in an environment of rising tensions between Washington and Moscow.”
Bilateral commerce between Russia and Vietnam was $3.6 billion in 2023, compared to $171 billion with China and $111 billion with the United States.
Since the early 2000s, Russia has supplied over 80% of Vietnam’s arms imports. This has been dropping over the years as Vietnam strives to diversify its supply. However, according to Giang, weaning itself completely from Russia would take time.
Given Putin’s international isolation, Vietnam is doing him a “huge favor and may expect favors in return,” wrote Andrew Goledzinowski, the Australian ambassador to Vietnam, on the social networking platform X.
“Vietnam will always act in Vietnam’s interests and not anyone else’s,” he said in the letter.
SOURCE – (AP)
Mount Fuji, a UNESCO World Heritage site and Japanese icon, has implemented new climbing limits in response to concerns about overpopulation.
Beginning July 1, climbers must pay 2,000 yen ($12.40) per person, and there is a daily limit of 4,000 climbers.
Mount Fuji | Japan Times
Japan’s Mount Fuji Implements Tourist Tax In Response To Overcrowding Concerns
“By strongly promoting comprehensive safety measures for climbing Mount Fuji, we will ensure that Mount Fuji, a world treasure, is passed down to future generations,” stated Koutaro Nagasaki, governor of Yamanashi Prefecture, when he announced the new laws earlier this year.
“To revitalize traditional mountain climbing from the foot of Mount Fuji, we shall get a thorough grasp of the Fuji-ko and Oshi cultures that fostered Mount Fuji worship. We hope to connect different civilizations through mountain climbing, which is steeped in religious cultural values.”
Fuji-ko is a religion unique to the mountains.
Human traffic bottlenecks, garbage-strewn hillsides, and poorly dressed hikers – some attempting the trip in sandals – are among the challenges afflicting the renowned Japanese destination.
In addition, new guides will oversee trail safety and notify climbers if they violate mountain etiquette, such as sleeping along the trail, making a fire, or wearing inappropriate attire.
According to prefectural data, five million people hiked Mount Fuji in 2019, up three million from 2012.
“Overtourism – and all the subsequent consequences like rubbish, rising CO2 emissions, and reckless hikers – is the biggest problem facing Mount Fuji,” Masatake Izumi, a Yamanashi prefectural government official, told CNN Travel last year.
In 2023, a volunteer named Tomoyo Takahashi told CNN that she planned to ask tourists to donate 1,000 yen ($6.20) to help maintain the mountain.
“Not everyone pays the 1,000 yen, which makes me sad. “There should be a much higher mandatory entrance fee so that only visitors who truly value Mount Fuji’s heritage come,” she stated.
Takahashi will finally achieve her wish.
Mount Fuji | CNN Image
Japan’s Mount Fuji Implements Tourist Tax In Response To Overcrowding Concerns
The new limitations, however, only apply to Yamanashi prefecture, which has the most popular hiking trails. Fuji is also located in Shizuoka prefecture, which has yet to have any tariffs or visiting restrictions. Governor Nagasaki told reporters that he and Shizuoka’s governor will meet at the end of the climbing season to swap notes.
Overtourism has become a major issue in Japan since the country reopened during the pandemic.
Locals in Kyoto’s historic Gion area have expressed concern over tourists flocking to photograph and sometimes harass the geisha who live and work there, giving them the term “geisha paparazzi.”
While the city has posted signs and boards urging visitors not to photograph geisha, several locals told CNN Travel that more is needed. The neighborhood council proposed issuing fines or penalties.
Hatsukaichi, in Hiroshima Prefecture, southwestern Japan, has also been hit. The little hamlet is notable for its orange “floating shrine” torii gate, part of a 1,400-year-old Shinto complex.
In October 2023, the town started charging 100 yen (62 cents) for visitors to the temple. The “tourist tax” funds the site’s maintenance and infrastructure.
SOURCE – (CNN)
Hurricane Beryl is raging over the Windward Islands as a Category 4, bringing high gusts, heavy rain, and a life-threatening storm surge after landfall on Monday.
According to NOAA statistics dating back to 1851, it is the strongest storm to pass through this region.
Beryl | AP news image
Hurricane Beryl Makes Landfall As Life-Threatening Category 4 Storm
Beryl made landfall shortly after 11:00 a.m. EDT on the Grenadines’ Carriacou Island in the Caribbean Sea, with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph. According to the National Hurricane Center, the storm caused power outages, flooded streets, and brought storm surge flooding to sections of the Grenadines, Grenada, Barbados, and Tobago on Monday.
Beryl’s arrival marks a particularly early start to the Atlantic hurricane season. On Sunday, it became the Atlantic Ocean’s earliest Category 4 storm on record and the only one in June. The bathtub-warm ocean conditions that aided Beryl’s worrisome strengthening strongly indicate that this hurricane season will be abnormal due to global warming caused by fossil fuel pollution.
According to Jim Kossin, a hurricane expert and science advisor at the charity First Street Foundation, Beryl is smashing June records because the ocean is as warm as it would be during hurricane season.
“Hurricanes don’t know what month it is, they only know what their ambient environment is,” Kossin told CNN on Wednesday. “Beryl is breaking records for the month of June because Beryl thinks it’s September.”
Kossin noted that the ocean heat driving Beryl’s extraordinary power “certainly has a human fingerprint on it.”
Beryl is the Atlantic’s first big hurricane (Category 3 or higher) in 58 years. According to National Hurricane Center Director Mike Brennan, the storm’s quick intensification is unusual for this early in hurricane season. According to NOAA statistics, tropical systems, particularly strong ones, rarely form in the central Atlantic east of the Lesser Antilles in June.
The storm isn’t simply early in the season. It is presently the Atlantic Ocean’s third-earliest significant storm. The first was Hurricane Alma on June 8, 1966, followed by Hurricane Audrey, which reached major hurricane status on June 27, 1957.
Beryl also broke the record for the easternmost hurricane to form in the Tropical Atlantic in June, surpassing the previous record established in 1933.
Beryl | CNN Image
Hurricane Beryl Makes Landfall As Life-Threatening Category 4 Storm
August is generally a more active month in the Middle and Eastern Atlantic because warmer water temperatures fuel emerging systems.
This year, the Atlantic basin has had above-normal water temperatures and a lack of wind shear due to the shift from El Niño to La Niña season, fueling tropical development.
“Beryl has found an environment with very warm ocean waters for this time of year,” she said.
According to Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane expert and research scientist at Colorado State University, systems forming in this section of the Atlantic early in the summer signify the upcoming hyperactive hurricane season. Normally, water temperatures in June and July do not support tropical ecosystems.
“That’s well above average,” Brennan said.
SOURCE – (CNN)
World
Hurricane Beryl Intensifies Into An ‘Extremely Dangerous’ Category 4 Storm As It Approaches The Caribbean
Beryl, the first hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic season, strengthened into an extremely hazardous Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph Sunday morning as it approached the Windward Islands.
Beryl is now the earliest Category 4 hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean and the only Category 4 storm to occur in June.
Tropical storm-force winds will likely hit the Windward Islands late Sunday or early Monday.
The early timing of the season’s first storm is rare, considering the average date is August 11.
As of 11 a.m, ET, Beryl was about 355 miles east-southeast of Barbados and headed west.
“A life-threatening storm surge will raise water levels by as much as 6 to 9 feet above normal tide levels in areas of onshore flow near where the eye makes landfall in the hurricane warning area,” the National Hurricane Center stated, adding that the surge could bring huge and damaging waves near the shoreline.
Hurricane Beryl | CNN Image
Hurricane Beryl Intensifies Into An ‘Extremely Dangerous’ Category 4 Storm As It Approaches The Caribbean
The hurricane is rapidly strengthening, reaching 55 mph in the 24 hours preceding Sunday morning. The National Hurricane Center defines rapid intensification as an increase in maximum sustained wind speed of 35 mph or more within 24 hours.
“We’re forecasting rapid intensification and expect Beryl to become a major hurricane before it reaches places like Barbados and the Windward islands, and to continue to be a powerful hurricane as it moves into the eastern and central Caribbean as we go into the early portions of next week,” Mike Brennan, Director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Hurricane Center, told CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield on Saturday.
Brennan advised residents in hurricane-prone areas to prepare for major storm consequences. Beryl increases the possibility of torrential rainfall, damaging hurricane-force winds, and severe storm surges and waves. According to the center, rainfall totals of 3 to 6 inches could cause localized flooding in the Windward Islands on Sunday night and Monday.
According to the weather center, the hurricane is anticipated to dump 3 to 6 inches of rain on Barbados and the Windward Islands through Monday.
Beryl is the Atlantic’s first big hurricane (Category 3 or higher) in 58 years. According to Brennan, the storm’s quick intensification is rare at this early stage of the hurricane season. According to NOAA statistics, only a few tropical systems, particularly powerful ones, formed in the central Atlantic east of the Lesser Antilles in June.
Hurricane Beryl | Getty Image
Hurricane Beryl Intensifies Into An ‘Extremely Dangerous’ Category 4 Storm As It Approaches The Caribbean
Beryl is not only early for this hurricane season but also the third-earliest significant hurricane in the Atlantic. The first was Hurricane Alma on June 8, 1996, followed by Hurricane Audrey, which became a significant storm on June 27, 1957.
The storm has already broken the record for the easternmost hurricane to form in the Tropical Atlantic in June, surpassing the previous record established in 1933.
August is generally a more active month in the Middle and Eastern Atlantic because warmer water temperatures fuel emerging systems.
This year, the Atlantic basin has had above-normal water temperatures and a lack of wind shear due to the shift from El Niño to La Niña season, fueling tropical development.
“Beryl has found an environment with very warm ocean waters for this time of year,” she said.
Warmer waters in the Atlantic Basin have allowed tropical storms and hurricanes to develop at a faster rate in an eastward direction, according to Brennan. This allows storms to become more powerful and thus more destructive earlier in the hurricane season, which lasts from June 1 to November 30.
“These are ocean water you’d normally see like in August or September, but now we’re seeing them in late June,” according to Brennan. “It’s kind of opening up more of the deep tropical Atlantic for formation before we get to what would be the traditional peak of the hurricane season.”
Caribbean islands encourage citizens to prepare ahead of the hurricane.
Authorities are encouraging inhabitants to take precautions, with many Caribbean nations under hurricane watches and warnings as Hurricane Beryl approaches and intensifies.
Hurricane Beryl | CNN Image
Hurricane Beryl Intensifies Into An ‘Extremely Dangerous’ Category 4 Storm As It Approaches The Caribbean
Officials in Barbados believe the hurricane will hit the island as early as late Sunday night. Its meteorological agency predicts storm-force winds, 3 to 6 inches of rain, “hazardous” maritime conditions, and strong thunderstorms that may cause power outages.
“All of the regular hurricane preparations that we do are in full swing,” Minister of Home Affairs and Information Wilfred Abrahams stated. “We have less than 48 hours till we may observe the consequences of this system on Barbados. Please spend your time wisely.”
According to Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane expert and research scientist at Colorado State University, systems forming in this section of the Atlantic early in the summer signify the upcoming hyperactive hurricane season. Normally, water temperatures in June and July do not support tropical ecosystems.
Forecasters at the National Weather Service estimate 17 to 25 named storms this season, with eight to 13 developing into hurricanes, including four to seven major hurricanes.
“That’s well above average,” Brennan said.
The National Weather Service says that’s “due to a confluence of factors, including near-record warm ocean temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean, development of La Nina conditions in the Pacific, reduced Atlantic trade winds and less wind shear, all of which tend to favor tropical storm formation.”
SOURCE – (CNN)
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