- struggled with foreign attempts to invade and rule it for much of it's history. It's geography and the nature of it's people make it difficult to achieve this successfully over the long term though. You'll find that a lot of former Vietnamese people often have strongly differing opinions on what life is like in Vietnam
vietnam history
The history of Vietnam can be traced back to more than 4000 years ago.[1] Archaeological findings from 1965 showed the remains of two hominins closely related to Sinanthropus, dating as far back as the Middle Pleistocene era, roughly half a million years ago. Ancient Vietnam was home to some of the world's earliest civilizations and societies—making them one of the world's first people who practiced agriculture.[2][3] The Red River valley formed a natural geographic and economic unit, bounded to the north and west by mountains and jungles, to the east by the sea and to the south by the Red River Delta. The need to have a single authority to prevent floods of the Red River, to cooperate in constructing hydraulic systems, trade exchange, and to fight invaders, led to the creation of the first Vietnamese states approximately 2879 BC.[4][5][6] Another truly influential part of history in Vietnam occurred during the late Bronze Age, when the Đông Sơn culture dramatically advanced the civilization. Vietnam's peculiar geography made it a difficult country to attack, which is why Vietnam under the Hùng kings was for so long an independent and self-contained state. The Xích Tỵs and Qins were among the earliest foreign aggressors of Vietnam, but the ancient Vietnamese managed to regain control of the country soon after the invasions.
Once Vietnam did succumb to foreign rule, however, it proved unable to escape from it, and for 1,100 years, Vietnam had been successively governed by a series of Chinese dynasties: the Han, Eastern Wu, Jin, Liu Song, Southern Qi, Liang, Sui, Tang, and Southern Han; leading to the loss of native cultural heritage, language, and much of national identity. At certain periods during these 1,100 years, Vietnam was independently governed under the Triệus, Trưng Sisters, Early Lýs, Khúcs and Dương Đình Nghệ—although their triumphs and reigns were temporary.
During the Chinese domination of North Vietnam, several civilizations flourished in what is today central and south Vietnam, particularly the Funanese and Cham. The founders and rulers of these governments, however, were not native to Vietnam. From the 10th century onwards, the Vietnamese, emerging in their heartland of the Red River Delta, began to conquer these civilizations.
When Ngô Quyền (King of Vietnam, 939–944) restoring sovereign power in the country, the next millennium was advanced by the accomplishments of successive dynasties: Ngôs, Đinhs, Early Lês, Lýs, Trầns, Hồs, Later Trầns, Later Lês, Mạcs, Trịnhs, Nguyễns, Tây Sơns and again Nguyễns. At various points during the imperial dynasties, Vietnam was ravaged and divided by civil wars and witnessed interventions by the Songs, Mongol Yuans, Chams, Mings, Dutch, Manchus, French, and the Americans. The Ming Empire conquered the Red River valley for a while before native Vietnamese regained control and the French Empire reduced Vietnam to a French dependency for nearly a century, followed by an occupation by the Japanese Empire. Political upheaval and Communist insurrection put an end to the monarchy after World War II, and the country was proclaimed a republic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Vietnam
- it's obviously best known for the Vietnam War which was part of the overall Cold War
vietnam war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngo_Dinh_Diem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C6%B0%C6%A1ng_V%C4%83n_Minh
The diversity of American reactions to Diem reflected different expectations of him. His piety impressed the Catholics, and his patriotism and personal honesty impressed everyone who was not distracted by his flaws. These included a narrow and rigid mind, a near-obsession with the evils of French colonialism, and an inability to engage in genuine dialogue. For a real exchange of information and ideas, Diem tended to substitute endless monologues that exhausted his listeners without necessarily addressing their interests. A US military officer attending a meeting with him in 1953 left with the impression that he had been listening to a "mystic nut." Thus, while some of his American interlocutors saw him as the only hope for the anti-Communist cause in Vietnam, others saw him as incapacitated by both personal limitations and lengthy absence from the political scene.
Before his brief tenure as Interior Minister in 1933, Diem had served as district chief and province chief in Central Vietnam (Annam). With the exception of this service, he had no prior administrative experience when he took over the government in 1954. His political assets at that point consisted of his reputation for nationalism and personal probity, a modest following in Central Vietnam, and the loyalty of those-at the time, perhaps five percent of the population-who shared his Catholic faith. He seems to have taken for granted the unquestioning obedience and personal loyalty of anyone commitled to an independent. non-Communist Vietnam.
The scarcity of competent people with this disposition helps explain Diem's reliance from the beginning on members of his family to run the govemment. The problem was vividly described by Tran Chanh Thanh , a former Viet Minh who became Minister of Information in 1955. "There are just not enough educated Vietnamese... half of [them] are in Hanoi, and half the remainder are in Paris, (the other) half of the remainder are here. and half of that won't work with us. So, ... whenever we find a man can do a job efficiently, the President gives him two."
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/vietnam/rvn-ngo-dinh-diem.htm
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon2/pent6.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpet_bombing
vietnamese intellectuals france
French involvement in Vietnam started in the late 18th century when the Catholic priest Pigneau de Behaine assisted Nguyễn Ánh, to found the Nguyen Dynasty by recruiting French volunteers. In return, Nguyen Anh, who took the reign name Gia Long allowed Catholic missionaries to operate in Vietnam. However, relations became strained under Gia Long's successor Minh Mang as missionaries sought to incite revolts in an attempt to enthrone a Catholic. This prompted anti-Christian edicts, and in 1858, a French invasion of Vietnam was mounted, ostensibly to protect Catholicism, but in reality for colonial purposes. The French steadily made gains and completed the colonization of Vietnam in 1883. Armed revolts against colonial rule occurred regularly, most notably through the Can Vuong movement of the late-1880s. In the early-20th century, the 1916 southern revolts and the Thai Nguyen uprising were notable disruptions to the French administration.
In late 1925, a small group of young Hanoi-based intellectuals, led by a teacher named Pham Tuan Tai and his brother Pham Tuan Lam, started the Nam Dong Thu Xa (Southeast Asia Publishing House). They aimed to promote violent revolution as a means of gaining independence for Vietnam from French colonization, and published books and brochures about Sun Yat-sen and the Chinese Revolution of 1911, as well as opening a free school to teach quoc ngu (Romanised Vietnamese script) to the working class. The group soon attracted the support of other progressive young northerners, including students and teachers led by Nguyen Thai Hoc. Hoc was an alumnus of Hanoi's Commercial School, who had been stripped of a scholarship because of his mediocre academic performance.[2][3] Hoc had previously tried to initiate peaceful reforms by making written submissions to the French authorities, but these were ignored, and his attempt to foster policy change through the publication of a magazine never materialized due to the refusal of a license.[4]
Harassment and censorship imposed by the French colonial authorities led to the commercial failure of the Nam Dong Thu Xa. By the autumn of 1927, the group's priorities turned towards more direct political action, in a bid to appeal to more radical elements in the north. Membership grew to around 200, distributed among 18 cells in 14 provinces across northern and central Vietnam.[5]
At the time, nationalist sentiment had been on the increase in Vietnam. The French colonial authorities were bringing more Vietnamese into the administration, and there was a small but growing proportion who were exposed to western education. As a result, they became aware of French ideals such as Liberté, égalité, fraternité, republicanism and democracy, which sharply contrasted to the racial inequality and stratified system of the colonial elite ruling the masses in Vietnam. There was also an increasing awareness of the political writings of Montesquieu and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which stoked a desire for civil and political rights, combined with the knowledge of the Japanese victory over Russia in 1905, which gave people confidence that Asians could defeat western powers.[6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi%E1%BB%87t_Nam_Qu%E1%BB%91c_D%C3%A2n_%C4%90%E1%BA%A3ng
Paris is home to the oldest Overseas Vietnamese community in the Western world and is also one of the largest outside Vietnam. There are a little under 100,000 people of Vietnamese descent within the city limits of Paris, with the greater Île-de-France area home to another estimated 100,000. Both figures make the Paris metropolitan area host to one of the greatest concentrations of Vietnamese outside Vietnam, if not the largest.[1]
In periods before 1975 several Vietnamese arrived in Paris, including intellectuals, those who worked as civil servants in colonial times, and those who came to Paris to study and did not return home. Ethnic Vietnamese arriving after 1975 became a part of an ethnic network established by those that came before them. Many Vietnamese achieved proficiency in the medical, scientific, and computer science fields.[2]
...
Following Vietnam's independence from France in 1954, the former colonial ruler was still an important destination for Vietnamese seeking educational and economic opportunities abroad. However, due to the partition of Vietnam and the isolationism imposed by the North, the vast majority of Vietnamese coming to France during this time were from the South. In 1964, in response to the significant number of Vietnamese students in Paris and lack of representation, the Association Générale des Etudiants Vietnamiens de Paris (AGEVP, General Association for Vietnamese Students of Paris) was founded as the oldest overseas Vietnamese youth association.[7]
After the Fall of Saigon in 1975 and end of the Vietnam War, the majority of Vietnamese refugees to France were settled in Paris and the surrounding Île-de-France metropolitan region.[5] The first wave of these refugees actually consisted of those who were exiled or evacuated shortly before the war ended, and consisted almost entirely of South Vietnamese politicians and their families, including Madame Nhu and Nguyễn Khánh. From this period and into the 1980s, the area of the 13th arrondissement developed into a Little Vietnam, with a commercial district and community institutions created to serve the new Vietnamese immigrants, along with expanded services provided by established organizations such as the AGEVP.[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_community_in_Paris
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuomintang
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=vietnam+war
The Vietnam War Explained In 25 Minutes _ Vietnam War Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tNTh6KlXXU
50 Insane Facts About Vietnam War You Didn't Know
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm5UFp5ENZ8
CIA Archives - The South Vietnamese Coup Against Ngo Dinh Diem (1963)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRBqeah1Ah8
Battle of Huế - Vietnam War
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia_3oeUE84k
How did the U.S. Fail in Vietnam _ Animated History
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAq6MrYgLr0
NGO DINH DIEM - WikiVidi Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXdqCbGHOu8
Soldiers Encounter Mysterious Monsters in Vietnam War
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnm3KY05NaI
The Cold War - Diem in South Vietnam - Hamlet Program, Buddhist Crisis and Assassination - Episode 30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=028fwjzsAOc
Vietnam War in 13 Minutes - Manny Man Does History
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exVKd-x5QVc
Watch This To Feel What Marines Felt Fighting In Vietnam
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0CvX0S632E
Why were Korean Soldiers so Feared in the Vietnam War
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eIn9jMPjdo
Sun Tzu - The Art of War Explained In 5 Minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz4FNBj1APA
https://www.dailymotion.com/search/pbs%20the%20vietnam%20war/videos
The Vietnam War
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b096k7q7/episodes/guide
http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-vietnam-war/episodes/
https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/program/the-vietnam-war
Lệ Xuân's education at the Lycée Albert Sarraut was entirely in French, and she remembered as a schoolgirl learning about French history and nothing about Vietnamese history and of singing songs about the forests and mountains of France, observing later the purpose of her education was to eradicate any sense of a Vietnamese identity, and to make her into a proper young Frenchwoman.[6] The purpose
of French educational policies in Vietnam was always in reference to France's self-proclaimed mission civilisatrice ("civilizing mission") was to make all Vietnamese into "Frenchmen with yellow skin", and thus French teachers tried to stamp out any sense of a Vietnamese identity in their students.[6] The message French teachers taught their students was that to be French was to be "civilized" and to be Vietnamese was to be "uncivilized". She dropped out of Lycée Albert Sarraut, a prestigious French school in Hanoi. She spoke French at home and could not write in Vietnamese; as an adult, she drafted her speeches in French and had them translated into Vietnamese.[3] She gained a reputation in her youth as a tomboy who loved ballet and piano, once dancing solo at Hanoi's National Theatre.[7] She had an elder sister named Trần Lệ Chi (who married the Frenchman Etienne Oggeri and changed her name to Lechi Oggeri) and a younger brother, Trần Văn Khiêm.[8] Like many other Vietnamese, Lệ Xuân was to find that no matter how hard she tried to be French, that the French were only prepared to accept whites as French.[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Nhu
- it's obviously best known for the Vietnam War which was part of the overall Cold War
vietnam war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngo_Dinh_Diem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C6%B0%C6%A1ng_V%C4%83n_Minh
The diversity of American reactions to Diem reflected different expectations of him. His piety impressed the Catholics, and his patriotism and personal honesty impressed everyone who was not distracted by his flaws. These included a narrow and rigid mind, a near-obsession with the evils of French colonialism, and an inability to engage in genuine dialogue. For a real exchange of information and ideas, Diem tended to substitute endless monologues that exhausted his listeners without necessarily addressing their interests. A US military officer attending a meeting with him in 1953 left with the impression that he had been listening to a "mystic nut." Thus, while some of his American interlocutors saw him as the only hope for the anti-Communist cause in Vietnam, others saw him as incapacitated by both personal limitations and lengthy absence from the political scene.
Before his brief tenure as Interior Minister in 1933, Diem had served as district chief and province chief in Central Vietnam (Annam). With the exception of this service, he had no prior administrative experience when he took over the government in 1954. His political assets at that point consisted of his reputation for nationalism and personal probity, a modest following in Central Vietnam, and the loyalty of those-at the time, perhaps five percent of the population-who shared his Catholic faith. He seems to have taken for granted the unquestioning obedience and personal loyalty of anyone commitled to an independent. non-Communist Vietnam.
The scarcity of competent people with this disposition helps explain Diem's reliance from the beginning on members of his family to run the govemment. The problem was vividly described by Tran Chanh Thanh , a former Viet Minh who became Minister of Information in 1955. "There are just not enough educated Vietnamese... half of [them] are in Hanoi, and half the remainder are in Paris, (the other) half of the remainder are here. and half of that won't work with us. So, ... whenever we find a man can do a job efficiently, the President gives him two."
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/vietnam/rvn-ngo-dinh-diem.htm
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon2/pent6.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpet_bombing
vietnamese intellectuals france
French involvement in Vietnam started in the late 18th century when the Catholic priest Pigneau de Behaine assisted Nguyễn Ánh, to found the Nguyen Dynasty by recruiting French volunteers. In return, Nguyen Anh, who took the reign name Gia Long allowed Catholic missionaries to operate in Vietnam. However, relations became strained under Gia Long's successor Minh Mang as missionaries sought to incite revolts in an attempt to enthrone a Catholic. This prompted anti-Christian edicts, and in 1858, a French invasion of Vietnam was mounted, ostensibly to protect Catholicism, but in reality for colonial purposes. The French steadily made gains and completed the colonization of Vietnam in 1883. Armed revolts against colonial rule occurred regularly, most notably through the Can Vuong movement of the late-1880s. In the early-20th century, the 1916 southern revolts and the Thai Nguyen uprising were notable disruptions to the French administration.
In late 1925, a small group of young Hanoi-based intellectuals, led by a teacher named Pham Tuan Tai and his brother Pham Tuan Lam, started the Nam Dong Thu Xa (Southeast Asia Publishing House). They aimed to promote violent revolution as a means of gaining independence for Vietnam from French colonization, and published books and brochures about Sun Yat-sen and the Chinese Revolution of 1911, as well as opening a free school to teach quoc ngu (Romanised Vietnamese script) to the working class. The group soon attracted the support of other progressive young northerners, including students and teachers led by Nguyen Thai Hoc. Hoc was an alumnus of Hanoi's Commercial School, who had been stripped of a scholarship because of his mediocre academic performance.[2][3] Hoc had previously tried to initiate peaceful reforms by making written submissions to the French authorities, but these were ignored, and his attempt to foster policy change through the publication of a magazine never materialized due to the refusal of a license.[4]
Harassment and censorship imposed by the French colonial authorities led to the commercial failure of the Nam Dong Thu Xa. By the autumn of 1927, the group's priorities turned towards more direct political action, in a bid to appeal to more radical elements in the north. Membership grew to around 200, distributed among 18 cells in 14 provinces across northern and central Vietnam.[5]
At the time, nationalist sentiment had been on the increase in Vietnam. The French colonial authorities were bringing more Vietnamese into the administration, and there was a small but growing proportion who were exposed to western education. As a result, they became aware of French ideals such as Liberté, égalité, fraternité, republicanism and democracy, which sharply contrasted to the racial inequality and stratified system of the colonial elite ruling the masses in Vietnam. There was also an increasing awareness of the political writings of Montesquieu and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which stoked a desire for civil and political rights, combined with the knowledge of the Japanese victory over Russia in 1905, which gave people confidence that Asians could defeat western powers.[6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi%E1%BB%87t_Nam_Qu%E1%BB%91c_D%C3%A2n_%C4%90%E1%BA%A3ng
Paris is home to the oldest Overseas Vietnamese community in the Western world and is also one of the largest outside Vietnam. There are a little under 100,000 people of Vietnamese descent within the city limits of Paris, with the greater Île-de-France area home to another estimated 100,000. Both figures make the Paris metropolitan area host to one of the greatest concentrations of Vietnamese outside Vietnam, if not the largest.[1]
In periods before 1975 several Vietnamese arrived in Paris, including intellectuals, those who worked as civil servants in colonial times, and those who came to Paris to study and did not return home. Ethnic Vietnamese arriving after 1975 became a part of an ethnic network established by those that came before them. Many Vietnamese achieved proficiency in the medical, scientific, and computer science fields.[2]
...
Following Vietnam's independence from France in 1954, the former colonial ruler was still an important destination for Vietnamese seeking educational and economic opportunities abroad. However, due to the partition of Vietnam and the isolationism imposed by the North, the vast majority of Vietnamese coming to France during this time were from the South. In 1964, in response to the significant number of Vietnamese students in Paris and lack of representation, the Association Générale des Etudiants Vietnamiens de Paris (AGEVP, General Association for Vietnamese Students of Paris) was founded as the oldest overseas Vietnamese youth association.[7]
After the Fall of Saigon in 1975 and end of the Vietnam War, the majority of Vietnamese refugees to France were settled in Paris and the surrounding Île-de-France metropolitan region.[5] The first wave of these refugees actually consisted of those who were exiled or evacuated shortly before the war ended, and consisted almost entirely of South Vietnamese politicians and their families, including Madame Nhu and Nguyễn Khánh. From this period and into the 1980s, the area of the 13th arrondissement developed into a Little Vietnam, with a commercial district and community institutions created to serve the new Vietnamese immigrants, along with expanded services provided by established organizations such as the AGEVP.[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_community_in_Paris
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuomintang
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=vietnam+war
The Vietnam War Explained In 25 Minutes _ Vietnam War Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tNTh6KlXXU
50 Insane Facts About Vietnam War You Didn't Know
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm5UFp5ENZ8
CIA Archives - The South Vietnamese Coup Against Ngo Dinh Diem (1963)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRBqeah1Ah8
Battle of Huế - Vietnam War
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia_3oeUE84k
How did the U.S. Fail in Vietnam _ Animated History
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAq6MrYgLr0
NGO DINH DIEM - WikiVidi Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXdqCbGHOu8
Soldiers Encounter Mysterious Monsters in Vietnam War
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnm3KY05NaI
The Cold War - Diem in South Vietnam - Hamlet Program, Buddhist Crisis and Assassination - Episode 30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=028fwjzsAOc
Vietnam War in 13 Minutes - Manny Man Does History
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exVKd-x5QVc
Watch This To Feel What Marines Felt Fighting In Vietnam
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0CvX0S632E
Why were Korean Soldiers so Feared in the Vietnam War
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eIn9jMPjdo
Sun Tzu - The Art of War Explained In 5 Minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz4FNBj1APA
https://www.dailymotion.com/search/pbs%20the%20vietnam%20war/videos
The Vietnam War
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b096k7q7/episodes/guide
http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-vietnam-war/episodes/
https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/program/the-vietnam-war
Lệ Xuân's education at the Lycée Albert Sarraut was entirely in French, and she remembered as a schoolgirl learning about French history and nothing about Vietnamese history and of singing songs about the forests and mountains of France, observing later the purpose of her education was to eradicate any sense of a Vietnamese identity, and to make her into a proper young Frenchwoman.[6] The purpose
of French educational policies in Vietnam was always in reference to France's self-proclaimed mission civilisatrice ("civilizing mission") was to make all Vietnamese into "Frenchmen with yellow skin", and thus French teachers tried to stamp out any sense of a Vietnamese identity in their students.[6] The message French teachers taught their students was that to be French was to be "civilized" and to be Vietnamese was to be "uncivilized". She dropped out of Lycée Albert Sarraut, a prestigious French school in Hanoi. She spoke French at home and could not write in Vietnamese; as an adult, she drafted her speeches in French and had them translated into Vietnamese.[3] She gained a reputation in her youth as a tomboy who loved ballet and piano, once dancing solo at Hanoi's National Theatre.[7] She had an elder sister named Trần Lệ Chi (who married the Frenchman Etienne Oggeri and changed her name to Lechi Oggeri) and a younger brother, Trần Văn Khiêm.[8] Like many other Vietnamese, Lệ Xuân was to find that no matter how hard she tried to be French, that the French were only prepared to accept whites as French.[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Nhu
- for a long time, relations were 'complicated' between Vietnam and the rest of the world because of the 'Cold War'. Things have obviously become much more cordial since then. Modern foreign policy of Vietnam seems friendly to pretty much everyone? They have a few border disputes/issues that need to be resolved with neighbours
vietnam foreign relations
As of September 2016, Vietnam (officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam) maintains diplomatic relationships with 188 nations throughout the world,[1] including permanent members of United Nations Security Council.[citation needed] In 2011 the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, at the 11th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam, released an official statement about Vietnam's foreign policy and a section of the statement stated: "Vietnam is a friend and reliable partner of all countries in the international community, actively taking part in international and regional cooperation processes. Deepen, stabilize and sustain established international relations. Develop relations with countries and territories in the world, as well as international organizations, while showing: respect for each other's independence; sovereignty and territorial integrity; non-interference in each other's international affairs; non-use or threat of force; settlement of disagreements and disputes by means of peaceful negotiations; mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit."[2]
- if you know about the stories of Vietnam way back when you'll realise that it has undergone dramatic changes of late. For me, one of the more strange things is the effective growth of an alternative 'Silicon Valley' in Asia
vietnam economy
Statistics
GDP
$219.4 billion (nominal, 2016 est.)[1]
$594.9 billion (PPP, 2016 est.)[1]
GDP rank 48th (nominal, 2016 est.); 35th (PPP, 2016 est.)
GDP growth
6.1% (2016 est.) [2]
GDP per capita
$2,300 (nominal, 2016 est.)[3]
$6,400 (PPP, 2016 est.)[1]
GDP by sector
Agriculture: 17%, industry: 39%, services: 44% (2016 est.)[4]
Inflation (CPI)
2.8% (2016 est.)[4]
Population below poverty line
8.4% (2016 est.)[4]
Gini coefficient
37.6 (2014)
Labour force
54.93 million (2016 est.)[4]
Labour force by occupation
Agriculture: 44.3%, industry: 22.9%, services: 32.8% (2015 est.)[4]
Unemployment 3.7% (2016)[4]
Main industries
paddy rice, coffee, rubber, cotton, tea, pepper, soybeans, cashews, sugar cane, peanuts, bananas, poultry, fish, seafood
Ease-of-doing-business rank
82nd (2017)[5]
Vietnam's socialist-oriented market economy is a developing planned economy and market economy. Since the mid-1980s, through the Đổi Mới reform period, Vietnam has made a shift from a highly centralized planned economy to a mixed economy that uses both directive and indicative planning through five-year plans. Over that period, the economy has experienced rapid growth. In the twenty-first century, Vietnam is in a period of being integrated into the global economy. Almost all Vietnamese enterprises are small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Vietnam has become a leading agricultural exporter and served as an attractive destination for foreign investment in Southeast Asia. In a similar fashion to other Communist countries after the end of the Cold War the planned economy of Vietnam lost the momentum for productivity and sustainable growth. In the current period[when?] the economy of Vietnam relies largely on foreign direct investment to attract the capital from overseas to support its continual economic rigorousness.[11]
In 2013, the nominal GDP reached US$170.565 billion,[3] with nominal GDP per capita of US$1,902.
According to a forecast in December 2005 by Goldman Sachs, the Vietnamese economy was expected to become the 35th largest economy in the world with nominal GDP of US$436 billion and nominal GDP per capita of US$4,357 by 2020.[12]
According to a forecast by the PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2008, Vietnam may be the fastest-growing of the world's emerging economies by 2020, with a potential annual growth rate of about 10% in real terms, which would increase the size of the economy to 70% of the size of the UK economy by 2040.[13]
Vietnam has been named among the Next Eleven and CIVETS countries. Despite economic achievement following Doi Moi, there exist issues that cause many analysts and researchers to remain worried about the economic slowdown in the country in recent years.[14][15]
- non-trivial defense force. Generally a little bit older. Surprising thing for me is that they manufacture very little of their own equipment (even under license). Most of their equipment comes from USSR and Russia with the rest coming from the US, Israel, France, and others
vietnam defense force
vietnam defense
- one of the things that will surprise you with regards to Vietnamese food is how different the food is that you get in stores and restaurants and that normal Vietnamese people eat. Moreover, if you look into this further there seems to be a lot of differentiation in what people eat from region to region unlike a lot of other countries? In general, 'pretty accessible'. It's obvious that in many parts of the world Asian groups tend to congregate with one another and you can often find restaurants of the same type in the same neighbourhood all over the world. Vietnamese food reminds me of a cross between Thai and and Chinese food
vietnamese food recipes
- for those who are new to other parts of the world you'll be shocked that nothing much has changed in rural areas. Feels like their is no electricity, running water, gas, etc... Homes constructed using natural materials mostly
From a Vietnamese village
- markets aren't that much different from other local fresh fruit markets that you'd find in other parts of Asia and the West
Going Around The Market with Mai Life in Vietnam
- Hanoi just seems more livelier then other parts of the world at night?
Hanoi at Night. Vietnam after Dark
- they seem to have department stores just like in the West now? Seem to have more choice and bonus offers then in the US/West? Prices not much different from in the US/West?
It's Hard To Avoid This! _ Life in Vietnam
Life in Vietnam VLOG - Returning to Saigon and Cooking at Home. LOOSE LIFE #8
- obviously have poverty issues. District 6. Live in micro-houses (similar to India, Philippines, Afghanistan, etc...) in the poorest areas. Makeshift construction. Make money peeling onion, garlic for restaurants. Sleep on the floor. No beds or hammocks. Money from Patreon distributed here
Saigon's worst slum. Vietnam ghetto life.
- like many other countries rivers are a focus of life in Vietnam. The Mekong is key to this. Most food in Vietnam comes from Mekong Delta
The Mekong Delta is Life - Can Tho, Vietnam
The Mekong River - Supplier of Life Economy and Culture Full Documentary
REAL VIETNAM - Mekong Delta REMOTE village.
The Mekong Delta is Life - Can Tho, Vietnam
- Ostrich riding is really strange? Development up and down much like other parts of Asia
Motorcycle Trip Across Vietnam (Ch 5)
- busy traffic in Vietnam. Apartment/housing not too much different from West dependong on area. Street/open markets seem quite common. Restaurant food can be pretty cheap depending on where you eat and what you eat. $8 USD for 10 'Banh Bao' and two mains
I Moved to Vietnam! _ Life Update
- parks everywhere. District 10. Le Te park. Roller blading and badminton popular amongst locals. Durian juice is a local staple. They make popcicles localllya. Durian tortilla a local invention (slab of cold Durian in a tortilla)? Street artists/buskers more common then in West? Growing middle class. Similar to the West but with a Vietnamese slant to it
VIETNAM daily life. a Day at a SAIGON PARK 2015.
- lot of invention/creativity in the culinary world. Lot of food that isn't familiar even to people even of Vietnamese background? They are more adventurous in what they eat then in many other parts of the world. Snakes, crickets, etc... Some architecture of Vietnam has a strong resemblance to France (probably down to colonial background)
VIETNAM STREET FOOD TOUR
VIETNAMESE STREET FOOD TOUR and HUGE VIETNAMESE BUDDHA
HANOI BBQ CHICKEN STREET
VIET KIEU friends visit Vietnam hometown & eat WILD FOODS
Must Try STREET FOODs in Da Lat, Vietnam 2015
Best Vietnamese Food in Saigon's DISTRICT 10.
I Don't Know What I'm Eating! _ Life in Vietnam
AMAZING STREET FOOD in Saigon, Vietnam on 1 Street!
- if you know Vietnamese people you'll be aware that they often take clothes back to have them custom made/tailored.
Vietnam Tailored CLOTHES - OUR EXPERIENCE IN HOI AN
- like Russia, there seems to be a lot of channels out there about life in general in Vietnam. There's a slight nationalist/patriotic feel to the people at times?
DAILY LIFE VIETNAM Vlog. Job, Motorbike Tips, Chinese Food, 7 Noodle Bowls - Loose Life #4
Pho Your Eyes Only
- accomodation doesn't seem much different if you have enough money
HANOI APARTMENT TOUR
HANOI APARTMENT HUNTING
HANOI HOTEL MUKBANG
HOW TO RENT AN APARTMENT IN VIETNAM - APARTMENT TOURS
- Ha Long bay is often spoken of as a tourist area. It feels like the West would struggle to keep up with Vietnam at times (not the other way around as you'd expect)? People here still live 'on the sea', fish for a living, have traditional fish/oyster farms, etc...
HA LONG BAY CRUISE EXPERIENCE - AMAZING Over night tour 2016.
Ha Long Bay Today in 4K. NORTH VIETNAM Travelogue
- a lot of the country still seems pristine?
The MOST BEAUTIFUL place in VIETNAM is CAO BANG.
- this is 'Asia Park'. As I've said above parts of modern Vietnam just seems to be way ahead of the US/West at times? Much like other parts of the world they've seemed to have taken the best of US/Western culture and 'fused it' with local history, culture, and tradition
traveling DA NANG, Vietnam by Night 2015
- a lot of new Western things have obviously come into vogue in Vietnam including the fashion scene
MY LIFE IN VIETNAM daily VLOG #4 - SHOPPING AND FASHION
- some frustration with foreigners from time to time who don't get the local culture
Yeah I'm Disgusting _ Life in Vietnam
SINGLE LIFE IN VIETNAM _ VLOG DA NANG 2016
- one of the interesting things is that the wildlife seems to be so diverse (could be that they have been more exploratory, have been less destructive to their environment, etc...)? Lot of them a fairly interesting, unique looking as well? Grey-shanked douc langur, Cantor's Giant Softshell Turtle - Mud Lurker, Jungle Cat all ones to look out for
vietnam animals
Wildlife of Vietnam – Wikipedia According to chapter 1 of the 2005 National Environmental Present Condition Report, “Biodiversity Subject of Vietnam Environment Protection Agency,”in terms of species diversity Vietnam is one of twenty five countries considered to possess a high level of biodiversity, and is ranked 16th in biological diversity (having 16% world’s species) (page 9). 15,986 flora were identified, of which 10% are endemic. 6 mammals have been recently discovered including the saola, giant muntjac, Tonkin Snub-nosed Langur, livistona halongensis, geothelphusa vietnamica, and 1 bird, the Edwards’s Pheasant.
- lot of foreign language media options out there but primary one is obviously English. Heavy focus on local and regional affairs across the board but covers overseas issues as well obviously
vietnam media
On Prophets/Pre-Cogs:
- obviously a continuation from my others posts, http://dtbnguyen.blogspot.com/2017/04/prophetspre-cogs-11-kiviandroid.html
- unlike a lot of others I think it may be possible to overcome the balance between good/evil issue if you're 'enhanced' or are sufficiently advanced? That said, it seems clear that those from up above do questionable things from time to time (feels like too much evidence that they exist at times?).
At times, I wonder whether or not it's just a test?
POLITICAL THEORY - Niccolò Machiavelli
- it can't come down to a neurological disorder because they're seeing into the future continuously exactly what happens. No difference between what they see in their dream/vision and what they ultimately see in the 'real world'
Oneirology (/ɒnᵻˈrɒlədʒi/; from Greek ὄνειρον, oneiron, "dream"; and -λογία, -logia, "the study of") is the scientific study of dreams. Current research seeks correlations between dreaming and current knowledge about the functions of the brain, as well as understanding of how the brain works during dreaming as pertains to memory formation and mental disorders. The study of oneirology can be distinguished from dream interpretation in that the aim is to quantitatively study the process of dreams instead of analyzing the meaning behind them.
- would be sceptical that angels existed but as I've said previously geographical dispersion, lack of communication, etc... rules out a whole bunch of different things and yet people are still seeing roughly the same thing? Interesting that they communicate telepathically? My guess is that it would be frustrating to distinguish between personal thoughts and communication with them?
communication with angels
do angels kill
demons and angel communication
do angels have free choice
lamb of god
can satan come into heaven
where does satan live
Where Does Satan Live?
who can command angels
- there seems to be a set of protocols for communication?
angels and human interaction
- clear that they operate independently but only some are aware of 'the plan' from time to time. Guessing it's there to guard integrity of the system?
- one of the interesting things is that descriptions tell us they are formless but depictions are actually of people or else white light/energy? Raphael is the only who can really deal with healing?
angel healing
- intuition versus psychic argument doesn't apply to genuine pre-cogs/prophets because they see things that they've never seen before in their visions in a direct 1 to 1/WYSIWYG dream/vision?
is uri geller a real psychic
is john edward a real psychic
"uri geller" angels
- Stanford Research Institute (SRI). Pat Price a good pyschic. Experiments revolved around psychic 'hide and seek'. Joe McGonnical another good psychic. Engel Swann taught remote viewing. Helen Hamad. They wanted to see the difference between 'naturals' and those who were 'normal'. Associative Remote Viewing useful for financial forecasts. The 'Reality of ESP' book
Banned TEDTalk about Psychic Abilities _ Russell Targ
- a lot of pre-amble to this. Just skip through it. Basically same as above. Quite/relax and let information flow
Am I Psychic Or Just Intuitive
- remain positive and it shouldn't be a problem?
Psychic Attack Demystified - How to Recognize & Protect Against Psychic Attack
- faith in the pre-cogs/prophets is dangerous because even they don't know where they may be in time? Anyone who not 'enhanced' will struggle to believe any of these people at the best of the times but stack this issue on top of this it could be endless/mindless waiting for something that possibly may not happen?
- every single pre-cog/prophet knows (and dreads) that what they see often comes true. This they 'interpret' as the 'will of God'. They don't see everything though. They've basically extrapolated what they've seen into everything that occurs in real life. Like many ancient societies, they think that effectively much of our lives are pre-ordained. This doesn't make sense though as it seems to contradict much of what's actually said in the Holy Scriptures. It feels like humanity has free will 'up to a point'. It also helps to explain some pre-cogs/prophets complete sacrifice to God. If they had a higher (or 100%) incidence of pre-cog/prophetic visions/dreams which could not changed whatever they did then they basically gave up and 'gave in to God/Heaven'
- another funny moment in recent religious history (when Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse were declared counter to Islamic teachings...)
islamic fatwa donald duck
Dr. Yassir Burhami, vice president of Egypt's Salafi party, issued a fatwa or Islamic decree last week saying that it is forbidden to hang pictures of "Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse" inside of children's bedrooms.
Burhami added on the website ana salafi ("I am a Salafi") that "All children toys are thrown on the ground by the child and he hugs it later, and there is no problem with this. However, I see no permissibility for hanging such pictures, according to a sahih (canonical) hadith of the prophet of Islam (peace and blessings on him), that 'The angels do not enter homes that contain a dog or picture.'"
Salafis are modern day Muslims who closely pattern themselves after the words and deeds of Muhammad the prophet of Islam as recorded in the hadith and other sources. Because of this, they are a treasure trove of information concerning the practices and teachings of Islam's founder and earliest followers.
Egyptian Muslim Cleric Bans Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck
http://www.aina.org/news/20141002142400.htm
- nothing in 'this World' is going fix the religious conflict issue without an intermediary between the Heaven and Earth... The irony is this. Any sane pre-cog/prophet will not want anything to do with this
What impact will MOAB have in the fight against ISIL - Inside Story
One of the controversial drawings showed X-Men character Colossus playing baseball while wearing a t-shirt with ‘QS 5:51’ emblazoned across his chest. Verse 5.51 in the Koran is commonly translated as "O you who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are [in fact] allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you – then indeed, he is [one] of them. Indeed, Allah guides not the wrongdoing people.”
While the references went over the heads of most readers, people in Indonesia immediately spotted the reference and highlighted it on social media.
- most people don't know their own religions? They're very similar when it comes down to it?
How about Deuteronomy 17:
Deuteronomy 17
If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant; 17:3 And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; 17:4 And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel; 17:5 Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.
Or Deuteronomy 13:
6 If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, 7 gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), 8 do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them. 9 You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people. 10 Stone them to death, because they tried to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 11 Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again.
12 If you hear it said about one of the towns the Lord your God is giving you to live in 13 that troublemakers have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods you have not known), 14 then you must inquire, probe and investigate it thoroughly. And if it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done among you, 15 you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. You must destroy it completely, both its people and its livestock. 16 You are to gather all the plunder of the town into the middle of the public square and completely burn the town and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. That town is to remain a ruin forever, never to be rebuilt.
Or Numbers 31, where God commands the Israelites to attack Midian and kill all the men, all the married women and all the male children but to keep the virgin females as the spoils of war and distribute them among the soldiers. The reason offered for that barbarism? Two Midianite women had allegedly “tempted” two Israelite men to worship other gods.
There is no way around religion. According to the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), eight in 10 people around the world belong to a religious community. The quest for God, for the meaning of life, for transcendence, are all part of human nature.
Granted: Religion is not an easy subject. In these times of terror and suicide attacks, of child abuse and exorcism, of radical Buddhists hunting down Muslim Rohingya, of Hezbollah militias and Hamas brigades, of Boko Haram, and terror groups such as "Islamic State" (IS) and al Qaeda, religion appears to be a force for deadly conflict rather than peace.
Prange de Oliveira Astrid Kommentarbild App
Nevertheless, neither atheists nor humanists will be able to stop religious radicalization; that is something that can only be brought about by religious leaders themselves. And this is already happening. A study by the renowned Addis Ababa-based Institute for Peace and Security Studies (IPSS), for instance, claims that various Islamic movements in Egypt have been steadfastly working to revise the doctrine of jihad since the 1990s.
Random Stuff:
- have been trying to reverse engineer/decode a USB protocol of late. It's not like the 'old days' when access to information was limited and you basically had to figure out/write everything yourself. Most of the things you need have already been made or are already in play out there
usb sniffer python program
usb sniffer
usb sniffer and replay software
qwerty keyboard to midi python windows
- following stuff useful for those wanting to cross compile on Linux for Windows
apt-get install mingw32 mingw-w64
i586-mingw32msvc-gcc hello.c -o hello-w32.exe
x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc hello.c -o hello-w64.exe
gcc cross compile for windows
mingw debian package
- according to what I hear the Trigger Finger Pro is just a less capable Akai MPC, NI Maschine, or ABleton Push device. The software is useful but flawed. The two key selling points are are the sound libraries as well as the hardware, not the integration
trigger finger pro review
Windows Driver
Trigger Finger Pro (Arsenal, AIR Drums, Hybrid 3)
Toolroom Expansion Pack
Prime Loops Expansion Pack
Anomaly Expansion Pack
Arsenal Plugin Maps
maudio trigger finger pro with maschine
David Fingers Haynes on the MPC STUDIO
David 'Fingers' on the Akai MPC Studio - Some Smooth Vibes
- wouldn't be surprised if this was a publicity stunt of some sort?
- got a broken Rode NT1000 recently from someone for free. Great sounding microphone
rode nt1000 vs nt1a
- latest in finance and politics
http://stepfeed.com/once-upon-a-time-palestine-had-its-own-int-l-airport-but-it-was-short-lived-1105
- latest in ICT
CIA operations may be disrupted by new Wikileaks' data release
http://www.itwire.com/business-software/77631-microsoft-hiring-120-sales-staff-for-sydney-store.html
Google Defends Employment Practices After US Alleges Gender Pay Gap
- the perception of the US/West in many parts of the world is very strange at times for those who aren't used to alternative perspectives? What's interesting about the Syria situation for me is that technically that area may not be under the control of the Syrian Government/Assad? It's actually acknowledged as a 'rebel held area'? For some strange reason I think the time whereby Middle East conflict stayed confined to the Middle East are over? If not managed carefully, we could end up in WW3...
https://www.corbettreport.com/syriastrikes/
CrossTalk - Bullhorns go to war
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0G9vCH5acw
CrossTalk - Bullhorns go to war
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0G9vCH5acw
US became investigator & judge; this is violation of intl law – Bolivia UN envoy on Syria strike
US missile strike killed people fighting terrorists – Assad’s top advisor
Emergency UNSC meeting on US missile strike on Syria
'ISIS will exploit American airstrike in Syria to advance its position' - frmr Iraqi FM
‘Don’t know who used chemicals but it’s known’ - DEBATE on US strike against Syria
- as an aside if you look up 'tomahawk missile impact crater' (via any search engine. Look for images and/or videos) the impact looks kind of different from what you observe in Syria? Alternate theory of what may have happened? The US launched Tomahawks, the Russians/Syrians shot them down, the Russians/Syrians then ignited explosives around the area to save the US some blushes? Another alternate theory is that the US just launched them as a warning against the Russians/Syrians?
- it feels pretty clear that the US is at a 'pivot point'. It can cross the line one way or another... If Trump doesn't manage this correctly. I think the complexity of the North Korean situatiuon is being underestimated? If the US intervenes in North Korea I wouldn't be surprised that what happened in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, etc... will happen there as well. What's worse is that since China is massing troops on it's border any refugee outflow will go into South Korea or else they will simply have to deal with what ever calamity may arise inside of North Korea. Either way, if neighbours decide to 'push the issue' I don't think this is going to end the way it's predicted or 'should end'. If you examine the way Germany, Vietnam, and other countries achieved re-unification none of it really worked smoothly. In fact, in the case of Germany it took a 'huge economic hit' from having to rebuild East Germany. It's going to be much worse with North Korea... Moreover, unlike other places where the US/West has intervened allies are within range. Seoul and large parts of South Korea could be decimated if people don't tread carefully
Keiser Report - 'Powerful KeiserPepe' (E1055)
http://russia-insider.com/en/own-goal-after-syria-strikes-fearful-americans-dramatically-cut/ri19523
- latest in defense
http://www.smh.com.au/world/syrian-bombing-us-and-russia-one-step-away-from-war-20170407-gvgmdw.html
- latest in science and technology
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/04/11/pink-moon-will-be-visible-tonight-but-it-wont-be-pink.html
Random Quotes:
- If a war did break out between North and South Korea, one million people would be killed and the peninsula would be devastated, according to one academic.
In his book, The Impossible State, former White House adviser Victor Cha said the North has the ability to pound its rival with half a million artillery shells an hour.
In his description of an attack, Mr Cha said Kim Jung-un could use 600 chemical weapons to destroy airports, preventing the terrified population from escaping, before sending 700,000 North Korean troops and 2,000 tanks across the border through secret underground invasion tunnels.
- Back in Moscow he began systematically combing the KGB archives for consistent patterns observable in the postings of CIA counterparts. The research was extended to take in the records of the KGB's allies, Cuba and the Warsaw Pact. The open source literature from the United States was also exploited to the full. And wherever possible access was obtained to data compiled by the local police authorities.
What Totrov came up with were 26 unchanging indicators as a model for identifying U.S. intelligence officers overseas. Other indicators of a more trivial nature could be detected in the field by a vigilant foreign counterintelligence operative but not uniformly so: the fact that CIA officers replacing one another tended to take on the same post within the embassy hierarchy, drive the same make of vehicle, rent the same apartment and so on. Why? Because the personnel office in Langley shuffled and dealt overseas postings with as little effort as required.
The invariable indicators took further research, however, based on U.S. government practices long established as a result of the ambivalence with which the State Department treated its cousins in intelligence.
Thus one productive line of inquiry quickly yielded evidence: the differences in the way agency officers undercover as diplomats were treated from genuine foreign service officers (FSOs). The pay scale at entry was much higher for a CIA officer; after three to four years abroad a genuine FSO could return home, whereas an agency employee could not; real FSOs had to be recruited between the ages of 21 and 31, whereas this did not apply to an agency officer; only real FSOs had to attend the Institute of Foreign Service for three months before entering the service; naturalized Americans could not become FSOs for at least nine years but they could become agency employees; when agency officers returned home, they did not normally appear in State Department listings; should they appear they were classified as research and planning, research and intelligence, consular or chancery for security affairs; unlike FSOs, agency officers could change their place of work for no apparent reason; their published biographies contained obvious gaps; agency officers could be relocated within the country to which they were posted, FSOs were not; agency officers usually had more than one working foreign language; their cover was usually as a "political" or "consular" official (often vice-consul); internal embassy reorganizations usually left agency personnel untouched, whether their rank, their office space or their telephones; their offices were located in restricted zones within the embassy; they would appear on the streets during the working day using public telephone boxes; they would arrange meetings for the evening, out of town, usually around 7.30 p.m. or 8.00 p.m.; and whereas FSOs had to observe strict rules about attending dinner, agency officers could come and go as they pleased.
As soon becomes evident on reading, the fact that Totrov was able to produce telephone book-size volumes of CIA and other intelligence officers for KGB chief Yuri Andropov testified to the structural defects within the U.S. government in the relationship between its key operational departments in the sphere of foreign policy. All Totrov did, once apprised of this crucial flaw, was follow through schematically and draw out the pattern. This was human intelligence of the highest order and an acute embarrassment, once known, to those responsible for the conduct of U.S. foreign intelligence.
- “That is a future we can choose,” Obama said, with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe standing at his side. “A future in which Hiroshima and Nagasaki are known not as the dawn of atomic warfare but as the start of our own moral awakening.”
“This is another example of the blatant hypocrisy of the Obama administration,” Professor Petras said, “because at the same time he has announced almost one trillion dollars in upgrading nuclear weapons.”
“So in fact the US is moving ahead in escalating the nuclear armament in the United States,” the academic said.
“Secondly, Obama has stationed missiles right on the border with Russia. Thirdly, Obama has stationed US-nuclear armed weapons approximate to China,” he added.
“So on a world scale Obama is moving in an opposite direction, escalating the amount of nuclear weapons available to the US by one trillion dollars, is confronting nuclear weapons against Russia and China,” the analyst said.
“We’ll leave aside the fact that the United States’ government has bombed many countries in the Middle East, Libya, Iraq, and other countries in the region, including Yemen,” he stated.
“So we can see that Obama is totally untrustworthy, that his declaration of peace really means an escalation of war,” Professor Petras concluded.
- Russia hailed its sale of $1.75 billion of Eurobonds as a triumph in the face of sanctions and “unprecedented pressure” from U.S. and European Union governments.
While Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said the deal showed foreigners have “trust” in Russia, investors expressed concern the bond won’t be admitted to international settlement systems. VTB Capital, the investment-banking arm of penalized lender VTB Group, emerged at the start of the week as the sole organizer of the deal after foreign governments warned lenders away from the placement.
“We had a situation where the State Department, the U.S. administration, decides on behalf of investors and settlement organizations whether they participate in the placement or not,” Siluanov told reporters Wednesday in Moscow. Euroclear Bank SA, on which many foreign funds rely for bond settlements, came under “unprecedented pressure” in connection with the sale, and in the future, Russia will aim to sell debt abroad and at home without the use of foreign banks, he said.
- North Korea has long been known for creative attempts to generate badly needed hard currency. In the last decade, US government officials accused North Korea of counterfeiting $US100 bills, which were known as "superdollars" or "supernotes" because the fakes were nearly flawless. The Federal Reserve began thwarting that effort by circulating a new $US100 bill over the last three years that makes counterfeiting nearly impossible: The redesigned $US100 is easier to authenticate and harder to replicate.
"North Korea is hurting for money," said Herb Lin, the senior research scholar for cyberpolicy and security at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation and a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution. "They've been cut out of the financial system because of sanctions. They had been among the best counterfeiters in the world, and only recently have they been stymied in the counterfeiting of superdollars. If it's true that we've cut them off from that, then it's not at all surprising that they would turn to something else."
- So-called kamikaze drones are small unmanned aircraft, which carry onboard explosives. Unlike larger drones that fire missiles at their targets, a kamikaze drone simply flies into it and sets off an explosion. The advantage is that the aircraft can be cheaper, lighter and harder to detect.
Similar weapons are being developed or are already in use in some other countries. The Pentagon has the AeroVironment Switchblade, a 2.7 kg UAV designed for infantry platoons. With a range of up to 10km and endurance of just 10 minutes, it can be used for precision strikes at covered targets, such as an enemy ambush.
Israel has Harpy and Harop, kamikaze drones produced by Israel Aerospace Industries, which are meant to destroy enemy radar stations. A small drone can approach a radar undetected close enough to avoid anti-aircraft systems. Harop was allegedly used by Azerbaijan in a recent offensive operation against its breakaway region Nagorni Karabakh to destroy command posts.
- The executive said there are thousands of people in super funded life insurance policies that offer virtually no protection because they are "any occupation" policies, and will pay out only if the person is totally and permanently disabled or dead.
"It's a standing joke across the insurance industry," he said.
It raises questions whether some trustees are paying enough attention to the finer details of the contracts.
The end result can be people who deserve to be paid out not being entitled to a payout.
In QSuper's case, which has $65 billion in funds under management and 550,000 members, when it went to the market it struggled to find suitable coverage for some of its members, who include police and emergency service workers.
- China’s elaborate censorship mechanism, nicknamed the Great Firewall, blocks tens of thousands of foreign websites deemed hostile to the Communist Party regime.
While some internet users inside China count on services like VPNs and proxies to get access to Facebook, Twitter, and overseas news outlets, many Chinese netizens never bother. They’re satisfied with the filtered information they get on China’s “intranet,” as it is sometimes jokingly called in China.
But recently, hundreds of Chinese investors, who may be out $6 billion in one of China’s biggest financial scams, have leaped over the Great Firewall in an organized, determined way. After being ignored by China’s regulators and lawmakers, these desperate investors are pouring into Twitter to spread news of their plight.
While their numbers are small, their actions are already inspiring other Chinese investors burned in a monumental number of recent scams, turning Twitter into a new venue for angry Chinese citizens to protest. And as they leap over the Great Firewall, some are coming to a new realization—the government has been cracking down on free speech and civil protests just like theirs for years.
- The S-500—which will form the upper tier of Russia’s layered integrated air defense system—is expected to be able to engage targets at altitudes of about 125 miles—or 660,000 feet. That means that S-500 will be able to engage targets such as incoming ballistic missiles in space at ranges as great as 400 miles. The first regiment of S-500 will be deployed to protect Moscow and central Russia.
The S-500 is expected to able to detect and simultaneously attack up to ten ballistic missile warheads flying at speeds of twenty-three thousand feet per second. It is also reportedly being designed to use hit-to-kill interceptors—a design with similarities to Lockheed Martin's Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.
Like all modern Russian air defense systems, the S-500 is expected to be highly mobile and will use a network of radars for targeting over vast distances. The missile system is expected to use the 91N6A(M) battle management radar, a modified 96L6-TsP acquisition radar, as well as the new 76T6 multimode engagement and 77T6 ABM engagement radars, according to Missile Threat—which is run by the George C. Marshall and Claremont Institutes.
- China has ended production on the J-7, meaning that we have seen the last MiG-21 variant roll the assembly line. Croatia and Romania will dispose of their Fishbeds in the next five years. After a spate of accidents, India is finally retiring its MiG-21s (assuming it can ever actually acquire or produce a replacement). Chinese J-7s have been relegated to local defense and training duties.
This hardly means the end of the Fishbed, however. Many of the J-7 and F-7 models remain of fairly recent vintage, and can stay in service for quite some time. Bangladesh acquired the last dozen F-7s in 2013, and won’t need a replacement anytime soon. And plenty of air forces simply have no requirement for anything much more sophisticated or expensive than a Fishbed. There may never be a hundred-year fighter (although the B-52 may quite possibly reach that number before final retirement). The MiG-21 will easily reach sixty, however, and probably seventy without breaking a sweat. It remains one of the iconic fighters of the supersonic age.
- Almost every commentator, for instance, accepts without question that sterling will “fall sharply” if there is a Brexit vote, as that’s what the Bank of England says. Really? Why, then, during recent weeks with the polls neck and neck, has sterling risen sharply against the euro, to stand at a four-month high?
Similarly, when it comes to the single currency itself almost everyone now accepts what some of us have been saying for 25 years, namely, that it will only survive if there is a meaningful pooling of a large chunk of euro-wide government revenue and also a banking union. Neither will happen anytime soon.
Both, in fact, are political totems, rather than viable policy outcomes. Ergo, before these massive dilutions of national sovereignty happen – and I submit humbly that they never will – one or more countries will crash out of the euro, causing an almighty mess, the bill for which will be met by the big economies in the EU.
The single currency is a powder-keg. It represents probably the largest systemic danger to global financial markets on earth. Yet, whatever the catalyst, be it an Italian banking collapse or ongoing turmoil in Greece, as an EU member the UK is on the hook should the euro implode. Consider that when assessing the merits of Remain.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/05/28/italys-broken-banks-show-the-dangers-behind-the-euro/
- So say the betting markets. And as we know, the punters are always right.
Right?
Conventional political wisdom says betting agency odds are a better predictor of election outcomes than the published polls. But is that actually true?
One of the main proponents of this theory is Andrew Leigh, an academic economist who is now a Labor MP.
In his recent book The Luck of Politics, Dr Leigh says the betting markets' predictive power has been proven over and over.
"Every time, betting markets have been found to perform at least as well, and usually better than, the polls," he says.
- The $50 billion purchase of 12 new submarines, $17 billion for joint strike fighters and the allocation of two per cent of national income to the defence budget were unnecessary in the Greens view.
The increase in defence spending amounted to billions of dollars Australia wasn't putting into schools and hospitals, he said.
'The Greens believe we need a defence force that protects Australia, not one that exists to play gatekeeper between two regional powers,' he said.
- "Going back to 1900, the Dow has seen an annualized gain of 8.9 percent under Democratic Presidents and a gain of 3.8 percent under Republican Presidents," Paul Hickey of Bespoke Investment Group told CNBC's "Fast Money" traders last week. "So there's a big disparity there."
According to Hickey, there have only been two democratic presidents in history that have had a negative impact on the Dow Jones Industrial Average: Woodrow Wilson and Jimmy Carter. Each of those administrations only led the Dow lower by less than one percent over the course of their respective tenures.
- This month, the United States delivered the first batch of 762 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles to Egypt free of charge. That’s on top of the $1.3 billion in military aid the Obama administration has allocated to the regime of Abdel Fatah al-Sissi this year. The White House refuses to condition these gifts on an improvement in Egypt’s horrendous human rights record. So herewith a more modest proposal: Obama should ask Sissi to publicly explain how the MRAPs fit into the “fourth-generation war.”
Most people are unfamiliar with that esoteric term — unless they have been following the rhetoric of Egypt’s military leaders since the coup of 2013. Fourth-generation warfare, Sissi once explained to cadets at Egypt’s military academy, occurs when “modern communication channels, psychology and the media are . . . deployed to create divisions and harm Egypt from within,” according to the website Mada Masr.
Who is the enemy in this war? According to the Egyptian military, that would be the United States — the same country providing the army with those free armored vehicles and billions in aid. In March, the Defense Ministry’s Nasser Military Academy briefed the parliament about fourth-generation warfare. According to the outline, reported by Mada Masr, the subjects included “Egypt’s defense strategy and Western plans to divide the Middle East.”
- “It is difficult to comprehend why anyone in his right mind would think that any further encouragement or justification is needed to invite violence upon women in Pakistan,” the HRCP stated.
The bill was met with derision on social media, with one Twitter user writing: “This body should be dissolved, preferably in acid.”
Women in conservative Pakistan have fought for their rights for decades, in a country where so-called honour killings and acid attacks remain commonplace.
Pakistani activist and Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai was shot in the face by a Taliban gunman in 2012 when she was returning from school. The militants targeted her because she advocated education for women.
- The statement did little to calm concerned parents, nor did it reveal how the government will plan future educational reforms that address China’s gap between rich and poor. Eric Sun is a high school senior in Beijing, and says the differences in educational opportunity are readily apparent among the teenagers he sees and socializes with in the city.
Sun said, “I think the educational opportunity, the people are very stratified here. The people with less money, less everything, tend to have a harder time getting education. In order to get into the very prestigious schools, you have to have a lot of investment in your child.”
Eric plans to opt out of higher education in China altogether and attend college in the U.S. or Europe. Thousands of his peers throughout China will not have that chance, and be forced to enter the grueling competition of China’s education system and job market.
- WASHINGTON: Among the many tart putdowns of the human species is a sardonic observation from a writer that monkeys are superior to men because when a monkey looks in the mirror, he sees a monkey.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/US-zoo-gorilla-shooting-brings-attention-on-human-stupidity/articleshow/52510526.cms
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- as usual thanks to all of the individuals and groups who purchase and use my goods and services
http://sites.google.com/site/dtbnguyen/
http://dtbnguyen.blogspot.com.au/
