May 18, 2015 | Posted by: Jahangir I By Justine Drennan
FP – Just as it took a deadly shipwreck to finally put the spotlight on the dire migrant crisis in the Mediterranean, it’s taken the stranding of some 6,000 migrants — and perhaps several times that number — at sea in Southeast Asia to raise the alarm about another migrant crisis stemming from what some observers describe as a genocide playing out in Myanmar. Continue reading Southeast Asia’s Migrant Crisis Explained, in Maps
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| Lychees are ready to be delivered to markets in Thanh Ha District of Hai Duong Province. Despite visits by many overseas companies and organisations recently, the chance of exporting the fruit remains unclear. — VNA/VNS Photo Dinh Hue. |
BAC GIANG (VNS) — Farmers in the Luc Ngan District in northern Bac Giang Province are holding their breath about the prospect of their lychees being exported to foreign markets this year.
Despite visits by many overseas companies and organisations in the last year or so, there were no concrete steps taken to advance the market for the popular fruit. Continue reading Farmers await foreign interest in lychee with bated breath
HO CHI MINH CITY – Saturday, May 16, 2015 09:21
A seven-minute long video clip titled “Tien ve noi dau?” (Where does money go?) quickly became a hit with young netizens after it was released online early this month. Continue reading Youth group wants more public say in how government spends taxpayers’ money
By An Dien, TNN
Thursday, May 14, 2015 23:25
Vietnam and the Philippines have thrown support behind plans to beef up the US military presence in waters near China’s newly-built islands in the East Sea, the Vietnamese term for the South China Sea. Continue reading Vietnam, Philippines cheer as US ‘plays chicken’ with China
HO CHI MINH CITY – Thursday, May 07, 2015 10:51
TNN – The metro system under construction in Ho Chi Minh City is triggering a real estate development boom as the prospect of easy transport has been raising land prices, property research firm CBRE said in a new report. Continue reading Metro trains will drive up Saigon land prices, set off property boom: report
A wild bear seized from poachers in Dak Nong Province. Photo credit: WCS
TNN – Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has reported that there are 1,250 captive bears remaining on farms, a 72 percent decline since 2005.
It released the information at a celebration of “Bear Day” (May 7), which fell on the first anniversary of the successful shutdown of bear bile tourism in Ha Long Bay. Continue reading Vietnam bile farm bear numbers down 72 percent to 4,300
AMTI.CSIS – China’s reclamation activities in the South China Sea remain a matter of grave concern for reasons that are not solely political. The radical transformation of major coral atolls in the region’s marine ecosystem affects far more than the already huge area physically occupied by China’s new islands. The biophysical impacts extend well beyond their artificial foundations into the waters of surrounding littoral states. Continue reading Environmental aggression in the South China Sea
By Desiree Hellegers *, Thanh Nien News
Monday, May 11, 2015 00:11
This past week, as activists gathered in Washington, D.C. for the conference on “Vietnam: the Power of Protest,” in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City, a delegation led by Veterans for Peace (VFP) Chapter 160 was quietly wrapping up a two week tour. The tour was timed to coincide the VFP’s national “Full Disclosure Campaign”. Continue reading Trade wars: Monsanto’s return to Vietnam
vietnamfulldisclosure.org – Last week’s “Lessons of Vietnam” program in Washington was not simply a commemoration of the end of the Vietnam War, but an effort to remember and recount narratives that would not have emerged from the effort of the Pentagon to tell its revisionist history of the war the U.S. lost. Continue reading Remembering the Lessons of Vietnam Means Rejecting the Pentagon’s Revisionist History by Rick Cohen
February 18, 2015 – CSIS – This map shows four land features in the Spratly Islands that have undergone significant construction or land reclamation work in the past year. They are: Itu Aba, Gaven Reef, Johnson South Reef, and Fiery Cross Reef. Read more details about the features of these projects and use click and drag the slider in the middle to see before and after photographs.
Continue reading Before and after: The South China Sea transformed
Allan Macatuno, Armand Galang, Cynthia D. Balana | Inquirer Central Luzon Philippine Daily Inquirer 12:52 AM | Tuesday, April 21st, 2015
GI – FORT MAGSAYSAY, Nueva Ecija—Ramon Lacbain II on Monday joined some 100 regular and reserve members of the Philippine Navy in training lectures conducted by Philippine and US officers at the start of 10-day annual war exercises. Continue reading US-PH war drills open amid China buildup
TTN – UPDATED : 05/03/2015 10:20 GMT + 7
An HIV-positive Vietnamese woman who was named an “Asian Hero” by Time Magazine has been active in helping fellow patients combat their illness and social stigmas in the past 14 years.
Along with 19 other Asian laureates, Pham Thi Hue, now 36, was selected by Time as the 2004 Asian Hero.
She was honored as one of Vietnam’s few who have braved social discrimination to come out of the closet and help many others with HIV/AIDS. Continue reading The inspiring life of an HIV-positive Vietnamese woman honored by Time Magazine
By An Dien, Thanh Nien News
Thursday, April 30, 2015 12:15
The irony hit its crescendo at the very place where the Vietnam War drew to its end 40 years ago.
Last week, a banner announcing the shareholders’ meeting of the Saigon Securities Incorporation flapped on the gates of the Independence Palace — the same place a pair North Vietnamese tanks made their dramatic entrance on April 30, 1975.
These days Ho Chi Minh City is awash with signs of capitalism and consumerism. Continue reading How the US continues to impact Vietnam 40 years on
by cogitASIA Staff • April 26, 2015
By Joshua Simonidis
In September 2014 the Cambodian government signed an agreement with Canberra to resettle a potentially unlimited number of refugees originally destined for Australia in exchange for increased aid. Human rights groups criticized the agreement and Cambodia’s capacity to handle refugees, but Prime Minister Hun Sen shot back, noting that 85 refugees were resettled in Cambodia in 2009. Yet Phnom Penh’s treatment of Montagnard asylum seekers from neighboring Vietnam shows a disregard for its obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention, in sharp contrast with the image Cambodia is trying to portray. Continue reading Pay to Stay: Cambodia’s Refugee Policy
By Thanh Nguyen, Thanh Nien News
HO CHI MINH CITY – Monday, April 27, 2015 17:25
Earlier this month a national TV channel came under fire for a news report on some 17-year-olds smoking shisha.
While the problem was whether VTC14’s reporter tricked the children into smoking to stage the report, it was a rare case in which a Vietnamese media agency was openly criticized for violating ethical standards by revealing full information about underage people’s identities. Continue reading Right to privacy in Vietnam media: we are still failing our children
