I'm extremely humbled to be among the winners of this year's @ilo journo award for labor migration reporting. I've been sharing more about what I hope to come out of this, and my work more broadly, on Linkedin. Join me there if you are keen.

It was supposed to be just another Thursday in Laos, where Anthonin's father was born. Instead, the 30yo French citizen found himself among more than 140 people, mostly tourists, on a ferry that capsized in the Mekong River. All but 3 are thought to have made it to safety 👇👇👇

This has been circulating, which is claimed to portray a truck bringing Viets to Cambodia. In fact, this is an old raid in 2021 that was reported on local media. These people paid the driver to get them through a pandemic checkpoint in VN, not to go to 🇰🇭

Thank you, the German embassy in Hanoi, for nominating me to the MYL!

While it is surreal to listen to JD Vance, Wang Yi, and the like in person at the conference, it is through the MYL that I'm learning the most. With the exception of myself, the 2025 cohort is a formidable league of established leaders in their respective govs & institutions. 🧵

As leaders scramble to end ongoing conflicts, notably in Ukraine & Gaza, & preprare for potential ones, it's humbling to be at the heart of these discussions & witness how dialogues, and surely tension, unfold, both at the MSC but also in exclusive dialogues we hv as MYL. 🧵

since it started in 2009, co-led by the Berlin-based Körber Foundation & the Munich Security Conference. Those who were at the MSC this week would agree that a turning point in history happened in regards to the US' relationship w Europe, among other things. 🧵

"Dialogues alone won't lead to peace. But surely, without dialogues, there will be no peace." This was a highlight in the warm introduction to the Munich Young Leaders (MYL) that I'm honored to be among this year. I'm the first Vietnamese ever at the program...🧵

Having spent 3y at uni in Gwangju, a city that endured the brutal inferno of martial law in 1980 - the last time it was imposed be4 ystrd's hokum. I was exposed to the historic fight for democracy that began at my uni that year. My friend's relief echoes that of many generations.

Watching how the martial law was quickly rolled out and pulled out with my Korean friends is another cherry on top of the terrible political show at home and abroad this year.

Check out @findingsen’s documentary in our CNN Academy storytellers series, showcasing the challenges in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. Drought and saltwater intrusion threaten coconut crops. Learn more about our storytellers https://t.co/Uhf3lBpd2U

#newdocumentarycomingsoon

The doco is about how Assi was victimised. But that's not her permanent identifier. "I don't carry the victim mentality around with me. I don't want to be that person,'' she told the BBC. "I'm going to carry on working towards goals and dreams."

I don't have any grand statements or calls to actions for Women's Day/week/month, but it was a great reminder of the value metrics I use to evaluate myself, and when appropriate, other women around me. And it is definitely not a ring on our fingers.

The marital pressure Assi experienced has been the lived experience of women around the world, and very much so in countries like Vietnam. We are taught that we are worthy only until a certain age, and I have to be honest, I'm still working on unlearning that myself.

This is something I missed while reporting on the catfishing explainer. It's also why I found it so ironic to watch this amidst the excitement about Vietnamese Women's Day, as an unmarried woman approaching that socially constructed cutoff mark.

She didn't want to waste all the time she had invested and carried on with the relationship despite how destructive it was, which evidently made suffering caused by catfishing worse, when the deception blew up in everyone's faces.

Assi was in her mid 30s & Bobby's promises of a nuptial agreement coincided w the societal expectation she was feeling that women should marry by her age. (Or maybe 40, as an obnoxious quote fr the Sex & the City movie goes: 👇)

I will try not to spoil it, but what it highlighted was the immense, crushing pressure on women to marry by a certain age. Assi remained engaged and committed to an online relationship with ''Bobby'' for years after having only met him once at a party.

Since I began producing more documentaries, I hv been watching them w surgical precision, focusing more on technical details than I ever did as a regular viewer. While the film excelled technically - cam angles, sequences, tracks etc, it's the gendered approach that stands out.

It is often on social media or dating apps and websites as a common tactic used to form online relationships under false pretenses, sometimes to lure people into financial scams.