U. N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator (OCHA) Mark Lowcock attends a news conference for the launch of the “Global Humanitarian Overview 2019” at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Dec. 4, 2018.
GENEVA — The United Nations is launching a $21.9 billion humanitarian appeal for 2019 to help nearly 94 million people in 42 countries survive conflict, hunger, homelessness, deprivation, and the impact of climate change.
The United Nations said it expects its 2019 appeal will reach a record-breaking high of $25 billion after Syria’s humanitarian needs are fully assessed early next year.
Economic restructuring and greater integration with the international economic system has brought Vietnam impressive gains in wealth, trade, and investment.
Such efforts have not, however, resolved Vietnam’s ‘missing middle’ or the lack of a productive domestic private sector and the continued dominance of the state-owned sector.
While these challenges represent a risk to Vietnam’s future growth potential, initiatives such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership provide an opportunity for further trade and investment expansion.
U.S. President Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and top officials reached a truce in the trade war over dinner at the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires on Dec. 1. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
As widely expected, U.S. President Donald Trump paused his trade war with China at the G-20 summit in Argentina this weekend, halting the imposition of new tariffs for 90 days while the two countries continue talking about the wider irritants in the trade relationship. But Trump also threw a cloud over the future of the new NAFTA, threatening to pull out of the existing three-way North American trade deal altogether if Congress doesn’t ratify the renegotiated accord.
Apple’s biggest supply chain partner, Foxconn, is looking to start a new facility in Vietnam as a way to hedge against instability and uncertainty in its current production facilities due to the ongoing trade war between China and the US.
As reported by Reuters, Vietnamese state media are reporting Foxconn and the Hanoi People’s Committee are in active discussions to set up an iPhone factory.
The status quo today is that most iPhones are assembled by Foxconn or Pegatron in Chinese factories around Shenzhen and Shanghai. Small volumes of older iPhone models are made in Brazil and India, which enable Apple to avoid high import taxes in the regions as the products can then be regarded as domestic manufacturing.
The number of foreign tourists visiting Viet Nam so far this year is estimated at 14.2 million, up 21.3 per cent against the same period last year, the General Statistics Office said on Thursday.
In this period, the number of foreigners visiting Viet Nam by air and road rose by 15.3 per cent and 64.4 per cent, respectively, while the number that arrived by sea went down 11.3 per cent year-on-year due to the impact of storms Toraji and Usagi.
Vietnam could face power shortages in the early 2020s. The shortages are likely to happen from 2020 to 2025.
The Electricity of Vietnam said to meet surging demand for power, the country needs 60,000MW of electricity by 2020; 96,500MW of electricity by 2025 and 129,500MW of electricity by 2030.
Phạm Văn Tân, deputy head of the Climate Change Department, Việt Nam’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MoNRE), presents the ministry’s response to climate change threats to the country. — VNS Photo Mai Hoàng
Katowice, POLAND — At the 24th UN Conference on Climate Change (COP24), Germanwatch released the most up-to-date Climate Risk Index ranking, which analyses the extent to which each country has been affected by weather-related loss events.
PHA4: Neoliberal Policies and corporate takeover are the cause of the world health crisis
by P Ambedkar
Peoples’ representatives from across the globe have gathered in Savar, Bangladesh for the fourth People’s Health Assembly. They are discussing and debating on how to make this world a place which provides for the health of the people and that of the planet.
Representatives from country after country shared their experiences of how the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank recommended prescriptions of austerity and structural adjustment policies that in fact worsened the health of the people. The beneficiaries have been the multinational corporations and the elite.
Senior Research Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs
The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea requires that coastal nations pay royalties on their seabed resources to landlocked and developing countries.mizoula/Getty Images
KEY TAKEAWAYS
U.S. accession would provide no benefits not already available to the U.S., while creating unnecessary burdens and risks.
The U.S. does not need to join the convention in order to access oil and gas resources on its extended continental shelf, in the Arctic, or in the Gulf of Mexico.
Despite subsequent changes in 1994 that led the Clinton administration to support U.S. accession, the Trump administration should oppose accession to this treaty.
Chuck Searcy: This report is from my colleague Ngo Xuan Hien at Project RENEW, describing another finding of a big bomb in Quang Tri Province which was safely removed to the demolition site and destroyed. The bomb is bigger than most ordnance cleaned up and destroyed every day — usually cluster bombs, grenades, artillery rounds, mortars — but now even these infrequent occurrences of 500-pound or 750-pound bombs are treated somewhat routinely. That is to say, local people are no longer alarmed, once they report the finding they are confident that NPA-RENEW technicians or other NGO teams coordinated by the Provincial Legacy of War Coordination Center will come quickly to the site and handle the threat skillfully and professionally, and residents can soon return to their normal activities. The situation is being managed, and that is the key to long-term safety and protection of villagers, farmers, school children.
This picture taken on May 2, 2014 shows the first wind turbine towers from Vietnam’s first wind power plant along a sea coast at the southern coastal province of Bac Lieu. Up until 2014 Southeast Asian communist nation had been relying mainly on power produced from thermo and hydro power plants. Source: AFP /Duy Khoi
VIETNAM is facing a number of environmental pitfalls and policy hurdles on its path towards a sustainable energy sector, Frauke Urban, Giuseppina Siciliano, Linda Wallbott, Markus Lederer and Dang Nguyen Anh write.
Vietnam has experienced rapid economic growth over the past two decades, making it one of the strongest and fastest growing economies in Southeast Asia.
A young girl helps her family from the Khmer community collect snails during low-tide in Southern Soc Trang Province. These mangroves were destroyed completely by bombing during the Vietnam War but over the last 25 years were able to grow back naturally, finally being protected and expanded by Government initiatives. Now, over 20 families come to the beach daily to collect snails and other fish that returned with the healthy mangrove eco-system.
By Luke Duggleby
Mekong Delta, September 17, 2018
Vietnam’s Mekong Delta is one of the world’s most at-risk areas from the effects of climate change, posing challenges both for its environment and population in years to come.
Đọt Chuối Non 
Commentary By
Theodore R. Bromund, Ph.D.@Bromund
Senior Research Fellow in Anglo-American Relations
James Jay Carafano@JJCarafano
Vice President, Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute
Brett D. Schaefer
Senior Research Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs
KEY TAKEAWAYS
U.S. accession would provide no benefits not already available to the U.S., while creating unnecessary burdens and risks.
The U.S. does not need to join the convention in order to access oil and gas resources on its extended continental shelf, in the Arctic, or in the Gulf of Mexico.
Despite subsequent changes in 1994 that led the Clinton administration to support U.S. accession, the Trump administration should oppose accession to this treaty.