e a long way to go."
Thanh's supporters strongly reject the dictator label and say there is no proof to back up the corruption allegations. Benoit de Treglode, director of the Research Institute on Contemporary Southeast Asia in Bangkok, said Thanh had benefited from close ties with Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung as well as the military, whose lands have been obtained for development. Although the centre of Vietnam has lost some political clout in recent years, "as a compensation Danang has become the prime minister's top priority for investments," de Treglode said. The city aims to reinforce its position as the hub of central Vietnam, focusing on high-tech industry while taking advantage of its natural beauty to boost tourism and services.
Vietnam has relied on natural resources and unskilled labour to achieve rapid growth but the country's leaders now want a more advanced system of production based on technology and "high-quality human resources". Le Dang Doanh, a former government adviser, said Danang has already succeeded in becoming Vietnam's third economic pole and is "very much" competing with Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. But the city still needs to show it can attract enough investors to fill its industrial parks and infrastructure, said a source who has done development work in the area and asked not to be named. "If Danang is going to be the success story that everybody hopes it's going to be, then that's got to start happening," he said.
Decision Looms for Laos Dam
By Thomas Guller, The New York Times, 17 April 2011
The Mekong River is so brown with silt as it passes this impoverished village, it could be called liquid dirt. For millions of people downstream this is the color of life: the Mekong, teeming with hundreds of species of fish and rich in minerals, has for centuries been the lifeline of villages and towns stretching from the rocky rapids of Tibet to the lazy meanderings of the river in theVietnam delta.
On Tuesday the four countries that share the lower reaches of the Mekong River will announce whether they agree to the construction of a controversial dam, a decision that could forever alter the character and natural diversity of one of the world’s longest and most bountiful rivers.
The proposed dam, known as the Xayaburi for the province in Laos where it is located, is a test case for a 1995 agreement signed by Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam to share the river’s resources — its fish, water and the minerals carried by the silt that fertilize the soils of places like the Mekong Delta. The agreement, which called for a process of consultation on actions affecting the river, was seen as a major step toward greater cooperation for countries that a few decades ago, during the Vietnam War, were often at odds.
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