Vietnam, Russia agree on debt issue Russian Deputy Prime Minister and
Minister of Finance Alexei Kudrin and Vietnamese Finance Minister Nguyen
Sinh Hung signed agreements on settling Vietnam�s debt to Russia on
September 13 in the presence of Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai and
others. Under the agreement, 85% of Vietnam�s debt to Russia will be
written off and the remainder gradually paid off in 23 years. Ninety
percent of the amount will be used by Russia to invest in and purchase
goods and services from Vietnam. The money will be exchanged under
international rules. Russia has also agreed to use 0.25% of the debt�
annual interest as non-refundable aid to help Vietnamese students in
Russia. The agreement will help increase Vietnam�s export to Russia and
facilitate conditions for Russia to expand its investment in Vietnam,
opening a new stage of development in commercial ties between the two
countries. In the morning September 14, Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, his
wife and other members of the delegation concluded their visit to Russia,
leaving Moscow for Minsk, beginning their official visit to Belarus as
guests of Belarussian Prime Minister Vladimir Yermoshin.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Vietnam pledges to actively contribute to UN development
"In its capacity as a member of the United Nations and Chairman of ASEAN,
Vietnam will do its utmost to actively contribute to the development of the
United Nations in general and ASEAN in particular, promote the co-operation
between Vietnam and the United Nations as well as between ASEAN and the
United Nations," said Mr Nguyen Dy Nien, Vietnamese foreign minister at the
General Debate of the 55th session of the UN General Assembly held in New
York on September 13.
"It at the same time wishes to develop close and effective ties with member
states and organisations of the United Nations," the foreign minister
further said.
He continued: "Coming to this session, Vietnam shares the common resolve to
implement the historic Millennium Declaration to build a just and better
world and a worthier and more effective United Nations. Fully aware of its
responsibility as a member state towards the United Nations and
international community, Vietnam, therefore, has for many years, been
making efforts for achieving the common goals of mankind and the United
Nations, and it will continue to do so in the future. A most recent vivid
example was the proposal put forward by the president of the Socialist
Republic of Vietnam at the Millennium Summit, recommending that the first
decade of the 21st Century be proclaimed as the decade of development and
poverty eradication concentrating to the highest level all global efforts
for these aims.
"This year's General Assembly is of special significance as it takes place
right after the Millennium Summit, a Summit that marks an important
development of the United Nations in discharging the lofty responsibilities
of the Organisation and its member states towards the future of humankind.
The Millennium Declaration adopted by the Summit has pointed out humanity's
most pressing issues and the Organisation's primary priorities and
directions upon their entry into the new era. For this, the Millennium
Declaration can be considered a new Charter and Platform of Action of the
United Nations.
"The question now presented to the international community is how to bring
the Millennium Declaration into reality. And this Session of the General
Assembly must be a new beginning of a new awareness and determination, to
be demonstrated by concrete results. Only by so doing, can we further
consolidate the confidence of the world's people in the work of the United
Nations, the biggest organisation on our planet.
"The realisation of the Millennium Declaration will be a long but not
simple process, which requires the high determination and efforts of each
country, the international community and the United Nations. It is
especially more so when globalisation is exposing its negative impacts,
leading to the uneven distribution of opportunities and benefits at the
expense of developing countries.
"Poverty eradication and development must be accorded primary priority and
supported so that we can achieve the targets set by the Millennium Summit,
including the target to halve, by the year 2015, the current proportion of
the world's poor people, endeavouring towards making the right to
development a reality for everyone. Of the human rights, the right to
development is of paramount importance. With poverty and without
development, there can be no peace and stability, not to say human rights.
On the other hand, once international peace and security is consolidated,
that will help create a stable, enabling environment for development and
poverty eradication, in each country, each region, as well as the world
over.
"To achieve development and poverty eradication, the first decisive
requirement for the countries is to enhance their efforts and adopt
suitable policies and programmes aimed at making the fullest use of its
resources and potentials; and, at the same time, to gather and effectively
utilise the resources from outside. The United Nations, on its part, should
strengthen its capacity and have the resources necessary and direct them to
support poverty eradication efforts of the member states. It is also
extremely important that the developed and industrialised countries as well
as economic centres need to further enhance their assistance to developing
countries in their endeavour for development and poverty eradication. That
should include measures of debt relief and write-off and the increase of
ODA to 0.7% of the GDP as has been committed.
"The objectives set out in the Millennium Declaration have long been
considered by Vietnam as its primary policy priorities. For example, by the
highest efforts of our own and with the assistance from the United Nations
and other countries, we have reduced the poverty rate, according to
Vietnam's criteria, to 11% in 2000 from that of 30% in 1992. We hope that
this support and assistance will be further enhanced to facilitate
Vietnam's consolidation of the achievements recorded.
"In the final analysis, all the above-mentioned issues are aimed at serving
human beings. Human resources and cultural development are two aspects
closely related to each other in the overall programme of development and
poverty eradication. They are therefore both the goal and the driving-force
of development. This is the lesson that we, from the experience of the past
many decades, can draw, and needs to be given the appropriate, significant
attention in the policies of all countries.
"Those objectives have been reflected also in ASEAN's Vision 2020 and Hanoi
Plan of Action. They include the expansion of co-operation in south-east
Asia and east Asia and the building of triangles and quadrangles for
development crossing poor regions. Concrete examples are found in the
promising initiatives of the East-West Corridor for development and the
proclamation, also supported by ESCAP, of the first decade of the 21st
Century as the Decade of Greater Mekong Sub-Region Development. Those
programmes are fully compatible with the directions contained in the
Millennium Declaration and they should therefore be properly supported by
the United Nations and international community. To advance further along
this path is also the contribution from Vietnam and ASEAN.
On international affairs, Mr Nien said: "In many regions of the world,
protracted conflicts continue, causing instabilities and hindering the
efforts of those countries and regions for poverty eradication and
development. Vietnam and ASEAN support the resolution of disputes by
peaceful means, without interference and imposition, so as to improve and
consolidate regional peace, and not to further complicate the situation and
adversely affect the confidence of the people of the countries in the
endeavours of the international community. Our common responsibility is
therefore to guarantee that such actions of interference and in violation
of the United Nations Charter as those occurred recently will not happen
again, and that an end should be put to the embargoes that have imposed
untold sufferings on the people of Cuba, Iraq, and so on.
"Greater efforts should be made to further enhance disarmament, especially
the disarmament of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction,
and to prevent the growing dangers of a new arms race, including the
attempts to deploy new missile systems.
"In south-east Asia and east Asia, the ASEAN countries have been leading
the efforts aimed at building a region of amity, co-operation, prosperity
and free from nuclear weapons, resolving the outstanding issues in the
region, implementing the Treaty of Amity and Co-operation (TAC) and the
Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapons Free Sone (SEANFS), and promoting the ASEAN
Regional Forum (ARF) for dialogue and co-operation with other countries and
organisations. In this field, confidence-building measures should be
enhanced on the basis of strictly respecting the principle of
non-interference in the internal affairs, and the preservation of the
national and cultural identity of each country and of the region as a
whole. Vietnam and ASEAN, bilaterally or through the ARF, will further
promote the efforts to develop a regional Code of Conduct (COC) on the East
Sea between ASEAN and China, fully support the ASEAN Declaration of 1992 on
the principles of resolving disputes in the East Sea, and welcome recent
positive developments on the Korean peninsular.
"In order to implement the new, major directions of the Millennium Summit
and to follow up the momentum created by it, the General Assembly should at
this Session further enhance the process to reform, revitalise, and
democratise the United Nations. Vietnam supports the restoration and
strengthening of the central position of the General Assembly, an organ
represented by all member states on the principle of sovereign equality.
The reform of the United Nations, with the reform of the Security Council's
structure, composition and decision-making process being the most
important, is the responsibility of all member states.
"The reform of the Security Council should be based on the principles of
the United Nations Charter, ensure the increased representativeness,
democracy, and equitable geographical distribution, in which developing
countries will be represented appropriately and participate fully in the
Council's decisions on important matters of world peace and security.
Vietnam supports the expansion in both categories of permanent and
non-permanent membership of the Council. Regarding the increase in the
permanent membership, the general package to be agreed upon should ensure
that developing countries from the three continents of Asia, Africa, and
Latin America be represented; and it may also take into account the
inclusion of some developing countries that can play a significant role and
certain developed countries that have made major financial and material
contributions to the United Nations, such as India, Japan and Germany. Now,
more than ever before, the United Nations must ensure that it can assert
its ability to reform itself and move forward with tangible steps. We need
to act for the reform to reflect the abundant vitality of the United
Nations. (VNA)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
National Hero's death anniversary marked
Tran Hung Dao's new bronze statue in Nam Dinh.
The 700th death anniversary of the National Hero Tran Hung Dao was
organised on September 15 (the 18th of the 8th lunar
month) at the Kiep Bac temple in Hai Duong province.
Tens of thousands of people converged to Kiep Bac on the occasion.
The Party and State delegation to the ceremony included Party General
Secretary Le Kha Phieu; Pham The Duyet, standing
Politburo member, president of the Presidium of the Vietnam Fatherland
Front Central Committee; Nguyen Cong Tan,
deputy prime minister; and many others.
Mr Duyet, on behalf of the Party and State, delivered a speech on the
general's biography, career and virtues, the national
hero symbolising Vietnam's sense of purpose, uprightness and spirit.
In the minds of the Vietnamese people, Tran Hung Dao was an immortal Saint.
Tran Hung Dao, and the great resistance
against the Mongol Yuan invaders of the Vietnamese people in the Tran
dynasty, have been the source of encouragement,
consolidating the spirit of patriotism, unity and the will for victory of
the Vietnamese people and army, contributing to
Vietnam's strength in the Ho Chi Minh era, Mr Duyet said.
General Secretary Le Kha Phieu and other Party and State leaders,
authorities of Hai Duong province and people to the
anniversary held an incense offering ceremony.
Tens of big boats on the Thuong river in front of the Kiep Bac temple
recreated the array with seething impetus by General
Tran Quoc Tuan and his famous generals: Tran Quang Khai, Tran Khanh Du,
Pham Ngu Lao, Nguyen Khoai, Nguyen Che
Nghia and Tran Quoc Toan.
Delegates to the ceremony planted trees on the Vien Lang hill by Kiep Bac
temple.
_______________________________________________________
KOMINFORM
P.O. Box 66
00841 Helsinki - Finland
+358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081
e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.kominf.pp.fi
_______________________________________________________
Kominform list for general information.
Subscribe/unsubscribe messages to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Anti-Imperialism list for anti-imperialist news.
Subscribe/unsubscribe messages:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
_______________________________________________________
