Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Vietnam bolsters defense cooperation with Russia, US
Vietnam bolsters defense cooperation with Russia, US | |||||||
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Vietnam signed a major arms deal and a nuclear energy agreement with Russia on Tuesday as it seeks to further extend international relations through several visits by its top leaders to European countries and the US in the last several days, media reported. It has agreed to buy submarines and aircraft under the deal signed by Russian state-owned arms exporter Rosoboronexport and Vietnam’s defense ministry in the presence of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his visiting Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Tan Dung, AFP reported Tuesday. Details of the deal were not released but Interfax news agency, citing an unnamed defense industry source, reported that Vietnam has agreed to buy six submarines for a total price tag of around US$2 billion. The six kilo-class diesel-electric subs would be built for the Vietnamese navy at a rate of one per year, it added. The two sides also inked a deal on the construction of Vietnam’s first atomic power plant. Last month, the Vietnamese parliament approved building the country’s first two nuclear power stations. The agreement was described as a memorandum on cooperation between Vietnamese electricity company EVN and Russia’s state-owned atomic energy firm Rosatom. “Vietnam officially invites the Russian side to cooperate in the building of the first atomic energy plant in Vietnam under adherence to the necessary conditions,” Dung said, without elaborating. Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam) signed several agreements and contracts with Russia’s Gazprom and Zarubezhneft companies to explore and drill for oil and gas off the Vietnamese coast and in Russia and third countries, Tuoi Tre reported Wednesday. The two nations also agreed in principle to establish a $500-million fund to invest in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The agreement between the Bank of Investment and Development of Vietnam and Russian state banking giant VTB will form the basis for further negotiations for signing a contract, Vietnam News Agency reported Wednesday. With a minimum capital of $100 million in the first stage next year, the fund would focus on tourism, real estate, and energy projects, it said. US cooperation While the PM was signing the deal with Russia on Tuesday, his Defense Minister Phung Quang Thanh, who is on an official visit to the US and France from December 10 to 20, held talks with his US counterpart Robert Gates in Washington. General Thanh also met Tuesday with Democratic Senator Jim Webb, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, during his visit. The Obama administration is prepared to consider selling at least non-lethal arms to Vietnam and Libya as security ties with each of them grow, Reuters cited a top Pentagon official as saying Monday. With Vietnam, “we’re in the infancy of the process now,” Vice Admiral Jeffrey Wieringa, head of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, told the annual Reuters Aerospace and Defense Summit in Washington. Wieringa said a country like Vietnam with its long coastline might be interested in maritime patrol aircraft or a coastal radar system. “The first thing that would happen would be potentially… English language training” for Vietnamese military officers, he said. The next might be the US International Military Education & Training program, which provides free training to officers from allied and friendly nations, he added. “And then [we] would just continue to mature the relationship,” he said, with eventual arms sales “certainly possible.” Source: Agencies | |||||||
HCM City wants speedier answer for slum dwellers
(26-12-2009)
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| Slum dwellers at ward 10 of District 8 in HCM City is one of the reason for polution in the city. District 8 has the largest number of 10,500 households to be relocated under the resettlement programme.— VNA/VNS Photo Thanh Nhan |
HCM CITY — The HCM City People’s Committee has urged district authorities and the Sai Gon Real Estate Corporation to boost the progress of relocating and resettling 15,000 households living in slums alongside or on rivers and canals in urban districts.
In 2006, the committee decided to relocate 15,000 households living in slums along urban canals like Nhieu Loc – Thi Nghe, Tan Hoa – Lo Gom, Tham Luong – Ben Cat, Vam Thuan by April next year.
However, the programme has only relocated and resettled about 50 per cent of the households so far, the Sai Gon Tiep Thi (Sai Gon Marketing Magazine) has reported.
Binh Thanh District, for instance, plans to relocate a total of 3,046 households by the end of next year, but only 253 households have moved.
Most of these 253 households were displaced because of the construction of other infrastructure facilities, and they had no other choice.
A project to prevent land erosion along the Thanh Da canal in Binh Thanh District, for example, has relocated 161 households under the 2006 programme.
Addressing the HCM City People’s Council’s 17th session held early this month, Nguyen Thanh Tai, deputy head of the city People’s Committee, said the task of relocating slum households along rivers and canals faced several difficulties.
Lack of investor interest was a major obstacle because the programme does not have a land fund for resettlement like other projects, Tai said.
The city stopped granting State budget funds for the programme since early 2008, slowing down the programme further, according to the City Department of Construction.
While the city administration has called for private investment into these projects, several have been suspended because of capital shortage and no policy has been issued to attract investors, according to district authorities.
Nguyen Ho Hai, deputy chairman of District 8 People’s Committee, said that the decision to stop State funding for the programme was taken at a time when the global economic crisis hit, freezing the real estate market. So it was very difficult to get private investors interested in the programme.
District 8 has the largest number of households to be relocated under the programme, at 10,500.
To solve the problem of land shortage for resettlement, District 8 authorities have planned to relocate slum households gradually, one project at a time. When the relocation of one set of households is completed, the land that has been vacated will be used to build resettlement houses for the next project.
The city has about 1,800km of rivers and canals which are managed by several agencies, but due to the lax management, tens of thousands of migrant households have illegally built slum houses along or on river and canals over the past years. — VNS
Power shortage looms
Low rainfall causes hydropower reservoir levels to fall .
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| The Red River has reached its lowest level to date of 1.22m compared to the seasonal average of 2.5-3m. — VNS Photo Truong Vi |
HA NOI — Low water levels in three major northern reservoirs threaten an electricity shortage this season in Ha Noi and throughout the north, a region dependent on hydroelectric power.
Water levels in the Hoa Binh, Tuyen Quang and Thac Ba reservoirs are currently 2.6 billion cu.m below normal, according to a report issued by the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
The National Centre for Hydro-meteorological Forecasting said that the north’s rainy season this year ended a month earlier than normal, with total rainfalls for the first 11 months of the year at only 86 per cent of last year’s.
In addition to low rainfalls, the condition is also exacerbated as the Prime Minister has ordered to release water downstream for agricultural uses.
Electricity of Viet Nam (EVN) deputy director Dau Duc Khoi said, "For now, the supply of electricity remains guaranteed, but the concern for maintaining the same capacity in the near future is still out there."
The national grid was making up for shortfalls by shifting power from the southern part of the country, he said, and about a third of demand had been met by purchasing power from non-EVN suppliers and importing power from China, Khoi said.
Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang warned that if the current drought continued, the northern electrical network would face a shortage of around 350MW once the peak season commenced.
The director of the Hoa Binh hydroelectric facility, Nguyen Van Thanh, said his facility was currently running at one-fifth of its total capacity of nearly 2,000MW.
The plant contributes 20 per cent of national grid capacity, and, according to the ministry report, hydro power contributed 32.2 per cent of total electricity capacity during the first 11 months of the year.
With the low water levels, however, this is predicted to fall to as low as 25 per cent in the same period of 2010, or about 330 million KWh.
Statistics from Electricity of Viet Nam (EVN) put average electrical demand per day at 248.6 million kWh during the first eleven months of the year, an increase of more than 24 per cent.
Demand for electricity grew 3.8 per cent in the first quarter – during the darkest days of the economic crisis – and rose by 17.3 per cent in the third quarter. Demand is forecast to grow by 12.8 per cent in the coming year.
Along with the low water levels, wasteful use of electricity has also contributed to the threat of power shortages. Growth in electrical demand was at up to 1.2 per cent per every 1 per cent growth in gross domestic product (GDP), Khoi noted.
According to Khoi, the EVN would be able to provide another 600MW of electricity by the end of this month.
Under EVN’s plan for y2009, however, the State-run utility projected it would increase capacity by 3,300MW during the year to a total of 20,400MW. To date, however, it has only been able to meet 36.4 per cent of this goal, or 1,200MW.
The ministry report predicted that growth in capacity in 2010 would total 13-15 per cent, assisted b the merger of 14 power plants next year. Nevertheless, the ministry predicted the shortage to reach 1,200MW. — VNS
Nation aims to make population sustainable
Luu was speaking at a meeting in the northern city of Thai Nguyen to mark Viet Nam’s Population Day that falls today.
Population quality referred to the fact that the height and weight of Vietnamese youngsters were modest and there were high rates of disabled children and those with inborn or genetic diseases.
"We are facing challenges such as the fact that the population replacement level isn’t steady, especially in mountainous and remote areas and populous regions," Luu said.
"Each of us should be aware that population and family planning activities are vital to improving the quality of our human resource – a key to sustainable development."
He urged each couple to have only one or two children to maintain the replacement level so as to not surpass 100 million population by 2020.
Luu said various sectors and localities had been advised to adopt vigorous measures to curb population growth and improve family planning.
This year’s census statistics show Viet Nam’s population is 85.8 million with an average population growth rate over the past 10 years of 1.2 per cent.
The statistics show Viet Nam’s population has increased by nearly 1 million people a year, equal to the population of a medium size province like Ba Ria-Vung Tau or Thua Thien-Hue. Gender imbalance is high with 112 boys being born to every 100 girls. People of working age and the elderly have increased quickly.
Luu said gender imbalance was a big problem and led to an increased number of batchelor males and a female shortage that could threaten social and even political security.
Luu said he expected the Government would soon declare its Strategy on Population and Reproductive Health which would target the improvement of population quality.
Health Minister Nguyen Quoc Trieu also said the country should focus on population scale, structure and quality.
"We should be aware that birth control and family planning are an important part of the country’s socio-economic development," said Trieu.
"All efforts should be given to reducing the birth rate," Trieu said.
Population activities would focus on mountainous, remote and coastal areas with improved information and communication activities to encourage behaviour change and boost reproductive health and family planning services. — VNS
