Vietnam renews adoptions with US but Russia still bans US adoptions

The United States and Vietnam will resume adoptions, ending a six-year ban. The ban was imposed after reports of babies being sold and some children offered without parental consent.

The new system will allow Americans to adopt children who have special needs or are over five years old. The adoptions will begin again after the Vietnam decides which US adoption service groups will be authorized to represent parents in the US. Nguyen Van Binh, director of the adoption agency at the Vietnamese Justice Ministry said that two agencies would be issued licenses next week.
 The US government also announced the renewal of adoptions: Beginning September 16, 2014, USCIS will accept and adjudicate Form I-800 petitions filed on behalf of children from Vietnam who meet the specific criteria of a Special Adoption Program under the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-Operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (Hague Adoption Convention or Convention). The announcement said that Vietnam has taken a number of steps since 2012 to improve its implementation of the Hague Convention, particularly with respect to adoption of children with special needs and older children. The US government statement went on to say that the US Department of State could now issue Hague Adoption Certificates on a case-by-case basis.
 Before the ban in 2008, Vietnam was popular as a source of children for adoption. The allegations that led to the ban on adoptions from Vietnam were confirmed by a UN report in 2009. It found that cash payments were made by adoption agencies to orphanages. This led to orphanages seeking out children to be adopted without proper checks on family circumstances or their background. The resumption of these limited types of adoptions may be a prelude to allowing all adoptions according to a delegation of US senators who visited Vietnam last year.
 Russia has banned adoptions by Americans since January 1, 2013. The most popular country for US adoptions were China, Ethiopia, and then Russia at the time of the ban. Supporters of the Russian bill claimed that some US adoptive parents had been abusive, and that there had been 19 deaths of adopted Russian children since the 1990's. The Russian law might have been partly in retaliation for the US passage of the Magnitsky Act.
 However, there was also a very negative reaction in Russia to a case where a seven-year-old adopted by an American nurse was sent back to Russia with a note saying that she no longer wanted him: Little Artem Saveliev was last year taken from a grim orphanage and given a new life in Tennessee last year. But his adoptive mother Torry-Ann Hansen, a 34-year-old nurse, yesterday put him on a ten-hour flight as an unaccompanied minor with a note 'to whom it may concern' saying: 'I no longer wish to parent this child'. Given the present tense relations between Russia and the US, adoptions from Russia may not resume soon.
The ban halted pending adoption of 259 Russian children to about 230 US families. A year after the ban many of the families were looking to adopt elsewhere but some were still hoping the ban would be lifted. Many of the families had already traveled to Russia and bonded with the children they were to adopt.

In Vietnnam mother sets self on fire to protest blogger daughter''s arrest

On July 30 Dang Thi Kim Lieng set herself on fire outside the Bac Lieu People's Committee building. She was protesting the trial of her daughter Ta Phong Tan for propaganda against the Vietnamese state. She died before she arrived at the hospital.

Ta Phong Tan, Lieng's daughter is one of three bloggers belonging to the website Free Journalists' Club. All three face trial for "distorting the truth, denigrating the party and state" and under the Vietnamese criminal code could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
In March this year Reporters Without Borders published a list of countries with the worst record of internet freedom. Topping (or bottoming perhaps) the list was the People's Republic of China but next on the list was Vietnam. Vietnam not only jails bloggers but also poets and novelists among others. As the appended video shows Vietnam even jails those with ties to their own revolutionary elite if they are too critical of the government.
Vietnam often fails to even follow their own laws. The court barred both family members and their families from the trial while both are allowed in criminal trials.
The three charged are Ta Phong Tan a former policewoman who blogged about police abuses, Phan Thanh Hai a law school graduate who has blogged about bauxite mining and Dieu Cay a human rights activist..
The most recent blogger jailed is Le Thanh Tung. His crime was propaganda against the state. He posted material on line calling for democracy and on behalf of a banned Freedom and Democracy Movement. He was given a five year sentence plus a further four years under house arrest. Tung called for pluralism and multi-party democracy in Vietnam as well as amendments to the Vietnamese constitution.
Earlier on Thursday blogger Dinh Dang Dinh a former teacher was sentenced to six years in prison on similar charges. Human Rights Watch said Vietnam showed an "intolerance for free speech." According to the group just this year 11 activists have been sentenced to long prison terms and at least 7 more are on trial. As with many other countries Vietnam still faces a long struggle just to obtain the right to free speech.

Netherlands funds climate change evaluation and adaptation project in Vietnam.

The Netherlands sponsored the project that will consider the present and future impact of climate change in the Vam Co River basin in southern Long An province. The project will cost almost a half million dollars.
The project will also try to assess vulnerability of different locations in the area and also evaluate methods of adaptation in response to floods and/or saltwater damage.
The project will work with local communities to reduce climate risks and develop ways of reacting effectively to possible disasters, especially poor farmers, and fishermen.
If the project is successful it may be used as a model and extended to other areas. The Van Co River has its source in Cambodia and flows 35 kilometres through Long An province. The province has a population of about one million. For more see this article

Vietnam: Thousands killed by abandoned munitions from Vietnam Warfrom Vietnam war

  Although the Vietnam war ended almost 40 years ago, left over munitions still cause casualties almost daily in Vietnam. Prime Minister Dung told a UN conference that 42,132 have been killed and 62,163 injured since the end of the war in 1975.
    The U.S. used almost 16 million tons of bombs and munitions during the course of the war. The U.S. has helped Vietnam deal with the huge problem of clearing areas of dangerous unexploded munition by providing 62 million to Vietnam.
  Munitions remain on a huge area about one fifth of the whole country. Only 5 per cent of contaminated areas have been cleared up to now. The government recently approved plans to clear an additional 1.2 million acres at a cost of 595 million dollars over five years. However, that will still leave 14.8 million acres still to be cleared. For more see this article.

Article by Michael Lebowitz on Socialism.

Lebowitz was in Venezuela for some time. In this article he discuses Vietnam as well which he visited recently. This is from the Socialistproject. Lebowitz is an emeritus professor of economics at Simon Fraser University in B.C. Canada.



The B u l l e t
Socialist Project • E-Bulletin No. 315
February 20, 2010

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Socialism: the Goal,
the Paths and the Compass
[Presentation of “El Socialismo no Cae del Cielo: Un Neuvo Comienzo” at the 2010 Havana Book Fair, 18 February 2010.]

Michael A. Lebowitz
There's an old saying that if you don't know where you want to go, any road will take you there. As I've said on many occasions, this saying is mistaken. If you don’t know where you want to go, no road will take you there. In other words, you need an understanding of the goal. You need a vision for the future.

Marx had a very clear vision. It was a vision of a society which would permit the full development of human beings – a society which allowed everyone to develop their potential. And, that would occur not because of gifts from above but, rather, as a result of the activity of human beings. This was his concept of revolutionary practice – the simultaneous changing of circumstances and human activity or self change. Human development and practice – this “key link” in Marx reminds us that there are always two products as the result of our activity, the change in circumstances and the change in people themselves. It reminds us that what Marx called rich human beings, socialist human beings, produce themselves only through their own activity.

The Goal

Elementary triangle of socialism.
The Bolivarian Constitution of Venezuela incorporates this concept. It stresses that the goal of society must be the full development of every human being and that participation and protagonism is “the necessary way of achieving the involvement to ensure their complete development, both individual and collective.” In 2007, President Chavez of Venezuela reinforced this vision by introducing what he called “the elementary triangle of socialism.” Social ownership of the means of production, social production organized by workers and production for social needs and purposes make up this triangle.

Firstly, social ownership of the means of production is the way to ensure that our communal, social productivity is directed to the free development of all rather than used to satisfy the private goals of capitalists, groups of producers, or state bureaucrats. Secondly, social production organized by workers permits workers to develop their capacities by combining thinking and doing in the workplace and, thus, to produce not only things but also themselves as self-conscious collective producers. Thirdly, satisfaction of social needs and purposes is the necessary goal of productive activity in the new society because it substitutes for the focus upon self-interest and selfishness an orientation to the needs of others and relations based upon solidarity.

The Paths
This is the vision of the society we want to build. This is where we want to go. And if we don’t know that, no road will take us there. However, knowing where you want to go is not enough. It’s not true that if you do know where you want to go, any road will take you there. Isn’t there a relationship between the goal, and the road you take to get there? Are these independent of each other? For example, can you get to the goal by going in the opposite direction? Do you build social ownership by relying upon capitalist ownership of the means of production and the capitalist monopoly of our social heritage and of the products of our labour? Do you build a society of associated producers and social production by preventing decision-making by workers and retaining the gap between thinking and doing? Do you build a society based upon solidarity, where production is for social needs, by stressing selfishness? In other words, do you go forward by going backwards?

Maybe. Maybe sometimes it is necessary. Socialism does not fall from the sky. It is necessarily rooted in particular societies. We all start from different places – in our development, in our histories. Therefore, there cannot be one single path. All paths will be different. Some will be longer than others. Some will be relatively straight, while others will require switchbacks because of the obstacles along the road. As we have learned, the biggest mistake is thinking that there is one road and one model.

The Compass
But there is a problem. When you are not going directly toward the goal, how do you avoid getting lost? How you avoid the problem of the growth of capital and capitalist interests, the alienation of workers in the process of production and thus an emphasis upon possessing things and consumerism, the growth of self-interest at the expense of solidarity? Some would say that there is no problem as long as we have a compass, as long as we have a directional finder. And that the party is that compass; the party can point in the direction of the goal when obstacles have temporarily forced you to go in the opposite direction.

I agree with that in principle. But I also believe that we need to learn from historical experience that the party is not itself immune, that it does not stand outside society and thus does not always point to the true North. This was certainly the case, for example, in Hungary, Yugoslavia and China. And, not only there. I have just returned from an intense month in Vietnam. There is no question in my mind that under the conditions facing Vietnam in the 1980s, it was essential for them to make a significant change in the path they were on.

The Example of Vietnam
By developing an economy which they describe as a market economy with a socialist orientation, they have succeeded in lifting their people from significant poverty. Whereas previously people were facing starvation, now Vietnam exports food. This is a very important achievement. They have also begun a process of industrialization.

However, there are serious problems. Young people are overwhelmingly oriented toward capitalism. They say openly that Vietnam needs more foreign investment, and they credit that foreign investment with ending poverty. They want capitalism, and they look upon Marxism as having no relevance to their lives. I stress this point because the students we met were not selected randomly. They came largely from the young communists.

And the dominant views increasingly are in fact no different from those in other countries in Southeast Asia: Thailand, Malaysia, and other nearby countries relying upon foreign investment and export oriented industrialization are the basis of constant comparison in Vietnam. In other words, capitalism is winning in Vietnam. There is growing inequality, there is the emergence of millionaires (not as many as in China so far) and there is a significant process of privatization of state-owned industry (which is called equitisation).

And then there is the party, “the socialist orientation.” It is my sense that a growing portion of the party is looking to Sweden and social democracy as the appropriate model. (In fact, this was openly advocated at the conference I attended at the Ho Chi Minh National Political Academy, the Party school.) In other words, an emerging goal is not the socialist vision but, rather, capitalism plus social policies which reduce inequality – a capitalist welfare state.

There is an infection in Vietnam, and the party is not immune to that infection. I suspect that the next Party Congress will involve a struggle over this direction. Some party leaders are very worried about these tendencies. Certainly, the direction of change in the party in recent congresses has been to strengthen capitalist tendencies – for example, they have removed the prohibition on membership in the party by capitalists.

Something has been missing in Vietnam. Missing so far has been a sufficient emphasis upon that participation and protagonism that is “the necessary way” to ensure the complete development of human beings, “both individually and collectively.” While there has been some focus upon grassroots democracy (for example, in Ho Chi Minh City), there has been very little decision-making by workers in workplaces (outside of annual congresses in state-owned industry), and there has been little emphasis upon conscious production for social needs. And, the results are predictable. In the absence of social production organized by workers and production for social needs, the third side of the socialist triangle, social ownership, is withering away. And, increasingly, the human product is people who embrace the logic of capital.

I think that Vietnam reinforces the lesson that every step to the market must be accompanied by two steps in the direction of building a socialist society: building worker decision-making in workplaces and building institutions based upon solidarity. If we recognize that people produce themselves through their activity, then their activity should unleash their potential rather than be left to an orientation to the market and self-interest. This is what I was stressing in Vietnam – that the party needs to create the conditions in which people can develop their capacities as protagonists within their workplaces and their communities, institutions such as the communal councils and workers councils being developed in Venezuela.

I suggest that through such a process of producing rich human beings with confidence and dignity, both the people and the party will be inoculated against the infection that can prevent us from reaching the socialist goal. That won’t be achieved, however, by a one-sided focus upon developing productive forces. In short, we should never forget the essential insight of Che Guevara – the necessity simultaneously to build productive forces and socialist human beings. •

Michael A. Lebowitz is professor emeritus of economics at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, and the author of Beyond Capital: Marx's Political Economy of the Working Class (also available on Scribd) and Build It Now: Socialism for the Twenty-First Century. This article also published at MRZine.org.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(((( The B u l l e t ))))~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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Morgan Stanley buys 10% stake in PetroVietnam company

This is from Nhan Dan (Vietnam) More evidence of Vietnam's rapid transition to capitalism. Morgan Stanley is confident enough to invest in a PetroVietnam company. Of course Morgan Stanley also is buying out Bear/Stearns. No doubt PetroVietnam has a lot more potential for growth!
Imagine there is now a Ho Chi Minh City stock market! This is no doubt socialism with Vietnamese characteristics just as next door there is socialism with Chinese characteristics. They really should be called capitalism with Chinese characteristics and capitalism with Vietnamese characteristics.



Morgan Stanley buys 10% PVFC stake


Nhan Dan – The PetroVietnam’s Joint Stock Finance Corporation (PVFC) has officially announced Morgan Stanley as its first foreign shareholder as the latter has acquired a 10% stake in the corporation.

The announcement was made on March 18 at the inauguration ceremony of PVFC, a member of the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group, PetroVietnam, in Hanoi.

PVFC targets to issue petroleum finance and PetroVietnam bonds on both the domestic and foreign markets.

It is also making preparations to open a representative office in Singapore and list their shares on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange.

PVFC focuses its operations in oil and gas, energy and real estate.

From 2007-2010, PVFC has set targets of 30% annual growth rate, 11.5% dividend and an asset value of US $3 billion in 2010.

China: Accord with Philippines, Vietnam conducive to peace.

This is from mb.com.ph.
It seems that some in the Philippines think that the joint Vietnamese, Philippines, China deal was signed in exchange for some payments to persons in the Philippines associated with the broadband and other deals. Since there may be oil and gas reserves in the Spratly Islands area there is bound to be some degree of conflict as to who owns what. An agreement between the three concerned countries though does seem a positive development in principle at least.


Accord with RP, Vietnam conducive to peace – China



Charissa M. Luci

The Chinese government stood firm yesterday that the tripartite cooperation agreement it forged with the Philippines and Vietnam is "conducive" to maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea.


Peng Xiubin, Chinese embassy spokesman, said his government’s position on the issue is "consistent and explicit."

"China stands for peaceful resolution of disputes over the South China Sea through friendly consultation. In order to maintain stability in the South China Sea and to promote mutually beneficial cooperation, China has put forward the proposition of shelving disputes and going in for joint development, which serves the common interest of all sides concerned," he said in a statement.

The Chinese official said the Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking (JMSU), an agreement signed in 2004 by China and the Philippines and with Vietnam the following year, complies with the principles of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-China Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea.

It is "conducive to maintenance of peace and stability in South China Sea and the region at large," he said.

Peng also expressed China’s concern over claims that such deal impinged on the Philippines’ sovereignty and territorial integrity on the disputed Spratly islands in the South China Sea and has something to do with the Chinese loans.

"China is worried about some recently emerged tendencies in the Philippines, which may impose negative influence on China-Philippine friendly relations and mutually beneficial cooperation," he said.

Various camps claimed that the agreement was inked in exchange for Chinese loans on the infamous broadband, cyber education, North Rail and South Rail projects.

"We hope to make joint efforts with the Philippines to properly handle the problems related to our bilateral cooperation, so as to maintain healthy development of China-Philippine relations and to safeguard peace and stability in South China Sea and the region at large," Peng said.

He said the bilateral relations have been growing over the years, adding that China considers the Philippines as an important and strategic partner in Southeast Asia.

"With the common efforts of China and the Philippines, China-Philippines relations have been developing smoothly over the recent years. The increasingly expanded mutually beneficial cooperation in various fields between the two countries has brought about tangible benefits to the two peoples," he said.

Peng said the Chinese government has established the policy of developing strategic partnership and all-round friendly cooperation with member- countries of the ASEAN.

"As the Philippines is a important member of ASEAN, China attaches great importance and makes relentless efforts to developing good-neighborly friendly relations with the Philippines," he said.

Earlier, Chinese Ambassador Song Tao cited said the three-decades old diplomatic relations between China and the Philippines has moved into "a new period of comprehensive development."

* * * *

Congress urged to pass archipelagic baselines law

David Cagahastian

Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Sergio Apostol urged Congress yesterday to pass the bill that would update the Philippines’ archipelagic baselines, including its territorial claims on the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.

Apostol said Congress should pass the bill or the Philippines will lose its claims to some parts of the disputed Spratly islands which are believed to have untapped oil and gas reserves.

"Dapat ituloy ng Congress ang amendments of the existing law on the continental shelf, otherwise we will no longer claim what is ours within the 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) granted to us by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)," Apostol said.

If Congress does not pass the bill, he said, other claimant countries like China and Vietnam might claim ownership of even established Philippine territory, like the so-called Scarborough Shoals, which is not claimed by any other country.

The Philippine baselines were set by Republic Act 3046 and amended by RA 5446, but Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said the Philippines’ baselines, as defined by the two laws, still do not abide by some provisions of the UNCLOS defining new archipelagic baselines which the Philippines, being an archipelago, should formally claim through legislation.

The passage of the bill that would update the baselines was postponed at the House of Representatives after the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) submitted to the House an unsigned document supposedly signifying China’s opposition to the passage of the bill.

Apostol said the Chinese should bring to the United Nations their objections to the passage of the bill that will update the Philippines’ baselines if they indeed have objections to it.

The updating of the archipelagic baselines would also update the 200-nautical mile EEZ of the Philippines and allow the Philippines to come up with a formal claim before the UN over the extended continental shelf in the seas surrounding the country.

The Philippines only has until May 13, 2009 to file a formal claim before the UNCLOS on the extent of its extended continental shelf. The claim cannot be completed until the archipelagic baselines are updated by legislation.

U.S. enterprises to invest U.S. 10 billion in Vietnamese tourist development.

This is from a Vietnamese news agency. This is symptomatic of Vietnam's great leap forward into global capitalism. The U.S. could have avoided the Vietnam war altogether by just enticing a new leadership to follow the capitalist road as has happened as well in China.

US enterprises to invest US $10 billion to Quang Nam
Nhan Dan - The People’s Committee of the central province of Quang Nam on February 15 officially submitted to the Government a US $10 billion tourism project to be invested by giant US economic groups for an investment license.
If approved, this will be the biggest tourism project in the central and Central Highlands area, said Mr Dinh Van Thu, a spokesman of the Quang Nam People’s Committee.
The project is invested by the US’s Global C&D Inc. and some other US companies.
According to Chairman of the Quang Nam People’s Committee Nguyen Duc Hai, the project, named Dragon Beach Tourism Resort, have been worked on by Global C&D Inc. and local authorities for years now.
Under the project, a luxury sea resort including hotels, casinos, a trade centre, a conventional centre, a golf course and entertainment facilities will be built on an area of 460 hectares in Dien Ban district.

Arroyo calls for continued Co-operation with Vietnam

It is good that Arroyo is strengthening relations with other South East Asian countries. Bilateral co-operation could help out the economies of each country.
This is from the gulfnews.

Arroyo calls for continued cooperation with Vietnam
By Gilbert Felongco, Correspondent
Published: August 10, 2007, 23:43


Manila: President Gloria Arroyo has called for continuing and stronger cooperation between the Philippines and Vietnam "in local, regional and global affairs".

Arroyo said: "Like Vietnam, the Philippines believes in a strong global engagement for our country and our people. We must be open to the world and peoples and places other than our own.

"That is what the 21st century will be about. That is why the United Nations, the Association of Southeast Asian, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the World Trade Organisation play a large role in both Vietnam and the Philippines. They are among the most important bridges we can build and cross together."

Arroyo's comments came at a state dinner she hosted at the presidential palace in honour of Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, who arrived in Manila on Thursday for a two-day official visit.

"Our two countries are neighbours separated only by the stretch of water called the South China Sea. Across this sea we are building bridges of trade and investments, maritime and ocean cooperation, culture, tourism, security and energy," Arroyo stressed, noting the strong partnership between the countries over 31 years of diplomatic relations.

She said in this part of the region, the biggest bridge that would bind relations in the South China Sea would be the Tripartite Agreement for Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking signed in Malacanang on March 14, 2005.

The president noted the undertaking to assess the potential of petroleum development is a breakthrough in implementing the provisions of the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea.

"The data-gathering and analysis are expected to finish next year, but already the initial results are promising. We should now explore the possible next steps," the president said.

Vietnamese women active in business

I wonder if there are more women than men in Vietnam? Perhaps there were a lot of men killed during the Vietnam war. No doubt women held positions of responsibility during the communist period as well and this carried on during the transition back to capitalism. Communism has always theoretically stood for the equality of women but as with other ideals is not always evident in actually existing communist states.


Wall Street Journal hails Vietnamese businesswomen



The Wall Street Journal run a front-page article on the outstanding role of Vietnamese women in doing business in the Southeast Asian country.

Author Laura Santini related the life of Nguyen Thi Mai Thanh from Ho Chi Minh City, who had worked as a volunteer medic in the south, contracted malaria and dodged US attacks before going to the north and then studying abroad.

Returning to Vietnam, Ms. Mai Thanh took a job at the Refrigeration & Electrical Engineering Corp (REE) based in Ho Chi Minh City, and quickly moved up the ranks to become the leader.

"Today, life has improved markedly for the 54-year-old Ms. Mai Thanh," the July 19 edition said. As chairwoman and chief executive of REE Corp., a home-appliance, construction and real-estate company, she is one of Vietnam's most successful and wealthiest businesswomen. She is said to be the ninth richest person in Vietnam with a net worth of around 55 million USD.

According to the author, such success stories for women are not uncommon at the pinnacle of Vietnam's business world.

In all, companies that represent more than 30% of the country's stock-market capitalisation have a woman at the helm. In the US, fewer than 2% of fortune 500 companies are run by women. Meanwhile in the Republic of Korea and Japan, women are often discouraged from pursuing careers and seldom break into upper-echelon corporate positions, the paper said.


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