The Long Way Round

Dear Abbot,

Monk here.

Saturday, and every office in the region was laying a bridge to somewhere.

KUALA LUMPUR. In the Dewan Rakyat on Thursday, Gobind Singh Deo, the digital minister, said the government is open to a task force against the misuse of artificial intelligence in elections, deceptive content and its spread included. The proposal will first be discussed with the Election Commission. A separate AI Governance Bill would bring accountability, risk management and incident reporting.

The fastest way to get the task force would be a deepfake of the Election Commission agreeing to it.

ALMATY. In Almaty, the National Bank of Kazakhstan announced on 29 October that the central banks of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan will develop a way to link their national QR payment systems before 2027, so a shopper can pay next door from a home bank’s app. Kyrgyzstan’s Elkart joined Alipay+ in May. It worked first in Kazakhstan and Malaysia.

The long way round opened in May. Five central banks are now building the short way.

ALMATY. Also in Almaty, the Eurasian Development Bank says Central Asia’s electricity demand will rise 27% by 2030 and wants grids, storage and backup ready. Its March report put the rise at nearly 40%, from about 270 to 370 billion kWh. The October presentation does not say 27% of what.

Since March, a third of 2030’s extra appetite has been sent back to the kitchen, with no word on the dish.

BISHKEK. In Ala-Archa State Nature Park, about 40 kilometres from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan plans a 732-metre glass suspension bridge, perhaps the longest of its kind, with a call to Guinness under consideration. Building starts in November; the head of the Presidential Affairs Office inspected the site on 29 October. A gondola carrying up to 1,000 people an hour opened in February, and a five-star hotel is nearly done. The authors of a draft strategy for protected areas propose limiting visitors on the popular routes.

The strategy wants fewer feet on the trails. The Presidential Affairs Office will keep them off the ground entirely.

The boy has studied the drawings.

“Will the glass hold me?”

“It is built to hold a world record.”

“And me?”

“You are not yet in Guinness.”

DONG NAI. At Long Thanh, east of Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam’s new airport opens on 24 December, says the airports corporation: 5,000 hectares, about US$16 billion, 366 flights a week to start, and in the end 100 million passengers a year.

At the opening rate, a hundred million passengers would need aircraft of some 5,250 seats each.

Lao Tzu, chapter eighty, imagines a small country whose boats and carriages sit unused, where the next village is close enough to hear its dogs and roosters, and the people grow old without once going over. This week nobody could bear the quiet. Almaty is wiring tills and grids to the neighbours. Bishkek is hanging glass over the valley. Long Thanh has poured a runway for a hundred million. Kuala Lumpur has the newest problem: the rooster next door can now be generated, and needs a task force to tell which one crowed.

Bridge: glass. Baseline: unstated. Flights: 366, room for more.

Yours, within earshot of the neighbour’s rooster,

The Monk