Madagascan president rejects opposition demand to resign

Madagascan President Ravalomanana categorically rejected on Sunday the opposition demand for him to resign, saying that he would win the on-going struggle against his rival Andry Rajoelina.

Madagascar’s opposition leader Andry Rajoelina greets his supporters at the end of a religious service at Antananarivo’s city centre March 15 ,2009.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

“Do not be afraid, only believe, I do not resign”, Ravalomanana told a crowd of several thousand of his supporters outside the presidential palace following an ecumenical worship Sunday morning.

“God is the owner of power, He is the owner of my power and my life and the people elected me, if He (the God) does not accept me, I would not remain in power,” the besieged president said.

“I take opportunity in this worship to tell you that we will prevail in this struggle if we will not leave God.

He informed his supporters that someone advised him to flee abroad and gave him the opportunity but “I decided to remain with you.”

He appealed to the armed forces to remain neutral and called his supporters to respect democracy and wait for next national election in 2012 “if somebody wants to make a coup”.

“I know your concern about the soldiers who will arrest me and follow by a coup”, said Ravalomanana.

He appealed to the armed forces to return to legality, adding that “you are wise and I think that you will return to respect the law”.

He admitted that “an independence of Madagascar is over 50 years and democracy in this country is still soft”.

The opposition led by Andry Rajoelina claimed to have support of the armed forces in its anti-government activities.

Ravalomanana, who was first elected as president of the island country in a national election at the end of 2001 and began his second 5-year term at the beginning of 2007, preferred a national referendum, if necessary, to solve the current political crisis, the worst in years in Madagascar.

“I am ready to hold a national referendum if necessary to resolve the current crisis,” he said.

The President said that he was confident in the legitimacy of his presidency and his popularity among the Madagascan people to express themselves.

The gesture of the president represented a challenge to his rival Andry Rajoelina, who has claimed to be “the spokesman of the people” ever since the political stalemate began last December.

Almost at the same time when Ravalomanana was speaking, Rajoelina said, also at a worship, that he would not mix religion with politics.

Rajoelina called his supporters to come to an anti-government gathering again on Monday, during which he would announce “big things”, but he did not elaborate.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet

Left-wing party candidate wins El Salvador’s presidential election

Left-wing opposition candidate Mauricio Funes won El Salvador’s presidential election on Sunday, figures released by the country’s election commission showed.

Mauricio Funes (L Front) from the left-wing opposition party Farabundo Marti Front for the National Liberation (FMLN), gestures after voting in Antiguo Cuscatlan, south of San Salvador, during the presidential election in El Salvador, on March 15, 2009. Mauricio Funes said he won the election on Sunday. (Xinhua/David de la Paz)

Funes of the Farabundo Marti Front for the National Liberation Party (FMLN) garnered 51.27 percent of the vote against 48.73 percent for Rodrigo Avila of the ruling conservative ARENA party, according to the figures.

Funes, born in 1959 and one of the most influential media workers in El Salvador, has promised to push reform in education, health and to fight poverty in the country.

As one of the two major political parties in El Salvador, the FMLN participated in the country’s presidential elections in 1994,1999 and 2004.

The FMLN, a former guerrilla organization, became a legal political party in 1992.

More than 4.22 million people registered for Sunday’s election, accounting for some 63 percent of the country’s population.

Four candidates were competing for the presidency, with Avila and Funes seen as the two main contenders.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet 

U.S. space shuttle Discovery lifts off, delivering solar array wings to ISS

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery lifted off on Sunday from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission of delivering the International Space Station’s (ISS) fourth and final set of solar array wings, completing the station’s truss, or backbone.

Space shuttle Discovery astronauts (L-R) Koichi Wakata of Japan, John Phillips, Richard Arnold, Steve Swanson, Joseph Acaba, Pilot Tony Antonelli and Mission Commander Lee Archambault leave their crew quarters for launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida March 15, 2009. (Xinhua Photo)

The space shuttle set off at 19:43 p.m. EDT (2343 GMT), thundering into a clear sky. Thousands of people came to Kennedy Space Center to see the blastoff.

The NASA TV shows that the five engines boosting Discovery and its external tank towards orbit shut down as planned about eight and a half minutes into flight. Shortly after that, the shuttle entered its orbit with a speed of 17,500 miles (28,000 kilometers) per hour.

“Everything looks perfect on the orbiter,” said Mike Moses, the head of the mission management team, at a live broadcast press conference following the launch.

Mike Leinbach, launch director for the mission, also thought the launch was “just gorgeous.” “I have seen a lot of launches …and this was the most visually beautiful,” he told reporters at the press conference.

“It was just spectacular. When the orbiter and the tank, booster got up in the sun light …it was just gorgeous.”

The space shuttle is expected to dock with the ISS on March 17.Its seven crew, commanded by Lee Archambault and include Koichi Wakata, the first Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s resident station crew member. He will replace NASA astronaut Sandra Magnus as part of the ISS’ Expedition 18 crew.

Discovery’s mission will feature three spacewalks to help install the S6 truss segment to the starboard, or right side of the station and the deployment of its solar arrays. The arrays will provide the electricity to fully power science experiments and support the station’s expanded crew of six in May.

The truss is a high-tech girder structure made up of 11 segments. It provides the backbone for the station, supporting the U.S. solar arrays, radiators and other equipment. To install the S6 truss segment, the station’s robotic arm must extend its reach just about as far as it will go (about 57 feet or 17.4 meters), leaving it with very little room to maneuver. The S6 truss segment weighs a little more than 31,000 pounds or 14,061 kg. After S6 installation, the truss will be 335 feet (102 meters) long.

Each solar array wing has two 115-foot-long (35 meters) arrays, for a total wing span of 240 feet (73 meters), including the equipment that connects the two wings and allows them to twist as they track the sun. Altogether, the station’s arrays can generate as much as 120 kilowatts of usable electricity — enough to provide about forty-two 2,800-square-foot (260 square meters) homes with power. The addition of the S6 will nearly double the amount of power for station science — from 15 kilowatts to 30 kilowatts.

The flight will also replace a failed unit for a system that converts urine to potable water.

The ISS’ Urine Processing Assembly that removes impurities from urine in an early stage of the recycling process is not working. The entire Water Recovery System was delivered and installed during the space shuttle Endeavour’s STS-126 mission in November, 2008. Astronauts were able to coax it into use by performing in-flight maintenance, but a distillation unit failed after Endeavour’s departure.

Discovery entered a launch countdown last Wednesday, before ground crews at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral noticed a hydrogen leak in a liquid hydrogen vent line between the shuttle and the external tank. The leak forced NASA to immediately begin unloading fuel from the tank and cancel the Wednesday launch.

The shuttle was initially scheduled for launch on Feb. 12, but concerns over suspect fuel control valves in the spacecraft’s main engines prompted several delays so engineers could replace them.

Like the leaky gas hydrogen line that thwarted Discovery’s Wednesday launch, the shuttle’s three fuel control valves are also designed to maintain the proper pressure inside the liquid hydrogen fuel reservoir of the orbiter’s attached external tank. A similar valve on the shuttle Endeavour cracked during a November 2008 launch and NASA wanted to be sure a similar problem did not pose a risk to Discovery and its crew.

Because of the delays, the mission originally slated to last 14days, with four spacewalks, was shortened by one day with one spacewalk eliminated, to make room for an incoming Russian Soyuz spacecraft set to launch March 26. The Soyuz will carry up a fresh crew for the space station.

The mission’s first spacewalk is expected to take place Thursday to install the new solar wings. The canceled spacewalk chores will be tackled by the space station crew after Discovery leaves.

Discovery’s delay has also hindered plans to launch a new U.S. military communications satellite from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station near Discovery’s seaside pad at the Kennedy Space Center. The Wideband Global SATCOM-2 satellite was due to launch Saturday atop an Atlas 5 rocket, but will stand down until next week.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet

Cheney: Obama policy hurts anti-terror efforts

Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney claimed on Sunday that the Obama administration has opened the country to further terror attacks by reversing Bush administration policies.

File photo shows former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney  in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, October 1, 2008. (Xinhua/Reuters File Photo)

In an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union,” Cheney also asserted that the former Bush administration’s heavily-criticized interrogation techniques were “absolutely essential” to preventing further terror attacks on U.S. soil.

 

“President (Barack) Obama campaigned against it all across the country, and now he is making some choices that, in my mind, will, in fact, raise the risk to the American people of another attack,” Cheney said.

 

He also defended the invasion of Iraq in 2003, saying “we’ve accomplished nearly everything we set out to do.”

 

Since taking office in January, Obama has announced plans to reverse many of the Bush administration’s anti-terror policies, notably the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the ban on torture during interrogations of terror suspects.

 

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet

Evasion in social insurance payment goes unchecked

LookAtVietnam – The HCMC Social Insurance agency has warned of a widespread phenomenon of employers evading payments of social insurance at the expense of salaried workers.

Many businesses have neither signed labor contracts with workers, nor registered their payrolls with the Social Insurance agency, rendering the protection of the employee’s interests impossible.

Cao Van Sang, director of the agency, said at a meeting with lawmakers in the city on Thursday that many employers showed little or no responsibility toward their workers when it came to paying social insurance fees.

Many businesses have neither signed labor contracts with workers, nor registered their payrolls with the Social Insurance agency, rendering the protection of the employee’s interests impossible.

To dodge social insurance payment, some businesses understate wages in labor contracts, something which is widespread. Nguyen Huy Can, chairman of the HCMC Labor Federation, said there was a company where the average wage was VND4 million per person but the level stated in the contract was a mere VND1.5 million.

Some companies, he noted, have two separate payrolls, with one for tax payment purposes and the other for social insurance fee payment.

Sang of the Social Insurance agency blamed the authorities on their lax supervision of enterprises. “Of more than 14,000 businesses recently surveyed, the whereabouts of around 1,400 are unknown and just a little more than 3,300 have signed labor contracts with workers,” he said.

This is why, he said, 56 foreign-invested, equitized and privately held enterprises had failed to pay over VND50 billion in social insurance fees for their staff by end-2008.

He warned of a worse outlook for this year given the economic downturn.

The root cause of the problem is that the supervisory and punitive mechanisms are not strong enough to keep enterprises from evading social insurance payments, he said, adding the maximum fine was a slight VND20 million (US$1,150), so certain employers were ready to break law.

If employers fail to pay social insurance fees for their staff, the Social Insurance agency cannot settle social insurance claims by unemployed workers but the regulations do not provide who is the final one to resolve this issue. “It is the workers who suffer most,” Sang said.

To cope with this lingering issue, Sang’s agency will send proposals for revising some provisions in the Law on Social Insurance to the next session of the National Assembly.

VietNamNet/SGT

Music in Hanoi: A low note

Many music stars and winners of music competitions in Vietnam live in Hanoi, but the capital city’s music life is not as lively as HCM City’s.

 

Hanoi doesn’t have a music market: That is the comment of all visitors who love music when they come to Hanoi because it is very hard to find a place for music.

 

Quiet night clubs

 

Aladin, owned by People’s Artist, singer Thanh Hoa, is perhaps the night club that has the most music shows. As the only night club in Hanoi that focuses on revolutionary music, Aladin has a loyal audience. However, the names like Thanh Hoa, Anh Tho, Viet Hoan, Tan Nhan, Ho Anh Dung can only attract several tens of audience members each night. Aladin is only full during the weekend or when it organises really big shows.

 

Ho Guom Xanh (Green Sword Lake), which is considered the most hip music bar for youth in Hanoi, is very quiet. Like Aladin, this bar is bustling during the weekend or on holidays, when the bar invites “music stars”. On the weekdays, besides some sexy dances, Ho Guom Xanh is the stage for exclusive Ho Guom Xanh singers like Tra My, Anh Tu and Viet Dung.

 

Singer Thu Ba, music manager at Ho Guom Xanh, said this bar doesn’t have any special show for Hanoian singers in the coming time, but it will have shows for singers from HCM City such as Doan Trang and Ha Anh Tuan and overseas Vietnamese singers like Jimmy Nguyen and Huong Lan.

 

The Jazz Club of musicians Quyen Van Minh and Quyen Thien Dac is a rendezvous for jazz music fans in Hanoi. However, this bar is not crowded because jazz is not a popular genre of music. Most of the audience members at the Jazz Club are foreigners or students of music schools. It is very difficult for guests to find a bar with classical music in Hanoi.

 

“Leisure” singers

 

Economic slowdown has hit the music market in Hanoi, which was quiet to begin with. This International Woman’s Day (March 8), Hanoi had only two big shows on two nights, Ru Tinh and Yellow Daisy of March, which gathered divas like Thanh Lam, My Linh, Ho Quynh Huong, and Nguyen Ngoc Anh.

 

In HCM City, music stars appear very often at night clubs but in Hanoi stars like My Linh and Thanh Lam never sing at night clubs. Diva Thanh Lam said that when she releases her new album this June she doesn’t plan to sing in Hanoi.

 

My Linh, though she is busier than Thanh Lam, said she would attend the Pham Duy Music show on March 27 and the Cherry Blossom Festival on April 11. She said the quiet music market has had impacts on her life and she is now earning her living by other activities, such as playing in advertising clips.

 

Singer Ngoc Anh has given many shows, but not in Hanoi. She generally travels between Da Nang and Quang Ninh, Hai Phong and HCM City.

 

Free shows on TV

 

Explaining the quiet environment for music in the capital city, Thanh Lam said economic crisis has drastically hit the entertainment industry and it is very difficult to draw an audience to music performances at this moment. Show organisers don’t dare to venture the risk.

 

Another reason, she said, is that Hanoi has never been animated like HCM City. Most Hanoians don’t have the habit of enjoying live music at the weekend. Especially, in an economic crisis, they would rather stay at home and watch free shows on TV than go to see live shows.

 

VietNamNet/NLD

Artists and nude “phenomenon”

Artists releasing nude photos online, announcing they will publish a book of nude photos for charity or otherwise is now a “phenomenon” among young artists.

From the left: Miss Vietnam Mai Phuong Thuy, singer Cao Thai Son, and model and singer Nathan Lee, who made statements about nude photo projects.

 

Online nudity: a trend

 

Some scandals have happened related to nude photos of artists found online. When they were questioned, they avoided answering or insisted that they posted the sexy photos to share with others.

 

Recently, the online community has been stirred up by semi-nude photos which are said to be of singer Thuy Tien. While the singer has persisted in saying that they are not her, photographic experts have confirmed that these photos are real.

 

The case of Thuy Tien is an example of the syndrome of “showing-off” among young singers, models and actors.

 

Promised nude projects

 

People are becoming more familiar with artists announcing nude photo projects for charity. It is said that this is a trick to attract public attention.

 

Thien Dang, a young singer, is not famous for his voice, but “shocking” statements like “I’m gay” and “I’ll have a nude calendar”. Despite the boldness of his speech, it is wondered if he is really telling the truth, or it is just trickery to catch people’s attention.

 

The singer announced he would release his nude calendar in late 2008 but the product is still yet to be seen. He said: “I planned to have a nude calendar of myself for a trial in my career and also to save photos of my youth. But I’ve changed my mind since I failed in cooperation with some photographers.”

 

The singer then added: “I’ve contacted a team of a professional photographer from the US who specialises in nude photos and a famous Vietnamese photographer. My nude calendar will come. I don’t want to promise the moon.”

 

Miss Vietnam Mai Phuong Thuy was the first to announce she would release a nude photo book to raise funds for charity. However, the book has not been introduced yet.

 

“I’ve received a lot of feedback about this project and most is positive. The project is nearly finished but I don’t want to make it public yet for a few reasons,” Thuy said.

 

According to Thuy, she doesn’t want to unveil that book at this moment because “after I declared I would publish a nude photo book for charity, many people in showbiz made the same statement. So I don’t want to hurry. I want to do it more carefully to impress audiences.”

 

Why do artists have to be nude for charity?

 

It is laudable to do charity activities, but it is suspected that many artists announce these nude photo projects to advertise themselves, rather than do them for charity.

 

Singer Cao Thai Son, who has said that he is willing to be nude for charity goals, said: “My idea is similar to the ideas of famous artists in the world. It is like projects to preserve a rare species of animal or the environment, not to polish my name.”

 

He added that it is too normal for a singer to contribute to life by his voice only. They have to do other things to make society better. “For me, nudity doesn’t mean taking off all my clothes. I have taken some photos but I’m not satisfied with them yet so I will do them again,” the singer said.

 

Model and singer Nathan Lee, unlike Cao Thai Son, said such photos would be a gift to accompany his new album.

 

He said that his set of nude photos would be “artistic” and suitable to the content of his album.

 

One is beginning to wonder: Is there any way for an artist to polish his or her name nowadays without taking off his or her clothes?

 

Son Ha

Private schools drain public staff

LookAtVietnam – Low salaries are driving experienced teachers from public to private and international schools, while the enrolment at universities of pedagogy continues to fall.

An eighth-grade chemistry teacher shows her students an experiment at Nguyen Du Junior High School in HCM City.

During the 2007-08 school year, at least 1,286 teachers quit their jobs at public schools to take positions that offered higher salaries and better benefits, according to the HCM City Department of Education and Training.

Most of the teachers who quit were working at the primary and junior high school level.

Because of the increasing number of private and international schools, more teachers are being poached from public schools.

With such expansion in the private sector, the city now needs an additional 2,000 teachers in all grades, according to the education department.

Every year, about 1,000 students graduate from pedagogy universities, meeting only one-quarter of the current demand.

Nguyen Bac Dung, headmaster of Tran Dai Nghia High School, a highly selective public school, said 10 excellent teachers had recently resigned and moved to other schools.

Dung said 90 per cent of the teachers who receive advanced degrees will leave the school, and that few graduates were applying to the HCM City University of Pedagogy.

Nang Khieu High School, a public school that once was free to students, paid half of the tuition for six teachers to study at master’s level programmes in Viet Nam. Tuition was also partly paid for one teacher to work on a Ph.D programme overseas.

Vo Thi Bach Mai, principal of Nang Khieu High School, said one-third of her staff are permanent employees and the others are guest teachers from HCM City’s University of Science and Humanities and HCM City’s University of Natural Sciences.

Mai said salaries for the teachers were quite low, with the average being VND32,000 (US$1.90) for each 45-minute teaching session.

The 10-year-old high school, which once exempted tuition fees, began charging students a VND45,000 monthly fee this year, Mai said.

Very few students at more selective high schools, such as Trung Vuong, Nguyen Thi Minh Khai, Le Quy Don and Hung Vuong schools, are applying for admission to the teacher training university.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News

Healthcare sector faces staff shortage

LookAtVietnam – Public hospitals have reduced their patient load, modernised their equipment and upgraded doctors’ skills, but more work needs to be done to improve health-care in HCM City, according to the city People’s Council.

Doctors handle heavy patient loads at HCM City’s Children Hospital No 1 due to the shortage of health workers in the city.

Among other problems, the city faces a shortage of medical staff, with more than 2,000 physicians being needed for public hospitals, according to Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tuyen.

More medical universities must also be built to meet training demand, but delays often occur because of cumbersome administrative procedures and a shortage of land.

For example, the Trieu An General Hospital submitted a proposal to build a medical university five years ago to the city’s Department of Education and Training, but plans remain on paper.

On several fronts

Despite several obstacles, progress in health care over the last 10 years has been made on several fronts.

About 70 per cent of 82 hospitals are now equipped with modern machines for diagnosis and treatment.

According to the city’s Department of Health, there are currently 82 private and public hospitals, 13,000 private drugstores and more than 90 clinics.

Most hospitals in the city have improved their service and capacity in order to meet demand.

After nine years of operation, Trieu An General Hospital in Binh Tan District increased the number of beds from 200 to 350 and now has modern medical equipment, as well as 15 specialised wards and a medical diagnosis centre.

Hoan My General Hospitals in District 3 and Tan Binh District under Hoan My General Medical Corporation have 100 beds and 18 specialised wards each.

With more than 120 beds, 18 clinics and 12 specialized wards, An Sinh General Hospital in Phu Nhuan District that was built in 2006 has more than 120 beds, 18 clinics and 12 specialised wards.

Many other private hospitals in the city, including Go Vap District’s Vu Anh International Hotel Hospital, District 10’s Van Hanh General Hospital, District 1’s Sai Gon International Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital and District 7’s Tam Duc Cardiology Hospital, have also helped share inpatient loads with public hospitals.

Additionally, some public hospitals under the Department of Health are also generating their own finances to increase income for their staff.

High-tech medical wards and clinics used to check and treat patients have also been built in many hospitals.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News

Road law confuses trailer truck drivers

LookAtVietnam – Roughly 100,000 trailer truck drivers nationwide have asked for a one-year extension on the new law that requires them to get higher-level driver’s licences, since few training centres can grant certificates to these drivers.

The new road law, which will go into effect in early July, states that people who drive heavy trailers and have a Group C driver’s licence must take an extra course to get a Group FC licence for truck tractors and semi-trailers.

Previously, those who had a Group C licence – the licence for a truck weighing 3,500kg or more- were allowed to drive these vehicles. The new law was approved last November to try and reduce the number of accidents caused by trailer trucks.

However, many trailer truck drivers are having a hard time accessing new licences as few vocational centres have skilled teachers and practice grounds to organise courses.

“There’s nowhere in Hai Phong or HCM City training and granting licences for trailer drivers,” says Hai Phong City’s Automobile Transport Association vice chairman Pham Trong Thinh.

According to Thinh, more than 10,000 heavy trailers are operating in maritime ports nationwide: 7,000 in HCM City, 3,000 in Hai Phong and about 1,000 in Da Nang ports.

Chairman of the Da Nang Goods Transport Association Tran Viet Hoe says that there are no vocational centres currently training students to drive heavy trailers in central provinces.

“I don’t think that teachers can drive better than my truckers despite the fact most of the workers only have a Group C licence,” says Song Toan Transport Company director Nguyen Huu Thuy who owns 50 heavy truck trailers in Da Nang City.

Certificates for sale

In spite of the shortage of training centres, ready-made certificates are available at different prices, according to transport enterprises.

Thuy says that some training centres offered his drivers a short course and provided them with a licence immediately.

Representatives of automobile associations in three cities plan to ask for an extension to head off major problems.

If all the drivers rush to complete the course in the next six months, billions of dong will be lost as goods accumulate in ports with no one to transport them.

“It takes at least three months for a beginner to finish the course and more time to be granted a licence,” says chairman of the Viet Nam Automobile Transportation Nguyen Manh Hung.

Nguyen Van Quyen, the Ministry of Transport’s deputy head of the Roads Department, says that the department has asked the Government to postpone the law until next August.

Municipal and provincial transport departments have been asked to prepare necessary facilities to open driver training courses and assure that there’s at least one training centre in each locality.

“Those who have a Group C licence can register for the course and access the new licence in the centre they studied at before. It takes only one month to transfer from C to FC,” says vice head of the department Nguyen Van Quyen.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News