Word: hanoi
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Every year, even at the peak of Vietnam's dry season, when the Red River is at its lowest, Hanoi's skilled captains manage to negotiate their flat-bottomed boats through its shallow waters. But this year, with a drought gripping the entire country and water levels at record lows, the river is eerily quiet. What is normally a bustling waterway is becoming a winding river of sand, and farmers who depend upon the river for irrigation are watching the expanding sandbars as nervously as the boat captains. "If there is no water in the coming days," says 59-year...
...Those high-yield days may be over. As the drought intensifies, in some places seawater has crept nearly 40 miles (60 km) inland, says Dam Hoa Binh, deputy director of the Irrigation Department at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in Hanoi. Most of the winter-spring crop has already been harvested, but saltwater is reaching where it has never gone before, putting the summer-fall crop in jeopardy, says Binh. "We are trying to strengthen our irrigation systems to prevent further salinization," he adds, but the extreme conditions are making it "one of the most difficult situations...
...crisis has been a "wakeup call" for Vietnam, says Ian Wilderspin, senior technical adviser for disaster risk management at the U.N. Development Program in Hanoi. The drought was predicted, he says, referring to last year's projections that El Niño would bring an unusually warm and dry winter. Yet Vietnam traditionally prepares for floods and typhoons, which are more dramatic and devastating when they hit. "Drought is a slow, silent disaster, which in the long run will have a more profound impact on peoples' livelihoods," he says...
...past year, authorities have detained activists for everything from wearing anti-Chinese t-shirts to hanging banners calling for multiparty elections. In October, nine people involved in pro-democracy efforts were sentenced to prison terms for spreading propaganda against the state. Hanoi has also been particularly prickly over accusations that officials have caved in to pressure from China, claiming that they are on Beijing's payroll in exchange for unfettered access to the country's natural resources. Authorities detained several bloggers and journalists in recent months who openly criticized Vietnam for allowing China to set up large bauxite mining operations...
...country's leaders, stability is by far the most important goal, says Nguyen Quang A, former director of the Institute for Development Studies in Hanoi, an independent think tank that disbanded in September to protest the government's restriction on political research. Why? Stability attracts investment. Foreign companies, he says, aren't overly bothered by these trials or Vietnam's human rights record, but they do show interest "when their investment is directly affected." (See 25 people who mattered...