The population of the world has been increasing faster and faster.In 10.000 B.C.There were probably only 10 milion ppl.In A.D.1 there were 300 milion.It took 1750 years for the world population reached 625 milion.In 1850,only 100 years later,the population reached the figure of 1300 milion.In 1950,the figure has more than doubled to reach 2510 milion.In 1985,only 35 years later,there were 4670 milion ppl.In 2000,the world's population was about 6.6 bilion,and by 2010 it's expected to be over 7 bilion.
Does the earth have enough resources to support this many ppl?Diferent sientists give different answer to this question.Some say that there are enough resources to support 8 bilion ppl.Others say that we must limit population growth b/c our resources are limited.Only 10 percent of the earth's land can be used for farming abd another 20% for raising animals.there's limited amount of petroleum.There are also limits to the amouts of iron,silver,gold,and other metals.There's a limit to the water we can use-most of the earth's water is salt water,and most of the fresh water is frozen at the North and South Poles.
Research has repeatedly shown that average Third World woman has more children than she wants.Among the women who don't think thay have too many children,half of them don't want any more,they think they have already had enough.However,although milions of women in the world want to limit the size of their families,they know of no safe way to have fewer children.Safe birth-control methods for family planning are not avaiable to them.It's time governments and international organisations should do something to help them so that the world population growth can desrease intead od continuing to increase.
(Adapted from Patricia Ackert)

Lunar New Year,or Tet is VietNam's main holiday.It's the grandest and most important occasion in the year which falls sometime between 19 Jan and 20 Feb on the Western calendar.Tet marks the beginning of spring and for agrarian people,the start of the New Year
The preparations and celebrations used to be spread over moths but nowadays,the holiday is much shorter.Still,there is great excitement building up well b4 Tet.Streets are decorated with coloured lights and red banners.Shops're full of goods.Ppl are busy buying gifts,cleaning and decorating the house and cooking traditional foods.
Homes are often decorated with trees and flowers at this time.The traditional flowers for Tet are peach flowers in the North and apricot flowers in the South.Besides,the kumquat tree with its ripe deep orange fruits's popular throughout the country.One of Tet's most special foods is "banh chung",which is made from sticky,yellow mung beans and fatty pork."Mut",which is candied fruit such as sugared apples,plums and even tomatoes,is also popular.
On the first days of Tet everyone tries to be nice and polite to others.PPl believe that what they do on the 1st day of the year will influence their luck during the whole year.Only good comments can be made.Ppl visit other family members or friends and they exchange New year's wishes.Children receive their "lucky money" inside red envelopes.Many ppl go to the pagoda to pray for happiness for themselves and their family.Both children and adults take part in games and various forms of entertainment.Tet is really a time of fun and festival throughout the country.
So, if you plan to visit Viet Nam, why don't you visit in Tet holiday.I'm sure you will have a interesting vacation ! ^_^

He is a boy born without arms..Everything he wants to do depends totally on his parents, from eating to going to bed, from moving to bathing. Life certainly plays a very hard time on him. However, he still lives for the love of his parents and also for his own sake even though the nightmare keeps going on and on day after day. He wants to go to school. But he has no hands to write, so, he thinks about using his toes to hold the pencil. At first it is very difficult, the muscle pain often occurs and it is so intense that he would never forget it until the end of his life. This is the kind of story you'd hear about most of the Vietnamese childern born without arms in Vietnam.

This disability is not natural. Along with various other kinds of birth defects and sometimes even blood cancer, it is caused by Agent Orange, the chemical herbicide used by America in order to kill plants which served as a camouflage for guerilla fighters during the Vietnam War.

According to Wikipedia, Agent Orange as a military defoliant was used from 1961 and discontinued in 1971, after over 6000 spraying missions in Vietnam and Cambodia, causing serious harms to the health of exposed Vietnameses, Cabodians and Americans, their children and grandchildren

An April 2003 report paid for by the National Academy of Sciences concludes that during this war, 3,181 villages were sprayed directly with herbicides. Between 2.1 and 4.8 million people "would have been present during the spraying". Furthermore, many U.S military personnel were also sprayed or came in contact with herbicides in those recently sprayed areas.

The American Government should be responsible for the pain of those still suffering from Agent Orange, the deadly chemical warfare.

What America with its Agent Orange has caused to innocent people:

Agent Orange. also know as "the fire that doesn't burn", causes very serious health disorders.

Agent Orange is a colorless liquid. It got its name from the stripes on the barrels used to transport it. It is a product of America, produced under contract for the Army by companies such as Diamond Shamrock, Dow, Hercules, Monsanto, T-H Agricultural & Nutrition, Thompson Chemicals and Uniroyal.

Agent Orange which contains dioxin- the most toxic chemical known to science- disabled and sickened soldiers, civilians and several generations of their offsrping on two continents.

Medical evidence inidcates that certain cancers (for exmaple: soft tissue non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma), diabete (type II) and in children spina bifida and other birth defects are attributable to the exposure of Agent Orange.

First, second and third generations of the Vietnamese population, those who participated to the war or belong to the village belonging to the spraying areas suffered these effects.

America created X Men, in which the mutation gives way to human evolution. You also have Daredevil in which the main character after somehow getting a biological substance in his eyes, became blind but with an extremely sensitive hearing capacity. Well, mutation in real life doesn't fit into any of these fantasies.

Although powerful and touching, these pictures can never represent all of the suffering still going on.
Imagine a young Vietname couple hoping to build a happy family after the war has passed. Either the husband has been soldier or they were present during the spraying of Agent Orange. Their first child had birh defects and died soon after being born. Their hope is still there so they had the second. But the same thing happened for the second and maybe even the third. And in Vietnam, because of superstition, people believe that when the kids have incurable sickness, it is because of all the wrong things their parents have been doing in this life or in their previous life.


These Vietnamese, yet poor and ignorant, are wrong. The culprit of this is neither God nor fortune. The American government should hold all the responsibility for this.

The American government has a moral and legal obligation, under international law, to compensate the people of Vietnam for the devastating impact of Agent Orange and to assist in alleviating its effect. Indeed, the U.S governent recognized this responsibility: in the Peace Accords signed in Paris in 1973, the administration of Richard Nixon promised to contribue $3 billions dollars toward healing the wounds of war, and to post-war reconstruction of Vietnam

Nonetheless, 30 years after the end of the Vietnam War, the government has yet to make good on its formal commitment and moral obligation to assist the Vietnamese people's recovery from the chemical warfare waged against them and their land. Neither has it met its responsibility to the peoples of Laos and Cambodia, whose lands were also poinsoned by the same chemical weapons.

On January 31, 2004, a victim's rights group, the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/ Dioxin (VAVA), filed a class action lawsuit in a US Federal District Court in Brooklyn, New York, against several US companies, for liability in causing personal injury, by developing and producing the chemical.

On March 10, 2005, the District Court judge dimissed the suit, ruling that there was no legal basis for the plaintiffs' claim. The judge concluded that Agent Orange was not considered a weapon under international law at the time of its use by the US; that the US was not prohibited from using it as an herbicide; and that the companies which produced the substance were not liable for the method of its use by the governemnt. The US government, which has sovereign immunity, had not been a target of the lawsuit. However, in 1984, chemical companies that manufactured Agent Orange paid $180 million into a fund for United States veterans following a lawsuit.

Despite of the court ruling, campaign for Agent Orange court justice will be continued. The US Fund for Reconciliation and Development organization believe that "the ruling against the plaintiffs does not end the legal debate or absolve the chemical companies and the US Governent of responsibility. While waiting for an appropriate response from the government, what can we do to show our support for the Vietnamese people?

These are the possible solutions:

1- Signing the petition for justice for Agent Orange victim. The goal is one million signatures in this country. The petition will be presented to Congress and the President.

2- Educating our friends, co-workers and neighbors about the suffering caused by Agent Orange in Vietnam and in other wars our government has waged.

3- Public donations for Vietnamese Agent Orange victims.

Now that you've know about the Agent Orange problem, it is up to you to act upon your morale and responsibility.

Wars do not end when the bombs stop falling and the fighting ceases. The devastation continues long after, in the land and in the minds and bodies of the affected population.
Today, three million Vietnamese suffer the effects of chemical defoliants used by the United States during the Vietnam War. In order to deny food and protection to those deemed to be "the enemy," the U.S. defoliated the forests of Vietnam with the deadly chemicals Agent Orange, White, Blue, Pink, Green and Purple. Agent Orange, which was contaminated with trace amounts of TCDD Dioxin — the most toxic chemical known to science — disabled and sickened soldiers, civilians and several generations of their offspring on two continents.

In addition to the millions of Vietnamese still affected by this deadly poison, tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers are also affected. It has caused birth defects in hundreds of thousands of children in Vietnam and the U.S. — that is, the second and third generations of those who were exposed to Agent Orange decades ago. Medical evidence indicates that certain cancers (for example, soft tissue non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma), diabetes (type II), and in children spina bifida and other birth defects, are attributable to the exposure.

The deadly mark left by Agent Orange on the natural environment of Vietnam includes the destruction of mangrove forests and the long-term poisoning of soil and crops.

Surviving Vietnam veterans in the U.S., after many years of organized action, have finally achieved limited compensation from our government for some illnesses they suffer due to Agent Orange poisoning. While this struggle continues, the three million surviving Vietnamese victims received no such compensation, nor any humanitarian aid from the U.S. government.

Our government has a moral and legal obligation, under international law, to compensate the people of Vietnam for the devastating impact of Agent Orange, and to assist in alleviating its effects. Indeed, the U.S. government recognized this responsibility: In the Peace Accords signed in Paris in 1973 the administration of Richard Nixon promised to contribute $3 billion dollars toward healing the wounds of war, and to post-war reconstruction of Vietnam.

Nonetheless, 30 years after the end of the Vietnam War, our government has yet to make good on its formal commitment and moral obligation to assist the Vietnamese people's recovery from the chemical warfare waged against them and their land. Neither has it met its responsibility to the peoples of Laos and Cambodia, whose lands were also poisoned by the same chemical weapons.

Our focus is achieving justice for the Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange. We are also mindful of the fact that our government has continued to use chemical weapons, including depleted uranium and napalm, in Iraq and other places. Our actions therefore are part of an on-going international campaign to end the use of toxic weapons and to achieve justice and accountability for all victims.

Wars do not end when the bombs stop falling and the fighting ceases. The devastation continues long after, in the land and in the minds and bodies of the affected population.
Today, three million Vietnamese suffer the effects of chemical defoliants used by the United States during the Vietnam War. In order to deny food and protection to those deemed to be "the enemy," the U.S. defoliated the forests of Vietnam with the deadly chemicals Agent Orange, White, Blue, Pink, Green and Purple. Agent Orange, which was contaminated with trace amounts of TCDD Dioxin — the most toxic chemical known to science — disabled and sickened soldiers, civilians and several generations of their offspring on two continents.

In addition to the millions of Vietnamese still affected by this deadly poison, tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers are also affected. It has caused birth defects in hundreds of thousands of children in Vietnam and the U.S. — that is, the second and third generations of those who were exposed to Agent Orange decades ago. Medical evidence indicates that certain cancers (for example, soft tissue non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma), diabetes (type II), and in children spina bifida and other birth defects, are attributable to the exposure.

The deadly mark left by Agent Orange on the natural environment of Vietnam includes the destruction of mangrove forests and the long-term poisoning of soil and crops.

Surviving Vietnam veterans in the U.S., after many years of organized action, have finally achieved limited compensation from our government for some illnesses they suffer due to Agent Orange poisoning. While this struggle continues, the three million surviving Vietnamese victims received no such compensation, nor any humanitarian aid from the U.S. government.

Our government has a moral and legal obligation, under international law, to compensate the people of Vietnam for the devastating impact of Agent Orange, and to assist in alleviating its effects. Indeed, the U.S. government recognized this responsibility: In the Peace Accords signed in Paris in 1973 the administration of Richard Nixon promised to contribute $3 billion dollars toward healing the wounds of war, and to post-war reconstruction of Vietnam.

Nonetheless, 30 years after the end of the Vietnam War, our government has yet to make good on its formal commitment and moral obligation to assist the Vietnamese people's recovery from the chemical warfare waged against them and their land. Neither has it met its responsibility to the peoples of Laos and Cambodia, whose lands were also poisoned by the same chemical weapons.

Our focus is achieving justice for the Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange. We are also mindful of the fact that our government has continued to use chemical weapons, including depleted uranium and napalm, in Iraq and other places. Our actions therefore are part of an on-going international campaign to end the use of toxic weapons and to achieve justice and accountability for all victims.

The Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign is an initiative of U.S. veterans, Vietnamese Americans and all concerned about peace and justice. Vietnamese citizens have filed a lawsuit to hold the chemical companies responsible for the crimes against humanity of which their products were a part. Now it's our turn to act: With this campaign, we seek to fulfill our responsibility by insisting that our government honor its moral and legal responsibility to compensate the Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange.