Thursday, 19 May 2016

This is the moment that I have feared for 15 years, since Project RENEW was launched in 2001.

Yesterday Ngo Thien Khiet was killed by a cluster munition at a field site in Quang Tri Province, near the former DMZ.  The 45-year-old deminer, a senior technician with eight years’ experience, was directing his team members in an area where several cluster bombs had been found and marked for destruction.

Ngô Thiện Khiết

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Talk Vietnam
18 May 2016 

An unusual meeting took place on Monday in the coastal city of Hai Phong in northern Vietnam between the son of a former U.S. prisoner of war (POW) and the Vietnamese prison warden who kept a watch on his father.

Former prison warden Senior Colonel Tran Trong Duyet welcomes Thomas Eugene Wilbur,whose father was a POW at the Hoa Lo Prison (known by Americans as the “Hanoi Hilton”).

The warden in question was Senior Colonel Tran Trong Duyet, who was in charge of Hoa Lo Prison in Hanoi from 1968 to 1973.

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A Rebalanced transatlantic policy toward the asia-pacific region

Heather A. Conley,  James Mina, and Phuong Nguyen

The United States and the European Union share similar interests and objectives in the Asia Pacific. Yet despite these shared goals, both powers have pursued independent – and at times competitive – policies in the region, which have on occasion hindered the realization of mutual strategic interests. As the United States and European Union deepen their engagement with the region and with key decisions looming on the horizon (notably regarding granting China market economy status and the Arbitral Tribunal’s ruling on territorial claims in the South China Sea), how can the transatlantic relationship be used more effectively to accelerate the region’s economic development, ensure the application of robust economic standards, strengthen the region’s institutional architecture, and uphold international legal principles?

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