Within Twenty Points

Dear Abbot,

Monk here.

Sunday. A week of offices writing things down.

BERN. In Bern, the Federal Council has reviewed the consultation on a law for communication platforms. The draft is to be amended “with measures to protect children.” An outright ban on social media for minors has been ruled out. So has systematic age verification, for data protection among other reasons. Parliament gets the proposal by the end of 2027.

A law to protect children, on the firm understanding that nobody asks how old they are.

AKTAU. In Aktau, a 380 km cable now runs under the Caspian to Sumgait, inaugurated on 15 October, so Kazakh data can reach Europe without crossing Russia. Design capacity: at least 400 terabits per second. The ministry hopes total international transit will more than double, to 21.6 Tbps. Kazakhtelecom’s chairman expects benefits no earlier than early 2027.

A road eighteen times wider than all the traffic anyone has promised it.

JAKARTA. In Jakarta, the communications minister, Meutya Hafid, put mobile operators’ compliance with the rules protecting customers’ leftover data quota at 50, 60, 70 percent. Two days later, at an archives audit handover, she said: “Accurate recording must become a habit in every work process.”

Accurate, that is, to within twenty points.

KUCHING. In Kuching, Malaysia’s communications minister, Fahmi Fadzil, said the regulator is watching online exchanges between Malaysians and Indonesians over the haze from Kalimantan, though nothing excessively offensive has been reported. “We are also angry over this seemingly endless haze problem,” he said. Malaysia has asked Indonesia for help putting out the fires. By Thursday it had no reply.

Online, the two countries exchange a great deal. Between the governments, the exchange is one message long.

KATHMANDU. In Kathmandu, the Hello Sarkar grievance service “received 782 complaints between October 11 and 15.” In the same five days it resolved 1,009. Unpaid wages, missing bills, internet charges.

The boy did the sum twice, then on his toes.

“Two hundred and twenty-seven more out than in.”

“Some had been waiting.”

“And if none had?”

“Then a desk in Kathmandu is answering letters nobody has written yet.”

Duke Huan was reading in his hall when Pian the wheelwright, chiselling below, asked whose words they were. The sages’, said the duke, long dead. Then my lord is reading their dregs, said Pian. He knew by hand when a wheel was cut right, neither loose nor tight, and could not put it into words, even for his son. Chuang Tzu kept the story.

This week the capitals did their work in ink: a draft for 2027, a habit of accurate recording, a cable eighteen times its promise. Only the complaints desk in Kathmandu worked like Pian, by hand, and faster than anyone could write it down.

Haze: unanswered. Cable: lit, and waiting for 2027.

Yours, with the chisel still in its box,

The Monk