Conversations on Vietnam Development
Braving harsh weather conditions, naval officers and soldiers in the island district of Truong Sa, the southern central province of Khanh Hoa, still plant vegetables so as to improve their meals.
 A soldier on Thuyen Chai B Island waters a small vegetable garden Tiếp tục đọc “Vegetable gardens green Truong Sa archipelago” |
VietNamNet Bridge – Under a plan drawn up by the Ministry of Education & Training (MOET), teachers will no longer be civil servants and will work under labor contracts.
MOET Minister Phung Xuan Nha said in order to improve education quality, it is necessary to upgrade teaching staff. In order to attract and retain good teachers, it is necessary to offer attractive remuneration policy. Meanwhile, the lifetime recruitment policy does not encourage teachers to improve.
“It is the right time to give schools autonomy in recruiting teachers and assessing their staff, and the right time to apply the labor contract policy on a trial basis,” Nha said. Tiếp tục đọc “Education Ministry wants to eliminate civil service policy for teachers”
In other countries, small-scale hydropower plants with capacity of several megawatts which serve a small number of households are located in areas far from the national grid. The don’t interfere with agricultural production.
Twenty years ago, Vietnam was thirsty for capital and power and called for investments in the power sector from different sources.
| As requested by the National Assembly, in 2013 the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) decided to remove 400 small-scale hydropower projects out of the hydropower development program. |
In the first years of the 21st century, thousands of hydropower projects were approved, designed and executed on thousands of rivers and streams.
Many projects were still on paper, but the supporting works were completed: the forests were felled to create roads to the sites and agricultural land was taken back to make room for the project.
As the people’s lives were upset, scientists and local authorities reported the problems to the National Assembly. The government in 2013 submitted to the National Assembly a list of small-scale hydropower projects to be removed from the hydropower development plan. Tiếp tục đọc “Developing small-scale hydropower is a big mistake: experts”
The Binh Thuan provincial People’s Committee has accepted commitments from 20 investors to invest in the renewable energy sector in the province. This is a part of the province’s plan to become a large energy center of the country in the next few years.
These include a commitment to build three wind and power plants by Duc Long Gia Lai Group with total investment capital of VND13.8 trillion. The largest project is the 200 MW Plant to be located in Phan Thiet City, capitalized at VND6 trillion. Tiếp tục đọc “More renewable energy projects licensed”
 |
| Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc has ordered the Ministry of National Defence to halt all construction work related to auxiliary infrastructure for a golf course in the vicinity of Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport, including a golf school, villas and luxury apartments. — Photo vnexpress.net |
HÀ NỘI — Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc has ordered the Ministry of National Defence to halt all construction work related to auxiliary infrastructure for a golf course in the vicinity of Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport, including a golf school, villas and luxury apartments. Tiếp tục đọc “PM halts airport golf complex”
 |
| Part of a protected forest in the southernmost province of Cà Mau risks being swept away as a result of drought, salt water intrusion and sea level rise. — VNA/VNS Photo An Hiếu |
Viet Nam News HÀ NỘI — Việt Nam risks a loss of 7.2 million tonnes of rice yield and 3.2 per cent of its agricultural land by the late 21st century as a result of climate change, according to a Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development forecast.
The forecast was delivered yesterday in Hà Nội at a conference on responsive activities to climate change in the agricultural sector in the context of implementing the Paris Climate Accord. Tiếp tục đọc “Climate change forecast to shrink rice yield”
 |
| Shell dweller: An Indochinese box turtle. Photo courtesy of Nguyễn Thu Thủy |
Taking trays containing freshly ground paste of vegetables and fruit, Lina V. Wedel and Simon Brauburger head for nearby enclosures to feed the turtles, one of the important tasks they perform every morning. Tiếp tục đọc “Taking care of turtles in Cúc Phương”
Update: June, 18/2017 – 09:00
 |
| Bit of greenery: “Silvery Wandering Jew”, oil on canvas. |
 |
| Students play ping pong at Cỏ May Dormitory, which provides free accommodation to poor university students in HCM City. —VNS Photo Gia Lộc |
Gia Lộc
HCM CITY — Trần Thị Diễm Sương was about to enter her third year of university when her mother told her she could no longer afford to pay her tuition and living expenses in HCM City.
With her future in doubt, Sương decided to apply for admission to Cỏ May Dormitory, founded by the late Phạm Văn Bên, a humanitarian and businessman whose mission was to help the disadvantaged attend university.
Located on the campus of Nông Lâm University in HCM City’s Thủ Đức District, the dorm offers free housing and VNĐ40,000 (US$1.75) for daily meals to poor students with excellent marks attending any university in the city. Tiếp tục đọc “No student left behind: universities offer compassion, care for the poor”
HÀ NỘI — Việt Nam’s plant protection product market is valued at US$1 billion a year, but the country is still heavily dependent on imports.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade estimated that in the first five months of the year, Viet Nam imported $400 million worth of pesticides and materials, a 41 per cent year-on-year increase. In May alone, the import value was $98 million.
The ministry said 53 per cent of the total imports were from China, and the rest from Thailand, South Korea, India and Germany. Tiếp tục đọc “Market told to limit pesticide import”
Chào các bạn,
Nếu lấy cách người ta sống chung chung trong xã hội để nhận xét, thì người Việt chúng ta có trình độ đạo đức trung bình rất thấp. Đây là những chuyện rất hiếm hoi tại nhiều quốc gia khác:
– Xe lật là người dân chạy vào hôi của.
– Có người dừng xe lo giúp nạn nhân trên đường, có người khác cướp xe của người cứu hộ.
– Hoa trong chậu trong sân nhà mình, có kẻ vào bưng trộm trong đêm. Tiếp tục đọc “Đạo đức chung của xã hội”
Interviewing James William Gibson, author of the famed book The Prefect War.
In this groundbreaking book, James William Gibson shatters the misled assumptions behind both liberal and conservative explanations for America’s failure in Vietnam. Gibson shows how American government and military officials developed a disturbingly limited concept of war — what he calls “technowar” — in which all efforts were focused on maximizing the enemy’s body count, regardless of the means. Consumed by a blind faith in the technology of destruction, American leaders failed to take into account their enemy’s highly effective guerrilla tactics. Indeed, technowar proved woefully inapplicable to the actual political and military strategies used by the Vietnamese, and Gibson reveals how U.S. officials consistently falsified military records to preserve the illusion that their approach would prevail. Gibson was one of the first historians to question the fundamental assumptions behind American policy, and The Perfect War is a brilliant reassessment of the war — now republished with a new introduction by the author.
(Introduction of The Perfect War on Amazon.com)
 |
| National heroes: Somewhere in the Central Highlands around 1963 as captured in a still frame by journalist Wilfred Burchett on a visit to the liberated zones of South Việt Nam. Photo courtesy of George Burchett |
by George Burchett
In April 2015, I was invited by the Cercle des Francophones (Francophone Association) of Hà Nội to present the film Loin du Vietnam (Far from Việt Nam) at the Hà Nội Cinémathèque. The film was made collectively in 1967 by some of the great names of new French cinéma: Joris Ivens, William Klein, Claude Lelouch, Agnès Varda, Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker and Alain Resnais, in support of Việt Nam’s resistance to US aggression.
I was familiar with the film, but decided to do some extra research for the occasion. Tiếp tục đọc “Have you ever seen so many elephants?”
CVD 