Global
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Vietnam is digging up a graveyard so a sprawling Trump International golf resort with plush residences can be built along the Red River, while "the highest Starbucks Coffeehouse in Asia" has opened on Vietnam's tallest mountain peak near Sapa.
Trillionaire Elon Musk meanwhile received a Starlink satellite operating license in February to expand Vietnam's censored internet.
And Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC news last year for U.S. sales of "Mac and iPad and AirPods and the Watch, almost all of the country of origin is Vietnam."
Hanoi's eager embrace of American capitalism spotlights how vastly U.S.-Vietnam relations have changed since their grueling 10-year war ended with a communist victory in 1975.
Hanoi favors close ties with Washington to balance its economic vulnerability with China, its giant trading partner across Vietnam's northern frontier.
U.S. investments in Vietnam meanwhile appear to be growing.
When you prioritize principles, you decide what is right or wrong for you, regardless of whether others will praise you or whether doing so will bring you fame. That's precisely what the Lebanese child chess star Lauren Abdel Samad did during the 2026 World Youth Championship. Lauren withdrew from two matches against Israeli opponents at the FIDE World Cadets Cup in Batumi, Georgia.
Lauren was born in 2018 in the Chouf region of Lebanon, a small area with limited access to elite chess infrastructure. She recently gained prominence after winning first place in national competitions and qualifying to represent Lebanon at the FIDE World Cadets Cup in Georgia.
Her achievements stand out because:
Justice Clarence Thomas’s dissenting and concurring opinions on matters of immigration/birthright citizenship, voting rights, and transgender athletes have once again landed the enigma at the center of controversy. The thinking is and has always been that as a member of an historically marginalized group perhaps Thomas would be empathetic toward similarly situated minorities and move accordingly. Makes sense, yet for the past thirty-five years that hasn’t been the case. Many have maintained that Thomas has done quite the opposite.
Israel is adamant about expelling Palestinian by making their life a living hell in the besieged Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank, occupied East Jerusalem, and also inside the Green Line, better known as historical Palestine, so Palestinian will forced to leave their homes and seek shelter elsewhere for safety.
The Israeli policy live, leave or die will not work. either the Israeli leave back to where they came from or live miserable live with their families with peace or security or recognize the Palestinian right to live free and independent like they aspire for themselves.
July 05, 2026, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported that, 175 Palestinian have been killed in Israel since the beginning of the year, including 146 members within the Green Line. That is a reference to 48-Palestinians community (Palestinians who never left Palestine when Israel was created). 14 of the victims were killed this week alone. No arrest was made in the killing of 146 Palestinians. Israel argues, it does not have enough manpower.
However, when an Israeli Jew is killed by a Palestinian,
1- the police identify the perpetrator within less than 24 hours.
I recently had the chance to send a message to the President of Ireland, Her Excellency Catherine Connolly.
President Connolly is a vocal supporter of Palestine and remains one of the few European heads of state to explicitly accuse Israel of carrying out a genocide in Gaza.
She has a long history of this advocacy; while previously serving as a member of the Dáil Éireann—the lower house of the Irish Parliament—she famously argued that if Ireland couldn't recognize Israel as a "terrorist state," then the country was "in serious trouble."
The President’s sister, Dr. Margaret Connolly also joined the Global Sumud Flotilla—a multi-boat humanitarian convoy carrying medical supplies and food attempting to break the siege on Gaza.
In May 2026, the flotilla was intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters, resulting in the detention of Dr. Connolly and hundreds of other pro-Palestinian activists.
Wow, U.S. social media is suffering a pandemic of nationalism just in time for a celebration of a declaration of the crimes and abuses of King George, a laundry list of horrors that pale beside the accomplishments of any recent U.S. president — the quaint abuses of his royal highness of the blue piss who in reality was more progressive and less tyrannical than your average 21st century prime minister, but who was preventing the expansion of the ethnic cleansing further west and showing signs that he would do what he soon did: agree to ending the slave trade. That guy had to go. Proto-communist what he was.
Wow, I must hate America.
Traveling around the world, there’s no question that Trump has made it harder to be American. There has always been a fair amount of explaining involved, but there’s no way to rationalize the inexplicable and indefensible, except to note that we are all involved in fighting for freedom in our home countries now. We have to stand tall and accept that being an American now involves a certain amount of embarrassment over the greed, racism, and chauvanism spewing from the White House.
We’ve gotten some rare respite from these feelings surprisingly by hosting the World Cup. Most of us are pretty ignorant of the beautiful game. Who knew a red card meant that a player was ejected from than game and one more, but it’s been wonderful to see and hear the oohhs and aahhs from foreign visitors first discovering America, even if it’s a hard swallow to take pride in Buc-cee’s, knowing that every dollar spent is enriching its far right, archconservative Texas owner.