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Vietnam to publish book on sovereignty over Spratly and Paracel archipelagos Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui HANOI - Vietnam is about to publish a geographic anthology offering data and important historical evidence to illustrate the nation's sovereignty over the Spratly and Paracel archipelagos, according to Vietnam news agency on Tuesday. The Vietnam Geographic Anthology, to be circulated by the Youth Publishing House, has four chapters that include 40 of the most famous works on geography, starting with the Tran dynasty of the 13th century through 1954. The writings were composed by the giants of Vietnamese letters and history, such as Nguyen Trai, Le Quy Don, Phan Huy Chu, Truong Vinh Ky, Dao Van Hoi, Bui Duong Lich, Vuong Duy Trinh, Ngo Vi Lien and Dao Duy Anh. The publication also offers up an ancient map of the Le dynasty and the "Phu bien tap luc" a miscellany compiled by the 18th century scholar Le Quy Don that identifies the locations, and cites legal documents related to the Vietnamese people's sovereignty over the two groups of islands that have been preserved through many different feudal dynasties. According to Chief Author Bui Van Vuong, the anthology is a set of very important and reliable historic data that helps reaffirm Vietnam's sovereignty over the Spratly and Paracel archipelagos. Vuong and his associates have spent ten years collecting, researching and compiling the Vietnam Geographic Anthology. Bernama - March 9, 2010 Vietnam's farmers go bananas over lucrative export crop Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui HCM CITY - A number of provinces around the country plan to concentrate on growing bananas for export, due to increasing world demand. The central province of Quang Tri grows chuoi moc, a banana variety unique to that region. Most of its bananas end up in mainland China. Farmers in the province exported more than 400 tonnes of bananas at VND4.5 million (S$340) a tonne this lunar new year. Nguyen Van Quy, head of Huong Hoa District People's Committee's Agriculture Department, where chuoi moc is the chief export crop, said bananas are grown on 1,300ha of farmland. He said each hectare earned between VND40-VND50 million a year. About 50 tonnes of bananas are harvested each day by farmers for export. Last year, the district's total exports were worth VND70 billion. In the northern province of Lao Cai, farmers also earn lucrative incomes from growing bananas. Tran Thi Mai, from Muong Khuong District's Ban Lau Commune, said she earned VND200 million a year from her 15,000 banana plants. In Thong Nhat District's Quang Trung Commune, in the south-eastern province of Dong Nai, bananas are grown on more than 1,200ha of farmland. Kien Giang Province's Co-operative Alliance and the U Minh Thuong District People's Committee plan to expand banana cultivation ten-fold in the U Minh Thuong National Park's buffer zone to 2,000ha. Dr Nguyen Van Khai, a well-known agricultural consultant, said bananas were one of 14 kinds of fruit that played an important part in the nation's export industry. "Bananas were typically grown only on uncultivated land. The plants acted as natural fences to protect farmers' gardens, but now everything is different. Bananas are quite simple to grow and proper cultivation will surely bring bumper crops," he said. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has developed a plan to grow vegetables, fruits, and ornamental trees including a target to increase banana exports to 100,000 tonnes, worth $35 million, this year. AsiaOne Business - March 10, 2010 Hanoi archbishop hospitalised in Rome Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui ROME — Hanoi's controversial Archbishop Joseph Ngo Quang Kiet has been admitted to hospital in Rome for "chronic insomnia and stress", the Asianews religious news agency said Monday Kiet, who was hospitalised here on Friday, came to Rome for additional care after receiving treatment at the Chau Son monastery in Vietnam, the report said. News of Kiet's departure from Vietnam sparked "speculation about his possible removal" from the Hanoi archdiocese, the Rome-based news agency said. The Vietnamese government has repeatedly pressed the Vatican to remove the 57-year-old prelate, who has spearheaded protests over seizures of Roman Catholic Church real estate by the communist authorities, Asianews said. "We are priests, we need not fear God. If this is what God wants, we serve in faith, not in fear," Kiet told a delegation before leaving Vietnam, adding that "prayers and solidarity are the weapons of the Church", Asianews reported. Vietnamese Catholics began protesting in December 2007 over property confiscated since the end of French colonial rule in 1954, occasionally clashing with police. Vietnam has Southeast Asia's largest Roman Catholic community after the Philippines -- about six million in a population of 86 million, but religious activity remains under state control. Kiet said he hoped God "will gift me the blessing of good health and I will be able to serve him", Asianews said. Agence France Presse - March 8, 2010 Vietnam to consider mining coal in Red River delta rice basket Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui Vietnam's largest mining company wants to begin mining huge coal deposits in the Red River delta, one of the country's most-populated agricultural areas, officials said Monday. The Song Hong Energy Company, an affiliate of state-owned mining conglomerate Vinacomin, has applied for permission to launch a pilot mining project in Hung Yen province, some 30 kilometres southeast of Hanoi. "We are just waiting for the permission of the prime minister," said Nguyen Thanh Son, director of Song Hong. The 6.5-million-dollar pilot project would mine 1,800 tons of coal over a six-month period. To minimize the environmental impact, the project is to use a technology that gasifies the coal underground. Geologists estimate coal deposits in Vietnam's Red River delta at 210 billion tons, of which 65 billion could be exploited. The delta produces roughly 20 per cent of Vietnam's rice. Vietnam's coal mines are centered in the coastal province of Quang Ninh, which has suffered severe environmental damage from open-pit mining. In one town studied by the Hanoi University of Natural Sciences, coal-dust contamination was hundreds of times higher than safe levels. Nguyen Phu Vu, the vice rector of Vietnam's University of Mining and Geology, was cautious about the Red River delta mining project. "We need to study the geography of the region more carefully to avoid environmental pollution and food safety problems, if we start mining in a larger area of the delta," Vu said. Vu is a member of a committee formed to study the environmental impact of mining in the delta by the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. It was not yet clear whether foreign partners would participate in the pilot project. Son said Japan's Marubeni Corporation and Australia's Linc Energy had expressed an interest. Deutsche Presse Agentur - March 9, 2010 Vietnam plans visa fee exemption this year Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui The Vietnam National Tourism Administration said it will seek approval from the government to have foreign visitors exempted from visa fees later this year to boost the country’s tourism. The fee exemption scheme is expected to begin when the administration launches a two-month sales promotion for tourists in August or in September. The government last year agreed to exempt visa fees for tourists who booked tours under the 2009 national campaign “Impressive Vietnam.” Visa fees for tourist entry into Vietnam are now US$25. Tourists can be charged higher by travel agencies. Ung Phuong Dung, director of Indochina Service Vietnam, said last year her company had around 200 tourists eligible for visa fee exemption every month, but most of them had not known about the benefit beforehand. Such a program needed to be promoted better to foreign visitors, she said. Foreign arrivals in February rose 30.2 percent from a year ago to around 446,000. The country expects to receive 4.5-4.6 million foreign tourists this year, up 18-21 percent from 2009. Thanh Nien News - March 8, 2010 Vietnam human rights lawyer freed after serving 3 years in prison Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui HANOI — A Vietnamese human rights lawyer has been released from prison after serving a three-year sentence for spreading propaganda against the state. Le Thi Cong Nhan was released Saturday from Prison Number 5 in northern Thanh Hoa province and was escorted by police to her home in Hanoi, said prison chief Luong Van Tuyen. Nhan, 30, still has to serve three years of house arrest. In May 2007, Nhan was sentenced by a Hanoi court for violating Article 88 of Vietnam's penal code, which broadly prohibits spreading propaganda against the state. An appeals court reduced her jail time from four to three years in November of that year. A fellow lawyer who was convicted along with Nhan, Nguyen Van Dai, was sentenced to five years in prison. His sentence was reduced by one year. His release from prison is not expected for another year. The two were accused of using the Internet to call for a multiparty state in Vietnam, where the ruling Communist Party does not tolerate dissent. They also gave interviews to foreign news agencies. International human rights groups and western governments have often criticized Vietnam's poor human rights record. Over the past four months, Vietnam has jailed 16 pro-democracy activists. Among them was attorney Le Cong Dinh, who represented Nhan and made an impassioned defence of free expression during her trial. Authorities sent Dinh to prison in January after convicting him of subversion charges unrelated to Nhan's case. The Associated Press - March 8, 2010 Vietnam’s first-quarter rice exports may drop 25% Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui Vietnam’s rice exports may drop 25 percent to 1.2 million metric tons in the first quarter as foreign buyers reduce orders on expectations that prices will decline, an official said today. “Falling commercial demand slowed our exports this quarter,” said Truong Thanh Phong, chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City-based Vietnam Food Association. “Foreign buyers expect that our prices will drop further but we expect orders will start to pick up from May.” Vietnam, the world’s second-biggest rice shipper after Thailand, exported a record 6 million metric tons last year and plans to ship a similar amount this year, said Phong. “Demand for rice from buyer countries was low and they also wanted to wait and see what the output levels were in producing countries,” said Nguyen Hieu Tam, head of rice research at Vietnam Market Analysis and Forecast Joint-Stock Co., a Hanoi-based research company for agricultural products. “Some African buyers also had financial difficulties in buying our rice,” she said today. El Nino, caused by a warming of the equatorial Pacific Ocean, may slow production in major rice producers including India and Indonesia, helping boost exports from Vietnam, which produced a bumper winter-spring harvest, Tam said by phone. Thailand’s rough rice harvest may decline 15 percent in the year that began Oct. 1 because of dry weather caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon, the country’s Office of Agricultural Economics said on Jan. 13. Rice Stockpiling The Vietnam Food Association’s Phong forecast in November that prices would surge 50 percent to about $800 a ton by the end of the second quarter next year on increasing demand and unfavorable weather conditions. The country’s average export price from Jan. 1 to Feb. 28 was $473 a ton, according to the association’s Web site. Rice futures traded in Chicago have dropped 12 percent this year, compared with a 22 percent slump in the same period last year. The most-active contract gained 0.3 percent to $13.13 per 100 pounds at 12:20 p.m. in Singapore. The price climbed to record $25.07 in April 2008. The Vietnam Food Association is asking its 30 member companies to buy 1 million tons from farmers for stockpiling after prices dropped in the Mekong Delta, according to a report on the group’s Web site. The Mekong Delta is Vietnam’s main rice producing region. More than 300,000 tons have been bought under this plan, Tuoi Tre newspaper reported today, citing Pham Van Bay, the group’s vice chairman. Foreign Warehouses The Southeast Asian nation also plans to start construction of a rice processing plant and warehouse in Cambodia by the end of the second quarter to support exports, according to Nguyen Tho Tri, deputy director of the Vietnam Southern Food Corp, which also has a stake in the project. Another stockpiling warehouse will be built in the Philippines this year, he said, declining to give further details. The Vietnamese government is trying to boost exports to help meet an economic growth target of 6.5 percent this year, from 5.3 percent last year. Rice was the country’s fifth-biggest foreign exchange earner this year as of the end of February. By Van Nguyen - Bloomberg - March 8, 2010 Low fines for work safety infringements blamed for Vietnam deaths Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui Occupational accidents and deaths are on the rise in Vietnam because the fines for safety violations are inadequate, a Vietnamese official said Thursday. The increase in accidents is mainly due to companies preferring to pay fines rather than invest in safety measures, said Phan Dang Tho, vice director of the inspections department at Vietnam's Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs. "The most significant factor is inadequate punishment," Tho said. "The compensation for each fatal case is just equal to a few dozen months' income for an employee, so they are not afraid." Figures released Monday by the ministry showed there were 6,250 occupational accidents in 2009 resulting in 550 deaths, representing increases from 2008 of 7 percent and 6%, respectively. Occupational safety has been in the news in Vietnam since a sixth worker was killed last week on the Keangnam Tower construction project in western Hanoi. The worker was killed by falling debris after a formwork, a mould used for pouring concrete structures, collapsed 14 stories above him. Workers have also died in scaffolding collapses and other accidents. Hanoi city authorities on Wednesday launched an investigation into the latest accident at the tower, slated to be Vietnam's highest at 336 metres. The real number of workplace accidents in Vietnam is assumed to be far higher than statistics show because most are never reported. The ministry's deputy minister told a press conference Wednesday that the inspections system is failing to improve workplace standards, the newspaper Thanh Nien reported. Deutsche Presse Agentur - March 6, 2010 Vietnam tourism to launch new marketing campaign Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) will launch a national marketing campaign called Vietnam - Your Destination, to woo both local and foreign travellers, after the success of last year's Impressive Vietnam project, an official said. According to the VNAT draft, the campaign's activities would promote the country to tourists by implementing promotion programmes, designing new products and improving service quality. VNAT will combine with relevant departments and entrepreneurs to offer cheaper prices for travel and related services to foreign and local guests during the low season. "The programme will take place during August-September or September -October;' Vu The Binh, head of the Travel Department of VNAT told the Daily yesterday. To coincide with the campaign, VNAT will encourage tourism service providers to offer 10 to 30 percent discounts to their customers. For international tourists, VNAT will ask tour operators to create specific products relevant to the market. Each market will have at least one special promotion tour for travellers, as well as one to two familiarisation trips for foreign travel agents and media. VNAT is also working to develop MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conventions, and Exhibitions) tourism and accordingly will encourage tour operators to follow suit, organising and selling the events. VNAT will continue to carry out promotion activities in key markets including China, North Asia, France and West Europe, the US, Australia, New Zealand, Asean and Russia. Through the programme, VNAT will give all international tourists who travel to Vietnam under package tours a souvenir. The gifts will be symbolic to Vietnam. The tourism department sees overseas Vietnamese residents as particularly important in Vietnam's promotion. Through the programme the VNAT plan to call such people back to their home country, and to encourage other foreign travellers to visit too. To promote the programme, the department will organise meetings with Overseas Vietnamese Societies in France, America, England, and Australia. According to Binh, the Vietnam Your Destination programme is more than just a marketing programme, but a means to improve tourism products and services. As part of the campaign, VNAT will organise a competition to find the best souvenir gift design. Binh said the department had received positive feedback from relevant stakeholders. They have submitted the plan to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. "We expect the ministry will approve the programme this weekend;' Binh said. The Saigon Times Daily - March 6, 2010 Vietnam feels the heat of a 100-year drought Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui HANOI - Every year, even at the peak of Vietnam's dry season, when the Red River is at its lowest, Hanoi's skilled captains manage to negotiate their flat-bottomed boats through its shallow waters. But this year, with a drought gripping the entire country and water levels at record lows, the river is eerily quiet. What is normally a bustling waterway is becoming a winding river of sand, and farmers who depend upon the river for irrigation are watching the expanding sandbars as nervously as the boat captains. "If there is no water in the coming days," says 59-year-old farmer Vu Thi La, who just put in her spring rice seedlings, "it will all die." Across Vietnam, high temperatures and parched rivers are setting off alarm bells as the nation grapples with what's shaping up to be its worst drought in more than 100 years. At 0.68 meters high, the Red River is at its lowest level since records started being kept in 1902. With virtually no rainfall since September, timber fires are burning in the north and tinder-dry conditions threaten forests in the south. Soaring temperatures in the central part of Vietnam have unleashed a plague of rice-eating insects, damaging thousands of hectares of paddies. "It's the beginning of everything," Nguyen Lan Chau, vice director of the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting, says gloomily. The region most affected — and the one that affects the most — is the Mekong River Delta in the south. Water levels in the nation's rice bowl have fallen to their lowest points in nearly 20 years, threatening the livelihoods of tens of millions of people who depend on the river basin for farming, fishing and transportation. The biggest problem, however, is not the water. It's the salt. During the dry season, when channels and tributaries run dry, seawater can creep more than 18 miles (30 km) inland. Vietnam has installed a series of sluice gates to hold back high tides as well as control annual monsoon flooding. This has allowed farmers to switch between growing rice in the wet season and raising shrimp in the brackish waters in the dry. The result has been more-effective land use and higher crop yields, and a doubling of farmers' incomes in the Delta since 1999. Those high-yield days may be over. As the drought intensifies, in some places seawater has crept nearly 40 miles (60 km) inland, says Dam Hoa Binh, deputy director of the Irrigation Department at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in Hanoi. Most of the winter-spring crop has already been harvested, but saltwater is reaching where it has never gone before, putting the summer-fall crop in jeopardy, says Binh. "We are trying to strengthen our irrigation systems to prevent further salinization," he adds, but the extreme conditions are making it "one of the most difficult situations in 100 years." (See pictures of drought in Kenya.) Because of the hydropower projects on its side of the border, China frequently gets the blame for water shortages downstream. Indeed, Vietnam's neighbor has been on an aggressive campaign to damn the Mekong River, which begins on the Tibetan plateau and travels through five other countries before it empties into the South China Sea. According to the Mekong River Commission, a regional advisory agency, China has built or is planning to build eight dams along the Mekong. But while dams raise huge concerns about interfering with sediment flow and fish migration, they can also have a positive impact, says Jeremy Bird, the commission's chief executive officer. "They will redistribute the flow of water, therefore there will be more water available in the dry season," he says. But at the moment, with China also experiencing extreme drought, there appears to be little dammed water to release. Up north, Vietnam has been busy building hydropower dams as well. The government recently released enough water from those projects to help farmers in the Red River Delta with spring planting. Now with reservoir levels in the north at critical lows, the state-owned electricity company says it can't let go of much more; power demand is expected to break records as temperatures soar this month. Even with the small amount released, Nguyen Van Thang, director of the agriculture department in Vinh Phuc province, is not hopeful. High temperatures and evaporation are the enemy. "Even if farmers bail every single drop of water to nurture the rice," he says, he fears that a third of the rice crop in his province could be lost. The crisis has been a "wakeup call" for Vietnam, says Ian Wilderspin, senior technical adviser for disaster risk management at the U.N. Development Program in Hanoi. The drought was predicted, he says, referring to last year's projections that El Niño would bring an unusually warm and dry winter. Yet Vietnam traditionally prepares for floods and typhoons, which are more dramatic and devastating when they hit. "Drought is a slow, silent disaster, which in the long run will have a more profound impact on peoples' livelihoods," he says. And when are the rains due to finally bring some relief? Meteorologists forecast that in the north, rain will arrive later this month. But other parts of the country might not see any precipitation until August, which for many will be too late. By Martha Ann - Time - March 4, 2010 N Korea teaches Vietnam how to party Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui North Korean experts were in Vietnam this week to advise the government on - no, not uranium enrichment - choreography for an extravaganza celebrating Hanoi's 1,000th anniversary, state media said. The delegation was led by Song Pyong Won, deputy director of the Arirang performance department in North Korea's Ministry of Culture, and included experts in mass performance, stage design, sound and lighting, reported the website of the newspaper Saigon Tiep Thi (sgtt.com.vn). "This is the advance team that will make preparations for the various art performances, including card flipping to make images and words, as well as stage design, sound and lighting for the opening ceremony," the newspaper said. Hanoi will mark its 1,000th anniversary on October 10 this year. Song hoped "through this visit the delegation would gain a precise grasp of the basic material conditions in Vietnam, like human resources, so that the staged programme can be the most unique and best possible," the article said. The group met representatives of Vietnam's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and planned to visit various anniversary event venues, including the 40,000-seat My Dinh Stadium. It would also visit other sites, such as Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, it said. Impoverished and isolated, North Korea has little to export and its tourism earnings have been hit by political wrangling with South Korea over the North's military threats to the region and nuclear weapons programme. The Arirang mass games are part dance show, part circus and part communist propaganda spectacle involving tens of thousands of tightly choreographed performers. They feature massive flip-card animation routines. Reuters / TVNZ - March 5, 2010 Vietnam reform proposals irk investors Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui HANOI - More than two decades after doi moi – the “renovation” that opened Vietnam to the outside world – some conservative elements in the Communist party are rattling foreign investors by trying to put the brakes on reform. In a series of recent announcements, government officials have introduced plans for price controls and import restrictions that have drawn foreign investors, who are normally discreet in their criticism of the government, into the open. “Vietnam’s leadership is currently seeking an irrational step back in time to resolve the issue of curbing potential inflation, thereby putting in jeopardy much of what has been achieved in Vietnam in recent years,” Matthias Dühn, head of the European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam, wrote recently on the chamber’s website. The measures outlined in circulars issued by the government are designed to correct emerging economic imbalances, but foreign businessmen say they are crude and would be ineffective. “We are sensitive to the dangers of rising inflation and other economic challenges that Vietnam is facing. However, we do not believe the proposed circular will help achieve the government’s economic goals,” Hank Tomlinson, the president of Chevron Vietnam and chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce, wrote in an open letter to the finance minister. One foreign economist who studies Vietnam says of the proposed measures that, “in terms of a public relations strategy, it is not good news”. One proposal that has drawn particular ire would formally re-establish the government’s ability to set prices for key commodities, including petrol, steel, concrete, milk and pharmaceuticals. There was little sign of reform in a recent speech by Nong Duc Manh, general secretary of the Vietnam Communist party. He said the government was trying to maintain political stability and “struggle against all the manoeuvres of hostile forces by preventing them from profiting from matters such as democracy, human rights, multi-partyism and pluralism to sabotage the Vietnamese revolution”. Analysts say that few in the government believe the capitalist genie could, or should, be pushed back into the bottle. But there is concern among conservatives that economic progress is loosening the grip of the party. Mr Manh’s calls came amid a steep rise in the number of bloggers and democracy activists who have been imprisoned for crimes, including calling for multi-party democracy and questioning the country’s relations with China. Mr Manh, who must step down early next year at the end of his term, is a conservative whose support for Nguyen Tan Dung, the reformist prime minister, has been equivocal. Diplomats say the stakes in the political battle being waged behind closed doors have been amplified by the party congress scheduled for early next year. Given that the five-yearly meeting elects the leadership and sets the agenda for the next cycle of reform, there is a huge amount at stake. “This is the time when various factions fight it out,” says Carlyle Thayer, at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra. By Tim Johnston - The Financial Times - March 3, 2010 Vietnam welcomes Buddha relics Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui HANOI — Several hundred Buddhists Wednesday welcomed the arrival in Vietnam of relics of the Buddha from India. A delegation of 147 monks and Vietnamese Buddhist disciples had left Hanoi early Wednesday on a swift return trip to India to pick up the precious relics, the Buddhist Church of Vietnam said in a statement. The state-controlled Church said it was an event of "important spiritual significance for the Vietnamese Buddhist monks and the faithful". "It is the pride of Vietnamese Buddhism," said nun Thich Thi Loan, from the province of Ninh Binh, south of Hanoi, where the relics were to be taken. Buddhism is the main religion in Vietnam and at least 70 percent of the population are followers. The Buddha, originally named Prince Siddhartha, died at the age of 80, and his relics became a matter of fierce dispute. Agence France Presse - March 3, 2010 Vietnam needs to improve rights Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui WASHINGTON — Vietnam needs to improve its human rights record if it wants to build a close relationship with the United States, a senior US envoy said Wednesday ahead of a visit to the region. Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary of state for Asia, told a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that he will travel next week to Vietnam and Laos for talks on a range of issues. "We have, I would say, a bit of a dichotomy with Vietnam -- very real concerns about backsliding on issues of human rights and religious (freedom) issues in recent years," he told lawmakers. "But at the same time, this is a government that sees that it wants a closer relationship with the United States for strategic reasons," Campbell said. "It's going to be very hard to have that kind of relationship unless they take specific steps to improve the situation at home," he said. Vietnam and the United States this year mark the 15th anniversary of diplomatic relations and have been gradually developing military ties despite the legacy of their long and bloody war. But the United States has been concerned about Vietnam's imprisonment of a series of dissidents, its media restrictions and what activists describe as organized harassment of followers of revered Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. Vietnam has also historically had friction with China. The two nations have had an increasingly acrimonious dispute over two potentially resource-rich sets of islands in the South China Sea. Campbell said he also sensed a "desire in Laos He said he would also speak in Laos about how to clean up some of the millions of US bombs left over from the secret US air campaign in Laos aimed at disrupting North Vietnam's supply routes into the South during the war. "This is not only a critical issue strategically, but it's also a critical moral issue," Campbell said. Campbell was responding to questions by US Representative Eni Faleomavaega, who said the United States has given a total of 176,000 dollars to clear around 80 million bombs that failed to detonate in Laos. "This is absolutely outrageous, and it's not the America that I would think of," said Faleomavaega, who heads the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asia and recently visited Laos. "They never declared war against us. We're the ones that just simply went over there and bombed the heck out of them," Faleomavaega said. Agence France Presse - March 4, 2010 Vietnam consistent with human rights protection Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui Vietnam is consistent with its policy to promote human rights through dialogue and cooperation, said a Vietnamese diplomat at the 13th UN Human Rights Council (HRC) session in Geneva, Switzerland, on March 2. Vietnam successfully defended its report under the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) last year, said Deputy Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh, adding that follow-up activities are already under way in the country. “This year Vietnam will continue to actively cooperate with the United Nations system and actively prepare for the visits of special procedure mandate holders, including the Independent Expert on Extreme Poverty, Independent Expert on Minority Issues, Independent Expert on Foreign Debt, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health,” he said. He confirmed that the country will continue to conduct annual human rights dialogues with several countries as means for promoting better understanding on issues of mutual interests and sharing experiences on the promotion and protection of human rights, on the basis of equality, respect, goodwill and constructive dialogue. Deputy FM Minh also called on the HRC to uphold the principles of universality, transparency, impartiality, objectivity and non-selectivity. The Council should serve as a forum for constructive dialogue and cooperation among countries to share experiences in how to best promote and protect human rights, he said. Mr Minh proposed that the Council focus on issues of great interests to the international community, including the impact of the global economic and financial crises, climate change, pervasive poverty and diseases on the enjoyment of human rights. The review process of the Council’s work should be carried out in a transparent manner, based on open dialogue for all member States to take part in, he noted. He took the occasion to introduce Vietnam’s achievements in coping with the crisis, maintaining economic growth and improving social security, education, health care and employment, thus providing a continued strong basis for the full enjoyment of human rights in the country. “Legislative, administrative and judicial reforms continue to be high on the agenda with a view to further strengthening human rights in laws, regulations and practice, including the right to oversee the implementation of laws, access to information, etc,” he said. The same day, head of the Vietnamese delegation to the UN, WTO and international organisations in Geneva, Ambassador Vu Dung delivered a speech in the capacity as President of the ASEAN Committee at the debate on the draft of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training. Radio Voice of Vietnam - March 3, 2010 Stade Khmer learn valuable lessons from tourney losses Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui Cambodian rugby team Stade Khmer won just one of their five games in the annual Bangkok 10s International tournament over the weekend in Thailand LOCAL rugby side Stade Khmer have returned home after competing in the Bangkok 10s International tournament over the weekend. Having nearly made good on their promise to field exclusively Cambodian players – with just two of the 16-strong squad being expatriates – the team took the daylong bus ride to Bangkok Friday with trepidation. Indeed, many of the squad had never traveled outside the Kingdom before. Twenty four international teams, hailing from as far afield as New Zealand, Japan, France, Fiji, Samoa and India, gathered at Patana school playfields in Bangkok’s suburbs to play out the annual competition. The draw to form six groups of four teams for the first round of the tournament – to be played on Saturday - was quite cruel on Stade Khmer, who were pitted against the New Zealand Legends, the Air Asia Cobras from Malaysia and the Manila Nomads from the Philippines. Saturday’s two first games saw the Kiwi and Malay sides inflict heavy defeats on the Cambodian outfit, despite courageous tackles against far superior rivals. The lightning fast Cambodian wingers proved ineffective against opponents weighing in an average of 90 kilograms, who left them without the ammunition to burn up the field. However, the third game against the expatriate team from Manila was more evenly contested. Stade Khmer took the lead at the end of the first half with a try in the corner by Mut Sarom, after a good collective move by Cambodian runners. Em Rattana successfully kicked the difficult conversion angle to put his side up by seven. In the second half, the Nomads awoke to score a try and reduce the point gap to two. A stressful final few moments saw the match hang precariously in the balance, and to the Cambodian’s despair, the Nomads swept through to score a try in the last 10 seconds to clinch the win, and condemn Stade Khmer to bottom place in the group. The Kingdom hadn’t won a game, but they had certainly won the admiration and respect of fellow competitors. “Your guys have the smallest bodies, but they also have the biggest heart,” said one player after the group games concluded Saturday. Sunday’s shuffle levels off standard Sunday saw teams reorganised into new competition brackets according to their exploits in the previous day, giving Stade Khmer the opportunity to face teams of a closer standard. The Cambodians were able to show that tackles are not their only skills, winning their first game 12-0 against international business school INSEAD with fast-attacking waves to carry the ball behind enemy lines. Tries came from Man Salida and Dul Khemarin. Stade Khmer’s fifth and final game of the weekend against sturdy players from India proved one game too much. The players were exhausted by a physically demanding schedule in sweltering conditions, and were easily outplayed by their opponents. In the end, it was time to celebrate the end of a tournament full of experience for the young Cambodians. “If we want to raise the rugby level in Cambodia, Cambodian players must face different styles of rugby,” stated Guilain Brasset, president of Stade Khmer club. “As we target the senior Cambodian Premiership title, gaining experience against tough players is a real asset for us.” Stade Khmer treasurer Romain Lalouette also applauded the club’s decision to give Cambodians the chance to compete in the tournament. “It is part of Stade Khmer philosophy to allow Cambodian players to develop their own skills,” he asserted. “We aim to train our players to be able to handle the team by themselves in a few years, both on the rugby field and at organisation level. It will take a bit of time, as you cannot get rugby experience within a few months, but events like the Bangkok 10s are definitely an important step towards this goal.” Despite a plethora of light wounds and bruises, everybody agreed with captain Phan Sophea, who affirmed they would “definitely come back next year”. The grand final Sunday saw New Zealand outfit Southbridge – with whom national captain Dan Carter started his career – emerge victorious over compatriots Pakuranga. By Tanguy Bertolus - The Phnom Penh Post - February 25, 2010 EU says it wants free trade agreement with Vietnam Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui Hanoi - The European Union's trade commissioner said Tuesday the union wants to begin negotiations for a free trade agreement (FTA) with Vietnam. EU Trade Representative Karel de Gucht told a press conference in Hanoi that he had made an offer to 'engage as soon as possible in formal negotiations on an FTA.' De Gucht made the offer in a meeting Tuesday morning with Vietnam's Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang. De Gucht was scheduled to meet later Tuesday with Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. But De Gucht said European anti-dumping tariffs on Vietnamese shoes would continue because inspections had shown that Vietnamese firms were still exporting shoes at below-market prices. 'Either there is dumping or there isn't,' De Gucht said. The EU decided in December to extend anti-dumping tariffs imposed in 2006 against Vietnamese and Chinese shoes for 15 months. In February, China filed a suit at the World Trade Organization, requesting that the tariffs be struck down. Vietnam has not yet indicated whether it is to join the suit. De Gucht said negotiations on the FTA were not explicitly linked to the EU's assessment of Vietnam's human rights performance, but that ultimately any pact would have to be ratified by the European Parliament, which does consider such issues. The parliament has criticized Vietnam in recent months for a crackdown on democracy activists and for restrictions on internet freedom. De Gucht's next stop on his tour of South-East Asia is due to be Singapore, where the EU is also opening negotiations on an FTA. De Gucht said bilateral FTAs had become a priority in the region because ongoing talks on an FTA between the EU and the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) had been complicated by the disparity in development levels between different ASEAN members. The EU is Vietnam's second-largest export market after the US. In 2009, Vietnam exported goods worth 9.3 billion dollars to the EU, down 14.4 per cent from 2008. Major export categories include footwear, garments and seafood. deutche Presse Agentur - March 2, 2010 Vietnam launches second Chinese-run bauxite project Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui Hanoi - Vietnam has broken ground on a second Chinese-run bauxite mine and aluminum-refining project in the central highlands, state media reported Monday. Minister Nguyen Tan Dung attended a ceremony Sunday for the Nhan Co refinery in the province of Dak Nong, the state-run Vietnam News reported. he project will be built and run by Chinese state-owned aluminum company Chalieco. The first Chinese-run bauxite and aluminum project began operations in 2008 in the neighboring province of Lam Dong. The projects are controversial due to environmental impact and national security implications. Revered General Vo Nguyen Giap has written several open letters protesting on national-security grounds, while scientists' groups object to environmental degradation. Dung said the project was needed for economic development in the central highlands. Deutche Presse Agentur - March 1st, 2010 French readers flock to Vietnam Newspaper Festival Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui More than 500 Vietnamese newspapers, including Spring and Tet (Lunar New Year) editions, are on display in Paris, making a hit with French readers and bringing some of the spirit of the homeland’s spring to overseas Vietnamese. The Vietnam Spring Newspaper Festival 2010, the first of its kind held abroad, opened at the Vietnamese Cultural Centre in Paris on February 27 to a crowd of about 200 local officials, Vietnamese and French readers, and representatives of Vietnamese and international news agencies. The event marks a new advance of the Vietnamese communication sector in the international arena, said a Vietnamese official. Addressing the opening ceremony, Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Do Quy Doan said the event provides the Vietnamese media with an opportunity to publicize the country’s achievements in a foreign country. The festival also serves as an interface between Vietnamese journalists and overseas Vietnamese and French readers, he added. The Vietnamese community in France can savour the atmosphere of Tet and other Vietnamese spring festivals through several documentaries that are being screened during the nine-day festival. The Spring Newspaper Festival is the first in a series of cultural activities being held by the Vietnamese Embassy and the Vietnamese Cultural Centre in France this year. Radio Voice of Vietnam - March 1st, 2010 Vietnam drops proposal to bar private schools from teaching media Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui Hanoi - Vietnam has canceled a draft regulation that would have barred private schools from training students in media, law and pedagogy, a senior official said Monday. "It was a technical mistake, it was never our policy," said Tran Thi Ha, head of the Ministry of Education and Training's department for higher education. Ha said a typist had mistakenly included proposals that had been collected during the drafting process. The state-run newspaper Tuoi Tre on Monday quoted anonymous sources at the ministry as saying the draft was withdrawn due to public protest. It had been posted on the ministry's website last Tuesday. The online newspaper VietnamNet.vn quoted former minister of education Tran Hong Quan as saying there was no legal framework for the proposal. "Graduates of private schools are also Vietnamese citizens who have full rights and responsibilities, the same as students in state schools," Quan said. Ha said public and private universities were treated equally. But she said it was difficult for private universities to provide law, journalism, education and medical degrees, as many did not meet government regulations regarding facilities and staff. At least 48 of Vietnam's 376 universities and colleges are private. The country officially legalized private schools in 1995. The media in Vietnam are tightly regulated by the government. All media must be affiliated with a government agency or authorized mass organization, although many have grown increasingly independent. Deutsche Presse Agentur - March 1st, 2010 Hatoyama to solicit Vietnam’s Dung for nuclear plant contract Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama will write a letter to his Vietnamese counterpart this week to solicit a contract for a 1 trillion yen ($11 billion) nuclear power plant project, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano said. Hatoyama will tell Premier Nguyen Tan Dung that Japan “has high standards for our technical abilities and provides economic support for its civilian efforts,” Hirano said at a briefing today in Tokyo. Hirano, Japan’s top government spokesman, denied that the letter was an effort to duplicate South Korea’s success in winning a $20 billion contract from the United Arab Emirates in December. South Korean President Lee Myung Bak visited the UAE the day before the project was awarded. “This has nothing to do with learning from the South Korean government,” Hirano said. Hatoyama’s administration has stepped up its involvement in Southeast Asia in an effort to boost economic ties. Japan pledged at least 500 billion yen in aid to five countries that share the Mekong River at a November summit in Tokyo. Japan’s government will establish a joint venture with Tokyo Electric Power Co. and other companies to help win nuclear power plant contracts overseas, Nikkei English News reported on Dec. 27, without saying where it obtained the information. By Takashi Hirokawa - Bloomberg - March 1st, 2010 Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui HANOI - A vietnamese woman who slaughtered and processed sick poultry has died from bird flu, the first fatality from the avian influenza virus this year in Vietnam, the Health Ministry said. The 38-year-old woman died on Tuesday in a hospital in the southern Mekong Delta province of Dong Thap after fighting the H5N1 virus for 10 days, the ministry said in a statement seen on Saturday. She is Vietnam's second human infection reported this year and the first to have died from bird flu, which thrives best in cold weather and during the peak time of bird transportation, such as this month's Tet festival to mark the Lunar New Year. Earlier this month a three-year-old girl in the central province of Khanh Hoa recovered from bird flu, the Health Ministry said. Vietnam has confirmed 114 human infections of the H5N1 virus since 2003, 58 of them fatal, the ministry said. It is the second highest toll after Indonesia's 134 deaths among the 15 countries on bird flu world map drawn by the World Health Organization. Experts fear that the virus might mutate into a form easily passed from human to human, sparking a pandemic which could kill millions. Reuters - February 27, 2010 Vietnam decision to hold rate as inflation rises wins approval Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui Hanoi - Vietnamese economists on Friday endorsed the State Bank's decision not to raise the prime interest rate in March despite rising inflation. The bank announced Thursday that it was keeping the rate at 8 per cent. The state-run Vietnam News reported that observers had expected a rate increase after monthly inflation hit 1.96 per cent in February. But economist Vu Dinh Anh, acting head of the government's Institute for Research on Markets and Prices, said inflation in January and February was not high in the context of the traditional bump in prices surrounding the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, or Tet. Inflation in early 2009 was unusually low because of the global economic slowdown, but in the high-inflation year of 2008, the figure for February reached 3.56 per cent while in 2007 it was 2.2 per cent. "The thing we should be paying attention to is the inflation rate in March," Anh said. If the consumer price index rises rapidly in March, he said, tightening monetary policy would be necessary. Tran Dinh Thien, director of the Vietnam Economics Institute, said hiking the prime rate now could be counterproductive. "Raising the rate at this time will create the psychological sentiment that the government is losing control of the economy," Thien said. Adam McCarty of economic consultants Mekong Economics said the government had already effectively raised the interest rates for some borrowers at the beginning of the year when it ended 4-per-cent interest subsidies for short-term loans it had been paying as part of a recession-fighting stimulus package. Analysts have warned that Vietnam risks a serious inflation spiral because of credit expansion of 37 per cent in 2009. The increase was driven largely by government stimulus spending intended to counteract the global economic slowdown. The government aims to hold inflation below 7 per cent in 2010, but many observers argued that target would be hard to meet after the price increases recorded so far. Deutsche Presse Agentur - February 26, 2010 Vietnam short on capital for renewable energy development Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui n the near future, most thermo power plants in Vietnam will have to depend on coal import to maintain operations . Looking at this crisis situation Vietnam must develop a sustainable solution to develop power sources in future. Vietnam has high potential of renewable energy for electricity production, but it is very hard to realise the potential into particular interests. Vice director of Energy Department cum head of Renewable Energy Board (under Ministry of Industry and Trade), Le Tuan Phong said that Ministry of Industry and Trade has sought the government's approval on the general strategy for developing renewable energy and the decree on mechanism and policy of supporting and encouraging renewable energy investment such as small hydropower plant, wind power plant, biogas, solar power plant with a goal to ensure the national energy security and reduce the environmental pollution. As estimated, till 2020, the renewable power production output will account for about 5 percent of total power source (equalling to 2,400MW by 2020). In which, Vietnam will give priority to increase the ratio of new renewable energy sources to 3 percent of total secondary commercial energy output in 2010 and 11 percent by 2050. According to Phong, first off as for renewable energy, Ministry plans to focus on developing small hydropower factories and then wind power plants and biogas power. Phong shared that the ratio of renewable energy used for power operation in the country's power industry depends much on the state's support and budget. Vu Dinh Tuan, managing director of Fuhrlaender Wind Power Joint Stock Co said that from 2007 the government issued decision on some policies to support clean projects under development mechanism. However, the incentives of the decision are applied in localities differently. Tuan proposed that it is necessary to build a completed law on developing renewable energy and a particular guidance decree. Failing to have policies to boost power projects from renewable energy, the country by 2020 will have a shortfall of about 20 billion kWh of electricity. The country has high potential of wind power, but till now the number of wind power plants in Vietnam remains small because the investment capital for such kind of projects is usually higher than the factories using other kinds of energy. In addition, Vietnam could not tap wind energy for power production fully. Now, some wind power plants in central provinces such as Binh Dinh, Lam Dong, Ninh Thuan, Binh Thuan still are operating with small size (few tens of MW) and are not-highly efficient. Binh Thuan is the sole province completing the wind power projection. Most recently, Fuhrlaender Wind Power Joint Stock Co has gained the investment certificate from Binh Thuan provincial People's Committee to build the first factory of assembling wind power turbine with the production and installation capacity of 100MW of power output a year in Vinh Hao commune, Tuy Phong Dist. The cost for construction is estimated at $25 million. To create conditions for investors, Vietnam should soon have a specialised mechanism to support wind power projects such as subsidy on renting land and speeding up implementation progress of wind power projects. Also, the government should issue the electricity price policy (in field of wind power) to attract domestic and foreign investors, Tuan proposed. Factually, Vietnam's development of wind energy faces many difficulties because of the compulsory technology import and high investment cost of about $1,800-2,000 per KW while the country's electricity retailing price last year averaged only 948.5 dong/kWh equalling to $0.052/kWh. Yesterday Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai presided the meeting on policy of developing wind power with Ministry of Industry and Trade and Hanoi authorities. Through World Bank, International Development Association (IDA) approved to fund Vietnam in the process of carrying out the renewable energy development project. Total expense for the project is about $318 million, including $204.275 million of ODA and $113.78 million of domestic capital. The time for implementing the project is slated from 2008 to 2014. According to the result of WB's survey on energy for Asia, Vietnam has the highest potential in wind power with the power capacity availability of 513.360 MW, higher 200 times than the designed capacity of Son La hydropower plant and over 10 times than total estimated power capacity of Vietnam by 2020. US TrueWind Solution organisation reported that Vietnam ranks the top among four nations of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand in terms of wind power potential. Nguoi Lao Dong - February 25, 2010 Doener kebab culture, refined in Germany, a hit in Vietnam Author: Vietnam aujourd'hui Hanoi - Streets in Hanoi, like any Asian metropolis, are filled with hole-in-the-wall restaurants and food vendors. Food sizzles and steams around every corner. But a new phenomenon arrived a few years ago: The doener kebab, a meal of grilled meat, lettuce and sauce, tucked neatly into a pocket of bread. It's a cultural hybrid, Turkish cuisine brought by post-war migrant workers to Germany, where it was adapted into a sandwich that has become the country's top street food. Now, it's taken a new turn along the winding road of migration, conveyed by a worker in Germany who brought the doener kebab home to his native Vietnam. The first doener kebab stand in Hanoi opened five years ago at the Goethe Institute, the German culture centre. It soon took Hanoi by storm, with hundreds of stands like it springing up all over the city. The mastermind of the doener kebab revolution here is neither Turkish nor German but Tran Minh Ngoc, 47, who made his mark as head chef in the restaurant of the Goethe Institute, where the menu includes German specialities like sauerkraut and spaetzle. 'But it was clear to us that the entrees that we offer here are too expensive for most students,' said the head chef. He couldn't make the dishes any cheaper, though, because he imports many of the ingredients such as cream and seasonings like marjoram. 'We wanted to offer sometime for the students' pocket book,' he said. Tran first considered hamburgers in buns and bratwurst with French fries, but it just didn't work out. He thought it should be something special - then he remembered his own time in Augsburg, a historic city in the southern German state of Bavaria. Tran was a student from socialist Vietnam in Czechoslovakia in 1989, when the communist regime in Prague was toppled and the Berlin Wall fell in neighbouring Germany. Suddenly, a life in the West was within his reach. 'I wanted adventure, and I ended up over in Augsburg,' he said. Tran worked in an Augsburg winery until 1996. Years later, looking for a way to feed Vietnamese students at the Goethe Institute, he remember his own years working in Germany: 'Suddenly, it occurred to me that we always ate doener kebabs there.' Doing some quick calculations, Tran realized that for 40 cents, the Goethe Institute could produce a respectable doener kebab on bread with cabbage and sauce. From Germany, he ordered a doener kebab grill and seasonings for the sauces. Tran built a wheeled cart for the grill, rolled it in front of the Goethe Institute and went into street vending. 'At first, students tried it out, and they were excited,' he said, smiling. 'Within a short time, more and more people came. We had a real line in front of the stand.' Tran immediately had other stands built and placed them around Hanoi. He estimates hundreds more have since copied the sandwich, but that doesn't bother him. 'I didn't come up with the idea either,' Tran said. 'I myself copied it off others.' However, Tran is convinced that his doener kebabs are closest to the German-Turkish original. 'We did, of course, alter it a bit to fit Vietnamese tastes,' he said. Tran usually uses pork because lamb is too expensive. Instead of the usual pita bread, in which the meat, lettuce and sauce are placed, the Vietnamese use short, wide baguettes - a gastronomic relic of the French colonization of Vietnam. The French set the standard in Vietnam with light, white bread. 'But our sauce - it is the best there is in this city,' Tran said. 'We put in German seasoning. I won't reveal more.' The price of the doner kebab has gone up to 60 cents, and it still sells like hot cakes. Deutsche Presse Agentur - Februaty 24, 2010 |