Agence France-Presse
Last updated 07:03pm (Mla time) 12/19/2006


HANOI -- The United States Congress is considering voting in funds next year to help Vietnam clean areas heavily contaminated by toxic defoliant Agent Orange, a US official said in Hanoi Tuesday.

"We are going to provide assistance to help clean up sites where dioxin continues to pose serious health threats to people living there," said Tim Rieser, aide to Democrat senator Patrick Leahy.

"We also want to look for ways to extend assistance to people with disabilities," he told journalists in Hanoi.

The funds had not yet been voted and the details of the program remained to be defined. But there was a consensus between the Congress and the administration about the need to help, he added.

It would be the first ever large-scale environmental cleaning operation concerning Agent Orange in Vietnam funded by the US. The Vietnam War ended in 1975.

US forces widely sprayed Agent Orange in southern Vietnam during the conflict to deprive enemy guerrillas of forest cover and to destroy food crops.

Vietnam says millions of people have suffered a range of illnesses and birth defects as a result, a claim also made by many war veterans from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Korea.

Washington has denied responsibility and has pointed to an absence of universally agreed scientific data on the effects of Agent Orange.

"It is not a situation where one can know definitively that a person is affected by dioxin. Science does not appear to be able to reach this definitive causal link," Rieser said.

"But actually it is not that important... We don't need proof. We are interested in helping people in this country with disabilities, whether they are caused by Agent Orange, landmines, birth defect or whatever.

"The question is not whether we are going to find ways to assist Vietnam in dealing with the problem. The question is simply how we will do that."

At least three hotspots have been identified in the country that still pose a threat to public health -- in the southern city of Bien Hoa, the central city of Danang and Phu Cat, in central Binh Dinh province.

 

Hi friends,

Today I bring to you an exciting story about working effectively. The story addresses ?let?s being lazy in intelligent way to make more result from less of energy?. Relax yourself and find useful tips for your tight schedule^_________^.

Friend:  ?You must be joking when you say become lazier.?

Me:  ?I?m deadly serious. I can?t focus well enough on the 20 percent if I?m also trying to do everything else. Far better to spend twice as much time on the magic 20 percent, and far less on the rest. Bottom line: 60 percent more results for 60 percent less energy.?

Friend:  ?Shouldn?t we put 100 percent energy into the magic 20 percent and get four times more??

Me:  ?Fine in theory, and in practice eventually, but first slow down. Stop inessential things. There?s a limit to how much time we can spend on the magic activities without diluting quality. Force ourselves to do less. Win time to find more vital areas to work on and more effective things to do.?

Friend:  ?But you don?t really believe in being lazy, do you??

Me:  ?There are lazy people, like Ronald Reagan, who achieved a great deal just by being focused on one or two objectives. And there are super-hard workers, like President Carter, who had too many objectives and failed frenetically. Still, there are excellent scientists or artists, obsessed with their work, who love it. I wouldn?t tell them to become lazy. I?m not really advocating laziness, but time to concentrate on what matters. If you don?t like the word ?lazy,? try ?relaxed.? Do what you enjoy, do it calmly and without worries.

?A hard-working person is often too busy to spot what?s really significant. A lazy person wants to do as little as possible and so concentrates only on the essentials. What?s really productive is a lazy person who thinks new thoughts and is focused on making them happen. Thinking is often disturbing, sometimes even frightening. Burying ourselves in trivia is less threatening.

?For most of us, the only way to create something new and valuable is to slow down, do fewer things, chill out. If you really love what you?re doing, you don?t need to be lazy. If you?re doing lots of things you don?t enjoy, cut them, keeping just the valuable and enjoyable things.?

 

Today witnesses the launch of Opinion chapter on Press Release. This chapter is the chance for me sharing opinion to your about society, culture, econimic, education and so on. Hope that you like it.

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Opinion Chapter 1

Dear all my best friends,

Today I am going to share with you my opinions about job taking by submit CVs and cover letters. As far as you know, the glossaries of CV, resume, and cover letter are relative with the personal minds and presses nowadays. When you would like to apply for a job, the prospective companies would ask you submit your CV/resume and cover letter for short-list. Otherwise, if you are employers, you also like to do this way.

However, have you ever asked yourself or your friends why did you or they do it? I guess that you did not serious making this question because you just simple thought that it was needed for job taking. Everybody made it therefore you did too. I saw something was wrong here.

I don?t refuse that CVs and cover letters help employers easier to making short-list to choose suitable candidate as fast as possible. But on the effective selection is not going straightforward. First, the employees have to make their application kit being impressive and attractive that is like they ?decorate? a picture than write an inspired story. They have to finish a bored task to get the position of the company than they would like to be a part of it. Second are the problems of cover letters. Employers are like a model letter that you can find on career guide articles than a letter is free to write by heart and passion. Summary, a rigid formula of job taking is: An attractive CV + a practical cover letter = chance for next round (also boring and rigid).

Now let?s turn into interviews that I really feel stress on it. I make a conversation for example:

Employer: ?Why did you leave your last job??

Candidate: ?I left my last job because I wanted to find the more challenges in my career??

Employer: ?Why do you want to join our company??

Candidate: ?I apply for ABC because I think I have opportunities to gain experiences of ?for my career?I feel ABC giving me the assurance of career??

I am sure that you are too familiar with above conversation. I really don?t understand why employers like this kind of questions. Do they look for honest? A master of lie answer is easy to pass it. Moreover, an interview is something like candidates must come in a place with a formal dress, sit down, and try to answer the questions from interviewers or make the questions if needs. It?s really too boring and uncreative.

I honestly say that I hate this way of recruitment. I now turn in difference way that I call direct for manager and ask him spending his time for me in coffee shop. With a coffee cup, we can free to talk about the company, the position, his or my biographies to making mutual understand. Certainly, this way is taking more time than to get and you are able face with the problems of his tight schedule or even his poor opinions in this way. However, I myself find this is more interest and reality than CVs & cover letters.

You might agree or not with me, but I am glad to share with you my opinion. I will look forward to hear from you. You might hold a useful recruitment method that other can learn from it. I hope my topic is the chance for us sharing the stories of job taking from employers as well as employees.