04/01/2009
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A flooded area in Thua Thien-Hue Province | VietNamNet Bridge - Unseasonal torrential rains in central provinces from Dec. 29 to Jan. 1 have caused floods, damaging lots of crops. Human and property losses have been reported.
Floods in Quang Nam Province submerged roads and residential areas in Tam Ky and Hoi An cities, causing traffic jams in many places on Jan. Four deaths and missing have been reported.
In the province, 7,000 hectares of rice have been flooded, affecting the production rate of the winter-spring crop.
Many areas in Khanh Hoa Province have also suffered from flash floods. In Cam Ranh town, floods killed one person, submerged 20 houses and over 4,570 hectares of the winter-spring rice.
Torrential rains have caused widespread flooding in Binh Dinh Province and heavily damaged the newly-sowed rice fields.
Many areas in Quang Ngai province have been surrounded by floodwater. Thua Thien-Hue Province has also suffered from flash floods.
Waters were now increasing in main rivers in the region.
The National Committee on Flood and Storm Preparedness has asked the administrations of the central provinces to promptly take action in protecting local residents and property, and deploy forces in necessary positions. | 03/01/2009Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has called on the entire nation to bring into full play its combined strength and make every effort to prevent economic decline, sustain growth and ensure social security in 2009.
In an article published on the Government’s Website, the PM pointed out that in 2009 Vietnam will face numerous difficulties and challenges as a consequence of the global economic recession which began in late 2008.
The global financial crisis, which stemmed from the US, had a big impact on the national economy, especially its industries, services and export markets. It forced Vietnam to shift from coping with a high inflation rate to preventing an economic recession.
The PM acknowledged that this is not an easy task, reasoning that the country’s resources remain limited while the global financial crisis and economic recession are unpredictable.
To meet socio-economic targets set for 2009 by the National Assembly, the Government adopted five major solutions as follows:
1. Ironing out snags to boost production and exports
According to the PM, Vietnam should take full advantage of opportunities for development. The country has a stable socio-political environment with an increasingly well-running market economy. Despite difficulties, the national economy achieved a rather high growth rate of 6.23 percent and the growth potential remains strong. Demand for goods and services is high in the domestic market. Personal capital and the capacity of production, manufacturing and construction has yet to be fully mobilised. Prices of materials, technology, machinery and equipment on the world market are going down while the country’s demand for development investment remains high, especially for infrastructure development and technology upgrade. Notably, foreign investors and donors maintain high confidence in Veitnam’s prospect for development and consider the country a safe and attractive destination.
To achieve a high growth rate, the PM said there is no choice but to boost production and develop services. He affirmed that the Government will continue to create a more transparent and favourable environment for production and business activities, alongside efforts by enterprises and households. It will also introduce new financial and monetary policies to support export businesses that contribute approximately 70 percent of the country’s GDP and employ tens of millions of workers.
He also stressed the need to have appropriate policies to help businesses operate efficiently after Vietnam opens up its services and goods distribution markets as of January 1, 2009 under its commitments to the World Trade Organisation.
2. Mobilising all resources to stimulate investment and spending
The PM said that investment capital will be sourced from the State budget, the sales of Government bonds, official development assistance (ODA) and credit to be poured into infrastructure construction projects to facilitate production and goods circulation. More investment will be funnelled into healthcare, education and housing projects, as well as socio-economic infrastructure in rural areas.
The Government will issue more bonds to mobilise additional capital for development investment. It will earmark VND17,000 billion (around US$1 billion) to lend businesses, mostly small- and medium-sized enterprises, with low interest rates, to help them maintain production and generate jobs. Businesses will be guaranteed to import equipment and machinery to develop production and renew technology.
The PM asked the State-owned enterprises – the backbone of the economy – to invest in modern and environmentally friendly technology projects, support industries, highly competitive and valued products, as well as in labour-intensive projects to speed up economic and labor restructuring.
3. Ensuring social welfare and boosting poverty reduction
The PM assured that the Government will allocate adequate budget and increase national reserves, particularly food, to carry out existing social welfare policies. It will increase minimum salaries for State employees and those working for enterprises, while quickly providing food and restoring the socio-economic infrastructure in the areas hit by natural disasters and epidemics.
He said the Government will carry out a programme to assist the 61 poorest districts across the country and enforce the Law on Unemployment Insurance in early 2009. In addition, it will continue to build houses for the poor, social policy beneficiaries, employees working in industrial parks and provide preferential credits to students.
4. Implementing financial and monetary policies effectively
The PM noted that in 2008 the Government introduced many financial and monetary measures to help enterprises increase their production capacity, reduce production costs and sharpen the competitiveness of products and services. It applied policies on tax exemption, reduction and payment delay as well as lowering credit interest rates and flexibly adjusting the exchange rate of foreign currencies to support businesses, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises.
The Government asked ministries, sectors and localities to use sources of capital effectively to boost production and export, and stimulate investment and spending properly.
5. Requiring a strong and flexible performance
The PM asked all ministries and localities to pay more attention to the forecast work to quickly cope with any fluctuations, while continueing to perfect mechanisms and policies, accelerate administrative reform and decentralisation of power and heighten the accountability of leaders of agencies.
According to the PM, ministries, localities and agencies should draw up their plans of action, with a focus on enhancing leadership and stepping up inspections to fulfil their tasks.
He also underscored the need to enhance the dessemination of information to help people better understand the country’s stituation and the tasks ahead. He assigned State agencies to provide information as well as open and transparent policies and mechanisms, and also directed media agencies to disseminate Party guidelines, State policies and accurate information in the intersts of the nation.
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| A street in central Quang Ngai Town was inundated in the flood triggered by heavy rain during the last three days in Quang Ngai Province. |
| At least four fishermen were killed or reported missing as heavy downpours and strong winds triggered rough seas in central provinces, and experts warned of more rain and flooding in the area. |
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A fishing vessel capsized off the coast of Mo Duc District in Quang Ngai Province Thursday, with two people missing.
Deputy head of the Border Guard Station No. 296, Mai Ngoc Vien, said the accident occurred at around 7:30 a.m. at the My A estuary when the vessel, owned by Le Van Hung of Son Tinh District, was trying to escape the rough seas at the fishing grounds off Ly Son Island.
Four of the six people on board had swum safely to the shore, he said, adding that the missing people were yet to be identified.
Heavy rains during the past five days also swept away thousands hectares of newly planted rice paddy in Quang Ngai Province’s Son Tinh, Binh Son, Tu Nghia and Mo Duc districts.
Several streets in the province’s Quang Ngai Town were inundated for the last two days, with some sections under water a meter deep.
In Quang Nam Province, border guards Thursday were still searching for Nguyen Ngoc Tam after he and his fishing vessel went missing on Wednesday while fishing off Cham Island. Tam was the only one on board the vessel, according to the guards.
On the same day, rough seas off Cham Island sank another fishing boat belonging to Nguyen Cu from Hoi An Town. Other vessels managed to rescue Cu and his wife Tran Thi Toi, but she died soon after.
More than 200 hectares of paddy and 500 hectares of other crops in Quang Nam Province have been destroyed in the floods.
The Central Hydro-meteorology Forecasting Center has reported unexpectedly heavy downpours in central and south-central provinces during the last two days, with rainfall of up to 200 millimeters in some areas.
The center warned of more floods today in the rivers of central and south central provinces.
Waters are expected to exceed level 3 in Ve, Cai and Kon rivers, while Tra Khuc and Lai Giang rivers were forecasted to exceed level 2.
The Central Committee for Flood Control and Prevention uses a four-grade scale to measure river levels - level 1 (possible flood and inundation), level 2 (dangerous), level 3 (very dangerous) and exceeding level 3 (extremely dangerous).
Reported by Thanh Nien staff |
VietNamNet Bridge – Natural disasters in 2008 caused 550 deaths or those presumed dead and left 440 injured, according to General Statistics Office (GSO).
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Natural disasters in 2008 also destroyed nearly 350,000ha of rice and subsidiary crops and 68,000ha of aquaculture. | They also destroyed nearly 350,000ha of rice and subsidiary crops and 68,000ha of aquaculture, killed more than 1 million cattle and poultry and swept away nearly 5,000 houses, causing total losses of nearly VND12,000 billion.
The office says natural disasters in 2008 were much more serious than in previous years, badly affecting production and people’s lives. In addition, a sharp increase in the price of goods and services along with cattle and poultry epidemics also seriously affected people’s lives, especially those in the low-income bracket. More than 957,000 households suffered from food shortages, up 32.3 percent compared to 2007’s figure. The shortage of food mainly occurred in the northern mountainous and midland provinces, and north-central, central coastal and highland regions.
To ensure social security, the State allocated VND42.3 trillion to increase salaries and allowance for pensioners and people who made contributions to the revolution, as well as supporting natural disaster victims, exempting fees and offering preferential credit policies to ethnic minority people and disadvantaged students. 02/01/2009
Starting in late 2008 DWF is working in collaboration with Save the Children Alliance, Myanmar, to take DWF experience in Vietnam to Myanmar in order to develop local knowledge about cyclone resistant construction techniques in the Irrawaddy delta, through community workshops and the retrofitting of schools as a public demonstration of techniques that can be used by the community.
A team of Myanmar engineers travelled to the DWF office in Vietnam for training in November 2008, and in Myanmar the technical assistance for the project is provided by the DWF Vietnam team. Save the Children Alliance assists by finding funding and provided all institutional, administrative and logistical support .
Since then, the Myanmar team with DWF technical support has been working in villages in the Yangon and the Irrawaddy Delta regions.
The programme works in groups of villages, selected on the basis that they each have a school that has been repaired or rebuilt after Cyclone Nargis damaged or destroyed it. In the immediate aftermath schools were repaired but not made to resist future cyclones and associated flooding. The project uses the strengthening of schools as an opportunity to develop disaster risk reduction techniques in the community.
In each group of villages, the project organizes a workshop open to the public, but focused on builders and leaders in the community. Participants assess why buildings are damaged, and what steps can be taken to make them storm and flood resistant. This is followed by practical work on the school that is to be strengthened to familiarize participants with the applied strengthening techniques. Once materials are available, the school is then strengthened by local builders. On completion, the strengthened school is opened to the public so that the work that has been done can be explained and appreciated. Children will also learn about methods to improve safety in their communities. This will initially be carried out through awareness raising about safe construction techniques in their school. Indirectly, the project aims to help families see how their own homes can be also be strengthened with the same basic principles of cyclone resistant strengthening.
The initial workshops in late 2008 show that there is great interest in the programme, and people are coming from other villages that do not have a school that will be strengthened in the present programme, just to learn. In Phase I, 60 schools will be strengthened.
Before Nargis, very little attention was paid to disaster risk reduction. In the complex initial rehabilitation process after the cyclone DRR has not featured high on the priority list. However, it is clear that there is both a need and public interest to see how buildings and communities can be made safe from future disasters, and this extends beyond the scope of cyclones and flooding, other regions being affected by earthquakes as well. 01/01/2009
MYANMAR: Multi-purpose cyclone shelters needed - UN specialist
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| The first purpose-built school-cum-cyclone shelter was completed in November |
YANGON, 31 December 2008 (IRIN) - A UN specialist has called for the building of cyclone shelters in southern Myanmar ahead of the next monsoon, expected in about five months’ time.
“Multi-purpose cyclone shelters should be built before the monsoon season comes to disaster-prone areas in order to reduce the risk of future disasters,” Dillip Kumar Bhanja, disaster risk reduction specialist for the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Myanmar, told IRIN in Yangon, the former Burmese capital.
“Tens of thousands of people died because they didn’t have access to cyclone shelters,” he said.
Almost eight months after a devastating cyclone slammed into southern Myanmar, survivors still do not have the cyclone shelters they need.
Cyclone Nargis left close to 140,000 people dead or missing and affected another 2.4 million more when it hit Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady and Yangon divisions on 2-3 May.
Of the 11 severe tropical cyclones to have struck Myanmar over the past 60 years, two made landfall in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady Delta. The area was also affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which claimed more than 60 lives and left over 2,000 homeless along the coast.
Shelters planned
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| Eight months on, cyclone survivors such as this one say they feel unsafe in their makeshift huts when the wind blows |
In response the UN, in collaboration with its partners on the ground, plans to build a number of multi-purpose cyclone shelters along the coast in 2009.
“We’re in the process of assessing the existing designs and identifying villages in the delta for construction of the multi-purpose community buildings,” Dillip confirmed, adding, however, that the number had yet to be determined.
According to the Post-Nargis Joint Assessment (PONJA) report - viewed by many as a blueprint for humanitarian response in the area - the need for disaster shelters in the area against cyclones, tsunamis and other catastrophic events was great.
Where appropriate, the shelters should be multi-purpose buildings (e.g. education facilities) with reinforced walls and iron shutters, connected to livestock shelters, with adequate water, sanitation facilities and survival supplies for use after such disasters.
These shelters should also be connected with communication networks for the delivery of relief supplies during a disaster, and/or speedy evacuation, the report said.
A handful of shelters built so far
To date, fewer than six cyclone shelters in the townships of Yangon and Ayeyarwady have been built.
The first purpose-built school, a one-storey school-cum-cyclone shelter, was built by the Myanmar Engineering Society in Kunchangone Township with funding from the Institution of Engineers (Singapore), the Myanmar Club RIT [Rangoon Institute of Technology], Myanmar Engineers (Australia), the Asian Institute of Technology (Thailand), and some Myanmar private companies.
Completed in early November, the 223 square metre school is custom-designed to resist tropical storms and earthquakes, as well as accommodate over 350 people in a disaster, according to Than Myint, president of the Myanmar Engineering Society.
Government and humanitarian agencies are also planning to establish multi-purpose cyclone shelters in the worst-hit areas of Yangon and Ayeyarwady divisions, with plans to build over a dozen multi-purpose shelters in Bogale, Labutta, Pinzalu, Dedaye and Kunchangone townships in early 2009.
Such facilities will have the capacity to accommodate 500-1,500 people, according to the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement.
The buildings would be purpose-built schools or offices that would be converted into shelters during times of disaster.
UNICEF to build storm-resistant schools
Meanwhile, a UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) official said they would build seven quake and storm-resistant schools in cyclone-hit regions.
Other NGOs that have pledged to build multi-purpose cyclone shelters include the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Myanmar’s Forest Resource Environment Development and Conservation Association (FREDA), Muslim Aid, and World Concern.
Starting in November 2009, JICA hopes to build over 20 such shelters with a budget of US$3.6 million. “Mainly, we’ll build school-cum-cyclone shelters in the most vulnerable places along the coastal area of Labutta township,” the head of the project told IRIN.
FREDA plans to build three cyclone shelters in Bogale, while Muslim Aid and World Concern are planning to build about four cyclone shelters in Pyapon and Labutta respectively.
Additionally, a group of Myanmar doctors will reportedly build several cyclone-shelters in Labutta area, the worst hit area.
Time running out
But experts fear that completion of many of these shelters will not be possible before the start of the next cyclone season in late April, early May.
“We have different kinds of challenges, such as funding and logistics,” said one NGO official.
Most villages in the badly affected Ayeyarwady Delta are only reachable by a myriad of inland waterways, using small boats.
During the dry season, as streams become shallower, boats laden with construction material would find it difficult to enter.
NOTE : DWF is currently implementing a programme "Safe school reconstruction" with Save The Children
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| A housing project built for families who lost their homes in the tsunami (file photo) |
WALAHANDUWA, 25 December 2008 (IRIN) - K Ganga is frustrated about where her family of four was settled after the 2004 tsunami. "This is like living in the middle of a jungle, so far away from the next village," she told IRIN from her house in Walahanduwa, a tsunami housing scheme of more than 100 units built by the Sri Lanka Red Cross in 2006, 120km south of the capital Colombo in the Galle District.
More important, the houses are 10km from the shore. The move followed a government edict for a no-build buffer zone along the coast and because there was a scarcity of available land close to the densely populated southern coast.
"There is no proper bus service and if we take a three-wheel taxi to the main road it costs us Rs500 [about US$5]," Ganga said. "The other option is to walk to the main road and that takes 40 minutes."
Her two children have also seen their lives change dramatically since the tsunami. Previously, they attended one of the best government schools in Galle town but since the relocation they have been forced to switch to an inferior school.
"We can't send them for extra classes in the town [Galle] because we can't afford the transport costs," said Ganga.
Despite receiving the new houses, she said, some of the owners only lived in them for two or three days of the month while others had abandoned them or tried to sell them.
"The house is ok, but what about getting to work, schools and other daily chores? All of us lived and worked next to the coast, we were used to that," she said.
Mixed results
The tsunami killed more than 35,000 people, displaced over half a million, destroyed at least 120,000 houses and left a reconstruction bill of more than $3 billion, according to the government. As the fourth anniversary of the tragedy looms, the bulk of the massive reconstruction effort is winding down to mixed results.
"Sri Lanka's tsunami reconstruction was negatively affected by the ongoing conflict. The speed of reconstruction was much slower in the north and east of the country for obvious security-related reasons than in the south and west," the World Bank reported in a statement to mark the anniversary. Its $135 million assistance programme closed in September 2008.
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| Destruction wreaked by the tsunami (file photo) |
The Bank also said the lack of effective institutions overseeing the reconstruction effort had slowed progress. "Sri Lanka's tsunami reconstruction was hampered from time to time by the dearth of effective institutions, especially at the central government level, to undertake the huge task of reconstruction." The Bank said government institutions lacked experience and the capacity to carry out the massive reconstruction effort.
However, the "[r]elative successes of the livelihood restoration programme and the homeowner-driven housing reconstruction programme, where cash grants were directly transferred to tsunami victims, show that reconstruction is best achieved when disaster victims are in the driver's seat", it stated.
The Bank assisted in the reconstruction of 45,000 houses while the International Federation of the Red Cross said it had completed 22,000 houses, reaching its full commitment of 32,866 by early 2009.
"Housing was by far the largest physical asset lost in the tsunami," Conrad de Tissera, programme manager of the UN's Human Settlements Programme, UN-HABITAT, in Sri Lanka, told IRIN, "It also represented the most valuable family asset every family wanted to recover in their struggle to rebuild their lives."
He said more than 87,000 houses had been constructed under the owner-built programme. "The strategy enabled re-establishing self-sustaining communities of families affected by the tsunami, through the building of physical and social infrastructure and housing, and set them on a path to begin a normal, self-reliant life recovering from the trauma of the tsunami."
Great expectations
However, even those who received aid and assistance without delay, such as Ganga, feel let down by international donors as well as national authorities.
"There were so many promises. They said billions had been pledged, lots of important people came to the country," she said, "but finally what we received was so small."
Financial specialists concurred. "Early ultra-rosy assessments seemed unrealistic even then. They have, by now, certainly failed the test of time," the Asian Development Bank stated in a report, Reconstruction after a Major Disaster: Lessons from the Post-Tsunami Experience in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, released on 19 December.
30/12/2008
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Advanced core technology of the nation’s first Dung Quat Oil Refinery in the central Quang Ngai will be ready for operation by February 25, next year. With an investment capital of US$2.5 billion for the first stage, this is one of the most significant projects in Viet Nam and is expected to accelerate the volatile economy. | VietNamNet Bridge - In the face of global financial turmoil, the Vietnamese economy has been no exception to unexpected volatility – one of the most challenging issues that the country has struggled with this year.
What started out as a mere fear of recession, has spread into global panic, with many of the world’s economies fearing the recurrence of the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Even before the chaos spread, global price storms were felt, the price of almost everything is skyrocketing, with oil notably peaking at an unprecedented US$147 per barrel. In the face of all this, inflation at home was pushing struggling families in Viet Nam back below the poverty line and smothering businesses.
The country’s consumer price index (CPI) continued to skyrocket in the first half of the year, with the worst inflation the country had seen in over a decade. The General Statistics Office (GSO) expects CPI to close off at 22-24 per cent for the year.
As families struggled to feed themselves, the Government took action in March, devising and enforcing eight major measures to bring the situation under control. Key measures included tightening monetary policy, bolstering exports, forcing State-owned giants to cut costs and suspend unnecessary projects, capping oil, power and coal prices, and ensuring a comprehensive supply of essential goods like petrol, rice, pharmaceuticals, cement, steel and fertiliser.
More than two months later, these efforts paid off, as families saw prices come back under control with inflation easing thanks to lower growth rates as of June this year. Unfortunately, the year’s financial problems had only just begun. Just as inflation was easing, the country felt the domino effects of slowdowns of major economies like the US, Japan, Germany, the UK and China. Governments everywhere pumped hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out their economies and support enterprises, but reports of failing businesses and rising unemployment continued to fill the pages of the newspaper.
With its economy intertwined in the global scene, Viet Nam also witnessed the initial signals of economic slowdown. After 18 months of ceaseless increases, month-on-month CPI fell 0.19 per cent in October and continued to drop 0.76 per cent in November. The GSO predicts that CPI will continue to fall in December.
As countries put all of their resources into keeping their own economies up, Viet Nam suffers the consequences, watching falls in foreign direct investment, industrial production, exports, and subsequently consumption in the fourth quarter.
To deal with this economic downturn, while avoiding inflation, the Government issued five groups of solutions at a conference in mid-November. Most notably, it pledged to inject US$1 billion from the nation’s foreign reserves to stimulate the economy.
At a meeting with young enterprises on December 14, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung said the money would be used to build houses for the poor, support farmers, workers and students and others feeling the greatest impact of the global economic crisis.
The fund would be used for infrastructure construction, irrigation work, schools and hospitals. The Government also pledged to exempt or reduce company taxes.
Hung later unveiled an economic stimulus package of up to $6 billion, with the final figures and specifics to be announced by the end of December.
Global and domestic economic turmoil have inevitably had their consequences. While the country originally targeted a growth rate of 8.2 per cent of GDP, that figure had to be cut. As the end of the year approaches, that figure will likely be close to 6.5 per cent. That figure is still impressive in the global context, and foreign direct investment should still reach over $60 billion, with the trade deficit hitting around $17 billion.
Expanded Ha Noi
One of the country’s greatest geographic changes of the year was the expansion of the capital’s administrative borders, ratified by the National Assembly in May, and coming into effect on August 1.
The new capital now has a total area of 3,325sq.km (or 334,470ha) with a population of over 6 million, double from the previous 3 million, living in 29 districts and 577 wards, communes and townships.
The expanded city includes the former Ha Tay Province, four communes from Luong Son District in Hoa Binh Province, and Me Linh District in Vinh Phuc Province.
Those borders continued to be changed throughout the year, as municipal authorities decided to set up Ha Dong District (instead of the previous Ha Dong City) and Son Tay Township (instead of the previous Son Tay City), at a four-day meeting of the Ha Noi People’s Council that concluded on December 12.
Historic rains and flood
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The severe rain that flooded Ha Noi’s inner city blocked traffic not only in the downtown area, but also the Lang - Hoa Lac freeway. | While the country is no stranger to natural calamities, the capital and its neighbouring regions suffered severely this year, witnessing from October 30 to November 3 the most serious rains they had seen in the past 24 years.
The damage was extreme for the area, costing both dollars and lives. The death toll reached a devastating 94 and damages are estimated at VND7.3 trillion ($430 million), according to official statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).
Tens of thousands of households were waterlogged during the flood, while transportation, power stations, health care centres and schools were also seriously damaged.
The rains may be over, but the damage to regional agriculture will continue to be felt. The floods destroyed 210,000ha of vegetables, 30,000ha of rice, 10,000ha of orchards, 40,000ha of fish ponds and nearly 200,000 livestock animals.
The deputy director of the National Centre for Hydro-meteorological Forecast, Nguyen Lan Chau, said that such sudden heavy rain had rarely occurred in the country’s history, noting that the root cause was almost certainly global warming.
Affected provinces included Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Hoa Binh, Vinh Phuc, Thanh Hoa, Quang Binh, Quang Ngai, Bac Giang, Ninh Binh, Thai Nguyen and Phu Tho.
UNSC chair
Viet Nam made history on the world stage this year, taking a seat for the first time as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on January 1 for the 2008-09 term.
The position was heightened as the country took the chair of UNSC in July.
Taking advantage of this position, Viet Nam affirmed its increasing political role in settling issues of international conflict to ensure security in the world.
"Viet Nam is committed to contributing to the settlement of conflicts through dialogue and peaceful negotiation, and respects the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries," said Ambassador Le Luong Minh, Viet Nam’s permanent representative to the UNSC at a conference in July.
The country took part in important activities of the UNSC and chaired a high-ranking open discussion following the monthly agenda. Viet Nam further helped build UNSC working programmes and agendas and helped countries reach joint agreements.
Viet Nam hosted and managed around 40 closed and public conferences in July. In its capacity as chair, the country worked with media outlets and reported the outcome of UNSC’s conferences to UN member countries.
As the main representative of the UNSC, Viet Nam also held regular meetings with the UN Secretary General and other senior leaders of the UN’s Secretariat, the President of the UN’s General Assembly, the President of the UN’s Economic and Social Council, and those countries whose pressing issues needed attention.
Uncle Ho
As Viet Nam reaches new heights and moves forward, it continues to remember the past and pay tribute to its national hero. The movement ‘Studying and Following the late President’s morals’ was evidence of this, with several activities carrying his legend forward.
One of these activities reached out to thousands of local residents and Vietnamese living abroad, encouraging them to come forward in a competition on telling stories about Ho Chi Minh’s exemplary morals.
Dozens of other activities helped remind the Vietnamese people, from leaders and senior officials to workers and farmers, that in these times of change they must strive to lead a virtuous life, struggling against corruption, red tape and waste.
Environmental woes
The country opened its eyes to environmental crimes on Vietnamese soil this year, witnessing a company’s blatant disregard effectively killing a section of the Thi Vai River.
Vedan Viet Nam Co, a Taiwan-invested monosodium glutamate (MSG) producer, was caught red-handed dumping untreated waste into the river in southern Dong Nai Province, killing almost every form of life in the water surrounding the plant.
The company had been pumping waste into the river through a concealed underground pipe system since 1994.
These actions led to immeasurable pollution levels in the river’s waters and surrounding land. Hundreds of households have since launched law suits against Vedan, claiming that the pollution has devastated their aquaculture.
Faced with such an alarming crime, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung released instructions in November that Vedan must follow directives by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment or face a complete shut down.
Vedan had its licence suspended, was fined VND267.5 million ($16,718), and charged another VND127 billion ($7.7 million) in over-due environmental protection fees.
"The punishments for Vedan’s violations of environmental protection rules must be implemented strictly and clearly in appropriate steps, to ensure that it will stop dumping waste into the water source, ending the serious environmental pollution and maintaining production," Dung once said.
Scientists held a seminar to see if they could save the polluted river on December 10. The proposals include the development of a mangrove and cajeput forest to absorb pollutants in the water, controlling discharge sources and supervising wastewater discharge, digging an irrigation canal to link Thi Vai with Dong Nai River with the difference in tides diluting the level of pollutants.
While these actions may help buffer the damage, the region will likely suffer for decades, and the incident brought much needed attention to pollution taking place all over the country.
(Source: VNS) | 29/12/2008Press release from MUNICH RE 29th December 2008
A large number of tropical cyclones and the earthquake in Sichuan made 2008 one of the most devastating years on record. Although there was a drop in the number of loss-producing events compared with the previous year (from 960 to 750), individual catastrophes pushed up the numbers of victims and the losses appreciably. Throughout the world, more than 220,000 people died as a result of natural catastrophes this year. Overall losses totalled some US$ 200bn (2007: US$ 82bn) but were still below the record set in 2005 (US$ 232bn in current values). Insured losses in 2008 rose to US$ 45bn, about 50% higher than in the previous year.
Driven by high losses from weather-related natural catastrophes, 2008 was – on the basis of figures adjusted for inflation – the third most expensive year on record, exceeded only by the hurricane year of 2005 and by 1995, the year of the Kobe earthquake. Torsten Jeworrek, member of Munich Re's Board of Management: "This continues the long-term trend we have been observing. Climate change has already started and is very probably contributing to increasingly frequent weather extremes and ensuing natural catastrophes. These, in turn, generate greater and greater losses because the concentration of values in exposed areas, like regions on the coast, is also increasing further throughout the world." Munich Re is a world leader in terms of investigating risks from natural hazards of all kinds. "2008 has again shown how important it is for us to analyse risks like climate change in all their facets and to manage the business accordingly," said Jeworrek.
Some of the main events in detail:
In 2008, Asia was again the continent affected by the worst human catastrophes. Cyclone Nargis is estimated to have claimed the lives of more than 135,000 people in Myanmar: 85,000 deaths have been officially confirmed, whilst 54,000 people are still missing. With very high wind speeds, record rainfalls, and a storm surge, the tropical storm caused devastation primarily in the low-lying Irrawaddy Delta and in the old capital, Rangoon. Since large parts of the mangrove forests – a natural form of coastal protection – have disappeared in recent years, there was nothing to prevent storm surge travelling as far as 40 km inland. The country was inundated with water up to 3.5 metres deep, and more than a million of Myanmar’s inhabitants were made homeless.
The earthquake that hit the Chinese province of Sichuan, a region classified as being highly exposed to earthquake, was a further human catastrophe. According to official statistics, around 70,000 people were killed, 18,000 are still missing, 374,000 were injured, and almost five million were made homeless. At the same time, the Sichuan quake – which occurred in May – also produced the largest single overall loss of 2008. The total figure of US$ 85bn made it the second most expensive event of its kind after the Kobe earthquake (Japan, 1995).
Earlier in the year, China had already suffered enormous losses amounting to more than US$ 21bn due to an unusual cold spell with huge volumes of ice and snow. These had a major impact on the infrastructure in 18 provinces: roads and railways were blocked and in some places destroyed, and the electricity supply collapsed.
In terms of insured losses, Hurricane Ike was the most expensive individual event in 2008. Whereas in the previous two years, the US mainland had largely been spared by heavy cyclones, the 2008 hurricane season generated substantial losses which also affected the insurance industry. Six tropical cyclones (Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gustav, Hanna, and Ike) reached the US coast in close succession this year, the severest being Ike, which made landfall as a Category 2 hurricane near Galveston (Texas). The storm surge triggered by Ike submerged large sections of the Texas and Louisiana coast. As the storm progressed over the mainland, extreme precipitation caused more and more damage, resulting in an insured loss estimated at US$ 15bn (not including the claims covered under the National Flood Insurance Program). The overall loss caused by Ike was US$ 30bn. The year’s second most expensive hurricane was Gustav, with an overall loss of US$ 10bn and an insured loss of US$ 5bn.
The number of tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic in 2008 was much higher than the long-term average and also higher than the average of the current warm phase since 1995, which is more pronounced as a result of climate change. A total of 16 tropical cyclones were counted during the year; the average for the warm phase so far is 14.7. Eight of these windstorms reached hurricane strength, five of them being classified as major hurricanes (Categories 3–5). In terms of both the total number of storms and the number of major hurricanes, 2008 is the fourth most severe hurricane season since reliable data have been available. The tornado season in the United States, which runs from April to September, was also unusually severe. There were roughly 1,700 tornadoes in 2008, generating an aggregated loss of several billion US dollars.
According to provisional estimates published by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), 2008 was the tenth warmest year since the beginning of routine temperature recording and the eighth warmest in the northern hemisphere. This means that the ten warmest years ever recorded have all occurred in the last 12 years. "It is now very probable that the progressive warming of the atmosphere is due to the greenhouse gases emitted by human activity. The logic is clear: when temperatures increase, there is more evaporation and the atmosphere has a greater capacity to absorb water vapour, with the result that its energy content is higher. The weather machine runs in top gear, bringing more intense severe weather events with corresponding effects in terms of losses. This relationship is already visible today in the increasing heavy precipitation events in many regions of the earth, the heat waves, and the hurricanes in the North Atlantic. The loss statistics for 2008 fit the pattern that the calculations of climate models lead us to expect," said Prof. Peter Höppe, Head of Munich Re’s Geo Risks Research.
Compared with the devastation that natural catastrophes caused in Asia and America in 2008, the losses in Europe were relatively moderate. Nevertheless, there were also two events in Europe that generated billion-dollar losses for the insurance industry. At the beginning of March, an intense low-pressure system named Emma swept across large parts of central Europe with very high wind speeds, thunderstorms, and hail; in Germany, Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Switzerland, and Austria, it caused an overall loss of US$ 2bn, of which US$ 1.5bn was insured.
Hilal, a low-pressure storm that crossed southwestern Germany (especially Baden-Württemberg) at the end of May and the beginning of June, caused major damage due to strong gusts, hailstorms, and flash floods. With an insured loss of US$ 1.1bn, Hilal was the seventh most expensive natural catastrophe in the global statistics for the year.
Board member Dr. Torsten Jeworrek: "For us as a leading reinsurer, the natural catastrophe trends of recent years have resulted in three action strategies, which we are resolutely pursuing. Firstly, we accept risks in our core business only at risk-adequate prices, so that if the exposure situation changes, we adjust the pricing structure. Secondly, with our expertise we develop new business opportunities in the context of climate protection and adaptation measures. Thirdly, in the international debate, we – as a company – press for effective and binding rules on CO2 emissions, so that climate change is curbed and future generations do not have to live with weather scenarios that are difficult to control." Munich Re performs scientific analyses on the effects of climate change and cooperates with many scientific institutes. In 2008, Munich Re launched a cooperation with Professor Lord Nicholas Stern and the London School of Economics (LSE), the aim being to advance research into the economic impact of climate change.
Munich Re actively supports ambitious climate protection goals. This approach also opens up enormous opportunities because of the new technologies that emerge with very large growth potential. As a risk carrier with innovative coverage concepts in the field of alternative sources of energy (wind, solar, geothermal), Munich Re promotes these technologies and thus secures additional business potentials for itself. Board member Dr. Torsten Jeworrek: "The next climate summit in Copenhagen must quite clearly fix the route for reducing greenhouse gases by at least 50% by 2050 with corresponding milestones. If we delay too long, it will be very costly for future generations."
Munich Re assigns natural catastrophes to one of six categories for assessment purposes. The annual list includes all events with more than ten fatalities and/or losses running into millions.
Service: As of January 2009, graphs and tables derived from current analyses of natural catastrophes will be available at our NatCatSERVICE download centre www.munichre.com/geo.
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for Preventing Typhoon Damage to Housing in Central Vietnam
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