Word: hoas
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...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...
...stares. "They drove us away," one of the children later said. "They hate us. We got the disease from our parents. It's not our fault." With the school balking and classrooms now mostly empty, Sister Bao thought it best to take the children back to the Mai Hoa Center where they live rather than endure more hurt. The center was the first AIDS hospice in Vietnam. But since the introduction of lifesaving antiretroviral medications, few come there to die anymore. The sanctuary-like setting, run by the Roman Catholic Church, has become a home to HIV-positive orphans...
...Troublingly, Ho Chi Minh City is considered the most progressive region in the country in terms of HIV/AIDS advocacy. The government AIDS committee runs public education campaigns and training programs for local officials. Last year, it supported the decision to allow some of the orphans from the Mai Hoa AIDS Center to attend the school's weekly flag ceremony and occasionally sit at the end of the table in some classes, says Le Truong Giang, deputy chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Provincial AIDS Committee. Giang concedes that after last week's unfortunate episode, those efforts were clearly...
...What happened to the children at the Mai Hoa Center illustrates how much work the Vietnamese government, as well as international development and aid agencies, have left to do, says Morch. More awareness campaigns are obviously needed. Government officials and celebrities need to photographed hugging AIDS patients and playing with them out on the sports field, he says. But Morch is encouraged by the fact that as soon as the incident was made public, the central government fired off a stern warning to the local authorities that they had violated the law, and they wanted assurances that this will...
...perhaps easier to overlook occasional shakedowns from officials when Vietnam's economy was doing well and incomes were doubling every few years. That's no longer the case. People being squeezed by the economic downturn are increasingly frustrated by the nation's enduring corruption, says Trinh Hoa Binh, head of environment and health at the government-run Institute of Sociology in Hanoi. Officials are maintaining their special privileges while the economic position of ordinary Vietnamese is becoming more precarious. They are incensed, he says, that corrupt officials are rarely punished for taking bribes...