VNA
President congratulates Military Politics Institute on 50th anniversary President Tran Duc Luong has sent a letter to congratulate the Military Politics Institute on its 50th founding anniversary. In his letter, President Luong praised staff, lecturers, students and soldiers of the Military Politics Institute for their achievements and development over the past 50 years. He said he hoped people of the institute would promote the fine quality of Uncle Ho's soldiers, glorious tradition of the institute and improve the quality and efficiency in teaching, learning and scientific research. He also asked them to build a purer and stronger Party Committee and an exemplary and regular institute for the training of military political officials of the Party, thus contributing to building a revolutionary, regular and crack and modern army. **** Vietnam with UN in facing development challenges Prime Minister Phan Van Khai has pledged that Vietnam, with help from the UN, would realise the high-level commitments it has made with foreign leaders at the United Nations Conference in September of 2000. The government leader made the reaffirmation while receiving UN Co-ordinator Edouard A Wattez and other resident representatives of the UN agencies in Hanoi on October 24, on the occasion of the United Nations Day. Mr Khai said the Vietnamese government has taken numerous measures to improve people's living conditions and solve a number of social problems. The government's hunger elimination and poverty alleviation programme has offered priorities of investment to multi-faceted development in 2,270 of the country's poorest communes. He took this opportunity to congratulate Secretary General Kofi Annan for his Nobel prize, and thanked the United Nations agencies for their effective contributions to a number of Vietnam's successes in socio-economic development. He said Vietnam highly appreciates the assistance it has received from the UN agencies, especially the help it received during the initial stage of the country's shift from a centrally planned to a market economy in the early 1990s. Mr Khai, however, acknowledged that the country should make greater efforts to cope with challenges ahead for a just, democratic, and advanced society. For his part, Mr Wattez, who is also the resident representative of the United Nations Development Programme, praised Vietnam's achievements in the nine high priority areas of the UN, especially in hunger eradication and poverty alleviation, primary educational universalisation, and reduction of malnutrition and mortality rates among children under five. He, however, pointed to a number of challenges which still face the country's development such as a gap in development between high and lowland areas, a high rate of malnourished children, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, a high drop-out rate among schoolgirls, and general inequality between boys and girls. He also raised concern over the high child mortality rate of 100 per every 100,000. Mr Wattez informed Mr Khai of the UN co-operation programmes in the years to come, which he described as having bright prospects. He also expressed his expectation that the Vietnamese government co-ordinate closely with the UN to help make the programmes successful. (VNA) **** Amending Constitution important for administrative reform: deputy PM Amending the 1992 Constitution is one of the government's major administrative reform tasks for the 2001-02 period, said Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung during a conference on the launching of an administrative reform master plan for the first decade of the 21st century. The conference was held in Hanoi on October 24. Other major tasks that should be accomplished by 2002 include the revision of the laws on government organisation, local administration, elections to the National Assembly, and the organisation of high-level State agencies, the deputy prime minister noted. Deputy Prime Minister Dung, who is deputy head of the government's steering board on administrative reform, stressed that addressing the above-mentioned tasks is a matter of great urgency, affecting the whole process of administrative reform. Former Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Khanh, also deputy head of the government's steering board on administrative reform, pointed to objectives of the process over the next 10 years. The first is to build a pure, strong, professional, and modern democracy which operates effectively on the principle of a law-governed socialist State under the leadership of the Party. The second objective is to build a contingent of ethically and professionally qualified State officials and public employees to meet the requirements of national construction and development. Mr Khanh went on to say that by 2010 the administrative system should be basically reformed so that it can effectively handle a socialist regulated market economy in Vietnam. The 10-year administrative reform programme covers reforming the State administrative institution and administrative organisation structure, renovating and improving the qualifications of civil servants, and reforming public administration, Mr Khanh stressed. (VNA) **** 17 killed by floods in central region Seventeen people have been killed or reported missing by whirlwinds and floods in central provinces as of October 22. Seven fishing ships were sunk. More than 400 houses were pulled down. Thousands of others are submerged deep under water. Many sections of national highways, provincial roads and trans-district roads are inundated or washed away, causing traffic jams. The floods have also caused heavy damage to agricultural production, especially aqua-culture as the provinces of Quang Nam, Quang Tri, Quang Ngai, Phu Yen, Khanh Hoa are key areas for aqua-culture in the central region. Initial total losses have so far been estimated at VND 50 billion. **** More foreign, domestic aid for flood victims The Vietnam Red Cross had received relief worth VND 1.8 billion (roughly US $120,000) from 23 organisations inside and outside the country to help flood victims by October 23. The government of the Czech Republic has granted US $30,000 in aid to Vietnamese flood victims. A cheque was handed over to Professor Nguyen Trong Nhan, president of the Vietnam Red Cross, on October 23, by Czech Ambassador to Vietnam Lubos Novy. The Red Cross organisation has so far this year granted VND 2.1 billion to 27 provinces that were hit by natural calamities, including VND 800 million to six flood-hit Mekong delta provinces. Meanwhile, Ho Chi Minh City's Fatherland Front has to date received VND 5.3 billion and 74 tonnes of commodities from more than 1,000 agencies and individuals to support flood victims in the Mekong delta. The current floods in the Mekong delta, the largest in 50 years, have claimed 305 lives, of whom 241 were children. More than 810 emergency child-care centres have been established by local authorities in affected provinces to take care of nearly 20,000 children while their parents are at work. The floods have inundated 313,000 houses, destroyed almost 3,000 others, and submerged 186 offices and 1,658 schools in 10 provinces which suffered material losses estimated at VND 886 billion (US $59 million). (VNA) **** ASEAN co-ordinates in water resource management All of the ten ASEAN member countries sent representatives to a regional dialogue on the management of water resources held in Hanoi on October 24. In addition to water resource management and a co-ordination network for water, the participants discussed the role of states in water resource management as well as measures to improve management capacity. Other major topics included water's link to food, the environment and global weather changes. They passed a preparatory plan for the third Global Water Forum scheduled to take place in Japan in 2003. The symposium was co-sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Southeast Asian Technical Assistance Committee, and the Global Water Partnership within the framework of the ASEAN conference under the theme of 'Water for the 21st Century.' (VNA) **** Vietnamese-Dutch coastal environment management reviewed The implementation of a Dutch-funded project on integrated management of Vietnam's coastal areas was reviewed at a conference held in Hanoi on October 22 between a high-level mission of the Netherlands' Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management and Vietnam's Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment. Bui Manh Hai, deputy minister of science, technology and environment, briefed the Dutch mission of the results in implementing the project. The two sides discussed solutions to help each other in protecting the coastal environment, accelerating the project and improving the living conditions of people in Vietnam's coastal areas. The Netherlands had provided NLG 5 million (roughly US $2.1 million) to carry out a three-year project on Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) in Vietnam. The ICZM included institutional development and training in coastal zone management for Vietnamese technicians and managers in the Netherlands and in Vietnam at both the national and provincial levels. The northern province of Nam Dinh, the central province of Thua Thien-Hue and the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau have been pilot sites of the project. (VNA) _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
