Author: gqSbgCfmna

Filipina golfers begin chase for elusive Taiwan LPGA crown

Philstar.comNovember 12, 2025 | 3:11pm

MANILA, Philippines — A determined 20-player contingent from the Ladies Philippine Golf Tour is gearing up t…

Philstar.com

November 12, 2025 | 3:11pm

MANILA, Philippines — A determined 20-player contingent from the Ladies Philippine Golf Tour is gearing up to make history as it sets out to finally capture a long-sought first victory on the Taiwan LPGA Tour (TLPGA).

The Filipinas, along with three Korean LPGT regulars, head into the NT$5-million Party Golfers Ladies Open, unfolding November 19 at the Lily Golf and Country Club in Guanxi Township, Hsinchu, brimming with both confidence and quiet urgency.

At the forefront is Daniella Uy, whose joint fourth-place finish in the 2019 edition remains the best performance by an LPGT campaigner in the event. She will once again spearhead a deep and battle-tested roster featuring this season’s LPGT leg winners — Chanelle Avaricio, Princess Superal, Mafy Singson and Florence Bisera — all eager to translate local dominance into international triumph.

For the Filipinas, a win on Taiwan soil has been agonizingly close but remains elusive. Superal tied for 16th in the first co-sanctioned LPGT-TLPGA event in 2018, while Uy’s near-podium finish in 2019 left her just three shots shy of local winner Yu Ling Hsieh.

In more recent editions, Pauline del Rosario carried the Philippine flag with back-to-back top-10 finishes — joint sixth in 2023 and tied for eighth last year.

Yet, the collective sentiment heading into this year’s 54-hole championship is one of renewed belief. The contingent has honed its competitive edge through a grueling domestic season and a series of international forays, making them more than ready to take on the formidable field of top players and rising stars from Thailand, Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and host Taiwan.

Among the most confident is Bisera, who is chasing a second international crown after her stunning breakthrough in Thailand last September — a victory that came right after she ruled the LPGT Negros Occidental leg.

Avaricio, a two-time LPGT champion this year with an additional runner-up finish, also looms as a strong contender, her consistency and composure setting her apart.

Superal and Singson, both tested by stints on the Japan Step Up Tour and China Tour respectively, bring valuable overseas experience that could prove crucial in navigating the pressure and conditions of the TLPGA circuit.

Meanwhile, Harmie Constantino, the dominant force of last year’s LPGT season with four titles and another Order of Merit crown, is out to end her title drought with a breakthrough performance abroad. Also joining the fray are Lois Kaye Go, Martina Miñoza, Velinda Castil, Gretchen Villacencio, Annika Cedo, Marvi Monsalve and Rev Alcantara, all eager to contribute to a potential milestone moment for Philippine women’s golf.

Completing the Philippine delegation are Kristine Fleetwood, Monica Mandario, Marjorie Pulumbarit and Jiwon Lee, Eunhua Nam, and Seo Yun Kim, who is equally motivated to redeem herself after twice faltering in the final round of LPGT events this year.

With talent, momentum and an unrelenting desire to make history, the LPGT squad enters the Party Golfers Ladies Open not just as participants, but as genuine contenders hungry to carve their names into the TLPGA record books. (PGT pool story)


Haayaa 2.0 and the Quiet Rebuild of Local Commerce Infrastructure

As Nigeria’s small and medium businesses continue to navigate the complexities of digital transformation, one local platform  called Haayaa is mak…

As Nigeria’s small and medium businesses continue to navigate the complexities of digital transformation, one local platform  called Haayaa is making a case for homegrown solutions for the SMEs and MSME sector.

Haayaa, developed by a trio of Nigerian founders, quietly signals a shift in how digital infrastructure for business is imagined, built, and deployed across local markets.

Haayaa is an all-in-one e-commerce platform offering easy-to-use customisable business tools that help individuals and SMEs scale their businesses.

In the last decade, Nigerian businesses particularly in the retail and trade sectors have leaned heavily on social media, instant messaging, and personal trust to sell, track, and manage customer relationships. But as demand grows, these methods are not sustainable.

According to Kene Aniekwena, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at Haayaa, “What we found wasn’t just a technology gap, it was a systems gap. Businesses weren’t failing because they didn’t know how to sell. They were struggling to stay organised. They were spending more time managing operations than growing.”

Haayaa is positioned  to solve that with a business-first approach.

This vision came to life at the recent Haayaa 2.0 Launch Event in Abuja, where entrepreneurs and creators gathered to experience the next evolution of the platform.

It was a glimpse into the future of digital business management for Nigerian SMEs, unveiling Haayaa’s redesigned interface, improved functionality, and expanded feature set. From interactive product demos to engaging conversations about digital infrastructure, the launch captured Haayaa’s commitment to empowering business owners with accessible tools that reflect the realities of local commerce. Attendees experienced first-hand the platform’s new additions, including the No-Code Website Builder, Integrated Logistics, Local Payment Support, POS (Point of Sales ) and Staff Access Accounts, which redefine accountability and trust in small business operations.

At its core, Haayaa 2.0 is an attempt at what many startups in the region are still grappling with, contextual innovation. Rather than recreate Western e-commerce models, Haayaa leans into the way Nigerian businesses actually operate: from managing sales across multiple channels to dealing with unreliable infrastructure. One of the most pressing but rarely addressed problems in local commerce is theft and lack of transparency among staff. Many business owners operate on trust, often blind trust, handing over physical stores or social media DMs to employees with little visibility into actual transactions. Haayaa 2.0 introduces Staff Access Accounts, a feature that allows business owners to assign sales roles to staff while monitoring every transaction in real-time. Owners can see who sold what, when it was sold, and through which channel. It’s real-time accountability that empowers business owners to delegate with confidence.

What Haayaa is doing goes beyond building a platform, it is redefining what digital infrastructure means for Nigerian markets. The platform is poised to revolutionize business infrastructure by rooting its innovation in the lived realities of Nigerian businesses.

It is evolving into the backbone of informal and semi-formal commerce across the country with features that support local payments, no-code website setup, integrated logistics, and community-based selling.

Haayaa’s ethos is one of quiet transformation. It doesn’t seek to “disrupt” as much as it seeks to enable. It doesn’t force businesses to abandon how they work, it enhances those ways with structure, insight, and efficiency.

‘Uwan’ damages nearly 3,000 schools, repair costs hit P661 million — DepEd

Cristina Chi – Philstar.comNovember 12, 2025 | 2:36pm

MANILA, Philippines — The number of schools damaged by Typhoon “Uwan” (international name: Fu…

Cristina Chi – Philstar.com

November 12, 2025 | 2:36pm

MANILA, Philippines — The number of schools damaged by Typhoon “Uwan” (international name: Fung-wong) has climbed to 2,953, while repair and cleanup costs have reached P661.1 million, according to a new situation report from the Department of Education (DepEd) released Wednesday, November 12.

DepEd said 10,400 classrooms have sustained damage so far — 3,503 classified as minor, 1,986 as major, and 1,238 as totally destroyed. 

Region V (Bicol) had the largest number of damaged schools at 8,2383, one of the hardest hit regions by the typhoon, and where casualties and the number of evacuees are also highest. Most of the classroom damage in Region V was classified as minor.

To fund response operations, DepEd said it has mobilized its Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (DRRM) teams and requested an initial P100 million for cleanup and minor repair activities. The department also plans to use P661.1 million for repair works and restoration of utilities, including power and connectivity in affected schools.

DepEd said it is coordinating with local governments and international partners, including the World Bank, to expedite reconstruction and ensure classes resume safely.

Based on DepEd’s latest situation report, at least 4,747 classrooms are still being used as evacuation centers on Wednesday after Uwan’s exit from the Philippine area of responsibility. 


Humans can no longer tell AI music from the real thing: survey

PARIS — It has become nearly impossible for people to tell the difference between music generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and that created by humans, according to a survey released Wednesday. The polling firm Ipsos asked 9,000 people to…

PARIS — It has become nearly impossible for people to tell the difference between music generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and that created by humans, according to a survey released Wednesday.

The polling firm Ipsos asked 9,000 people to listen to two clips of AI-generated music and one of human-made music in a survey conducted for France-based streaming platform Deezer.

“Ninety-seven percent could not distinguish between music entirely generated by AI and human-created music,” said Deezer in a statement.

The survey was conducted between Oct 6 and 10 in eight countries: Brazil, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and the United States.

Deezer said more than half of the respondents felt uncomfortable at not being able to tell the difference.

Pollsters also asked broader questions about the impact of AI, with 51% saying the technology would lead to more low-quality music on streaming platforms and almost two-thirds believing it will lead to a loss of creativity.

“The survey results clearly show that people care about music and want to know if they’re listening to AI or human made tracks or not,” Deezer CEO Alexis Lanternier said in a statement.

Deezer said there has not only been a surge in AI-generated content being uploaded to its platform, but it is finding listeners as well.

In January, one in 10 of the tracks streamed each day were completely AI-generated. Ten months later, that percentage has climbed to over one in three, or nearly 40,000 per day.

Eighty percent of survey respondents wanted fully AI-generated music clearly labelled for listeners.

Deezer is the only major music-streaming platform that systematically labels completely AI-generated content for users.

The issue gained prominence in June when a band called The Velvet Sundown suddenly went viral on Spotify, and only confirmed the following month that it was in fact AI-generated content.

The AI group’s most popular song has been streamed more than three million times.

In response, Spotify said it would encourage artists and publishers to sign up to a voluntary industry code to disclose AI use in music production.

Humans ‘can no longer tell AI music from the real thing’

PARIS — It has become nearly impossible for people to tell the difference between music generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and that created by humans, according to a survey released on Wednesday. The polling firm Ipsos asked 9,000 people…

PARIS — It has become nearly impossible for people to tell the difference between music generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and that created by humans, according to a survey released on Wednesday.

The polling firm Ipsos asked 9,000 people to listen to two clips of AI-generated music and one of human-made music in a survey conducted for France-based streaming platform Deezer.

“Ninety-seven percent could not distinguish between music entirely generated by AI and human-created music,” said Deezer.

The survey was conducted between Oct 6 and 10 in eight countries: Brazil, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and the United States.

The survey came out as a country music song featuring a male singer’s voice generated by AI reached the top of the US charts for the first time this week.

Walk My Walk by Breaking Rust — an artist widely reported by US media to be powered by generative AI technology — made it to the top spot on Billboard magazine’s chart ranking digital sales of country songs, according to data published on Monday.

Deezer said more than half of the respondents felt uncomfortable at not being able to tell the difference.

Pollsters also asked broader questions about the impact of AI, with 51% saying the technology would lead to more low-quality music on streaming platforms and almost two-thirds believing it will lead to a loss of creativity.

“The survey results clearly show that people care about music and want to know if they’re listening to AI or human made tracks or not,” Deezer CEO Alexis Lanternier said.

Deezer said there has not only been a surge in AI-generated content being uploaded to its platform, but it is finding listeners as well.

In January, one in 10 of the tracks streamed each day were completely AI-generated. Ten months later, that percentage has climbed to over one in three, or nearly 40,000 per day.

Eighty percent of survey respondents wanted fully AI-generated music clearly labelled for listeners.

Deezer is the only major music-streaming platform that systematically labels completely AI-generated content for users.

The issue gained prominence in June when a band called The Velvet Sundown suddenly went viral on Spotify, and only confirmed the following month that it was in fact AI-generated content.

The AI group’s most popular song has been streamed more than three million times.

In response, Spotify said it would encourage artists and publishers to sign up to a voluntary industry code to disclose AI use in music production.

The Deezer survey was conducted between Oct 6 and 10 in eight countries: Brazil, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and the United States.

New releases for your streaming pleasure: Nov 12-18

Looking for a title to binge-watch this weekend? Here’s our pick!
APPLE TV+ 

Come See Me In The Good Light
Premieres on Nov 14
A poignant and unexpectedly funny love story about poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley facing an incurable ca…

Looking for a title to binge-watch this weekend? Here’s our pick!

APPLE TV+ 

Come See Me In The Good Light

Premieres on Nov 14

A poignant and unexpectedly funny love story about poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley facing an incurable cancer diagnosis with joy, wit and an unshakable partnership. Through laughter and unwavering love, they transform pain into purpose, and mortality into a moving celebration of resilience.

HBO / HBO MAX

E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web

Premieres on Nov 12

When Wilbur learns that he is being raised for slaughter, he turns to a new friend for help: a witty and wise barn spider named Charlotte

Armor

Premieres on Nov 14 

A father and son working as security guards for an armoured truck company encounter a team of would-be robbers while on a bridge. They become trapped and must come up with a plan to escape and ensure their survival.

DISCOVERY CHANNEL

All Access PD: Grand Rapids

Premieres on Nov 14 

The show captures the entire operation of the Grand Rapids Police Department, from high-stakes homicide investigations to adrenaline-fuelled patrol stories..

Naked and Afraid: Apocalypse

Premieres on Nov 14 

In a harsh, post-apocalyptic world, twelve seasoned survivalists face their ultimate challenge. Veterans and newcomers must overcome deadly terrain where others have perished before them.

PRIME VIDEO

Playdate

Premieres on Nov 12

When recently unemployed accountant Brian agrees to a playdate with charismatic stay-at-home dad Jeff and their sons, he expects an easy afternoon of small talk and football tossing. Instead, he’s thrust into a chaotic scramble to stay alive as they are pursued by a ruthless team of mercenaries. Brian stumbles through one ridiculous obstacle after another, his zero tactical skills a stark contrast to Jeff’s oddly prepared demeanour.

Malice

Premieres on Nov 14

Adam is a charismatic tutor who charms his way into the life of the wealthy Tanner family while they’re on holiday in Greece. When the family’s nanny falls dangerously ill, Adam orchestrates his way into their London home and his true vengeful nature begins to emerge. Adam now starts to turn Jamie Tanner and Nat against each other and secretly plots to bring down the entire family. When Adam’s obsession with the family raises questions, and those who dig deeper into his past find themselves playing a dangerous game. With his world collapsing around him, Jamie starts to realise that Adam may be responsible for all their recent disasters — but is it too late to save his family?

In this revenge thriller that proves the past never stays buried, one question remains: how do you protect your family from the enemy within.

NETFLIX

A Merry Little Ex-Mas

Premieres on Nov 12

All Kate and Everett want for Christmas is an amicable divorce and one last holiday as a family, but new flames and old feelings complicate their plans.

Dynamite Kiss

Premieres on Nov 12

A struggling woman pretends to be a married mom at work — but trouble brews when her new boss is an heir who once shared a magical kiss from the past.

Tee Yai: Born To Be Bad

Premieres on Nov 13

The bond between two outlaws is tested by a detective who is determined to hunt down a notorious gang of robbers in 80’s Bangkok.

Citizen Dog

Premieres on Nov 13

Ignoring his grandmother’s warning that he’ll grow a tail if he moves to Bangkok, Pod leaves the safety of his village for a job in a big-city factory that produces canned sardines. He accidentally loses his finger, but he ultimately finds true love.

The Beast In Me

Premieres on Nov 13

A famous author is pulled into a twisted mind game with her rich, powerful new neighbour — who might be a murderer.

The Unseeable

Premieres on Nov 13

This spooky tale centers on the owner of a shabby boardinghouse, an aging widow whose dead husband is — rumour has it — her spectral lover.

Last Samurai Standing

Premieres on Nov 13

One life, one point. Shujiro enters a deadly game where points are earned for each kill. Who will be the last samurai standing in this sinister scheme?

In Your Dreams

Premieres on Nov 14

A sister and brother journey into the wildly absurd landscape of their own dreams to ask the wish-granting Sandman for the perfect family

The Next Prince

Premieres on Nov 15

When a reluctant heir is called to compete in a tournament to decide the next king, the royal guard sent to escort him soon becomes his forbidden desire. 

Dragon Ball Z: Season 5

Premieres on Nov 15

Still alive, Frieza heads to Earth with King Cold to exact revenge. A swordsman joins the fray, but it’s unclear who he is, or whose side he’s on.

3 Bob Ross paintings sell for $600,000 to support public broadcasters

LOS ANGELES — Three Bob Ross paintings sold at auction in Los Angeles for more than US$600,000 on Tuesday, the first of 30 canvases by the artist and television host to be sold as part of a campaign to help public broadcasters across the United States …

LOS ANGELES — Three Bob Ross paintings sold at auction in Los Angeles for more than US$600,000 on Tuesday, the first of 30 canvases by the artist and television host to be sold as part of a campaign to help public broadcasters across the United States weather federal funding cuts.

The sales were announced by Bonhams, the auction house that hosted the auction. It plans to sell the other 27 paintings at several auctions next year in Boston, New York and Los Angeles. The proceeds will benefit public television stations across the country that have been grappling with the Donald Trump administration’s cancellation of $1.1 billion in funding for public media.

Ross, who died at 52 in 1995, became a beloved pop culture figure in the 1980s by hosting “The Joy of Painting,” a PBS show carried by hundreds of public television stations.

The three landscapes sold Tuesday showcase some of Ross’ signature motifs, including saturated colours and whimsical clouds:

  • “Winter’s Peace” (1993), a portrait of a snow-covered cabin nestled beside evergreens, sold for $318,000.
  • “Home in the Valley” (1993), in which a single house overlooks a lake with mountains and clear blue skies, sold for $229,100.
  • “Cliffside” (1990), showing a flowing river gushing through the crevices of a cliff, sold for $114,800.

Joan Kowalski, the president of Bob Ross Inc, the company that oversees the Ross empire, donated the 30 paintings to American Public Television, a syndicator that distributes “The Joy of Painting” and other programmes to hundreds of public television channels. Most of the works have only been seen on the air, when Ross painted them.

Kowalski came up with the idea for the auction after seeing that Bonhams had sold two privately owned paintings by Ross in August for around $100,000 each.

Proceeds from the auctions will go to American Public Television, and the syndicator will disperse the money to broadcasters in need of relief. Neither American Public Television nor Bob Ross Inc could be reached for comment late Tuesday.

Painter Bob Ross is shown during the taping of his very first public television show ‘The Joy of Painting’ at the WNVC studio in Falls Church, Virginia, the United States, in this frame grab from video obtained by Reuters on Tuesday.

Painter Bob Ross is shown during the taping of his very first public television show ‘The Joy of Painting’ at the WNVC studio in Falls Church, Virginia, the United States, in this frame grab from video obtained by Reuters on Tuesday.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Marcos slams ‘chill’ leaders amid typhoon crises

Jean Mangaluz – Philstar.comNovember 12, 2025 | 1:02pm

MANILA, Philippines — The Palace maintained that while the local officials who left the coun…

Jean Mangaluz – Philstar.com

November 12, 2025 | 1:02pm

MANILA, Philippines — The Palace maintained that while the local officials who left the country during the typhoons are still being internally questioned, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. disapproved of leaders who are “chill-chill lang (only).”

Several officials are under fire for traveling abroad at the height of tropical cyclones Tino and Uwan, which ravaged the country mere days apart.

One official, Isabel Gov. Rodolfo Albano III, also caught the ire of citizens. Albano, currently in Germany, said that his residents should chill, even with the cyclone closing in on the Philippines.

While she did not name names, Palace Press Officer Claire Castro said that Marcos does not accept this kind of behavior.

“Hindi niya (Marcos) po gusto na ang mga liderato ay chill-chill lang. So, dapat talaga ang trabaho ay para sa taumbayan kasi ang taumbayan umaasa po sa gobyerno lalo na sa mga ganitong klaseng sitwasyon at kondisyon. So, hindi puwedeng sabihin lang na chill-chill lang palagi dahil dapat trabaho, trabaho – hindi bakasyon,” Castro said.

(He does not like leaders who are just chilling around. The job should be for the people because the people rely on the government, especially in these types of situations and conditions. So, we can’t just say just chill because it should be work—not vacation.)

Castro maintained that just because the leaders went abroad, it does not mean that they were vacationing. However, she said that leaders must remain with their communities in the face of calamities.

The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) has named several officials who went out of the country during Tino and Uwan, including Albano and Batanes Gov. Jun Aguto. Several executives from Cebu were also absent from their communities during the cyclones.

No resort?

While the Palace has expressed disapproval of “chill” leaders, it defended First Lady Liza Marcos for her book launch at the Goldenberg Mansion in Malacañang, which took place on November 6, the same time that Typhoon Tino hit the country.

Asked about the criticisms accusing the First Lady of being tone-deaf, the Palace said that each official had their own designated obligation.


South Korea, Netherlands hold talks on cybersecurity and AI in defense

South Korea and the Netherlands discussed joint strategies to
address emerging security challenges, including cybersecurity and
the responsible military use of artificial intelligence (AI),
Azernews reports, citing Yonhap.
Th…

South Korea and the Netherlands discussed joint strategies to
address emerging security challenges, including cybersecurity and
the responsible military use of artificial intelligence (AI),
Azernews reports, citing Yonhap.

The talks took place on Monday in The Hague between Youn
Jong-kwon, South Korea’s ambassador for international cybersecurity
affairs, and Wouter Jurgens, director for security policy at the
Dutch foreign ministry, the South Korean foreign ministry said.

Both sides agreed to strengthen international coordination on
these emerging challenges and also addressed more traditional
security issues, such as the nonproliferation of weapons of mass
destruction.

Here we are to serve you with news right now. It does not cost much, but worth your attention.

Choose to support open, independent, quality journalism and subscribe on a monthly basis.

By subscribing to our online newspaper, you can have full digital access to all news, analysis, and much more.

Subscribe

You can also follow AzerNEWS on Twitter @AzerNewsAz or Facebook @AzerNewsNewspaper

Thank you!

Vietnam eyes tariff deal soon, as US seeks to cut huge trade deficit

Washington seeks to reduce trade deficit with Vietnam, largest after China and Mexico

PUBLISHED : 12 Nov 2025 at 11:22

…

Washington seeks to reduce trade deficit with Vietnam, largest after China and Mexico

PUBLISHED : 12 Nov 2025 at 11:22


US and Vietnamese flags flutter in the wind at the presidential palace in Hanoi where US President George W Bush is visiting Nov 17, 2006. (File photo: Reuters)
US and Vietnamese flags flutter in the wind at the presidential palace in Hanoi where US President George W Bush is visiting Nov 17, 2006. (File photo: Reuters)

HANOI — Vietnam is working to sign a trade agreement with the United States soon, Deputy Prime Minister Bui Thanh Son said on Wednesday, as a new round of negotiations gets underway in Washington.

In October, the two countries agreed to finalise a trade deal within weeks that would maintain US tariffs of 20% on its imports of Vietnamese goods but exempt some unspecified products from the new duty imposed by US President Donald Trump in August.

Son urged US businesses at a conference in Hanoi to help in bilateral negotiations so that the two parties could “soon sign a fair and balanced trade agreement.”

Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Michael DeSombre, told the conference in a recorded statement that the trade deal should rebalance commercial flows between the two countries, reducing the US deficit with Hanoi, which is the largest after China and Mexico.

For the first 10 months of the year, Vietnam has recorded a US$111 billion trade surplus with the US – pointing to another potential annual record – according to Vietnamese data, which is usually more conservative than US trade figures, currently unavailable because of an ongoing federal government shutdown.

Talks on exemption list

A Vietnamese delegation led by Trade Minister Nguyen Hong Dien is in Washington this week for a new round of talks with US officials to work on finalising the trade agreement, the Vietnamese trade ministry said on its web portal.

A person briefed about the talks said negotiations would focus on identifying Vietnamese items that could be exempted from US tariffs, such as coffee, and on the scope of the preferential access to the Vietnamese market that Hanoi has pledged for US products, such as cars and farm goods. 

The Vietnamese side aimed to finalise the deal ideally after the US Supreme Court decides on the legality of US tariffs imposed by Trump, and possibly by December, the person said, declining to be named because the information was not public. The court ruling is expected any time before the end of this year and mid-2026.

Vietnamese negotiators are keen to mark the signing of a trade deal with a meeting between Trump and Vietnam’s top leader To Lam, multiple officials have said.

Son urged US businesses at Wednesday’s conference to support Vietnam’s efforts to set up the high-level meeting. Past attempts have not been successful, according to multiple officials.

He also called on US businesses to encourage Washington to recognise Vietnam as a market economy and lift its restrictions on the export of high-tech products, such as advanced semiconductors.

DeSombre said Vietnam could play a role in global supply chains for critical minerals. Vietnam has large resources of rare earths and gallium but has been slow in exploiting them.