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.

World Bank Forecasts Global Poverty to Fall Below 10% for First Time; Major Hurdles Remain in Goal to End Poverty by 2030

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

October 4, 2015
 Worldbank – WASHINGTON, October 4, 2015 – The number of people living in extreme poverty around the world is likely to fall to under 10 percent of the global population in 2015, according to World Bank projections released today, giving fresh evidence that a quarter-century-long sustained reduction in poverty is moving the world closer to the historic goal of ending poverty by 2030.

The Bank uses an updated international poverty line of US $1.90 a day, which incorporates new information on differences in the cost of living across countries (the PPP exchange rates). The new line preserves the real purchasing power of the previous line (of $1.25 a day in 2005 prices) in the world’s poorest countries. Using this new line (as well as new country-level data on living standards), the World Bank projects that global poverty will have fallen from 902 million people or 12.8 per cent of the global population in 2012 to 702 million people, or 9.6 per cent of the global population, this year.
Tiếp tục đọc “World Bank Forecasts Global Poverty to Fall Below 10% for First Time; Major Hurdles Remain in Goal to End Poverty by 2030” →

Bloggers keep the windows open in Vietnam’s constitutional debates

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
20 October 2015
Author: John Gillespie, Monash UniversityEastasiaforum – Under President Xi Jinping, the Chinese Communist Party is using the Seven Prohibitions to shut down discussion about liberal constitutional reform. In comparison, constitutional deliberations in Vietnam appear open, vibrant and far-reaching — prompting some commentators to speculate on whether Vietnam is a model for post-socialist institutional reform. But do all types of constitutional discourse translate into institutional reform or are some types of discourse more potent than others? This inquiry has particular relevance in Vietnam, where the discourse in social media has as much influence in shaping the constitution as that in state-mediated forums.

During the debates leading up to the adoption of Vietnam’s 2013 constitution, commentators focused on public calls for liberal institutional reforms. Hundreds of newspaper articles discussed limits to party power, constitutional review and human rights. Much has also been made of Petition 72, a demand for sweeping liberal constitutional reforms submitted by public intellectuals such as Nguyen Dinh Loc, a former minister of justice. These commentators argue that this discourse reveals broad-based support for liberal constitutionalism and law-based governance in Vietnam. Tiếp tục đọc “Bloggers keep the windows open in Vietnam’s constitutional debates” →

Indigenous peoples must benefit from science

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

To drive sustainable development, Dyna Rochmyaningsih argues, science must empower rural communities — not just serve industry and governments.

20 October 2015

Nature – The sun has been pale for months here in Sumatra and the skies are grey all day — choked with pollution from the massive fires that rage across the Indonesian island. Since the late 1990s, the haze caused by these annual fires has posed a significant threat to the health of Sumatra’s rural communities. This year’s haze is especially bad and has affected major cities, both here and abroad; consequently, the fires have again made headlines around the world.

Related stories

Many of these news stories blame the big palm-oil companies for the fires. Slash-and-burn techniques remain the cheapest way to clear forest for new plantations. But scientific evidence suggests that this simple narrative is not absolutely true. A number of surveys have found that the bulk of these fires are started outside the official oil-palm concessions. Small-scale farmers seem to be more to blame.

The haze in Indonesia is not just an environmental issue; it is a complex socio-economic problem that is driven partly by conflict over land ownership between palm-oil companies and rural communities — a struggle that the companies usually win. Tiếp tục đọc “Indigenous peoples must benefit from science” →

Why states with more marriages are richer states

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ 1 bình luận
By Jim Tankersley October 20

istock

Washingtonpost – There is a story gaining steam among some academics that suggests the institution of marriage — particularly marriage for parents of young children — could play an important role in strengthening the American economy. It is a story about growth and poverty, about responsibility and work ethic.

And largely, it is a story about men.

According to new research, states with a high concentration of married couples experience faster economic growth, less child poverty and more economic mobility than states where fewer adults are married, even after controlling for a variety of economic and demographic factors. The study, from the conservative American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for Family Studies, also finds that the share of parents who are married in a state is a better predictor of that state’s economic health than the racial composition and educational attainment of the state’s residents. Tiếp tục đọc “Why states with more marriages are richer states” →

The Trans-Pacific Partnership — friend or foe to the environment?

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

By Megan Strachan & Mark L. Madras

GLOBE-net: On October 5, 2015, Canada announced that it had concluded negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (“TPP”). The TPP is a free trade agreement which will provide Canada with preferential and unprecedented access to the Asia-Pacific Region.

The TTP is currently comprised of twelve Pacific-rim countries, representing a market of 800 million people. The TTP will need to be ratified by party, including Canada, before it will come into force.

For an overview of the TPP, please click here.

While the text of the TPP is not yet available, a technical summary of these environmental commitments is available online. Canada has indicated that the text of the TTP will be made available once the technical review, translation, and legal review are completed. Tiếp tục đọc “The Trans-Pacific Partnership — friend or foe to the environment?” →

Satellite imaging to monitor Asian rice paddies

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

By Amantha Perera

[COLOMBO] Sri Lankan agricultural experts plan to use new satellite imagery developed by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines and the European Space Agency (ESA) to forecast rice crops that are now seen to be increasingly vulnerable to changing climate.

“With a capacity to monitor weather conditions and other factors like water availability, continuously, we can advise farmers on what to expect,” says Amitha Bentota, head of Sri Lanka’s Rice Research and Development Institute (RRDI). “Presently, we lack round-the-clock capacity and our predictions reflect the lack of data.”

The IRRI has developed a mosaic of images from ESA’s Sentinel-1A satellite covering over seven million square kilometres of South and South-east Asia. Sentinel’s ‘synthetic aperture’ cameras can monitor the earth’s surface even during rain and cloud cover, allowing continuous monitoring of agriculture.

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Experts give ASEAN food security scheme high marks

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Speed read

  • ASEAN members have boosted efforts to secure domestic and regional food reserves
  • The Philippines is the ‘fastest-growing country’ in terms of rice yields in the region
  • An ASEAN vision for science and technology will help foster ASEAN community 2015  

scidev.net – [MANILA] Two experts gave a positive assessment of food security efforts of Association of Southeast Asian (ASEAN) member countries during a forum on food security organised by SciDev.Net and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) last 30 July in Makati City, Philippines.

Asked to rate “ASEAN food security 2015” from a scale of 0-5, with ‘5’ as the highest score, panellists from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the Philippines’ Department of Science and Technology (DOST) gave an optimistic assessment of ‘4’. Tiếp tục đọc “Experts give ASEAN food security scheme high marks” →

Nuclear Power in Vietnam: International Responses and Future Prospects

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Published by American Academy of Arts and Sciences,
Cambridge, MA 02138, 2014
Download the PDF

Preface

In 2006, with the adoption of the document “Strategy for Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy up to 2020,” Vietnam’s government officially announced its long-term plan to meet rising domestic energy consumption by including nuclear energy in its energy portfolio. The following year, another document, “Strategy Implementation Master Plan,” was released to provide further details on the roadmap that the Vietnamese government intended to follow to develop a nuclear energy program. According to the latter document, Vietnam’s nuclear program would include the construction of two 1,000 megawatt of electrical power (MWe) reactors in Phuoc Dinh in the southern Ninh Thuan province by 2015, originally scheduled to be in operation by 2020. Following this, another 2,000 MWe nuclear power plant (with two reactors) is set to be built in Vinh Hai, a seaside community 40 kilometers from Phuoc Vinh, and scheduled to come online by 2021.

Despite recent obstacles that have forced the government to delay construction on the first two nuclear plants, Vietnam is thus poised to become the first state to operate nuclear plants in Southeast Asia, outpacing countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia, which have long been interested in nuclear energy. Tiếp tục đọc “Nuclear Power in Vietnam: International Responses and Future Prospects” →

Why trying to help poor countries might actually hurt them

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ 2 bình luận

Nobel-winning economist Angus Deaton argues against giving aid to poor countries


Federal Nigerian troops walk along a road to the frontier with Biafray, Oct. 13, 1968. On the roadside two emaciated Nigerian boys suffer from starvation and malnutrition. (AP Photo/Dennis Lee Royle

Washingtonpost – It sounds kind of crazy to say that foreign aid often hurts, rather than helps, poor people in poor countries. Yet that is what Angus Deaton, the newest winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, has argued.

Deaton, an economist at Princeton University who studied poverty in India and South Africa and spent decades working at the World Bank, won his prize for studying how the poor decide to save or spend money. But his ideas about foreign aid are particularly provocative. Deaton argues that, by trying to help poor people in developing countries, the rich world may actually be corrupting those nations’ governments and slowing their growth. According to Deaton, and the economists who agree with him, much of the $135 billion that the world’s most developed countries spent on official aid in 2014 may not have ended up helping the poor. Tiếp tục đọc “Why trying to help poor countries might actually hurt them” →

Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

UN HUMAN RIGHTS

Office of High commissioner for Human rights

Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers

Adopted by the Eighth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, Havana, Cuba 27 August to 7 September 1990

Whereas in the Charter of the United Nations the peoples of the world affirm, inter alia , their determination to establish conditions under which justice can be maintained, and proclaim as one of their purposes the achievement of international cooperation in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion,

Whereas the Universal Declaration of Human Rights enshrines the principles of equality before the law, the presumption of innocence, the right to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, and all the guarantees necessary for the defence of everyone charged with a penal offence,

Whereas the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights proclaims, in addition, the right to be tried without undue delay and the right to a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by law, Tiếp tục đọc “Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers” →

India’s Energy Crisis

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

MITtechnologyreview: Can India modernize its manufacturing economy and supply electricity to its growing population without relying heavily on coal—and quite possibly destroying the global climate?

An old man wakes on the floor of a hut in a village in southern India. He is wrapped in a thin cotton blanket. Beside him, music wails softly on a transistor radio. A small wood fire smolders on the floor, filling the space with a light haze; above it,the bamboo timbers of the hut’s roof are charred to a glossy black.
The man’s name is Mallaiah Tokala, and he is the headman of Appapur village, in the Amrabad Tiger Reserve in Telangana state. On his forehead he wears the vibhuti, the sacred daub of white ash. He is uncertain of his exact age, but he is well into his 10th decade. He has lived in this village his whole life, a period that encompasses the tumultuous 20th-century history of India: the rise of Gandhi, the Salt March, the end of the Raj and the coming of independence, Partition and the bloodshed that followed, the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and the dawning of a new era of sectarian violence and terrorism. And now he has lived long enough to witness the coming of electricity to Appapur, in the form of solar-powered lights and TVs and radios.

Tiếp tục đọc “India’s Energy Crisis” →

Cyber Security at Civil Nuclear Facilities: Understanding the Risks

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

05 October 2015 Project: International Security Department, Cyber and Nuclear Security

Caroline Baylon Research Associate, Science, Technology, and Cyber Security, International Security Department
David Livingstone MBE DSC Associate Fellow, International Security
Author: Roger Brunt, Nuclear Security Consultant

Please note that Caroline Baylon is lead author on this publication.

Chathamhouse: The risk of a serious cyber attack on civil nuclear infrastructure is growing, as facilities become ever more reliant on digital systems and make increasing use of commercial ‘off-the-shelf’ software, according to a new Chatham House report.

Workers of Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co participate in an anti-cyber attack exercise at the Wolsong nuclear power plant in Gyeongju, South Korea. Photo by Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co via Getty Images.Workers at the Wolsong nuclear power plant participate in an anti-cyber attack exercise, Gyeongju, South Korea. Photo: Getty Images.

Tiếp tục đọc “Cyber Security at Civil Nuclear Facilities: Understanding the Risks” →

Renewables to lead world power market growth to 2020

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

GLOBE-NET: ISTANBUL, 2 October – Renewable energy will represent the largest single source of electricity growth over the next five years, driven by falling costs and aggressive expansion in emerging economies, the IEA said Friday in an annual market report.

Pointing to the great promise renewables hold for affordably mitigating climate change and enhancing energy security, the report warns governments to reduce policy uncertainties that are acting as brakes on greater deployment.

“Renewables are poised to seize the crucial top spot in global power supply growth, but this is hardly time for complacency,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol as he released the IEA’s Medium-Term Renewable Energy Market Report 2015 (MTRMR) at the G20 Energy Ministers Meeting.

“Governments must remove the question marks over renewables if these technologies are to achieve their full potential, and put our energy system on a more secure, sustainable path.”

Renewable electricity additions over the next five years will top 700 gigawatts (GW) – more than twice Japan’s current installed power capacity. Tiếp tục đọc “Renewables to lead world power market growth to 2020” →

Solving the Problem of Plastic Waste in the World’s Oceans

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
Stemming_the_tide
GLOBE-NET: NEW YORK, Sept. 30, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — Ocean Conservancy today announced the global launch of Stemming the Tide: Land-based strategies for a plastic-free ocean – a first-of-its-kind, solutions-oriented report.

Produced in partnership with the McKinsey Center for Business and Environment, the report outlines specific land-based solutions for plastic waste in the ocean, starting with the elimination of plastic waste leakage in five priority countries (China, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand).
Tiếp tục đọc “Solving the Problem of Plastic Waste in the World’s Oceans” →

Opportunities and Challenges for Journalism in the Digital Age: Asian and European Perspectives

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

25 August 2015 Project: Asia Programme

Dr Gareth Price

Senior Research Fellow, Asia Programme

While the digital age poses a variety of serious challenges to the forms and finances of journalistic reporting, there is much potential for enhanced collaboration between Asian and European media organizations, writes Gareth Price.

People in metro, Tokyo. Photo: Rolf Georg Brenner / Contributor / Getty Images.People in metro, Tokyo. Photo: Getty Images.

Summary

  • While the ‘death of newspapers’ has been long predicted, the internet and social media provide the industry with significant challenges; traditional models are rapidly being made redundant. In particular, newspapers are no longer ‘gatekeepers’ of access to news.
  • Although newspapers were among the first industries to recognize the internet’s importance, they have performed poorly at monetizing readership in the digital age. Instead, many revenue streams have been diverted from newspapers to IT companies and news aggregators.
  • Some newspapers and journalists have sought funding from foundations, or through crowd-sourcing for particular investigations, though there are clear concerns about the sustainability and impartiality of such models.
  • Usage of social media as a source of news is increasing. However, in divided societies the dissemination of false ‘news’ through social media can threaten community cohesion. Some organizations have therefore started validating social media stories.
  • Although the challenges facing the media are global, there are regional and country-specific issues. The combination of European technology and Asia’s growing markets suggests there is potential for greater engagement between journalists in Europe and Asia. Already, many Asian newspapers run articles by European newspapers. On the other hand, the rising international prominence of Asian powers such as China means that European newspapers are also likely to devote more attention to Asia.
  • Globalization means that the traditional method whereby a journalist gets a scoop for an individual newspaper is likely to be replaced by institutionalized collaboration between different news outfits with input from ‘citizen journalists’.

    • Tiếp tục đọc “Opportunities and Challenges for Journalism in the Digital Age: Asian and European Perspectives” →