Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar will co-operate with each other in organising tours to their world cultural heritage sites, officials said at a seminar on Tuesday. The seminar focused on ways to present the four nations together as the Land of World Cultural Heritages. "I highly recommend connecting the world cultural heritages in a special tour of the four countries," said Nguyen Quy Phuong, director of the Travel Department under the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism. He said the seminar offered the opportunity to promote and introduce the tourism potentials of Vietnam and the neighbouring countries to international visitors, travel agencies and the international media personnel attending the four-day International Travel Exhibition Ho Chi Minh City 2011. Nim Sovann, deputy director of the Marketing and Promotion Department of Cambodia's Ministry of Tourism, emphasized the country's strength in cultural heritages, led by Angkor Wat Temple complex that has … [Read more...]

Developing big enough fruit material growing areas, and organizing production in accordance with clean production that meets GlobalGAP and VietGap standards are the things Mekong Delta need to do to promote fruit export.Fruit prices plummet, exports decrease, farmers suffer The total orchard area in Mekong Delta provinces has reportedly reached 285,000 hectares, accounting for 36 percent of the total fruit growing area of the country. In 2010 Mekong Delta put out 2.93 million tons of fruits, staying firmly as the number one fruit producer of the country. However, the fruit export turnover remains modest which does not truly reflect the actual potentials of the region. Production scale not big enough for export Vietnam has a lot of fruits famous in the world, including Cho Gao dragon fruit (in Tien Giang province), Tan Phuoc pineapple (Tien Giang), rambutan (Ben Tre and Vinh Long), thick skinned orange (Vinh Long), Nam Roi My Hoa pomelo (Vinh Long). Especially, Mekong Delta can … [Read more...]

He keeps them in warm, comfortable bug dorms, feeds them on meals of human blood with the occasional sugar water snack and lives in awe of their killing power. A Seattle BioMed researcher dissects mosquito salivary glands for parasites in this undated handout released to Reuters October 19, 2011 Photo: Reuters Seattle-based research scientist Stefan Kappe says mosquitoes are the most dangerous animals in the world. Which is probably why when his laboratory colleagues slice their heads off with miniscule needle-like scalpels and squeeze them with tweezers to extract early forms of the malaria parasite from their saliva glands, he feels no concern about cruelty to animals. Kappe has spent his working life trying to figure out how this tiny malaria-carrying insect can inflict so much death and disease on humans, and what he and his team can do to stop it. According to the World Health Organization, malaria kills a child every 45 … [Read more...]

Rock Saigon is not a burning, breaking-the-rule world of youth--but it is a gloomy world, where talents are wearing out gradually. Rock bands have to perform at night clubs. Linh, a senior rocker, said that rock music was imported into and developed strongly Saigon before 1975. At that time, rock music was favored and rockers were seen as freed and peace lovers, with moving anti-war songs. The image of anti-war rockers of that time recently appeared in Trinh Cong Son’s “Noi vong tay lon” (Circle of Unity), performed by rock band Unlimited D, which was warmly applauded by rock fans. In the period of renovation (starting from 1986), Saigon’s rock circle developed strongly, with famous bands like Yellow Skin, Black and White, The Morning, Bolt, Horizon, Sagometal, Ocean, Three Cats and Hac Kim Atomega. At present, though rock music in Saigon is gloomy, the city is still the home to 25 rock bands, half of Vietnam’s total rock bands. Ho Quang Hung, a … [Read more...]

Is it possible to kick the online games habit? Yes, but it isn’t easy, say experts.A pilot program in HCM City shows it can be done. Almost as difficult as drug rehab After four years living in the world of multiuser games, all Minh has left at the age of 29 is his bare hands and a big challenge: giving up games. “I started playing computer games just to know how it was,” Minh’s said. The first multiuser games were distributed in Vietnam in late 2004. At that time, Minh was temporarily working at an Internet café. He’d earned a degree in electro-magnetics but hadn’t yet found a suitable job. Minh at first played a multiuser game when the Internet café had few customers but he gradually became an afficianado. He started going to the Internet café at five or six am and returned home at midnight. Then he moved a bed into the back room and stayed at the Internet café all the time. At that time, Internet cafes … [Read more...]

The international community was quick to respond to the confirmation of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's death on Thursday by saying it hoped the National Transitional Council (NTC) would start to organize a democratic government. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Gaddafi's death and the end of fighting in the North African country mark "a historic transition for Libya." "Yet let us recognize immediately that this is only the end of the beginning -- the road ahead for Libya and its people will be difficult and full of challenges," the Secretary-General said in an interactive dialogue on global sustainability, which was organized by the UN General Assembly. "Combatants on both sides must lay down their arms in peace," he said. "This is a time for healing and rebuilding, for generosity of spirit, not for revenge." In a White House statement Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obama said that Libya had a "long and winding road to full democracy" and the Libyan people "have … [Read more...]

The concrete actions of each person can save the world from hatred, selfishness, coldness and lack of caring. This is VietNamNet’s urgent call to the people of the planet. A Day for Reconciliation American leading expert on political media to visit Vietnam “Each of us has a role to play in the normalization process” VietNamNet on September 8 launched the Reconciliation Website at http://day0909.net , where readers can contribute their ideas to promote the World Reconciliation Day. VietNamNet, Vietnam’s leading on-line newspaper, and many Vietnamese and foreign intellectuals, joining with the people of all walks of life, all over the world who are dreaming and working for a peaceful and worthwhile life, choose this day, September 9 as “World Reconciliation Day.” On this day, we call on the leaders of the world to stop acts that make people feel wretched and fearful. Let’s stop manufacturing weapons. Let’s stop terrorism and … [Read more...]

The world in 2010 saw a series of prominent events (along with natural disasters), tension on the Korean peninsula, and the public debt crisis in Europe, which greatly affected the global situation. Radio the Voice of Vietnam (VOV) selected the following top ten world events for the year: 1. The success of the 17 th ASEAN Summit and related meetings laid a firm foundation for accelerating the establishment of the ASEAN community by 2015. It also contributed to building a strong ASEAN bloc with a central role in the region and the world. 2. Despite having mostly recovered from the economic crisis, the world economy grew just 4.8 percent. The widespread public debt crisis of Eurozone strongly devaluated the Euro against other currencies, threatening the region’s economic recovery. 3. The Group of Twenty (G-20), consisting of important industrialized and developing economies, resolved to reform the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by transferring 6 percent of votes from … [Read more...]

The price of rice will rise to 700 USD per tonne next year even though India has returned to the market, according to the CEO of The Rice Trader, a leading trade publication and analyst of the global rice industry. Speaking at the World Rice Conference in HCM City on Oct. 20, Jeremy Zwinger said prices would go up because of increased flooding, a 15 percent drop in production in South America, and Thailand's decision to buy unmilled grain at 15,000 baht (500 USD) a tonne to boost rural incomes. Flooding will affect crops in Cambodia, Vietnam, and especially Thailand. The Thai price intervention in buying unmilled grain would push up prices on the market in 2012, he said. In addition, with rice crops hit by natural disasters and stocks shrinking, the Philippines is expected to buy rice in December which will be shipped in January. Indonesia is also in need of more rice. Cuba will likely buy rice from Vietnam, according to Zwinger. "If you look at the Thai minimum rice price … [Read more...]

In the early 19th century, six Phu Quoc ridgebacks were brought to France. Seeking the origin of Phu Quoc ridgebackPhu Quoc ridgebacks went to the West In the early 19th century, six Phu Quoc ridgebacks were brought to France, including four dogs of Fernand Doceul, a French official in southern Vietnam and Cambodia. However, only three of them were survival and presented to the Paris Zoo. These dogs were described in specialized journals by many zoologists as the only breed in the world with ridgeback. Henri de Bylandt, a Duth count, compiled the standards for Phu Quoc hunting dogs, which was in the book “Les Races de Chiens”, published in 1897, with standards for more than 300 breeds. The two remaining dogs belonged to Gaston Helouin who lived in Helfaut, Pas-de-Calais, northern France. They were Xoai (mango), a male dog and Chuoi (banana), a female dog, which won prizes at first dog show in Lille, France in 1894 and the dog show in Anvers, Belgium in 1894. Since the … [Read more...]