By Chris Nicholson, The Australian 7 Nov 2008

HOP Dang's legal career has been incredible. He started by running errands in Allen's Hanoi office, became a senior associate and was recently awarded an Oxford doctorate.

Dang was hired by Allens' Hanoi office partner Bill Magennis in 1994 to do photocopying, deliveries and translation. But he picked up the legal language in English so quickly that Magennis realised he had a real legal talent. “I asked where he learnt English and he said from Beatles songs in the rice fields and that was sufficiently colourful to get me intrigued and it went from there,'' Magennis says. sparked,Dang completed a law degree in Hanoi. In 1996, Allens sent him to Bond University on the Gold Coast and on to Melbourne to do his articles. In Melbourne, he was an associate to judge Alex Chernov and gained a masters degree at the University of Melbourne.

Dang returned to Allens in Hanoi but in 2005 taught at the National University of Singapore, where the law faculty included a visiting professor who invited him to do a doctorate at Oxford. Dang jumped at the chance. A question Magennis had posed years earlier became his thesis topic. “Bill and I had advised a number of clients here and there was this burning question that Bill put to me and we never got to a satisfactorily answer,'' Dang says. “The question was: if a contract with the government has in it a clause that says the contract is governed by international law, what does that mean?'''

For Magennis, seeing Dang complete an Oxford doctorate left him overwhelmed. “`I got a copy of Hop's thesis when I was in a little hotel in Zurich and it was late one night and by about 5am or 6am I had finished reading his thesis with the odd tear in my eye of pride and disbelief,'' Magennis says. “I thought it was a magnificent piece of writing and way, way above anything I could have done or contemplated doing and that gave me a great thrill. It makes legal practice worthwhile when you see people come up to that level.''

Rather than pursue an academic career, Dang has just returned to work at Allens in Hanoi. His goal now is to become an expert in infrastructure investment and to help companies that want to invest in Vietnam. Dang wants to take young lawyers under his wing just as Magennis did for him. Magennis has put him in charge of training the office's Vietnamese staff. “He's very happy there and seems to want to take on the whole of Hanoi and identify people outside and encourage them, nurture them and teach them law,'' Magennis says.

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Bernama 7 Nov 2008

Vietnam will need some US$48 billion for the construction of 20 highways with a total length of over 5,870km, according to a proposed scheme to develop the country's highways network between now and 2020 and beyond, which have been scrutinised by the Government. Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported Friday that at a seminar held here on Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung said developing the domestic road network, including the highways, is considered a matter of great importance for Vietnam to create impetus for socio-economic development.

Under the master plan, the trans-national express system will include two routes, the systems in the north and south will have six routes each, the system in the central and central highlands region will have three routes and there will be three routes in the beltways in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The target of the plan, formulated by the Ministry of Transport, is to form a network of modern national highways linking key economic hubs, main border gates and important traffic points that is able to coordinate with other modern modes of transport. The plan is expected to help tackle the issue of traffic jams, as well as effectively reducing traffic accidents, initially in big cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. According to the plan, highway routes connecting key economic zones, major cities and their beltways, and big sea ports will be prioritised for investment.

Vietnam now has 18 highway projects in the pipeline, including six under construction or to begin construction next year. Many of these projects have received funding from international organisations such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the German Reconstruction and Development Bank (KFW) and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA). At the seminar, Deputy PM Hung called on international donors to give more assistance, both financial and technological, in order to develop Vietnam's traffic network to meet increasing demand, reduce traffic accidents and minimise the impact on the environment.

The World Bank (WB) Acting Country Director in Vietnam Martin Rama pledged to increase levels of assistance to Vietnam in developing its transport infrastructure and to mobilise all available investment resources. Martin Rama said the WB is ready to partner Vietnam in this area, financing and sharing experiences related to forming sustainable management and financial mechanisms. According to a recent World Bank survey, Vietnam's rapid economic growth associated with a high-speed urbanisation process and an increasing number of transport facilities, has put unrelenting pressure on the existing road systems. In addition, poor infrastructure and the high rate of traffic accidents are additional factors influencing Vietnam in its decision to build new roads.

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AFP 7 Nov 2008

Russia wants to take part in Vietnam's planned nuclear energy program, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Denisov said Thursday following talks with Vietnam's Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem in Hanoi. "We know that such plans were made in Vietnam, very daring and far-reaching plans. We hope that Russia will be among those who will work with Vietnam in this hi-tech area and continue the traditions of our cooperation," Denisov said in an interview to the ITAR-TASS news agency.

Last week, Russia and Vietnam signed oil and gas deals after trade talks in Moscow between the countries' presidents, as part of a broader effort by Russia to regain Soviet-era influence in the region. While trade between Russia and Vietnam has grown in recent years, Russia's clout in the Southeast Asian country is still a shadow of Soviet-era levels. Russian trade turnover with Vietnam was set to reach 1.5 billion dollars in 2007, Medvedev said, a figure dwarfed by the annual trade turnover between Vietnam and the United States of over 10 billion dollars.

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The head of the Hanoi chapter of the Communist Party has apologized for controversial comments he made while visiting people in flooded areas on Sunday, a senior Hanoi Party official confirmed Thursday. On Sunday, Hanoi Party boss Pham Quang Nghi told a reporter from the news website VietnamNet that while out checking the situation on the ground, "I found that unlike in the old days, people rely a lot on the state. They just wait for the government to supply this, support that, they don't try their best to do it themselves."

The comments sparked widespread controversy. On Thursday, Nghi's secretary Hoang Minh Dung Tien, confirmed his boss had apologized to VietnamNet.

VietnamNet quoted Nghi as offering his "sincere apologies to readers and to the people for my remarks, which have drawn criticism and made people angry."

Vietnamese bloggers and private citizens sharply criticized Nghi's remarks. "His comments were irresponsible and showed a lack of political sense," said Hanoi lawyer Cu Huy Ha Vu. "As the city's top leader, Nghi should have done his best to take care of his people." Several Vietnamese bloggers said Nghi's remarks were an insult to the memory of the over 20 Hanoians who have died in the floods.

Since October 30, Hanoi has seen its worst flooding in 37 years. Over 800 millimetres of rain fell on the city between Friday and Tuesday, leaving streets and surrounding farmland submerged in up to a metre of water. On Thursday evening, residents of neighborhoods near the Red River and other waterways were preparing to evacuate their homes if water levels rise. Water pouring downstream from mountainous areas in Vietnam's north-west is still threatening to overflow the river's banks, though the rain in Hanoi itself had abated by Thursday morning. According to Vietnam's National Committee for Storm and Flood Control, heavy rains and flooding in central and northern Vietnam had caused 59 deaths and left seven missing through Thursday evening, though independent counts put the numbers somewhat higher.

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AP 05 November 2008

Hanoi: The former warden of the "Hanoi Hilton," the prison where John McCain was held as a POW during the Vietnam War, expressed his condolences Wednesday morning for his former captive's loss in the US presidential elections. Retired colonel Tran Trong Duyet said he would have liked to vote for McCain as president.

"I share in McCain's loss, and I sympathize with him very much," Duyet said. "I would like to advise him that as a senator, he should still do his part to boost relations between Vietnam and the US."

Interest in the US elections has been widespread in Vietnam. Many Vietnamese tuned to international news channels Wednesday morning to see whether the former pilot once shot down over their city would become the next US president. Several dozen Vietnamese and over a hundred Americans turned up for an election party hosted by the US Embassy at the Hanoi Hilton - the actual hotel, that is, not Duyet's prison. Many Vietnamese present expressed warm feelings for McCain, due to his efforts to normalize relations between Vietnam and the US in the 1990s. Some were anxious that an Obama presidency might mean protectionist trade measures that would hurt Vietnamese exports to the US, a key element of economic growth here over the past seven years."If Obama wins, he will make a policy of protection," said Mai Thuong, a reporter for the Vietnam Army newspaper. "It will affect economic relations between the US and the world."

But most of those in the room, Vietnamese and Americans, supported Obama. "He's young, he's attractive, persuasive, and I think he gives a new, different image to the US," said Do Hoang An, who works for the Vietnam Competitiveness Initiative, a program funded by the US government aid organization USAID. "To all of us, even Asians, an African-American president seemed impossible. But like my friends told me, America will surprise you." The Obama campaign's powerful get-out-the-vote organization had a significant presence in Vietnam, and appeared to have garnered more votes in the country. There did not appear to be any corresponding effort by Republicans. "We think there's about 50,000 Americans that live in Vietnam, and I think in Hanoi there's about 20,000," said Aaron Pervin, a volunteer organizer for Democrats Abroad Vietnam. "My field director said we probably got 60 or 70 percent of that."

While young Vietnamese were enthusiastic about Obama, older Vietnamese had favoured McCain. War veteran Mai The Chinh, an official at the Vietnam Victims of Agent Orange Association, said a McCain presidency would have been better for Vietnam. "If Senator McCain was elected, he would have made bold moves to boost relations between Vietnam and the US," Chinh said. "I am not sure that Obama can make bold moves towards Vietnam. We will have to wait and see."

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AP 5 Nov 2008

Pumps ran nonstop in the Vietnamese capital Wednesday to clear water following the city's worst rainfall in 35 years, in storms that sparked flooding across large sections of the country and left 92 people dead. Life in metropolitan Hanoi was slowly returning to normal after a halt in the rains, with floodwaters receding and residents cleaning up their homes. Another seven bodies were found in northern Vietnam, including two more in the capital, bringing the death toll in Hanoi to 22 and the overall toll to 92, authorities said.

Forecasters said rain over the weekend was the heaviest Hanoi has experienced in 35 years. At the height of the flooding, more than 100 Hanoi neighborhoods were under at least a foot of water, but by Wednesday only five neighborhoods were still submerged, said Nguyen Anh Tu of the city's drainage company. "Our main pump station is running 24 hours a day, pumping 4 million cubic meters (141 million cubic feet) of excess water a day," he said. "We hope the water will recede completely from metropolitan Hanoi in the next two days."

Hanoi residents meanwhile continued to clear out the mud, debris and garbage that was washed into their homes by the floods. Nguyen Van Hai, 34, and his family of three moved back to their home Wednesday after spending five days with his in-laws. He had taken the day off the clean his house. "Our first floor is covered with 10 centimeters (4 inches) of mud," he said. "It's so smelly." More than 37,000 evacuees in two rural districts of Hanoi cannot yet return to their homes, disaster officials said. Le Thi Kim Thuy, a disaster official in Hanoi's My Duc District, said more than 12,000 people there abandoned homes when the rain started last Thursday. "Their homes are still up to three feet (one meter) under water," Thuy said. "They is a shortage of everything from food to water." In the neighboring district of Chuong My, the homes of more than 25,000 villagers remained submerged, disaster official Nguyen Dung Trung said. Trung said the flood water level had dropped only a few inches over the past two days and that four villages remained surrounded by water and were accessible only by boat.

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THE NEW YORK TIMES Editorial

This is one of those moments in history when it is worth pausing and reflecting on the basic facts:

An American with the name Barack Hussein Obama, the son of a white woman and a black man he barely knew, raised by his grandparents far outside the stream of American power and wealth, has been elected the 44th president of the United States.

Showing extraordinary focus and quiet certainty, Mr. Obama defeated first Hillary Clinton, who wanted to be president so badly that she lost her bearings, and then John McCain, who forsook his principles for a campaign built on anger and fear.

Mr. Obama won the election because he saw what is wrong with this country: the utter failure of government to protect its citizens. He promised to lead a government that does not try to solve every problem but will do those things beyond the power of individual citizens: to regulate the economy fairly, keep the air clean and the food safe, ensure that the sick have access to health care, and educate children to compete in a globalized world.

Mr. Obama spoke candidly of the failure of Republican economic policies that promised to lift all Americans but left so many millions far behind. He committed himself to ending a bloody and pointless war. He promised to restore Americans’ civil liberties and this country’s tattered reputation around the world. With a message of hope and competence he drew in legions of voters who had been disengaged and voiceless.

Mr. Bush’s legacy is terrible. The nation is embroiled in two wars — one of necessity in Afghanistan and one of folly in Iraq. Mr. Obama is right that Afghanistan is the real front in the war on terror and that the Pentagon will not have the resources it needs to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban until American troops begin leaving Iraq. His challenge will be to manage an orderly withdrawal without igniting new regional conflicts.

The campaign began with the war as its central focus. By Election Day, Americans’ minds were on the economy and the government’s failure to prevent this collapse fed by greed and an orgy of deregulation. Mr. Obama will have to move quickly to impose control, coherence, transparency and fairness on the Bush administration’s jumbled bailout plan.

His administration will also have to identify all of the ways that Americans’ basic rights and fundamental values have been violated and rein that dark work back in. Climate change is a global threat, and after years of denial and inaction, this country must take the lead on addressing it. The nation must develop new, cleaner technologies, to reduce greenhouse gases and its dependence on foreign oil.

Thankfully, the campaign veered away from its early nasty focus on undocumented workers. Mr. Obama will have to rally sensible people to come up with a solution that is consistent with the values of a nation built by immigrants and refugees.

There are many other urgent problems that must be addressed. Tens of millions of Americans are without health insurance, including some of the country’s most vulnerable citizens — children of the poor and the working poor. Other Americans can barely pay for their insurance or are in danger of losing it along with their jobs. They must be protected.

To overcome Mr. Bush’s disastrous legacy and fulfill his own promises, Mr. Obama will need the support of all Americans. We hope that he will have the support of Mr. McCain and his party. Before this nasty, dispiriting campaign, we respected the Arizona senator, for his long service to this country, and for his willingness to stand up to ideologues and to compromise with opponents.

The nation’s many challenges are beyond the reach of any one man, or any one political party.

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