
LM – The main objective of Project RENEW’s Mine Risk Education is the risk of ERW accidents among chilren and adults is reduced and eventually eliminated through education, information, and public awareness in support of EOD quick response.

LM – The main objective of Project RENEW’s Mine Risk Education is the risk of ERW accidents among chilren and adults is reduced and eventually eliminated through education, information, and public awareness in support of EOD quick response.
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
The need to provide food for the region is more pressing than ever as the population grows, the agricultural workforce contracts and natural resources shrink. Every player in the food value chain needs to work together to address this, says a new report by Forum for the Future and FrieslandCampina.

Eco-business: Food security is crucial for the region because more than 60 million people will join the middle class over the next five years, according to research consultancy Accenture. Globally, food calories will have to increase 50 per cent by 2030 (from 2010) if the global population is to be fed properly, US non-profit the Population Institute estimates. Image: Shutterstock
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.
What is it like to be trafficked to a foreign country and forced into prostitution? Just ask Charimaya Tamang. She survived trafficking and now advocates for other survivors
Nepali women of Ramechapp District, one of the six most heavily hit by the April 25 earthquake, are now facing increased human trafficking and unsafe migration. / Jessica Benton Cooney, USAID
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Some Days I Lived, Other Days I Died. Resilience in the face of exploitation
Charimaya Tamang knows all too well how easy it is to be trafficked in Nepal.
That’s because 22 years ago, it happened to her. At 16, Charimaya was alone cutting grass in the forest when she was ambushed by four men. After being drugged and losing consciousness, she awoke in Gorakhpur, near the Nepali/India border with her appearance completely changed — she had on makeup, a new hairstyle and different clothes.
April 20, 2016 3:08 AM
HO CHI MINH CITY—When U.S. diplomats made a trip to Danang last year, Vietnamese students presented the visitors with a small replica of the White House, which they had just created using a 3D printer.
At Fablab Saigon, students learn about sensors and micro-controllers so they can tinker with potential products that are part of the internet of things.
That and other machines were made available at Fablab Danang, part of a global network of open laboratories that let people fabricate products and inventions that might otherwise be impossible for someone working alone. Fablab is also part of a growing movement in Vietnam, which relies on technology and practical training to get young people excited about finding a career.

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?
Continue Reading on CVD
blog.worldbank – From my corner of the World Bank, the development objective of promoting gender equality can seem vague or unrelated to what we do. We can give three cheers for our colleagues who focus on gender issues for successfully developing and releasing the World Bank’s new Gender Equality, Poverty Reduction and Inclusive Growth Strategy — and then return to our work of closing the infrastructure financing gap and helping governments prioritize their infrastructure projects.
Credit: Arne Hoel
Written by Rosamond Hutt, Senior Producer, Formative Content
Published Tuesday 12 April 2016
weforum – The incident of the Panama Papers, the largest collection of leaked documents ever recorded, has revealed where some of the world’s wealthiest people keep their assets, and how the global offshore industry helps them do it.
Reuters/Kham
Vietnamese police broke up a demonstration in the capital, Hanoi, on Sunday when protesters gathered for the second time in a week to denounce a Taiwanese firm they accuse of causing mass fish deaths in central coastal provinces.
The beautiful beaches of Chile have long been a draw for tourists, but the dead whales, salmon, sardines and clams washing up on the shores lately have made them a lot less picturesque, and scientists believe El Niño is to blame.
Thousands Of Dead Sardines Are Clogging This River In Chile
theconversation – For centuries, happiness was exclusively a concern of the humanities; a matter for philosophers, novelists and artists. In the past five decades, however, it has moved into the domain of science and given us a substantial body of research. This wellspring of knowledge now offers us an enticing opportunity: to consider happiness as the leading measure of well-being, supplanting the current favourite, real gross domestic product per capita, or GDP.
Jumping to conclusions. Does GDP mislead us? Antoine Gady/Flickr, CC BY-ND

asiapathway – There seems to be a pushback against trade agreements in the post global financial crisis era. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was signed in early 2016, but US presidential candidates have spared no effort criticizing it so near-term ratification is highly uncertain. The WTO Doha Round is in the deep freeze after 14 years of negotiations. Unilateral trade liberalization has virtually come to a standstill.
Taipei Times
MORE FIREPOWER?An official said that the government would consider whether to add short-range anti-aircraft missiles as part of a review of the island’s defenses
A soldier aims his rifle next to a military transport plane on Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island) in the South China Sea on March 23.
Photo courtesy of a group of reporters visiting Itu Aba Island