Athletes of Year 2009

HA NOI — Sprinter Vu Thi Huong topped the list of the 15 best sportspersons of the year, dominating the polling with 2,587 points from voters, the organising committee announced yesterday.
Huong, who took gold in the women’s 100m and 200m, and a silver in the 4x100m relay in Laos, beat out swimmer Nguyen Huu Viet, who came second with 1,907 points, submitted by more than 200 sports journalists from Ha Noi, Da Nang and HCM City on Tuesday.
Olympian Viet, who set a new SEA Games record in the men’s 100m breaststroke, was followed by Truong Thanh Hang who ran to two gold medals at the Laos Games.
Hang, 23, from HCM City, signed a three-year contract with Ninh Binh.
Hang’s boyfriend, Nguyen Dinh Cuong, also made it onto the list in seventh place with 1,097 points.
Both Cuong and Hang won gold medals in both the 800m and 1,500m events at the SEA Games.
The women’s football team captain Doan Thi Kim Chi, who helped Viet Nam win their fourth SEA Games football title after beating Thailand 3-0 on penalties, ranked fourth in the poll.

Ghosts, astrology, New Age: you name it, Americans believe it

Although most Americans are Christian and many are devout, that hasn’t stopped some members of the flock from believing in astrology, reincarnation or the ability of trees to trap spiritual energy.
A new poll by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life shows a surprising number of U.S. adults claim to have had supernatural experiences such as ghost sightings or hold beliefs associated with the New Age movement or Eastern religions.
Among its findings: nearly 25 percent of U.S. adults polled said they believed in reincarnation and 23 percent said yoga was a spiritual practice. Twenty six percent said they believed “spiritual energy” could be found in objects such as trees. Eighteen percent said they have seen or been in the presence of a ghost.
And some of these respondents claim allegiance to more traditional faiths such as Catholicism or evangelical Protestantism.
“American religious folks hold a variety of views and there is overlap among their beliefs and practices. Many do not fit into simple boxes,” said Pew researcher Alan Cooperman.
Read the whole story here.

PM Dung vows successful year on eve of ASEAN chairmanship

HA NOI — Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said on New Year’s Eve he was confident Viet Nam would perform admirably when it takes over the chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) today.
The Government leader pledged to mobilise all available resources to successfully fulfil the task in his speech delivered yesterday, which ran as follows:
"Viet Nam will assume the ASEAN chairmanship for one year from January 1, 2010. It is also the year when Viet Nam will mark its 15th anniversary of ASEAN membership. It is a great honour but also a huge responsibility. We are well prepared and now ready to fulfil the task in the best possible way.
After more than 40 years of development, ASEAN has so far turned itself into a dynamically growing group of 10 members in Southeast Asia that have co-operated on a large range of political, economic, cultural and social areas. The organisation has made considerable contributions to strengthening and developing peace, stability andco-operation in Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific. ASEAN has established trustworthy partnerships with major nations and important bodies throughout the world. In addition, it has played an important role in regional and international co-operation.Viet Nam has made relations with ASEAN a strategic priority, as we consider it a motivation force for national construction and a back up to the country’s defence. We always respect ASEAN co-operation as an important part of the nation’s foreign policy of multilateralisation and diversification towards regional and global integration. Over the past 15 years, we have always taken part in and made considerable contributions to the association. In the new era, we plan to co-operate with ASEAN in line with the principle of ‘action, initiative and responsibly’, thus contributing to turning ASEAN into a closer and stronger alliance.
Viet Nam assumes the position of ASEAN chairman at a time when the group is entering into a new stage of development, a transitional year in the five-year road map towards an ASEAN community by 2015. The Charter and the Road map towards the ASEAN community, which have been overwhelmingly approved by ASEAN leaders, have become a vision and framework of action for ASEAN. Its overall goal is to build an ASEAN Community based on the three pillars of politics and security, economy and socio-culture to turn the ASEAN Charter into reality. For this reason, member countries overwhelmingly agree with Viet Nam on 2010 ASEAN chairmanship theme ‘Looking forward to an ASEAN Community: From Vision to Action’. This will be ASEAN’s policy for the year.
With this in mind, Viet Nam will focus on and give priority to the strengthening of ASEAN solidarity and alliance, effectively implementing the Charter and Road map towards an ASEAN Community, expanding and deepening co-operative relations with dialogue partners and increasing the international prestige of ASEAN. Other priorities include stronger co-operation within ASEAN and between ASEAN and dialogue partners in coping with global challenges such as economic and financial crisis, food and energy security, climate change, natural disasters and epidemics.
Apart from assuming the chairmanship of ASEAN, 2010 will also be a year of numerous major domestic and diplomatic events for Viet Nam, especially the grand celebration of the Thang Long-Ha Noi millennium anniversary. For this reason, we should take advantage of major ASEAN events in Viet Nam to promote the image of our land, people, cultural traditions and history as well as national potential. We should also promote the image of a renewed Viet Nam that has achieved dynamic growth, socio-political stability, independence, self-reliance, peace, friendship and co-operation with other countries, in addition to global integration.
The Vietnamese Government and people are determined to mobilise all necessary resources to succeed when it presides over ASEAN. I earnestly ask ministries, industries and local administrations, especially the National Committee for ASEAN-2010, to support the country when it heads ASEAN.
On behalf of the Government and people of Viet Nam, which will hold the ASEAN chairmanship, I would like to take this opportunity to convey a message of peace, solidarity, friendship and co-operation for development to leaders and peoples of ASEAN, partners and international friends. An ASEAN making great efforts to build a common community is in need of assistance and support from you all in the interest of peace, stability and development in the region and the world as a whole. I also expect strong support for Viet Nam from other ASEAN members, partners and the international community to make Viet Nam’s 2010 ASEAN chairmanship a great success." Dung concluded his speech with best wishes for a successful New Year to ASEAN. — VNS

Vietnamese activist charged

Hanoi - Vietnamese authorities have charged a well-known human rights lawyer and his associates with subversion, a charge that could carry the death penalty, state news media reported Wednesday.Prosecutors accused Le Cong Dinh of "working to overthrow the state," a more serious charge than they had initially sought, the Thanh Nien newspaper reported.Dinh is likely to go on trial within the next two weeks, along with Nguyen Tien Trung, who recently studied engineering in Paris, and Ho Chi Minh City businessmen Tran Huynh Duy Thuc and Le Thanh Long.When they were arrested in June, police accused Dinh of spreading anti-government propaganda, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.Prosecutors maintain that the four were members of the Vietnam Democratic Party, a U.S.-based group that Vietnam's communist government considers a "reactionary organization."A fifth defendant, Tran Anh Kim, is to be tried separately in the northern province of Thai Binh.Dinh was also accused of participating in a three-day training course for nonviolent struggle organized by Viet Tan, a California-based pro-democracy group that Vietnam considers a terrorist organization.The U.S. Embassy in Hanoi has said there is no evidence to suggest that Viet Tan is a terrorist group.Dinh, one of Vietnam's most well-known lawyers, represented two human rights attorneys who were jailed by the government in 2007 on charges of spreading anti-government propaganda. At their trial, he made an impassioned defense of free speech.He studied law at Tulane University in New Orleans on a Fulbright scholarship and has served as vice chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City bar association.The United States and the European Union have called for Dinh's immediate release.
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Group to stand trial for trying to overthrow government

VietNamNet Bridge - The People’s Supreme Procuracy, Vietnam’s highest prosecutors’ office, will prosecute four people for attempting to overthrow the government, according to the indictment announced Tuesday. The charge carries a sentence of between 12 years and death, according to Vietnamese laws. The indictment said that Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, former general director of the HCMC-based One Connection Internet (OCI) Joint Stock Company, had created in 2005 what he called the “Chan Research Group”, which had subsequently plotted to begin bringing down the Vietnamese government late next year.Prosecutors said Thuc had hoped to use the global economic crisis as a springboard from which to weaken the government.He wanted to totally remove the leadership of the Vietnam Communist Party by 2020, according to the indictment.Thuc, who was arrested in May, ran a website and three blogs that disseminated distorted information about the Vietnamese government and the ruling party, said the indictment. It also said the sites had enticed others to join him in his cause.Four OCI staffers had joined Thuc’s group, including Le Thang Long, who later split from the group to create his own subversive website, according to the indictment.An investigation by the Ministry of Public Security also found that Thuc had joined the US-based Dang Dan Chu Vietnam (Vietnam Democratic Party) along with arrested dissident lawyer Le Cong Dinh last year. The group had been established in 2006 and the two had been introduced to its members by Nguyen Tien Trung, who was arrested in July, prosecutors said.Since then Thuc and Dinh, who were arrested in June, together with Nguyen Sy Binh, leader of the subversive party, had disseminated distorted information about Vietnam’s government through the blogosphere.They also made plans to depose the current government and had planned a new government, the indictment said.Dinh, the former deputy head of Ho Chi Minh City Bar Association, had also attended a training course on government overthrow held by another subversive organization, Viet Tan (Vietnam Reform), in March in Pattaya, Thailand.After being investigated for spreading propaganda against the state, the four were then charged with attempting to overthrow the government.VietNamNet/Thanh Nien