News, 18-19/1/01
hyt...@my-deja.com
* Vietnam breaks UN air embargo to fly aid to Iraq
HANOI, Jan 19 (AFP) - Vietnam became the latest country to break the 10-
year-old UN air embargo imposed on Iraq by flying a plane loaded with
aid to Baghdad on Friday, airport officials said. It is the first time
Hanoi has sent a humanitarian flight to Iraq, although it has
repeatedly called for the sanctions imposed in 1990 to be lifted.
The plane, which left from Hanoi airport, was carrying medicines, milk
and clothes worth some 20,000 dollars, spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh
said, adding Hanoi had informed the UN committee overseeing the
sanctions of its intentions.
The Vietnamese delegation was led by Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Cong
Tan and included the head of the country's Red Cross, Nguyen Trong
Nhan, ministry officials and Vietnamese businessmen.
More than 80 flights have landed in Baghdad since Saddam International
airport reopened in August 2000, as Arab countries in particular have
queued up to offer their support to the Iraqi regime. The embargo was
among sanctions imposed by the United Nations after Iraq invaded Kuwait
in August 1990, which led to the brief Gulf War in 1991.
But there has been increasing sympathy for the Iraqis, amid widespread
suffering and shortages caused by the crippling embargo.
* U.S. ambassador to Vietnam agrees to stay on in Hanoi
HANOI, Vietnam (Herald World , 19/1/01) -- Pete Peterson, the former
prisoner of war who became the first U.S. ambassador to communist
Vietnam, has agreed to stay on in Hanoi.
``I am pleased to have been asked by the incoming Bush administration
to remain at my post in Vietnam for an indefinite period,'' said
Peterson, who was nominated by President Clinton in 1996 and approved
by the Republican-controlled Senate in 1997.
As administrations change, it is customary for ambassadors to tender
their resignations. Some are replaced, others are retained, and the
Bush White House has moved quickly to keep Peterson in its lineup.
A Democratic congressman from Florida between 1991 and 1997, the 65-
year-old former Air Force pilot is expected to oversee the completion
of the landmark trade agreement that the
United States and Vietnam signed last summer. The deal must still be
approved by both houses of the U.S. Congress and the Vietnamese
National Assembly, a process that could be completed this summer.
Peterson has had a wide-ranging portfolio as ambassador, including the
search for the remains of missing servicemen, promotion of U.S.
business interests, human rights issues, immigration policies, along
with regional drug-trafficking and security matters. He also oversaw
the construction and opening of a new U.S. consulate in Ho Chi Minh
City, the former Saigon.
But the trade agreement has been the major focus of his tenure in Hanoi
and he has been its leading champion through years of torturous
negotiations.
In a brief statement Thursday, Peterson said: ``I look forward with
pleasure to being able to continue my work to get the Bilateral Trade
Agreement ratified by both countries and to cooperate with the
Vietnamese on its implementation.''
Keeping Peterson as ambassador signals the Bush administration's
wholesale support for the trade agreement, political observers said
Thursday.
Douglas Brian ``Pete'' Peterson, flying an F-4 Phantom jet, was shot
down outside Hanoi in September 1966. Badly wounded, he considered
shooting himself with his own pistol as he was about to be captured by
Vietnamese villagers. He spent the next six years in the Hanoi Hilton
prison, 20 blocks from his current residence.
* Vietnam has a new foreign coach
HANOI, Jan 19 (AFP) - The Netherlands' football coach, Edson Silva,
known as "Dido," has been chosen as the new head of Vietnam's national
team, the Vietnam Football Federation said Friday.
The 33-year-old Brazilian signed the contract in Hanoi on Friday for an
initial duration of one year from January 1.
Dido takes up the post as the Vietnamese team prepares for crucial 2002
World Cup elimination matches and the South East Asian Games to be held
in Malaysia in August.
The monthly salary of the new coach was fixed at 5,000 US dollars
without counting his moving expenses or accommodation costs, a
federation official said.
Dido replaces Austrian coach Alfred Riedl whose contract was not
renewed in December after nearly three years at the head of Vietnam
national team after he criticised the federation for a lack of
cooperation.
Riedl's three predecessors, Brazilian Edson Araujo, German Karl Heinz
Weigang and Briton Colin Murphy were all dismissed after similar public
criticisms of the federation whose role has come under fire following a
series of defeats.
Football is Vietnam's most popular sport, but the team's poor
performance and allegations of corruption at the heart of the
federation have left the public disappointed.
* Vietnam issues business decree
ABC, 20/1/01 - Vietnam has issued a decree ordering all businesses to
convert a percentage of their hard-currency earnings at a state-
sanctioned commercial bank.
The decree takes effect next month.
The government says foreign and domestic businesses must sell some of
their foreign exchange earnings to a government-owned or government-
sanctioned bank to provide them with enough hard currency to meet
borrowing needs.
But a central bank official says it is not clear how much foreign
exchange they will have to sell.
Business and foreign banking executives have long lobbied the
government to cancel a 50 percent foreign exchange surrender
requirement, introduced in 1999.
That regulation was put in place to help the government shore up hard-
currency reserves but companies say it damages business interests and
is no longer necessary to maintain currency reserves.
* Vietnamese string instrument musician highlights Lunar New Year
The Post-Intelligencer, 19/1/01
The highlight of this year's Vietnamese Lunar New Year Festival is a
free concert by internationally acclaimed musician Pham Duc Thanh in
Seattle Center's Center House tomorrow afternoon. He will play ancient
Vietnamese stringed instruments.
Montreal-based Pham Duc Thanh is known as one of the world's masters of
traditional Vietnamese music.
"I will be playing the dan bau, a one-stringed traditional Vietnamese
instrument," Duc Thanh says, "the dan nhi, which is a two-stringed
fiddle, a dan nguyet, a moon lute which dates back to the eighth-
century, and also a very ancient three-stringed Vietnamese instrument
called dan day."
This year starts the Year of the Snake and marks the 25th Lunar New
Year celebrated in United States by the Vietnamese. Families reunite
for the holiday, which focuses on prosperity and includes bestowing
tokens of luck on children.
Also performing at tomorrow's concert will be Vietnamese singer Nga Mi
and poet/singer Lang Minh.
Traditional food and games will be offered tomorrow and Sunday at the
Seattle Center Flag Pavilion and Center House, as well as educational
programs about Vietnamese music, history and culture.
Pham Duc Thanh is one of Montreal's top players of the most well-known
Vietnamese instrument: the dan bau, a rectangular steel-stringed
instrument that sits on the floor, and is played with a bamboo pick and
a flexible handle carved from buffalo horn.
"(My favorite instrument) is the dan bau, of course, because it has
only one string and is very difficult to play, and it is uniquely
Vietnamese," he says.
Duc Thanh was a child prodigy. Born in 1956 in northern Vietnam, he was
playing the dan bau, as well as the dan tranh (16-string zither) and
dan nhiby at the age of 6. In Hanoi, he became a dan bau player for the
leading Hat Cheo theater group.
Today, he has been presented in Saigon's Research Center for Music in
Vietnam. In Germany, with his wife, he performed as an actor and
musician/composer for a TV soundtrack. He has also toured throughout
Canada. In May, he will perform in Estonia at the National Concert Hall
and in a remote medieval castle.
Duc Thanh says Vietnamese traditional music is slowly fading in Vietnam
due to the influx of Western mainstream music from radio and
television. To preserve the music of the dan bau, he performs, lectures
and teaches young people to play.
"Many musical notes in our music do not exist in Western music. Our
musical scales are very uniquely Vietnamese," he says.
Duc Thanh is an innovator, known for his modifications to the dan bau.
He has added thicker strings to create a bass instrument and placed
bamboo under the string, so that he gets a percussive sound when
striking the dan bau with a bamboo stick.
He hopes to convey with his music the "tender language" of his home
country, "which penetrates the whole being."
"Vietnamese traditional music embellishes the language of Vietnam," he
says. "I would like Westerners to understand the beauty behind
Vietnamese music.
"Our music speaks of love, of family life and harvest. Our music can
also be very spiritual and healing."
* (Propaganda for VC) Serenity and Destruction in Childrens' Vietnam
Memorial Paintings
Japan Update, 19/1/01
Stephen Carr
It was the 25th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War last year but
there was almost nothing in the way of commemoration of the event in
Okinawa, a place that was heavily involved in the war. It was from here
that B-52s took off for their bombing raids over North Vietnam from
1965 onwards.
When the conflict, (known as the American War in the country where it
took place) ended in 1975, a War Remnants Museum was established in Ho
Chi Minh City. The museum has photos, documents, weapons and hardware.
One section has an Okinawan connection, a display of photographs by
Okinawan cameraman Ishikawa Fumihiro.
In preparation for the anniversary, the museum organized visits to its
premises by nearly 11,000 local children, who by virtue of their ages,
four to 15, had had no experience of war. They were then asked to paint
pictures of whatever had left the greatest impression in their minds
after the museum visit. The best of their paintings were exhibited from
January to April in Vietnam, as one of the special events to
commemorate the 25th anniversary of the end of the war.
The Deputy Director of the museum visited Okinawa in 1998 because of
the connection with photographer Fumihiro. Some officials from Naha
City Hall visited the War Remnants Museum while the paintings were
being exhibited and learnt of plans for the show to be taken all over
the world. The Deputy Director of the museum asked them if they would
like Okinawa to be the first place in the world after Vietnam to see
the paintings. The officials accepted the offer and last spring started
preparing for the exhibition. They were helped by many people in and
outside Okinawa.
This month selections of the paintings can be seen in four different
locations in Okinawa. The rationale of the show is based on hopes for
peace in the new century. Bombs left Okinawa for Vietnam in the last
century, says a poster at the exhibition and in this one childrens'
paintings come back.
Many of the paintings in the exhibition feature globes and doves and
are in bold primary colors. World peace rather than country specific
concern is a constant theme. Although some blend the two ideas.
Peaceful Bird Flying by Guen Ming Ha Ban, aged six, shows a huge dove,
towing two children through the sky towards an emblematic Vietnamese
flag in the sky.
Some of the paintings have nothing to do with war and show idyllic
scenes with titles like The Best Time of My Childhood. Violence though,
features in many others. Ten year old Fam Tsui Duc's Disaster Made by
War shows a man tending a wounded comrade. There are two bloodied
soldiers' bodies in the background. House hut and forest burn and a
communist hammer and sickle flag flies beside a pall of black smoke.
In Remnants of War, 13 year old Guen Tai N'tun shows a mother cradling
a baby in a domestic scene, with a wok hanging on the wall, a stove, a
thermos flask and a dog. All is peaceful except the woman's
imagination, depicted in a cloud-like thought bubble. It is filled with
flames, rockets, a disintegrating tank and a burning house.
War Destroyed My Countryside, by 11 year old Guen Ti Tai N'tou has
helicopters flying above crying peasants, a grieving child by the dead
body of its mother. A soldier is shooting from the top of a rock.
Idealised visions of peace shine through many of the pictures.
Friendship and Peace in the World by ten year old Gueng Huang Ming Chou
has a group in various types of traditional dress standing on a globe,
above which is flying a large dove. Big stylized flowers decorate three
corners of the picture.
There are also some imaginative conceptual themes. World of No War by
13 year old Ray Gok Huong depicts a blackened, fiery globe disfigured
by a tank. Out of the charred mess emerges a rainbow with figures
running along it. In the distance they are tiny but the nearer ones can
be seen entering a green sunny land. A tree shades a happy throng and a
dolphin frolics in the sea.
The exhibition is on the first floor of Naha City Hall until January
26. More paintings can be seen at Nago City Central Library from Jan 23
to Feb 10. The Kusunuchi Peace and Culture Hall's show finishes today,
Thursday Jan 18. All these shows are free. At the Sakima Museum there
is a combined exhibition of the Vietnamese childrens' paintings and
photographs by Ishikawa Fumihiro. Entrance is Adult „700, Junior & High
School „500, Child „300.
* Vietnamese push culture, love at Family Night event
Phuong Ly
Washington Post, 18/1/01 - The event's organizers and many of the
Vietnamese-American parents who bring their 20-something children to
the community's annual Family Night party will insist that matchmaking
is not their main intent.
But the fervent hope that their children will meet a prospective mate
is the event's worst-kept secret.
Just outside the ballroom doors at the Hilton in suburban Washington on
a recent Saturday night, two brides beamed from museum-size portraits
on easels. Business cards advertising flowers, gifts and accessories
from Darlene's Bridal littered the banquet tables. The after-dinner
entertainment featured a fashion parade of young women wearing red silk
tunics, embroidered satin overcoats and pastel dresses -- all suitable
attire for a traditional Vietnamese wedding.
"I came to meet my friends," said Tho Nguyen, 58, sitting at a table
with a friend and their sons and daughters.
"Come on, he's here for the same reason I'm here," said the friend,
Canh Luu. He leaned in conspiratorially and shared his greatest wish.
"I want my children, my sons, my daughter, to have a chance to meet
other Vietnamese," Luu said. "If they marry, I want them to marry
Vietnamese. I love Vietnam. I left my country 25 years ago, but I want
my children to go back to their roots.
"I don't want to speak English with my daughter-in-laws. I want to
speak Vietnamese. It's ridiculous . . . but I am a 62-year-old man."
One son, Tommy Luu, was well aware of his father's plans. He didn't
mind, though. "This is better than Galaxy," he said, referring to a
popular nightclub.
SIMILAR BACKGROUNDS
Most of the older adults present share similar family backgrounds and
have established middle-class lives here. They were pilots, military
officers, professors and other members of the educated elite in South
Vietnam who escaped to the United States in 1975 when their country
fell to the communists. The Washington region became home to the
largest concentration of Vietnamese immigrants on the East Coast, with
more than 50,000.
Family Night, which draws more than 500 people, began in 1993, when the
first generation of Vietnamese born in the United States was finishing
high school, heading to college or starting careers.
Founder Quyen Tran said his main intention is for young people and
their parents to enjoy an outing together when the children are home
for the holidays. Most of the adults are friends, he says, and want
their children to be friends, too.
10 WEDDINGS
Tran said he knows of only 10 weddings that have resulted from Family
Night. If successful matchmaking occurs, "that would be nice, but that
would not be the main purpose," said Tran, 62, a former professor who
now works for the World Bank.
At Family Night, parents are encouraged to sit on one side. Their
children, who make up two-thirds of the crowd, are on the other side,
assigned random seats alongside people they don't know.
Throughout the night, parents will sometimes check on their children
and introduce them to family friends and their children.
At most Vietnamese banquets, food is the star of the show, with up to
10 elaborate courses. This party featured regular American hotel fare,
baked salmon and green beans, encouraging people to focus less on
eating and more on mingling.
"Everything's done on purpose," said Linh Pham, 29, a veteran of
several Family Nights. "There's a reason behind everything."
Pham, who already has a Vietnamese-American boyfriend, spent the
evening nudging her single friends.
"This is a more secure environment," said Pham, a project manager for a
telecommunications company. "You know everybody's relatives. You're
going to meet someone. That's the purpose."
Nearby, Uy Hoang maintained an intense concentration on his food. But
by 9:30 p.m., his mother and aunt had introduced him to two young women.
"They're not subtle," said Hoang's cousin, Michelle Le, 22.
SLIGHTLY AWKWARD
"You just kind of say hi, and it's kind of awkward," said Hoang, 23,
dressed in a pressed shirt and silk tie.
Several tables away, Hoang's mother looked over at her son
occasionally. She wasn't too thrilled with what she saw. "He's sitting
next to his cousin," she lamented. "He's defeating the purpose."
Uy, the oldest of her five children, so far has dated only non-
Vietnamese women, said Minh-Vu Hoang, 49.
She has lived in Washington since 1969, when she studed at American
University, and said she has nothing against non-Vietnamese women. But
oh, what she wouldn't give for a Vietnamese daughter-in-law, someone
who would understand their homeland's heritage and traditions such as
celebrating Lunar New Year and family days and honoring your elders.
"If he married a non-Vietnamese, I don't assume that on the memorial
days, they will pray for my soul in the next life," she said.
* Vietnam party chief warns against corruption
ABC, 19/1/01 - Vietnam's Communist Party chief Le Kha Phieu has warned
of worsening corruption and moral degradation among party members.
Mr Phieu says bureaucracy, corruption and moral degradation among party
cadres is a cause for "great concern".
He made the observation at the end of a 10-day party Central Committee
plenum.
Mr Phieu, said a campaign launched in May 1999 to eradicate corruption
among party members, has achieved some results but failed to meet its
target.
This came as the party chief insisted Vietnam is still firmly on a
socialist path despite an increasingly dominant market economy.
Vietnam maintains an official policy of having a socialist-oriented
multi-sectoral economy with state enterprises playing a "leading role."
State-owned businesses, however, have suffered from low efficiency and
poor technology and are being eclipsed in many areas by private
companies.
* Vietnam to get new CDMA network from Korea
Telecomasia, 19/1/10 - Saigon Post and Telecoms Co. (Saigon Postel) has
signed a $230 million five-year contract with South Korea's SLD
Telecom, a joint-venture of SK Telecom, LG Electronics and Dongah
Electric, for the supply and operation of a nationwide CDMA network.
According to Ngo Hoang Ming, vice chairman of Saigon Postel, the
project will support up to 1 million mobile subscribers as well as
another 100,000 fixed wireless users and additional pay phones in
remote areas.
The service is scheduled to be launched in April with coverage limited
to Hanoi, HCMC and surrounding areas.
The contract also includes the possible upgrade of the network to
cdma2000.
The new network will go head-to-head with two mobile operators under
the government's VPNT, Vinaphone and Mobiphone, as well as the army-
backed, Vietel.
* Vietnam Stk:VN-Index Ends At 236.97, +1.84%; 4.29 Points
HANOI (Dow Jones, 19/1/01)--Shares on Vietnam's Securities Trading
Center closed 4.29 points, or 1.84%, higher Friday at 236.97 after
trade of 42,600 shares and 320 bonds, a STC official said.
Trade was worth 1.964 billion dong ($1=VND14,528) - lower than
Wednesday's VND3.44 billion - and was dominated by Haiphong Paper Co.,
or Hapaco.
The paper company's shares rose VND700 at VND50,000 after trade of
27,800 shares.
Cable and Telecommunications Materials Joint Stock Co., or Sacom,
gained VND700 to end at VND37,800 on trade of 13,400 shares.
Refrigeration Electrical Engineering Corp., or REE, ended up VND700 at
VND38,000 after trade of just 200 shares.
Shares in Transimex closed up VND700 at VND39,400 on trade of 300
shares.
The market's newest issue, Lafooco closed up VND300 at VND20,000 after
trade of 900 shares, all of which were released in the market Friday.
Meanwhile, Bank for Investment & Development of Vietnam's bonds closed
unchanged at VND93,700 per bond after trade of 320 bonds.
Government bonds were again untraded Friday.
Vietnam's stock market will close through next week as the country
celebrates Tet, the lunar new year, and will resume operations Jan. 29.
01/19/01 01/17/01 % Change Closing VN-Index 236.97
232.68 +1.84 Trade Value (VND Bln) 1.964 3.440
-42.9 No. Of Shares Traded 42,600 87,400 -51.3
No. Of Bonds Traded 320 720 -55.6 -0-
19/01/01 04-03G
* Khmer Rouge leader willing to face court
ABC, 20/1/01 - Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen says a surviving leader
of the Khmer Rouge is willing to appear voluntarily before a court that
will try the group's top functionaries for genocide.
Hun Sen says Khieu Samphan has sent him a message saying that, if
necessary, he will appear voluntarily at the court.
Khieu Samphan was a longtime member of the group's inner circle under
the late Pol Pot and its nominal leader in its final few years.
No other top figure had made a commitment to face the tribunal.
At least 1.7 million Cambodians died of execution, overwork or
starvation during the 1975-79 rule of the Khmer Rouge.
The legislation enabling the establishment of a tribunal must still get
the approval of the Constitutional Council and King Norodom Sihanouk,
which is expected in the next few weeks.
Hun Sen expects the tribunal to start work this year.
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