Tác giả: Đào Thu Hằng

I'm from Hanoi, Viet Nam. I'm an author of Dot Chuoi Non (dotchuoinon.com/author/hangbelu/), a blog on Positive thinking, founded by Dr. Tran Dinh Hoanh, an attorney in Washington DC. I'm a co-founder of Conversations on Vietnam Development - cvdvn.net, a virtual think tank. I am a co-founder of two companies in Viet Nam working on children education services. I advise companies on STEAM education, English language education for children and students in Vietnam. I'm studying the Buddha's teaching and the teaching of Jesus. I practice mindful living including meditation. I hold a PhD on Sustainable Energy Systems from University of Lisbon and Aalto University. I graduated from Hanoi University of Technology on Environmental Engineering. I obtained a Master degree of the same major from Stanford University and Nanyang Technological University. My English-language blog at: hangbelu.wordpress/. I play table tennis as a hobby.

A new draft of Cuba’s constitution drops communism and allows same-sex marriage

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
Sarah Marsh, Reuters
Jul. 22, 2018, 4:10 PM
Cuba flag
Cuba may begin to allow private property.
 Spencer Platt/Getty Images
  • Cuba is drafting a new constitution for the first time since 1976, and the new document doesn’t mention communism.
  • The new constitution also allows private property as part of the focus on socialism instead of communism.
  • The draft also allows same-sex marriage, sets up the position of prime minister, and places term limits on presidents.
  • Lawmakers can adjust the draft before it is approved and put to a national referendum.

HAVANA (Reuters) – A draft of Cuba’s new constitution omits the aim of building communism, recognizes private property, and opens the door to gay marriage, in a sign of changing times, although it keeps the Communist Party as the guiding force of the one-party system. Tiếp tục đọc “A new draft of Cuba’s constitution drops communism and allows same-sex marriage” →

Cambodia blocks 17 media websites before vote

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Independent media sites taken offline for 48 hours as Cambodians prepare to vote on Sunday in a controversial election.

by

The Phnom Penh Post was among those taken offline for 48 hours by the government [Erin Handley/Al Jazeera]
The Phnom Penh Post was among those taken offline for 48 hours by the government [Erin Handley/Al Jazeera

Phnom Penh, Cambodia – The government blocked access to independent media websites just hours before polling in the country’s controversial national election begins.

Phos Sovann, director general of information and broadcasting at the Information Ministry, confirmed a total of 17 websites – including Voice of America, Radio Free Asia (RFA), Voice of Democracy, and the Phnom Penh Post – had been targeted.

“We requested to our committee members, along with the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Telecommunications, to close those websites down,” he said.

The National Election Committee requested political parties and media outlets to “remain silent” for a 24-hour period in advance of election day on Sunday.

The government edict comes a week after a sudden proliferation of WhatsApp groups, in which potentially hundreds of Cambodians found themselves added to chats through the Facebook-owned messenger service.

READ MORE

Five things to know about Cambodia’s general election

Sovann requested internet service providers to block the sites for 48 hours, while other news sites friendly to strongman Prime Minister Hun Sen‘s regime remained accessible online.

“We observed that the contents of those new media are provocative. Those contents are very political in their tendencies, and they are restricting to the election,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s unfair … It’s just for 48 hours before the election.”

Clamping down

The move comes during a political and media crackdown in Cambodia.

Opposition leader Kem Sokha was arrested on questionable allegations of treason in September last year and his party was dissolved by the Supreme Court – led by a member of the ruling party – leaving some three million voters disenfranchised and the election without a viable opposition.
Tiếp tục đọc “Cambodia blocks 17 media websites before vote” →

DEFENDING LAND AND ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS HAS BECOME AN INCREASINGLY DEADLY ENDEAVOR

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

THEY WERE KILLED by their own army. On December 3, while members of the Taboli-manubo people on the Philippine island of Mindanao were farming and doing housework, the army began shelling their neighborhood and spraying them with gunfire from all directions. Eight people were killed.

The dead included Datu Victor Danyan, a leader of protests against the expansion of a coffee plantation by an agribusiness firm, and four of his family members. Danyan had long been involved in resisting the company, Silvicultural Industries Inc., whose operation had taken over ancestral land and threatened the community’s livelihood. More were injured in the attack, and 200 were forced to evacuate the area, abandoning the fields they had sought to preserve. While the Taboli-manubo people believe the cause of the attack was their resistance to Silvicultural Industries, the Philippine army disputes this.

This was one of many attacks on land and environmental defenders in 2017 recorded by Global Witness, which defines such defenders as those who take peaceful action when land, forests, or rivers are encroached upon by industry, whether as members of the local community, or as activists, journalists, or lawyers. Tiếp tục đọc “DEFENDING LAND AND ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS HAS BECOME AN INCREASINGLY DEADLY ENDEAVOR” →

Cambodians wary as Chinese investment transforms their country

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

asia.nikkei.com

Chinese investment is fueling a construction boom in Cambodia, but it is also bringing headaches. (Photo by Akira Kodaka)

Hun Sen, ruler for 33 years, faces little opposition in upcoming election

DOMINIC FAULDER and KENJI KAWASE

PHNOM PENH/SIHANOUKVILLE, Cambodia — As boom-mounted cameras swept the horizon, a drone hovered above more than 50,000 party faithful who had begun streaming noisily through the Cambodian capital well before dawn, dressed in white shirts and caps, and waving blue flags.

The modern technology captured an old and familiar scene: the unshakable Cambodian People’s Party elite out in strength ahead of a controversial general election that most observers believe lacks a credible opposition. The main Cambodian National Rescue Party was dissolved by Supreme Court order, and its leader Kem Sokha is in prison.

Kicking off the campaign for this month’s election was the longest-serving prime minister in the Asia-Pacific region: Hun Sen, the 65-year-old party chairman. Singers performed rousing favorites, monks dispensed petals and blessings, and troupes of dancers — apsaras, rowers and ducklings — softened up the crowd. At 7:15am, Hun Sen began reading from a prepared text and did not stop for 70 minutes. He was interrupted only once by a brief, almost auspicious sprinkling of rain. Tiếp tục đọc “Cambodians wary as Chinese investment transforms their country” →

Q&A: Air Pollution Remains Cause for Alarm in Asia

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
IPSnews.net

IPS correspondent Sinsiri Tiwutanond spoke to Global Green Growth Institute’s director-general Dr. Frank Rijsberman about Asia’s fight against air pollution.

On any given day, a pall of smog and dust hangs over Kabul’s streets. It clings to the face, burns the eyes, and stains the hands. It bathes the cars, often stuck bumper-to-bumper in traffic, and occludes the view of the distant mountains. Credit: Anand Gopal/IPS

BANGKOK , Jul 17 2018 (IPS) – At the start of the year the pollution in Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi, reached six times the World Health Organization’s guideline levels for air quality.

Yet the levels, which appear higher than those of South Korea’s capital Seoul—where most people monitor the air pollution levels daily—is not treated with equal concern because of a lack of general awareness. This is despite the fact that air pollution has become the largest cause of premature deaths in Asia.

“When I went to Vietnam, I realised no one thought there was an air pollution problem because no one was directly addressing it. It was worse than Seoul when we checked the level there. In Seoul, people talk about air pollution everyday. In the morning, you check the air quality to see if you need a mask or if the kids can play outside. In Hanoi, the problem is just as bad but people just don’t know about it,” Global Green Growth Institute’s director-general Dr. Frank Rijsberman told IPS. Tiếp tục đọc “Q&A: Air Pollution Remains Cause for Alarm in Asia” →

Lao Citizens Displaced by China-Linked Railroad Project Still Not Paid For Losses

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

A stretch of railroad is shown under construction in Vientiane's Na Xaythong district in an undated photo.

A stretch of railroad is shown under construction in Vientiane’s Na Xaythong district in an undated photo.

RFA

Thousands of Lao families ordered from their land and homes to make way for a high-speed railway linking the country with China are still waiting for compensation promised by their government though construction has surged ahead, sources in the country say.

Plans now call for work on the railway to end in 2021, with Chinese companies promising completion by that date despite the challenges of boring tunnels in mountainous areas of the country’s north.

Landlocked Laos expects the railroad to lower the cost of exports and consumer goods while boosting socioeconomic development in the impoverished nation of nearly 7 million people.

Under Lao Decree 84 issued in April 2016, Lao citizens losing land to development projects must be compensated for lost property and income, with project owners guaranteeing that living conditions for those displaced will be at least as good as they were before the project began.

In Chaengsavang village in the Na Xaythong district of the capital Vientiane, meanwhile, construction crews have measured and staked out the railroad’s proposed route and begun to build, though no one has spoken yet to affected households about compensation, a local resident recently told RFA’s Lao Service Tiếp tục đọc “Lao Citizens Displaced by China-Linked Railroad Project Still Not Paid For Losses” →

When you eat a Mekong Giant Catfish, you are paying criminals

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

By Marc Goichot   July 25, 2018 | 09:39 am GMT+7

When you eat a Mekong Giant Catfish, you are paying criminals

Cambodia Fisheries personnel release a Mekong giant catfish. Photo by Reuters

Vietnamese restaurant owners, chefs and customers are complicit in the crime of catching, advertising, serving and eating an endangered species.

Most people in Vietnam knows it is illegal to sell tiger meat or pangolin scales or rhino horn.

It is common knowledge that trading elephant ivory is a criminal offense, punishable by fines and jail time. But few of us seem to know that it is just as illegal to sell a Mekong Giant Catfish or Giant Barb.

But it is. Every restaurant advertising these endangered giants is breaking the law. Every time you eat a plate of Mekong Giant Catfish in Hanoi or Da Nang or Ho Chi Minh City, you are helping a criminal. In fact, you are paying a criminal.

And you are also helping to drive this extraordinary species toward extinction.

Instead of choosing one of these dishes from the menu, you should choose to contact the Provincial Department of Fisheries. The government and Vietnamese people have taken significant steps in recent years to tackle wildlife crime and trafficking of species like tigers, elephants and rhinos. It is time we ended the illegal trade in the Mekong’s most magnificent fish.

Tiếp tục đọc “When you eat a Mekong Giant Catfish, you are paying criminals” →

Are rural youth in the Mekong region losing interest in farming?

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Smallholder farmers in the Mekong region face increasingly insecure farming livelihoods as land resources are drawn into the hands of developers. SEI is exploring what this means for the future of rural youth and farming.

The livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers in the Mekong region are tied to their land. But the demands for land for large-scale agriculture, industrial and energy development schemes such as monoculture plantations, special economic zones, and hydropower projects are taking away land from smallholders, giving rise to more landless farmers and increasing land inequality.

Meanwhile, national policies often fail to protect the rights of smallholder farmers who are poorly positioned to compete with these developers and to benefit from the outcomes of the investments.

This indicates a precarious future for smallholder farming-based livelihoods in the Mekong Region, the situation exacerbated by the failure of current labour markets to provide decent, secure jobs for the increasing number of landless people. Tiếp tục đọc “Are rural youth in the Mekong region losing interest in farming?” →

Environmental changes in the Mekong Delta spell trouble for farmers

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
phys.org
July 23, 2018, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Environmental changes in the Mekong Delta spell trouble for farmers
Mekong Delta’s dams, dikes, and canals have made the area a major exporter of rice, shrimp, and other seafood, but they are bringing unintended consequences to local farmers. Credit: Mic Greenberg

The Mekong Delta is home to 15 million people, many of whom rely on the delta’s rich soil and water resources for farming and fishing. But their livelihoods are being threatened by rising sea levels, droughts, dams, and other hydrological shifts. A new article from researchers at the University of Illinois and Iowa State University explains the challenges.
Tiếp tục đọc “Environmental changes in the Mekong Delta spell trouble for farmers” →

Laos Dam Collapses, and Hundreds Are Missing

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

NYTIMES

HONG KONG — Hundreds of people were missing on Tuesday after a billion-dollar hydropower dam that was under construction in Laos collapsed, killing several people and displacing more than 6,600 others, a state news agency said.

KPL, the official Lao news agency, reported that the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy hydropower dam collapsed at 8 p.m. on Monday, releasing five billion cubic meters of water and sweeping away homes in the southern province of Attapeu, which lies along the country’s border with Vietnam and Cambodia. The agency did not give an exact death toll.

Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith of Laos later suspended a planned government meeting and led members of his cabinet to monitor rescue and relief efforts around the collapsed dam, the agency reported on Tuesday.

Laos is a landlocked authoritarian state and one of the poorest countries in Asia.

Flooding in Attapeu Province, Laos, after the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy dam collapse.CreditVideo by idsala ອິດສະຫຼະ

The 410-megawatt dam was being built by the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy Power Company, a joint venture between a state-owned Laotian company and several other companies, the KPL agency said. Construction on the dam began in 2013, five years after the completion of a feasibility study, KPL reported.

The dam was expected to begin operating by 2019 and to generate approximately 1,879 gigawatt hours of electricity per year, the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy Power Company says on its website. Ninety percent of the electricity would be sold to neighboring Thailand, and the other 10 percent within Laos, the company says.

Tiếp tục đọc “Laos Dam Collapses, and Hundreds Are Missing” →

No Women No Growth

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

asiafoundation.org

July 18, 2018

By Eileen Pennington

FacebookTwitterGoogle+LinkedInEmailPrintPartilhar

The 2018 Chatham House International Policy Forum convened last week at a time of international angst. Two British cabinet ministers had resigned over Brexit negotiations, creating more uncertainty around the tenure of Prime Minister May. President Trump’s contentious meeting with NATO officials sparked questions about the U.S. commitment to that institution. And the U.S. administration’s efforts to undermine a World Health Organization resolution promoting the benefits of breastfeeding focused attention on recent challenges to international norms and relationships that threaten hard-won gains toward gender equality.
Tiếp tục đọc “No Women No Growth” →

Pushing Vietnam’s shrimp industry toward sustainability

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
news.mongabay.com
by  on 17 July 2018

  • Shrimp farming is one of the biggest industries in Vietnam, and the government is pushing to expand it, having announced plans last year to boost exports from $3 billion in 2016 to $10 billion by 2025.
  • But there are significant environmental problems associated with current farming methods, which contribute to deforestation, erosion, land subsidence and rising salinity levels that are threatening the stability of the entire Mekong region.
  • The Vietnamese government and a range of international development partners are working to improve the way the country farms shrimp, with an emphasis on small-scale operators.
  • However, the reality is that most farmers are reluctant to change.

    • Tiếp tục đọc “Pushing Vietnam’s shrimp industry toward sustainability” →

Monsanto on trial over Roundup poisoning case

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Former school groundsman dying of cancer accuses maker of popular herbicide of suppressing evidence of risks.

Keen gardeners everywhere will be watching the outcome of a court case in the United States, in which a former school groundsman who is dying of cancer says the manufacturers of a well-known weed killer caused his illness.

The 46-year-old father developed skin lesions and the disease which is now slowly killing him after spraying gallons of the herbicide Roundup as a school groundskeeper for two years in California.

He accuses Monsanto of suppressing evidence of the risks of Roundup’s main ingredient – glyphosate.

Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey reports.

Southeast Asia is in the grip of a biodiversity crisis

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

theconversation.com

Rich in wildlife, Southeast Asia includes at least six of the world’s 25 “biodiversity hotspots” – the areas of the world that contain an exceptional concentration of species, and are exceptionally endangered. The region contains 20% of the planet’s vertebrate and plant species and the world’s third-largest tropical forest.

In addition to this existing biodiversity, the region has an extraordinary rate of species discovery, with more than 2,216 new species describedbetween 1997 and 2014 alone.

Global comparisons are difficult but it seems the Mekong region has a higher rate of species discovery than other parts of the tropics, with hundreds of new species described annually.

Habitat loss

Southeast Asia’s biodiversity is under serious threat; some parts of the region are projected to lose up to 98% of their remaining forests in the next nine years. It’s also thought to be the world’s most threatened region for mammals. Tiếp tục đọc “Southeast Asia is in the grip of a biodiversity crisis” →

Thailand: The rich world’s new dumpsite for e-waste

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

euractive.com 

Jul 3, 2018

Royal Thai Police raid Wai Mei Dat. Gaylord boxes and Super Sacks filled with imported e-waste. Photo Copyright The Nation, Thailand Portal. May 22, 2018. [baselactionnetwork / Flickr]

Thailand has become one of the largest dumpsites for electronic waste from developed countries since China’s January ban on the import of plastic waste. EURACTIV’s partner Le Journal de l’environnement reports. Tiếp tục đọc “Thailand: The rich world’s new dumpsite for e-waste” →