Word: vietnam
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...Realistically, it could take many years to form an E.U.-style trading bloc in the region - if such a body can be formed at all. Historical enmities simmering between nations like China and Japan could make close cooperation impossible, as could divergent economic interests of poor developing countries like Vietnam and those of advancing industrial economies like South Korea. Another commonly cited impediment is cultural diversity. "Europe is in a sense a single civilization; Asia is not," says Ravi Menon, Permanent Secretary of Singapore's Ministry of Trade and Industry. Others question whether Asia's institutions are robust enough...
ASEAN has grown up since the days of the so-called red threat. Not only are two of its members - Vietnam and Laos - socialist countries, but the regional bloc has transformed itself from an impoverished backwater to a key member of the global economy. Indeed, ASEAN's 600 million citizens have weathered the current global financial crisis far better than the citizenry of many other regions. Indonesia, for instance, is predicting upwards of 4% growth this year. (See Barack Obama's family tree...
ASEAN leaders - who represent Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Laos, Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines - cried foul. After all, the U.S. didn't boycott the United Nations just because countries like North Korea or Sudan were members. And, in truth, Burma wasn't the only factor. With more pressing foreign-policy priorities in the Middle East, Washington was naturally distracted from courting other parts of the globe. Nonetheless Southeast Asian ministers couldn't help but spot a deliberate snub when then U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice skipped two ASEAN summits that historically had been attended...
Luckily for the U.S., China's pre-eminence in Southeast Asia isn't yet a foregone conclusion. Countries like Vietnam, which was colonized by its northern neighbor for a millennium, are wary of China's growing footprint. And in nations like Indonesia, Burma and Cambodia, it wasn't so long ago that the economic dominance of local Chinese communities catalyzed bloody pogroms and discriminatory laws against the ethnic Chinese. Despite the occasional bursts of anti-Chinese violence, businesses in Thailand and Indonesia are still disproportionately controlled by overseas Chinese today. As a consequence, even as Beijing pleads that...
...from sweet wormwood, an herb native to Asia. It's been used to fight the disease in China for more than 2,000 years, but it wasn't until 1965 that the cure was isolated and purified by the Chinese military after its soldiers started falling ill during the Vietnam War. The treatment caught on in Vietnam as a crushed powder, and after the drug reduced the malaria death toll in Vietnam 97% from 1992 to 1997, it was touted as the miracle drug that could save people everywhere from the disease. A nonprofit drugmaker in San Francisco hopes that...