11 films to compete for 2012 Golden Kite Awards

The 2012 Golden Kite awards ceremony will be held at the Friendship Palace in Hanoi on March 13.

This year’s event involves around 10 feature films, 19 video films and a large number of documentaries. The feature films are focused on action, comedy, entertainment and horror.

Among potential candidates for the Golden Kite awards are ‘Long Ruoi’, which has earned a high sales record of VND40 billion, ‘Do Hay Day' by Overseas Vietnamese director Siu Pham, which attended the 16th Busan International Festival, and 'Mui Co Chay’ (Scene of Burnt Grass), ‘Tam Hon Me’ (Mother’s Soul) and 'Hotboy Noi Loan’ (Lost in Paradise) which competed at the Golden Lotus awards in Phu Yen last December.

Trailer:

Video by youtube.com

dtinews.vn

Indonesia volcano eruption panics villagers

One of Indonesia's most active volcanoes erupted Tuesday, spewing clouds of ash and panicking villagers but no evacuation has been ordered so far, a government vulcanologist said.

File photo shows Mount Lokon sending huge clouds of ash as high as 3,500 metres into the sky on July 17.

The first eruption at Mount Lokon was at 3:07 am (1907 GMT Monday), followed by two more bursts within minutes, Farid Bina told AFP from a monitoring post near the volcano on Sulawesi island.

"The eruption was heard as far as five kilometres (three miles) away, causing panic among villagers living close to the volcano," he said, adding that winds blew volcanic ash to villages up to five kilometres to the east and northeast.

"Two villages with about 10,000 people each have been affected by the ash, which stopped later in the morning," he added.

More than 5,200 people were evacuated to temporary shelters when the 1,580-metre volcano erupted in July, sending huge clouds of ash as high as 3,500 metres (11,500 feet) into the sky.

Lokon's last deadly eruption was in 1991, killing a Swiss tourist.

The Indonesian archipelago has dozens of active volcanoes and straddles major tectonic fault lines known as the "Ring of Fire" between the Pacific and Indian oceans.

The country's most active volcano, Mount Merapi in central Java, killed more than 350 people in a series of violent eruptions last year.

dtinews.vn

CO2 emissions in Vietnam at alarming rate

The main source of CO2 emissions in Vietnam is from coal-fired electric power plants, according to an international conference in Hanoi on December 13.

The conference, held jointly by the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) clean energy group, was attended by leading experts from Vietnam and other countries around the world.

According to reports, in 2010, more than half of Vietnam’s electricity was sourced from thermal power plants with 18.5 percent fired by coal and 36.6 percent by burning oil and gas.

In 2000, about 150.9 million tonnes of CO2 were discharged into the environment in Vietnam, with the agricultural sector being the leading contributor (65 million tonnes – 43 percent), followed by the energy sector (52.7 million tonnes – 35 percent). Nine years later, CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels saw a 113-percent increase, 54 percent of which was from coal fired plants. On average, each 1KWh of electricity in Vietnam creates 0.52kg of CO2.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) estimates that Vietnam’s energy sector will produce 224 million tonnes of CO2 annually by 2020, while other key industrial sectors will discharge about 10 million tonnes.

The ADB Country Director in Vietnam, Andrew Head, said Vietnam has achieved remarkable socio-economic development in recent years. However, the country is facing considerable environmental pollution, with CO2 emissions reaching an alarming level. “It’s the time for Vietnam to renovate its technology and use clean energy for production and in people’s daily lives,” he said.

In addition to developing renewable energy, Vietnam should focus on waste treatment and recycling, he added.

Le Tuan Phong, Deputy Head of the MoIT General Department of Energy, affirmed that Vietnam is one of the countries in the world that will be hardest-hit by climate change, which threatens its socio-economic development. The country is working on a scenario for a sustainable low-carbon economy as well as plans for adapting to climate change, he said.

www.dtinews.vn

Limestone mine exploited, silver gibbons lose their homes

There are hundreds of precious plants and animals species living in the limestone mountain of Kien Luong in Kien Giang Province, including silver gibbons (Trachypithecus cristatus). However, the biodiversity of the Kien Luong area has been threatened.

Silver gibbons lose their homes

The Hon Chong Cement plant

Nguyen Van Thanh, alocal resident living near the Bai Voi Mountain related that in the past, Bai Voi was very high with a lot of trees, which gathered a lot of birds and wild beasts. However, since people exploit limestone to make cement, nearly all the plants have been killed. The animals who lived on the mountain have no more accommodations.

The Hon Chong and Ha Tien cement plans alone every year need hundreds of thousands of tonnes of limestone to make cement, and they have also contributed to the elimination of many limestone mountains in Kien Luong.

Scientists have voiced their worry that the limestone exploitation on Bai Voi Mountain has directly threatened the lives of 23 silver gibbons living here. Currently, the gibbons are living and seeking food on a small area of 15 hectares which has not been exploited. They cannot move to other places to seek food because the parts of the mountain have been split.

Also at the Kien Luong limestone mountain complex, Khe La Mountain has become the place for limestone exploitation. There are 78 gibbons living on the mountain. According to Dr Nguyen Xuan Niem, Deputy Director of the Kien Giang Science and Technology Department, the limestone exploitation by Holcim has threatened the population of gibbons on Bai Voi and Khe La.

“Holcim must take the responsibility of rescuing the herd of 23 gibbons on Bai Voi Mountain. As for the herd of gibbon on Khe La Mountain, the exploiter should have to take responsibility of protecting the 78 gibbons, but they have not found out any feasible measures. We now have to work out on the measures to build new houses for the silver gibbons,” Niem said.

The problem not only in losing the mountai

Phan Van Hung, Deputy Director of the Hon Dat – Kien Ha forest, said that Indochina gibbon is an important primate species which is typical for the Kien Luong limestone mountains, which have been in the danger of getting extinct.

To date, Indochina gibbons have been found only in two places, including the Phu Quoc national park and the limestone mountains in Kien Luong.

Hung said that it is urgent to find out the solutions to protect the silver gibbons , and that he is making a research on relocating the silver gibbon population from Khe La mountain to Hon Chong area.

According to Dr. Niem, not many limestone mountains still exist, while scientists believe that the Kien Luong limestone Mountain area has the highest tropical biodiversity in the world. Here some new species have been found, which do not exist elsewhere in the world, especially some kinds of insects and snails. However, the limestone exploitation here has created big challenges to the environment. Therefore, losing the mountain is not the biggest concern but losing the biodiversity is.

“We have proposed the Kien Giang province authorities to set up a limestone protection area or it is too late,” Niem said.

Thai Thanh Luom, Director of the Kien Gian Department of Natural Resources and Environment has confirmed that such a protection area project is being considered. The area would include the limestone mountain left and the protective forest of Hon Dat-Kien Ha, which includes Hon Chong Mountain.a

www.dtinews.vn

Canada formally withdraws from Kyoto Protocol

Canada on Monday became the first country to formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol, saying the pact on cutting carbon emissions was preventing the world from effectively tackling climate change.

Canadian Minister of Environment Affairs Peter Kent attends a plenary on the final day of negotiations of the COP17 Climate Change Conference at International Convention Centre in Durban on December 10.

"We are invoking Canada's legal right to formally withdraw from Kyoto," Environment Minister Peter Kent said following a marathon UN climate conference in South Africa, at which nations agreed to a new roadmap for worldwide action.

The landmark pact reached in 1997 is the only global treaty that sets down targeted curbs in global emissions.

But those curbs apply only to rich countries, excluding the United States, which has refused to ratify the accord.

"Kyoto is not the path forward for a global solution to climate change," Kent said. "If anything, it's an impediment.

"We believe that a new agreement with legally binding commitments for all major emitters that allows us as a country to continue to generate jobs and economic growth represents the path forward."

Canada agreed under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce CO2 emissions to 6.0 percent below 1990 levels by 2012, but its emissions of the gases blamed for damaging Earth's fragile climate system have instead increased sharply.

Saying the targets agreed to by a previous Liberal administration were unattainable, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government last year unveiled its own measures aimed at curbing emissions, in line with US efforts.

Pulling out of Kyoto now allows Canada to avoid paying penalties of up to CAN$14 billion (US$13.6 billion) for missing its targets.

Kent also cited major impacts on Canada's economy that will be avoided by withdrawing from the treaty.

"Under Kyoto, Canada is facing radical and irresponsible choices if we're to avoid punishing multi-billion-dollar payments," Kent said, noting that Canada produces barely two percent of global emissions.

"To meet the targets under Kyoto for 2012 would be the equivalent of either removing every car, truck, ATV, tractor, ambulance, police car, and vehicle of every kind from Canadian roads or closing down the entire farming and agricultural sector and cutting heat to every home, office, hospital, factory, and building in Canada."

For Kyoto supporters, the Canadian pullout was expected to be a symbolic blow and badly damage a UN climate process already weakened by divisions.

The UN climate conference in Durban, South Africa on Sunday approved a roadmap towards an accord that for the first time will bring all major greenhouse-gas emitters under a single legal roof.

If approved as scheduled in 2015, the pact will be operational from 2020 and become the prime weapon in the fight against climate change.

But environmentalists have called it porous.

Kent said that in the meantime, Canada would continue to try to reduce its emissions under a domestic plan that calls for a 20 percent cut from 2006 levels by 2020, or as critics point out, a mere three percent from 1990 levels.

The latest data last year showed that Canadian carbon emissions were currently up more than 35 percent from 1990.

www.dtinews.vn

Wild animals face extinction in Mekong

Wild animals in the mountainous districts of Mekong Delta An Giang and Kien Giang provinces are facing a serious extinction threat because of local hunters looking for meat to sell at local pubs.

Wild birds, turtles, monkeys, squirrels, chameleons and pigs in the mountainous areas in An Giang’s Tinh Bien and Tri Ton districts and elsewhere in Kien Giang’s Kien Luong and Ha Tien districts are being hunted every day.

According to Nguyen Van Lam, a wild animal dealer in Tri Ton District, the animals sell at very high prices. For instance, though turtles sell at VND500,000 (USD23.8) per kilo, he does not have enough supply to export to China.

The turtle has become a rare creature in the area due to the illegal hunting and deforestation.

www.dtinews.vn

Life possible on 'large parts' of Mars: study

Australian scientists who modelled conditions on Mars to examine how much of the red planet was habitable said that "large regions" could sustain life.

This NASA computer-generated image depicts part of Mars at the boundary between darkness and daylight, with an area including Gale Crater, beginning to catch morning light.x

Charley Lineweaver's team, from the Australian National University, compared models of temperature and pressure conditions on Earth with those on Mars to estimate how much of the distant planet was liveable for Earth-like organisms.

While just one percent of Earth's volume -- from core to upper atmosphere -- was occupied by life, Lineweaver said their world-first modelling showed three percent of Mars was habitable, though most of it was underground.

"What we tried to do, simply, was take almost all of the information we could and put it together and say 'is the big picture consistent with there being life on Mars?'," the astrobiologist told AFP on Monday.

"And the simple answer is yes... There are large regions of Mars that are compatible with terrestrial life."

Where previous studies had taken a "piecemeal" approach by examining particular sites on Mars for signs of life, Lineweaver said his research was a "comprehensive compilation" of the entire planet using decades of data.

Frozen water has been found at the poles on Mars and the ANU study examined how much of the planet could sustain water "that could be habitable by Earth-like standards by Earth-like microbes".

The low-pressure environment of Mars means water cannot exist as a liquid and will vaporise on the surface, but Lineweaver said the conditions are right underground, where the weight of the soil gives the added pressure required.

It would also be warm enough, at certain depths, for bacteria and other micro-organisms to thrive due to heat from the planet's core.

The average surface temperature on Mars, Earth's nearest neighbour, is minus 63 degrees Celsius (minus 81 Fahrenheit).

Lineweaver said his study was "the best estimate yet published of how habitable Mars is to terrestrial microbes" and a significant finding given mankind had evolved from microbial life.

"It's not important if you want to figure out what the laws of physics are and you want to talk to some intelligent aliens who could build spaceships," he said.

"If you're interested in the origin of life and how likely life is to get started on other planets, that's what relevant here."

NASA's Curiosity Rover, the largest, most sophisticated robotic explorer ever built, is en route to Mars and due to land in August 2012.

It has a laser beam for zapping rocks and a tool kit to analyse their contents as well as a robotic arm, drill, cameras and sensors to enable it to report back on the Martian weather and atmospheric radiation.

Curiosity is scheduled to land at the Gale Crater, near Mars' equator, chosen for its five kilometre (three mile) high sediment mountain which will hopefully reveal clues about the planet's wetter past.

Lineweaver said the NASA mission "sadly" did not have the capability to dig deep enough to find the life his study had modelled but Curiosity would be able to examine "at least the edges" of what was once the Martian depths at the crater.

"But these have been exposed for a long time and therefore are probably devoid of volatiles and they are not warm like they used to be," he said.

Lineweaver's paper was published Monday in the scientific journal Astrobiology.

www.dtinews.vn

Handling climate change is national strategy

Vietnam shares responsibility with the international community in implementing measures and initiatives to deal with global climate change.

This was affirmed by Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Tran Hong Ha at the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Durban, South Africa.

He said Vietnam will also use the event to introduce international friends to the current impacts of climate change in Vietnam as well as its policies and plans for tackling the issue in the future.

Vietnam has issued important legal documents regarding long term plans for coping with climate change, most notably the National Climate Change Strategy approved by the Prime Minister prior to the COP 17.

Deputy Minister Ha said he hopes that through bilateral and multilateral discussions, Vietnam will be able to help boost the progress of some common agreements and commitments, especially those related to the Kyoto Protocol and its second phases.

This year’s conference is a multilateral forum representing the interests of all countries in the world.

www.dtinews.vn