Today, Vietnam has made significant achievements in its economy, health, education and urban sectors. The recent conclusion of the APEC meeting in Hanoi, showed the international community just how much of an “Asian Tiger” Vietnam hopes to become. What must people did not see on the news while following President Bush and others travel to Vietnam was the preparation the Vietnamese government in order to exert a good image.
Peasants around Vietnam were carted off weeks before and relocated to camps outside of Hanoi’s city limits. Soldiers were particularly sent to homes of political dissidents (Pham Que Duong, Hoang Tien, Nguyen Khac Toan, Nguyen Van Dai, Le Thi Cong Nhan, Tran Khai Thanh Thuy, Nguyen Phuong Anh) that were under house arrest. In addition, my sources from Vietnam stated that the international media was trying to contact several citizens to talk to them about Vietnam. However, they were either forced from seeing these individuals or the Vietnamese government cut off their telephone lines to prevent communication.
The Vietnamese government must take several steps to opening up its country and fixing its internal social crisis such as population growth so that Vietnam can emerge as a full grown “Asian Tiger” in the future.
Early this week, President Bush went to Vietnam to discuss a variety of issues with the country’s leaders. He was also there to address the annual APEC meeting that enables the region to further establish and promote sustainable development, a favorable business environment and enhancing human security. Unfortunately, the issues of the economic meeting were overshadow by President Bush’s remarks and the issue of Iraq.
He failed in Vietnam to gain a hard line stance communiqué against North Korea, which further illustrates his diminishing power in wake of his party’s election defeat. He might have thought the general public of Vietnam would have welcomed him like they did Clinton. Instead, he was greeted with discontent from Vietnam to Indonesia.
Mr. Bush, there is a reason why we study history. History will show us the mistakes our country made in the past. When will you start to pay attention to history? I believe your place in history will be more than just a comma, much more!
Today’s Talk will feature an international political topic between two very important countries, China and India. Much has been said within the United States concerning the trade deficit that we occur with China. However, we often don’t hear about the other side to China with respect to their trading partners in their region. China and India are extremely crucial in providing stability in the Asian-Pacific region and internationally. They are the fastest growing economies along with having the fastest population growth.
The President of China made a historic trip to India yesterday to further show the commitment between the two trading partners. It is expected that the two will exceed $20 billion worth in trade in 2007 which is quite an accomplishment considering bilateral relations have not always be amicable. However, relations between the two are far different from the early 60s.
There are still ongoing issues between the two countries with India stating that the quality of goods is not up to par with their standards and China stating that India is blocking investments in key areas.
With the conclusion of the recent APEC meeting in Vietnam, the U.S. must now watch carefully how trading between India and China will effect the trading status with the U.S.
Further statistical information can be found here:
China Statistics and Analysis
India Country Profile (PDF) (very detailed)
As a continuation of my earlier introduction 101 to the Darfur crisis, introduction 151 will go into a bit more detail now that you are familiar with who is fighting and why.
The conflict started in early 2003 with a peace deal in 2004 being reached. However, since then many states along with the United Nations have passed and/or condemned the acts of violence in Sudan. But who exactly is helping to bring peace to the region? And what happen to the peace deal?
Which countries are helping?
Well, the African Union has over 7,000 troops, which have been sent to the region. This number is far to few to cover the area needed to obtain security in the region. In addition, the training of the soldiers to combat the violence is less than adequate. The African Union itself is poorly funded which means the amount of time that is required to obtain and sustain peace in Darfur outreaches the African Union’s ability.
The United Nations has called for and agreed to sent UN peacekeeping soldiers of roughly 17,000 troops and 3,000 UN police men. However, the Sudan government has not allowed this force to obtain rights to enter into the country.
What happen to the peace deal?
Basically, nobody lived up to the deal. The SLA leader could not control the smaller factions of his group, which have committed numerous abuses to the people of Sudan. The actual government did not enforce the terms of the peace deal to disarm the Janjaweed either. Read more here. The actual terms of the peace deal included:
- A permanent cease-fire and the exact language of the peace deal were determined.
- The government and the southern rebels had agreed to set up a 39,000-strong army comprising fighters from both sides.
- The south should be autonomous for six years.
- Three border areas with special status were initiated where power is to be shared.
As always, I hope this information is informative to anyone wanting to know more about the crisis in the Sudan and stay tune for further information on this issue.
Further information:
Security Council resolution 1574 (2004)
Security Council resolution 1556 (2004)
Security Council resolution 1564 (2004)
Not too many of us are familiar with the crisis that is happening in Darfur. The warning signs were far too evident years ago that Sudan would end up in complete devastation due to hatred amongst its people.
So Today’s Talk will feature a brief 101 introduction course on the Darfur conflict to enable us to know what is taking place in our international community.
As the United States occupation of Iraq continues, many of us continue to watch the news of the endless battles that the American troops are fighting against. One town named Fallujah is right in the heartland of the bloodshed as hundreds of thousands of civilians are caught between two sides. We rarely encounter documentaries on how civilians in Fallujah are expected to survive once the fighting is over. Unfortunately, the fighting is still not over and these civilians trapped inside Fallujah must struggle to keep their families alive.
Mark Manning, an independent filmmaker shows us the other side of the story that the mainstream American media often does not show. He lived with the citizens of Fallujah un-embedded and experienced life from their perspectives after their city was completely destroyed in an operation known as “Phantom Fury.”
So with fulfilling Mark’s promise on sharing his story to the rest of the word, you can watch the two part mini documentary on the aftermath of “Phantom Fury.”
Watch Part One
Watch Part Two
This is part 2 (part 1) of my topic on government involvement with 9/11. If you have not watched Loose Change already, I highly recommend that you watch that first before watching Barrie Zwicker’s documentary titled “The Great Conspiracy.” My goal here is to present you with evidence and theories that you may not know about or had questions when 9/11 actually happened. Mr. Zwicker gives an excellent historical analysis to further illustrate that governments/leaders have took part in the destruction of their own system to gain and/or to keep power. After the historical analysis, Mr. Zwicker goes into the deception and lies of President Bush and his staff on September 11th and afterwards.
Barrie Zwicker’s website states that he is an independent documentary producer, author and social and political activist. During 2001-2002 TV season, Zwicker hosted VisionTV Insight: The MediaFile Edition, “a weekly half-hour commercial-free alternative look at the media,” moderated its media panel and provided a commentary each program. Six of his MediaFile commentaries that season — a series titled “What Really Happened on Sept. 11th?” – made him the first mainstream television journalist in the world to go on air and deeply question the official story of the events of 9/11. The commentaries elicited the greatest response of any programming in the channel’s history. The response was literally 99% positive. The series became known as “The Great Deception” and was released on video under that title.
Watch The Great Deception NOW!
With the ratification of UNSC Resolution 1718, it would seem that the international community was giving North Korea nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Little can be done to force North Korea to stop producing nuclear weapons and as North Korea has stepped out of the six party talks, future negotiations stand at a halt. The U.S. foreign policy with North Korea has failed along with embarrassment to several other countries most notably China. China has the closest bilateral engagement policies with North Korea and with the nuclear test done on October 6th, China must now at all cost try to prevent a military escalation. China will not impose certain restrictions as called for by Resolution 1718. My thought on this matter is that as “close friends” China will do everything possible to keep a good standing between the countries not to mention the need for a peaceful and stable region.
