Somebody Else’s Door

Dear Abbot,

Monk here.

Wednesday. Five capitals, each peering over the fence for something left on its own side.

WELLINGTON. In Wellington, the National-led government introduced a bill in August to ban social media for under-16s. Its coalition partners, NZ First and ACT, do not support it, and ministers say it will not get a first reading this term. Labour offered its votes. The Leader of the House said there was not enough time. Labour now promises the ban within its first 100 days if it wins the election on 7 November.

The government’s bill has one clear road into law, and it runs through the government losing.

ASTANA. In Astana, The Astana Times has printed Meta’s case against keeping teenagers off social media, made by its public policy director for products in Asia-Pacific. “Algorithms are neutral. They are neither inherently good or inherently bad.” Bans, he said, do not reduce the time young people spend online, and content safety is “never 100%.” Ages are better checked at the app store or the operating system, since a young person can use up to 40 apps a day.

Meta would like every child’s age checked at the door. Somebody else’s door.

TASHKENT. In Tashkent, IT Park has been named knowledge zone of the year for Asia-Pacific by fDi Intelligence; the global title went to Dubai. StartupBlink made Uzbekistan its Country of the Year, up 31 places in two years to 79th. Tashkent ranked 229th among cities. A programme called Five Million AI Leaders reports 1.3 million participants.

The boy has enrolled.

“Whom will I lead?”

“The other 1.3 million.”

“And whom do they lead?”

“You. It is a very balanced programme.”

KUWAIT CITY. In Kuwait City, the Interior Ministry’s undersecretary has issued Circular No. 134. Every department must hand over the names and civil ID numbers of all who drive ministry cars, so that fines on those cars land on whoever was at the wheel. The point, Arab Times reports, is to collect the fines still outstanding.

The ministry has found a fleet of unidentified drivers, parked in its own yard.

TEGUCIGALPA. In Tegucigalpa, the government says about 60,000 teachers will be trained in artificial intelligence with Google’s tools, Gemini among them, described as Google’s largest such programme in Latin America. It was announced at the Google Public Sector Summit 2026, in Washington. A cybersecurity bill is to go to Congress soon.

The syllabus had its premiere at the textbook’s own convention.

There is a man in the Lieh Tzu who lost his axe and suspected the neighbour’s son. The boy walked like a thief, looked like a thief, spoke like a thief. Then the man dug in his own ditch, found the axe, and next morning the boy walked, looked and spoke like anybody. This week the axe was at home everywhere. Meta found the risk at the app store. Kuwait found its missing drivers on its own payroll. Wellington’s government needs its opponents to pass its own bill. Honduras held its lesson abroad. Only the figures from Tashkent dug in the home ditch, and set 229th beside the trophy.

Axe: in the ditch. Ministry cars: named, finally.

Yours, digging in my own garden first,

The Monk