Japan will provide the famous tourism city of Da Lat in Vietnam’s central highlands with US$110,000 to plant 1,000 cherry blossom trees at Ba Huyen Thanh Quan Park.

Vo Ngoc Hiep, chairman of Da Lat People’s Committee, and Komai Minoru, president of an association in Japan, reached the agreement at a meeting held in the city on Tuesday.

If the project is carried out, it will be the first park of its kind in Vietnam.

The cherry blossom park will be exploited for tourism purposes for at least ten years.

Accordingly, Japan will organize regular tours to this site.

The 10-hectar park is located in downtown city near Ho Xuan Huong Lake.

The local government once granted a license to a local company to build a botanical garden with investment capital of VND900 billion (US$43 million) inside the park. However, in mid-2011, they revoked the project after finding the investor failed to carry out some commitments in the construction.

source from: tuoitrenews

 

Vietnam has been seriously lacking electricity since 2006. Power cuts were regularly made in many localities, especially in the dry and hot seasons, which caused big difficulties to people’s daily activities and big losses to the national economy.

Investments up, but power still lacking

In the years from 2007 to 2010, people felt worried every year, when the dry season came. Power cuts occurred right at the beginning of every dry season.

In the 2007’s dry season, from January 1 to May 31, 2007, Vietnam needed more than 28 billion KWh of electricity, but EVN could provide 27 billion KWh.

The electricity shortage became even more serious in the dry season of 2008. According to EVN, the needed daily average power output was 192 million KWh and the capacity of 11,200MW at peak hours. Meanwhile, the usable capacity was only 9600-9800MW.

In 2009, the northern provinces of Vietnam were only allowed to consume 48 million KWh per day, or it lacked 5-8 million KWh per day. In May and June, in the hot summer, the electricity provided to the north only met 70-80 percent of the demand, i.e. it lacked 9-10 million KWh per day.

In 2010, EVN promised that the rotating power cuts would only begin from early May. However, in fact, it began cutting power right at the beginning of March.

In the 27 provinces and cities in the north, except Hanoi, the electricity shortage reached 9-12 percent, or about 222-326 million KWh a month in the dry season, which was higher than the 3.2 percent shortage of the whole national power system.

In the period, EVN only allocated 13,378 billion KWh of electricity it got from power generation sources, including from small hydropower plants to the Northern Electricity Corporation, only meeting 12.75 percent of the demand for growth in comparison with 2010.

In 2011, the serious electricity shortage was eased, just because of the economic difficulties, which led to the production scaling down, the profuse water supply for water reservoirs and the cool summer, which helped the demand for additional charge increase by less than 10 percent.

However, in early March, the power shortage occurred in many localities which then witnessed rotating power cuts.

Power cuts became oblivion

The regular power cuts caused big difficulties to people and big damages to the national economy. In 2007, Dak Lak province needed 1.8 million KWh a day, but the Dak Lak power company was told to provide 1.1 million KWh a day only. In the dry season, local residents saw the power cuts from 4 am to 10 pm in every two days.

At offices, workers had nothing to do except sitting and chatting until the office hours finished. The students’ study was seriously affected because of the lack of light, the inability to access Internet. A lot of traffic accident cases occurred on the streets in Buon Ma Thuot City because of the lack of electricity for the lighting system.

In 2007-2010, residents in rural areas could not watch TV news in the evenings for months long. As the power was only provided at midnight, they had to do everything at midnight, from pumping water to cooking for the next day.

Enterprises complained that they lost billions of dong just because of the electricity cuts. In March 2011, the power cuts occurred in some industrial zones in Bac Ninh province. Some foreign invested enterprises in the Que Vo industrial zone complained that they saw the power cut six times within 28 hours.

Shim Wonhwan, General Director of Samsung Electronics Vietnam in Yen Phong industrial zone, even sent a letter to Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai to ask for help, because the power cuts made the production stagnant and caused big losses. The sudden power cuts caused a lot of troubles to the machines, and that badly affected the quality of products.

Meanwhile, steel mills complained that the losses caused by the power cuts may reach trillions of dong every year.

source from: vietnamnet

Iran’s “terrorist activities” have been exposed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday after a spate of blasts in India and Thailand sparked a dramatic rise in tension between the arch-foes.

Israel has blamed Iran for two bombs targeting its diplomats in India and Georgia on Monday, as well as for a series of botched explosions in Thailand on Tuesday, which Thai intelligence officials said were aimed at top Israeli diplomats in Bangkok.

officials have denied any involvement in the blasts, one of which left an Israeli woman diplomat in critical condition.

Thailand on Wednesday charged two Iranian nationals in connection with the Bangkok blasts, one of whom had his legs blown off when he tried to hurl a bomb at police.

“At this time, Iran’s terrorist activities have been exposed to everyone,” Netanyahu said, accusing Tehran of “harming innocent diplomats across the world.”

“Nations of the world must condemn these incidents and draw red lines against this Iranian aggression,” he warned. “Aggression like this, if it is not stopped, will end up in spreading.”

On Monday, an Israeli embassy car was blown up in New Delhi, but a similar bomb attached to another embassy car in Tbilisi was found before it blew up.

Less than 24 hours later, three blasts shook Bangkok, with police arresting two of the would-be bombers and officials saying they had been planning to attack Israeli targets.

The two men were on Wednesday charged with causing an illegal explosion and other offences, Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul said.

“We cannot say yet if it’s a terrorist act but it’s similar to the assassination attempt against a diplomat in India,” he told reporters.

The injured suspect, Saeid Morati, who had his legs blown off in one of the the blasts, was unconscious but stable at a Bangkok hospital, while the second suspect was caught trying to fly out of the country.

A third man was later arrested in Malaysia, police said.

“These three Iranian men are an assassination team and their targets were Israeli diplomats including the ambassador,” a senior Thai intelligence official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Their plan was to attach bombs to diplomats’ cars.”

The violence has put a spotlight firmly on an ongoing covert war between Israel and Iran over Tehran’s contested nuclear programme, with commentators suggesting it was an attempt to avenge the assassination of four Iranian scientists whose deaths were blamed on Israel.

Despite Iran’s denials of involvement, observers noted that the use of motorbike assassins to blow up targets’ cars with magnetic bombs closely mirrored the method used to murder nuclear scientists in Iran in the past two years.

Thai police said explosives and magnets were found inside a house used by the suspects where the first blast occurred.

“We believe Tehran is behind these recent attacks because the modus operandi used in New Delhi and Tbilisi is the same as that used in the recent assassinations of Iranian scientists: a magnetic object attached to the back of a car,” said Boaz Ganor, an Israeli expert in counter-terrorism at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Centre.

“That is a way of Iran putting its signature on the attacks and in that way, sending a message aimed at deterring Israel,” he told AFP.

With the covert war forced into the open, Israel was likely to use the attacks to increase international pressure on Iran and its controversial , which much of the West believes is a drive to obtain nuclear weapons, the Jerusalem Post newspaper said.

“As long as the attacks are not successful, Israel is going to try and use the spate of attacks to its benefit, and specifically garner international support against Iran’s nuclear programme,” the paper said.

The goal was to convince the world to impose tougher sanctions on Tehran and to stress the dangers of allowing such a regime to obtain nuclear arms, it said.

Bangkok has been on alert since mid January when police arrested a Lebanese man with alleged links to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia on suspicion he was planning an attack, following a US warning that tourists might be targeted.

Itzhak Shoham, Israel’s ambassador to Thailand, told AFP the Bangkok suspects appeared to be “part of the same network” that targeted embassy staff in India and Georgia.

source from: tuoitrenews

The revocation has been deemed illegal by many lawyers.

Hien’s subordinate, vice chairman of the Tien Lang People’s Committee, Nguyen Van Khanh, was also suspended the same day.

Informing the media of the suspensions, Nguyen Van Thanh, Secretary of the Hai Phong Communist Party Committee, said, Tien Lang District authorities “did not fully follow land revocation regulations, which caused the land’s users to protest.”

Agricultural engineer Doan Van Vuon and other farmers in his family had used handmade guns and mines to fight more than 100 police officers and soldiers who went to force them to hand over the land.

Six police officers were hospitalized, including the district police chief Le Van Mai, who was rebuked Tuesday along with the district Party leader.

During the Tuesday meeting, Thanh also admitted the city government’s responsibility for letting the problem happen.

He assigned Hai Phong police to investigate the destruction of Vuon’s house after the revocation and propose charges. The district government has denied its involvement in the destruction and blamed it on “some outraged neighbors.”

The revocation has been criticized by many lawyers as violating Vietnam’s Land Law.

The law allows farmers to have the use rights over allocated land for 20 years, but the district authorities only signed with Vuon a 14-year-term agreement in 1997. Vuon was forced to hand over more than 19 hectares he was given that year.

He had been allocated around 20 hectares in 1993 to develop aquaculture farms, as part of the local government’s plan to reclaim swampland in the district.

An outpouring of public criticism with several prominent personalities including a former President of the country weighing in against the revocation prompted Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to order the Hai Phong administration to look into the matter and file a report.

Hai Phong had organized two press briefings, one right after the revocation on January 5, and another on January 12, after Vuon and three other men in the protest were arrested pending charges of attempted murder. But neither of the briefings were attended by a city leader and no relevant answers were given.

More developments in the case are expected next week after the PM chairs a meeting on the dramatic revocation that has raised questions about the allocation of land to farmers and land-grabbing by political elites for urban projects that leave farmers in the lurch.
source form: thanhniennews

Liem, the top fourth seed and the Aeroflot defending champion, earned one point when defeating Boris (Elo rating 2609) after only 32 moves. Boris was the champion of the Baku Open 2009 tournament, held in Azerbaijan.

This year’s tournament was divided into three groups. Group A for grandmasters with the Elo ratings of over 2549, group B for those with the Elo ratings of between 2299 and 2550, and group C for those with the Elo ratings below 2,300.

Three Vietnamese grandmasters are participating in the tournament, namely Le Quang Liem (Group A), Le Quang Long and Van Huy (Group B). Group A winner will receive a cash prize worth EUR20,000.

In Group B, Quang Long (2316) snatched victory over his rival international master Oleg Gladyszev (2548). In addition, Van Huy (2473) held a draw to Bence Szabo (2330) from Hungary.

Liem will play his Venezuelan rival Eduardo Iturrizaga (2649) in the next game this evening; Long will meet Vaibhav from India; and Van Huy vs Alavkin Arseny from Russia.

source form: vov

Vietnamese marksman Hoang Xuan Vinh has earned a place in the 2012 London Olympics following outstanding results at the ongoing Asian Shooting Championships in Doha, Qatar.

Vinh, 37, earned 682.4 points, coming in fourth in the men’s 10m air pistol event and making him the first Vietnamese shooter to gain entrance to the Olympic Games.

It was a surprise for the Vietnamese shooting team as experts have high hopes for ASIAD silver medalist Ha Minh Thanh who will compete in the 25m air pistol event on January 17.

At the recent 26th SEA Games in Indonesia, Vinh also won the first gold medal for the Vietnamese shooting team.

So far, seven Vietnamese athletes have qualified for the Olympics.

source form: dtinews

Thai police discovered bomb-making material after the detention of a Lebanese man suspected of planning an attack, but the prime minister insisted Monday that everything was under control.

Authorities beefed up security in parts of the capital and other areas popular with tourists after the United States and Israel warned Friday of a possible terrorist attack.

Police detained a Lebanese man reportedly carrying a Swedish passport. Officials said he had links with Hezbollah, a Shi’ite Islamist group in Lebanon backed by Syria and Iran that is on the U.S. blacklist of foreign terrorist organizations.

National police chief Priewpan Damapong told reporters the suspect, named as Atris Hussein, had given police an address where bomb-making material was being kept.

Officers discovered large amount of substances that could be used to make explosives in a building in Samut Sakhon, southwest of Bangkok, including 4,380 kg of urea and 10 gallons of liquid ammonium nitrate.

Priewpan said the suspect maintained that his group had not planned an attack in Thailand but intended to transport the substances to a third country. The officer declined to give the destination.

Asked about the discovery, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra told reporters: “I have been informed. I would like to ask people not to panic. We are currently in control of the situation.”

Defense Minister Yuthasak Sasiprapha told reporters in the northern city of Chiang Mai Sunday that Thailand was not the target, although officials have also said that areas of Bangkok frequented by Westerners and Israelis could be hit.

Yuthasak said that a second suspect had managed to leave the country. Police said the detained suspect had not yet been charged with any offence.

Thai officials have seemed irritated by travel advisories issued by the U.S. and Israeli governments, followed by several more since Friday, and Foreign Minister Surapong Towijakchaikul said diplomats from countries that had issued warnings would meet with him for an explanation Monday.

Tourism is a big money-earner for Thailand and ministers are keen not to deter travelers, especially after the hit to tourism from severe flooding in 2011 and political unrest in 2010.

source form: tuoitrenews

Rescue workers searching the half-submerged hulk of an Italian cruise ship for missing passengers and crew recovered a sixth body on Monday, more than 48 hours after the vessel capsized off Italy’s west coast.

The captain of the 114,500-tonne Costa Concordia, arrested on Saturday, was accused of manslaughter and abandoning his ship before all of the more than 4,200 people on board had been evacuated.

Francesco Schettino’s employers, Costa Crociere, said he appeared to have made “serious errors of judgment” and had brought the ship too close to shore where it struck a rock that tore a large hole in the hull.

The disaster occurred as passengers were sitting down to dinner on Friday night, triggering scenes of panic with passengers jostling to get on lifeboats and some leaping into the icy sea.

Divers combing the vessel for 16 people unaccounted for said conditions had deteriorated since the weekend. “The sea is much rougher today, it’s much more difficult to work,” one said.

Three people, a South Korean honeymoon couple and a member of the ship’s crew, were rescued on Sunday and police divers also recovered the bodies of two elderly men, still wearing emergency life jackets. The bodies of two French tourists and a Peruvian crew member were found on Saturday.

A sixth body, that of an adult male passenger, was found just before dawn on Monday, officials said.

Passengers say there were unexplained delays in organizing the evacuation of those on board and this had resulted in chaos. More than 60 people were injured.

The vast hulk of the 290-metre-long ship, lying on its side, loomed over the little port of Giglio, an island in a maritime nature reserve off the Tuscan coast.

A large gash could be seen in its hull but salvage experts said its fuel tanks did not appear to have been damaged, lessening the danger of an oil spill in the pristine waters.

Giuseppe Linardi, prefect of the city of Grosseto, told reporters the number of those unaccounted for stood at 16 but that could change slightly as passenger lists were rechecked.

Paolo Tronca, a fire department official, said the search would go on “for 24 hours a day as long as we have to.”

“SERIOUS HUMAN ERROR”

Investigators were working through evidence from the equivalent of the “black boxes” carried on aircraft to try to establish the precise sequence of events behind the disaster, which occurred in calm seas and clear weather.

Carnival Corp, the owner of the ship, said it estimated the impact on its 2012 earnings for loss of use alone to be around $90 million and that the vessel could be out for most of the rest of the year or longer.

Defence Minister Giampaolo Di Paola, a naval admiral, said the disaster did not appear to have been caused by natural or technical factors.

“In my estimation there was a serious human error, which had dramatic and tragic consequences,” he told RAI state television.

Operators Costa Crociere said Schettino appeared to have failed to follow standard emergency procedures.

“The route followed by the ship was too close to the coast and it seems that his decisions on the management of the emergency did not follow the procedures of Costa Crociere,” said the company.

Prosecutors accused Schettino, who has worked for Costa Crociere since 2002 and who was promoted to captain in 2006, of leaving the ship before the evacuation was complete.

Coastguard officials said he had refused to return to the vessel when asked to.

Schettino has told Italian television the ship hit rocks that were not marked on maps and were not detected by navigation systems. He said the accident occurred some 300 meters from shore.

Costa Crociere expressed “deep sorrow” for the disaster. It said all crew had been properly trained in safety procedures and that the ship was fully equipped with life jackets, medical supplies and other safety equipment.

source form: tuoitrenews

While relevant agencies are trying to discover the cause of the fires that have destroyed of about 40 motorbikes nationwide, two more vehicles burst into flames yesterday, while a hydrofoil also suffered the same fate in Vung Tau.

Yesterday afternoon, as 22-year-old Nguyen Thi Nhung was riding her Attila scooter on a road in Dong Hoa District, Phu Yen Province, the vehicle caught fire in the rear, under the petrol tank.

Local residents helped Nhung put out the fire using water before it spread. However, the vehicle’s electrical system and some of its plastic parts had already burned down.

This is the first case of a sudden motorbike fire in Phu Yen, the provincial police department, which is investigating the case, said.

Earlier in the morning another motorbike, driven by La Tien Duyen, 52, suddenly exploded into flames on Nguyen Trai Street in Thanh Xuan District, Hanoi.

The fire, which also broke out in the rear of the motorbike, caused heavy damage to the vehicle, police said.

Meanwhile a hydrofoil, called the Greenlines 2, caught fire as it was being filled with fuel at the Cau Da Port in Vung Tau City.

The fire broke out in the boat’s engine hold, Vu Thai Hoa, from the Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province Inland Waterway Authority, said.

After being reported, firefighters at the port put out the fire within five minutes, so the damage was minor, he said.

source form: tuoitrenews

When we awoke that morning I found myself in a very strange place. This was hardcore Vietnamese country. Everybody here is a coffee farmer, the only toilet is of the squat variety and I literally can only communicate with 1 person in a 10 kilometer radius. So I smiled and nodded a lot. I smiled so much that my cheeks hurt but I was trying to make a good impression and without being able to communicate I thought I could at least convey positivity.

After breakfast we headed to her parents house. A 30 minute Motorbike drive on a bumpy dirt road which was great, the kind of thing I love. The entire area is beautiful green mountains of coffee and tea. When we got to the parents house, I started to feel the nerves coming. How am I supposed to look good for her parents, am I going to do anything wrong culturally? We greeted her mom and dad in a very relaxed quiet way. I tried to smile even more than I was before. I couldn’t read her parents they were quiet, they seemed just as uncomfortable to meet me as I was to meet them. This introduction didn’t last long and I was wondering how things went. Thủy said everything is fine and we meet the rest of her family, 6 sisters and 1 brother.

I was taken to an aunt’s house to start preparing dinner. This was the night before Ms. Diễm’s wedding so today was going to be a feast. We arrived to see 2 dogs in the backyard. I have eaten dog in Vietnam before, but I have never met the dog before the dinner. After the dogs were killed, cleaned and butchered the cooking started. Thủy grabbed my arm and started walking me around the village to meet all her aunts and uncles.

Every interaction was the same, Thủy says something, they say something, they look at me and I look at them, now what. What can I do, what can I say after the smile we give each other and a few giggles I’m left just feeling awkward. I find myself staying with Thủy as much as possible, I feel so uncomfortable without her. Dinner starts at Thủy’s house. There are about 200 people in the front of the house getting ready to eat. The dogs were prepared in three ways.. The food was, and the night ended early as people were getting ready for the big day tomorrow.

There was a second kitchen setup outside (Photo: Chad Kub)

The wedding day started in a frenzy. Everybody was getting ready; makeup was being dabbed on everybody’s face. Thủy disappeared to be with her sister, so I was alone with 100’s of Vietnamese just staring at me. I headed to the kitchen, the kitchen I understand. I saw people setting up plates and designing dishes. I suddenly began to feel more comfortable I jumped in, put my head down and just started working. Placing different meats on plates, sometimes a woman comes around and shows me the way she wants it done. She likes big pieces of cilantro, I like little leaves, but I do what I am told. I actually fell like I am bonding with these people now. The next 3 hours fly by in the kitchen and we are ready for the big lunch. I am sent to the children’s table.

Lunch was great. Sticky rice with different sausages, Lotus stem Salad, grilled deer marinated with sesame seeds, Prawns boiled in beer with salt pepper and lime, and Hot pot Thai style. At the kids table there were a lot of #1 red bull bottles. A man came up to me and wanted to do a shot of rice wine, so I took his offer and chased it with a swig of red bull. “Oh that was smooth, that Red bull was a great chaser.” This was the beginning of the end for me. Soon everybody wanted to do a shot with the white guy. I found myself saying một trăm phần trăm (100%) and một hai ba dzô ( 1 2 3 cheers) every 2 minutes. I thought I was going strong, schmoozing and boozing, being the life of the party and after that point I only have 1 other memory of that day and that is of me laying in bed with my shirt off, professing my love to Thủy.

I woke up the next morning in pain and regret. This was the most drunk I have been in years. I found out that I actually missed the wedding reception. I saw pictures of myself that I have no memory of being a part of. This was my first ever “black out” drunk and it had to be the weekend I’m meeting my future wife’s parents and on her sister’s wedding. I was ashamed walking to the breakfast table; her father offered me a shot of rice wine at 8 am. The nail polish smell coming from the 5 gallon bucket of rice wine at his feet was making me queasy already.

I told him in my broken Vietnamese “Anh uống rượu không bao giờ” (I would never drink again), he laughed. “Did we just have a moment?” I kept telling Thủy that I was sorry for my behavior yesterday. I started to get the sense that it wasn’t a big deal and in fact an everyday occurrence, I was just blending in with the Vietnamese country man. We left early that day; I was still clueless of everybody’s thoughts about Thủy’s new boyfriend. As we were leaving thủy told me her parents liked me, I was relived.

source form: tuoitrenews