The proposal was made in a June 14 letter to Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) counterparts from Thailand’s Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai, which was seen by Reuters on Friday and confirmed by three sources with knowledge of the planned meeting.In a summit last month, ASEAN leaders called for an immediate end to the violence in Myanmar, which began after the military deposed the elected civilian government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in a 2021 coup.Frustration has mounted among some members of the 10-country bloc over how to handle Myanmar and its bloody political turmoil and Thailand’s latest…
Author: Mike Harrison
By Reuters  June 17, 2023 | 08:45am GMT+7 A keyboard is placed in front of a displayed Facebook logo in this illustration taken February 21, 2023. Photo by Reuters/Dado Ruvic/Illustration Meta Platforms said on Friday services on its social media apps Facebook and Instagram were restored, more than two hours after an outage that affected thousands of users. At one point, nearly 20,000 users in total said they were having trouble accessing Facebook and Instagram and Meta’s messaging service WhatsApp, according to outage-tracking website Downdetector.com.Outage reports had come down to less than 500 as of 6:30 pm ET (2230 GMT),…
Tran Thi Minh Toan of the northern province of Bac Giang, well-known for its lychees, used around 100 kilograms of the fruit as decoration at her daughter’s wedding Thursday. Another portion of lychees was used to make decorative items shaped like Vietnam and the Spratly and Paracel archipelagoes. The bride stands next to the lychee welcome gate and decorative items on June 15, 2023. Photo courtesy of Toan To ensure the fruits survived the high temperatures the north is currently experiencing, Toan’s family had to sprinkle water on them every 15 minutes.Toan said she got this idea because her daughter’s…
The Intensive English Language Program (IELP) is a transformative opportunity for students to unlock their full potential.International School HCMC (ISHCMC) understands the challenges that come with joining a new school and is dedicated to making the transition as smooth as possible.By enrolling in the IELP program, students can begin on an immersive learning experience tailored to their needs, enabling them to catch up and thrive academically.Empower connections and well-beingA Japanese mother, Nao, was met with an overwhelmingly positive response from the ISHCMC community. From helpful and kind teachers to supportive parents, her children have been able to flourish in their…
By Hong Cuc  June 17, 2023 | 07:58 am GMT+7 Illustration photo by Freepik The special person in my boyfriend’s life is his ex-wife, and he only became interested in her again after she got married to someone else. They got divorced due to religious differences. Despite being divorced for a year and not having any children together, they still frequently communicate and greatly value each other.Why do I still agree to date my boyfriend? Because I genuinely love him. He is a kind, outstanding and considerate man who treats me well.His ex-wife is two years younger than him, not…
By Mai Nhat  June 16, 2023 | 08:37pm GMT+7 An event organizing company was suspended and finished after models in a fashion show were spotted wearing backless camisoles last month. A representative of the HCMC Culture and Sports Department said in a press conference on Thursday that Objoff Co. Ltd. was fined VND85 million ($3,612) for hosting the fashion show named “New Tradition” and its operation was suspended for 18 months.The department considered the show inappropriate, using costumes that went against fine customs and tradition.Lam Ngo Hoang Anh, of the HCMC Department of Culture and Sports, said that this agency…
Larsen, Duc, and their daughter are living in the mountainous province of Loja, Ecuador. Photo courtesy of Larsen and Duc The 29-year-old woman first met Thanh Duc when she attended the casting session for a movie in Vietnam, for which Duc was working as a production assistant. At that time, Duc was impressed with Larsen because she “did not wear heavy makeup like other girls,” and she liked Vietnamese fruits.However, their relationship was solely work-based, and they did not stay in touch after production of the film ended.But three years after their first encounter, Duc and Larsen coincidentally chose to…
The 618 festival, named after the founding date of JD.com but embraced by all platforms and running from late May until June 18, is a key test of household consumption appetite, vital to bring China’s growth on a sounder footing.This year, JD.com, Tmall, Pinduoduo and others are investing billions of yuan in subsidies and incentives to keep gross sales growing, in what analysts interpret as subdued confidence among the platforms and shoppers. This bodes ill for China’s post-pandemic recovery, which is already losing steam. Retail sales growth in May slowed from the previous month, missing forecasts. In 2022 China’s online…
A new bill, which also clarifies rape prosecution requirements and criminalizes voyeurism, cleared parliament’s upper house in a unanimous vote.The age of consent — below which sexual activity is considered statutory rape — is 16 in Britain, 15 in France, and 14 in Germany and China.Japan’s had been unchanged since 1907, with children aged 13 and above deemed capable of consent.In practice, across many parts of the country, regional ordinances banning “lewd” acts with minors are sometimes seen as effectively raising the age of consent to 18.Under the new law, teen couples no more than five years apart in age…
Southeast Asia, a region with a collective population of 630 million – half of them under 30-is one of TikTok’s biggest markets in terms of user numbers, generating more than 325 million visitors to the app every month.But the platform has yet to translate the large user base into a major e-commerce revenue source in the region as it faces fierce competition from bigger rivals of Sea’s Shopee, Alibaba’s Lazada and GoTo’s Tokopedia.”We’re going to invest billions of dollars in Indonesia and Southeast Asia over the next few years,” TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said at a forum it organized…