I am an attorney in the Washington DC area, with a Doctor of Law in the US, attended the master program at the National School of Administration of Việt Nam, and graduated from Sài Gòn University Law School. I aso studied philosophy at the School of Letters in Sài Gòn.
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I have worked as an anti-trust attorney for Federal Trade Commission and a litigator for a fortune-100 telecom company in Washington DC.
I have taught law courses for legal professionals in Việt Nam and still counsel VN government agencies on legal matters.
I have founded and managed businesses for me and my family, both law and non-law.
I have published many articles on national newspapers and radio stations in Việt Nam.
In 1989 I was one of the founding members of US-VN Trade Council, working to re-establish US-VN relationship.
Since the early 90's, I have established and managed VNFORUM and VNBIZ forum on VN-related matters; these forums are the subject of a PhD thesis by Dr. Caroline Valverde at UC-Berkeley and her book Transnationalizing Viet Nam.
I translate poetry and my translation of "A Request at Đồng Lộc Cemetery" is now engraved on a stone memorial at Đồng Lộc National Shrine in VN.
I study and teach the Bible and Buddhism. In 2009 I founded and still manage dotchuoinon.com on positive thinking and two other blogs on Buddhism.
In 2015 a group of friends and I founded website CVD - Conversations on Vietnam Development (cvdvn.net).
I study the art of leadership with many friends who are religious, business and government leaders from many countries.
I have written these books, published by Phu Nu Publishing House in Hanoi:
"Positive Thinking to Change Your Life", in Vietnamese (TƯ DUY TÍCH CỰC Thay Đổi Cuộc Sống) (Oct. 2011)
"10 Core Values for Success" (10 Giá trị cốt lõi của thành công) (Dec. 2013)
"Live a Life Worth Living" (Sống Một Cuộc Đời Đáng Sống) (Oct. 2023)
I practice Jiu Jitsu and Tai Chi for health, and play guitar as a hobby, usually accompanying my wife Trần Lê Túy Phượng, aka singer Linh Phượng.
North Korea now has the ability to put a nuclear warhead on a missile, such as this rocket shown in a picture taken from North Korean TV shows North Korea’s rocket launch of earth observation satellite Kwangmyong 4. (AFP/YONHAP)
SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un is planning a “prime time” nuclear weapons push in 2017 to take advantage of leadership transitions in South Korea and the United States, a high-ranking defector said Tuesday (Dec 27).
In his first press conference since fleeing his post as North Korea’s deputy ambassador to Britain in August, Thae Yong-Ho said Kim had issued a directive at a rare ruling party congress in May to “complete” nuclear development by the end of next year. Tiếp tục đọc “North Korea plans nuclear push in 2017: Top defector”→
Chinese J-15 fighter jets waiting on the deck of the Liaoning aircraft carrier during military drills in the Bohai Sea, off China’s north-east coast AFP/-
TAIPEI: Taiwan warned on Tuesday that “the threat of our enemies is growing day by day”, as Chinese warships led by the country’s sole aircraft carrier sailed towards the island province of Hainan through the South China Sea on a routine drill.
The drill comes amid renewed tension over Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own, following U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s telephone call with the island’s president that upset Beijing.
Beijing’s only aircraft carrier cruises past Taiwan’s Pratas Islands in an exercise state media said showed the country’s improving combat capabilities
China’s aircraft carrier Liaoning has navigated a passage through the South China Sea amid tensions with Taiwan. Photograph: Li Tang/AP
Reuters
Monday 26 December 2016 20.03 EST
A group of Chinese warships led by the country’s sole aircraft carrier entered the South China Sea on Monday after passing south of Taiwan, the self-ruled island’s defence ministry said.
The ministry said the carrier, accompanied by five vessels, passed south-east of the Pratas Islands, which are controlled by Taiwan, heading south-west. The carrier group earlier passed 90 nautical miles (167km) south of Taiwan’s southernmost point via the Bashi channel, between Taiwan and the Philippines.
China live-fires aircraft carrier group amid Taiwan tensions with US
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Ministry spokesman Chen Chung-chi declining to say whether fighter jets were scrambled or if submarines had been deployed but added: “Staying vigilant and flexible has always been the normal method of maintaining airspace security.”
Chen said the ministry was continuing to “monitor and grasp the situation”.
The move, which China called a routine exercise, comes amid renewed tension over Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own, following US President-elect Donald Trump’s telephone call with the island’s president.
China’s Soviet-built Liaoning aircraft carrier has taken part in previous exercises, including some in the South China Sea, but China is years away from perfecting carrier operations similar to those the United States has practised for decades.
Johnny Chiang , a senior Taiwan opposition Nationalist lawmaker, said the Liaoning exercise was China’s signal to the US that it had broken through the “first island chain”, an area that includes Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and Taiwan.
The US state department on Monday said its position had not changed since July, when it said it was continuing to monitor China’s military modernisation and that it expected nations conducting defence exercises to comply with the law. Representatives for the Pentagon declined to comment.
Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Trump, said the incoming team had no comment on China’s move. Trump takes office on 20 January and has already made headlines over a series of statements on China and Taiwan.
In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said people should not read too much into what the carrier was up to, because its movements were within the law.
“Our Liaoning should enjoy in accordance with the law freedom of navigation and overflight as set by international law, and we hope all sides can respect this right of China’s,” she told a daily news briefing.
Influential state-run Chinese tabloid the Global Times said the exercise showed how the carrier was improving its combat capabilities and that it should now sail even further afield. “The Chinese fleet will cruise to the eastern Pacific sooner or later. When China’s aircraft carrier fleet appears in offshore areas of the US one day, it will trigger intense thinking about maritime rules,” the newspaper’s editorial said.
China has been angered recently by US naval patrols near islands that China claims in the South China Sea. This month, a Chinese navy ship seized a US underwater drone in the South China Sea. China later returned it.
Japan said late on Sunday it had spotted six Chinese naval vessels including the Liaoning travelling through the passage between Miyako and Okinawa and into the Pacific. A Japanese government spokesman said on Monday the voyage showed China’s expanding military capability and Japan was closely monitoring it.
China’s air force conducted long-range drills this month above the East and South China Seas that rattled Japan and Taiwan. China said those exercises were also routine.
In December last year, the defence ministry confirmed China was building a second aircraft carrier but its launch date is unclear. The aircraft carrier programme is a state secret.
Beijing could build multiple aircraft carriers over the next 15 years, the Pentagon said in a report last year.
China claims most of the South China Sea through which about $5tn in ship-borne trade passes every year. Neighbours Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims.
A woman believed to be a member of a militant group blew herself up on Saturday during a police raid on an apartment on the outskirts of Dhaka, the capital city. It was one of two suicide bombings during the raid of the apartment, thought to be a den for the group.
By REUTERS. Photo by Munir Uz Zaman/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images.
DHAKA, Bangladesh — A woman and a man suspected of being militants blew themselves up on Saturday on the outskirts of this city, the capital, during a police raid on an apartment believed to be a den for a militant group, the police said.
“This is the first incident in the country where a female militant committed suicide” by detonating explosives on her body, said Masudur Rahman, deputy commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police.
“We’ve seen politics mixed with religion, which is very dangerous”
Staff members wearing Santa hats at a restaurant in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Thursday. This month, a group of Indonesian clerics issued an edict barring Muslims from wearing Christmas clothing.Credit Ed Wray for The New York Times
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Apit Abdullah does not believe in Santa Claus.
That is not surprising, considering that he is 18 years old. But Mr. Apit, a Muslim, was wearing a red Santa hat at the cafe where he works, inside the largest upscale shopping mall in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital.
“It’s showing respect for the holiday,” he said of his Christmas-themed hat as he cleaned a window. “It’s no problem.”
Others, however, are trying to make it one.
This month, the Indonesian Ulema Council, the country’s largest body of Islamic clerics, issued a religious edict barring Muslims from wearing Christmas-themed clothing, specifically those working in shopping malls, department stores and restaurants.
In a year-end speech to his top military officers on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin threw down the gauntlet, declaring that the Russian military, emboldened by recent adventures in Syria and Ukraine, is ready to defeat any country that dares challenge it. “We can say with certainty: we are stronger now than any potential aggressor,” he proclaimed. “Anyone.”
He also made a pitch for bigger and badder nuclear weapons. Putin said Moscow must “strengthen the military potential of strategic nuclear forces, especially with missile complexes that can reliably penetrate any existing and prospective missile defence systems.” Tiếp tục đọc “Putin and Trump Talk Up Need for More Nuclear Weapons”→
Thursday 22 December 2016 09.02 EST Last modified on Thursday 22 December 2016 09.06 EST
Addis Ababa has a surprise in store for those who haven’t visited in two years. Cutting through the heart of this booming city, where construction cranes are the most persistent feature of the skyline, is the Addis Ababa Light Rapid Transit (AALRT) network. It rears up suddenly at Meskel Square, which until 2013 gazed out onto an expanse of chaotic traffic. The traffic now bustles beneath the shadow of what is only the second metro ever built south of the Sahara. Tiếp tục đọc “The new scramble for Africa: how China became the partner of choice”→
SHANGHAI – China launched a satellite to monitor its greenhouse gas emissions early on Thursday, the latest step in efforts to cut its carbon footprint, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
The launch follows the United States joining China in formally ratifying the Paris agreement to curb climate-warming emissions. It also comes as large sections of northern China have been shrouded in near-record levels of air pollution for most of the past week, disrupting flights, closing factories and schools, and forcing authorities to issue red alerts.
China launched the satellite via a Long March-2D rocket from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the northwestern Gobi Desert, Xinhua said.
The 620-kg (1,370-pound) satellite TanSat was sent into a sun synchronous orbit about 700 km (435 miles) above the earth and will monitor the concentration, distribution and flow of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, said Yin Zengshan, chief designer of TanSat at the Chinese Academy of Sciences micro-satellite research institute.
The launch comes after an international study showed that world greenhouse gas emissions stayed flat for the third year in a row in 2016, thanks to falls in China.
The satellite will provide China’s policymakers with independent data for three years, the news agency said.
TanSat will take readings of global carbon dioxide every 16 days, accurate to at least 4 parts per million.
The rocket carrying TanSat also carried a high-resolution micro-nano satellite and two spectrum micro-nano satellites for agricultural and forestry monitoring, the agency added.
China is the third country after Japan and the United States to monitor greenhouse gases with its own satellite, the agency said.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte. (Photo: AFP/Wallace Woon)
MANILA: The Philippines’ independent rights watchdog said on Thursday (Dec 22) it will investigate President Rodrigo Duterte’s boasts he killed criminals years ago, invoking a strong rebuke from the Filipino leader against a United Nations official who called for the murder probe.
Duterte, who is waging an anti-drugs war that has left thousands dead, said last week that he helped police kill three suspected kidnappers early in the first of his several terms as mayor of the southern city of Davao. Tiếp tục đọc “Philippines rights body to probe Duterte killing boast”→
“You there in the United Nations, you do not know diplomacy,” Mr. Duterte said. “You do not know how to behave, to be an employee of the United Nations. You do not talk to me like that, you son of a bitch.”
Mr. Duterte’s denunciations were directed at Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, who called on Tuesday for the authorities in the Philippines to begin an investigation after Mr. Duterte boasted about personally gunning down criminal suspects while mayor of Davao City.
Joshua Wong, a student leader, delivering a speech in 2014 during protests in Hong Kong calling for greater democracy. A video spreading widely online in China depicts the city as a base for Western subversion, whipped up by figures like Mr. Wong.Credit Carlos Barria/Reuters
BEIJING — The ominous images in the video pile up, set to darkly urgent music. Refugees fleeing failed uprisings in the Middle East. Western diplomats and politicians cast as puppet masters of subversion in China. Chinese lawyers abjectly confessing to subversion in show trials. Protests erupting in Hong Kong.
A group of disputed islands, Uotsuri island (top), Minamikojima (bottom) and Kitakojima, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China is seen in the East China Sea, in this photo taken by Kyodo September 2012. Mandatory credit. REUTERS/Kyodo/File Photo
BEIJING – Taiwan on Wednesday condemned the African island nation of Sao Tome and Principe’s “abrupt” move to break their diplomatic ties, while rival China welcomed the defection of one of the self-governing island’s small number of allies. Tiếp tục đọc “China cheers as Taiwan splits with one of few remaining allies”→
Activists say British authorities are failing to identify and protect victims who have been trafficked to the UK as slaves, many of them children
Detained Vietnamese migrants who were smuggled into the UK in a van. Many arrive with debts of up to £25,000 for their passage. Photograph: Solent News/Rex/Shutterstock
British authorities are failing to identify and protect Vietnamese victims of trafficking who are being deported back to Vietnam without adequate support or protection, according to anti-trafficking activists.
CVD 