WEEKS 10 – 2011 (28 Feb. – 06 Mar.

2011)

THE WORLD THIS WEEK

Fighting between forces loyal to LIBYA'S leader, Muammar Qaddafi, and his opponents in the
east grew fiercer. He remains in control of Tripoli, the capital, and is battling to seize back
towns under rebel control. Western and Arab leaders discussed whether a no-fly zone should
be imposed.

The UN said that the humanitarian situation caused by the fighting was dire, with more than
100,000 refugees from Libya in makeshift camps across the borders with EGYPT and Tunisia.
The UN suspended Libya from the Human Rights Council; the International Criminal Court
opened an investigation into possible crimes against humanity committed by Libya's
leaders.

The Egyptian prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, stepped down, as did the TUNISIAN prime
minister, Mohamed Ghannouchi. Protests continued in both countries, with pro-democracy
campaigners complaining about the slow pace of reform and the continuing presence of
allies of the former regimes.

Demonstrations got angrier in YEMEN'S capital, Sana'a, and in other towns across the
country. At least 27 people are reported to have been killed since the protests began a few
weeks ago. President Ali Abdullah Saleh's offer to form a unity government failed to quell the
unrest.

At least one person was killed in protests by jobless and ill-paid youths in Sohar, a port city
in hitherto peaceful OMAN. Days later, however, thousands of Omanis took to the streets in
support of Sultan Qaboos, who has promised reform.
Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, leaders of the IRANIAN opposition Green
Movement, have been thrown in jail, according to their families. Thousands of protesters
took to the streets in response, leading, said the opposition, to 200 arrests.

Six men were killed in an apparent assassination or coup attempt in CONGO. Shooting broke
out in Kinshasa, the capital, after unidentified men armed with guns, rocket-propelled
grenades and machetes attacked the home of Joseph Kabila, the president.

Shahbaz Bhatti, PAKISTAN'S minister for minorities, was gunned down outside his home in
Islamabad. Mr Bhatti, a Christian, was a critic of Pakistan's harsh blasphemy laws, as was
Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, who was assassinated two months ago. A message
left at the scene of Mr Bhatti's murder promised death to those who offer support to
blasphemers.

A court in the INDIAN state of Gujarat found 31 Muslim men guilty for the deaths of 59 Hindu
activists who died in a fire at a railway station in 2002. The killings at Godhra ignited rioting
in which at least 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, were massacred. Eleven of the defendants
were sentenced to death.

India's Supreme Court ordered the head of the country's ANTI-CORRUPTION commission to
resign, because he faces corruption charges.

The recently retired head of BOLIVIA'S drug police was arrested in Panama and sent to the
United States to face charges of trafficking cocaine. Three other senior police officers were
arrested in Bolivia. In its annual report this week the International Narcotics Control Board, a
UN body, complained about the failure of the government of Evo Morales, Bolivia's
president, to curb cocaine production.
BRAZIL'S government said it would scale back planned spending on housing for the poor,
postpone the purchase of 36 fighter jets for the air force and freeze the federal government
payroll as part of its effort to cool an overheating economy.

Voters in IRELAND threw out their Fianna Fail-led government at an election. The new
government will be led by Fine Gael's Enda Kenny, whose party scored its best result ever.
Mr Kenny has promised to secure a better deal from the European Union on Ireland's bail-
out.

The DUTCH GOVERNMENT looked set to lose its majority in the upper-house Senate after its
coalition partners did badly in regional elections.

FRANCE'S president, Nicolas Sarkozy, sacked his controversial foreign minister, Michele
Alliot-Marie, over her apparently close links with the ousted Tunisian regime. Her job went to
a former Gaullist prime minister, Alain Juppe.

The GERMAN DEFENCE MINISTER, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, was forced to quit after a
long row over plagiarism in his doctoral thesis.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was reluctant to lose the popular Mr zu Guttenberg, replaced
him with a Christian Democrat stalwart, Thomas de Maiziere.

Two American air force servicemen were shot dead and two were wounded when a gunman
opened fire on a military bus at FRANKFURT AIRPORT. A suspect, apparently from Kosovo,
was arrested.

A Bangladeshi man was found guilty by a court in London of involvement in a plot to blow up
AIRLINERS. Rajib Karim worked as a software engineer for British Airways, where he
contacted Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born radical cleric based in Yemen.
The continuing instability in the Middle East caused STOCKMARKETS in the Gulf region to
tumble. Saudi Arabia's main share-price index fell to a 23-month low amid worries about the
potential for unrest among the Shia population in the oil-producing east of the country, while
the benchmark indices in Dubai and Kuwait hit six-year lows. Meanwhile, the chief economist
at the International Energy Agency predicted that "the age of cheap OIL is over". Brent
crude traded at around $115 a barrel.

In his twice-yearly report to Congress BEN BERNANKE, the chairman of the Federal Reserve,
gave warning that surging prices in oil and other commodities could hamper America's
economic recovery, but said he did not anticipate a big rise in inflation.

Revised data showed that China held $1.16 trillion in American TREASURIES at the end of
2010, around 30% more than had been thought. Japan was the second-largest foreign holder
of American government debt, with $882 billion in Treasuries.

There was a political row in Bangladesh when the central bank moved to have MUHAMMAD
YUNUS dismissed as managing director of Grameen, a pioneering bank in microfinance
lending to the poor, ostensibly because at 70 he is above the mandatory retirement age. Mr
Yunus, a Nobel prize-winner, has strained relations with the Bangladeshi prime minister.

JOHN GALLIANO was sacked as Christian Dior's lead designer for professional misconduct.
This came after a video surfaced of Mr Galliano apparently making anti-Semitic remarks to
customers in a Paris restaurant and declaring "I love Hitler". Mr Galliano was admitted to the
French Legion of Honour in 2009.

High Vietnam coffee price spooks Asian exporters

Reuters 2 March 2011

Record domestic coffee prices in Vietnam have spooked exporters struggling to secure
supply as farmers fail to honour contracts, while demand from local roasters is stirring up
trade in Indonesia, dealers said on Friday. Many farmers in Vietnam, the world's largest
robusta producer, refused to deliver beans to exporters after domestic prices rallied to an
all-time high of 46 million dong ($2,205) a tonne, creating artificial tightness in the market.

Vietnamese beans were offered at discounts of $100 to $120 a tonne to London's May
contract, smaller than discounts of $140 to $150 quoted last week. “I think half of the
exporters are trying to fulfill the contracts from the previous crop. The farmers are the key
problem,” said a dealer in Singapore. They don't even care if you want to sue them in court.
They just don't want to sell their coffee even after you remind them that they had signed a
contract a few months ago to sell beans at certain level, he added.

Vietnam's 2010-11 output rose 2% from the previous season, slightly below past estimates,
with some traders citing smaller beans as a reason for their downward revisions, a Reuters
poll showed.

HSBC: a fanfare for Vietnam

By Ben Bland, Financial Times, 3 March 2011

HSBC has stuck its head above the parapet (dung cam tuyen bo) to predict that Vietnam’s
troubled economy will turn around this year and foreign investors will return after the
government unveiled a raft(so luong lon) of proposals to tighten monetary and fiscal policy.
Economist Sherman Chan argued in a note on Friday that policy makers were heading in
the right direction “after years of impressive but arguably unsustainable growth”, which
have led to high inflation, a wide trade deficit and a persistently weak currency. Others,
however, are less impressed. Chan said recent measures, such as a large devaluation of the
currency, an increase in inter-bank lending rates, a lower target for credit growth and
reductions in spending, showed the government’s belated determination to tackle
fundamental economic imbalances.
“The economy should enter a new, more sustainable trajectory (duong cong) in 2011,” she
wrote, predicting that foreign investors, some of whom have been scared away by ongoing
turbulence(su bat an), would return towards the end of this year: “Vietnam is now at a
critical stage in terms of restoring confidence. Thankfully, the previously murky (toi tam/u
am) policy stance(lap truong) is gradually becoming clear after the National Congress in
January. Although there were no substantial changes in the leadership, with the prime
minister retaining his position, the reshuffle (su cai to nhan su) of other roles and
confirmation of the nomination line-up seem to have helped on the policymaking front. The
country has now taken welcome steps in improving economic stability and steering towards
sustainable growth.” Chan predicted that monetary and fiscal tightening would have a
minimal impact on growth, nudging down HSBC’s GDP forecast for 2011 to 7 per cent from
7.5 per cent and for 2012 to 7.4 per cent from 7.8 per cent. She forecast that annual
inflation, currently at 12.3 per cent, would fall to single digits by the end of the year,
averaging 9.9 per cent in 2011.

While investors and economists have welcomed the recent policy announcements, many
are less enthusiastic about the government’s ability to follow through on its promises.
“The government is making the right noises about stabilising the economy, but this seems
more like crisis management than an attempt to seriously alter course,” said one foreign
investor. Saigon Securities, a brokerage based in Ho Chi Minh City, is among those urging
investors to remain on the sidelines “until we see signs of stabilization of inflation and
effective results of recently announced government policies.” It argued in its latest strategy
note that inflation would hit nearly 15 per cent this year and that higher interest rates and
tighter monetary and fiscal policy would seriously dent (damage) Vietnam’s growth
prospects.

The brokerage predicted that GDP growth would not exceed 5 per cent this year, way below
the government’s target of 7 to 7.5 per cent, and approaching effective ‘recession’ territory.
With around a million young people joining the work force each year, economists believe
Vietnam needs to grow at a minimum of 4 to 5 per cent just to ensure there are enough jobs
to go round. Vietnam is certainly facing a long list of challenges, as Chan acknowledges: “In
a nutshell, Vietnam is experiencing double-digit inflation, a wide trade gap, lingering
(continue to exist) depreciation pressures, low foreign reserves, a large fiscal deficit, and an
under-performing state-owned sector that is also consuming a disproportionately high share
of resources. Many of these issues indeed reinforce each other.”

If the government is to succeed in tackling these issues, it will have to stick to its
guns(refuse to change actions or ideas) when the pain of borrowing rates of more than 20
per cent and possible spending cuts bite later in the year.

Vietnam, Laos Split Over Mekong Dam

IPS 2 march 2011

The first in a new series of 11 dams planned across the Mekong, Southeast Asia’s largest
river, could break a special bond between two communist-ruled countries. Critics in Vietnam
see red over a 1,260-megawatt hydropower project planned by their smaller, poorer, land-
locked neighbour, Laos. They call it an environmental disaster. Laos, however, wants to be
the powerhouse of the region—to sell power to its neighbours and earn enough to help the
poor, that is a third of its population of 5.8 million.

The dam in an idyllic hill setting in the north Laos province of Xayaburi (or Sayaboury), will
be built by a Thai developer. Thailand is expected to buy 95 percent of its power to fuel its
booming economy. Environmentalists say the Xayaburi dam and 10 more such constructions
planned on the Mekong’s mainstream, nine in Laos, make a Faustian bargain. The dam will
"reduce fresh water and silt (lam day bun/nghen bun) downstream in Vietnam and devastate
fishing among others," stated ‘Tuoi Tre’, the country’s largest circulating paper, published
by the Communist Youth Organisation from Ho Chi Minh City (former Saigon) in the south.
The potential threat of the 3.5 billion dollar dam in the Mekong delta, Vietnam’s "biggest
rice producing and fish farming area", has been highlighted by The Saigon Times too.

Vietnam’s government officials have raised their voice against the 32-metre- tall, 820-
metre-wide dam. "If built, Laos’ Xayaburi dam will greatly affect Vietnam’s agriculture
production and aquaculture," deputy minister of natural resources and environment Nguyen
Thai Lai reportedly said in a meeting of the country’s Mekong River experts. Such criticism
goes against the spirit of a 1977 treaty of friendship and cooperation that binds them in a
‘special relationship’. The treaty followed the communist triumph against the US in the
Vietnam War.

Towards the end of the Cold War conflict from 1954 to 1975 the communist North Vietnam
defeated and annexed (sat nhap) the US supported South Vietnam. The protracted (keo dai)
conflict left a long trail of death and destruction in the former French Indochina territory that
includes Laos and Cambodia. "The criticism reflects the concerns and the opinion of the
public and the government," said Nguy Thi Khanh, deputy director of the Centre for Water
Resources Conservation and Development, an NGO based in the northern Vietnam city of
Hanoi. Vietnamese scientists have also said "the project should be stopped," Khanh added
during a telephone interview from the Vietnamese capital. "Vietnam’s silence about this
dam has been broken."

For its part, the Laotian government is still sticking to its plan. "We are confident that the
Xayaburi Hydroelectric Power Project will not have any significant impact on the Mekong
mainstream," officials from Vientiane (the capital of Laos) have explained in a note to the
Mekong River experts. Mekong experts from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam—the
four countries that share the waters of the lower Mekong—are meeting in late March to
approve the Xayaburi dam plans.

Laos has appealed to its neighbours not to place any roadblocks. The government does not
want to raise the political stakes to the point of being compelled to get its dam blueprint
approved by ministers or even prime ministers. "There will be no need for any extension of
time and no need to forward this matter to the (ministerial) level," revealed the note by the
Laotian government to Mekong River experts.

This dam issue has become the first major test of environmental diplomacy for the four
countries in the lower Mekong, members of the Mekong River Commission (MRC). An inter-
governmental body that came up after a 1995 agreement, the Vientiane-based body aims to
manage the development of the Mekong basin in consensus. Any plan to dam the Mekong
has to be scrutinised for its cross-border impact under a special mechanism, formally known
as the Procedure for Notification Prior Consultation and Agreement (PNPCA). "This is the first
time that we are going through the prior consultation process," Jeremy Bird, MRC’s chief
executive officer, told IPS. "Countries do not have a veto right (to stop a dam being built in a
neighbouring country) yet countries cannot proceed without consultation."

The MRC’s members have to weigh the provision in the agreement that "a country cannot
act irresponsibly to impact its neighbour" against every member’s "right not to agree" and
ability to "take its own decision," added Rudi Veestraeten, Belgium’s envoy to Thailand. MRC
is funded by Belgium, along with other European countries, Australia and Canada. Till now
the 4,880-km long Mekong has remained free of dams along its journey through the basin,
winding its way past Burma along the four MRC partners till it falls in the South China Sea in
southern Vietnam.

But upstream, the river’s flow from its headwaters in the Tibetan plateau through southern
China has been harnessed by four dams in China’s Yunnan province, part of a cascade of
eight mega dams the Asian giant plans. Local activists, environmentalists and even
government experts of the lower Mekong are alarmed. The impact of the Chinese dams on
the downstream countries has strengthened the campaigns led by Towards Ecological
Recovery and Regional Alliance (TERRA), a Bangkok-based green lobby. TERRA warns that
dams on the lower Mekong will affect the lives of 60 million people who depend on food and
their livelihood from the river.

"Laos has not helped its case because the government has refused to make public the EIA
(environmental impact assessment) it has done for the Xayaburi dam," Premrudee
Daoroung, co-director of TERRA, told IPS. "The Laotian government says it is a secret
document." The dam blueprint puts red and green interests at loggerheads across an
international border.

Can Vietnam breed innovators?

Global Post 01 March 2011

Vo Van Toi’s high-tech laboratory clashes against its impoverished surroundings. Outside,
cattle roam swampy fields and squatters sell sugarcane from wooden huts. Inside, he shows
off his near-infrared spectroscopy machine, which measures oxygen content in blood, and a
CT scanner. The contrast sums up Vietnam’s current state of development: It’s a relatively
poor nation, with per-capita GDP of $3,000, trying to follow its larger Asian neighbors’ leap
into an era of skyscrapers and international commerce. To do that, it needs to bring in a
plethora of new technology — and the innovators who come with it.

So where can Vietnam get its base of engineers, scientists and academics? From abroad,
especially from overseas Vietnamese who know the language and culture. They, like Vo, are
invigorating the country’s growth that reached double digits before the 2008 economic
downturn.

Vo is one of many, having returned to his hometown after he left the country in 1968, at the
height of the Vietnam War. With a doctorate from Switzerland, he worked as a postdoctoral
fellow at a combined Harvard-MIT biomedical engineering center before joining Tufts
University two decades ago. A specialist in ophthalmology equipment, he created Tufts’s
biomedical engineering program and helped launch its biomedical engineering department
in 2003. Vo accepted a professorship at International University, where he founded the
biomedical engineering department that now oversees about 60 students. “This is a good
time,” Vo said. “Medical device consumption here is huge, while the local supply is almost
nonexistent.” He expects a growing demand for his graduates, even if it takes a while for
Vietnam to kick off its growth.

In 2008, Vietnam reached a per capita income of $1,000, the lower end of the World Bank’s
middle-income range. The new wealth is collecting in urban areas, where factories and
slums are swelling against luxurious high-rises. But if Vietnamese universities don’t quickly
churn out enough engineers and scientists, says a 2009 government report, the Vietnam
dream will fall flat.

Economists call it the “middle income trap.” In this scenario — which has been taking its toll
on Thailand and Malaysia — poor countries become too reliant on cheap labor and
offshoring. They have trouble making the leap upward, that is, creating an educated
workforce that can research and design its own products. Vietnam’s successful neighbors,
such as Singapore and South Korea, invested heavily in universities and science to pull
themselves out of the trap. Today, Samsung and LG are world leaders in the mobile phone
and television industries.

It also appears Vietnam is following a Chinese model of economic growth that emphasizes
education, said Wolf Rieck, the president of the Vietnamese-German University. “There
seems to be a connection between Vietnam’s strategy to develop the economy from a low
level of productivity and industrialization,” he said, “to a science-based economy.” The
problem here, analysts say, is that while Vietnam has a high literacy rate of 90 percent,
Vietnamese universities have for decades pushed aside hard skills in favor of rote
memorization and communist theory. Companies complain graduates often need re-training.
“There’s a lack of competent engineers who are capable of fixing problems,” Vo said.

Intel learned that lesson two years ago. When the company was building a $1 billion chip
factory outside Ho Chi Minh City, it gave a basic screening exam on technology topics to
2,000 graduating students. Only 90 test-takers scored at least 60 percent, and half failed an
English competency test.
Vietnam is reaching out to overseas Vietnamese, seeking to persuade academics to return
to their former homeland and train students in hard skills. Vo's university, IU, operated
under a state-run umbrella group of schools called the Vietnam National University (VNU),
tries to alleviate “brain drain” by offering wages 10 times higher than many other local
universities.

Some IU students get the chance to study for two years at universities in the United States,
the United Kingdom or Australia, the sort of training that develops their English-language
and hard-science skills. IU, which was founded in 2003, says it's looking to Western
education models for inspiration. After several trips abroad to start the university, “we
learned from the U.S. and other English-speaking countries” on how to run a university, said
IU’s rector, Ho Thanh Phong.

Education here is becoming a big business. Between 2001 and 2006, the number of students
enrolled in universities or colleges here rose from about 900,000 to 1.6 million, according to
the World Bank. And by 2020, Vietnam hopes at least one of its schools will join the ranks of
the world's top 200 universities. To do that, the strategies are numerous. For instance,
Vietnam is appealing directly to foreign governments to help set up schools. One university
based on the German curriculum, the VGU in Ho Chi Minh City, opened its doors two years
ago to 32 students. It’s set to finish building its campus by 2016, hoping to enroll 12,000
students. In what was once a staunchly communist country closed off to foreigners, that sort
of collaboration is something of a breakaway. The university is the first of its kind to get a
charter, for example, that promises a level of academic freedom resembling that of
Germany.

Poor families struggling to cope with rising food prices in Vietnam

SOS Children 03 Mar 2011

Yesterday, the UK’s International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell announced the
results of two reviews looking into the UK’s future aid giving.

As part of the ‘Bilateral Aid Review’ conducted by the Department for International
Development (DFID), it was decided that all aid programmes in Vietnam would close by
2016. Until that time, DFID will continue helping Vietnam achieve its Millennium
Development Goals in primary education, HIV/AIDS prevention and sanitation.
Sanitation is a key area where the Vietnamese government continues to focus, as well as on
clean water supplies. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) this month announced that it
would loan Vietnam 1 billion dollars to improve clean water access for 3 million people. Four
out of every ten families in the largest cities have no water supply system and around
20,000 families will be provided with their first water connection.

In December, international donors including the ADB pledged 7.9 billion in total to Vietnam
for 2011. However, as with the UK government, some donors are starting to turn their
attention elsewhere when it comes to aid donations. In 2010, the amount pledged was
higher at 8.2 billion. Through the remaining years of DFID’s involvement (2011-2015) in
Vietnam, the UK expects to allocate a further 70 million pounds to help support existing
projects. The reduction in international aid to Vietnam is because of the country’s impressive
record on reducing poverty. The decision that DFID would close all its programmes by 2016
was made because Vietnam is now considered to be “a non-aid dependent middle income
country and a vibrant emerging economy”.

However, despite its strong economy, IRIN reports that some of Vietnam’s poorest families
are struggling to keep pace with sharp rises in the cost of food, fuel and electricity. Inflation
has been increasing each month since August 2010 and reached 12.2 per cent in January.
According to data from the World Health Organisation (WHO), around a fifth of Vietnamese
still survive on less than a dollar per day. Some experts on the country are therefore worried
many poor families will struggle to cope if prices rise much further.

Speaking to IRIN, one teacher in the capital Ho Chi Minh City spoke of how the rising food
costs are affecting her class sizes. Nguyen Bich Hanh said “fewer kids are coming to school
because they need to help their families”. So far, Vietnam has done well in ensuring almost
all children are enrolled in primary school and nearly 90 per cent complete at least five
years of school (according to the UN office of Vietnam). But with hard economic times
ahead, enrolment rates could lower as more children drop out. The teacher warns that even
though Vietnam is seen to be “richer”, for some families “this does not matter if [they]
cannot afford anything”.

Cut to aid from Britain not to affect Vietnam, minister says

DPA 3 March 2011

Vietnam would not be affected by Britain's decision to cut aid to the country, a Vietnamese
minister said Thursday. 'It is their [Britain's] business,' Minister of Planning and Investment
Vo Hong Phuc said. 'We have talked to them about the issue. The cutting of aid will not
affect Vietnam.' Britain plans to continue to help Vietnam meet its Millennium Development
Goals targets before stopping aid to the country in 2016, the British embassy said in a
statement Wednesday, referring to UN goals to fight disease, eradicate extreme poverty,
reduce child mortality and achieve universal primary education by 2015.

'As Vietnam is now a vibrant, emerging economy - a tremendous achievement - we will end
our bilateral development programme in Vietnam by 2016 to redirect our aid to poorer
countries that will need it more,' it said. Britain has promised to fund projects in primary
education, sanitization and HIV/AIDS prevention. The announcement followed a statement
Tuesday by Secretary of State for International Development Andrew Mitchell in London on
the outcome of a bilateral trade review, which aimed to reorganize Britain's aid programme.
Britain is to cut aid to 16 countries in total, including Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Russia and
Serbia. The British government, through the Department of International Development, has
provided more than 617 million dollars in grants to Vietnam since 1992. Around 12 million
people still live in poverty in Vietnam out of a total population of 86 million. The poverty rate
among ethnic minorities stands at more than 50 per cent.

Taiwan helps Vietnam clear unexploded bombs, reduce poverty

Focus Taiwan 2 March 2011

Quang Tri Province, Vietnam, March 3 (CNA) Taiwan's contribution to an international effort
to help Vietnam clear unexploded bombs and reduce poverty has won thanks, not just from
the local government but also from farmers who have benefited from the program, officials
said Thursday. Wu Jung-chuan, deputy chairman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' NGO
Affairs Committee, said that since 2009, Taiwan has worked with the Humpty Dumpty
Institute (HDI) of the United States in carrying out a poverty reduction, livelihood
improvement and unexploded ordnance (UXO) removal project in the country's Quang Tri
Province.

One of the farmers told CNA that his 15-year-old son was injured when an unexploded bomb
detonated three days after his birth, leaving him unable to talk. Over the years, the boy has
had to make his living working on rice paddies and making bricks. In September, with the
help of the Taiwan-U.S. program, he said, his son set up a mushroom farm near their house
and is now earning US$140 a month -- three times his previous income. Mushroom
cultivation is just one part of the project aimed at helping Vietnamese farmers get out of
poverty, Wu said. "With well-developed agriculture and a rich supply of farming experts, I
believe Taiwan can help expand the project to benefit even more Vietnamese people," he
added.

HDI Chairman Ralph Cwerman agreed, saying that in the coming two years, mushroom-
growing techniques will be brought to even more Vietnamese farmers -- a process that will
require further technical assistance from Taiwan. One goal, Cwerman said, is to make Quang
Tri Province the mushroon capital of Vietnam. He thanked Taiwan for contributing to the
project and noted that he is in talks with more than 30 countries, including Japan and
Germany, to solicit more funding. In terms of the UXO work to clear bombs left from the
Vietnam War, he quoted the Vietnamese government as saying it will be a difficult task that
is expected to take.

Calisto quits as Vietnam coach

AFP 2 March 2011

Henrique Calisto has resigned as coach of football-mad Vietnam, blaming media pressure
stemming from his team's failure at last year's Southeast Asia cup. The Vietnam Football
Federation on Wednesday accepted the Portuguese's letter of resignation, said its deputy
chairman Nguyen Lan Trung. Calisto, 58, is set to move to Thailand to coach Muang Thong
United, leaving behind a country where the national team has often struggled to meet the
high hopes of its passionate fans. "He set forth several reasons for the resignation, but the
main reason was media pressure against him and the team. He thought it's not good for the
young players and his exit will be better for the national team," Trung told AFP.

Calisto became Vietnam coach for the second time in 2008, when his team won the ASEAN
Cup, which brings together Southeast Asian nations every two years. He first held the
position in 2002 and spent several years after that coaching provincial teams. Vietnam lost
their ASEAN crown in December when they were beaten by Malaysia in the semi-finals in a
lacklustre performance that sparked disappointment among fans and media. Calisto could
not be reached for comment, but according to the Tuoi Tre newspaper, he said he had
received no respect despite his 11 years in Vietnamese football.
"I experienced much bitterness and difficulty in my football career in Vietnam, but also
enjoyed many successes with clubs and the national team. I think this is the right time to
say goodbye to Vietnamese football," it quoted him as saying. "I will become the coach for
Thailand's Muang Thong United," he added. Muang Thong temporary coach Robert
Procureur confirmed that Calisto would join the club. "I think he will start next Monday," he
said.

Johnny Tri Nguyen finds movie stardom in Vietnam

By G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle 04 March 2011

It's kind of a damnation of Hollywood that there's no prominent place for Johnny Tri Nguyen.
He was Spider-Man, after all, plus he spent most of his formative years in Los Angeles. The
Vietnamese immigrant even won a gold medal representing the United States with his
martial arts prowess in the 1998 Pan Am Games. But then again, what's the big deal? You
see Nguyen in nonstop action in his current film "Clash," which plays next Sunday at the San
Francisco International Asian American Film Festival and opens March 18 in San Jose, and
Netflix his previous hit, "The Rebel," and you'll agree he's where he needs to be: Vietnam. "I
did find limited opportunity in Hollywood in terms of the roles that are available," Nguyen
said via Skype from India, where he's working in a Bollywood action film. "It's more difficult
to get meaningful roles. There's a lot of Asian actors out there, but the roles aren't
challenging."

Nguyen isn't just your typical kick-ass action star. He's worked his way up in the film
industry, starting as a production assistant in small American films in the 1990s and working
his way up as a stuntman, a cinematographer and now as a screenwriter, producer and
actor. He was Tobey Maguire's stunt double in "Spider-Man 2," and was a villain in the Thai
actioner "The Protector." "The Rebel" (2007) is the highest-grossing film in Vietnamese
history. The second is "Clash," from 2009. Nguyen is the martial arts hero, screenwriter and
co-producer in both, and his real-life love, Thanh Van Ngo, is the female star of both films
(they're Vietnam's version of Brangelina).

Nguyen visited Vietnam with a purpose when he was filming "The Protector" in Thailand. His
uncle, actor Chanh Tin Nguyen, helped get him in the door in Hanoi. "I just took the
opportunity to go back to Vietnam because it's only an hour flight, and I go back and see
how it is, and I thought I could make a movie there." One reason is he learned many styles
of filmmaking and kung fu. "I learned all I needed to know about wire works in the 'Spider-
Man' movies. I learned about working with explosives in war films ("We Were Soldiers"). I
went to Thailand to see how they did the action scenes over there. In a way, if I go back to
Hollywood now, I can apply some of what I learned. "In Hollywood we're very light when we
hit each other - barely touching each other. But on 'The Protector' we wear pads, and kick
each other pretty hard, almost full power. That impact shows onscreen."

Nguyen is quick to point out he's not aching to get back to Hollywood. He's enjoying his
celebrity in Asia and is a box-office force. "I don't really have a big problem living up to that
at all," Nguyen said. "Everything's going pretty well for me. I don't have a long-term plan.
I'm more like, whatever comes, comes."