On the morning of May 21, 2000, I woke up to a scene I had never witnessed before.
Nguyen Trong Binh
An endless stream of people driving motorbikes and cars from various provinces in the Mekong Delta like Hau Giang, Soc Trang, Bac Lieu, Ca Mau, and An Giang flooded the roads near my sister’s house in Vinh Long Province: They had come to see the inauguration of the My Thuan Bridge.
I was one of them.
Excited at the prospect of seeing the country’s first cable-stayed bridge, one that spans the Tien River, a major branch of the Mekong, to link Vinh Long and Tien Giang, I had gone to my sister’s house, eight kilometers from the bridge, the previous day, and got up early the next day for the inauguration.
With the Red River turning a surprisingly clear blue-green shade in its upstream sections, experts have blamed it on dams and polluting factories.
The Red River flowing through Lao Cai Province in February 2021 is clear and not murky. Photo by VnExpress/Pham Ngoc Trien.
For a week now, the Red River section that flows through Lao Cai Province has become so clear that there are some shallow areas towards the banks where the river bed can be seen at a depth of one meter.
The Red River, over 1,100 km long, originates in China and flows through Lao Cai, Yen Bai, Phu Tho, Vinh Phuc and Hanoi. The river section that flows through Vietnam is about 510 km long.
Nguyen Thi Lan, a resident of Lao Cai, said the water of the Red River in her town was normally a thick brown color, and if seen from afar, it looked like a pinkish strip.
“It is really strange now that the river has such a clear green shade,” she said.
Locals people swim in the Red River in 2017. Photo by VnExpress/Ngoc Thanh.
Vu Dinh Thuy, deputy director of Lao Cai’s Natural Resources and Environment Department, said this is not the first time the Red River has changed into such a color and this phenomenon has happened around this time of year for the past five years.
“Maybe the reason is that the natural alluvium that has always flowed down naturally from further upstream has been absent; and also northern Vietnam has had no rainfall this season (to muddy the waters).”
Dao Trong Tu, chairman of the Vietnam Rivers Network, also set out two possible reasons for the changes seen in the Red River.
He said a series of hydropower plants and reservoirs operated by China further upstream could have held back alluvium.
The other reason, he said, could be the pollution caused by factories operating in upstream areas and along the banks of the river.
Tu added that theory of pollution would require specific monitoring and study of the water samples to arrive at a final conclusion.Related News:
The Thang Long Imperial Citadel in the centre of Hanoi should be preserved and developed with a vision to become a Heritage Park, said Secretary of the Hanoi Party Committee Vuong Dinh Hue.
Bac Mon (northern gate) – one of the gates of the Thang Long Imperial Citadel. Photos: VNA
The Hanoi leader said at a working session with its management body – the Thang Long-Hanoi Heritage Conservation Centre on February 23 that along with the Co Loa Relic Site, the Thang Long Imperial Citadel is a precious heritage of Hanoi. He stressed the need to promote the citadel relic site’s values in line with tourism development.
He also underscored the importance of strengthening international cooperation in restoring and promoting the values of the Thang Long Imperial Citadel.
The Thang Long Imperial Citadel was built in the 11th century by the Ly Viet Dynasty, marking the independence of the Dai Viet.
The Centre Sector of the Thang Long Imperial Citadel was recognised as a special national relic site in 2009 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in August 2010. So far, the city has showed strong performance in implementing seven out of eight commitments to the UNESCO and continued realising the commitment in unification of management.
Currently, five projects to restore and develop the site have been underway and planned.
At the meeting, experts, scientists and researchers held that unifying management is a focus of the UNESCO and Vietnam. They advised Hanoi to coordinate with relevant agencies to speed up the hand over of the remaining area of 1,729 hectares and archaeological items, while focusing on prioritsed projects at the 18 Hoang Dieu Archaeological Site and the Kinh Thien Palace restoration.
Luu Tran Tieu, Chairman of the National Cultural Heritage Council, suggested that Hanoi should add a number of additional items to the construction of an outdoor museum at the site to draw visitors. VNA
The upcoming National Assembly session, which will take place from March 24 to April 7, will elect a number of positions in the State apparatus for the 2016-2021 term.
National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan.
National Assembly Chair Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan said at the 53rd session of the 14th National Assembly Standing Committee which concluded on February 23 that the upcoming National Assembly session, which will take place from March 24 to April 7, will elect a number of positions in the State apparatus for the 2016-2021 term.
Phần này bàn về cụm danh từ “khoa học” trong tiếng Việt từ thời bình minh của chữ quốc ngữ đến nay.
Các tài liệu tham khảo chính của bài viết này là cuốn “The Emergence of the Modern Sino-Japnese Lexicon – Seven Studies” (chủ biên/dịch giả Joshua A. Fogel – NXB Brill – Leiden/London 2015), và bốn tác phẩm của LM de Rhodes soạn: (a) cuốn Phép Giảng Tám Ngày (viết tắt là PGTN), (b) Bản Báo Cáo vắn tắt về tiếng An Nam hay Đông Kinh (viết tắt là BBC), (c) Lịch Sử Vương Quốc Đàng Ngoài 1627-1646 và (d) tự điển Annam-Lusitan-Latinh (thường gọi là Việt-Bồ-La, viết tắt là VBL) có thể tra tự điển này trên mạng, như trang http://books.google.fr/books?id=uGhkAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false.
A recent growth in targets for ambitious clean energy use and net zero greenhouse gas emissions has increased interest in the role of utility-scale storage, including long-duration energy storage, to achieve deep decarbonization of the power sector.
In future deep-decarbonization scenarios, energy storage holds the potential to address multiday weather-related events that lower the production of renewable energy, as well as seasonal differences in renewable energy resource availability that can last for weeks.
Today’s storage technologies provide only hours of storage, though with design and operational changes, compressed air energy storage and pumped hydro storage capacity could be stretched into days.
Other, less mature storage technologies may evolve to provide long-duration storage that compensate for seasonal variations in renewable energy supply, for example, technologies that create hydrogen through low-carbon processes.
Recent storage deployments in the United States have been driven by state storage mandates, utility investment, frequency regulation markets and declining battery costs.
Policymakers can play an important role in driving innovation, encouraging cost reductions and assessing the benefits of storage to provide greater options for maintaining reliability in future decarbonized grids through research and development, demonstration projects and regional studies. New approaches to financing, planning and procurement could reduce barriers to the adoption of long-duration storage technologies.
Đập Đại Triều Sơn chặn sông Mekong ở tỉnh Vân Nam, TQ.
Ủy hội sông Mekong (MRC) hôm thứ Sáu 12/2 cho hay mực nước của sông Mekong đã hạ thấp xuống mức “đáng lo ngại”, một phần do lượng xả bị hạn chế từ các đập thủy điện của Trung Quốc ở thượng nguồn. MRC kêu gọi Bắc Kinh chia sẻ tất cả dữ liệu của họ về lưu lượng nước.
Dòng sông cũng là tuyến đường thủy quan trọng đã chuyển sang màu xanh lam dọc theo biên giới Thái-Lào, thay vì có màu nâu đục thường thấy. Điều này báo hiệu về mực nước nông và lượng phù sa giàu dinh dưỡng bị giảm xuống thấp – một phần do hạn chế về lượng nước xả từ đập Cảnh Hồng ở tỉnh Vân Nam của Trung Quốc, ủy hội liên chính phủ MRC nói.
The following is a translation of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies assessment of the recently released U.S. maritime strategy, Advantage at Sea: Prevailing with Integrated All-Domain Naval Power. The China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College made the translation.
The Prelude to All-Encompassing Maritime Competition Between China and the U.S. is about to Begin—An Appraisal of America’s Newest Maritime Strategy
By Shi Xiaoqin and Liu Xiaobo
On December 17, 2020, the U.S. Navy (USN), U.S. Marine Corps (USMC), and the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) jointly issued a new maritime strategy entitled Advantage at Sea: Prevailing with Integrated All-Domain Naval Power. This tri-service strategy is a follow-on to A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower, which the three services jointly issued in 2007 and 2015. Two characteristics of the document deserve attention: one, it directly regards China as an opponent and two, it simultaneously classifies China and Russia as opponents. Compared with the U.S. maritime strategy issued at the height of the Cold War in 1982, this document might be regarded as the first maritime strategy document issued after the inauguration of Sino-U.S. strategic competition.
A winter storm in Texas damaged multiple utility poles, including this one in Odessa, resulting in blackouts. Photo by Eli Hartman/Odessa American via AP
Even as people are suffering through the harshest winter storm Texas has seen in decades, the reasons for the state’s devastating power grid failure have become a political battleground. While vulnerable people freeze in their homes, pundits snipe about whether wind turbines are to blame. Tiếp tục đọc “Lessons from Texas Freeze: 5 Ways to Strengthen US Energy Resilience”→
Chuyện chưa kể 20 năm thị trường chứng khoán Việt Nam – Kỳ 1: Xây móng ‘chợ tiền’
28/07/2020 11:39 GMT+7
TTO – Hội trường lễ kỷ niệm 20 năm hoạt động thị trường chứng khoán VN khá yên ắng, bỗng tất cả đứng dậy, Thủ tướng Nguyễn Xuân Phúc bước vào trân trọng bắt tay người đàn ông lớn tuổi, TS Lê Văn Châu, người góp công lớn xây móng cho chứng khoán VN.
Bảng giao dịch điện tử chốt phiên chứng khoán đầu tiên ngày 28-7-2000 – Ảnh: T.T.DŨNG
TTO – Việt Nam độc lập năm 1945, chiến thắng Điện Biên Phủ năm 1954 và những ngày tháng cuối cùng của chủ nghĩa thực dân Pháp ở Đông Dương là một phần lịch sử của Việt Nam và Pháp.
Ảnh ghép các chân dung của người hồi hương đầu tiên tới đây được thực hiện bởi Hội người hồi hương Đông Dương – Ảnh tư liệu
Đó là số phận nghiệt ngã của những con người bị mắc kẹt giữa quê mẹ và quê cha, những cái cây không có gốc rễ, những người chơi vơi giữa hai nguồn cội. Quê mẹ coi chúng tôi là phản quốc, tiếp tay thực dân, quê cha thì chả xem chúng tôi ra gì! Ít nhất là ở thời điểm đó.
Rush Limbaugh, the right-wing radio megastar whose slashing, divisive style of mockery and grievance reshaped American conservatism, denigrating Democrats, environmentalists, “feminazis” (his term) and other liberals while presaging the rise of Donald J. Trump, died on Wednesday at his home in Palm Beach, Fla. He was 70.
By Chuck Searcy February 15, 2021 | 07:40 am GMT+7Last month, completion of dioxin cleanup on a 5,300-square-meter tract of land at Bien Hoa airport marked a significant milestone.
Chuck Searcy
Officials of both the Vietnamese and U.S. governments could derive satisfaction from knowing that the Agent Orange/dioxin legacy of war is now being addressed, after a troubling post-war history of misinformation and controversy, accusations and doubts.
Not just public officials, but veterans and ordinary citizens of both countries can take pride in looking back over the remarkable transformation that has taken place in the past two decades, from early years of mistrust and recrimination to a positive, working partnership between Vietnam and the U.S. today.
That relationship is now built on mutual trust and respect.
CỘNG HÒA XÃ HỘI CHỦ NGHĨA VIỆT NAM Độc lập – Tự do – Hạnh phúc —————
Số: 2427/QĐ-TTg
Hà Nội, ngày 22 tháng 12 năm 2011
QUYẾT ĐỊNH
PHÊ DUYỆT CHIẾN LƯỢC KHOÁNG SẢN ĐẾN NĂM 2020, TẦM NHÌN ĐẾN NĂM 2030
THỦ TƯỚNG CHÍNH PHỦ
Căn cứ Luật Tổ chức Chính phủ ngày 25 tháng 12 năm 2001;
Luật Khoáng sản số 60/2010/QH12 ngày 17 tháng 11 năm 2010;
Căn cứ Nghị quyết số 02-NQ/TW ngày 25 tháng 4 năm 2011 của Bộ Chính trị về định hướng chiến lược khoáng sản và công nghiệp khai khoáng đến năm 2020, tầm nhìn đến năm 2030;
Căn cứ Chiến lược phát triển kinh tế – xã hội 2011 – 2020;
Xét đề nghị của Bộ trưởng Bộ Tài nguyên và Môi trường,
QUYẾT ĐỊNH:
Điều 1. Phê duyệt “Chiến lược khoáng sản đến năm 2020, tầm nhìn đến năm 2030” với những nội dung chính như sau:
Observer Research Foundation (ORF) is an independent think tank based in Delhi, India. The foundation has three centres in Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. ORF provides potentially viable inputs for policy and decision-makers in the Indian Government and to the political and business communities of India. ORF started out with an objective of dealing with internal issues of the economy in the wake of the 1990s reforms. However, today its mandate extends to security and strategy, governance, environment, energy and resources, economy and growth.
Origins
ORF was founded in part by the Dhirubhai Ambani family; it claims to operate independently, though.[1] According to some reports, until 2009, 95% of the foundation’s budget was provided by Reliance Industries, however, it is now estimated to be around 65% as the foundation diversified its source of finance to government, foreign foundations, and others.[2]
CVD 
