Category: Entertainment

Two artists from Vietnam found an opportunity to immerse with cultural bearers in Antique as a preliminary event of the 17th Visayas Islands Visual Arts Exhibition and Conference (VIVA ExCon) that will be hosted by the province for the first time on Nov. 8-10. International artists Thao-Linh Dinh and Kieu-Anh Nguyen of the Ba-Bau, a group of curators, producers, and artists based in Hanoi, joined the event as part of their Artists-in-Residence Asia (AIR Asia) cross-residency program to gather first-hand information and empirical knowledge on ways to engage rural communities through meaningful artist residency. They immediately engaged with salt producers in Barangay Larioja in Patnongon town, the blacksmith community in Barangay Odiong, and local potters in Barangay Bari, both in Sibalom town upon their arrival in Antique in the first week of October. ‘We are thankful that we were able to immerse with the communities and learn the processes (of salt-making, pottery, and blacksmithing),’ Thao-Linh said in an interview. She said they experienced for the first time making clay pots using an open fire with rice husk as fuel. In Vietnam, pottery makers are already using kilns. Kieu-Anh marveled at how the coastal community of Antique prepares salt. ‘To create a block of salt is interesting and an artwork itself,’ she said. Salt producer Caliboy Cajurao, whose family has been into the traditional open-pan salt production, briefed them on how to sun-dry seawater to produce salt. Nelson Roldan, one of the founders of Viva ExCon, said immersion is essential because, through this, they would know what they could contribute to the preservation, empowerment, and celebration of cultural bearers. Through the Viva ExCon, artists gather every two years to update, learn, and share their experiences on their art processes and community involvement. This year’s gathering is anchored on the theme ‘Suba sa Iraya,’ meaning swimming upstream, Viva ExCon Festival Director Bryan Liao said.

Source: Philippines News Agency

Son La: The first Son La Coffee Festival opened in Son La city of the northern mountainous province with the same name on October 20, with the presence of National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue.

Nguyen Huu Dong, Secretary of the provincial Party’s Committee, said the festival is an important event designed for Son La and other northwestern provinces to introduce their Arabica coffee and honour coffee growers, processors and traders, contributing to promoting the value and the position of Son La Arabica coffee in domestic and foreign markets.

The cultivation of Arabica coffee in Son La began in the late 1980s, and the area under the plant expanded from 278ha in 1990 to over 20,000 ha in 2023, accounting for 41.2% of the country’s Arabia coffee cultivation area. Of which, 18,000 ha have obtained sustainable farming certification. Son La coffee has been exported to 20 countries in the European Union, North America, the Middle East and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Addressing the event, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan emphasised the importance of cooperation and linkage in developing a sustainable value chain for the coffee industry in Son La.

The festival with the theme of “Arabica, Son La Coffee – Taste of Tay Bac” will last until October 23.

It features a coffee gala, a farmers’ competition, a trade fair, the inauguration of investment projects in the coffee sector and Cascara tea production lines in Mai Son district, and a conference on coffee trade connections./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The Vietnamese Association in the UK (VAUK), the Vietnam Business Association in the UK (VBUK) and the Vietnamese Family Partnership (VFP) on October 8 organised an event to celebrate the traditional mid-autumn festival.

The event attracted overseas Vietnamese people and locals with contests on making moon cakes and using chopsticks, folk games, musical performances and “ao dai” (traditional long dress) performances.

At the festival, there was an exhibition displaying symbols of Vietnamese people in London selected from a design contest, which was supported by the London city government to build the image of Vietnamese people in the UK and raise awareness of local people about the Vietnamese community and its contributions to the country.

Previously, the EV360 Centre, a non-profit organisation that teaches Vietnamese to Vietnamese children in the UK and Europe, also organised a mid-autumn festival, attracting 200 students at the centre and their family members./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Vietnam always attaches importance to strengthening and enhancing friendship and multifaceted cooperation with Switzerland, Vietnamese Ambassador to Switzerland Phung The Long has said.

Speaking at a ceremony on September 10 hosted by the Vietnamese Embassy in Switzerland to celebrate the 78th anniversary of Vietnam’s National Day (September 2, 1945 – 2023), Long reviewed important milestones during Vietnam’s national construction and development process over the last 78 years, as well as in Vietnam-Switzerland relations since the two nations established diplomatic relations in 1971.

Vietnam’s National Day celebrated in Switzerland hinh anh 2

Vietnamese Ambassador to Switzerland Phung The Long speaks at the ceremony (Photo: VNA)

Addressing the event on the occasion of his working trip to Switzerland, Vice Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of the People’s Committee of Hanoi Tran Sy Thanh briefed participants on the homeland’s socio-economic development achievements.

According to Nguyen Khac Thai, a Vietnamese living and working in Freibourg city, the event offered a chance for Vietnamese expats in Switzerland to join together in exchange activities.

“Vietnamese people, no matter where they go in the world, always look towards their homeland,” he stressed./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Representatives from the Vietnamese Embassy in Belgium participated in the annual Manifiesta (Solidarity) Festival of the Workers’ Party of Belgium held in Ostende city from September 9-10.

Deputy Ambassador Vu Thu Thuy said that the embassy brought a set of photos, books and publications to popularise to international friends about Vietnam and its people as well as life and career of President Ho Chi Minh.

The event is an opportunity to present to friends around the world about the cause of national liberation, construction and international integration of Vietnam, she added.

The Vietnamese stall attracted a great attention of international friends, from those who have been to Vietnam, supported the country in the national liberation movements, to those who only know it through books, newspapers, and documentary films.

Manifiesta is held annually to tighten solidarity among left-wing parties and workers’ movements from all over the world. The two-day event featured hundreds of pavilions, music performances, games, and debates related to global issues, including gender equality, vulnerable groups, racial discrimination, information and technology.

Launched for the first time in 2010, Manifiesta is shaped to address pressing topics such as workplace rights of health personnel and the climate crisis, while also emphasising the significance of feminism, peace advocacy, and solidarity./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The National Security Council’s (NSC) proposal to ban the use of TikTok among state security services personnel has gained the support of Virginia-headquartered Internet Society (IS). In an interview on Monday, Winthrop Yu, chairman emeritus and acting spokesperson of IS Philippine Chapter, said that all social media platforms bring a certain amount of risk, but the risk is greatly magnified when using the China-based digital app TikTok. He explained that companies in China are obliged to cooperate with Chinese authorities, especially in matters related to the sharing of information. ‘TikTok has no choice but to surrender all their accumulated information to Chinese security services,’ the IT expert noted. Yu explained that in democratic countries such as the United States, technology companies have the option of refusing the government security sector’s requests for assistance, specifically when they are asked to spy on users. Additionally, American tech companies are required to publicly disclose any assis
tance they extend to government intelligence agencies. He stressed that the same is not true under Beijing, which wields broad powers to compel cooperation from Chinese firms. ‘All phone apps are dangerous and represent a security risk, particularly if the app maker is subservient to its government,’ said Yu. He pointed out that owners of mobile devices downloaded with TikTok, or similar apps, have knowingly or unknowingly already surrendered unfettered access to the phone’s internal camera and microphone. Yu warned that once a technologically capable organization learns that the phone owned by a certain targeted individual carries such an app, it is technically feasible to surreptitiously use that phone to spy on its owner. ‘It sounds like a James Bond movie but it can be done with today’s technology. That phone in your pocket is a very powerful piece of technology,” he said. TikTok Pte. Ltd., known in the Chinese mainland as Douyin, is a subsidiary of Beijing-based ByteDance, founded by Chinese internet ent
repreneur Zhang Yiming. In 2021, several Chinese state entities, including the Cyberspace Administration of China, purchased a minor stake in the company. The IS is an American nonprofit advocacy organization founded in 1992 with local chapters around the world, and whose mission is “to promote the open development, evolution, and use of the Internet

Source: Philippines News Agency

Veteran actress Mek Habsah, whose real name is Habshah Bakar, died at the Institute of Respiratory Medicine Kuala Lumpur at 2.45 am today. She was 67.

Her grandson, Huraimi Hilman, who confirmed the news to Bernama, said Mek Habsah had suffered from lung disease for the past 20 years.

“Even before that, my grandmother needed to breathe with the aid of a ventilator. When she went out, she needed to carry portable oxygen with her,” he said.

Huraimi said that Habsah’s remains are currently at the Bilal Bin Rabah mosque at Taman Koperasi Polis Fasa 1 for funeral prayers and for family and friends to pay their last respects.

She will be laid to rest at the Raudathul Sakinah Muslim Cemetery after Zuhur prayers.

Apart from various television drama series, Mek Habsah also starred in a film titled Litar Kasih in 1996.

Source: BERNAMA News Agency