Eideard

More than 100,000 Vietnamese have been killed or injured by land mines or other abandoned explosives since the Vietnam War ended nearly 40 years ago, and clearing all of the country will take decades more.

“The war’s painful legacy, which includes hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs and unexploded ordnance, continues to cause painful casualties every day,” Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung told a U.N.-sponsored conference on ways to deal with the problem.

Dung said 42,132 people have been killed and 62,163 others wounded by land mines, bombs and other explosives since the war ended in 1975. The United States used about 16 million tons of bombs and ammunition while allied with the former South Vietnam government, which was defeated by northern communist fighters who reunified the country.

U.S. Ambassador David Shear told the conference that the United States has provided $62 million to help Vietnam cope with “this painful legacy…”

Bui Hong Linh, vice minister of labor, war invalids and social affairs, said explosives remain on about 16 million acres of land, or more than one-fifth of the country.

He said only 740,000 acres or 5 percent of the contaminated area has been cleared and a recently approved government plan calls for clearance of an additional 1.2 million acres that would cost $595 million in the next five years.

Anyone actually expect the government of the United States to assume responsibility for the violence we have wrought upon so many nations? Think a bill offering to aid further in the removal of our munitions from VietNam would get through a Congress that reeks of gold-plated Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats?

Responsible and humane decision-making is an alien concept in Washington politics.

As some of Thailand’s worst flooding in half a century bears down on Bangkok — submerging cities, industrial parks and ancient temples as it comes — experts in water management are blaming human activity for turning an unusually heavy monsoon season into a disaster.

The main factors, they say, are deforestation, overbuilding in catchment areas, the damming and diversion of natural waterways, urban sprawl, and the filling-in of canals, combined with bad planning. Warnings to the authorities, they say, have been in vain.

“I have tried to inform them many times, but they tell me I am a crazy man,” said Smith Dharmasaroja, former director general of the Thai Meteorological Department, who is famous here for predicting a major tsunami years before the one that devastated coastal towns in 2004.

The monsoon season this year has brought disaster to Cambodia, the Philippines and Vietnam as well as Thailand, where 283 people are reported to have died.

Thousands of people have been displaced as typhoons have battered the Philippines, and the country’s steep rice terraces of Banaue are reported to have been damaged by mudslides.

Floods have spread through Cambodia, where the city of Siem Reap is reported to be knee-deep in water, with floodwaters reaching the nearby temples of Angkor.

Thai officials are warning that, in the next few days, Bangkok could be inundated by a combination of heavy floodwaters from the north, unusually high tides and monsoon rains. People in some of the most threatened neighborhoods are building sandbag barriers around their homes and emptying shops of food, drinking water, batteries and candles…

Once the floodwaters reach Bangkok, they will pour into a city that has lost its natural defenses: a huge network of canals that have been filled in — or clogged with garbage — as the city has become an overcrowded behemoth.

As ye sow, so shall ye reap. It doesn’t require warnings on a biblical scale to explain that stupidity and greed combine and grow over time to produce an almighty disaster.

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These breathtaking images capture the hidden depths of the world’s biggest cave passage – so large the end is yet to be found. Hidden in the depths of the Vietnamese jungle lies The Hang Son Doong, part of a network of over 150 caves.

Surrounded by jungle and used in the Vietnam war as a hideout from American bombardments, the cave passage is so large that it could hold a block of 40-storey skyscrapers. Its entrance was only rediscovered by British cavers in 2009.

Wow!

Vietnamese authorities are on alert for animal smugglers after four bags of deadly snakes were found on a train from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, according to local press reports.

The bags contained an undetermined number of snakes including some king cobras, the on-line news service VnExpress reported.

A guard and a conductor found them while inspecting the train when it made a stop at Quang Ngai railway station on Thursday, the website reported. The guard and conductor were not injured.

Passengers panicked when they heard about the snakes…NSS

The snakes, which are protected by law in Vietnam, were handed over to the Quang Ngai forest protection agency on Friday and released into the wild…

The king cobra is the world’s longest venomous snake with a length up to 13 feet according to New York’s Bronx Zoo…

I could tell you how far away to stay from a cobra to be safe – but, I doubt if most of you need that particular information as part of your skill set.

It may be an old menu standby to Vietnamese diners, but it’s turned into a smorgasbord of discovery for scientists.

Researchers have identified a previously undocumented species of all-female lizard in the Mekong River delta that can reproduce itself by cloning, and the story of how it was discovered is almost as exotic as the animal itself.

Leiolepis ngovantrii is a small lizard found only in southern Vietnam. A Vietnamese reptile scientist who came across tanks full of the remarkably similar looking reptiles at small diners in rural villages in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province became intrigued when he noticed that all of the lizards appeared to be female.

So the scientist, Ngo Van Tri of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, contacted an American colleague about what he was seeing. His friend — a herpetologist at La Sierra University in Riverside, California — immediately dropped everything to come out to assess the find.

Dr. Lee Grismer and his son, Jesse Grismer, a doctoral candidate, flew all the way to Hanoi and then faced a grueling two-day motorcycle trip out to a restaurant where the owner promised to set aside a stash of the creatures for study.

“Unfortunately, the owner wound up getting drunk, and grilled them all up for his patrons… so when we got there, there was nothing left.”

Faced with an empty tank and nearly dashed hopes, the men asked around at other cafes in the area for the local delicacy, and hired children to track down as many of the lizards as they could find.

The team soon had more than 60, and realized they had something special on their hands: a previously undocumented species.

“It’s an entirely new lineage of life that was being eaten and sold in restaurants for food,” says Grismer. “But it’s something that scientists have missed for hundreds of years.”

RTFA. Humorous, especially when the Americans discovered the “flavor” of these wee lizards was unlike anything they ever ate – or wished to, again.

Dimitry Medvedev and Nguyen Minh Triet celebrate the contract signing
Daylife/AP PHoto used by permission

Russia and Vietnam on Sunday signed a deal worth an estimated 5.6 billion dollars for the energy-hungry Southeast Asian country’s first nuclear power plant…

An official with Russian state nuclear conglomerate Rosatom has told AFP the construction cost of a two-reactor plant is estimated at more than four billion euros…

Vietnam wants to build eight nuclear facilities in the next two decades. Initial government plans call for four reactors, with a total capacity of 4,000 megawatts and at least one of them operational in 10 years’ time.

Sergei Kiriyenko said a 2020 timeframe for the Russian plant was “absolutely realistic”.

Russian President Medvedev earlier held talks with Vietnamese officials centred on expanding his country’s presence in Vietnam, which he said is “actively developing” on various fronts.

“On all these directions Russia will assist Vietnam, which is our close friend,” he said after paying his respects at the mausoleum of Vietnam’s revolutionary hero Ho Chi Minh…

Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan, also on a visit to Hanoi, announced with his Vietnamese counterpart that the two countries will join forces to build two other nuclear reactors.

Moscow is willing to provide a loan to help finance the Russian plant’s construction…The two sides signed additional agreements on construction of a hydro power station and cooperation in the oil sector.

If the United States government, U.S. industry had brains located anywhere near their heads instead of the nether portions of their anatomy, we could have been providing those services to developing nations in Asia and elsewhere.

Add to that the political history of America’s imperial adventures in the 3rd World…and you understand why there’s no American participation in any signing ceremonies like this.

Drummers below a statue of King Ly Cong Uan
who founded Hanoi as VietNam’s capitol in 1010
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

A musical refrain blared from a loudspeaker as this weekend began — “Hanoi, Hanoi, Hanoi” — and on the sidewalk below, Nguyen Thi Thuy was selling red heart-shaped decals printed with the gold star of Vietnam’s flag.

“I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time,” said Ms. Thuy, a 20-year-old college student, who had pasted one of the decals on her cheek.

“This day only comes once every thousand years.”

With parades and concerts and flamboyant kitsch, Hanoi is celebrating its 1,000th anniversary on Sunday, and much of city life has ground to a halt to make way for it…

But in the symbolism of the celebration, the Communist Party ruled supreme, just three months before a once-every-five-years party congress, at the pinnacle of a history that includes royalty and feudalism as well as revolution…

As an urban landscape, though, Hanoi seems mostly to be succeeding, where other Asian cities have failed, in integrating development with preservation.

Zoning laws have maintained the low-rise heart of the city with its shade trees and broad sidewalks. Most development has been shifted to the western suburbs.

Many of the elegant villas of the old French quarter have been preserved, and the bustling Ancient Quarter, choked with tourists and commerce, survives. The area around Hoan Kiem Lake has so far resisted development…

As the city’s modernization picks up pace, it seems, the pace of nostalgia accelerates along with it.

The article is more than a little choppy – likely edited to suit New York/American politics.

After all, this is the celebration of a nation that generally succeeded in rebuffing attempts of their much larger neighbors like China to absorb them. They defeated old colonialists like Japan and France and a new imperialist like the United States. The distance they have brought a nation impoverished by war – by comparison with neighbors like Thailand – is stellar.

Photo from an earlier visit to Hong Kong

Cold War enemies the United States and Vietnam demonstrated their blossoming military relations Sunday as a US nuclear supercarrier floated in waters off the Southeast Asian nation’s coast.

The USS George Washington’s stop, which comes 35 years after the Vietnam War, is officially billed as a commemoration of last month’s 15th anniversary of normalised diplomatic relations between the former foes. But the timing also reflects Washington’s heightened interest in maintaining security and stability in the Asia-Pacific amid tensions following the sinking of a South Korean warship in March, which killed 46 sailors. North Korea has been blamed for the attack, but has vehemently denied any involvement.

Last month during an Asian security meeting in Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also angered China by unexpectedly calling on the Communist powerhouse to resolve territorial claims with neighbouring Southeast Asian countries over islands in the South China Sea.

China claims the entire sea and the disputed Spratly and Paracel islands over which it exercises complete sovereignty. But Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines also have staked claims on all or some of the territory, which straddles vital shipping lanes, important fishing grounds and is believed rich in oil and natural gas reserves. Clinton announced that the US has a national interest in seeing the claims resolved…

Maybe Hillary thinks Lyndon Johnson made the Gulf of Tonkin part of Texas?

The aircraft carrier’s visit is particularly symbolic as it floats off the coast of central Danang, once the site of a bustling U.S. military base during the Vietnam War, which ended April 30, 1975, when northern communist forces seized control of the US-backed capital of South Vietnam, reuniting the country.

Some 58,000 Americans and an estimated 3 million Vietnamese were killed during the war.

The US is now Vietnam’s top export market and Americans are the country’s No. 1 foreign investor. Two-way trade reached $15.4 billion in 2009.

Of course, if the United States hadn’t been occupied with being the cop of the world – that trade, cooperation and commerce could have started decades ago.

We always forget that VietNam was one of the Asian nations that fought on our side against Japan through World War 2. Even though they were occupied beforehand by France as a colonial “property”.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Vietnam has marked 35 years since the end of its war by staging a re-enactment of the fall of the Saigon.

Thousands of troops marched through the streets of what is now officially called Ho Chi Minh City to mark the day the communist North claimed victory…

The Vietnam War claimed the lives of three million Vietnamese and some 60,000 US soldiers…

The BBC’s Nga Pham in the city said the events began in the early hours to avoid the heat of the day, with a play recounting the history of the country from ancient times to when the North’s tanks smashed through the gates of the palace, leading to the surrender of the southern government…

A replica tank drove through the city to the palace, greeted by cheers from the crowds.

The event was an emotional one for many who lived through the war itself, with some people crying as they watched the display.

“We are here today, very emotional, and thinking of what happened 35 years ago,” said Vu Dang Toan, a member of the tank unit involved in the victory in 1975. “It was a great victory, it was very quick to liberate Saigon and the country is reunited…”

“I think of my comrades who sacrificed their lives for the country. We feel happy but we always are grateful to those who died for our country,” said 80-year-old veteran Vu Thi Nham.

Here I am living in a land where some veterans of that war still campaign for political office on the basis of their participation. Ignorant, base, in their claims of patriotism for the invasion of a land on the other side of the world.

I realize the phenomenon is nothing new. There probably were members of Caesar’s Legions who claimed a seat in the Roman Senate on the basis of their heroism in imperial war.

Scientists have discovered for the first time that antibodies in common eggs laid by hens vaccinated against the H5N1 virus can potentially prevent a possible H5N1 pandemic, raising the possibility that the same principle could be applied to the current H1N1 influenza pandemic…

“Our tests show proof-of-concept that antibodies, or the antiviral proteins ‘immunoglobulins Y (IgY),’ found in consumable eggs laid by vaccinated hens may be an affordable, safe, and effective alternative for the control of influenza outbreaks, including the current H1N1 pandemic,” said Dr. Huan Huu Nguyen, an immunologist at the IVI and the lead author of the study.

The scientists isolated H5N1-specific antibodies from consumers’ eggs sold in Vietnam, where hens are vaccinated against the pathogen, and tested them against infections with H5N1 and related H5N2 strains in mice. When delivered into the nose before infection, the antibodies from the egg yolk prevented the infection. When administered after infection, the same antibodies reduced the severity of the infection, enabling mice to recover from the disease.

The chicken antibodies could be administered as a nasal spray. This form of ‘passive vaccination’ could also be applied to prevent disease caused by the current pandemic H1N1, using egg yolk antibodies from hens vaccinated against the H1N1 virus…

The International Vaccine Institute (IVI) is the world’s only international organization devoted exclusively to developing and introducing new and improved vaccines for the world’s poorest people, especially children in developing countries.

Obviously part of the worldwide socialist plot against American insurance companies and Congress.

Kudos to the researchers for the many children whose lives may be saved.