Vietnam Cup: China, Singapore, Thai U-23 teams ready

The Under-23 teams of China, Singapore and Thailand started their training in Hanoi Wednesday to compete in the Vietnam Football Federation Cup, held to help Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam improve fitness for December’s Southeast Asian Games.

Players of U-23 Vietnam are under training for the Vietnam Football Federation Cup, scheduled November 5 to 9 in Hanoi. The other participating teams are U-23 of China, Singapore and Thailand. (Photo: SGGP)

The three invited teams arrived in Hanoi Tuesday with many young players. They and hosts Vietnam will compete in the friendship tournament in a round-robin format at the My Dinh National Stadium from November 5 to 9.

The Chinese team, in a document sent to the Vietnam Football Federation, said their players are under 21.

A fact is the national squads of Singapore and Thailand will fight against each other in their 2011 Asian Cup qualifiers on Nov. 14 and 18. Therefore, the two countries’ U-23 teams in Vietnam do not include their best players, who are busy with their national duty.

The VFF Cup winners will pocket US$25,000 while the first and second runners- up will each win US$10,000 and US$5,000.

The Chinese team will take on the Thais in the first game, followed by the Vietnam vs. Singapore match. The second matchday on Nov. 7 will see Thailand against the Young Lions, then Vietnam play China. Two days later, Singapore will meet China before Vietnam take on Thailand.

The Vietnamese players are coached by Portuguese tactician Henrique Calisto, who won the 2008 ASEAN championship with his Vietnamese national squad.

Singapore are coached by ex-international defender Terry Pathmanathan.

Southeast Asian powerhouse Thailand’s SEA Games team are currently under Englishman Steve Darby. They are the hot favorites to win the Games, hosted by Laos.

Vietnam coach Calisto said his players were also looking for the title this time.

The Vietnam Football Federation, the organizer of the VFF Cup, expects the tournament to draw fans to the My Dinh National Stadium as players are supposed to catch the eye of their coaches to break into the SEA Games squads.

The VFF Cup is coincided with the third Asian Indoor Games hosted by Vietnam from Oct. 30 to Nov. 8.

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Pregnant women call on doctors after swine-flu scare

Swine flu has claimed the lives of  ten pregnant women in the three months since it first broke out in Vietnam, the Ministry of Health said.

Fearing they will contract the disease, pregnant women are flocking to doctors for advice.

Tu Du Obstetrics in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 1 is among those experiencing an influx.

The obstetrics ward at HCMC’s Tu Du hospital. With 10 pregnant women falling prey to swine flu so far, people are rushing to consult doctors

Some of the women said they were worried as they presented symptoms of the flu. 

Hoang Ngoc Lan from the southern province of Binh Duong said she sometimes has a slight fever and cough but does not know if it is because of her pregnancy or weather changes.

A branch of the Medical University specializing in obstetrics in Phu Nhuan District has also received an increasing number of pregnant women.

A woman, 31 weeks into her term and wishing to remain unnamed, said though doctors had told her to come for an examination in the middle of November, she came earlier since she had a slight fever and felt tired.

Chief of the center, Nguyen Thi Thanh Ha, said she did merely provided information about the flu and advice on getting tested at the city’s Tropical Diseases Hospital.

Deputy head of the Tropical Diseases Hospital, Tran Tinh Hien, said the hospital is treating 10 pregnant women with the flu who have complications from severe pneumonia. Most of them are from nearby provinces and came to the hospital in bad shape.

The Department for Preventive Medicine and Environment confirmed November 3 one more death due to the A/H1N1 virus, taking the country’s death toll to 37.

The victim was a 38-year-old man from Hanoi. He suffered kidney failure and died despite a month’s intensive treatment at the National Institute of Infectious and Tropical Diseases. Tests revealed he had the flu.

The country has so far reported 10,605 cases of whom 10,344 have been treated and discharged from hospitals.

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Hanoi welcomes Danish queen

To honor the State visit of Denmark’s Queen Margrethe and her family, many cultural events were held in Hanoi November 3.

President Nguyen Minh Triet (L, 2nd) and Danish Queen Margrethe at the opening ceremony of a street art festival held in Hanoi on November 3. (Photo: SGGP)

President Nguyen Minh Triet and the queen attended the opening ceremony of street art festival, which was held for the first time in Hanoi at Ly Thai To Flower Garden.

The festival was one of the main culture programs organized by the Danish embassy, the People’s Committee of Hanoi and the Danish Arts Agency.

The Ly Thai To Flower Garden was decorated with four music corners and a central stage.

The group Big Toe performed with the Danish dance theatre group Uppercut at the hip-hop and dance corner.

An experimental corner was reserved for experimental artist Dao Anh Khanh and his friends.

At the traditional music and dance corner, Thang Long Ca tru Club took the lead while the circus and theatre corner’s attractions were the Vietnam circus and Danish theatre company Batida.

The highlight of the festival was a performance by Tung Duong, young talented circus artists, dancers and Danish jazz musicians.

On the same day, the queen visited the Bat Trang Ceramics Factory, enjoyed performances by Danish and Vietnamese actors at the Youth Theatre and attended the opening ceremony of a painting exhibition, “Emergency Room.” at the Hanoi University of Fine Arts.

 

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Hanoi in Top Ten winter destination

Hanoi is currently in the Top Ten vacation destination for winter, according to the US website The Huffington Post.

Ha Long Bay, about 170km away from Hanoi (Photo:AP)

“Hanoi maintains a relatively warm and dry winter, which can be a lot more managable than the hot, wet summers. Combined with the city’s fascinating history and amazing food, Hanoi a great winter destination,” the website wrote.

Vietnam’s capital last year drew more than 1.3 millions international visitors and is currently preparing hundreds of cultural activities for its 1,000th anniversary in 2010.

The other Top Ten are St. Petersburg, Russia; Reykjavik, Iceland; Krakow, Poland; Tokyo, Japan; Tallinn, Estonia; Mumbai, India; Edinburgh, Scotland; Berlin, Germany; and Sydney, Australia.

 

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US envoys in historic meeting with Myanmar PM

The most senior US official to visit Myanmar for nearly a decade and a half met the military-led nation’s prime minister Wednesday as Washington seeks to improve ties with the Southeast Asian country.

View of downtown Yangon’s main landmark, the Sule Pagoda (L), a 2000-year-old Buddhist temple. (AFP Photo)

Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell, along with his deputy Scot Marciel, were also set to meet detained Myanmar opposite leader Aung San Suu Kyi later in the day.

The US duo arrived in Myanmar’s remote administrative capital Naypyidaw on Tuesday on a two-day mission aimed at pushing a new policy of engagement by the administration of President Barack Obama.

“They are meeting now,” a Myanmar official told AFP on condition of anonymity after the talks with Prime Minister Thein Sein in Naypyidaw began early Wednesday.

Myanmar officials said the US delegation was not expected to meet Senior General Than Shwe, the country’s leader.

Campbell is the highest ranking US official to travel to Myanmar — formerly known as Burma — since Madeleine Albright went as US ambassador to the United Nations in 1995 during Bill Clinton’s presidency.

The Obama administration recently shifted US policy because its longstanding approach of isolating Myanmar had failed to bear fruit. But Washington has said it will not ease sanctions without conditions.

The visit by Campbell and Marciel is a follow-up to discussions in New York in September between US and Myanmar officials, the highest-level US contact with Myanmar in nearly a decade.

Campbell and Marciel at the time also raised US concerns about Myanmar’s possible military links with nuclear-armed Democractic People’s Republic of Korea.

US State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the current visit was a “fact-finding” mission, adding that it was the “first step, or I guess I should say the second step in the beginning of a dialogue with Burma.”

Asked what Campbell discussed on Tuesday in talks with the information minister and local organisations, Kelly said: “They laid out the way we see this relationship going forward, how we should structure this dialogue, but they were mainly in a listening mode.”

Campbell and Marciel were due to fly to the former capital Yangon later Wednesday to meet Suu Kyi and members of her National League for Democracy party, a US embassy spokesman said.

NLD spokesman Nyan Win has said the visit is the “start of direct engagement between the US and Myanmar government” but added that the party was not expecting any immediate “big change”.

Suu Kyi will be discussed when Obama meets Southeast Asian leaders at a regional summit in Singapore in mid-November, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Tuesday, adding that Mr. Thein Sein was expected to attend.

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Obama urges action as Europe ups climate pressure on US

US President Barack Obama stood shoulder to shoulder with Europe Tuesday pressing to “redouble” efforts to combat global warming, but opponents in Congress made clear there would be no smooth path to a climate deal.

Greeenpeace activists hang a banner against climate change at the Sagrada Familia Temple designed by Antoni Gaudi in Barcelona, November 2, 2009.

Fresh from a White House meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who also made a heart-felt plea for a climate protocol in a speech to US lawmakers, Obama held talks with European Union leaders to assure them his administration supported a new treaty at next month’s summit in Copenhagen.

At a EU-US summit here, which continues Wednesday with talks with US Energy Secretary Steven Chu, the Europeans pressed Washington to take action on climate change ahead of December’s climate summit, warning that not enough had been done.

“All of us agreed that it is imperative for us to redouble our efforts in the weeks between now and the Copenhagen meeting to assure that we create a framework for progress in dealing with (a) potential ecological disaster,” Obama said after talks with European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso, Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt of Sweden, who holds the EU presidency, and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

She also backed Western calls for emerging nations to do more. “I’m convinced that once we in Europe and America show ourselves ready to adopt binding agreements, we will also be able to persuade China and India to join in,” she said.

But even as she and Obama stressed the need to solidify a framework agreement at Copenhagen, US Republican lawmakers boycotted a committee meeting on an Obama-backed bill to set the first US requirements on curbing carbon emissions blamed for global warming.

Asked what impact Merkel’s speech might have on the US debate, Senator James Inhofe, the top Republican on the committee looking at the climate legislation, said: “None whatsoever.”

Earlier Tuesday Barroso, who praised Obama for having “changed the climate on climate negotiations,” said he was “worried by the lack of progress in negotiations” ahead of the December 7-18 climate meeting

The summit in the Danish capital has been convened to seal a treaty to succeed the landmark Kyoto Protocol, whose obligations to cut carbon emissions expire in 2012.

“Of course we are not going to have a full-fledged binding treaty, Kyoto-type, by Copenhagen,” Barroso told reporters. “This is obvious. There is no time for that.”

An international meeting next year in Mexico could be used to finalize a treaty, but Barroso said Copenhagen needed to come up with the framework of the deal, and that the world’s largest economy in particular should take a lead role.

“What we are asking is the United States to show leadership in this, such an important issue,” Barroso said.

After meeting with Obama he stressed that “I am more confident now” about Washington’s commitment, but he also warned against protracted negotiations akin to the stalled Doha round of trade liberalization talks.

“Let’s not do to Copenhagen what has been happening with trade in Doha, where systematically every year we are postponing,” Barroso said.

Sweden’s Reinfeldt said the United States should at least agree on targets for cutting emissions and on financing for developing nations.

“I said that we need to have a clear commitment on targets and on financing coming from the United States,” Reinfeldt told AFP after talks with key senators.

“We can understand if it’s not possible to have everything in place exactly now. But we want a full agreement in Copenhagen and we are able to work through details in the months that come after Copenhagen,” he said.

Reinfeldt spoke as pre-summit negotiations were underway in Barcelona, Spain, where divisions again ran deep between key developed nations and emerging economies.

An EU summit last week agreed that developing nations will need 100 billion euros (146 billion dollars) per year by 2020 to tackle climate change, but failed to nail down how much it would give.

The US role in Copenhagen is overshadowed by the debate in Congress.

The House of Representatives in June narrowly passed the plan to curb carbon emissions by 17 percent by 2020 but the bill — already criticized by other developed nations as not ambitious enough — is bogged down in the Senate, where a slightly more ambitious version calls for a 20-percent cut by 2020.

 
 

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China OKs Disney theme park in Shanghai: official

China’s central government has given the green light to the Walt Disney Co. to build its long-awaited first theme park on the mainland in Shanghai, after a decade of negotiations, both sides announced.

Fireworks light up the sky above Sleeping Beauty Castle at Hong Kong Disneyland. (AFP Photo)

The announcement of the deal, which would be one of the biggest ever foreign investments in China, comes less than two weeks before US President Barack Obama makes his first official visit here, starting November 15 in Shanghai.

Neither side disclosed any figures, or gave a time frame for reaching a final agreement, but previous reports have said the US entertainment giant will invest 3.6 billion dollars in the 10-square-kilometre (four-square mile) park.

“The Project Application Report (PAR) for a Disney theme park in the Pudong district of Shanghai has received approval from the relevant authorities of the central government of China,” Walt Disney said in a statement.

“China is one of the most dynamic, exciting and important countries in the world, and this approval marks a very significant milestone for The Walt Disney Company in mainland China,” Disney president and CEO Robert Iger said.

The Shanghai government said in a statement that approval had been granted late last month, and that both sides had “started in-depth talks on details of the project, to build a world-class Disneyland”.

Disney said the government approval of the project would allow both sides to “move forward toward a final agreement” to build and operate the “Magic Kingdom-style theme park with characteristics tailored to the Shanghai region.”

A Shanghai-based Disney executive told AFP on Wednesday: “It’s just a PAR and not the final deal yet.”

When asked how long negotiations could last, the executive said: “It may take several more months.”

The Shanghai park would be part of a major push by Disney into China, to push the giant’s other products in the market of 1.3 billion people.

Disney is one of the most active foreign entertainment companies in China, with more than 600 employees in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, according to corporate data.

Disney products are sold in 5,000 branded, free-standing locations and retail corners in more than 25 Chinese cities. Last year, the company launched its first English learning centre in Shanghai for children aged two to 10.

Hong Kong opened a Disney theme park in 2005.

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World Bank boosts China 2009 growth forecast to 8.4 pct

The World Bank on Wednesday upgraded its 2009 economic growth forecast for China to 8.4 percent on the back of huge public spending but warned stronger domestic demand was needed to ensure a sustainable recovery.

A worker walks past a construction site at the Central Business District of the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou in Guangdong province October 27, 2009.

The new prediction given by the Washington-based lender in its quarterly update marked a sharp jump from its June forecast for 7.2 percent growth.

Economic growth in the Asian giant would “rise somewhat” in 2010, it added.

“In spite of a large drag on growth from exports amidst the global recession, China’s economy continues to grow robustly because of expansionary fiscal and monetary policies,” the bank said in the report.

“Infrastructure investment has been key but consumption has also held up well. More recently, real estate activity has been recovering as well.”

The upgrade by the World Bank follows similar moves by the International Monetary Fund and Asian Development Bank after the rapid turnaround in the world’s third largest economy caught economists somewhat by surprise.

The World Bank said China was “on track” to reach Beijing’s oft-stated goal of eight percent growth this year — seen as vital for job creation and warding off social unrest in the country of 1.3 billion people.

But it warned a “successful rebalancing” of the economy was needed to ensure a sustainable recovery in the medium term.

“Rebalancing and getting more growth out of the domestic economy call for more emphasis on consumption and services and less on investment and industry,” the bank said.

China grew by 8.9 percent in the third quarter — the fastest pace in a year — after expanding by 7.9 percent in the second quarter and 6.1 percent in the first three months, the slowest pace in more than a decade.

The recovery has been driven by a four-trillion-yuan (586-billion-dollar) stimulus package unveiled a year ago and a record 8.67 trillion yuan in bank lending in the first nine months of 2009.

China was expected to grow in 2010 even as public spending slowed, the bank said, as demand for Chinese-made goods overseas picked up.

“In 2010 the composition of growth is likely to change … Exports will probably stop being a drag on growth from end-2009 onwards and real estate investment looks set to be stronger,” the bank said.

“However, government-influenced investment, the key driver of growth this year, is bound to decelerate (and) market based investment is likely to continue to feel negative pressure from the significant spare capacity in many manufacturing sectors.”

“In all, we expect GDP growth to rise somewhat in 2010, with risks evenly balanced.”

The bank said it saw no need yet for macroeconomic policies to be tightened while risks and uncertainties in the global economy remained high.

“Underlying inflation is not a concern for now. A somewhat supportive policy stance is appropriate, and it is particularly important to have flexibility to add or subtract support if needed,” the bank said.

 
 

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After Afghan vote, an awkward task for Obama

After attacking Afghan leader Hamid Karzai for months, US President Barack Obama’s administration now faces the awkward task of finding a way to help boost his credibility.

Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai (C), First Vice President Mohammad Qasim Fahim (L) and Second Vice President Abdul Karim Khalili attend a news conference in Kabul November 3, 2009.

The Obama administration is studying whether to send thousands more troops to Afghanistan and had made little secret of its concerns with Karzai’s alleged corruption and ballot-stuffing and his pacts with unsavory warlords.

Starting a new term under the cloud of a hotly disputed election, Karzai on Tuesday pledged to get to work to eradicate corruption. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama expected a “sustained effort” to improve governance.

Analysts said Obama now had a delicate balancing act — pressuring Karzai to act without alienating the leader of a nation at the top of his priority list.

Jamie Metzl, the executive vice president of the Asia Society who served as an election monitor in Afghanistan, said it was crucial for Karzai to gain legitimacy in the eyes both of the world and his own people.

“If President Karzai doesn’t succeed in rooting out corruption and improving governance within Afghanistan there is no level of American troops that can be provided that would bring any recognizable form of success,” Metzl said.

Vanda Felbab-Brown, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the United States could channel more efforts through local leaders and non-governmental groups but that it was unavoidable to work with Afghanistan’s leader.

“With Karzai, we need to hold him accountable and to stress to him that our aid is not limitless,” she said. “But we also have to understand that the more we force him publicly to do things that he is reluctant to do otherwise, the more we undercut him.”

She said that in any country, it was a hard sell to persuade leaders to undertake costly reforms that leave them less powerful.

“Inevitably there will have to be some sort of improvement in the relationship, otherwise we will be cut out or in a situation where he would be allergic to anything we suggest,” she said.

Karzai enjoyed a warm relationship with former president George W. Bush after the United States and its allies overthrew the extremist Taliban regime and installed him in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Obama was immediately cooler to the Afghan leader. Two key players in his administration, Vice President Joe Biden and regional envoy Richard Holbrooke, have had well-publicized bust-ups with Karzai.

One lawmaker from Obama’s Democratic Party opposed to the Afghanistan campaign said that Karzai’s re-election showed why Obama, instead of considering boosting troops, should find an exit strategy.

“By all accounts, the election was not only a setback, it was a joke,” Representative Jim McGovern said on public broadcaster PBS. “Is this where we’re going to put our money? Are our men and women going to die for this?”

But Kamran Bokhari, an analyst at the Texas-based Stratfor think-tank, argued that the Obama administration set back its own goals in Afghanistan by picking a fight with Karzai.

“There’s a world of difference between Afghanistan and other parts of the world,” Bokhari said. “Politics in Afghanistan is actually the politics of warlordism — alignments between warlords.”

“When you should be dealing with the Taliban insurgency, this whole idea of trying to get someone better than Karzai seems to have undermined whatever little semblance there was of stability and state governance” from Kabul, he said.

Lisa Curtis, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said that despite the feuds, the Obama administration and Karzai’s ultimate interests were in synch.

“The US certainly would like to see President Karzai’s credibility increase among the Afghan people,” she said.

“And of course Karzai needs the assistance from the international community not only to fend off the Taliban but also to provide reconstruction and development aid,” she said.

“So it’s absolutely critical that the US finds a way to work with him.”

 

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Juve bounce back with victory at Haifa

RAMAT GAN, Israel, Nov 3, 2009 (AFP) – Juventus took a significant step towards the Champions League knockout phase by beating Maccabi Haifa 1-0 in their group stage game at the Ramat Gan Stadium here on Tuesday.

The Italian giants, who fell to their first home league defeat in nine months against Napoli on Saturday, opened the scoring through Mauro Camoranesi on the stroke of half-time and were rarely troubled in a turgid second half.

Italian Juventus’s fans are seen before the UEFA Champions League Group A football match against Israeli Maccabi Haifa on November 03, 2009 at the Ramat Gan Stadium near the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv. Juventus won 1-0. AFP PHOTO

Group A leaders Bordeaux’s victory at Bayern Munich on Tuesday means that Juventus are now four points above the Germans in second place and require two points from their last two matches to progress.

“We hope to go to Bordeaux to win and qualify with a game in hand,” Juve coach Ciro Ferrara told Sky Sport Italia.

“Clearly it was very important that we won tonight and after drawing (1-1) with Bordeaux in the first game, we have never really stopped moving ahead.

“I noticed the team had difficulty as we were not able to close the game out, like the one against Napoli. But it was important to get the three points. We suffered, but we deserved the win.”

Home goalkeeper Nir Davidovitch was the busiest man in the ground in the game’s early stages and was forced to save from Diego, twice, Amauri and Tiago as Juventus peppered his goal with shots.

Haifa eventually established a foothold in the game, though, with Georgian international striker Vladimir Dvalishvili testing Gianluigi Buffon from close range and then heading over from Yaniv Katan’s cross moments later.

Davidovitch was called upon again to push an Amauri effort around the post as Juve re-asserted their authority and Tiago saw an attempted chip land on the roof of the net 10 minutes before half-time.

With half-time beckoning Juve broke the hosts’ resistance, Camoranesi latching onto Martin Caceres’s right-wing cross and cracking the ball past Davidovitch via the aid of a deflection.

Juve narrowly edged Haifa by the same scoreline when they met in Turin and Ferrara’s side once again succeeded in keeping the Israelis at arm’s length in the second period, although Shlomi Arbeitman gave them a couple of scares with two headers that were narrowly off-target.

A fourth consecutive group stage defeat means Haifa can no longer qualify for the next round and they must win their remaining two matches to stand any chance of overhauling Bayern to qualify for the Europa League.

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