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.

Open Access Energy – framing document

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

OpenAccess Energy

DOWNLOAD: OpenAccess Energy Brief V2

Despite many decades of global efforts directed at mass electrification, we have failed to deliver modern electricity services to approximately one-third of the people on Earth. 1.1 billion people continue to live without access to electricity. A further billion have unreliable access. According to the International Energy Agency’s most optimistic scenario for future energy access, the number of people worldwide without electricity in the year 2030 is projected to remain above 1 billion. In Sub-Saharan Africa the problem is projected to get worse, not better. The fact that population growth is outstripping electrification means that by 2030 the number of people without electricity will have risen by 10% (16% in rural areas) from 2009 levels. Clearly, our approach to opening up energy access has to change.

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William J. Perry on nuclear war and nuclear terrorism

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
 William J. Perry
thebulletin – On June 26, 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea, beginning an ugly war that resulted in more than a million casualties, and demonstrated to even the most optimistic that a Cold War was seriously underway. That was just two weeks after I got my master’s degree from Stanford, so it is no exaggeration to say that I am a child of the Cold War.

Indeed, throughout my career I always perceived a dark nuclear cloud hanging over my head, threatening no less than the extinction of civilization.

During the Cold War we had a half dozen nuclear crises, of which the Cuban Missile Crisis was the most dangerous, and I was close enough to these crises that they made a deep personal impression on me. I believed then, and I believe to this day, that we got through these crises and avoided a nuclear catastrophe as much by good luck as by good management. Tiếp tục đọc “William J. Perry on nuclear war and nuclear terrorism” →

NARROW THE GAP 2015 FOR ENVIRONMENT

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ 1 bình luận

NARROW THE GAP 2015 FOR ENVIRONMENT

Vuong Thao Vy  – LIN Grants Coordinator

This article was written exclusively for CVD

Narrow the Gap Community Fund (operated by LIN Center for Community Development) brings local resources together to support local nonprofit organizations that are tackling the most pressing problems in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) and to make it easier and more rewarding for people to become more strategic with their giving. Through Narrow the Gap Community Fund, LIN collects donations from various sources and manages the selection and allocation of small grants, three times each year, to local NPOs that are addressing community needs. Since 2009, LIN has invited local not-for-profit organizations (NPOs) to apply for small grants (up to VND 600 million, the equivalent of USD $28,500) to support their activities. Applications are submitted to LIN staff for screening. Eligible applications are then presented to a review committee, which is comprised of LIN Board Members and rotating skilled volunteers. The review committee reads and ranks eligible applications and later comes together to meet, as a committee, with the applicants. Our grants also incorporate capacity building workshops and skilled volunteer matching, which aim to improve the quality of grant applications and help local NPOs overcome difficulties they face in communicating their ideas to stakeholders. Tiếp tục đọc “NARROW THE GAP 2015 FOR ENVIRONMENT” →

Waiting for a Rockefeller: Meet the Next `Supermajors’ of Energy

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
JoeRyanNews
April 4, 2016 — 12:01 AM BST Updated on April 4, 2016 — 6:20 AM BST
  • Dominant global players have yet to emerge in wind and solar
  • Handful of clean-energy companies build `supermajor’ skills

More than a decade after the birth of the modern renewable energy industry, solar and wind await their John D. Rockefeller.

Bloomberg – Clean power remains a tumultuous and fragmented business, crowded with companies grabbing for slices of an emerging market that aspires to reshape how the world meets its energy needs. They rise and fall as technology advances and demand seesaws. Some have grown into sprawling regional players, often propped up by government subsidies. A few, like Suntech Power Holdings Co. and Q-Cells SE, soared to prominence, then all but flickered out.

Yet there are still no companies that dominate the industry. Tiếp tục đọc “Waiting for a Rockefeller: Meet the Next `Supermajors’ of Energy” →

Water crisis developing in drought-hit Vietnam: UN

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

chanelnewsasisa – A water crisis is developing in central and southern Vietnam as the region is hit by its worst drought in recent history. The United Nations says 1.5 million people face an acute shortage of drinking water.

KON TUM, Vietnam: Life has become harder for Ta Dinh Hao since the rains stopped earlier than usual last September.

The once teeming fish pond in front of his concrete house in Vietnam’s Central Highlands is now parched earth. His rice field has been dead for months and the cassava is struggling, but the 47-year-old farmer’s biggest worry is the dangerously low water level in his household well.

If the well dries up, he could afford to buy drinking water for another two or three months. “But after that, we won’t last,” he said with a sad smile.

Hao’s cassava is surviving but doing badly. (Photo: Tan Qiuyi)

UNFOLDING CRISIS
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Viet Nam’s farmers suffer as El Niño contributes to widespread drought

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
Published: 4 April 2016 11:48 CET
A Red Cross staff conducts an assessment with a household in Ben Tre province in Viet Nam. Photo credit: Viet Nam Red Cross Society
IFRC – By Ly Nguyen, IFRC

Since the end of 2015, unusually dry conditions and a shortage of rainfall have seriously affected Viet Nam. These conditions which are associated with El Niño, have led to severe drought  in parts of the central, central highlands and southern regions of the country, including the Mekong Delta. Some water levels are at the lowest recorded in 90 years.

“In 2015, there was lower than average rainfall during the rainy season which ended two months earlier than in previous years. Water shortage has been compounded by saltwater intrusion. Salinity is four times higher than seasonal averages,” said Phan Duy Le, Vice Chairman of Quoi Dien commune in Thanh Phu district, Ben Tre province. “The consequences are very concerning. The drought and salty water have been threatening crops and agricultural production, and most importantly, access to drinking water for local people.”

Tiếp tục đọc “Viet Nam’s farmers suffer as El Niño contributes to widespread drought” →

The Other Entrepreneurs: Giving Ailing Newborns a Fighting Chance From Vietnam

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

03/17/2016 07:38 pm ET | Updated Mar 24, 2016

  • Chandran NairFounder and CEO of the Global Institute For Tomorrow

hungfingtonpost – Every year, more than three million babies die in their first month of life. Most of these deaths could be prevented if appropriate technologies were available in the hospitals of the world’s poorest countries.

Nga Tuyet Trang, the founder of Medical Technology Transfer and Services, orMTTS, is trying to make this happen.

After spending a year studying in Denmark in 2003, Nga returned home to Vietnam imagining a world where every infant, no matter where they were born, had an equal chance for a healthy life. Assembling an international team of specialists in biomedicine, mechanics, electronics and industrial design, she tasked them with adapting developed world medical equipment and practices to meet the needs of treating the most common problems affecting newborn babies at hospitals and clinics in developing countries. Tiếp tục đọc “The Other Entrepreneurs: Giving Ailing Newborns a Fighting Chance From Vietnam” →

Disease: Poverty and pathogens

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
  • Michael Eisenstein
  • Nature 531, S61–S63  (17 March 2016) doi:10.1038/531S61a
  • Published online
  • 16 March 2016

The growth of slums in the developing world’s rapidly expanding cities is creating new opportunities for infectious disease to flourish and spread.

Subject terms:

Madina market in Conakry, Guinea. Densely populated urban environments are ideal for the spread of infection.

Nature – As Lee Riley read article after article about the deadly 2014 Ebola outbreak, his frustration mounted. “I was seeing all of these newspaper reports and even scientific reports talking about this unprecedented epidemic in West Africa,” says Riley, a specialist in urban public health at the University of California, Berkeley, “and there wasn’t a single mention of the words ‘slums’ or ‘informal settlements’.”

Ebola is feared because of its high mortality and limited treatment options, but generally it has been limited to remote rural regions. The 2014 outbreak was different: flare-ups in cities such as Conakry in Guinea and Monrovia in Liberia revealed the havoc that this lethal virus could wreak in urban environments. The dense and highly mobile populations provided greater opportunities for the infection to spread. And according to Mosoka Fallah, an epidemiologist who was working with Liberia’s Ministry of Health at the front line of the Monrovia outbreak, urban slums bore the brunt. “Wherever there were big outbreaks, most people being infected were among the poor,” he says. “Those that didn’t have basic sanitation, who had the most distrust of institutions — they also had the most disease.” Tiếp tục đọc “Disease: Poverty and pathogens” →

Women’s Empowerment and the Environment: What Does Science Say?

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

“Sisters are doin’ it for themselves, standin’ on their own two feet and ringin’ on their own bells,” sang Aretha Franklin and the Eurythmics’ Annie Lennox in a 1985 hit song.

14029946657_bdde4f059b_k

Worldwatch – On International Women’s Day 2016 today (March 8), is it fair to ask whether sisters also are doing it for the earth? Or, put differently, could the empowerment of women and girls contribute to environmental sustainability—to a world that meets human and nature’s needs in perpetuity?

That’s the question we’re asking in the Family Planning and Environmental Sustainability Assessment (FPESA) as part of our search for a scientific basis for the proposition that wider use of family planning is good for sustainability. Not that any such justification should be needed for women and girls’ well-being. Equal rights and opportunities are their own reward, and are worth striving for no matter what. And there’s no way that saving the environment should be seen as women’s work or a special obligation for females. It’s human work, and it obligates us all.

Yet a practical question arises: Might people of both sexes who care about sustainability be more likely to advocate for gender equality and an end to sexual violence if research demonstrated that a world of secure and powerful women would be better off environmentally? Tiếp tục đọc “Women’s Empowerment and the Environment: What Does Science Say?” →

The curious case of Thai-Chinese relations: Best friends forever?

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
14 March 2016 9:15AM

lowyinterpreter – Thailand has a long tradition of balancing its relations with major powers and, since the 2014 coup, it has been shifting towards China. However, with the two countries now involved in a  complicated collaboration on high speed rail, the Thai public has started to question whether China is truly its best ally. Indeed, once one looks beyond perceptions and emotions and examines the detail of the Thailand-China relations, the best friend status is puzzling.

Sweet relationship

Thailand and China drew closer back in the late 1970s when Bangkok needed Beijing’s military and strategic support to cope with an expansionist Vietnam. The friendship strengthened when China withdrew its support of the communist movement in Thailand, removing red threats from within and outside of the country. Cordial relations strengthened further in the last decade. Then, when other friends — like the US, UK, Australia and Japan —  condemned the 2014 coup, China stated that Thailand should resolve its domestic conflicts peacefully. This reaction was welcomed by many Thais who supported the overthrow of the Shinawatra government, even by unconstitutional means.
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The United States dominates global investment banking: does it matter for Europe?

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Europe’s banks are in retreat from playing a global investment banking role, and this trend is likely to continue in the future. What will be the consequences and what should be the policy response?

By: and Date: March 7, 2016

BRUEGEL

Highlights

For the full references and the annex, please see the PDF version of this publication.

  • In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the market share of US investment banks is increasing, while that of their European counterparts is declining. We present evidence that US investment banks are on the verge of taking over pole position in European investment banking. Meanwhile, since 2015, Chinese investment banks have overtaken American and European investment banks in the Asia-Pacific market.
  • Credit rating agencies and investment banks are the gatekeepers of the capital markets. The European supervisory institutions can effectively supervise the European operations of these US-managed players. On the political side, we suggest that the European Commission should continue to view its, albeit declining, banking industry as a strategic sector. The Commission, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England should jointly develop a strategic agenda for the EU-US Regulatory Dialogue.
  • Finally, corporates rely on investment banks to issue new securities. We recommend that the big European corporates should cherish the (few) remaining European investment banks, by giving them at least one place in otherwise US- dominated banking syndicates. That could help to avoid complete dependence on US investment banks.

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BÌNH LUẬN VỀ QUY HOẠCH ĐIỆN 7 HIỆU CHỈNH – LIÊN MINH NĂNG LƯỢNG BỀN VỮNG VIỆT NAM

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

“Cần tạo nhiều đột phá trong chính sách để đảm bảo tính khả thi và sự đồng bộ giữa định hướng và phương án tăng mạnh năng lượng tái tạo và giảm nhiệt điện than”  

Ngày 18 tháng 3 vừa  qua, Quy hoạch phát triển điện  lực quốc gia giai đoạn 2011 – 2020,  có xét đến năm 2030  HIỆU CHỈNH (QHĐ VII  HC) đã được Thủ  Tướng Chính Phủ phê duyệt.  Những nội dung cơ bản của QHĐ VII HC đã  được chia sẻ và thảo luận tại hội thảo “Phát triển  Năng lượng  – Tăng trưởng  Xanh – Biến  đổi khí  hậu: Nỗ lực  và Khoảng trống”  do Liên  minh Năng lượng  Bền vững Việt  Nam – VSEA – (1)  tổ chức sáng  ngày 24/3/201.

QHĐ VII  HC định hướng  chính sách  phát triển nguồn  điện trong  giai đoạn  tới tập  trung vào  “giảm công  suất và số  lượng các  nhà máy nhiệt điện  than  (NMNĐ than)”,  “giảm bớt  nhu cầu  nhiên liệu  hóa thạch”,  “sử dụng  các công nghệ tiên  tiến trong  nhà máy  nhiệt điện  (tăng hiệu  suất, giảm  tiêu hao nhiên  liệu, giảm  phát thải”, “tăng mạnh tỷ  trọng năng lượng tái tạo (NLTT)  trong cơ cấu nguồn điện”.

Luôn quan  tâm và thúc  đẩy sự  phát triển  năng lượng  bền vững ở  Việt Nam,  VSEA cho  rằng định  hướng điều chỉnh này  của Chính phủ  rất phù  hợp với nguyện  vọng của người dân cũng  như xu  thế  chung của thế giới hướng đến phát triển năng lượng sạch và bền vững.

Tuy nhiên, nhìn vào cơ cấu nguồn điện  trong QHĐ VII HC, nhiệt điện than vẫn dự kiến chiếm tới hơn 50% tổng sản  lượng điện sản xuất trong mười và  mười lăm năm tới. Khối lượng than  nhập khẩu để phát điện dự  kiến vào năm 2030 lên tới hơn 85  triệu tấn, cao gần gấp đôi so  với lượng than cung  ứng nội địa.  Kịch bản  này đặt ra  câu hỏi lớn  với an  ninh năng lượng  của Việt Nam. Liệu an ninh năng lượng  quốc gia có được đảm bảo khi theo  phương án hơn một nửa hệ thống điện phụ  thuộc vào  nhiệt điện than  trong đó  2/3 nguồn nhiên  liệu phụ  thuộc vào bên  ngoài? Tiếp tục đọc “BÌNH LUẬN VỀ QUY HOẠCH ĐIỆN 7 HIỆU CHỈNH – LIÊN MINH NĂNG LƯỢNG BỀN VỮNG VIỆT NAM” →

Vietnam: Problems in enforcing environmental law and ensuring environmental rights for legal aid beneficiaries

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Rights of legal aid beneficiaries and environmental rights: Article 34 of Decree No. 7/CP dated 12/1/2007 on guidelines for implementing 2006 Law on legal aid stipulates: poor people, policy supported groups and other marginalized groups are entitled to legal aid services in eight fields, including environmental law

Dr Truong Thi Quoc Khanh - permenant Deputy of the National Assembly’s Commission on Science, Technology, and Environment - presented at the workshop

Dr Truong Thi Quoc Khanh – permenant Deputy of the National Assembly’s Commission on Science, Technology, and Environment – presented at the workshop

IUCN – Legal aid beneficiaries are entitled to, represention by counsel in order to lodge a complaint, to conduct negotiations or during legal proceedings. All of these activities shall be provided at no cost, and be followed-up, monitored by the state legal aid center, lawyers, or legal counselors.

The aim of providing legal aid services for the poor and marginalized groups is to protect their rights and interests, and to improve their legal knowledge. It also aims to avoid needless loss of business. Thus, legal aid plays an important role in raising people’s awareness on environment, and poverty eradication. Environment is closely linked with poverty, thus poverty can induce vulnerable communities (who are heavily dependant on local natural resources) to increase use of natural resources, causing overexplointation and the exhaustion of these resources. Poverty will lead to the lack of investment on environment. In additions, the growth at no costs strategy and population boom in Viet Nam will suplement to this, causing the serious environmental problems. Tiếp tục đọc “Vietnam: Problems in enforcing environmental law and ensuring environmental rights for legal aid beneficiaries” →

CORRUPTION IN THE HEALTH SECTOR IN VIETNAM

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Transparency International

SUMMARY

In Vietnam, corruption in the health sector is considered a serious problem by both the government and citizens at large. The country’s health system is particularly susceptible to corruption due to uncertainty, asymmetry of information between health officials and patients, and conflicts of interest between health officials and private companies.

Corruption manifests itself in many forms: it can involve political influence in defining health and drug policy; bribery to influence procurement processes for construction of health facilities or purchase of equipment/supplies and pharmaceuticals; fraudulent billing for services provided; and over-provision of services; selling and buying positions; absenteeism; and informal payments, among others. It has serious consequences in terms of access, quality, equity and effectiveness of health care services.

The government has designed a series of reforms directly aimed at improving the country’s health governance framework. While assessments of the impact of these reforms are still lacking, the government, experts and civil society organisations have acknowledged that more needs to be done in order to reduce corruption and improve health delivery in the country, including improvements in internal and external controls, simplification of administrative rules, establishment of conflicts of interest law, and engagement of citizens.

Author(s): Maira Martini, Transparency International, tihelpdesk@transparency.org
Reviewed by: Marie Chêne, Transparency International; Dr. Finn Heinrich, Transparency International
Publication date: 4 February 2013
Number: 1325

Download full Corruption_in_the_Health_Sector_in_Vietnam

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Facing Mekong Drought, China to Release Water From Yunnan Dam

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

In response to a request from Vietnam, China is discharging water from a dam in Yunnan.

By Shannon Tiezzi
March 16, 2016
Facing Mekong Drought, China to Release Water From Yunnan Dam

thediplomat_ China has promised to discharge water from a dam along the Lancang River (better known as the Mekong) to help alleviate drought conditions in Southeast Asia. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang announced Tuesday in a regular press conference that China will release water from the Jinghong hydropower station in Yunnan province from March 15 to April 10, to provide water “for emergency use” by countries downstream.

“People living along the Lancang-Mekong River are nourished by the same river,” Lu noted. “It goes without saying that friends should help each other when help is needed.”

Yet the question of dams on the Mekong has not been as friendly as Lu makes it seem. As The Diplomat’s Luke Hunt noted last week, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia have been squabbling over dam construction and water usage, particularly as a severe drought threatens rice crop yields across the Indochina Peninsula.

China is also a part of that conversation – a major part, as the Mekong (called the Lancang in China) originates on the Tibetan plateau and flows through the provinces of Qinghai, Tibet, and Yunnan before ever reaching Southeast Asia. China opened its first large dam on the Lancang, the Manwan in Yunnan, in 1994, and added the Dachaoshan dam in 2003. In recent years, hydropower construction has revved into high gear, with China completing four additional dams since 2009 — and plans for another seven in the works. Tiếp tục đọc “Facing Mekong Drought, China to Release Water From Yunnan Dam” →