Looking to celebrate the International Day of Girls (October 11^th), UNESCO releases a report which found that less than half of the countries in the world have achieved the goal of gender equality in primary and secondary education.

According to UNESCO, no country in sub-Saharan Africa region has achieved this goal.

In the given statement, UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova said: To educate a girl is synonymous with nation education. This leads to a domino effect, the source of a positive change for the world. We recently have identified the ambitious new goals to achieve a sustainable future. Without the participation of girls and young women and well-educated mothers, it will be doomed to failure.

However, UNESCO's report also pointed out the progress has been made towards gender equality and this has been one of the greatest achievements in education since 2000. The number of countries achieved the goal gender equality in primary education and high school has increased since 2000, from 36 to 62 countries. While 62 million girls who are still denied basic rights to education, the number of girls out of school has dropped to 52 million children in the past 15 years.

However, major challenges are still ahead because gender inequality is growing with each cycle of the education system and the most disadvantaged girls are still the most disadvantaged subject in society.

Gender-based violence in schools is one of the most serious manifestations of discrimination and the hindrance in educational success. Similarly, child marriage remains a persistent obstacle to girls' education. In 2012, among five brides include one girl at the age of 15 to 19.

The report recommends that education is really free. In addition, the report also recommended to implement policies to address the problem that many boys and girls have to face to access education and complete their learning process.

Among the recommendations, the report also suggested the need to integrate gender issues in all aspects of policy, planning and recruitment, training and effective support for teachers to act for gender equality./.

The southern province of Dong Nai held a memorial service on October 13 dedicated to soldiers who died in Xuan Thanh ward of Long Khanh town during the offensive against US forces in early 1968.

The remains of these soldiers and their personal belongings were found in a mass grave last June with another single grave found a month later.

The soldiers, identified as belonging to Companies 814 and Xuan Loc of Dong Nai province, laid down their lives during the struggle in the 1968 Lunar New Year (1968 Tet Offensive).

Following the memorial service, the remains were laid to rest in the Long Khanh Martyrs’ Cemetery.

In recent years, Dong Nai has discovered a number of mass graves in Long Khanh town, which was once a contentious battlefield of the south-eastern front in the resistance war against US forces, especially the 1968 Tet Offensive, since the enemy considered the area a “steel door” that shielded Sai Gon (now Ho Chi Minh City) from the east.-VNA

After a high-level meeting of the General Assembly of the UN on nuclear disarmament on September 26, 2013, the First Commission of UN General Assembly in charge of nuclear disarmament have passed resolutions requiring that negotiations begin as soon as possible within the framework of the Conference on Disarmament to quickly adopt a comprehensive convention on nuclear weapons.

At this resolution, the General Assembly of the United Nations has declared to retrieve the 26^th of September to commemorate the International Day of nuclear disarmament and the anniversary to accelerate the process of achieving elimination of nuclear weapons. On this occasion, many activities have been organized to mobilize and information about the threat that nuclear weapons cause to humanity and the need to eliminate them completely, mobilizing the international community to achieve the common goal of building a world without nuclear weapons.

According to the UN, at present there are about 16,000 nuclear weapons in the world. More than half the world's population live in countries with nuclear weapons or are members of a nuclear alliance. As of 2015, there have been no nuclear weapons to be destroyed under a bilateral or multilateral treaty and no negotiation about nuclear disarmament has been underway. Conversely, countries possessing such weapons have developed plans to modernize nuclear arsenals in long term and doctrine preventing nuclear remains an important element in national security policy of nuclear weapons and their allies despite the growing concern of the international community about the catastrophic humanitarian consequences arising from the use of even a single nuclear weapon, not to mention the effects of a regional or global nuclear war.

Nuclear disarmament is one of the primary goals of the United Nations. Nuclear disarmament has been a major topic in the review conference of the parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons at UN forum since 1975.

In the message given on the International Day of nuclear disarmament this year (September 26, 2015), the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said: The year 2015 marks 70 years of first use and the last of a nuclear weapon in warfare. The international community has stated the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. However, there is a growing rift between the Member States on how to achieve this goal.

On the occasion of special anniversary this year, the senior leadership of the UN called on the international community to join the construction to find a way forward. According to Mr. Ban Ki-moon, eliminating nuclear weapons will liberate a huge amount of resources that can be used to implement the 2030 agenda for sustainable development.

"The consequences of the continuing use of nuclear weapons, whether intentionally or by mistake, will be extremely terrible. When it comes to our common goal of nuclear disarmament, we can not delay - we must act now "- UN Secretary-General stressed.

At present time, more than ever, the international community must act in unity to solving one of the biggest challenges of mankind, achieve peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.

Almost 3 years ago, on December 12, 2012, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment announced strategy of national environmental protection until 2020 and vision to 2030. The ministry said, it needed to 50.88 billion USD (1,000,000 billion VND) to implement the strategy. This figure immediately caused a stir.

A reporter asked, "Is there need such large amounts of money to protect the environment?". Mr. Nguyen Van Tai, Former Director of the Strategy and Policy Institute (now the General Directorate of the Environment Department) said, “Despite spending a lot of money in the trend of increasing pollution, if we have not any strong measure, we will have nothing left to defend”.

In fact, Vietnam is paying dearly for environmental pollution. Since the beginning of the year, floods cause 2.500 billion VND for Quang Ninh province and other damage. The prolonged drought caused 50 thousand people in Ninh Thuan fall into starvation and dehydration. Experts pointed out that the cause of the two disasters derived from climate change and profound reason is environmental pollution.

Statistics from the World Bank shows that environmental pollution in Vietnam causes damage to 5% of annual gross domestic product. In addition, Vietnam has to spend USD 780 million (nearly 16 trillion) for the treatment of diseases caused by environmental pollution.

Environmental pollution with the increase of anomaly natural disasters not only affects the health of the people, causing disturbance in the society and direct damages to the economy but also influences the macroeconomic. At the fifth conference on National Environment, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung stressed “The international environmental experts warned, in 10 coming years, Vietnam’s GDP could double but without proper care, the environmental pollution will increase 3 times, maybe even 4-5 times. Each 1% of GDP, pollution damages will make 3% loss of GDP”.

The effects of environmental pollution are no longer distant but right in front of us. Experts have said “we ourselves will have to pay dearly for the actions damaging environment rather than waiting until the time of our children”.

                                         Two Syrian migrants walking in the rain in the Europe

A big migration in history after World War II is making Europe worse and worse.

The death of the boy whose name was Aylan Kurdi on the beach of Turkey on September 2^nd has made millions of hearts around the world broken. Recently, Italy’s navy has announced at least 20 people were dead on the Mediterranean Sea when their rubber boat, which was filled up with migrants, was sunk 45 km off the coast of Libya. Most of the victims came from Nigeria, Gambia and Eritrea. Since the beginning of this year, there have been 3000 migrants who died on the Mediterranean Sea.

We have ever seen the migrations which were due to wars or political purposes such as the migration from the North to the South of Vietnam in 1973, the migration in Iraq, in Afghanistan... At the moment, the Ukraine conflict is creating a migration to the East of Russia...

Reasons...

The wars, chaos and poverty in the Africa and the Middle East are the main reason creating this migration to Europe. It is called “the war migration” or “the economic migration”. And the European countries see it the illegal migration.

The human traffickers are also the factor that should be blamed and punished. According to the Cyprus press, each of migrants had to pay $ 4000 for the trip to the Europe. The militants of the Islamic State (IS) were also among the sinners.

What about the clergy? Do they want the “Islamization” of the Europe, which had occurred under the form of “Crusade” in the history? And which political or religious powers are trying to export the chaos to the Europe?

The European countries are reacting passively. The gateway countries of Europe as Italy, Greece and Hungary have to curb with streams of illegal migrants since the early of this year. On the other side of the Mediterranean Sea, Turkey has complained about the difficulties when curbing with 1.5 million of migrants without any help from the Europe.

At this time, the waves of migrants have come to the centre of the Europe, 28 member states of the EU cannot reach a common solution. Germany and France are in favor of sharing quote for all member states, while Poland, Hungary and other states in the East of the Europe denied the suggestion.

… solutions

The EU member states are very different from finding a common solution for the crisis. The migrants are heading to Germany that has recently announced to open more in granting asylum. Thousands of people whose minds were exhausted had been greeted in Germany. Many local residents gathered in stations in big cities of Munich, Frankfurt… to welcome the unlucky fellows. On September 5^th there were 8000 migrants who emigrated from Hungary to Germany. On September 6^th there were another 6000 migrants. On September 7^th, German Government decided to provide £ 3 billions in addition to curb with the streams of migrants and asylum seekers pouring to this country.

Germany is the most powerful economy in the Europe that has very good social welfare, discipline and order. Therefore it seems to be “the promised land” for any migrant. German Chancellor, Mrs. Merkel had acted decisively to adopt 80.000 migrants. The German economy is in need of a big labor force in low level to promote services, production and labor efficiency, to raise competitiveness in the content that the global economy is facing the third wave of economic reduction in less than a decade.

Long-lasting consequences…

Europe is conducting austerity measures to curb with the economic stagnation and debt crisis. The European citizens are also unemployed. In some countries, the local residents are hatred the Muslim migrants due to sharing social welfare; the terrorist attacks in France are deepening the racial contradictions between communities…

The migration crisis needs comprehensive measures for both short term and long term. However the crisis could also make the EU weaken and put doubts about the community’s ability to handle a crisis of the EU./.

 

America, Japan and the 10 countries in the Pacific Ring including Vietnam have achieved consensus on the largest trade agreement within two decades.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is expected to bring many benefits and advantages to the poor countries in this economic group with almost 40% of global GDP.

However, TPP with countries like Vietnam is not only full of roses. TPP and the implementation process will be able to appear many factors that change the rules.

The provision of labor will lead to significant changes in economic activities in Vietnam after joining TPP. Vietnam, the country with 186.2 billion GDP (as calculated by the World Bank in 2014) must prove compliance with the standards of the International Labour Organisation. According to an analysis in the Financial Times, countries like Vietnam will apply methods to punish immediately those apply recruitment fees may expose workers into debt. This certainly affects the labor export activities if pursuant ways of recruiting of companies in Vietnam today. According to Financial Times, the government of Vietnam will have to permit the establishment of independent trade unions to protect the rights of workers.

TPP allows wider opening for the key export items of Vietnam such as textiles and there will be more jobs. Besides, domestic enterprises must play by the rules in compliance with labor standards stricter, which some US senators including the MPs of the ruling Democrats in the US always consider a card to carry out bargain whenever campaigns related to Vietnam.

Vietnamese enterprises will have to get acquainted more with the lawsuits, the campaigns and calls for investigation to be launched from the professional associations and interest groups, including political interests seemingly unrelated hearing.

TPP can be considered as an open institution, not just limited within the 12 countries including Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US and Vietnam. There are many other countries considering to join as South Korea, the Philippines, Colombia, Cambodia ... Even China, the second largest economy in the world, would be a member at any time, even if a lot of specialists have made comments that TPP is an approach of Obama administration to rotating shaft grip on Asia and China.

However, whoever under the rules of the world, they are ready with a variety of situations.

On Octorber 8^th, 2015, on the sideline of an international seminar "Legal Policy to ensure the freedom of belief and religion - experience sharing between Europe and Vietnam" by the Government Committee for Religion Affairs in coordination with the EU Deligation in Vietnam, Mr. Juan Zaratiegui, Political Advisor of the European Union Delegation in Vietnam said that in the framework of the 2013 Constitution, freedom of belief and religion in Vietnam has much improved.

He expressed confidence about draft law of belief and religion with the institutionalization of the views of the 2013 Constitution under the Government Committee for Religion extensive consultation will open up new opportunities as well as the facilitate the freedom of religion and belief in Vietnam.

According to Mr. Bui Thanh Ha, Deputy Head of the Government Committee for Religious Affairs, the construction of the legal framework represented by Law of belief and religion is one of the essential things for the legal provisions to ensure the religious activities to be done in a better way. Mr. Ha said, the legislation in the current building process toward two goals. They are promoting the role of religion in social life and overcoming the inappropriate regulations or unclear points. The new legislation will overcome the present limitations.

Individuals, religious organizations are interested in Draft law and contribute many specific ideas. Together with these inner religious organizations and individuals, international organizations concerned about the construction of this law and also contributed many ideas. This shows that, developing the Law of belief and religion in order to better ensure the rights of the people is essential. If the law is passed, it will be a good legal basis for organizations and individuals to carry out religious activities and will guarantee better the freedom of belief and religion of the people.

Bui Thanh Ha said that in the future, to further promote freedom of belief and religion, along with the promulgation and build a specialized law on beliefs and religions, we must organize propaganda for people to understand the spirit of the law, and then to implementation – one of important things. The people not only understand but also carry out themselves so the role of government in guiding and facilitating religious institutions comply with the provisions of the law must be made clear...

Regarding strange religions in recent times, Mr. Bui Thanh Ha said, as well as many countries in the world, there are also new religious phenomena in Vietnam. In the new religious phenomenon, there are incompatible phenomena with religious and cultural traditions in Vietnam, especially the religious phenomenon that some countries called counter-culture religious.

Regarding the risk of religious phenomena appear incorrectly with the cultural tradition, Mr. Ha said that this phenomenon brings negative impacts morally. The counter-cultural religion being handled in accordance with the law of Vietnam has reacted incorrectly and that reaction was abused by evil forces for propaganda that Vietnam  prevented religious freedom. In particular, some evil forces have taken advantage of the counter-culture phenomena to provoke. They  not only put pressure on local authorities but also request irrational opinions against guidelines and policies of the Party and State of Vietnam.

For the religious phenomenon is not exactly the norm and tradition, Deputy Head of the Government Committee for Religion said that religion should have very specific look to resolve under the law in order to ensure stability and safety, avoiding the situation that phenomenon has affected the traditional capital of the religion, security as well as order, life, health and property of citizens. 

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a trade agreement between twelve Pacific Rim countries concerning a variety of matters of economic policy which has been secretly negotiated and was signed 5 October 2015 after 5 years of negotiations. Among other things, the TPP seeks to lower trade barriers such as tariffs, establish a common framework for intellectual property, enforce standards for labour law and environmental law, and establish an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism. As of 2011, the agreements goal had been to "enhance trade and investment among the TPP partner countries, to promote innovation, economic growth and development, and to support the creation and retention of jobs."^[5] The United States government has considered the TPP as the companion agreement to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a broadly similar agreement between the United States and the European Union

Historically, the TPP is an expansion of the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPSEP or P4), which was signed by Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore in 2006. Beginning in 2008, additional countries joined the discussion for a broader agreement: Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, the United States, and Vietnam, bringing the total number of participating countries in the negotiations to twelve.

The TPP involves 12 Pacific Rim nations - Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam - which account for 40 percent of the global economic output and 26 percent of world trade. The far-reaching deal aims to dismantle tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade and investment between the participant countries.

It also foresees streamlining regulations, and the implementation of common standards for the protection of foreign investment and intellectual property, among other things. After its successful conclusion and ratification, the deal is expected to serve as a model for future trade pacts. Many countries negotiating the TPP such as Australia, Singapore and Canada already have free trade agreements with the US.

The broad goal of the TPP is to create a trade and investment bloc that covers approximately 40 percent of the world economy. The hope is that the removal of trade and investment barriers will entice countries to join the partnership, despite the high standard of rules the countries are expected to follow.

Furthermore, there will be a unified set of rules for state owned enterprises, intellectual property rights and labor and environmental standards. The ambitious partnership is far more expansive than the World Trade Organization's (WTO) system, but falls well short of achieving the same institutional framework found in the European Union. It is important to note that full implementation of the trade agreement will take a considerable amount of time, perhaps even a decade.

The Trans Pacific Partnership is expected to lower trade and investment barriers that will enable competitive firms to move into new markets, hire workers at better wages, cut prices and improve the range of quality of goods and services available to households and firms.

According to some analysts, Vietnam would be the largest beneficiary on the TPP track and of an Asia-Pacific-wide Agreement. Five factors explain this result are: (1) strong trade with the United States; (2) high protection abroad against apparel and footwear, which are Vietnam’s principal exports; (3) strong competitive positions in these and other manufacturing industries where China’s comparative advantage is fading; (4) high initial domestic protection; and (5) powerful scale effects in Vietnam’s principal production clusters. The first three factors boost Vietnam’s exports and terms of trade under the TPP. The last two amplify these benefits by stimulating productivity gains. Higher incomes in turn enable Vietnam to invest more and grow more rapidly.

The TPP will benefit the economy of Vietnam thanks to import tax incentives pledged by TPP members for the major exports of Vietnam, including garments and textiles. The garment and textile sector has become Vietnam’s spearhead industry with a large amount of export revenue among other export items. With nearly 4,000 businesses, which generate jobs for about 2.5 million people, the sector created revenue of nearly US$20 billion and registered over US$17 billion from exports in 2012. In which, the US has become the largest importer of Vietnamese garments and textiles, accounting for about 50% of the country’s total exports. However, in order to benefit from such incentives, Vietnamese garment and textile products have to satisfy the “Yarn Forward” ROO (Rule of Origin), which requires TPP nations to use TPP member-produced yarn in their textiles to have duty-free access. This greatly affects Vietnam’s garment and textile industry as 90% of materials used in the sector are imported from foreign countries, with most being non-TPP members. So, Vietnam ought to boost support industries to ensure local supply of materials and reduce dependence on imports while improving the quality of the design sector, in a bid to ensure the stable and sustainable development of the garment and textile industry. Also, the Government should build exclusive policies for the industry and zone off industrial zones specializing in garments and textiles, with a focus on the dyeing sector.

The pact, which still needs ratification from individual countries, aims to liberalize commerce and tighten labour and environmental standards across member nations that account for two-fifths of the world economy.

Many of the benefits of the free trade deal will flow to Vietnam, where the economy has been growing at a decent clip as manufacturers beef up their presence.

“This is really transformational for Vietnam,” said Rajiv Biswas, Asia Pacific chief economist at IHS Global Insight. “They’re going to get a very big advantage over many other exporters of garments into the U.S. market,” which currently imposes a 17 per cent duty on clothing imports, he said.

Vietnam’s gains are likely to come at the expense of jobs in Mexico’s apparel and footwear industry as well as the last outposts of those industries in Canada and the U.S. Proponents of the deal say those three countries will see benefits in other industries such as agriculture, machinery and electrical equipment.

The trade pact, combined with a recently signed European Union free trade agreement, is expected to accelerate foreign investment into Vietnam. Manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics have been setting up new factories in Vietnam for several years, underscoring its rising attractiveness over China, a longtime global manufacturing powerhouse that’s been hit by surging labour costs.

Biswas and other analysts say Vietnam’s economy will get the biggest proportionate boost because of its relatively small per-capita GDP. Other countries signing up to the deal include Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru and Singapore.

By 2025, Vietnam’s economy will be 11 per cent, or $36 billion, bigger than without the trade deal while exports will be 28 per cent larger, according to a Eurasia Group report released in July.

“This percentage increase dwarfs the gains made by any other country,” the report said. Vietnam will become the “preferred destination” for low-cost manufacturers looking to stay competitive, with industries relying on cheap labour, chiefly clothing, shoes and textiles, set to reap the biggest gains, it said.

Manufacturers, especially garment makers, are scrambling to move part of their production to Vietnam in anticipation that the deal will require sourcing materials from participating countries.

Hong Kong-based contract garment maker Lever Style, whose clients include Hugo Boss and J. Crew, has been shifting production from southern China to Vietnam in recent years. The trade pact “will encourage us to migrate even more production,” Chairman Stanley Szeto said.

However, he said its effect on the company’s bottom line would be neutral and “possibly negative.”

“We will try to gain volume in Vietnam but we won’t be most competitive on foreign soil, while we’ll for sure lose volume on our home turf in China. Buyers will probably insist on capturing all the duty savings, so I don’t expect much margin benefit for suppliers,” Szeto said.

Of course, Vietnam would also face significant challenges in implementing an agreement that requires stringent disciplines in areas such as labor and government procurement. It also faces tough challenges in maintaining a macroeconomic environment that permits adjustment and encourages long-term investments.

Firstly, Vietnam should develop an effective and efficient physical infrastructure in terms of roads, railways, ports, airports, electric, water supply system, etc. This creates convenient conditions for tradeby reducing time and costs in both transportation and transactions. Good infrastructure may also induce FDI that has taken an important role in diversifying Vietnam’s exports and in improving the quality and competitiveness of Vietnam’s merchandises in international markets.

Secondly, the country should speed up the changes of export structure by taking it to the next levelin the global value chain.

Particularly, Vietnam’s political system differs from that of the United States but domestic issues will also have a large impact there. State-owned enterprises play an important role in the economy and could face significant adjustments under the competition policy chapter. Labor provisions calling for “freedom of association” would be difficult to reconcile with Vietnam’s single, state-sponsored labor union. Producers in several industries worry that the TPP’s environmental provisions could raise costs. As the country with the lowest per capita income in the TPP, Vietnam hopes for “special and differential treatment”, but the TPP is unlikely to include such provisions. Much will depend on whether provisions affecting its critical textile and apparel exports are favorable enough to justify hard concessions.

In the regards to the structure of Vietnam’s exports, it has been still constructed by a focus on traditional products with the country’s comparative advantages in natural resources like raw materials (e.g., crude oil, coal, and iron ore, etc.), agriculture, forestry and aquatic products (e.g., rice, coffee, cashew nut, pepper, cash fish, etc.) and some light industry products (e.g., garment, textile, and footwear, etc.) with low added value. Low competitiveness and disadvantageous export structure can hinder or prevent Vietnam from reaping the possible benefits of trade liberalization under the TPP.

The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership FTA would be a significant FTA for Vietnam and could eventually become the platform for an Asia-Pacific free trade area, an area that encompasses 40% of the world’s people and over half of global production. It would be the largest Vietnam’s FTA based on trade flows. Due to the great diversity among the TPP participants, there may be challenges in achieving a comprehensive and high standard agreement. TPP countries vary in terms of population, economic development, and geography.

To this end, what are the implications for Vietnam? It must be noted that to facilitate the competitive ability of Vietnam’s merchandises in TPP member’s markets and sustain an effective paradigm of foreign trade is not a simple task. It requires a careful analysis of related information (e.g., information on each industry, each merchandise, etc.) that the author could not cover in a short time. Generally, the followings are some recommendations to allow Vietnam to achieve sustainable development and enjoy the benefits in the coming years when the TPP enters into force./.