Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Mozilla unleashes sleek new Firefox Web browser

A fast, sleek new version of Firefox was released on Wednesday to vie Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) and Google Chrome in the fiercely competitive market for Web browsing software.
A screen displays the logo of the open-source web browser Firefox
Nonprofit group Mozilla made Firefox 4 available as a free download to computers powered by Windows, Mac OS X or Linux operating systems in more than 80 languages.
Firefox 4 was billed as six times faster than its predecessor and boasted features including a "Do Not Track" signal to opt-out of having online activities recorded by websites for targeted online ads or services.
The open-source Web browsing software was also designed as a stage for rich video or game graphics based on the HTML5 standard being touted as a boon for online visual experiences.
"Firefox puts users in control of their Web experience, providing a streamlined user interface, fun new features, a boost in speed and support for modern Web technologies," Mozilla said in an online message.
Powerful new versions of Chrome and IE9 Web browsers were released earlier this month by Google and Microsoft, respectively, putting pressure on California based Mozilla to release a finished version of Firefox 4.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer is the most widely used Web browser in the United States followed by Firefox, Chrome and Apple's Safari.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Vietnam’s two biggest cities slip in business competitiveness

Vietnam’s two biggest cities, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, dropped in the Provincial Competitiveness Index of 2010, which was announced in Hanoi on March 16.
Danang continues ranking the first in the PCI
Hanoi fell 10 levels, now standing at the 43rd among 63 cities and provinces nationwide, and Ho Chi Minh City dropped seven levels to the 23rd.
These cities are all big urban areas with strong development of infrastructure, but are ranked at the bottom of the list in terms of land access, with Ho Chi Minh City taking the rank of 62nd and Hanoi at 63rd.
The country’s third largest city, Haiphong, also slipped 12 levels from its 2009 ranking.
Meanwhile, the central city of Danang held its position as the best performer for the third year in a row, followed by Lao Cai and Dong Thap provinces.
Mekong Delta localities have continued witnessing improvements in the quality of economic management. The region accounted for nine of the 22 provinces and cities given "excellent" or "high" rankings in the 2010 PCI.
The 2010 PCI survey carried out by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), the 6th of its kind in Vietnam, represents the views of 7,300 private Vietnamese enterprises and 1,000 with foreign investment. The ranking is based on nine aspects, including land access and security of tenure, transparency and access to information, ease and time taken for regulation compliance.
VCCI Deputy Secretary General Tran Huu Huynh was cited by Voice of Vietnam Radio as saying that although Vietnam’s business environment has improved, there still remain challenges facing the country. The PCI survey is a useful tool to help localities work out effective action plans for development.

Businesses worry over invoice printing backlog

Thousands of Vietnamese enterprises are waiting for invoices from printing houses while the deadline for issuing self-printed invoices nears.
Many companies waiting for invoices from Lien Son Co. Ltd.
Under the Ministry of Finance’s regulations, after March 31, local businesses will be responsible for producing their own invoices instead of acquiring them from tax agencies.
However, due to a large volume of orders, many printing houses are saying that they cannot meet the demand by March 31. Meanwhile, tax agencies said that they will not sell invoices to companies during the period these companies wait for the invoices from the printing houses.
Mr T.Q.V., an accountant from Petrolimex Joint Stock Insurance Co.’s Binh Thuan Branch, said his firm made a large order from Lien Son Co. Ltd. in late 2010. They have only received a small portion of their order.
He has come to Ho Chi Minh City-based Lien Son Co. Ltd. seven times to ask about the status of their order, but he walks away only with promises, as the deadline nears.
Ms T., an accountant from an asphalt supply company, said her company ordered invoices from the Finance Printing Company’s Ho Chi Minh City Branch, in mid-December but, to date, they have not received any firm date for the delivery of their order, even though the printing company had said they would have them by late January.
“Every day, customers come to my company and complain about late invoices, causing big losses for us,” T shared.
Finally, she had to go to a tax agency to buy invoices. She is considering lodging a complaint against the printing house.
Many companies decided to cancel contracts with Lien So. Co. Ltd. in search for another printing house despite their higher fees, so that they could ensure getting their orders on time.
Recognising the demand of such companies, the Finance Printing Company’s Ho Chi Minh City Branch has already opened a quick service which can complete the invoice printing for 4-5 hours. However, this service comes at a higher price.
Recently, the Ho Chi Minh City Printing Association has proposed that the General Department of Taxation and Ho Chi Minh City Taxation Department allow companies who face problems and delays in their invoice orders to continue buying invoices through the second quarter of this year.
The printing houses explain that the invoice printing backlog is simply due to demand that is higher than their capacity. Many printing companies also face labour shortage after Tet.

Exporters to US face tough year ahead

Trade barriers, rising production costs and competition from China will make this year a challenging one for Vietnamese exporters to the US market, a senior official said on Friday.
 
Nguyen Duy Khien, head of the American Depart- ment under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, told a seminar held in HCM City that the Vietnamese economy had faced a "complicated situation" since the beginning of this year.
"The increase in the cost of raw materials has made domestic exporters less competitive, especially in the wood, textile and garment and processed foodstuff sectors," he said.
Businesses had also faced difficulties in accessing bank credit, and the resultant capital shortage had hampered expansion of production for exports.
Besides, severe competition from other countries, especially Chinese businesses, would continue to affect Vietnamese export activities this year, Khien said.
In sectors considered Vietnam's strengths like textiles and garments, footwear and furniture, China accounts for a major share in the US market.
Currently, China has surpassed Canada to become the biggest exporter to the US market. Last year, Chinese exports to the US reached USD364.04 billion, accounting for approximately 19.17 percent of US's import turnover.
Trade barriers
The US would continue to impose trade barriers to protect domestic production with legal instruments like the Farm Bill and the Lacey Act which had caused difficulties in the export of Vietnamese shrimp, tra and basa fish, Khien said.
He said the US had a complicated law system and many technical barriers as well as food safety and hygiene regulations, which are different in different states, so Vietnamese firms would find it difficult to navigate them.
Furthermore, most Vietnamese exporters were small businesses that found it very difficult to meet the technical standards set by the US market.
Khien suggested that exporters take several steps to improve economic relations between the two countries.
He said they should carry out market research on the demand as well as legal and technical barriers before trying to penetrate into the US market.
Currently, the overseas Vietnamese community in the US was about 1.3 million, and they should be used as a resource to enter the market as well as a consumer base for Vietnamese products.
Businesses should also pay attention to building and upgrading their websites frequently. Websites play an important role in international trade, especially with US partners. US businesses had the habit of looking for information on the Internet before contacting suppliers, Khien said.
He said the Government needed to provide more policy support to local businesses so that they could improve production and increase their competitiveness. The Government should help organise more trade promotion programmes to popularise Vietnamese trademarks and brands, he added.

Seafarers Union inaugurated to protect HCM City fishermen

Vietnam Seafarers Union HCM City (VNU HCM City) officially came into existence on March 20.
The union's goal was to protect the interests of fishermen and other offshore workers, said Dr Le Tuan, head of VNU HCM City.
"We are planning to organise activities to assist our members, while collecting their opinions on how best to serve their interests, which we will submit to relevant authorities.
We will also arrange training courses," he added.
He also said the union would clamp down on boat owners who registered their vessels in other countries to bypass Vietnamese regulations.
Tuan said Vietnamese vessels were often detained in overseas ports for a variety of reasons, such as a lack of appropriate documentation.
As a result, crew members often went short of food, lost wages and could not contact their families.
He cited the recent case of the Phuc Hai 5 vessel that was detained in Indonesia. The 27 crew members had to live off food provided by local agents and other sailors.
He also said numerous seamen were unaware of their legal rights, which the union would address.
Tuan added that union officials would urge all seafarers to register with the union so that they could be legally protected.
Hanoi's Vietnam Seafarers Union was inaugurated in 2008. It also has a representative office in Ho Chi Minh City.

Black market for USD thrives despite ban

The recent crackdown on the unofficial trade of USD has had the unexpected effect of simply moving the points of trade.
Transactions on the roadside
Since the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has made moves to put a stop to unofficial market for foreign currencies, the trade has simply moved to other locations.
The demand for USD remains high, and those who are willing continue to find ways to profit from a surfeit of customers.
The unofficial foreign currency exchange rate is hovering about between VND19,800 and VND20,400 to buy, and between VND21,700 and VND21,900 or even VND22,000 to sell one USD.
In the meantime, the official rate is between VND20,870, and VND20,865, depending on whether you want to buy or sell.
An owner of one tea stand, who also deals in foreign currency, said, “Since the recent tightening of regulations, we have a third party make the transaction and bring the USD for our customers.”
This was on March 16, when she was selling USD at the price of VND21,700.
Other transactions are often carried out openly on the roadside. However, vendors have started to take some precautions since hearing about the recent bust, on March 8, of a large illegal transaction, amounting to USD400,000.
In addition to foreign currency exchange, these vendors trade in gold bars and jewelery.
Although the SBV has requested that commercial banks provide foreign currency exchange services to meet demand, this service does not seem to have been able to replace the black market.
Ms. Thu Huyen, of Giai Phong Street said, “I find it’s very difficult to buy USD to support my relative’s studies in Singapore. When I go to the gold shops on Ha Trung, they just say ‘no’. At the banks they require so many documents that it makes it nearly impossible.”
Nguyen Ba Hung finds himself in the same situation. He needed USD5,000 for debt settlement. But, despite several days trying to trade in his money at banks, he has failed to acquire the USD he needed.
Concerning this issue, a banking official said commercial banks can only sell USD to individuals who provide required documents. On the other hand they encourage customers to trade in their USD.
“It’a not that banks are running out of foreign currency, but our policy is to keep a reserve of these currencies for import and export reasons,” he said.

Vietnam to continue nuclear project amid crisis

Amid fears over Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant crisis, a top Vietnamese official has confirmed Vietnam will continue with its nuclear project to build a nuclear power plant in a central province in 2014.
Artist’s impression of Vietnam’s future nuclear power plant in Ninh Thuan province (Photo: VietNamNet)
This is a confirmation from chairman of the National Assembly (NA)’s office, Tran Dinh Dan, at a press conference held in Hanoi yesterday to announce the agenda of the ninth NA meeting.
The policy to build the Ninh Thuan nuclear power plant has been passed by the NA - the Vietnamese top lawmaking body, so it will be not discussed again the next NA meeting expected to start on March 21.
It is certain that there will be no change to the project and all preparations for it are underway, he added.
As planned, works on the plant will be started in 2014 and the plant will supply electricity to the whole nation in 2020.
Russia has been selected as the supplier of technologies for the future nuclear power plant in Ninh Thuan province.
Meanwhile, after the Fukushima nuclear incidents, China has conducted security checks at its nuclear power plants and temporarily suspended nuclear power projects that do not meet safety standards.
Vietnam’s nuclear plant safer than Fukushima
At a press conference of the Ministry of Science and Technology two days ago, Hoang Anh Tuan, deputy head of the Atomic Energy Department, said the nuclear incidents in Japan has given Vietnam a new lesson, which is the need to re-consider the selection of construction site for the future nuclear power plant.
In addition, peripheral equipment, such as electric conducting devices, should be taken more into account, he said.
Dr. Ngo Dang Nhan, head of the Vietnam Agency for Radiation and Nuclear Safety, also said the selection of a construction site is of critical importance to the safety of Vietnam.
He emphasized that a construction site should be selected only when it is able to ensure the safety for nature, people and communities.
Vietnam’s future nuclear power plant is expected to be built in Phuong Dinh commune, Thuan Nam district, Ninh Thuan province.
This area has been determined to lie in a zone that is prone to 5-6 Richter scale earthquakes. Therefore, the plant must be designed to be able to survive quakes measuring at least at 6 or 7 on the Richter scale, he warned.
Unlike the Fukushima plant, where the active safety basis is applied, the future nuclear plant in Ninh Thuan has the passive (automatic) safety features, said Prof. Vuong Huu Tan, head of the Vietnam Nuclear Energy Institute.
That means when the future Vietnam plant faces an incident similar to that in Fukushima, the Vietnamese plant will automatically be made cool by an automatic cooling system within 72 hours without any interference from the operator or any additional eclectic source, Prof. Tan said.
The Fukushima I’s reactor from which the accident occurred is kind of an older generation whose anti-earthquake ability is not strong enough to survive the quake on March 11, he added.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Japan helicopters dump water on nuclear plant

Japanese military helicopters dumped water Thursday from huge buckets onto the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant in a bid to douse fuel rods, television images showed.
A member of the US Fairfax County search and rescue team from Virginia helps a colleague slide into a crawl space in a destroyed house to look for survivors in Kamaishi.
A total of three twin-rotor CH-47 Chinooks of the Self-Defence Forces each emptied more than seven tonnes of water onto reactors three and four, according to public broadcaster NHK.
Engineers were focusing their efforts on restoring the power supply to a quake-damaged nuclear plant in an attempt to reactivate its cooling system and avert a meltdown.
Last Friday's massive earthquake and tsunami knocked out the power supply and back-up generators at the Fukushima No. 1 plant on the Pacific coast, some 250 kilometres (155 miles) northeast of Tokyo.
The lack of power has sent temperatures soaring in reactors with fuel rods being exposed as the cooling water evaporated and emitting hydrogen gas and possibly radioactive material, triggering fears of a meltdown.
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said it was preparing to restore outside power lines and connect its damaged transmission system to unaffected lines.
"At the moment, we are concentrating our efforts on this work," spokesman Naohiro Omura told AFP.
"If the restoration work is completed, we will be able to activate various electric pumps and pour water into reactors and pools for spent nuclear fuel."
The Japanese crews grappling with the world's worst nuclear incident since Chernobyl in 1986 were briefly evacuated Wednesday after a spike in radiation levels at the plant.
Earlier they contended with a new fire and feared damage to the vessel containing one of the plant's six reactor cores.
There are also major fears about pools holding spent fuel rods at the plant, which need water to keep them cool. Unlike the reactors, they have no containment vessels.
Some 70 workers have been using low-capacity fire pumps to pour seawater to cool reactors at the plant, according to media reports. They are using electricity from borrowed power supply cars.
A Japanese army helicopter Wednesday aborted its mission to dump water onto the fuel rods due to the high level of radiation above the reactors.
UN atomic watchdog chief Yukiya Amano said the situation at the plant was "very serious" as he prepared to fly out to see the damage for himself.
Japan's Emperor Akihito gave a rare address to a jittery nation Wednesday as the nuclear emergency deepened and millions struggled in desperate conditions after the quake and tsunami disaster.
The television appearance by the emperor emphasised the gravity of the crisis gripping Japan after the 9.0-magnitude quake and the monster waves it unleashed.
Akihito said he was "deeply concerned" about the "unpredictable" situation at the stricken power plant.
"I sincerely hope that we can keep the situation from getting worse," Akihito said in a historic televised address that marked the first time he has intervened in a national crisis.
Gregory Jaczko, chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, warned there was no water left in the spent fuel pool of reactor 4, resulting in "extremely high" radiation levels.
The US military will send a spy drone to take a closer look at the reactors in the troubled plant, Kyodo News reported.
Engineers have been desperately battling a feared meltdown at the 40-year-old plant since the earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems and fuel rods began overheating.
The workers at the plant, which has been hit by four explosions and two fires, have been hailed as heroes.
"Please don't forget that there are people who are working to protect everyone's lives in exchange for their own lives," said one post on Japanese social networking site Mixi.
The government has warned people living up to 10 kilometres (six miles) beyond the 20-kilometre exclusion zone around the plant to stay indoors. More than 200,000 people have already been evacuated from the zone.
The US embassy in Tokyo warned American citizens living within 50 miles (80 kilometres) of the plant to evacuate or seek shelter.
Other foreign governments also urged their citizens to steer clear of the quake-stricken northeast of Japan and the capital Tokyo amid fears of further aftershocks and a widening nuclear disaster.
Japan's chief government spokesman Yukio Edano however said radiation levels from the plant posed no immediate health threat outside the 20-kilometre exclusion zone.
But as crews battled to prevent a nuclear meltdown, the European Union's energy chief said the situation had spun out of control.
"The site is effectively out of control," energy commissioner Guenther Oettinger told a European Parliament committee, one day after he said Japan was facing "apocalypse."
France's Nuclear Safety Authority said the disaster now equated to a six on the seven-point international scale for nuclear accidents, ranking the crisis second only in gravity to the level-seven Chernobyl disaster in 1986.
Amano, the Japanese chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, had insisted Tuesday there was no comparison to the Chernobyl crisis, when radiation spewed across Europe.
Aside from the nuclear threat, the full scale of the quake and tsunami disaster was becoming clear as more details emerged of the staggering death and devastation in the worst-hit northeast.
"The number of people killed is increasing day by day and we do not know how many people have fallen victim," said the emperor, who is held in deep respect by many Japanese. "I pray for the safety of as many people as possible."
"People are being forced to evacuate in such severe conditions of bitter cold, with shortages of water and fuel... I cannot help praying that rescue work is done swiftly and people's lives get better, even a little."
And already jangled nerves were frayed further by a series of aftershocks including a strong 6.0-magnitude earthquake that swayed buildings in Tokyo.
The official toll of the dead and missing after the quake and tsunami flattened Japan's northeast coast rose to nearly 13,000, police said, with the number of confirmed dead at 4,314.
But reports continued to come in which indicated that the final toll could be much higher, with the mayor of the coastal town of Ishinomaki saying the number of missing there was likely to hit 10,000, Kyodo News reported.
On Saturday, public broadcaster NHK reported that around 10,000 people were also unaccounted for in the port town of Minamisanriku, again in Miyagi prefecture.
Millions have been left without water, electricity, fuel or enough food and hundreds of thousands more are homeless, stoically coping with freezing cold and wet conditions in the northeast.
The governor of Fukushima prefecture, home to the crippled nuclear plant, said people were at breaking point.
"The worry and anger of the people of Fukushima has been pushed to the limit," Yuhei Sato told NHK.
With nerves on edge across the world's third-biggest economy and beyond, people across Asia have been stripping shelves of essentials for fear of a major emission of radiation from the power plant on the east coast.
The Japanese government has warned that panic buying in towns and cities that have not been directly affected by the twin disasters could hurt its ability to provide aid to the devastated areas.
Radiation levels in the capital's vast urban sprawl of 30 million people have see-sawed without ever reaching harmful levels, according to the government.
Beyond Japan, Asian nations vowed to crack down on hoax messages warning about radiation spreading beyond Japan, which have helped stoke growing unease over the unfolding crisis