Rohingya daily news 5 march 2018

* Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng has said that China-US relations should be put back on track.

* India reported on Thursday 314,835 new cases of the coronavirus over the previous 24 hours, the highest daily increase recorded anywhere, while Japan is expected to issue a third state of emergency on Tokyo and three western prefectures that could last for about two weeks.

* Russia will issue electronic visas with a streamlined application procedure to attract more foreign tourists, President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday.

* More than 200 million shots of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in the United States as of Wednesday, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). US President Joe Biden announced the country has hit 200 million COVID-19 shots, a target he had set out to meet by the end of April.

* European countries prepared to start using Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine and speed up their vaccination campaigns after Europe’s drug regulator backed the shot and deliveries started trickling in after a week-long pause.

* New Zealand and Australian foreign ministers on Thursday discussed ways to continue and deepen bilateral cooperation to “meet the shared challenges facing our region.”

* At least 78 Taliban militants were killed in various operations conducted by Afghan government forces in the past 24 hours, according to Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense on Thursday.

* A senior US State Department official said on Wednesday that the second round Vienna talks over the Iran nuclear deal “made some progress,” but important disagreements still existed between the United States and Iran.

* Police clashed with protesters in Berlin as they tried to disperse a rally against the lockdown, as parliament approved a law to give Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government more powers to fight a third wave.

* Malaysia’s government enacted a new emergency law allowing it to use funds derived from oil and gas contributions to pay for vaccine procurement, as it looks to ramp up its COVID-19 vaccination programme.

* Two Australian states urged staff and guests in COVID-19 quarantine hotels to get tested immediately and fully self-isolate, launching investigations into three suspected cases of travellers contracting the virus from other residents.

* Argentina is going through its “worst moment” of the COVID-19 pandemic, the health minister said, as deaths from the virus hit 60,000 amid a sharp second wave that has forced the country to re-impose some lockdown measures.

* Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Wednesday that his government will strengthen surveillance actions on the country’s southern border in order to offer more protection to migrants, especially minors.

* Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis presented on Wednesday a “roadmap” for the further reopening of his country’s economy and social life in May. Greece has been in a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown since Nov. 7, 2020, which is now being gradually eased.

* South African researchers hope to next week resume a study using JNJ’s vaccine to immunize healthcare workers, one of the scientists leading the programme said.

* Ecuador implemented a nighttime curfew and other mobility restrictions as a spike in coronavirus cases again overwhelms hospitals in the Andean country, which in 2020 experienced one of the region’s worst COVID-19 outbreaks.

Chợ Lương pumping station, Yên Bắc District, Hà Nam Province is stinking. VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has announced plans to strengthen inspections of industrial production models with risks of environmental pollution and strictly handle violations in 2021.

A representative of the ministry said unexpected inspections would help promptly detect violations as businesses tend to try and avoid inspectors.

In the southern province of Long An, environmental pollution in rural areas is getting more and more serious, according to local media, while the awareness of environmental protection of local people is limited. Indiscriminate littering is a problem, while waste collection, treatment and classification are not synchronised.

Wastewater from factories and enterprises has not been treated and has been discharged to rivers causing water pollution and impacting public health.

The ministry has inspected more than 3,000 industrial parks and production units, detected more than 1,300 violation cases and levied fines of VNĐ275 billion (US$11.9 million) over the last five years nationwide.

The ministry is also carrying out annual inspections on environmental protection at industrial parks and production units.

The revised Law on Environmental Protection 2020 makes the chairmen of district People’s Committees and of communal People’s Committees responsible for working with environmental inspectors and accelerating the local inspection process.

The law also states that environmental protection must be based on the rational use of resources, minimising waste generation and increasing reuse and recycling of waste to maximise the resource value of waste.

The law for the first time stipulates the principle of classifying daily-life solid waste generated from households into types: reusable or recyclable solid waste, food waste and other domestic solid waste.

The law also assigns provincial People’s Committees to decide on specific classification for domestic solid waste in their locality and to encourage the separate classification of hazardous waste in daily-life solid waste generated from households.

The ministry has submitted to the Prime Minister a number of urgent solutions to strengthen solid waste management and solutions to prevent and reduce environmental pollution, focusing on the classification of waste at the source, applying advanced waste treatment technology and using waste as raw materials for production when possible.

The ministry will develop technical guidelines on the collection and classification of waste at the source suitable to each region.

The ministry will submit to the Prime Minister for approval a pilot programme on waste collection and classification in selected localities with different natural and socio-economic conditions with the goal of later spreading it nationwide. VNS

Vietnamese officers are doing their bit for peace by working in some of the harshest living environments on Earth

On April 9, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) officially granted a decision of the state president to Major Nguyen Phuc Dong from the ministry’s Vietnam Department of Peacekeeping Operations.

Dong will head to the United States to work for the 2021-2023 tenure at the Department of Peace Operations (DPO) at the United Nations headquarters in New York. The DPO is charged with the planning, preparation, management, and direction of UN peacekeeping operations.

Dong is the third Vietnamese military officer admitted into the DPO, where he will work as a military trainer. The first was Lieutenant Colonel Luong Truong Vinh, who was also admitted to the DPO to work as a general planner, while the second – Lieutenant Colonel Tran Duc Huong – is a planning advisor.

Elsewhere, at the launch in Ho Chi Minh City of the Level-2 Field Hospital (No.3) two weeks ago, dental technician Major Bui Thi Xoa spoke of her duty to UN peacekeeping operations in South Sudan, a nation she has already visited once.

In the first 14-month period in South Sudan, Xoa and her colleagues braved harsh weather conditions and a lack of water and food, as well as medical equipment – the same conditions badly affecting the livelihoods of local people there.

“We have had to overcome all of these difficulties. We grew our own vegetables and had to be very careful not to catch any diseases,” Xoa said. “For this second time, I feel more confident when it comes to South Sudan. My colleagues and I will do our best to accomplish all duties that the Party, the government, and the Vietnamese people have assigned.”

The Level-2 Field Hospital (No.3) was established in March 2020 with 70 staff, 18 of whom will travel to South Sudan for the second time.

Vietnam’s participation in UN peacekeeping operations is a major policy of the Party and state and also a step towards realising the country’s policy of intensive and comprehensive integration into the world.

According to the Vietnam Department of Peacekeeping Operations, between June 2014 and the end of 2020, Vietnam sent 179 officers and employees from the MoD to UN peacekeeping missions in South Sudan and the Central African Republic and to UN headquarters in New York. They consisted of 53 officers deployed individually and 126 doctors and medical workers deployed at level-2 field hospitals. Vietnam is also preparing a team of over 300 sappers to join UN peacekeeping operations this year.

Vietnam’s contributions to UN peacekeeping activities have been acknowledged by the international community, UN organisations, and international and non-governmental organisations in the host countries.

Vietnam’s active participation in UN peacekeeping operations has helped assert the Party and state’s foreign policy of multilateralisation and diversification of external relations, independence, self-reliance, and respect for the UN’s goals and principles, thereby contributing to the building of sustainable peace.

Vietnamese officers have been praised for their professionalism, disciplines, dependability, and adaptability. The UN also selected Vietnam as the first training centre for international peacekeeping activities in Southeast Asia.

Last November, the 14th-tenure of the National Assembly adopted Resolution No.130/2020/QH14 on participation in UN peacekeeping forces, which will take effect on July 1.

The prime minister has issued an implementation plan that identifies the responsibilities of and assigns tasks to ministries and government agencies to ensure that the resolution will be carried out in a timely, concerted, uniform, and effective manner.

Lieutenant colonel Nguyen Thi Lien I was the first Vietnamese military female officer to have worked as a training advisor at the UN’s Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA). On March 12, I returned to Vietnam after a prolonged stay due to the pandemic. My main task is to work with colleagues to organise training courses on improving new skills for new staff at MINUSCA. Undertaking the duty in June 2019, my colleagues and I have faced numerous difficulties, especially in the context of the pandemic. The country is very weak in infrastructure development, coupled with a grave lack of medical equipment and tools and limited awareness of people. In order to cope with the pandemic, we at MINUSCA always paid due attention to protecting our health via enjoying proper and nutritious foods. Due to unfavourable weather conditions, we have had to drink much water and eat many vegetables cultivated by ourselves. We have always encouraged one another to stay optimistic and implemented safe hygienic measures to prevent community contamination. Meanwhile, there is no habit among local residents of wearing masks. We still wore masks but covered our faces with larger handkerchiefs in order to avoid discrimination from locals. From the fact that Vietnam has been doing a very good job in combating the COVID-19 pandemic, I came to the thought that the face mask is a very effective shield and an “amulet” during the pandemic times in a nation very poor in medical equipment. To realise my idea, I went to a local’s home to hire a sewing machine, and then went to the market to buy cloth and elastic bands. I selected cloth with colourful patterns which suited locals’ traditional taste. After working hours at MINUSCA, I found myself making face masks. Being an unprofessional needlewoman, initially I could not make many products. However, day after day the number of masks gradually increased, while the number of COVID-19 victims also ascended. By that point, the country’s government under consultancy of MINUSCA issued a directive ordering all people throughout the nation to wear masks at public places from May last year. Around 800 masks I made personally were then presented to locals and MINUSCA staff. They have become a very significant gift in the context of urgent prevention and fighting against the pandemic in such a poor nation. Major NGUYEN PHUC DONG When I was a child, I always dreamt of becoming a military officer. In 2004, I passed the examination into the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) Military Academy of Logistics. In 2009, with my good study record, I became a lecturer at the academy. After a time, I was sent to the United States to study. With big aspirations to make more contributions to the army and work in an international environment, in 2007, I was admitted to work at the MoD’s Vietnam Department of Peacekeeping Operations. After one year of working here, I was selected to become one of two military officers to work as peacekeeper in South Sudan in 2018. The day I set off for South Sudan was also Vietnamese Teachers’ Day. My wife is an English teacher, and I understood that my wife would have to work hard to feed the family. My first child was only five and the second was only six months old at that time. South Sudan is the youngest nation in the world as it declared independence in 2011. Its political situation remains unstable with many conflicts and unfavourable weather conditions. Though before going there, I had studied the country very carefully, I was still surprised when I arrived. South Sudan was characterised with underdeveloped infrastructure and shabby houses of the local residents whose lives depended on support from the United Nations. Almost all children have no schooling and suffer from malnutrition, while the nation is completely undermined by civil wars. The main duty of UN peacekeepers is to protect civilians, create a favourable environment for humanitarian assistance, supervise and inspect human rights violations, and support the implementation of peace processes. During my time in South Sudan, I partook in days-long patrols by air, by road, and by waterway, of hundreds of kilometres a day. In many cases, the patrols faced lots of difficulties because many other forces showed no cooperation and even caused great difficulties to our work. Danger was always on the watch. For example, one month before I came to South Sudan, one comrade had been shot and made the ultimate sacrifice while on duty. However, in defiance of the dangers and difficulties, my colleagues and I will not be deterred, and we will give it our best to accomplish the tasks that we have been assigned in order to keep peace in the world.

By Nguyen Dat