Conversations on Vietnam Development
Thursday, October 29, 2020, 11:04 GMT+7 TUOITRENEWS
Ho Chi Minh City, also known as Saigon, is Vietnam’s largest city and known as the country’s economic and financial hub. Though many visit the city to check out modern life in the metropolis, they often forget about its role as a hub of culture and scientific development.
Tiếp tục đọc “Exploring Saigon like a Saigonese”Wednesday, November 11, 2020, 09:16 GMT+7 tuoitrenews
CHICAGO — More than 15,000 mink in the United States have died of the coronavirus since August, and authorities are keeping about a dozen farms under quarantine while they investigate the cases, state agriculture officials said.
Global health officials are eying the animals as a potential risk for people after Denmark last week embarked on a plan to eliminate all of its 17 million mink, saying a mutated coronavirus strain could move to humans and evade future COVID-19 vaccines.
The U.S. states of Utah, Wisconsin and Michigan – where the coronavirus has killed mink – said they do not plan to cull animals and are monitoring the situation in Denmark.
“We believe that quarantining affected mink farms in addition to implementing stringent biosecurity measures will succeed in controlling SARS-CoV-2 at these locations,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture told Reuters on Tuesday.
The USDA said it is working with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, state officials and the mink industry to test and monitor infected farms.
The United States has 359,850 mink bred to produce babies, known as kits, and produced 2.7 million pelts last year. Wisconsin is the largest mink-producing state, followed by Utah.
Sick mink in Wisconsin and Utah were exposed to people with probable or confirmed COVID-19 cases, the USDA said. In Michigan it is still unknown if the mink were infected by humans, according to the agency.
In Utah, the first U.S. state to confirm mink infections in August, about 10,700 mink have died on nine farms, said Dean Taylor, state veterinarian.
“On all nine, everything is still suggesting a one-way travel from people to the minks,” he said.
Coronavirus testing has been done on mink that die and randomly on the affected farms, Taylor said. Like people, some mink are asymptomatic or mildly affected, he said.
The CDC said it was supporting states’ investigations into sick mink, including testing of animals and people.
“These investigations will help us to learn more about the transmission dynamics between mink, other animals around the farms and people,” the CDC said. “Currently, there is no evidence that animals play a significant role in the spread of SARS-CoV-2 to people.”
Coronavirus is thought to have first jumped to humans from animals in China, possibly via bats or another animal at a food market in Wuhan, although many outstanding questions remain.
Monitoring U.S. mink for virus symptoms and quarantining infected farms should limit the disease’s spread if cases are caught early, said Richard Webby, a virologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.
“I’m fairly confident that as long as they have that surveillance going and it’s strong enough, then they should be able to prevent the spread,” he said.
U.S. authorities are urging farmers to wear protective gear like masks and gloves when handling mink to avoid infecting the animals.
In Wisconsin, about 5,000 mink have died on two farms, State Veterinarian Darlene Konkle said.
One farm is composting the dead mink to dispose of the carcasses without spreading the virus, Konkle said. Authorities are working with the second farm to determine how to dispose of the mink, and dead animals are being kept in a metal container in the meantime, she said.
Michigan declined to disclose how many mink have died, citing privacy rules.
State officials said they are working with the USDA to determine whether farmers can sell the pelts of infected mink. The pelts are used to make fur coats and other items.
The coronavirus has also infected cats, dogs, a lion and a tiger, according to the USDA. Experts say mink appear to be the most susceptible animal so far.
Reuters
By Long Nguyen November 11, 2020 | 11:49 am GMT+7 vnexpress
However, he chose to do it not with graphic pictures of the violence, but by capturing normal, daily life that highlighted what was being destroyed.
Since October this year, the 83-year-old German photographer has been fielding numerous calls and messages from Vietnam, unable to attend an exhibition featuring 130 photos he’d taken in Hanoi during the Vietnam War.
“I am sad that I cannot be in Hanoi this time because of the pandemic, but the city is always in my heart,” he told VnExpress International from Berlin, Germany.
Billhardt has won worldwide recognition for his work in the late sixties and early seventies when the Vietnam War was at its peak. His photographs of daily life amidst the war were powerfully poignant.
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| Thomas Billhardt at an exhibition. Photo courtesy of Thomas Billhardt. |
Billhardt loved photography as a child, being raised by a photographer mother. He graduated from the University of Graphics and Book Design in Leipzig in 1963. When he made the first of his 12 trips to Hanoi four years later, he never imagined that it would give birth to an association lasting more than five decades.
He first came to the capital city with a group of moviemakers from the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1967 to film a documentary about American soldiers captured in Hanoi amidst the infamous Operation Rolling Thunder, the bombing blitz unleashed by the U.S. against the north of Vietnam.
He remembers that at the Metropole, the fanciest hotel in town, “there were more mouses than guests and worms in the hotel’s water.”
Seeing the devastation of the war, the bomb craters, destroyed buildings, and the sounds of air raids and sirens calling for people to take cover, he was moved to tell the story of Hanoi and its people with a “photo chronicle.”
“I was angry on seeing the Americans destroy Hanoi… I wanted to show the world the photos I took in Vietnam so they would know exactly what was going on. Then they would understand and love Vietnam, just like me.”
He decided that his wartime photography would focus on people going about their daily lives, busy working and getting ready to fight at the same time.
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| A tram in 1975. The tram was a popular form of public transportation for Hanoians. Photo courtesy of Thomas Billhardt. |
The photographs of crowds cycling under pouring rain, the happy faces of barefoot children attending an outdoor painting class, a stadium filled with people cheering and laughing as they watched a football match and many such scenes of love and care powerfully contrasted and resisted the extreme violence of war.
“I felt a connection with Vietnamese people when looking into their eyes as they suffered from the raging war,” Billhardt recalled, adding the bravery of Vietnamese was a lesson for him.
“Thomas’s photos hold up a mirror to the world while holding out hope at the same time. They tell of the world’s social inequalities, of poverty, of suffering, of war, but also of the life and laughter of the people who live in it,” said Wilfried Eckstein, director of the Goethe Institute in Hanoi.
Tiếp tục đọc “Hanoi chronicles: when peace exposes the horrors of war”11/11/2020 06:45 GMT+7 vietnamnet
However, even though this is a 7.6 percent drop from last year’s 17 billion USD, Vietnam will remain the ninth biggest remittance beneficiary in the world, according to a recent report by the World Bank.
In the East Asia and Pacific region, the country is forecast to rank third behind China (59.5 billion USD) and the Philippines (33.3 billion USD).
This year’s remittance is estimated at 5.8 percent of Vietnam’s GDP, compared to 6.5 percent last year.
The dip reverses an upward trend that’s lasted two decades, starting at a mere 1.3 billion USD in 2000./.VNA
Analysis by Jill Disis, CNN Business
Updated 1043 GMT (1843 HKT) November 9, 2020
Hong Kong (CNN Business)President Donald Trump spent much of his term setting up Beijing as Washington’s greatest political and economic adversary. Don’t expectdrastic changes when Joe Biden takes the helm, even if he eschews the bluster and unpredictability of his predecessor.Economists and trade experts believe that the United States and China will move further apart on trade and technology as Washington continues to scrutinize virtually every aspect of its relationship with the world’s second-largesteconomy.”We have a fundamental, systematic rivalry between these two systems,” said Alex Capri, research fellow at the Hinrich Foundation and senior fellow and lecturer at the National University of Singapore. “In many ways, that rivalry is going to intensify.”
Tiếp tục đọc “The US-China rivalry in tech and trade won’t end because Joe Biden is president”By Thanh Thanh November 9, 2020 | 08:19 am GMT+7 vnexpress
As the U.S. presidential elections became mired in ballot counting last week, some stars shared Ytiet’s video with tongue-in-cheek comments.
Rapper Carbi B posted a photo of Ytiet on Instagram with the caption, “The only person I trust to count the ballots.”
Singer Rihanna also posted a photo of Ytiet, asking where he was when people needed him.
Many people then watched his rap videos on YouTube, saying the U.S. elections took them there.
See Itiet on Youtube >> Tiếp tục đọc “International celebs keep responding to Vietnamese cowherd’s rustic music”The latest episode of POLITICO’s Global Translations podcast explores the new industrial policy emerging in America to counter China’s ascent.
Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks during fifth plenary session of the 19th Communist Party of China Central Committee in Beijing. | Ju Peng/Xinhua via AP
11/04/2020 04:30 AM EST
A historic shift in U.S. economic policy is taking shape regardless of who sits in the White House or controls Congress: an increasingly muscular role for state power to build up industries U.S. leaders deem critical to America’s national security and place in the world.
Tiếp tục đọc “China shapes a new U.S. economic era: The return of industrial policy”PUBLISHED WED, NOV 4 202011:27 PM ESTUPDATED THU, NOV 5 202012:10 AM EST Saheli Roy Choudhury@SAHELIRC, CNBC
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WATCH NOWVIDEO03:25Being tough on China unifies a polarized U.S., former trade negotiator says
Being tough on China is what unifies a polarized United States right now, according to former top White House trade negotiator Clete Willems.
A day after Americans voted, the race between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden is still up in the air — with six states yet to be called by NBC News.
Regardless of who takes the White House, the relationship with China will remain more or less status quo, said Willems, a partner at Akin Gump.
“The truth of the matter is that being tough on China is what unifies us in a polarized nation right now. We’re polarized in our politics but we are not polarized on China,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Thursday.
Tiếp tục đọc “Being tough on China is what unifies a polarized U.S., former trade negotiator says”TĐH: if you understand the Electoral College of the US, you are close to Einstein.
Analysis by Zachary B. Wolf, CNN
Updated 0221 GMT (1021 HKT) November 4, 2020
(CNN)Americans who go to the polls on Election Day don’t actually select the President directly.They are technically voting for 538 electors who, according to the system laid out by the Constitution, meet in their respective states and vote for President and Vice President. These people, the electors, comprise the Electoral College, and their votes are then counted by the President of the Senate in a joint session of Congress.Visit CNN’s Election Center for full coverage of the 2020 raceWhy did the framers choose this system? There are a few reasons: First, they feared factions and worried that voters wouldn’t make informed decisions. They didn’t want to tell states how to conduct their elections. There were also many who feared that the states with the largest voting populations would essentially end up choosing the President. Others preferred the idea of Congress choosing the President, and there were proposals at the time for a national popular vote. The Electoral College was a compromise.The stain of slavery is on the Electoral College as it is on all US history. The formula for apportioning congressmen, which is directly tied to the number of electors, relied at that time on the 3/5 Compromise, whereby each slave in a state counted as fraction of a person to apportion congressional seats. This gave states in the South with many slaves more power despite the fact that large portions of their populations could not vote and were not free. Tiếp tục đọc “The US Electoral College, explained”
By Viet Anh November 3, 2020 | 07:00 am GMT+7 vnexpress
With minor differences, international observers agree that the latest Vietnam visit by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo signals post presidential election continuity.While at least one expert is troubled by the lack of any new development, others see significance in the visit happening, per se.
Tiếp tục đọc “What Pompeo’s visit augurs for post election Vietnam-US relations”e.vnexpress November 3, 2020 | 10:28 am GMT+7
In just a month, central Vietnam got struck by three floods, four storms and a series of landslides that claimed 159 lives and left 71 missing.On October 4, provinces from Thanh Hoa to Quang Ngai along the central strip of Vietnam recorded heavy rains due to a combination of a cold spell moving down from the north and winds from the east. After months of drought, rains brought joy to the people of central Vietnam. But little did they know the rain in fact signaled a streak of consecutive disasters.
Tiếp tục đọc “Central Vietnam: a month in tragedies”vietnamnet 3/11/2020 07:25 GMT+7
Besides contemplating the beauty of nature in Tram Chim National Park in Dong Thap Province, visitors to the park can also experience a day in life of farmers in the west of Vietnam.| Tourists visiting Tram Chim National Park in Dong Thap Province experience fishermen’s life. Photos: VNA |
Tiếp tục đọc “Experiencing life of western farmers in Tram Chim National Park”
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