Category World News

A resident of Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City-Mai, frequently awakens to thick fog covering the capital of Vietnam.

Mai, who requested a first name for her, called the “pollution in Hanoi alarming” according to Mai.

According to Mai, “exhaust fumes from motorbikes and buildings under construction” are the main culprits.

Petrol two-wheelers account for a significant portion of the reason Hanoi consistently has the worst air quality in the world with about seven million motorcycles crowded through the city’s streets.

Authorities intend to eject the vehicles from the city center right away.

By July 1st, 2026, Hanoi’s Ring Road 1, which circles the city, would be prohibited for all gasoline motorbikes from traveling within the city.

Mai, who already owns an electric motorcycle, said Hanoi residents are opposed to the ban.

She said, “People have two opposing viewpoints.” “Half consent to change, and half do not.”

Observers have questioned whether it would be possible to implement the ban within such a short amount of time, citing both the city’s limited public transportation options, a patchy electricity grid, and the city’s lack of charging infrastructure, as well as the logistical difficulties of blocking millions of drivers.

Some residents in Hanoi are concerned that the initiative will hurt the country’s poorest residents, and that it serves as a pretext to support Vingroup, the country’s largest conglomerate, and VinFast, its offshoot.

Hanh Nguyen, a PhD candidate from Vietnam and a native of Vietnam, told Al Jazeera that “many people believe this is an industry and development policy masquerading as an environmental protection policy.”

Nguyen continued, “it is quite concerning to consider that six million vehicles charge every day.”

“Our supplies are not really consistent, especially during the hot summer months, and it can put a lot of pressure on the electricity supply in Vietnam.”

In a wider effort to eliminate fossil fuel transportation, there is a July deadline to ban gasoline-powered motorcycles in central Hanoi.

According to Directive 20, the ban will include tighter gasoline vehicle controls, a new Ring Road 3 by 2030, and an expansion to Hanoi’s Ring Road 2 by January 2028.

Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s economic powerhouse, is the subject of a similar ban, and the Vietnamese government’s Ministry of Transport has set a 2030 goal for electric vehicles and motorcycles.

Although experts and locals are both concerned about air pollution, many observers have been shocked by the ban’s shortcoming.

Nguyen said, “My first impression was that this was very rushed.”

“I’ve seen a lot of reactions, and generally speaking, I don’t think they’re very positive because that announcement came so suddenly.”

Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow from Vietnam at the Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, cited concerns about the inconvenient electricity supply in northern Vietnam, as well as the lack of charging infrastructure for EVs, and the lack of public transportation.

According to Giang, “It’s just a mess if you look at the picture all the way.”

It’s really challenging to make it happen in a very short amount of time.

Giang cited the 2023 summer, when factories were forced to shut down and “caused a lot of turbulence for the population” in Hanoi and the surrounding northern provinces.

Without proper preparation, I believe the Vietnamese electricity system would suffer as a result of this very quick green transformation.

While Vietnam’s air pollution is a significant issue and causes 70, 000 deaths annually, according to the World Health Organization, some experts believe that taking the issue seriously requires a more holistic approach than the government’s.

Only half of Hanoi’s deadly fine particulate matter, or PM 2.5, comes from inside the city itself, according to Ngo Tho Hung, an expert on urban air quality and a long-time resident of Hanoi.

According to Ngo, “Fifty percent of those hazardous particulates come from outside the urban core, with emissions from informal recycling villages and field burns during crop rotations being the main sources,” she told Al Jazeera.

To achieve significant and lasting results, the motorbike ban must be combined with regional and national air quality management plans.

The cost of electric bicycles for low-income residents of the city is another major issue.

The Hanoi Department of Construction proposed financial assistance packages for residents switching to electric bikes following the July 12 directive.

In addition to financial assistance ranging from 3 to 5 million Vietnamese wong ($114-$119), the city would pay 100% of the registration and license issuance fees for new electric motorcycles.

The ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute’s Giang said, “It’s only $200, but an electric bike typically costs around $1,000.

It’s more than just a vehicle, it says. It is a benefit for some people. Not everyone will have enough money.

In Hanoi, where tens of thousands of people work for ride-hailing and delivery services, are especially dependent on their motorcycles to make a living.

It was already difficult to make ends meet, according to a driver for the taxi and delivery company Grab in Hanoi.

The driver, who declined to be identified, told Al Jazeera, “Some drivers can’t even earn enough to pay for basic meals or support their families.”

The change would burden the poor, according to Wendy, a manager of apartment rentals in Ho Chi Minh City who requested anonymity.

She told Al Jazeera, “I have money, so I can be flexible.” However, “Many poor people don’t know how to live if this policy is implemented.”

Enforcement will also present challenges, despite the obstacles that will be overcome by authorities to implementing the ban next year.

A doctor in Hanoi remarked that he was “completely opposed to giving up gasoline motorbikes.”

He demanded anonymity from Al Jazeera and said it will lead to “social chaos.”

Nguyen of ANU said it’s difficult to imagine how smoothly the ban would be enforced.

How will a city with ten million people implement such a significant ban? She questioned how the authorities would determine which motorcycles are electric and which are gasoline.

“I have no idea how to put it into practice effectively,” he said.

Vingroup has also received criticism for the motorcycle ban.

Vingroup, which was founded by Pham Nhat Vuong, the richest man in the nation, owns several EV offshoots, including the electric taxi and ride-hailing service Xanh SM and the electric charging infrastructure company V-Green.

In the coming months, V-Green announced that it would expand to Indonesia and the Philippines, with the intention of doubling the number of charging stations to one million over the next three years.

Netizens have voiced criticism of Vingroup since the ban’s announcement, implying without any proof that the conglomerate is responsible for it.

According to ANU’s Nguyen, “It’s a major concern that I have seen on social media in Vietnam.”

There is a “certain risk of cronyism” among the “no concrete evidence that VinFast was behind this policy initiative,” according to Giang.

He continued, “It will require a lot of capital from the people themselves.”

Homs, Homs, Jubb Alis, and Tremseh, Syria, Tremseh was hulking. The streets of the small town north of Hama were packed.

All the residents had stepped out of their homes to witness a historic moment, the return of the town’s hundreds of exiled sons and daughters.

A convoy of bright trucks stroking through the streets to transport entire families was crammed full of things, including mattresses, furniture, motorcycles, and trees.

Some passers-by filmed with their cellphones. Other people glowed in joy. Some men shot protracted salutations of celebratory gunshots into the air while others danced to a “zaffeh,” a traditional dance and music band that is typically present at weddings.

Several months earlier, in December, the regime of President Bashar al-Assad had been overthrown, ending a 14-year civil war.

More than 180 families who had spent more than a decade in exile returned to their homes and Tremseh’s roots.

More than 80 000 people had been living in unsanitary and miserable conditions at the Atmeh camp, one of the largest displacement camps in the country, 150 kilometers (93 miles) north of Tremseh, before they had left the camp a few hours later.

It appeared as though our bodies had been torn from our souls when we were expelled. It seems as though we have resurrected our souls now that we are back, according to Mamdouh al-Sattouf, a 50-year-old former school principal, Al Jazeera.

Like the majority of Tremseh’s population, he left after the events of July 12, 2012. Difficulty of opposition fighters and civilians were killed in the town when Syrian government forces seized control of the town that day. In the months that followed, the majority of the survivors left.

Since al-Assad’s fall on December 8 and the end of a 50-year period during which the al-Assad family ruled Syria, convoys like this one have been increasingly frequent. More than 2 million of Syria’s 14 million refugees have left their homes, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, including 600,000 foreign refugees and 1.5 million internally displaced people.

We always told our children that Tremseh is paradise on earth in the camp. Now they can see it for themselves”, Mamdouh said.

returning from exile

About 130km (80 miles) northeast of Tremseh, Azzam Freij was also finally feeling alive again.

Only 10 days after the al-Assad regime was overthrown, the 34-year-old Syrian had already left Lebanon and returned to Syria. He has since moved to Homs, where his wife was a native. But he was now finally back visiting the place he grew up, Jubb Alis, a farming village an hour south of Aleppo where he had been born and raised.

Azzam is unable to live here. There is little work here because Jubb Alis is small. But he’s still eager to use his newfound freedom to visit a place he has fond memories of.

As they drove to the village, Kheiro, age 7, was eager to arrive on his father’s lap in the passenger seat. “That’s our home,” you say! he exclaimed, pointing to a cluster of traditional mud houses.

Kheiro’s father had grown up under the clay domes that dominated other single-storey structures, so this wasn’t his first trip there. Kheiro had previously been brought along by Azzam.

The dispersed homes are surrounded by barren hills, which were previously green.

“Everyone in the village engaged in agriculture,” the villager said. But after years of war and with no one to care for them, the trees died”, Azzam explained while climbing out of the car.

Similar to Syria, the trees had been neglected and plunderered for 14 years, and Azzam wants to revive them just like he does in his rediscovered nation. He has encountered a parched landscape and an expanse of destruction, just like millions of other returning refugees.

Thanks to a well in the garden, however, Azzam has been able to water the trees since he came back to Syria. Despite the scorching sun, pomegranates were already sprouting and some of them were already looking better.

Although it may not be Azzam’s first time visiting Syria since his return, he is still enthralled every time he enters his childhood home. Kheiro was already running and climbing onto the domes of the mud house. It is not dangerous, the author claims. When I was younger, I played the same games”! Azzam laughed, his eyes full of joy.

An 11 000-year-old traditional homebuilding technique, known as terracotta, whose thick walls give off an interior that is astonishingly fresh. It is one of many such houses in the region although newer homes are built with more modern materials. Azzam sat down next to the tiny, open window to cool off in the breeze.

Like all other residents of the village, the former regime’s troops and militias had plunderered Azzam’s home. “They left behind only a chandelier and an 80-year-old mirror”, the father said as he walked through the rooms.

The adults laughed as Kheiro continued, “Thank God they left the Quran,” in a serious voice.

According to Azzam, 50 families have returned to Jubb Alis, and the number is still rising despite the challenges that lie ahead. All kinds of basic infrastructure are lacking, from water to electricity.

Nothing else in the village is left besides the walls.

Lebanon’s challenges

Azzam had fled Syria in 2012 because he was wanted by the army and secret service for his antigovernment comments on social media. He eventually settled in Tripoli, in northern Lebanon, like the majority of his family.

He started a number of jobs, selling coffee while also working as an electrician. He married Rasha, a Syrian woman from Homs whom he met on Facebook. Shortly after, she relocated to Tripoli to be with him.

Their experience there was nothing but pleasant or easy.

“In Lebanon, it was an existence full of fear and racism”, Rasha told Al Jazeera in an interview over a cup of tea in their cosy living room in Homs, where the couple settled in December.

Lebanon’s population is estimated to be home to 1.5 million Syrian refugees. Many Lebanese are now more resentful because of their presence, which has been made worse by government crackdowns against them.

They also have faced economic pressures in a country that is going through an economic crisis – with few job opportunities.

Azzam and Rasha did not wait a second after the fall of the al-Assad regime; they instead immediately returned to Syria with their two sons, Kheiro and Adam, who were three.

I was over the moon when opposition fighters arrived in Damascus! In less than a week, I had visited Syria, and I said to myself, ‘ It’s over! Lebanon is “back on my side,” Azzam remarked cheerfully.

“My entire family lives here, and I come from [Syria], so it was easier.” We are happy here, thank God”, Rasha explained.

Rasha still occasionally travels to Tripoli to see her relatives. Azzam says he’s fine in Homs but won’t go. Although he hasn’t been able to find a job in Syria, for Azzam, life in Lebanon was miserable, and he now feels free, finally able to “be someone, not just a refugee”.

His newfound pride was apparent as he welcomed old friends, many of whom had also resided in Tripoli, as Al Jazeera led him through Homs’s historic souks. He inspected their recently opened stores while they exchanged small talk.

Syria’s future

Many buildings in Homs have been left in ruins, just like in most Syrian cities, and security is a problem. Many refugees are frightened of returning because of this.

Azzam is one of the few members of his family who have returned to Syria. His brother, Mohamed Freij, who goes by the name “Hamoudi,” is still with Al Jazeera in Tripoli.

The 20-year-old lives in the old town below the Crusader fortress, in the shadow of his father, his stepmother, and his cousins.

Like many others, he can hardly wait to return to his country. He is, however, waiting before departing a little longer.

In two years, I might travel to Syria. The country is still in the early stages of development and rebuilding its infrastructure because al-Assad threw us back into the 15th century and we have to start all over again”, the young man said as he sipped coffee under the ivy and trees of the popular Tell al-Olya cafe.

“I want to settle in a city, not in the countryside, where life is still difficult and has been neglected by the regime. He continued, “My friends who have relocated to the city are content.”

Mohamed prefers to wait until Syria is rebuilt and the economy is more stable. The Syrian population is still struggling right now, especially in rural areas, where a lot of the country’s infrastructure has been destroyed or damaged, only two or three hours of daily electricity is provided, and water shortages are prevalent.

Because more than 90% of Syrians are living below the poverty line and having jobs is difficult to find, time must be spent to find them.

There, he would be able to study political science and computer science but also welcome foreign tourists to the guesthouse he dreams of opening.

Mohamed has loved his life in Lebanon despite his desire to eventually return home. Tripoli is unquestionably a component of me. It welcomed me during the war. That is something I’ll never forget. Here is where I spend the majority of my life. You can only love a country that has taken you in”, he explained with serenity. Contrary to Azzam, he claimed that in Lebanon, there is never racism to be found.

After US Special Envoy Tom Barack tells Beirut journalists to “be civilized,” raged.