HANOI:- Vietnam agreed Wednesday to rescue more than 1,000 bears from illegal farms across the country, in a move to end the traditional medicine trade in the creatures’ bile. Though bile farms are already outlawed in Vietnam, bears are still captured and caged in illicit facilities where their bile is extracted using invasive and painful techniques. Vietnam’s Administration of Forestry (VNFOREST) and non-profit group Animals Asia signed an agreement Wednesday to rescue all remaining bears from farms, committing to end bile trade and close all facilities within five years.



 “This is a truly historic day,” Animals Asia CEO Jill Robinson at the signing in Hanoi, adding that the decision “will lead to the definitive end to bear bile farming here in Vietnam”. Bear bile farming has been outlawed in Vietnam since 1992. But many bile farms use a legal loophole allowing them to raise the animals as pets. There are about 1,200 bears in captivity in Vietnam today, down from more than 4,000 in 2005, caged in more than 400 bear farms across the country. Animals Asia estimates it will cost up to $20 million to rescue and build enough sanctuaries to house the bears, and called on donors, companies and the government to pitch in. “We cannot do this by ourselves, the government needs to take responsibility for the wildlife in the country,” said Tuan Bendixsen, Vietnam director for Animals Asia. </s> Though bile farms are already outlawed in Vietnam, bears are still captured and caged in illicit facilities where their bile is extracted using invasive and painful techniques.

Vietnam's Administration of Forestry (VNFOREST) and non-profit group Animals Asia signed an agreement Wednesday to rescue all remaining bears from farms, committing to end bile trade and close all facilities within five years.

"This is a truly historic day," Animals Asia CEO Jill Robinson at the signing in Hanoi, adding that the decision "will lead to the definitive end to bear bile farming here in Vietnam".

Bear bile farming has been outlawed in Vietnam since 1992. But many bile farms use a legal loophole allowing them to raise the animals as pets.

There are about 1,200 bears in captivity in Vietnam today, down from more than 4,000 in 2005, caged in more than 400 bear farms across the country.

Animals Asia estimates it will cost up to $20 million to rescue and build enough sanctuaries to house the bears, and called on donors, companies and the government to pitch in.

"We cannot do this by ourselves, the government needs to take responsibility for the wildlife in the country," said Tuan Bendixsen, Vietnam director for Animals Asia.

Officials said funding is the main hurdle to rescuing the bears and putting an end to the trade.

"We face difficulties finding funds to prevent and stop the hunting and rescue of wild animals," VNFOREST deputy director Cao Chi Cong said.

Bendixsen warned that bile farms could move into neighbouring Laos or Cambodia, and urged countries to adhere to an international convention that bans cross-border bear and bile trading.

Wednesday's agreement follows an announcement in 2015 from Vietnam's Traditional Medicine Association to remove bear bile from its list of sanctioned prescriptions by 2020.

The bears are often kept in small cages, and their bile is 'free dripped' via a hole in the animal's gall bladder or a catheter. Many are starved, dehydrated, wounded and psychologically scarred when they are rescued.

Bear bile contains an acid which can help treat liver and gall bladder illnesses, though effective herbal alternatives are available.

Explore further: Moon bears rescued from bile farms in Vietnam </s> Vietnam has agreed to rescue about a thousand bears from farms across the country in an effort to shut down the longstanding practice of extracting their bile, which critics say is inhumane and bad for the long-term survival of bears in the wild.

The Administration of Forestry signed a memorandum of understanding today with the Hong Kong-based conservation nonprofit Animals Asia, saying that the two would work together to remove the bears to sanctuaries. That agreement follows another made in 2015 between the nonprofit and the Vietnamese Medical Association, which pledged that by 2020 traditional practitioners would stop prescribing bear bile to treat ailments.

Bile, a brownish-yellow liquid found in the gallbladder that helps bears digest fat, has been used in Asian medicine for more than a thousand years. Research has shown that it can help treat some liver conditions (though alternatives exist), but bile has no proven benefit for hangovers, cancer, and other conditions it’s widely sold to remedy.

Taking bile from the bodies of sun bears and Asiatic black bears, also called moon bears—the animals most targeted for the trade—often involves repeated invasive sessions. Some bears even live with a catheter permanently hooked up to their gallbladders. An investigation by VICE News in 2015 found that bears on farms in northern Vietnam were thin, missing patches of hair, and sitting in cramped, rusty cages.

The Fight to Stop Illegal Bear Trafficking in Southeast Asia The number of farmed bears in Laos has increased significantly in recent years, despite laws to protect the animals. An organization called Free the Bears is trying to end bear farming there.

Bear farms sprang up in Vietnam in the 1990s in response to consumer demand for bile. In 2005 the country outlawed bile extraction—but with a caveat: It allowed owners to keep the animals they already had. Though the bears were microchipped, and farmers had to sign a declaration saying they would no longer remove bile, weak enforcement has enabled the industry to persist.

“Crucially, the government has agreed to close the loophole,” said Tuan Bendixsen, who heads Animal Asia’s Vietnam branch, in a press release.

New sanctuaries to house the animals may be built, the release says, but funding details and a transfer plan for the bears haven’t been decided on yet. Since 2008, when Animals Asia set up a sanctuary in Tam Dao National Park, the group has rescued 186 bears from farms in Vietnam.

It's not only the welfare of farmed bears that has wildlife advocates concerned. The bile business has also contributed to the animals’ decline in the wild, according to a 2016 report by Traffic, a group that monitors the illegal wildlife trade. That’s because some people prefer bile from wild-sourced bears, believing it to be more potent. Though precise population numbers don't exist for sun bears and Asiatic bears, they are both considered vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which assesses the status of animals in the wild.

View Images Chinese workers collect bear bile in 2012 at Guizhentang Pharmaceutical, a company in Fujian province. Photograph by STR, AFP/Getty

“Wild bears are being sourced and laundered into the bear farms that were still in existence in Vietnam, so that’s obviously a major conservation concern aside from the animal welfare issues,” said Traffic spokesman Richard Thomas.

Last year’s Traffic report also documented another disturbing trend: As demand for bile has declined in Vietnam in recent years, farmers may be killing bears to sell body parts such as paws, considered a delicacy in China.

Vietnam isn’t the only country with bear bile farms. More than 13,000 bears are held on farms in Asia, according to Traffic. The practice persists in Laos and to an even greater extent in China, the main consumer of bear bile. More than 10,000 bears are kept legally on farms there.

Thomas wants that to change: “The next logical step would be to bring about legislation that would ensure they’re phased out over as short a time frame as realistically possible,” he says. “There really is no justification for bear farming to continue.” </s> HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnam and Ireland have agreed to increase their cooperation in education, renewable energy, information technology and health care, during a visit to the Southeast Asian country by Irish President Michael Higgins.

Among agreements signed Monday by Higgins and his Vietnamese counterpart Tran Dai Quang were three wind power projects in southern Vietnam with the investment of $2.2 billion.

Higgins said both leaders discussed how the two countries can serve as bridge for developing relations with the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations respectively.

They also discussed climate change and sustainable development and how the two countries can meet their obligations under the Paris Climate Conference, he added. </s> President Michael D Higgins has begun an eight-day visit to Vietnam and Laos that will focus on boosting bilateral ties, especially in trade, investment, development, education and training.

Mr Higgins is due to meet Vietnamese president Tran Dai Quang at the presidential palace on Monday and later in the day he will also meet Nguyen Thim Kim Ngan, chair of the National Assembly.

A strong focus of the trip will be Irish Aid projects in Vietnam and Laos, and on Tuesday President Higgins will give a keynote address to the country’s oldest university, the Vietnam National University. He will be accompanied by Sabina Higgins, as well as Minister for Foreign Affairs Charles Flanagan

A significant part of the visit will be focused on aid. Vietnam is the only Irish Aid Key Partner country outside Sub-Saharan Africa, and while it continues to have significant development challenges, Vietnam has made major progress in recent years.

In an interview with Vietnam News, Mr Higgins said Ireland and Vietnam shared a struggle for independence, and he said Irish people were impressed by how the Vietnamese people had to defeat not one but several imperialist aggressors.

“I think one of the great challenges facing both countries, here in Ireland and in Vietnam, is to get an economic model that will benefit all the people, when all the citizens have an opportunity to get an education, get housing, etc,” he said.

“In this context, the reduction of poverty from 70 per cent to less than 23 per cent is a very significant achievement,” the president said.

Vietnam is four times bigger than Ireland and has a population of over 88 million. Ireland gave $150 million (€134.88 million) in non-refundable aid to Vietnam between 2007 and 2016, focusing on poverty reduction, support for vulnerable groups, and improving economic management.

Ireland has provided €1.54 million for research into the climate impacts on the Lower Mekong Basin work through the EU-led Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) from 2012 to 2015.

Ireland provides support to civil society organisations (CSOs) working to pilot and scale up new models in community-based climate-sensitive development. Of the total funding under the bilateral development co-operation programme in Vietnam, administered and co-ordinated by the Irish Embassy in Hanoi, €3.33 million relates to climate finance.

The state visit marks 20 years of diplomatic relations between Ireland and Vietnam.

Bilateral trade reached $402 million (€360.55 million) in 2015, up 28 per cent from the previous year. Ireland currently has 17 investment projects with combined capital of $20.7 million (€18.7 million) in Vietnam, ranking 67th among 115 countries and territories investing here. </s> South Korean President Moon Jae-in delivers a speech during a ceremony celebrating the 99th anniversary of the March First Independence Movement against Japanese colonial rule, at Seodaemun Prison History Hall in Seoul, South Korea, March 1, 2018. Photo by Reuters/Kim Hong-Ji.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his wife will pay a three-day official visit to Vietnam starting next Thursday, according to Vietnam's foreign ministry.

During the visit, Moon will attend a summit with his Vietnamese counterpart Tran Dai Quang, and meet other government leaders, including General Secretary of the Communist Party Nguyen Phu Trong.

This will be Moon's first official visit to Vietnam since he took office last May, and his second visit to Vietnam after attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Da Nang last November.

The South Korean president's economic delegation will include top executives of Samsung Electronics, the Hyundai Motor Group, SK Innovation and LG Chem, Yonhap reported.

Vietnam is currently South Korea's third largest trade partner and South Korea is Vietnam's second largest trade partner, with bilateral trade volume reaching nearly $61.6 billion last year, according to Vietnam Customs. South Korea is also Vietnam's biggest foreign investor, with its firms investing more than $50 billion in Vietnam between 1988 and 2016.

Moon's visit to Vietnam will be his second official visit to an ASEAN country as part of his "New Southern Policy," which aims to elevate South Korea's relations with ASEAN to the same level as its relations with the U.S., Japan, China and the E.U.

"Vietnam is our largest trading partner in Southeast Asia, and a core partner country for our New Southern Policy," Reuters quoted Blue House spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom as saying.

During the Vietnam visit, Moon is also expected to seek ASEAN support and cooperation ahead of the historic inter-Korean summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un next month. Stressing the importance of ASEAN in de-escalating tension on the Korean Peninsula, Moon has promised to visit all 10 of its member states before the end of his term in 2022. </s> HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam's foreign minister has asked his Indonesian counterpart to investigate and clarify reports that the Indonesian navy shot and wounded two Vietnamese fishermen in the South China Sea, the foreign ministry said on Friday.

Pham Binh Minh told Indonesian foreign minister Retno Marsudi by telephone that the reported incident was "very serious ... and not appropriate with the strategic partnership relationship between Vietnam and Indonesia," the Vietnamese foreign ministry said in a statement.

 "Vietnam is deeply concerned about this incident and proposes Indonesia to quickly investigate and clarify the incident and inform Vietnam of the results and to stop repeating similar acts," Minh was quoting as saying.

 Earlier this week, a local Vietnamese sea rescue committee said Indonesia's navy had shot and wounded Vietnamese fishermen aboard a fishing boat in the South China Sea last weekend.

 The Vietnamese boat was about 132 nautical miles (245 km) southeast of Vietnam's Con Dao island when the fishermen were shot on Saturday night, the Binh Dinh provincial search and rescue committee said on its website.

 The report was pulled off the website the next day. 

 The Indonesian navy has yet to comment on the incident.

 Disputes over fishing rights and oil drilling have stoked tension in the South China Sea, through which about $5 trillion in goods is shipped each year.

 China claims almost the entire sea, but Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan also have claims.

 Although Indonesia says it is not a party to the dispute, it recently renamed the northern reaches of its exclusive economic zone, asserting its own maritime claim.

 The coordinates given by the Vietnamese search and rescue committee indicated that the shooting happened close to the area Indonesia now calls the North Natuna Sea.

 Indonesia has sunk hundreds of mostly foreign boats caught illegally fishing in its waters since President Joko Widodo launched a crackdown on the poaching of fish in 2014.

 Indonesia and Vietnam said in May they would launch a joint investigation after reports that Vietnamese coast guards had tried to forcibly free five fishing boats and their crew detained in waters near Indonesia's Natuna Islands.

 

 (Reporting by Mai Nguyen; Additional reporting by Bernadette Christina Munthe in Jakarta; Editing by Catherine Evans) </s> HANOI, Vietnam The Vietnamese capital once trembled as waves of American bombers unleashed their payloads, but when Kim Jong Un arrives here for his summit with President Donald Trump he won’t find rancor toward a former enemy. Instead the North Korean leader will get a glimpse at the potential rewards of reconciliation.

By the time the Vietnam War ended in 1975, tens of thousands of tons of explosives had been dropped on Hanoi and nearly two decades of fighting had killed 3 million Vietnamese and more than 58,000 Americans. Vietnam, though victorious, lay devastated by American firepower, with cities in ruins and fields and forests soaked in toxic herbicides and littered with unexploded ordnance.

Despite the conflict’s savagery, what followed was a remarkable rapprochement between wartime foes and it took merely 20 years to restore full relations.

Now some hope Vietnam will offer Kim a road map for his own detente with the United States and that the formerly besieged capital city will be the site of a dramatic resolution to one of the last remaining Cold War conflicts.

While North Korea remains America’s sworn enemy 65 years after the Korean War fighting ceased, Vietnam today stands as a burgeoning partner which even buys lethal U.S. weaponry. Bilateral trade has soared by 8,000 percent over the last two decades and billions of dollars in American investment flows into one of the world’s best performing economies.

And while North Koreans are still taught to loathe Americans by their country’s propaganda machine, in Vietnam there is little animosity.

“I was born after the war and only hear war stories from American films or books,” said Dinh Thanh Huyen, a 19-year-old university student who was waiting in line at a crowded McDonald’s in Hanoi. She said she was happy the former enemies have moved on. “History is for us to learn from, not to hold grudges.”

Kim could take note of the history of win-win rapprochement and how Vietnam’s communist leaders have allowed a capitalistic economy and an open door to the U.S. and other outsiders, all while not sacrificing their tight grip on power. Or he could allow it all to pass him by as he narrows his focus for the Feb. 27-28 summit on tit-for-tat bargaining over nuclear arms and economic sanctions.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke in Hanoi last year about “the once-unimaginable prosperity and partnership” the U.S. has come to enjoy with Vietnam and noted Vietnam was able maintain its form of government.

“I have a message for Chairman Kim Jong Un: President Trump believes your country can replicate this path. It’s yours to seize the moment,” he said. “This can be your miracle in North Korea as well.”

To be sure, Vietnam remains a one-party state with a poor human rights record where even moderate critics and dissenters are frequently jailed.

Since the first Trump-Kim summit last June in Singapore, a few small steps have already been taken along a timeline forged by the U.S.-Vietnamese thaw, including Pyongyang turning over remains of U.S. servicemen killed in the Korean War, the first such hand-over in more than a decade.

It was the same missing in action issue that heralded U.S.-Vietnamese reconciliation, with the repatriation of American war dead creating an environment for improvement in relations in other areas.

Next came step-by-step lifting of economic sanctions, as Washington encouraged Vietnam’s so-called “doi moi” reform, initiatives launched in 1986 to shed a state-run economy in favor of a market-oriented one open to foreigners.

North Korea has already shown interest in Vietnam’s reforms, sending students and official delegations who returned home with favorable reports. Having enjoyed close relations with North Korea since 1950, Vietnam could be the ideal go-between in nudging Pyongyang to re-engineer its disastrous economy and turn foes to friends.

“Vietnam’s model of development ‘doi moi’ is an important factor in the United States’ larger strategy of drawing North Korea out of its self-imposed isolation as part of the larger process of denuclearizing,” said Carlyle Thayer, a political scientist at The University of New South Wales.

But Thayer and other experts share strong reservations about how much of the U.S.-Vietnamese “miracle” can be duplicated. There are stark differences in the way the North Korea responded once the fighting stopped.

The North slammed shut its doors and slid into a Cold War bunker – and it remains one of the world’s most isolated nations. Vietnam, however, chose to put behind its tragic past and move forward.

Not long after the war, American journalists and official U.S. delegations were allowed entry to a poor, shabby Hanoi, its lovely French colonial buildings moldering from neglect. The only clothes many men had were the baggy green uniforms and pith helmets of the North Vietnamese army. Suspicion was palpable and Westerners, including journalists, were assigned minders to keep tabs on them.

Expecting a hostile reception, the Americans were stunned at the lack of animosity displayed by the average Vietnamese, even those who had lost loved ones to U.S. bombs. Returning American veterans were often signaled out for especially warm welcomes, sometimes tearfully embracing their onetime battlefield enemies while exchanging stories of suffering.

Making such scenes possible were a set of special circumstances. Some were geo-political: Vietnam badly needed a counter-balance that the U.S. could provide to its perennial enemy – neighboring China.

This has taken on special urgency in recent years as Beijing moves aggressively to claim large swaths of the South China Sea. Telling are the exchanges between the U.S. and Vietnamese coast guards and the provision of U.S. patrol boats. Last year the USS Carl Vinson, an American aircraft carrier, made a historic port call in Vietnam, the first of its kind since the war ended.

Vietnam also no longer faced a threat from the United States, whereas North Korea perceives that it does, making abandonment of its nuclear program difficult, perhaps even in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

But an underlying human element was also at work.

“During the Vietnam War Hanoi always drew a distinction between the peace-loving American people and the imperialist American government,” Thayer said. “There was a basis for future reconciliation.”

The face-to-face encounters that followed, serving to ease mutual hostility, never occurred with North Korea. Instead, generations of North Korean children sat in classrooms looking at posters of Americans portrayed as big nosed goblins. A massive anti-American rally loomed large on the annual calendar.

“The Vietnamese saw over the years of our war that many American people and veterans spoke out against the war,” said Bob Mulholland, a prominent Vietnam combat veteran.

And there were powerful advocates of reconciliation, including Sens. John Kerry and the recently deceased John McCain as well as other veterans who quietly returned to Vietnam to help the shattered country.

Although the Vietnam War has begun to fade from the collective memory in both countries, it is not the “forgotten war” that the Korean conflict has long been known as. With peace and greater prosperity have come fresh connections forged by a younger generation.

Near the McDonald’s in Hanoi’s old quarter, not far from a Starbucks, the area is closed to traffic each weekend and entertainers, including American buskers, take to streets now strung with U.S. and North Korean flags. Vietnamese youth can be seen mingling with young American travelers.

Just a short stroll away, tourist Brian Walker was taking in Hanoi’s Military War Museum, fronted by the wreckage of an American B-52 shot down while bombing the city.

“For many Americans, it may be a country of a bloody war that we took part in,” said 28-year-old social worker from New York City. “But coming here, all I see is people with big smiles, good food and a beautiful landscape.” </s> A Lotte Mart is seen closed in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China, March 5, 2017. Photo by Reuters/Stringer/File Photo

South Korean food and retail companies are leaving China for Vietnam amid tougher business conditions in the world's most populous market, and strained bilateral relations to go with it.

The Chinese government has retaliated against South Korea after Seoul, despite stringent objections from Beijing, deployed an advanced U.S. missile defense system to protect the country against North Korea, Yonhap News Agency reported.

For nearly a year, China-South Korea relations have been tense with Beijing angry about the deployment of the U.S.-made Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system in Korea. China claims THAAD’s powerful radar can penetrate deep into its territory.

For much of 2017, South Korea’s tourism, cosmetics and entertainment industries have taken the brunt of a Chinese political backlash against Seoul. In October, the two nations agreed to normalize relations, Reuters reported.

Lotte Group was the biggest victim of Beijing's wrath due to the fact it had signed a deal with the South Korean government to provide land on what was previously a golf course for the U.S. missile defense system.

Lotte has been negotiating the sale of its hypermarket chain in China after suffering major losses. Most of its 99 Lotte Mart discount stores in China have been closed for more than an a year, and Lotte Group has suffered about 1.2 trillion won ($1.1 billion) in lost sales as Chinese authorities tightened safety and sanitary inspections and consumers boycotted them.

Lotte said it aims to raise the number of Lotte Mart outlets in Vietnam to 87 by the end of 2020 from the current 13.

The South Korean conglomerate has also expressed an interest in making fresh investments in Vietnam's agriculture, manufacturing and construction sectors.

Hwang Kag Gyu, vice chairman of Lotte, said the company wants to start a cocoa farm and build a factory to supply components to electronics giant Samsung in Vietnam during a recent meeting with the prime minister in Hanoi.

Other South Korean firms, including EMart, an affiliate of Shinsegae Group, food and entertainment conglomerate CJ Group, and food manufacturer CJ Cheiljedang Corp, also have plans to expand in Vietnam.

CJ Cheiljedang has invested 70 billion won in the construction of a Ho Chi Minh City-based food processing factory, which will be completed in July. After coming into operation, the factory will produce Korean dumplings and other frozen food.

"We expect a growing number of South Korean businesses will expand investment in Vietnam, the land of opportunity," Yonhap quoted an industry source as saying. "Vietnam's economy has been expanding by more than six percent every year, it is a young consumer market whose average age is 30 and hallyu (Korean wave) is gaining popularity."

On March 23, Vietnam and South Korea agreed to seek to boost their bilateral trade to $100 billion by 2020, or 50 percent more than last year’s total, during President Moon Jae-in's official visit to Hanoi.

The visit was part of South Korea's 'New Southern Policy,' which aims to elevate South Korea's relations with ASEAN to the same level as its relations with the U.S., Japan, China and the E.U.

"Vietnam is our largest trading partner in Southeast Asia, and a core partner country for our New Southern Policy," Reuters quoted Blue House spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom as saying.

South Korea is also Vietnam's biggest foreign investor, with its firms investing more than $50 billion in Vietnam between 1988 and 2016.
Vietnam pledges on ending the trafficking and farming of bears.