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JAN 26, 2016The events of this month have reminded Americans that Asia is a region of both great opportunity and significant risk. In just the first two weeks of the year, North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test, China began flying aircraft to airfields constructed on disputed features in the South China Sea, and Taiwan’s opposition candidate surged towards a victory in elections that will likely draw fire from Beijing.
Category Archives: Trang tiếng Anh
Self-nominated Candidates Seek Seats in Vietnam’s Parliament
Vietnamese deputies stand up and sing the national anthem at the opening of the summer session of the National Assembly in Hanoi, May 20, 2015.
AFP
RFA _ More self-nominated candidates, including those not associated with the Vietnamese Communist Party, are expected to run for seats in the upcoming parliamentary elections than in past elections, despite control of the candidate selection process by the ruling Communist Party.
Crisis Response: When Trees Stop Storms and Deserts in Asia
Kathleen Buckingham –
This is the first installment of our Restoration Global Tour blog series. The series examines restoration success stories in Asia, Latin America, Africa, Europe and North America. Tune in over the coming months for additional installments, or check out our Restoration Diagnostic for more information.
WRI – A history of deforestation has made Asian nations like Vietnam, China and South Korea especially vulnerable to coastal storms, floods and sandstorms. Yet just as these nations have experienced similar crises, they’re also all pursuing a solution—restoring degraded landscapes.
Vietnam’s Corruption Problem
The country struggles to fight corruption as the public is kept in the dark about officials’ wealth.
By Dien Luong
February 29, 2016
The stony-faced corruption czar of Vietnam might not have expected that his political rhetoric aimed at defending the country’s anti-graft efforts would become the subject of such widespread ridicule and social satire over the past year.
In December 2014, Huynh Phong Tranh, chief of the Government Inspectorate, tried to put a positive spin on Vietnam’s poor ranking in an international standard gauge of government malfeasance by saying, “Corruption in Vietnam has reached a level of stability.”
Four billion people affected by severe water scarcity
Date:February 15, 2016
Source:University of TwenteSummary:There are four billion people worldwide who are affected by severe water scarcity for at least one month a year. That is the conclusion after many years’ extensive research. This alarming figure is much higher than was previously thought.
FULL STORY
Sciencedaily – There are four billion people worldwide who are affected by severe water scarcity for at least one month a year. That is the conclusion of University of Twente Professor of Water Management, Arjen Hoekstra, after many years’ extensive research. This alarming figure is much higher than was previously thought. His ground-breaking research was published in Science Advances.
Businesses to feel the heat from slavery scrutiny in 2016
Field labourers stand in line at a gym turned shelter in Saltillo, Mexico, August 21, 2015. Some 200 people stayed at the gym after they were rescued, along with 63 minors, in an operation headed by the state attorney, from the farms of a livestock company where they were working under conditions of semi-slavery, according to local media. REUTERS/Daniel Becerril
LONDON, Feb 16 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Businesses are coming under increased public scrutiny over the use of slavery in their supply chains, making forced labour one of the greatest risks to their brands’ reputation this year, a research firm said on Tuesday.
CSIS: Southeast Asia From Scott Circle – Feb 18, 2016: A Tumultuous 2016 In The South China Sea
A Tumultuous 2016 In The South China Sea
By Gregory Poling (@GregPoling), Fellow, Chair for Southeast Asia Studies (@SoutheastAsiaDC), CSIS
February 18, 2016
This promises to be a landmark year for the claimant countries and other interested parties in the South China Sea disputes. Developments that have been underway for several years, especially China’s island-building campaign in the Spratlys and Manila’s arbitration case against Beijing, will come to fruition. These and other developments will draw outside players, including the United States, Japan, Australia, and India, into greater involvement. Meanwhile a significant increase in Chinese forces and capabilities will lead to more frequent run-ins with its neighbors.
Widening wealth gap threatens Vietnam’s stability
Globalriskinsights.com – A joint report issued earlier this month by the Vietnam General Statistics Office and the World Bank has drawn attention to a growing wealth gap in the Southeast Asian nation. The gap is both economic and geographical, with the majority of the rural community growing increasingly poor in contrast to a wealthier urban populace. If the government does not respond to this growing disparity, political instability could be on the horizon in Vietnam.
The Vietnamese economy has achieved impressive growth in the last two decades, undeniably benefitting large areas of the population with some 30 million people being lifted out of poverty. Today the poverty rate stands at 7.8 percent compared with nearly 58 percent in 1993. This growth, however, has to a certain extent masked the fact that a proportion of the population are being left behind – namely the rural poor and ethnic minorities.
The Next Great GMO Debate
Biomedicine
Deep inside its labs, Monsanto is learning how to modify crops by spraying them with RNA rather than tinkering with their genes.
by Antonio Regalado August 11, 2015
technologyreview – The Colorado potato beetle is a voracious eater. The insect can chew through 10 square centimeters of leaf a day, and left unchecked it will strip a plant bare. But the beetles I was looking at were doomed. The plant they were feeding on—bright green and carefully netted in Monsanto’s labs outside St. Louis—had been doused with a spray of RNA.
The Asia-Pacific Region Is ‘Growing’, but Millions Are Living in Poverty
Cancer burden in Vietnam: Avoidable consequences, preventable illness
Tuoi Tre News
Updated : 12/17/2015 07:55 GMT + 7
Death and the detrimental effects of cancer, which is itself a preventable disease, can be avoided by early detection and proper treatment.
> Cancer burden in Vietnam: P2 – The culprits
>> Cancer burden in Vietnam – P1: Liabilities
tuoitrenews – Contrary to popular belief that a diagnosis of cancer means a death penalty, experts have asserted otherwise.
The cancer burden would be significantly eased by adopting a comprehensive preventative model, made possible with competent agencies’ effective administrative role and improved awareness.
Dr. Nguyen Chan Hung, chair of the Cancer Association of Vietnam, warned that diets rich in animal fat and meat, tainted food, dried salty fish or pickled vegetables, or insufficient vegetables and fruits are among the contributory factors of different types of cancer.
UN: Sexual violence hidden
VNN – Shoko Ishikawa – UN Women Country Representative in Viet Nam
During the recent revision of the Penal Code, National Assembly Deputies debated whether or not the amended provision should explicitly include marital rape. Criminalisation of all forms of violence against women, including marital rape, was one of the recommendations coming from the UN committee of experts on women’s rights. No matter who the perpetrator is or where the incident takes place, rape is rape.
In Viet Nam, there is a common belief that sexual violence does not occur within the family or in locations considered to be ‘secure’ and ‘peaceful’. There is a myth that ‘real rape’ involves strangers, force and/or physical injury. However, a recent review of 462 rape and sexual assault case files tells a very different story.
Requiem for a river: Can one of the world’s great waterways survive its development?
economist – GUO, the driver, pulls his car to a merciful halt high above a crevasse: time for a cigarette, and after seven hours of shuddering along narrow, twisting roads, time for his passengers to check that their fillings remain in place. Lighting up, he steps out of the car and dons a cloth cap and jacket: sunny, early-summer days are still brisk 3,500 metres above sea level. Mr Guo is an impish little dumpling of a man, bald, brown-toothed and jolly. He is also an anomaly: a Shanghainese in northern Yunnan who opted to stay with his local bride rather than return to his booming hometown.
The ribbon of brown water cutting swiftly through the gorge below is rich with snowmelt. With few cars passing, its echoing sound fills the air. In the distance, the Hengduan mountains slump under their snowpack as if crumpled beneath its weight. Mr Guo recalls the drivers who have taken a switchback too quickly and fallen to their deaths in the valley below. He tells of workers who lost their footing or whose harnesses failed while building a bridge near his home town of Cizhong, 20 or 30 kilometres south. He pulls hard on his cigarette. “This river”, he says, “has taken so many lives.”
The export-dependent development model that fueled Asia’s economic rise is nearing its end
East Asia Needs A New Growth Formula
The export-dependent development model that fueled Asia’s economic rise is nearing its end.
Female laborers work at a cloth factory in Huaibei city, Anhui province, east China on Jan. 19. PHOTO: © ZHENGYI XIE/CPRESSPHOTO/ZUMA PRESS
The East Asian economic model is running out of steam. Demographics and slowing growth in world trade will force Asia’s developing countries to rely more on internal demand instead of the outward-oriented policies that made their neighbors rich. That will mean slower growth and prolonged regional inequality.
Despite Stay, America’s Economy and Climate Need the Clean Power Plan
by 
Sam Adams and –
WRI – Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court paused implementation of the Clean Power Plan (CPP) to allow an appeals court to consider a legal challenge from a number of states, corporations and industry groups. That case is being expedited, and a decision is expected by the fall.
Importantly, the Supreme Court’s decision to grant a temporary stay was not based on the legal merits of the CPP, which calls for emissions reductions throughout states’ power sectors. Experts agree that the CPP is on solid legal ground and will prevail. Indeed, previously the Supreme Court not only upheld the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon pollution under the Clean Air Act (which the Clean Power Plan builds upon), the Court found the agency had the obligation to do so to protect Americans’ health.
Đọt Chuối Non 