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.

RCEP – a life raft for trade liberalization in Asia

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

REGIONAL COOPERATION, TRADE

By . Posted APRIL 21, 2016

RCEP - a life raft for trade liberalization in Asia

asiapathway – There seems to be a pushback against trade agreements in the post global financial crisis era. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was signed in early 2016, but US presidential candidates have spared no effort criticizing it so near-term ratification is highly uncertain. The WTO Doha Round is in the deep freeze after 14 years of negotiations. Unilateral trade liberalization has virtually come to a standstill. Tiếp tục đọc “RCEP – a life raft for trade liberalization in Asia” →

The science of happiness can trump GDP as a guide for policy

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

theconversation – For centuries, happiness was exclusively a concern of the humanities; a matter for philosophers, novelists and artists. In the past five decades, however, it has moved into the domain of science and given us a substantial body of research. This wellspring of knowledge now offers us an enticing opportunity: to consider happiness as the leading measure of well-being, supplanting the current favourite, real gross domestic product per capita, or GDP.

In the social sciences, data on individuals’ happiness are obtained from nationally representative surveys in which a question such as the following is asked:

Taken all together, how would you say things are these days, would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?

There are many variants of this question. Instead of happiness, the question may be about your overall satisfaction with life, you might be asked to place yourself on a “ladder of life”. The common objective is to deliver an evaluation of the respondent’s life at the time of the survey. We can use the term “happiness” as a convenient proxy for this set of measures. Tiếp tục đọc “The science of happiness can trump GDP as a guide for policy” →

Where are the world’s tax havens, and what are they used for?

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
Mossack Fonseca law firm sign is pictured in Panama City, April 4, 2016.

The Panama Papers have exposed the world of offshore secrecy
Image: REUTERS/Carlos Jasso
Written by
Rosamond Hutt, Senior Producer, Formative Content
Published
Tuesday 12 April 2016

weforum – The incident of the Panama Papers, the largest collection of leaked documents ever recorded, has revealed where some of the world’s wealthiest people keep their assets, and how the global offshore industry helps them do it.
Tiếp tục đọc “Where are the world’s tax havens, and what are they used for?” →

Plan for Poorer Countries to Fund HIV Response Raises Concerns

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
By Lyndal Rowlands Reprint |   | Print |

In Zimbabwe, four out of 10 sexually active girls aged 15-19 reported taking an HIV test in the last 12 months. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

In Zimbabwe, four out of 10 sexually active girls aged 15-19 reported taking an HIV test in the last 12 months. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

 

ipsnews – UNITED NATIONS, Apr 11 2016 (IPS) – Calls for low and middle income countries to contribute an additional 6.1 billion dollars to the global HIV response by 2020 could see some vulnerable groups left behind, said HIV activists meeting at the United Nations last week. Tiếp tục đọc “Plan for Poorer Countries to Fund HIV Response Raises Concerns” →

How to protect infrastructure from a changing climate

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

blog.worldbank

Every other month the news seems to flash images of extreme weather – disastrous heat waves, floods of biblical proportions, and epic storms.  On the rise as a result of a changing climate, these weather events can cause a myriad of damages and put the world’s critical infrastructure at risk. This costs money. The devastating 2010 floods in Pakistan caused close to $2 billion in damages to physical infrastructure, according to World Bank estimates. And Hurricane Sandy wreaked $1.13 billion in damages on New York City’s infrastructure alone (New Jersey and other parts of New York State saw significant damages as well).

Examples like these are endless.

Alongside these increasing climatic risks to the world’s existing infrastructure assets, the fact remains that many countries desperately need more and better infrastructure. This is particularly true for developing countries.  To meet the future infrastructure demands of these economies would require investment of at least an estimated additional $1 trillion a year through 2020. Tiếp tục đọc “How to protect infrastructure from a changing climate” →

The Lessons of Chernobyl May Be Different Than We Thought

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ 1 bình luận

By Ryan Faith

April 26, 2016 | 7:45 pm

news.vice.com – Thirty years ago today, the Number 4 reactor at Chernobyl blew itself to smithereens, resulting in the worst nuclear disaster in history. A radiation cloud drifted over Europe, contaminating food sources that to this day continue to be monitored. Fifty-thousand residents in the nearby city of Pripyat were permanently evacuated. Dozens of people lost their lives.

Yet about 20 years after the disaster, an extensive two-year study led by seven UN agencies and involving the governments of Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus found that the biggest health threat from Chernobyl wasn’t the result of radiation — it was fatalism. People assumed they were going to die early due to radiation exposure, and so failed to take care of themselves as years passed. Tiếp tục đọc “The Lessons of Chernobyl May Be Different Than We Thought” →

It’s Time to Outlaw Nuclear Weapons

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

A treaty banning the bomb could lead to real progress.

nationalinterest

Tom Sauer April 18, 2016

Perhaps for the first time, the nuclear-weapon states are really afraid. Not because of their enemies’ nuclear weapons, let alone their own, but because of the likely start of multilateral negotiations for a nuclear-weapons ban. The odds are good that nuclear weapons will be declared illegal in the foreseeable future. Tiếp tục đọc “It’s Time to Outlaw Nuclear Weapons” →

Vietnam powerless to stop illegal gold mining

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
An accident last Tuesday that killed four gold miners in the south-central province of Quang Nam has once again given rise to public disquiet over illegal gold mining in central Vietnam.

Despite nearly 40 people having been killed in nine separate gold mine accidents in Quang Nam alone since 2009, thousands continue to put their lives at risk while digging up ranges of mountains in the unlawful pursuit of the precious metal.

Despite nearly 40 people having been killed in nine separate gold mineaccidents in Quang Nam alone since 2009, thousands continue to put their lives at risk while digging up ranges of mountains in the unlawful pursuit of the precious metal.

Tiếp tục đọc “Vietnam powerless to stop illegal gold mining” →

Vietnam’s latest minimum wage rise business as usual

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
17 October 2015
Author: Tu Phuong Nguyen, ANUeastasiaforum – In September 2015, the National Wage Council (NWC) of Vietnam proposed an increase of 12.4 per cent to the minimum wage in 2016. The key parties — representatives of business in the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and the state-sanctioned national union of workers, the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour (VGCL) — finally reached a consensus after two stalled meetings. The process, after all, is within the state’s annual schedule and hardly goes with any substantive changes to labour market institutions.

Vietnamese workers sew trousers and shirts destined for the U.S. market at the state-owned Thang Long garment factory in Hanoi (Photo: AAP).State-led wage bargaining is conducted annually in Vietnam and thus has become a key part of maintaining harmonious industrial relations in the country. There are four different minimum wages, which are categorised according to a region’s consumer price index. The first region covers urban and industrialised areas, while the others apply to different rural areas. The NWC has proposed raising the minimum monthly wage for this region from 3.1 million dong (approximately US$138) in 2015 to 3.5 million dong (approximately US$155.7) in 2016. It is likely that the proposal will make its way into a government decree at the end of 2015. Tiếp tục đọc “Vietnam’s latest minimum wage rise business as usual” →

Why we are teaching science wrong, and how to make it right

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Active problem-solving confers a deeper understanding of science than does a standard lecture. But some university lecturers are reluctant to change tack.

 M. Mitchell Waldrop
15 July 2015

Illustration by Vasava

Outbreak alert: six students at the Chicago State Polytechnic University in Illinois have been hospitalized with severe vomiting, diarrhoea and stomach pain, as well as wheezing and difficulty in breathing. Some are in a critical condition. And the university’s health centre is fielding dozens of calls from students with similar symptoms. Tiếp tục đọc “Why we are teaching science wrong, and how to make it right” →

Changing global patterns of poverty

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ 1 bình luận

Loewe, Markus / Nicole Rippin
Briefing Paper 3/2012

Bonn: German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE)

die-gdi _ Global patterns of poverty do not look like they did twenty years ago. Many developing countries have been able to raise their average per-capita income over the last two decades; 18 have even trespassed the highly noticed – though arbitrary – ceiling differentiating between ‘low income’ and ‘middle income countries’ (LICs and MICs).

The latter event in particular has attracted much attention has the most populous countries are among those that ‘graduated’ – with the effect that 72 per cent of the extreme income-poor world-wide (defined by the 1.25 USD Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) poverty line) are now living in MICs. Donors increasingly wonder whether development co-operation should therefore focus more on the remaining LICs or rather explore new ways of assisting MICs in poverty alleviation.

We argue that whatever future development co-operation with MICs may look like, poverty eradication should take a central place in it. Even if per-capita income levels are rising in most countries, it is much too early to celebrate the end of global poverty: Tiếp tục đọc “Changing global patterns of poverty” →

5 Ways to Get Girls into STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Karen D. Purcell, P.E.

edutopia – As a society, we learn about the world and advance our well being through science and engineering. The United States may be known around the world for its higher education, but compared to many other leading and steadily emerging countries, we lack a strong focus on educating scientists and engineers. One significant reason that we have fallen behind is that we do not encourage our female students to pursue career paths in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).

This needs to change, as the lack of women in STEM will continue to plague our country until all students, regardless of sex, have adequate opportunities to explore math and science throughout elementary, middle and high school. If we want to attract the best and brightest minds into the fields that will move us forward, we must look to all of the population. More women can contribute to our field, and we can help make that happen. Below are a few strategies for how we can help. Tiếp tục đọc “5 Ways to Get Girls into STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics” →

Inequality is bad for growth of the poor

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Recent economic thinking has discredited the idea that high inequality stimulates economic growth. Public investment in education is the key to both cutting inequality and achieving sustainable growth, argue Roy Van der Weide, Branko Milanovic and Mario Negre.

Branko Milanovic is Visiting Presidential Professor at the The Graduate Center, City University of New York, and senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study Centre. Roy Van der Weide works as an economist at the Poverty and Inequality Unit of the World Bank Research Department. Mario Negre is senior economist at the Poverty and Inequality Unit of the World Bank Research Department and senior researcher at the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). Tiếp tục đọc “Inequality is bad for growth of the poor” →

Nuclear Vs Non-Nuclear Powered Countries: 2016 Facts

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Britishbusinessenergy

https://i0.wp.com/britishbusinessenergy.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/nuclear-power-world-map.png

The map above shows which countries have operating commercial nuclear power stations and which ones do not as of April, 2016. At last count, 31 countries generate at least some of their electricity needs via nuclear power.

Here are 13 interesting facts about these countries and nuclear power. Tiếp tục đọc “Nuclear Vs Non-Nuclear Powered Countries: 2016 Facts” →

Meeting Southeast Asia’s ambitious clean energy targets

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ 1 bình luận

Southeast Asian countries have set themselves renewable energy targets that are even more ambitious than some European countries, but they are behind schedule in reaching these goals. Government policies and private money are key to its progress.

chiangmai solar
Solar panels against a backdrop of mountains in Chiangmai, Thailand. Southeast Asia is set to meet its exploding energy demand mostly with coal, but many countries in the region have pledged to significantly increase their share of renewable energy. Image: Shutterstock
By Vaidehi Shah and Jessica Cheam

Thursday 26 March 2015

eco-business – Southeast Asia, along with Asian giants China and India, is shifting the centre of gravity of the global energy system to Asia. Its population boom, along with economic growth, is set to fuel energy demand and send it rising by 80 per cent by 2035, predicts the International Energy Agency.

Tiếp tục đọc “Meeting Southeast Asia’s ambitious clean energy targets” →