Conversations on Vietnam Development
Passengers watch a TV screen broadcasting a news report on North Korea firing a ballistic missile into the sea off its east coast, at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea, February 12, 2017. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji
WASHINGTON: The United States, Japan and South Korea on Sunday (Feb 12) requested an urgent UN Security Council meeting to discuss North Korea’s latest missile test.
“The United States, along with Japan and the Republic of Korea, have requested urgent consultations on the DPRK’s launch of a ballistic missile on February 12,” said a US mission spokesperson.
The test was seen as a challenge to Donald Trump’s young presidency.
The request comes after North Korea’s state media quoted officials as saying the ballistic missile test was a “success”.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un “guided” the test, the KCNA report said, adding it was carried out in a way that took the “security of the neighbouring countries into consideration”. Tiếp tục đọc “US, Japan, S Korea request UN Security Council meeting on N Korea”
Reuters Feb 11, 2017
SEOUL – China has expelled 32 South Korean Christian missionaries, a South Korean government official said on Saturday, amid diplomatic tension between the two countries over the planned deployment of a U.S. missile defense system in the South.
The 32 were based in China’s northeastern Yanji region near the border with North Korea, many of whom had worked there more than a decade, South Korean media have reported.
South Korea’s foreign ministry said on Friday it briefed Christian groups on the case of the missionaries, adding that they were expelled in January.
The ministry advised the groups on the importance of complying with the laws and customs of the areas where they work, it said. Tiếp tục đọc “China expels 32 South Korean missionaries amid tension over THAAD missile defense system”
A U.S. Navy reconnaissance aircraft and a Chinese military plane were involved in an “unsafe” encounter earlier this week in international airspace over the disputed South China Sea, the U.S. Pacific Command said Friday.
The U.S. Navy P-3C was on a “routine mission” over the waters on Wednesday when the encounter with a Chinese military KJ-200 aircraft occurred, Pacific Command said.
The two planes flew within 1,000 feet (300 meters) of each other in the area of the contested Scarborough Shoal, just 230 km (140 miles) from the Philippine coast, CNN reported, citing unnamed U.S. defense officials.
Scarborough Shoal, which is also claimed by Manila, has been known as a potential flashpoint, and rumors of a push by China to build on the collection of rocky outcroppings have stoked concern in the region. Building at Scarborough would create a large “strategic triangle” covering much of the South China Sea that would give it the ability to declare and police an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) there. Tiếp tục đọc “U.S., Chinese military planes in ‘unsafe’ encounter over disputed South China Sea”
KABUL, Afghanistan — The NATO mission in Afghanistan has opened a preliminary investigation into claims that more than 20 civilians were killed in recent American airstrikes in the southern province of Helmand, military officials said Saturday.
Elders from the Sangin district, the scene of heavy fighting in recent weeks, with the Taliban blowing up Afghan Army posts there, have said that multiple American airstrikes early Friday morning killed at least 22 civilians, including several women and children.
Brig. Gen. Charles H. Cleveland, a spokesman for the American-led NATO mission, insisted that the military command had seen no conclusive evidence that civilians were killed in the airstrikes, but said that “a formal review to determine the credibility of the claims” had been opened. The investigation team involved NATO officers outside the American command to ensure impartiality, he added.
WASHINGTON — After North Korea threatened on New Year’s Day to test an intercontinental ballistic missile, Donald J. Trump, then president-elect, reacted with characteristic swagger. He vowed to stop the North from developing a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the United States. “It won’t happen!” he wrote on Twitter.
But six weeks later, after North Korea defiantly launched a missile into the sea, Mr. Trump, now president, reacted with surprising restraint. Appearing before cameras late at night on Saturday in Florida with his golfing guest, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, Mr. Trump read a statement of just 23 words that pledged American support for Tokyo without even mentioning North Korea.
A projectile believed to be a modified version of the North’s intermediate-range ballistic missile Musudan took off at 7:55 a.m. from Banghyon, a town near North Korea’s northwestern border with China, and flew 310 miles before falling in the sea, the South Korean military said. Earlier, the United States Strategic Command issued a statement identifying the missile as a medium- or intermediate-range system that “did not pose a threat to North America.”
South Korea condemned the missile launching, saying that it violated a series of United Nations Security Council resolutions that bar North Korea from developing or testing ballistic missile and nuclear weapons technologies. It also said the North had launched the missile to raise tensions over its weapons programs and to use it as leverage in dealing with the Trump administration.
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — The embattled leader of Cambodia’s main opposition party abruptly quit on Saturday in the face of increasing government pressure, ceding a political stage he had occupied for more than two decades.
The resignation of the leader, Sam Rainsy, came after the government began a series of moves that would allow it to dissolve the Cambodia National Rescue Party he led, in advance of crucial local elections set for June. The opposition has also been hit with a barrage of lawsuits and leaked telephone conversations between leading figures and women purported to be their mistresses.
It was unclear whether Mr. Sam Rainsy, 67, was leaving politics for good or was planning to work quietly behind the scenes. Either way, his exit seemed to represent the end of an era.
As the head of three liberal-leaning political parties since 1995, he had been a thorn in the side of the country’s long-ruling prime minister, Hun Sen, for more than 20 years.
Luận án Tiến Sĩ Quốc Gia Khoa Học Chính Trị Đại Học Paris.
Trong khi điều 2 của hiệp ước 1862 chỉ nêu lên nguyên tắc tự do theo đạo Thiên Chúa mà không buộc chính phủ Việt nam có nghĩa vụ cụ thể nào đối với công dân theo đạo , thì điều 9 hiệp ước 1874 , công nhận cho những người này một mức độ độc lập đối với luật pháp xứ sở, đã làm nguy hại trầm trọng uy quyền vua Tự Đức và đe dọa ngay cả nền tảng của truyền thống quân chủ của Vương quốc . Tiếp tục đọc “Đạo Thiên Chúa và Chủ nghĩa thực dân tại Việt Nam – Phần II: Chương Bốn: Những khó khăn trong việc áp dụng điều 9”
Vũ Quang Việt Thứ Năm, 9/2/2017, 23:10 (GMT+7)
(TBKTSG) – Tổng thống Mỹ Donald Trump đã ký sắc lệnh quyết định rút Mỹ khỏi Hiệp định Đối tác xuyên Thái Bình Dương (TPP), thảo luận lại Hiệp định Thương mại tự do bắc Mỹ (Nafta), xác định từng vi phạm hiệp định thương mại với từng nước để có biện pháp thích hợp. Còn với Trung Quốc (TQ), Trump tuyên bố đó là nước thao túng hối suất, trợ cấp hàng hóa, ăn cắp công nghệ và hứa hẹn sẽ cứng rắn với TQ, sẽ làm “nước Mỹ vĩ đại trở lại”. TQ dưới sự lãnh đạo của Tập Cận Bình đang làm gì và Trump có thể đối sách như thế nào? Tiếp tục đọc “Trump và Tập: chiến tranh thương mại?”
HONG KONG — After Intel and Foxconn said they would build advanced factories in America, it might have seemed as if the United States were gaining high-end manufacturing momentum.
But on Friday, the California-based chip maker GlobalFoundries announced a $10 billion project in China, showing how the center of gravity continues to shift across the Pacific.
The new advanced semiconductor factory, in the central Chinese city of Chengdu, is only the most recent in an array of investments, often by major multinationals, into China with the support of the Chinese government. The projects have become markedly more sophisticated, making more modern microchips, memory chips or flat-panel displays.
MANILA — The drug raid ended like so many others in the Philippines, with all the suspects shot by the police.
But one of them, Efren Morillo, a 28-year-old fruit and vegetable vendor, did not die.
As the only known survivor of a so-called buy-bust operation, Mr. Morillo has provided a chilling first-person account that challenges the government’s assertion that the thousands of suspects killed in President Rodrigo Duterte’s antidrug campaign were killed by the police in self-defense. And his testimony lies at the heart of the first court case to challenge that campaign.
According to his sworn affidavit, none of the five suspects were drug users and none were armed.
The police took two of them, including Mr. Morillo, inside a house, handcuffed, Mr. Morillo said. Three others were lined up at a clearing near a ravine, ordered to kneel, their hands tied behind their backs.
There was begging and crying as the police shot each man at close range, Mr. Morillo said.
“Thoroughly frightened that I might be shot again, I closed my eyes and played dead,” he said. As he lay on the floor bleeding, he said, he overheard the police officers talking about planting guns and drugs because they had found none there.
When the police officers left the house, he took a chance and fled.
On Thursday evening in Washington, he appeared to shy away from confrontation with Beijing by agreeing to honor the one-China policy, during a lengthy telephone call with China’s President Xi Jinping.
The move is set to ease tensions between the world’s two most powerful nations: relations had been inflamed after Trump suggested he would only commit to the one-China policy if Beijing addressed his concerns about trade and currency issues.
A federal appeals court upheld a lower court ruling suspending President Trump’s controversial immigration order barring refugees and citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. on Feb. 9. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)
[7 key take-aways from the court’s ruling on Trump’s immigration order]
The judges did not declare outright that the ban was meant to disfavor Muslims — essentially saying it was too early for them to render a judgment on that question. But their ruling is undeniably a blow to the government and means the travel ban will remain off for the foreseeable future.
Trump reacted angrily on Twitter, posting just minutes after the ruling, “SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!” He later said to reporters that the judges had made “a political decision.”
“We have a situation where the security of our country is at stake, and it’s a very, very serious situation, so we look forward, as I just said, to seeing them in court,” he said.
The Justice Department, which was defending the administration’s position, said in a statement it was “reviewing the decision and considering its options.” Tiếp tục đọc “Federal appeals court rules 3 to 0 against Trump on travel ban”
The Tet Holiday (Vietnamese lunar New Year) has come to an end, marking the commencement of a new dry season in Vietnam’s lower Mekong Delta. Right now in coastal provinces around the Delta, thousands of farmers, especially those who miserably suffered during last year’s historic drought, are mobilizing to prepare for another similarly devastating drought, which is expected to arrive in the Delta in a few weeks.
During last year’s dry season, the record drought, followed by saltwater intrusion, cost Vietnam VND 15 trillion ($669 million) due to the heavy toll on agricultural production. It also caused dire humanitarian and other economic impacts: almost half a million households lacked fresh drinking water and experienced food shortages and thousands of affected people had to migrate to urban areas in search of jobs. The drought was mainly caused by Mekong upstream dams built by China in connection with El Nino effects. Tiếp tục đọc “Is Vietnam in for Another Devastating Drought?”
CVD 