City view of Hanoi, Vietnam. Vietnam is prioritising green growth. Credit: Adam Bray/IPS

By Pascal Laureyn
PHNOM PENH, Dec 18 2018 (IPS)

Vietnam’s shift from a centrally planned to a market economy has transformed the country. And while it is now is one of the most dynamic emerging countries in Southeast Asia, this has sometimes been at the expense of the environment. But the country has begun to prioritise green growth.

Vietnam’s economic growth has been accompanied by significant rural to urban migration, which has led to increased social and environmental challenges. Over the past decade, 700 square kilometres of land has been converted into urban areas. Vietnam’s emissions per unit of GDP are surpassing all other Asia-Pacific developing countries, except for China. This is fuelled by domestic coal consumption, which currently accounts for 36 percent of electricity supply and is projected to increase 56 percent by 2030.

But recently the concept of an inclusive green economy has emerged as a strategic priority in the country. A green growth economy is one that improves human well-being and builds social equity while reducing environmental risks.

The intergovernmental organisation, the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), is trying to promote just that. GGGI is working to increase green energy production and reduce greenhouse gases emissions and has been assisting with the development of green master plans, strategies for renewable energy and bankable projects for Vietnam’s cities.

IPS spoke to Adam Ward, the Country Representative of GGGI for Vietnam. Excerpts of the interview follow.

Adam Ward, the Country Representative of Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) for Vietnam says that his organisation is working on policies for the growth of green cities. Courtesy: Adam Ward

Inter Press Service (IPS): GGGI does not donate funds. So how can you develop green growth?

Adam Ward (AW): We support planning for projects like solar power and electric buses. We also seek finance for the government and the private sector at accessible rates so these projects can get implemented.

We have worked with the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) to develop guidelines for prioritisation and allocation of funding to public infrastructure. We have also worked on a process to solicit projects from small and medium enterprises and appraise them. We helped them to understand how to submit projects and access financing.

The government sees the value in our work. With MPI, we developed a handbook for the appraisal of public investment projects, [which is] becoming government policy. Projects worth over four billion dollars have been appraised under this inclusive framework. Like components of the airport, metro lines in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. It is really great to see that our guidelines are being used for sustainable growth.

IPS: Economic growth needs energy. How do you keep it sustainable?

AW: For example, we advised the government on generating energy from bagasse (the dry pulpy residue that remains after sugarcane is crushed to extract the juice). And how much can they potentially generate, how much investment is required and how to sell it to the grid. This makes sense, both economically and environmentally. It is clean energy that can be sold. Then we presented our advice to the government on better tariffs to stimulate the production of this green energy.

IPS: Does GGGI advise on national policies. How does it affect local decision making?

AW: We are also working on policies for the growth of green cities. The Ministry of Construction has already approved one of our suggestions, which has been incorporated into an Urban Green Growth Development Plan. Another one is the set-up of green growth indicators. Cities are now legally required to report the implementation of green growth. We also worked on waste water treatment and city planning. And we are kicking off a project on generating energy with municipal waste.

IPS: Vietnam has only recently risen out of poverty. Is green growth a real concern?

AW: There is definitely openness for green growth. Vietnam wants their development to be inclusive, sustainable and as green as possible. However, what we have seen is that growth has taken an upper hand on the environment. What we really want to tell the government is that the quality of growth matters for the future. [Especially] in Vietnam, a country that is very vulnerable to climate change.

Emissions are increasing rapidly. There are challenges with air quality in cities. Growth is important, we recognise that Vietnam wants to develop. But our message is that the quality of growth matters too. By embracing green growth there will be no downsides in terms of economic development.

IPS: What are the challenges facing GGGI?

AW: Vietnam has a high energy demand. And given the GDP growth, it will increase dramatically. They want to meet a large part of that via coal, which will have a serious impact on carbon emissions. But it will also pollute the surrounding cities and the agricultural lands surrounding coal plants. That’s going to be a massive challenge.

The second challenge facing Vietnam is climate change. The Mekong Delta is one of the most vulnerable places in the world to climate change. Sea level rise and droughts are more common. Typhoons are more extreme.

The third area is the cities. Around 30 percent of the population lives in or around cities. This is set to increase to over 50 percent by 2050.
This brings a lot of benefits in terms of economic development, however, this mass influx of people brings challenges in terms of infrastructure in a way to support transport, housing, etc. This is exactly why GGGI is working on renewable energy, sustainable waste management, providing guidance on increasing investment into green projects and also specifically working with cities to make them cleaner.

An estimated 4.5 million Vietnamese people were potentially exposed to Agent Orange during the decade 1961-1972. Credit: naturalbornstupid/CC-BY-SA-2.0

By Zhai Yun Tan
WASHINGTON, Jun 29 2015 (IPS)

A key senator and a D.C.-based think tank are calling for Washington to step up its aid in cleaning up toxic herbicides sprayed by the United States in Vietnam during the war that ended 40 years ago.

Speaking last week at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a major think tank here, Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, who has long led the efforts in the U.S. Congress to compensate Vietnamese war victims, called on Washington to do more, arguing that it will further bolster renewed ties between the two countries.

“We can meet the target of cleaning up the dioxin and Agent Orange between now and the year 2020, but the target is very difficult to get to. We need more assistance.” -- Vietnamese Ambassador to the United States Pham Quang Vinh
Leahy’s remarks were echoed by Charles Bailey, former director of Aspen Institute’s Agent Orange in Vietnam Program – a multi-year initiative to deal with health and environmental impacts of the estimated 19 million gallons of herbicides that were sprayed over 4.5 million acres of land in Vietnam from 1961 to 1970.

Vietnamese Ambassador to the United States Pham Quang Vinh expressed similar sentiments at the event.

Hanoi’s ambassador said his government has been spending 45 million dollars every year to deal with the many problems created by Agent Orange and other herbicides used by U.S. military forces during the war.

“We can meet the target of cleaning up the dioxin and Agent Orange between now and the year 2020, but the target is very difficult to get,” he said. “We need more assistance.”

An estimated 4.5 million Vietnamese people were potentially exposed to Agent Orange. The Vietnam Red Cross estimates that three million Vietnamese people were affected, including 150,000 children born with birth defects.

Those who bore the brunt of the chemical spraying suffered cancer, liver damage, severe skin and nervous disorders and heart disease. The children and even grandchildren of people exposed to Agent Orange have been born with deformities, defects, disabilities and diseases.

Huge expanses of forest and jungle, including the natural habitats of several species, were devastated. Many of these species are still threatened with extinction.

In some areas, rivers were poisoned and underground water sources contaminated. Erosion and desertification as a result of the herbicide sprays made barren fields out of once-fertile farmlands.

The United States currently funds aid operations in Vietnam through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). According to Bailey, 136 million dollars have been appropriated to date. But some observers of the programme say still more should be done.

Merle Ratner from the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign said that too little of the aid has gone to the people. Most of it is given to international NGOs, who are then contracted to do the work, she said.

“We are suggesting that the aid go directly to NGOs in Vietnam because who knows the people better than their own organisations?” Ratner told IPS.

“People should be involved in their own solutions to the situation.”

The renewed attention comes at a time when the U.S. and Vietnam have moved closer together, particularly in light of the two nations’ growing concerns over China’s recent assertiveness in the South China Sea, parts of which are claimed by Vietnam, as well as the Philippines, Taiwan, and Malaysia.

“I want to turn Agent Orange from being a symbol of antagonism into an area where the U.S and Vietnamese governments can work together,” Leahy said. “At a time when China is actively seeking to extend its sphere of influence and United States has begun its own re-balance towards Asia, these Vietnam legacy programs have taken on greater significance.”

The general secretary of Vietnam’s Communist Party, Nguyen Phy Trong, is scheduled to visit the United States this year, the first such trip by the nation’s ruling party chief.

The warming relationship has helped Leahy further his cause. Leahy met with much resistance in the early 2000s when Washington was clearly reluctant to take responsibility for the destruction wrought by its forces during the war in which an estimated two million Vietnamese and some 55,000 U.S. troops were killed.

Vietnam, on the other hand, put the issue on the backburner as it focused on gaining preferential trade status (Permanent Normal Trade Relations) for exports to the huge U.S. market.

While Washington and Hanoi established full diplomatic relations in 1995, it wasn’t until 2002 that the two governments held a joint conference on the impact of Agent Orange and other herbicides on Vietnam and its people.

In Dec. 2014, President Barack Obama signed into law the Fiscal Year 2015 Appropriations Act that specifically makes available funds for the remediation of dioxin contaminated areas in Vietnam.

Much of those funds have been earmarked for a clean-up project at the former giant U.S. military base at Da Nang, which is 824 km from the capital, Hanoi. The project is expected to be completed in 2016.

The U.S. military sprayed Agent Orange and other herbicides over many parts of rural Vietnam, destroying millions of hectares of forests in an attempt to deny the Viet Cong insurgents and their North Vietnamese allies cover and food.

Two-thirds of the herbicide contains dioxin. According to the National Institute for Environmental Health Science, dioxin is a compound found to cause cancer and diabetes, as well as a host of other diseases.

A scientific report in 1969 also concluded that the herbicide can cause birth defects in laboratory animals, thus leading U.S. forces to halt the use of Agent Orange in 1970.

A 1994 Institute of Medicine study records that there was a growing number of Vietnam veterans who have fathered handicapped children. Many still dispute the link between Agent Orange and birth defects—Vietnam veterans in the United States still cannot claim benefits for birth defects in their children.

While welcoming Washington’s new aid programme, some activists who have long called for the U.S. to help Vietnam address the problems left behind by Agent Orange insist that U.S. should both do more and provide more direct assistance to Vietnamese groups on the ground who believe that the United States’ funds could be better distributed.

Susan Hammond, executive director of the War Legacies Project, said she hopes to see more of the money go to rural Vietnam.

“U.S. funding, at this point, is pretty much limited to the Da Nang area,” Hammond said. “In rural areas, families are pretty much left on their own.”

Tim Rieser, Leahy’s chief staffer with the Senate subcommittee that deals with foreign aid, recalled that it was initially very difficult to obtain any funding from the government.

“The State Department and Pentagon were very resistant to the idea of any kind of action by the U.S. that might be interpreted as reparations or compensation,” he said.

“It took over a year to reach an agreement with them that what we were talking about was not either of those things, but it was of trying to work with the Vietnamese government to address the problems that we obviously have responsibility for.”

Rieser said he is currently urging the Pentagon to help fund the cleanup of the Bien Hoa airbase, 1,702 km from the capital. He said the area could well contain even higher levels of dioxin than Da Nang. And he urged Obama to include additional money in his proposed 2016 budget.

“Ideally, if the president would include money in the budget, it would make our lives much easier,” he said. “But at the very least when there are opportunities – like when the president goes to Vietnam or the general secretary comes here – to reaffirm the commitment of both countries to continue working on this issue. [That] is almost as important as providing the funds.”

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

A scene from ‘The Incredible Adventures of Border Crossers’ by Singaporean artist Ong Keng Sen at the ‘Singapour en France - le festival’ arts fest, which aims to highlight the power of culture and its “ability to bring people together and to cross boundaries”. Credit A.D. McKenzie/IPS

By A. D. McKenzie
PARIS, Mar 29 2015 (IPS)

As Singapore mourns the passing of Lee Kuan Yew, the late former prime minister’s vision of a dynamic and vibrant state is being reflected in a major arts festival in France.

‘Singapour en France – le festival’ was launched Mar. 26 in Paris, against the backdrop of a massive out-pouring of grief in Lee’s homeland, following his death three days earlier.

“As Singaporeans grieve and reflect on our loss, we continue to honour Mr. Lee’s vision of establishing Singapore on the international stage,” said Rosa Daniel, deputy secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth, who delivered a speech on behalf of her chief Lawrence Wong at the opening of the festival.“We used to be derided as just clean, green, safe and orderly, but dull and antiseptic. Now we have a lively city with the arts, culture, museums, art galleries, the Esplanade Theatre by the Bay, a Western orchestra, a Chinese orchestra ... And we have resident writers and artists” – Lee Kuan Yew, late former Prime Minister of Singapore

The event, which will run until Jun. 30, celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Asian city state’s independence, as well as 50 years of diplomatic ties between Singapore and France. It aims to showcase the art, culture and heritage of Singapore through more than 70 activities in cities throughout France.

“We’re a young nation … but we’re bold, modern and willing to experiment,” said Daniel, adding that the festival would also highlight the power of culture and its “ability to bring people together and to cross boundaries.”

Lee himself recognised that Singapore had made its “share of mistakes” in the cultural heritage area by destroying buildings in its rush to modernise, but in his later political years he emphasised the importance of safeguarding this heritage and of having a “top-class” arts and entertainment sector.

“We used to be derided as just clean, green, safe and orderly, but dull and antiseptic,” he said in 2010. “Now we have a lively city with the arts, culture, museums, art galleries, the Esplanade Theatre by the Bay, a Western orchestra, a Chinese orchestra … And we have resident writers and artists.”

Some of those artists travelled to France for the opening of the festival and gave a view of the changing art scene in Singapore, pushing the boundaries in a region noted for traditional values and not particularly famous for freedom of expression.

In ‘Secret Archipelago’ at Paris’ Palais de Tokyo modern art museum, visitors can view a range of experimental and contemporary work, created by Singaporeans and artists from other Southeast Asian nations such as Malaysia, Vietnam and Myanmar.

“Their works represent a bridging of the gap between past and future and the creative tension between memory and tradition on the one hand and contemporary Western influences on the other, while bringing their own particular languages to modern art,” say the curators.

“I don’t consider myself a strong person, but art gives me a way to express myself” – AnGie seah, one of the Singaporean artists exhibiting at the ‘Singapour en France – le festival’ arts fest in Paris, March 2015. Credit A.D. McKenzie/IPS

AnGie seah, an artist who includes performance in her work, embodies these concerns – literally – in her presentation titled ‘Howl of the Hallows’ in the Palais de Tokyo’s huge basement gallery.

Here visitors can listen to the screams of various people through a headphone while watching seah (who prefers her name to be lower-cased) perform the screams on video.

“I think the human voice is powerful and I like to use it in my art,” said the artist, who has travelled around France asking people to scream for her, and taping the results.

Her installation included “mini shrines” with pottery or terra cotta representations of body parts such as a hand, with the middle finger sticking up. The shrines give the installation a traditional yet avant-garde feel, inviting visitors to question the symbolism.

“I don’t consider myself a strong person, but art gives me a way to express myself,” seah told IPS.

Not far from her exposition, Vietnamese artists and twin brothers Le Ngoc Thanh and Le Duc Hai, who go by the name of Le Brothers, showed a long rectangle of video screens with military-clad characters in a variety of activities. They told IPS that their work is a call for peace through the depiction of war and soldiers in their self-performed films.

Describing their art further, Singaporean curator Khairuddin Hori said it dissects and questions post-war consciousness of North and South Vietnam, as the brothers “exploit their twin identity as mirror and metaphor.”

Other artists incorporated everyday items such as plates and household figurines to question identity while also re-affirming their history and culture. An artist from Malaysia said he had listened to senior citizens and used their stories to create his installation, which covered a large part of one wall.

Alongside the ‘Secret Archipelago’ exhibition, the opening of the festival included a five hour-long multi-media performance titled ‘The Incredible Adventures of Border Crossers’, with sound, dance, film, fashion and photography.

Specially commissioned for the festival, this ultra-modern work by Singaporean artist Ong Keng Sen features huge video screens, music technicians and live performances in a kind of visual and acoustic cacophony that still transmits harmony.

“Real-life border crossers who have never acted before are invited to be performers in this piece,” said the creator. “Sharing their everyday stories as incredible adventures, they inhabit the installation as singing, dancing and re-performing pioneer travellers.”

The “show” is described as an artwork that “envisions communications in a not-so-distant future megapolis.”

The visitor cannot help thinking that it captures something essential about Singapore, with its multi-ethnic population, its vibrant history as a trading post and its sometimes controversial efforts to build a cohesive, economically strong nation. The show also seems to evoke the late Lee’s vision of his homeland.

Edited by Phil Harris   

When a natural disaster strikes, people are sometimes left with no choice but to leave the areas affected. Yet, for some, even this option might not exist. Cyclone survivors in Myanmar shelter in the ruins of their destroyed home. Credit: UNHCR/Taw Naw Htoo

By Ido Liven
LONDON, Nov 10 2014 (IPS)

Climate change is projected by many scientists to bring with it a range of calamities – from widespread floods, to prolonged heatwaves and slowly but relentlessly rising seas – taking the heaviest toll on those already most vulnerable.

When a natural disaster strikes, people are sometimes left with no choice but to leave the areas affected. Yet, for some, even this option might not exist.

While many could be uprooted in search of a safer place to live, either temporarily or permanently, some may become “climate hostages”, unable to escape.

“People around the world are more or less mobile, depending on a range of factors,” argues Prof Richard Black from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, “but they can become trapped in circumstances where they want or need [to move] but cannot.”When a natural disaster strikes, people are sometimes left with no choice but to leave the areas affected. Yet, for some, even this option might not exist … they may become “climate hostages”, unable to escape

According to Black, “it is most likely to be because they cannot afford it, or because there is no [social] network for them to follow or job for them to do … or because there is some kind of policy barrier to movement such as a requirement for a visa that is unobtainable, in some countries even the requirement for an exit visa that is unobtainable.”

For the most vulnerable, climate change could mean double jeopardy – first, from worsening environmental conditions threatening their livelihood, and second, from the diminished financial, social and even physical assets required for moving away provoked by this situation.

A project on migration and global environmental change led by Black was one of the first to draw attention to the notion of “trapped populations”.

In its report, published in 2011 by the Foresight think tank at the U.K. Government Office for Science, the authors warned that “in the decades ahead, millions of people will be unable to move away from locations in which they are extremely vulnerable to environmental change.”

An example the Foresight report mentions is that of inhabitants of small island states living in flood-prone areas or near exposed coasts. People in these areas might not have the means to address these hazards and also lack the resources to migrate out of the islands.

The report warned that such situations could escalate to risky displacement and humanitarian emergencies.

In fact, past cases offer some evidence of groups of people who have become immobile as a result of either extreme weather events or even slow onset crises.

One such example, says Black, is the drought in the 1980s in Africa’s Sahel region, when there was a decrease in the numbers of adult men who chose to migrate – the same people who would otherwise leave the area.

“Under drought conditions they were less able to do so because that involves drawing on your assets – in the Sahel often assets would be livestock – and the drought kills livestock, which means you can’t convert livestock into cash, and then you can’t pay the smuggler or afford the cost of the journey that would take you out of that area.”

Nevertheless, Black argues that in many cases it would be especially difficult to distinguish people who remain because they can and wish to, from those who are really unable to leave. In addition, environmental change could also drive people to migrate towards areas where they are even more at risk than those they have left.

In the Mekong delta in southern Vietnam, researchers foresee climate change contributing to floods, loss of land and increased soil salinity. Facing these hazards, local residents in an already impoverished region could find themselves unable to cope, and also unable to move away.

“It would generally be income and assets that will determine whether people can stay where they are or need to relocate,” says Dr Christopher Smith from the University of Sussex, who is currently conducting a European Community-funded project assessing the risk of trapped populations in the Mekong delta.

“Within the short term, it would mostly be temporary movement, but in the future … there could be more permanent migration.”

According to Smith, “the Mekong, being such a long river that flows through so many different countries, will make [this case] quite unique in terms of changes to the water budget in the delta and, of course, factors like cultures and populations in the delta will play a part.”

Conclusions from the study are likely to be relevant to other cases around the world, and specifically to other low lying mega-deltas with similar characteristics, Smith adds.

In Guatemala, researchers found that relatively isolated mountain communities could also be facing the risk of becoming stranded by climate change.

According to a study published earlier this year, irregular rainfall could be posing a serious threat for the food security and sources of income of communities in the municipality of Cabricán who rely on subsistence rain-fed agriculture.

Yet, the risks associated with climate change are not confined to developing countries. Hurricane Katrina, which hit the south-east of the United States in 2005, offered a vivid example when the New Orleans’ Superdome housed more than 20,000 people over several days.

“That was to do with the fact that an evacuation plan had been designed with the idea that everybody would leave by car, but essentially there were sections of the population that didn’t have a car and were not going to leave by car, and also some people who didn’t believe the messages around evacuation,” says Black.

“And those people who were trapped in the eye of the storm were then more likely to be displaced later – so they were more likely to end up in one of the trailer parks, the temporary accommodation put on by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”

Scientists are wary of linking Hurricane Katrina, or any single extreme weather event, to climate change. Yet, studies show that a warmer world might not necessarily mean more hurricanes, but such storms could be fiercer than those that these areas are used to.

Beyond science, says Black, international organisations are aware of the issue. “I’ve had quite extensive discussions with UNHCR [the U.N. refugee agency], the International Organization for Migration, the European Commission and a number of other bodies on these matters. There is a degree of interest in this idea that people can be trapped.”

A paper on Populations ‘trapped’ at times of crisis written by Black with Michael Collyer of the University of Sussex and published in February, notes that while it might still be early to suggest specific policy measures to address this predicament, there are several steps decision makers can take, and not only on the national level.

“As long as we have limited information on trapped populations,” say the authors, “the policy goal should be to avoid situations in which people are unable to move when they want to, not to promote policy that encourages them to move when they may not want to, and up-to-date information allowing them to make an informed choice.”

Intergovernmental fora – and among them the loss and damage stream in international climate negotiations – are yet to address specifically the challenge of trapped populations, but Europe might already be showing the way.

A European Commission working paper on climate change, environmental degradation and migration that accompanies the European Union’s strategy on adaptation to climate change adopted in April 2013 mentions the risk of trapped populations, albeit implicitly only outside the region, and recommends steps to address the issue.

Reviewing existing research on the links between climate change, environmental degradation and migration, the authors note that relocation, while questionably effective, “may nevertheless become a necessity in certain scenarios” such as the case of trapped communities.

“The EU should therefore consider supporting countries severely exposed to environmental stressors to assess the path of degradation and design specific preventive internal, or where necessary, international relocation measures when adaptation strategies can no longer be implemented,” states the working paper.

Ultimately, the situation where individuals, families, and indeed entire communities, find themselves unable to move out of harm’s way is not unique to the effects of climate change – it can be other natural hazards such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions or human-induced crises like armed conflict.

The international community’s response to people moving in the face of such crises is most often based on giving them a status, such as “internally displaced persons”, “asylum seekers” or “refugees”.

But this would not be the appropriate response when people remain, argues Black.

For them, “the issue is not a lack of legal status – it’s a lack of options … Public policy needs to be geared around providing people with options, in my view, both ahead of disasters and in the immediate aftermath of disasters.”

(Edited by Phil Harris)

The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement covers 12 Pacific Rim countries that collectively account for about 40 percent of the world economy. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By Richard Heydarian
MANILA, Jun 14 2014 (IPS)

Amid simmering territorial conflicts across the Western Pacific, specifically between China and its neighbours in the South and East China Seas, coupled with China rising to the rank of top trading partner with Japan, South Korea, Australia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Obama administration has been hard-pressed to re-assert its strategic footprint in the region.

Since 2009, Obama has turned Washington’s strategic focus towards the Asia-Pacific region, which has gradually emerged as the global center of gravity in both economic and geopolitical terms.

The “Pivot to Asia” (P2A) policy, formally announced in late-2011, represents Washington’s renewed attempt to tap into booming markets of Asia and check China’s rising territorial assertiveness in the East and South China Seas.

The P2A policy contained both trade as well as security pillars, designed to maintain the U.S.’ strategic primacy in Asia and aid its post-recession economic recovery. The cornerstone of the Obama administration’s economic policy in Asia is the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, which excludes China and covers 12 Pacific Rim countries that collectively account for about 40 percent of the world economy.

In security terms, the Obama administration has sought to deepen the U.S. military footprint across Asia by exploring new basing agreements and gradually redeploying 20 percent of its naval assets from the Atlantic to the Pacific theatre.

Obama’s latest trip to Asia, however, underlined the inability of Washington to balance its economic and geopolitical initiatives in the region. While Obama managed to strike new strategic agreements with leading Southeast Asian countries, namely Malaysia and the Philippines, and strengthen bilateral military alliances with Japan and South Korea, there was, in turn, no concrete development vis-à-vis the ongoing TPP negotiations.

“I’ve been very clear and honest that American manufacturers and farmers need to have meaningful access to markets that are included under TPP, including here in Japan,” said Obama during his trip to Tokyo, hoping to encourage Japan to make necessary concessions in the TPP negotiations.

“That’s what will make it a good deal for America — for our workers and our consumers, and our families. That’s my bottom line, and I can’t accept anything less.”

As the world’s third largest economy, with a GDP of six trillion dollars, Japan is central to the conclusion of the TPP negotiations, which missed its late-2013 deadline and has struggled to gain momentum in recent negotiation rounds. But Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe only promised to “energetically and earnestly continue the talks.”

The disagreements were initially over Japan’s trade barriers on agricultural imports; but the U.S. has increasingly focused on Japanese restrictions on the imports of beef and pork and the opening of Japanese automobile market to American manufacturers.

Amid rising territorial tensions in Asia, Obama went the extra mile to reassure Japan of Washington’s full military commitment if a war were to erupt between Tokyo and Beijing over the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea.

In Malaysia, Obama oversaw the formalisation of a bilateral “comprehensive partnership” agreement, which marked the end of decades of frosty relations. Above all, Obama’s visit to the Philippines coincided with the signing of a new security pact, the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which grants the U.S. military 10 years of access to the Philippines’ top five military bases, namely the three former U.S. bases of Clark airfield, Subic bay, and Poro Point as well as Camp Aguinaldo and Fort Magsaysay in Metro Manila.

On the TPP front, however, Obama faces tremendous opposition at home and across Asia. Long shrouded in secrecy, a growing number of businesses, concerned citizens, and civil society organisations have come to oppose what they see as a lopsided free trading agreement (FTA), which grants multinational companies (MNCs) extensive control over public services such as healthcare and internet.

Among developing countries in East Asia, particularly Malaysia and Vietnam, there is a growing fear over the potential impact of the TPP on the production and importation of cheap, generic drugs, with global pharmaceuticals poised to more vigorously protect their Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), which have contributed to the exorbitant costs of conventional drugs across the wold.

In the industrialised world, especially the U.S., many labour unions and big businesses are worried over the proposed reduction of strategic protectionist barriers, especially in the automobile manufacturing sectors, allowing export-driven countries such as Japan to displace domestic manufacturers.

Japan, for instance, has insisted on retaining high tariff barriers on its agricultural sector, while Vietnam has resisted the proposed privatisation of state-owned textile companies.

The late-2013 revelation of the draconian IPR provisions of the TPP by the anti-secrecy group Wikileaks dealt a huge blow to the ongoing negotiations, further strengthening opposition to the proposed trading regime.

Among the most worrying provisions are proposals that allow MNCs to sue sovereign governments in international courts and override domestic laws on both trade and non-trade matters; relaxation of environmental regulations; greater policing and monitoring of internet; and restrictions on access to public services due to more strict investment rules in utilities and strategic sectors of the economy.

Fearful of domestic backlash, Asian countries such as Japan and Malaysia have hardened their negotiating positions, more explicitly demanding trade concessions from the U.S. In fact, leaked documents reflect the growing isolation of the U.S. within the ongoing negotiations, with Obama struggling to gain enough support within his own party over the proposed Fast-Track Trade bill to expedite the trade negotiations with limited legislative scrutiny.

“Japan’s aim is geopolitical in the first instance, i.e., contain China. I doubt if the leadership has really thought [the TPP] through economically,” Walden Bello, a leading expert on trade issues and co-founder of the organisation Focus on the Global South, told IPS, underscoring how the TPP lacks any compelling economic rationale and is “doomed to fail.”

“Once [Japanese] corporations encounter the same old hard-nosed demands of the U.S. for structural reform…the Japanese government will hem and haw, as it did with the APEC free trade area in the 1990’s.”

Meanwhile, an economically-ascendant Beijing has managed to progressively eclipse Washington in trade and investment terms, with China pushing for an alternative Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), which is increasingly seen as a more viable and inclusive alternative to the TPP.

“China does not even have to initiate a counter-bloc. It just needs to sit quietly and see the TPP fall apart,” said Walden Bello, dismissing the TPP as an ineffectual attempt to counter growing Chinese economic influence in Asia “The benefits of trade accruing to corporations…with what will soon become the world’s biggest economy [China] will undermine the US’s geo-economic objective.”

Aside from being the top trading partner of almost all countries in East Asia, China has emerged as a major source of development aid and soft loans in recent years, contributing as much as 671.1 billion dollars in the 2001-2011 period.

Given China’s continued economic expansion, the country is expected to accelerate its development assistance to neighbouring countries. China is already establishing a 50-billion-dollar Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which is poised to directly compete with the Japan-dominated Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Overall, the poor prospects of the TPP underline the U.S.’ weakening economic influence in Asia, with the Obama administration primarily occupied with strengthening Washington’s military footprint in the Pacific waters to hedge against a rising China.

(END)

Chinese People's Liberation Army-Navy sailors stand watch on the submarine Yuan at the Zhoushan Naval Base. Credit: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff/CC-BY-2.0

By Richard Heydarian
SINGAPORE, Jun 11 2014 (IPS)

China’s early-May decision to dispatch the state-of-the-art oil rig, HYSY981, into Vietnam’s 200-nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), has intensified ongoing territorial disputes in the South China Sea, raising fears of uncontrolled military escalation in one of the world’s most important waterways.

It wasn’t long before Vietnamese and Chinese maritime forces were locked in a dangerous naval standoff, which led to low-intensity clashes in the high seas.

China’s unilateral action sparked outrage across Vietnam, paving the way for unprecedented anti-China protests, which snowballed into massive destruction of foreign-owned factories, principally owned by China and Taiwan, and the exodus of thousands of Chinese citizens to neighbouring Cambodia.

The whole episode undermined years of painstaking negotiations between Hanoi and Beijing aimed at peacefully resolving bilateral territorial disputes across the South China Sea.

Shortly after, the Philippines also released photos suggesting Chinese construction activities on the Johnson South Reef, a disputed feature that falls within the Philippines EEZ in the Spratly Island chain in the South China Sea.

Later, China confirmed that it was indeed engaged in reclamation activities on the disputed reef, but it tried to justify it by claiming it exercised “indisputable and inherent” sovereignty over the said feature based on Beijing’s notorious “nine-dash-line” doctrine, which covers almost the entirety of the South China Sea.

The Philippines and Vietnam contend that China has flagrantly violated the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, which explicitly discourages claimant states from unilaterally altering the status by engaging in, among other things, construction activities on disputed features.

Alarmed by the intensifying territorial disputes between China and other claimant states, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) expressed “serious concern” and called for a rule-based, peaceful resolution of the disputes.

Expecting a more vigorous response from ASEAN, Vietnamese and Filipino leaders called for the swift finalisation of a legally-binding Code of Conduct (CoC) in the South China Sea, and vowed to forge a bilateral “strategic partnership” to counter China’s territorial assertiveness. Meanwhile, other Pacific powers such as Japan and the U.S. have also stepped up their criticism of China’s recent actions, underscoring their direct national interest in preserving freedom of navigation in international waters.

“Whatever construction China carries out on the [Johnson South] reef is a matter entirely within the scope of China’s sovereignty,” argued China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokeswoman Hua Chunyin, dismissing protests by Filipino officials.

Confronting an increasingly assertive and powerful China, the Philippines and Vietnam have moved closer to a genuine alliance. On the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) on East Asia in late-May, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III and visiting Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung agreed to forge a bilateral strategic partnership, with a particular focus on maritime and defense cooperation vis-à-vis the ongoing disputes in the South China Sea.

“We face common challenges as maritime nations and as brothers in ASEAN,” declared Aquino during his meeting with his Vietnamese counterpart, underscoring Manila’s desire to establish a closer partnership with neighbouring countries.

“In defense and security, we discussed how we can enhance confidence building, our defense capabilities and interoperability in addressing security challenges.”

“More than ever before, ASEAN and the international community need to continue raising a strong voice in protesting against [China’s territorial assertiveness], securing a strict observance of the international law, and peace and stability in the region and the world,” lamented Dung, underscoring Hanoi’s urgent desire for the multilateral resolution of the ongoing disputes.

Recognising China’s military superiority, and the inefficacy of existing diplomatic mechanisms, both the Philippines and Vietnam have been looking towards external powers such as Japan and the U.S. to counter China’s territorial assertiveness.

Much of Asia’s trade and energy transport passes through the South China Sea, and there is a growing fear that ongoing territorial disputes will spiral into a prolonged, destructive conflict, which could affect all regional economies.

Influential actors across the region have been desperately searching for new mechanisms to deescalate ongoing territorial tensions, preventing claimant states, primarily China, from undertaking any destabilising action.

“Japan intends to play an even greater and more proactive role than it has until now in making peace in Asia and the world something more certain,” declared Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the recently-concluded 13^th Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, which brought together leading defense officials, experts, and journalists from around the world, and saw spirited exchanges between top officials from Japan, the U.S. and China.

During the high-level gathering, Abe, the keynote speaker, sought to present Japan as a counterweight to China, with Tokyo relaxing its self-imposed restrictions on arms exports, increasing its defense spending, and seeking new ways to expand its security role in the Asian region.

“We take no position on competing territorial claims [in the South China Sea]… But we firmly oppose any nation’s use of intimidation, coercion or the threat of force to assert these claims,” argued U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, underscoring Washington’s growing alarm over China’s territorial posturing in the Western Pacific.

In response, China’s top representative, Lt. Gen. Wang Guanzhong, deputy chief of staff of the Chinese military, was uncharacteristically blunt in his criticisms, describing Hagel’s remarks as “excessive beyond . . . imagination [and] suffused with hegemonism . . . threats and intimidation.”

Under a new nationalist government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is also expected to play a more pro-active role in the region, given New Delhi’s growing trade with East Asia and its large-scale investments in the hydrocarbon-rich areas of the South China Sea. The U.S.’ treaty allies such as Australia have also stepped up their efforts at containing China’s rising territorial assertiveness, as the two Pacific powers deepen their naval interoperability and defense cooperation.

Overall, it seems that China’s rising assertiveness has encouraged a flexible counter-alliance of like-minded countries, which are heavily concerned with the economic and geopolitical fallout of the brewing conflict in the South China Sea. It remains to be seen, however, whether China will relent on its territorial claims amid growing international pressure.

(END)

Last year, the Philippines brought a complaint against China’s aggressive actions in the West Philippine Sea to the United Nations Arbitral Tribunal. It was a master stroke by the Philippine government.

The Chinese “were really unprepared for that and were really embarrassed by it,” one of Vietnam’s top experts on Chinese diplomacy told me during my recent visit to Hanoi to give a series of lectures on foreign policy and economic issues.None of the key players in East Asia today may want war. But neither did any of the Great Powers on the eve of the First World War.

The move put China on the defensive, said another Vietnamese analyst, and was one of the factors that prompted Beijing last year to agree in principle to hold discussions with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on a Code of Conduct for the disputed body of water – known in the Philippines as the West Philippine Sea, in Vietnam as the East Sea, and in China as the South China Sea.

The budding cooperation between Vietnam and the Philippines is the latest development stemming from China’s aggressive territorial claims in the region.

In 2009, China put forward the so-called “Nine-Dash Line” map in which it claimed the whole of the South China Sea, leaving four other countries that border on the strategic body of water with nothing more than their 12-mile territorial seas.

In pursuit of Beijing’s goals, Chinese maritime surveillance ships have driven Filipino fisherfolk from Scarborough Shoal, which lies within the Philippines’ 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). In the most recent incident, the Chinese tried to disperse Filipino fishing boats approaching the shoal with water cannons.

Chinese government ships have also reportedly chased off Filipino boats trying to replenish a garrison on Ayungin Shoal in the Spratly Islands.

The Philippines and Vietnam are natural allies in their common struggle against China’s drive for hegemony in East Asia. Already partners in ASEAN, the two are likely to be driven closer together by Beijing’s increasingly brazen displays of power as it enforces its claim to some 80 percent of the South China Sea.

Both have also drawn closer to the United States, seeking to use Washington to balance China’s growing military presence in the region.

Vietnam has played the U.S. card more adroitly, however, relying on the Philippines to explicitly invite an expanded U.S. military presence on its soil and seas, something the Vietnamese would not themselves allow. But despite a common interest in containing China, both countries should avoid turning the conflict into a superpower conflict between the United States and China.

Figuring out Beijing’s Motives

The Vietnamese offered several schools of thought on China’s territorial claims. The first sees the Nine-Dash Line as delineating the maritime borders of China and not necessarily possession of the islands in the area.

The second interprets it as saying only that the islands and other terrestrial formations in the area belong to China, leaving the status of the surrounding waters ambiguous. A third opinion is that the map asserts that both the islands and surrounding waters belong to China.

A fourth perspective sees the Nine-Dash Line as an aggressive negotiating device.

According to a diplomat and academic expert who has first-hand experience negotiating with the Chinese, Beijing’s style of resolving territorial issues has the following steps: “First,” he said, “the two parties agree on the principles guiding negotiations. Second, both sides draw up their maps reflecting their respective territorial claims, with China pushing its territorial claims as far as possible.

“Third, they compare the maps to identify overlapping or disputed areas. Fourth, the parties negotiate to resolve the disputed areas. Fifth, if there is agreement, draw up a new map. Finally, they go to the United Nations to legalise the new map.”

Despite varying views on China’s intentions, however, the Vietnamese are one on two key points: 1) that the Nine-Dash Line claim is illegal, and 2) that owing to the number of parties and overlapping claims involved in the South China Sea dispute, only multilateral negotiations can set the basis for a lasting comprehensive solution.

Also, whatever may be their different readings of China’s motives for advancing its Nine-Dash Line claims, there seems to be a consensus among Vietnamese officials and experts that China’s strategic aim is to eventually assert its full control of the South China Sea.

In other words, Beijing’s aim is to legally transform the area into a domestic waterway governed by Chinese domestic laws.

Some of Beijing’s acts are explicit, such as the establishment of Sansha City as a domestic governing unit for the whole South China Sea and the recent passage of a fisheries law requiring non-Chinese vessels fishing in the area to obtain a license from the Chinese government.

Others are more ambiguous, such as Beijing’s views on the issue of freedom of navigation in the disputed area. Ambiguity serves their purpose at a time that they do not yet have the capability to match their power to their ambition.

“But there is no doubt that when they reach that point, of having the power to impose their ambition,” said one Vietnamese analyst, “they will subject the area to Chinese domestic law.”

The United States: From Enemy to Ally?

In an irony of history, the Vietnamese have welcomed Washington’s plans to increase the U.S. military footprint in the region to “balance” China. Once an enemy, Hanoi now has good security relations with the United States, whose navy Vietnam has invited to use the former Soviet naval base at Cam Ranh Bay for logistical and ship repair needs.

For the same reason, the Vietnamese approve of the U.S. military’s controversial build-up in the Philippines. I was told that as a long-time ally of the United States, it was the role of the Philippines to ask the United States to increase its military presence in the Western Pacific.

But inviting the United States to have a larger military presence is counterproductive if the aim is to resolve regional territorial disputes with China.

A larger U.S. presence would transform the regional context into a superpower conflict, thus marginalising the territorial question and the possibility for its resolution.

Moreover, inviting Washington to plant an even bigger military footprint in the Philippines would convert the country into a frontline state like Afghanistan and Pakistan, with all the terrible consequences such a status entails – including the subordination of our economic development to the strategic-military priorities of a superpower.

Finally, a balance of power situation is unstable and prone to generate conflict, since although no one may want a war, the dynamics of conflict may run out of everyone’s control and lead to one. China’s aggressive territorial claims, the U.S. “Pivot to Asia,” and Japan’s opportunistic moves add up to a volatile brew.

Many observers note that the Asia-Pacific military-political situation is becoming like that of Europe at the end of the 19^th century, with the emergence of a similarly fluid configuration of balance-of-power politics.

None of the key players in East Asia today may want war. But neither did any of the Great Powers on the eve of the First World War. The problem is that in a situation of fierce rivalry among powers that hate one another, an incident may trigger an uncontrollable chain of events that may result in a regional war, or worse.

Walden Bello is a representative of Akbayan (Citizens’ Action Party) in the Philippine House of Representatives. He was the author of the House resolution renaming the South China Sea the West Philippine Sea. An earlier version of this commentary was published by Foreign Policy In Focus.

The World Bank is being urged to explicitly incorporate human rights into its development lending criteria, ahead of an important technical briefing on the subject to its board of directors on Tuesday.

The Washington-based institution has never mandated that the programmes it funds comply with international human rights standards, largely on the concern that politicising the bank’s lending could complicate its country-by-country anti-poverty focus. But rights campaigners are pointing to a growing consensus that sustainable development is impossible without a specific focus on human rights."Our understanding of development is not just about income generation – it is about improving people’s lives." -- Kristen Genovese of CIEL

The bank is currently in the midst of a two-year review of its environment and social “safeguards” policies. On Tuesday, the board will discuss input received on the issue from some 1,800 stakeholders over the past year, as well as a draft framework for reforms.

“The safeguard policies are intended to protect people and communities from the unintended harm of Bank-financed activities,” Kristen Genovese, a senior attorney with the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), a Washington watchdog group, told IPS.

“We do not want the Bank to make up its own rules; we already have rules that protect people and the environment that have been agreed to by the international community … this is what the Bank’s intended beneficiaries and civil society organisations are demanding in the safeguard review.”

On Monday, the Washington office of Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group, released a report stating, “the time has come for the World Bank to implement mechanisms to prevent it exacerbating or contributing to human rights violations”. In recent months, high-level United Nations officials and some national governments have backed similar calls.

“[D]evelopment finance has been increasingly moving in a direction to better protect human rights,” the report states.

“The World Bank is falling behind … [Yet] the increased ability for non-traditional donors to provide assistance abroad affords the Bank an enhanced opportunity to show how poverty can be eradicated without violating human rights, how aid can reach the poorest and most marginalised communities the right way, and how development can be sustainable.”

Staff discretion

HRW researchers offer three case studies, from Vietnam and Ethiopia, in which programmes partially funded by the World Bank have subsequently been implicated in wide-ranging allegations of rights abuse.

In southern Vietnam from 2005 until 2010, for instance, the bank funded health programmes at government detention centres for addicted drug users that appear to have used, at least in part, an approach of rehabilitation through forced labour. HRW has also documented cases of arbitrary detention and torture at the centres.

In Ethiopia, the bank is funding a two-billion-dollar programme called Promoting Basic Services (PBS), aimed at bolstering health, education, sanitation and other essential concerns. Yet in recent years the Ethiopian government’s development initiative has included, in certain parts of the country, the forcible relocation of around 1.5 million people, particularly ethnic minorities.

HRW says it has verified accounts of at least seven people having died due to a campaign of violence and intimidation carried out against holdouts from this “villagisation” process, allegedly at the hands of Ethiopian state security forces.

“The Bank’s legal counsel has issued a number of opinions in the last 10 years, finding that the Bank can take human rights into account and on occasion should,” Jessica Evans, an HRW senior researcher here in Washington, told IPS.

“But until there is a binding policy requiring the Bank to respect human rights in all of its activities, the degree to which human rights are considered will remain a matter of staff discretion.”

According to Monday’s report, the bank’s refusal to commit to human rights due diligence leaves its staff without clear guidance on whether such issues are or are not their responsibility – much less how to address them.

“In practice, funding decisions relating to rights concerns lack transparency and appear arbitrary and inconsistent,” the report warns. “Further, this precludes people whose rights are adversely affected by these decisions from holding the Bank to account.”

World Bank officials note that the Vietnam drug centre funding was part of a national effort to support the country’s HIV/AIDS programme, and “helped save many lives and reduce social stigma”, according to a bank spokesperson.

In Ethiopia, too, the PBS programme was part of a national push to assist some 84 million Ethiopians, “and has contributed to the country’s exceptional progress towards many of the [Millennium Development Goals].”

“The Bank is dedicated to reducing poverty and protecting people in the projects we finance,” the spokesperson told IPS. “Human Rights Watch has been active in our first round of global conversations on ways to modernise our environmental and social safeguard policies for investment lending, which have been recognised as the world standard.”

Policy first

Further, the spokesperson pointed out that on Jul. 12 the bank authorised its Inspection Panel, an independent complaints body, “to investigate [the Ethiopia] project to see if it followed Bank policies”. (The related complaints can be found here.)

Yet as the process is currently set up, external auditors such as the Inspection Panel can only look into compliance with set bank policy.

“The Inspection Panel will not be able to effectively incorporate human rights into the bank’s lending framework until there is a bank policy that requires respect of human rights,” HRW’s Evans says.

“Once we have such a policy, the Inspection Panel will play a critical role in holding the bank accountable should it fail to comply with it. Until that time, the Panel will only be able to incorporate human rights to the limited degree that the Indigenous Peoples policy allows.”

Campaigners are now calling on the bank to include in its safeguards a commitment not to support any activities that will contribute to or exacerbate human rights violations and to respect international human rights in all of its projects. Doing so, they say, will further the institution’s overall goal.

“The Bank needs to respect human rights in its operations because our understanding of development is not just about income generation – it is about improving people’s lives,” CIEL’s Genovese says.

“When you, for instance, support a mine that despoils the land and pollutes the water – thereby infringing on the communities’ rights to water, health and natural resources – you further impoverish them. Development without respect for human rights is not true development.”

According to the bank’s safeguards review website, a final draft of the safeguards review update is due by June of next year.

A white rhino at a sanctuary in South Africa’s Limpopo province. Credit: Jennifer McKellar/IPS

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, May 15 2013 (IPS)

At first glance, the poster appears to be a typical advertisement for an African safari: a large rhinoceros set against a rugged, open terrain. Then you take a closer look and realise something is amiss.

A cluster of human hands has replaced the two horns that distinguish this African animal from the single-horned Indian and Javan rhino. A message over the creature’s head reads: “Rhino horn is made of the same stuff as human nails. Still want some?”

Produced jointly by the wildlife watchdogs TRAFFIC and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), these posters are soon to appear on the walls of public places in major Vietnamese cities including the capital, Hanoi, and Ho Chi Minh City.

Offices, apartment buildings and even airports are all set to become sites in the campaign to end the illegal international trade in rhino horns that is threatening the ungulate to extinction.

Experts say there is no better place than this Southeast Asian nation of 87 million to drive this stark message home. Vietnam has long been singled out by international groups monitoring the illicit wildlife trade for the dramatic rise in domestic demand for African rhino horns.

Close to 290 of the 20,000 rhinos left in South Africa have been killed for their horns since the beginning of this year, according to conservationists worried that such a deadly spree could see the death toll match the record number of 668 rhinos killed by poachers in 2012.

“We are in the midst of a rhino poaching crisis,” Mark Jones, a British veterinarian who heads the London-based Humane Society International, told IPS, adding that Vietnam has recently emerged as the main market for rhino horns.

The spike in demand has been shaped by a belief among locals that has taken root over the past five years: that rhino horn has special medicinal powers, including the ability to treat cancer, cure hangovers, and act as an aphrodisiac.

According to Naomi Doak, coordinator of the Greater Mekong Programme at TRAFFIC, the graphics for the new campaign poster were developed after experts realised that a “large proportion of the Vietnamese public” were not aware that rhino horn, a mass of agglutinated hair, is comprised of keratin, the same basic substance that constitutes human finger and toenails.

She hopes that bringing this fact to light will make people “think twice before consuming rhino horn.”

Yet driving home this message will be “a long and difficult campaign,” Doak admitted in an interview with IPS. “With very few penalties and consequences people really aren’t that concerned about the impacts the consumption of rhino (horn) has either on the animals or on people.”

A status symbol

To understand what wildlife protection groups are up against, one need only take a stroll through Hanoi’s famed Old Quarter, a colourful network of 36 streets where crafts and local products have been hawked for centuries.

Here, shops specialising in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) attract scores of customers seeking remedies made from wild animal parts, including rhino horn.

In his latest documentary ‘Bad Medicine – Illegal Trade in Rhinoceros Horns’, conservationist and filmmaker Karl Amman traces the routes of illegal traffickers from the Africans wilds to the streets of Vietnam, where “rhino horns have also become a status symbol,” he said.

This explains why gold, once the favourite gift among the communist-ruled country’s expanding class of wealthy citizens, has been dethroned by rhino horns, which currently fetch 65,000 dollars per kilogramme.

This is “more than gold, gram for gram,” according to Jones. Though the weight of rhino horns vary, an individual horn can fetch upto 150,000 dollars.

The pressure on Vietnam to curb the demand for illegal rhino horns is expected to grow following the resolutions passed in March at the Bangkok meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). The strong language at this 16^th global gathering of 178 member countries fell just short of imposing sanctions on Hanoi.

The Vietnamese government, meanwhile, has consistently denied allegations that it is a major market in this global trade. It often points an accusing finger at its powerful northern neighbour, China, which is also under scrutiny for boosting the illegal wildlife trade, particularly the demand for tiger parts.

But activists have proof, and are not prepared to remain silent.

Do Quang Tung, deputy director of CITES Vietnam, who headed his country’s delegation to the Bangkok talks, told a Vietnamese newspaper in late March, “From 2004 until now, 13 (individuals) involved in rhino trafficking were arrested, with a total of 150 kg of rhino horns.” Two of these cases, he said, occurred in early 2013.

“Illegal trade in rhino horns involves highly organised, mobile and well-financed criminal groups, mainly composed of Asian nationals based in Africa,” a report published by TRAFFIC and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) revealed early this year.

“These networks have recruited pseudo-hunters including Vietnamese citizens, Thai prostitutes and proxy hunters from the Czech Republic and Poland to obtain rhino horns in South Africa,” added the report.

“Pseudo-hunting has significantly reduced as a result of a decision to prevent nationals of Vietnam from obtaining hunting licenses and changes to South African law in April 2012.”

Another embarrassment for Vietnam has been scandals involving its diplomats at the South African mission who were accused of smuggling rhino horns in 2006 and 2008. When confronted about these incidents at the recent CITES meeting in Bangkok, a Vietnamese government official said that the errant diplomats had received “punishment” for their actions.

Hopes are running high that the impending poster campaign will do its part to educate the public and bring an end to the thriving trade. But it will take more than two animal rights groups to halt rising demand.

Nguyen Thuy Quynh, of WWF Vietnam, said recently, “We are seeking support and cooperation from many businesses, celebrities, universities, international organisations and mass media who all have an important voice in reaching and influencing the community.”

As sea erosion worsens, coastal residents in Nhon Hai commune in Binh Dinh province use rocks and sandbags to protect their homes. Credit: Thuy Binh/IPS

By Thuy Binh
AN BIEN, Vietnam, Nov 25 2012 (IPS)

For the last decade, many families in this southwestern Vietnamese province have been uprooted at least once every two years – but this is not due to economic or political upheaval.

Rather, extreme weather has forcibly turned many of these coast-dwellers into unwilling travellers, as raging storms and a rising sea level lead to continued loss of land – and home.

“Each year, sea waves have eroded about three to four metres of land,” says a 47- year-old fisher from the Tay Yen commune. “Our family had to move five times, (and) now our house is four metres from the sea.”

But this is obviously not far enough. Already, the floors of the house are wet with seawater and a tree standing in what was once the fisherman’s front yard has now become the marker for his casting point.

The fisherman, who has lived in this commune for the last 20 years, says he would have pulled up stakes and moved on once more if only he had money.

He finds no comfort in the fact that throughout Vietnam’s many other coastal communities, and even in the Mekong Delta, thousands of others are suffering the same plight.

Vietnam has long been subject to typhoons that would typically lash the central coast and the Mekong River Delta. But in the last several years those typhoons have become even more intense and, accompanied by a rising sea level, have put coastal areas and communities in the Mekong Delta at great risk.

Indeed, a December 2010 World Bank report said that Vietnam is experiencing longer typhoon and flood seasons while “storms are tracking into new coastal areas”.

It also noted that Vietnam “may be one of the top five countries in the world likely to be most affected by sea level rise”, adding that records already show a sea level increase of about three millimeters annually from 1993 to 2008.

The report lists coastal erosion among the effects of these changes, with some areas already experiencing erosion of about five to 10 metres a year, while others are suffering erosion of as much as one kilometre annually. Increased salinity of coastal aquifers and inundation can also be expected from significant sea level rise, it warned.

Already, says Tran Van Giang, vice chairman of Tay Yen commune, “Five out of six hamlets in the commune are directly affected by sea water.”

Many areas in Kien Giang, located about 250 kilometres from Ho Chi Min City, are actually experiencing erosion of 25 metres a year, and experts estimate that as much as one-third of Kien Giang’s coast has been lost to landslides.

That erosion has destroyed vast swathes of this southwestern province’s famed mangrove forests, leading one provincial environmental official to lament, “Forest belts have been lost.”

Officials from Binh Dinh province in south-central Vietnam are equally worried about continuing erosion there.

“Every year, at least two to three rows of houses were washed away (about 80 to 90 houses),” says Do Van Sang, director of the province’s Centre for Land Development, which oversees reallocation and resettlement for households in the high-risk and affected areas in Binh Dinh.

“Local resistance efforts and local people could not keep up.”

Meanwhile, Pham Van Hung, chairman of the people’s committee of one of the coastal communes in Bin Dinh, points to increasingly vicious storms as the primary cause of property damage or outright loss.

“Since 2000,” he says, “the area has been affected by the strong tides. Storms in 1998 and 2001 totally demolished 52 houses.”

Other experts have cited the decimation of mangrove forests as a reason for increased damages.

Le Thi Huong, who has lived near the Mai Huong estuary in Kien Giang for three decades now, says that in the past, the mangrove forest in front of her house was as far as three kilometres from the coast. But now she estimates that the sea is just a few hundred metres away from the forest – or what’s left of it, anyway.

Most of the forest’s big trees are already gone. “Now, because of erosion, more trees are falling and dying,” says Huong.

Still, some see hope in mangrove-restoration projects, including one that is currently being rolled out in Kien Giang.

At Vam Ray hamlet in Kien Giang’s Hon Dat District, a 400-metre mangrove forest, part of a pilot programme by the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), has been thriving.

Mangrove forests have long been seen as an effective method of erosion-reduction. GIZ says that a mangrove forest “can reduce wave energy from 50 to 67 percent”.

The GIZ project is not the first of its kind in Kien Giang. The national government has been implementing mangrove reforestation projects here for the last 10 years. Its success rate, however, has been a discouraging 50 percent.

To ensure better results for its project, GIZ decided to concentrate on controlling two factors: waves and sludge. Nguyen Huu Hoa, head of agriculture and rural development in Kien Giang’s An Bien district, believes that the GIZ project could be replicated and “the local people can do it by themselves”.

But this approach has elicited a fair amount of debate.

Some experts have said the GIZ project may be difficult to replicate because of the costs, which, according to Kien Giang Science and Technology Department Deputy Director Phung Van Thanh, “are higher than the permitted state cost level”.

He also worries that it may not be applicable in areas with serious erosion in the province, pointing out that the GIZ site experiences just 10-metre erosion annually, not even half as extreme as the levels in many areas in Kien Giang.

Dr. Le An Tuan of the Research Institute for Climate Change at Can Tho University worries about the long-term impact of such projects. The GIZ’s narrow four-hectare mangrove forests have low resistance to the more intense storms these days, he says.

Additionally, the project could give a false sense of security to residents living in the mangrove project area – such as the 300,000 living within the parameters of GIZ Kien Giang project – and draw more settlers into a vulnerable location.

*This story, also published as a set of stories on the Hanoi Radio and Television online site, was produced as part of IPS Asia-Pacific’s ‘Climate Change: A Reporting Lens from Asia’ series.

The Olympics stadium in London.

By Helen Clark
HANOI, Vietnam, Jul 27 2012 (IPS)

Agent Orange (AO), often called the ‘last legacy’ of the United States war in Vietnam (1955-1975), has popped up again thanks to its manufacturer Dow Chemical’s controversial sponsorship of the Olympic Games.

Vietnam is not boycotting the games but has made an official protest to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), with sports minister Hoang Anh Tuan conveying “profound concern” over Dow’s multi-million dollar sponsorship. Agent Orange is the code name for herbicides and defoliants used by the U.S. military as part of its herbicidal warfare programme in Vietnam.

After relations between the U.S. and Vietnam were normalised in 1995, the former earmarked funds for cleanup operations, but these were largely confined to ‘hotspots’ such as former airbases where AO was stored rather than human populations that suffered the drops over a 12-year period.

Growing cooperation between the former enemies can be seen in the three visits by U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton over the last two years. Defence secretary Leon Panetta also visited Vietnam in June.

But, the growing ties have not changed significantly the U.S. attitude in the matter of compensation for human damage caused by AO.

Nguyen Van Rinh, a retired general and head of the Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange, told IPS in an interview:  “Yes, I believe that many Vietnamese are angry with the decision of the Olympics 2012 organisers. And this is completely justified.”

AO contains dioxin, one of the most toxic substances known, and scientists estimate that as little as a few parts per billion can be damaging.

Estimates of people affected by AO range from 2.1 million to over four million, and the Vietnamese government blames it for cancers and birth defects in some 500,000 second and third generation children.

The Vietnam Red Cross has reported that as many as three million Vietnamese have been affected by AO, including at least 150,000 children born with birth defects.

U.S. scientists have however been sceptical of Vietnamese studies and estimates of human damage caused by AO, citing poor scientific research and little peer reviewing of research work.

On the other hand, compensation for suspected AO damage is paid to female U.S. war veterans, and support given to their children. Those born with spina bifida or birth defects from unknown causes, to parents who served in areas where AO was sprayed or stored, are also given support.

The Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences concluded in its report, ‘Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 1996 Summary and Research Highlights,’ that “there is limited or suggestive evidence of an association between exposure to herbicides used in Vietnam and spina bifida in children of Vietnam veterans.”

For some time now, environmentalists have also been concerned that Monsanto, which supplies much of the world’s seeds, has been quietly making inroads into Vietnam. They fear a second “haunting legacy” of damage from a conglomerate that was involved in the manufacture of AO.

According to available studies the AO campaign destroyed 10 million hectares of agricultural land and some 20,000 sq km of upland and mangrove forests.

Rinh has already questioned agriculture minister Cao Duc Phat about Monsanto’s work in Vietnam during a National Assembly session.

Rinh told local media later that his questions were only vaguely answered by the minister, and that neither the questions nor the answers were recorded in the minutes of the interaction with the minister.

Chuck Searcy, a veteran of the war who returned to Vietnam over a decade ago to work with unexploded ordnance and mine removal projects, says that “it was the U.S. that started talking about lawsuits and legal issues” over AO.

That the U.S. government would agree – albeit after agitation – that herbicides had caused significant damage to its own service personnel and pay out compensation to them has long angered many in Vietnam.

Says Searcy: “It (GM crops) has started to raise serious suspicions on the part of many Vietnamese because AO was produced by the same companies that claimed that the herbicide was safe.”

A group of over 100 Vietnamese plaintiffs had taken their case to the U.S. Supreme Court, suing both Dow and Monsanto for AO damage. The case, which began in 2004, was thrown out in early March 2009 with the court ruling that there was no established link between dioxin use and birth defects in Vietnam.

Also, under U.S. law, Dow and Monsanto cannot be held responsible since they were acting under government orders.

Reacting to Vietnam’s letter of protest to the IOC, Dow told VietWeek (a weekly English language news magazine published by Thanh Nien News) that the War Production Act absolves the company given that it was compelled by the U.S. government to produce the defoliant.

“I think cooperation between the U.S. and Vietnam in finding and implementing solutions to the AO issue seems to be a little better now,” Rinh told IPS. However, he said, it was still “mostly words” and that “these behaviours constitute only a small effort and are very far from what they should be doing.”

Asia has surpassed Latin America as the largest source of new immigrants to the United States, according to a major new report that found that Asian-Americans also enjoy the highest incomes and best education of any racial group in the United States.

The 214-page report, released Tuesday by the Pew Research Centre, said Asian-Americans now constitute nearly six percent of the total U.S. population, or some 18.2 million people. That’s a more than five-fold increase since 1965, when immigration laws were liberalised to permit more non-Europeans to come to the United States.

Asian immigration has risen steadily since 1965, according to the report, entitled “The Rise of Asian Americans”, but the growth rate appears to have accelerated in the last few decades, with nearly three out of every four-Americans with Asian ancestry having been born abroad. Japanese-Americans are the only sub-group in which the majority was born in the United States.

“A century ago, most Asian Americans were low-skilled, low-wage laborers crowded into ethnic enclaves and targets of official discrimination,” the report stated. “Today they are the most likely of any major racial or ethnic group in America to live in mixed neighborhoods and to marry across racial lines.”

This shift is part of a trend that would seem to indicate that Americans are becoming more tolerant towards immigrants, especially Asian-American ones. A 2010 Pew survey found that among white Americans, 62 percent “would be fine” with a relative marrying interracially, particularly someone who is black, Hispanic or Asian, up from 51 percent in 2001.

Chinese-Americans comprised the largest sub-group of all Asian-Americans, with about four million people, or about 23 percent of the total. They were followed by Filipino-Americans (3.4 million), Indian-Americans (3.2), Vietnamese-Americans (1.74), Korean-Americans (1.71) and Japanese-Americans (1.3). Together, those six sub-groups are the vast majority of the total Asian population in the United States.

Traditional values: Education and hard work

“Many Asians come to the United States because they still perceive it as a land of opportunity,” Andrew Lam, an editor at New America Media, an umbrella group of ethnic news organisations, told IPS.

The report, based in part on recent telephone interviews in English and seven other languages with a nationally representative sample of more than 3,500 Asian-Americans, also found that Asian-Americans place significantly more emphasis on attaining higher education and working hard than other racial groups in the United States.

While 93 percent of respondents in the poll said they believed that Americans who hailed from the same country of origin are “very hard-working”, only 57 percent of those respondents agreed that the same held true for their American counterparts as a whole.

Asian-Americans stand out for their educational achievements, in particular. While 26 percent of the U.S. population has a bachelor’s degree or higher, the comparable figure for Asians is 49 percent – nearly twice as high – and 18 percentage points higher than white Americans. The more recent arrivals have an even higher percentage – 61 percent among adults aged 25 to 64.

Asian-Americans also stand out compared to their cohorts in their home countries. On average, about 26 percent of Japanese and South Koreans in the same age group have a bachelor’s degree, compared to nearly 70 percent of comparably aged recent immigrants from those two countries.

Financial and economic aspects

According to the Department of Labour, the unemployment rate among Asians as a group is less than in America as a whole. The Asian-American unemployment rate stands at about 7.5 percent, lower than any other demographic, including white (8.7 percent), black (16) and Hispanic (12.5) and lower than the national unemployment rate of 8.2 percent.

The view among various Asian groups can differ significantly in terms of education and income. Indian-Americans, for example, lead all other sub-groups in both categories. Americans with Korean, Vietnamese or Chinese ancestry suffer higher poverty rates than does the general public, while those with Indian, Japanese or Filipino origins have lower rates.

And while the median household income in 2010 for the general U.S. population was nearly 50,000 dollars, for Asian-Americans the median figure was 66,000, according to the report.

Findings from the U.S. Census Bureau fall along the similar lines: between 2002 and 2007, Asian-owned businesses increased 40.4 percent – nearly twice the national rate – amounting to 1.5 million total businesses, generating more than half a trillion dollars in receipts and employing nearly three million people.

“Asian-owned businesses continued to be one of the strongest segments of our nation’s economy,” said Census Bureau Deputy Director Thomas Mesenbourg.

Asians’ success, however, has no helped alleviate racial tensions. In April, D.C. Councilman Marion Barry was caught on tape making derogatory comments about Asian-Americans and their businesses.

“We’ve got to do something about these Asians coming in, opening up businesses – those dirty shops,” Barry said, after winning his city’s Democratic primary, “They ought to go.”

Census data compiled by Pew suggests that Asian immigrants outnumbered Hispanic immigrants at some point between 2007 and 2010. In 2007, about 540,000 Hispanics – both documented and undocumented – came to the United States, while only 390,000 Asians did so.

But by 2010, about 430,000 Asians – or 36 percent of all new immigrants – arrived here, compared to about 370,000 Hispanics.

The reversal appears to have resulted primarily from a decrease in Hispanic immigration, particularly after the 2008 financial crisis, when a combination of harsh anti-immigrant legislation at the state level, tighter border security, and the slump in the U.S. economy (especially its construction industry, where many male Hispanic immigrants have found work) discouraged many would-be immigrants from crossing the border.

Like other pe de, "Duyen" sings mobile karaoke, stopping off at various restaurants around town to perform. Helen Clark/IPS

By Helen Clark
HO CHI MINH CITY , Jun 9 2012 (IPS)

The restaurant Thuy Linh sits by one of Saigon’s black, soupy canals at the edge of District Three. Though operating in an area already full of restaurants and cafes it doesn’t struggle for business.

Waitresses squeeze between plastic tables occupied by families and friends, continually dodging toddlers running in circles and screaming over the music.

Most patrons frequent the shop for the food. But there is something else about Thuy Linh that sets it apart from other eateries: most of the waitresses who work here are ‘pe de’, a common southern Vietnamese term for male-to-female transgender people.

“This shop was introduced to us as ‘pe de’ but we came back many times since the food’s good and it’s close to my place,” said one female diner, looking up from the Mekong Delta-style hot pot known here as ‘lau’.

Since Quan Thuy Linh opened for business on a street corner over a decade ago, it has attracted many pe de and a few gay men looking for work.

Hong Ngoc (37) has worked in her aunt’s restaurant for years as a waitress. She says the eatery was started by a pe de as a place where others could come for support or work.

“They (the waitresses) were disadvantaged as they came from other provinces where their families didn’t accept them,” she told IPS.

Slow progress

Vietnam’s big cities have become more liberal in recent years but the countryside, where some 70 percent of the 86 million-strong population lives, remains traditional and most pe de either have to struggle for acceptance from the community or “hide themselves”.

Hong Ngoc (her nickname) said she realised her own sexuality at the age of 16. “I was interested in clothes and beautiful things,” she yelled over the clatter of the restaurant. Though still ‘pre-op’ (a term used for pe de who have not yet had breast implants) her hair is long and her eyebrows thinly plucked.

“Most of (us) are gay from birth. When we get older we have the freedom to leave the family and become pe de.”

She said her family doesn’t know about her new life. On the rare occasions when she visits her home in Bac Lieu province in the far southern delta, she cuts her hair short.

Though transgender people are slowly gaining more mainstream acceptance serious hurdles remain.

Unlike its regional neighbours, like Thailand or Indonesia, Vietnam has no long tradition of a “third sex” and thus many people, especially in the more conservative north, struggle to understand the phenomenon.

People cannot yet change their names on government-issued ID cards nor can they receive treatment as women in government hospitals, according to local news reports.

Since political organising is anathema to Vietnam’s one-party system, the LGBT movement has not gained as much traction as it has in other countries over the last few decades. There is little cohesive organisation as gays, lesbians (“les”) and pe de keep mostly within their own groups.

However issues about gender and homosexuality are slowly gaining more prominence. Late last year a film about a rent boy in Ho Chi Minh City, ‘Hot Boy Noi Loan’ (Lost in Paradise), enjoyed a mainstream release with only a few cuts at local cinemas and received favourable press.

Gay marriage however is still illegal, following a 2000 ban after two women married. Most recently two southern families were made to pay small fines after their sons married and held a wedding party.

In Ho Chi Minh City, many pe de earn a living as entertainers, singing at parties, weddings and, often, funerals. The latter tradition, which likely originated in the old port area of District Four – once notorious for its heroin addicts and mafia strongmen – has become a popular trend in the past couple of decades.

Some pe de also find work as call girls but usually only after full operations.

Linh Trang (50) has been performing at events for over 20 years. She organises groups of pe de to sing at funerals and has watched the relatively new tradition take hold across the city and some parts of the countryside too.

She recalled that when she first began, her business was far more “underground” than it is today. Now, though police might still break up the party and chase away the performers, it’s more likely to be over noise problems than simple prejudice.

But life is not easy. “Some pe de live only by singing, some also rely on support from their families. Some have gone through surgery and make more as prostitutes,” Trang told IPS.

“Trinh”, a 19-year-old singer with Trang’s troupe, said, “When I was a little child my family used to beat me to prevent me from going out singing.” It didn’t work; these days she earns a living as a performer and dates one of the male singers in the group.

“Now, they (her family) agree with my work.”

The little public and social support available to pe de comes mostly from foreign governments or international NGOs. Earlier this year Australia donated some 100,000 dollars towards LGBT work in Vietnam.

“Gerry” Chen, also from Ho Chi Minh City, works as a volunteer for ICS, a local LGBT NGO. He says though his group works with gay, lesbian and transgender people there is not always a lot of incentive for collaboration between the various groups.

Though awareness has increased, he believes that it remains a little limited. For instance, he pointed out than many people still believe transgender and gay people are the same.

Chen blames Vietnam’s mainstream media for projecting a negative stereotype of homosexuality. “Vietnamese movies portray gay characters as really girly and they make people laugh – that is the (defining) gay characteristic,” he lamented.

Despite the stigma though, the tide is slowly turning.

Places like Thuy Linh offer an environment where pe de can work regular jobs, free from stereotyped roles as entertainers

“We’re eating here because the food is good, not because of the pe de,” a customer at Thuy Linh told IPS. “Pe de are just normal people.”

(END)