HANOI, May 2 — Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is set to meet Vietnam’s ‌leader To Lam in Hanoi today as the countries try to shore up ties amid a sharp slowdown in Japanese ‌investment in Vietnam.

The two sides are expected to discuss ways to deepen a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership established in 2023, with a focus on cooperation in energy, technology, critical minerals and regional stability, a Japanese foreign ministry official said.

Japan remains one of Vietnam’s largest foreign investors, with many Japanese multinationals operating large manufacturing facilities in the country. However, new Japanese investment pledges in the first quarter fell about ‌75 per cent from a year earlier to US$233 million (RM925 million), Vietnamese government ⁠data shows.

Takaichi is expected ⁠to press for improvements in Vietnam’s business ⁠environment and discuss the ⁠challenges facing ⁠Japanese companies, including delayed payments for completed works and difficulties gaining access to large infrastructure projects, the official said.

Japan last ⁠year announced it would withdraw from a nuclear power project in Vietnam, citing an overly restrictive construction timetable.

Days before the visit, Hanoi said it was reconsidering a ban on petrol-powered motorcycles in its city centre, a policy ⁠long criticised by Honda.

Despite investment concerns, bilateral trade has remained strong, rising 12.3 per cent from a year earlier to US$13.7 billion ⁠in the first quarter, according to Vietnamese customs data.

Takaichi is ⁠also ⁠scheduled to meet her Vietnamese counterpart Le Minh Hung and deliver a speech at Vietnam National University on the evolution of ‌Japan’s “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” strategy, before travelling on to Australia. — Reuters

HANOI, May 2 — Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is set to meet Vietnam’s ‌leader To Lam in Hanoi today as the countries try to shore up ties amid a sharp slowdown in Japanese ‌investment in Vietnam.

The two sides are expected to discuss ways to deepen a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership established in 2023, with a focus on cooperation in energy, technology, critical minerals and regional stability, a Japanese foreign ministry official said.

Japan remains one of Vietnam’s largest foreign investors, with many Japanese multinationals operating large manufacturing facilities in the country. However, new Japanese investment pledges in the first quarter fell about ‌75 per cent from a year earlier to US$233 million (RM925 million), Vietnamese government ⁠data shows.

Takaichi is expected ⁠to press for improvements in Vietnam’s business ⁠environment and discuss the ⁠challenges facing ⁠Japanese companies, including delayed payments for completed works and difficulties gaining access to large infrastructure projects, the official said.

Japan last ⁠year announced it would withdraw from a nuclear power project in Vietnam, citing an overly restrictive construction timetable.

Days before the visit, Hanoi said it was reconsidering a ban on petrol-powered motorcycles in its city centre, a policy ⁠long criticised by Honda.

Despite investment concerns, bilateral trade has remained strong, rising 12.3 per cent from a year earlier to US$13.7 billion ⁠in the first quarter, according to Vietnamese customs data.

Takaichi is ⁠also ⁠scheduled to meet her Vietnamese counterpart Le Minh Hung and deliver a speech at Vietnam National University on the evolution of ‌Japan’s “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” strategy, before travelling on to Australia. — Reuters

WASHINGTON, May 2 — More than two months into a conflict that has failed to deliver a decisive military or diplomatic win, President Donald Trump faces the risk that a standoff ‌with Iran will drag on indefinitely and leave an even bigger problem for the US and the world than before he launched the war. With both sides outwardly confident they hold the upper hand and their positions far apart, there is no obvious off-ramp in sight, even as Iran submitted a fresh proposal to restart negotiations. Trump quickly rejected it yesterday.

For the US president and his Republican Party, the implications of a continued impasse are grim. An unresolved conflict would likely mean the global economic fallout, including high US gasoline prices, will persist, putting further pressure on Trump, whose poll numbers are falling, and darkening Republican candidates’ ‌prospects ahead of November’s midterm congressional elections.

Unmet goals

Those costs highlight a deeper problem: the war has failed to achieve many of Trump’s stated goals.

While there is little doubt that waves of US and Israeli strikes heavily degraded Iran’s military capabilities, many of Trump’s often-shifting war objectives — from regime change to shutting Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon — remain unfulfilled. Fears for a more protracted deadlock have grown since Trump called off a trip by his negotiators to Islamabad last weekend and then dismissed an Iranian offer to halt the war, suspended since April 8 under a ceasefire agreement. Tehran proposed setting aside discussion of its nuclear programme until the conflict is formally ended and a deal is reached on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. That was a non-starter for Trump, who has demanded the nuclear issue be dealt with at the outset.

There was a glimmer of hope yesterday when state news agency IRNA reported Tehran had sent a revised proposal through Pakistani mediators, causing a drop in global oil prices that had risen sharply since Iran effectively closed the strait. Trump told reporters he was “not satisfied” with the offer, though he said there were ongoing contacts by phone.

A failure to wrest the vital oil-shipping waterway from Iranian control at the conclusion of the conflict would be a major blow to Trump’s legacy.

“He’d be remembered as the US president who made the world less safe,” said Laura Blumenfeld, a Middle East expert at Johns Hopkins University in Washington.

White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said Iran’s “desperation” is increasing due to military and economic pressure, and Trump “holds all the cards and has all the time he needs to make the best deal.”

Resumption of hostilities? 

With his next steps uncertain and no clear endgame, Trump has in private meetings raised the prospect of a prolonged naval blockade of Iran, possibly for months more, aimed at further squeezing off its oil exports and forcing it to reach a denuclearisation agreement, a White House ‌official said on condition of anonymity.

At the same time, he has left the door open to resuming military action. The US Central Command has prepared options for a “short and powerful” series of strikes as well as for taking over part of the strait to reopen it to ⁠shipping, Axios reported on Thursday.

European diplomats said their governments, whose relations with Trump have been strained by the war, expect the current situation with ⁠Iran to persist.

“It’s hard to see how this will end soon,” said one, speaking on condition of anonymity. Iran has remained defiant.

It has exerted powerful leverage against the US and its allies, triggering ⁠an unprecedented energy supply shock by choking off shipping in the strait, ⁠where tanker traffic flowed freely before the war, carrying a fifth ⁠of the world’s oil.

Analysts say Iran will be emboldened knowing that it will have this weapon at its disposal even after the war.

“Iran has realized that, even in a weakened state, it can shut off the Strait at will,” said Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “That knowledge leaves Iran stronger than it was before the war.”

Uranium stockpile remains

Trump — who took office promising to avoid entanglement in foreign interventions — has also failed to achieve his main stated aim in attacking Iran on February 28: to close off its path to a nuclear weapon.

A ⁠stockpile of highly enriched uranium is believed to remain buried following US and Israeli airstrikes last June and could be recovered and further processed into bomb-grade material. Iran says it wants the US to recognize its right to enrich uranium for what it says are peaceful purposes.

Wales, the White House spokeswoman, said Trump had “met or surpassed” all military objectives, including action “to ensure that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.”

Another of Trump’s declared war goals — forcing Iran to stop support for proxy groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and Palestinian Hamas — also remains unmet. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, in congressional testimony, denied the conflict had become a “quagmire,” despite Trump having initially predicted it would be over in four to six weeks.

Renewed peace talks are unlikely to yield a quick resolution, given the large gaps.

Though Trump has said he will accept nothing less than a long-term solution to the threat posed by Iran, he has at times shown signs of seeking an exit plan from an unpopular conflict. At the request of Trump’s aides, intelligence agencies are studying how Iran would respond if he declared a unilateral victory and ⁠pulled back, US officials have told Reuters.

Independent analysts say Tehran would interpret that as its own strategic success for having survived the military onslaught.

At the same time, European and Gulf Arab diplomats have expressed concern that Trump might eventually agree to a flawed deal that would allow a wounded Iran to remain a threat.

Risk of ‘frozen conflict’

With negotiations deadlocked, some analysts have suggested the war could devolve into a frozen conflict that would defy a permanent solution. That could ⁠prevent Trump from significantly scaling down forces in the Middle East.

The US is already paying new strategic costs.

Those include fractures with traditional European allies, who were not consulted before Trump went to war. He has harshly criticized Nato partners for not sending their navies to help open the ⁠strait, and in the past week ⁠spoke about possibly drawing down troops in Germany, Spain and Italy.

Trump also must deal with a more hardline Iranian leadership, dominated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, that took over after US-Israeli strikes killed several figures, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The president’s call at the start of the conflict for the Iranian people to overthrow their rulers has gone unheeded. At home, Trump is under pressure to end a war that has dragged his approval rating to the lowest level of his term — 34 per cent, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll — and spiked gasoline prices above US$4 a gallon ahead of the midterms, in which Republicans are at risk of ‌losing control of Congress.

A second White House spokeswoman, Taylor Rogers, said Trump was committed to maintaining his party’s congressional majority and that high gasoline prices were only “short-term disruptions” that would be overcome as the conflict subsides.

The Iranians, however, are mindful of Trump’s domestic troubles and may be prepared to wait him out, but the question remains how long they can stave off economic calamity.

“Iran isn’t fractured or folding, it’s playing for time,” Sina Toossi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy think tank in Washington, wrote on X. — Reuters

MALAYSIA: Universiti Malaya has apologised after a theatre scene deviated from the vetted script and violated competition rules, resulting in the performance being ruled ineligible.

But some are saying this is nothing new, and it has happened before, but this time it is getting more attention because it happened at the UM, a very prestigious institution in Malaysia.

The institution also says it will investigate the suggestive theatre scene that went viral after public outcry.

The controversy arose from a clip filmed during the Universiti Malaya Theatre Carnival (KARVITER).

The footage showed a male and female actor alone together on a bed under dimmed lighting. The male actor is seen slowly crawling forward suggestively while the female actor begins to lie down, shortly before the sequence is interrupted.

The university said it takes the matter seriously and acknowledges the concerns raised by the public. It said the scene constitutes a clear violation of competition rules.

Users on X are saying this is not the first time a university play runs out of script, particularly when it comes to suggestive acts.

The user posted a video showing what they say is a student in a sexually explicit act.

One commenter said that besides UM, UPM isn’t spared either. “This theatre issue has actually been around for a long time. It’s only viral now because UM did it.

“Here’s an old video from UPM in 2019. This time it’s the woman on top of the man… kind of the reverse .”

Another had this to say on the moral standing in Universities:

UM’s Karviter. Doing indecent acts openly, and being afraid of being criticised openly.”

The user also asked what type of education is being dispensed at the institution to make students act the way they did during the play.

They twisted the title of the play, ‘Asrama-ra’ to ‘berasmara’, meaning (making love).

The story went wild on threads, with some saying they thought UM was a great university, while others stated the acts during the play showed serious failings, blaming the lecturers in the process.

Another commenter shared: “Surely those students should have rehearsed. Why wasn’t it filtered? As lecturers, why didn’t you advise that it was inappropriate to be staged? Only after it went viral did a statement come out… Very embarrassing. This is serious, not a joke. Issues like this seem to encourage immorality. Back then, if we performed, we would be corrected — okay, this part needs to be cut off. So I think UM lecturers were very careless.”

The incident has since drawn wider discussion about creative boundaries and supervision in student productions.

This article (Universiti Malaya apologises after theatre scene deviates from script, sparks backlash) first appeared on The Independent Singapore News.

The school’s $100m project to examine its slave ownership in Antigua is mired with controversy as academics allege obstruction

Christopher Newman remembers seeing campus police officers as he walked into a human resources office at Harvard University, but he didn’t imagine that they were there for him.

It was July 2024, and Newman had just turned in the results of a two-month-long internship with the Harvard University Archives: an annotated bibliography for the landmark 2022 Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery Initiative report, which detailed the university’s ties to slavery across three centuries. He completed his project on Friday, 26 July, and on Monday, he said he received an email that HR wanted to meet with him.

A darkroom printer's scrapbook containing previously unseen photos that belonged to Lee Miller and Cecil Beaton has been unearthed and acquired by the University of Oxford's Bodleian Libraries.

[Read More]

As part of the PULSE-C project, the University of Camaguey will receive a photovoltaic system with storage that will guarantee the operational continuity of its strategic services, in a commitment to the dual energy and digital transition in Cuban Higher Education