News Lelemuku

HO CHI MINH, LELEMUKU.COM - If a basic tenet of communism is equality, including based on gender, then from some points of view the Socialist Republic of Vietnam would seem to be faring well on its founding ideology.

Women are visible everywhere across the country of 100 million people, whether they are running iconic companies, government ministries, or single-parent households. Female Vietnamese also show up in jobs stereotypically associated with males, such as construction workers, taxi drivers, and police officers.

But when considering all of the data that indicate Vietnam is ahead of most other countries in gender equality - like the percentage of women who are in the labor force or who are chief executive officers - it is easy to overlook the fact that men still have an edge in so many areas.

The average income of women in the Southeast Asian country is $224 (5.2 million Vietnam dong) a month, according to figures released in March by Adecco Vietnam, a firm that sells staffing services. That pay level amounts to just 81% of the average income of men.

In addition to the wage gap, there is the matter of unpaid labor. Beyond the official work day, Vietnamese women spend another five hours daily on tasks like cleaning the house or looking after a sick relative.

“Every day has just 24 hours, to be divided among work, family, and oneself,” said Nguyen Hong Phuong, the director of finance at Adecco Vietnam. “It will not always be divided evenly, but balance and prioritizing will always be the key.”

While men are starting to pick up the slack, they still enjoy pride of place in the household. For a man, the advantage begins even before birth, when parents prefer to bear a boy rather than a girl, through a childhood without the expectation he will help with domestic chores, until adulthood, when the man switches from having his mother care for him to having his wife take on the burden.

​The rate of men who have indefinite term work contracts with foreign invested companies is 73.9%, compared with 67.7% for women, according to Adecco Vietnam. It also said that in job interviews, employers tend to ask female candidates not about their work experience or their professional goals, but about their marriage and family plans, as it would cost money for them to hire someone who eventually gets pregnant and goes on leave.

In an indication of the responsibility that still falls on women in Vietnam, one of the key priorities for female employees when they are seeking out an employer is that the company has a suitable parental leave policy, according to a study released March 8 by the United States Agency for International Development. That is in contrast to the Philippines, where women who were polled said they want diversity in the workplace, and in contrast to Singapore, where women said they want flexible work arrangements, like working from home. The research was conducted jointly by USAID Green Invest Asia and Moxie Future, which both advocate sustainable development.

As in so many countries, women in Vietnam bear the brunt of poverty and the repercussions of natural disasters. That is why there are programs like Technologies for Equality, a competition overseen by the Women’s Initiative for Startups and Entrepreneurship.

Contestants submit inventions that can improve the lives of women in the countryside for a chance to win up to $7,000. So far there have been innovations like Safe Journey, a mobile app that helps migrant workers find jobs and housing, since many rural women move to urban areas to find employment and send money back to their hometowns.

Another is a facility where ethnic minority tea farmers can process their crops for higher value-added products. Ireland and Australia, which are funding the project, will announce the winners later this month.

“This aims to unearth and support innovative solutions to ensure rural women and girls can fully participate and prosper in the workforce and the economy,” Vice Minister Bui The Duy at the Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam said at the event launching the competition.

There is plenty that is going right in Vietnam. With its 71% female workforce participation, and the 25% of CEOs who are women, Vietnam probably has some insight for the rest of the world on equality. Local women generally have maternity leave, workplace protections relating to pregnancy and childcare, low rates of sex based violence, and overall freedom and respect in society.

At the same time, some of Vietnam’s metrics look good because other countries’ do not. Even in a socialist society there is still a ways to go for complete gender equality. (VOA)

WASHINGTON, LELEMUKU.COM -  The United States is acknowledging that many countries are not heeding warnings about the possible security risks in allowing Chinese tech giant Huawei to build the next generation of high-speech wireless networks known as 5G.

The trend is particularly clear in Southeast Asia, where even U.S. allies are racing ahead to partner with Huawei and launch 5G networks in the coming years.

In February, Thailand launched a Huawei 5G test network in Chonburi. Thai authorities indicated that the affordability of Huawei's 5G services offset potential concerns over cybersecurity.

In the Philippines, its Globe Telecom is rolling out the nation's 5G network in partnership with Huawei.

In Malaysia, the country's leading communications and digital services company Maxis signed a memorandum of understanding with Huawei to cooperate and accelerate 5G development.

This week, six former top U.S. military officials, including two who were commanders for the U.S. Pacific Command, issued a blunt warning of a future where a Chinese-developed 5G network could be widely adopted among American allies.

"There is reason for concern that in the future the U.S. will not be able to use networks that rely on Chinese technology for military operations in the territories of traditional U.S. allies or emerging partners in Europe, Asia and beyond," said the former military leaders in a statement.

"The immense bandwidth and access potential inherent in commercial 5G systems means effective military operations in the future could benefit from military data being pushed over these networks," they added.

And U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday warned some European countries could soon find themselves cut off from U.S. intelligence and other critical information if they continue to cultivate relationships with Chinese technology firms.

"We've done our risk analysis," Pompeo said, following a NATO ministerial meeting in Washington. "We have now shared that with our NATO partners, with countries all around the world. We've made clear that if the risk exceeds the threshold for the United States, we simply won't be able to share that information any longer."

For U.S. officials, the threat posed by a Chinese-built communication network could not be clearer.

"Huawei is not a state-owned enterprise. But Huawei is a Chinese company and what we do know is several things. One, broadly speaking, Chinese companies will respond to requests for demands from the Chinese government. Telecommunications is a vital part of national backbones. It has military security implications. It has financial and economic implications," said Dean Cheng, a senior research fellow of Washington-based Heritage Foundation.

​Cheap. Fast. Secure?

Huawei insists that it would not turn information over to Chinese authorities if they demanded it, but few outside analysts believe any Chinese company would stand up the country's authoritarian government. U.S. officials are even more direct.

"What we do is in our national interests, we see with companies like Huawei that are supported, if not directed, by central authorities in China. We see challenges and potential threats to the sanctity, the security of our systems in our networks, and the best we can do with our friends and partners and allies, is to share our information, share our experience," Patrick Murphy, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, told VOA at a recent seminar at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

That message clearly has had a mixed reception, especially after years when the United States' vast electronic eavesdropping capabilities have drawn criticism.

Richard Kramer, founder of Arete, a technology research firm based in London, said leaks from U.S. security agencies in recent years have revealed close cooperation between the federal government and U.S. telecoms and tech firms around intelligence gathering.

The U.S. position, he said, seems to be: "We don't want China to spy on us, but we want to be able to spy on them."

Will pressure backfire?

Even in countries where there are open political concerns over the growing power of Chinese influence, too much U.S. pressure could backfire, said Anthony Nelson, Director of the East Asia and Pacific practice at the Albright Stonebridge Group, a global business strategy firm.

"Southeast Asian countries that are looking to balance their military relationships with the U.S. and China are not motivated by Washington's security concerns, with the notable exception of Vietnam," Nelson said.

Vietnam has had tensions with China in recent years over disputed territory and trade issues. Vietnamese Ambassador to the U.S., Ha Kim Ngoc, told VOA that all companies operating in the country need to respect Vietnam's sovereignty.

"We have one principle: They need to respect our sovereignty, national sovereignty," said the ambassador at the recent USIP event. (VOA)

MANILA, LELEMUKU.COM - Two bombs exploded outside a Roman Catholic cathedral on a southern Philippine island where Muslim militants are active, killing 20 people and wounding 81 during a Sunday Mass, officials said.

The police lowered an earlier death toll, saying it was the result of double counting. The fatalities include 15 civilians and five troops. Among the wounded are 14 troops, two police and 65 civilians.

The first bomb went off in or near the Jolo cathedral in the provincial capital, followed by a second blast outside the compound as government forces were responding to the attack, security officials said.

The government says in a statement it will pursue the attackers “until every killer is brought to justice and put behind bars. The law will give them no mercy.”

Philippine National Police chief Oscar Albayalde said that at least 19 people died and 48 were wounded. Police and military reports said the casualties included troops and civilians.

Troops seal area

Photos on social media showed debris and bodies lying on a busy street outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, which has been hit by bombs in the past. Troops in armored carriers sealed off the main road leading to the church while vehicles were transporting the dead and wounded to the hospital. Some casualties were evacuated by air to nearby Zamboanga city.

“I have directed our troops to heighten their alert level, secure all places of worships and public places at once, and initiate pro-active security measures to thwart hostile plans,” said Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana in a statement.

Jolo island has long been troubled by the presence of Abu Sayyaf militants, who are blacklisted by the United States and the Philippines as a terrorist organization because of years of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings.

No one has immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

Autonomous region

It came nearly a week after minority Muslims in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation endorsed a new autonomous region in the southern Philippines in hopes of ending nearly five decades of a separatist rebellion that has left 150,000 people dead. Although most of the Muslim areas approved the autonomy deal, voters in Sulu province, where Jolo is located, rejected it. The province is home to a rival rebel faction that’s opposed to the deal as well as smaller militant cells that not part of any peace process.

Western governments have welcomed the autonomy pact. They worry that small numbers of Islamic State-linked militants from the Middle East and Southeast Asia could forge an alliance with Filipino insurgents and turn the south into a breeding ground for extremists.

“This bomb attack was done in a place of peace and worship, and it comes at a time when we are preparing for another stage of the peace process in Mindanao,” said Gov. Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. “Human lives are irreplaceable,” he added, calling on Jolo residents to cooperate with authorities to find the perpetrators of this “atrocity.”

Security officials were looking “at different threat groups and they still can’t say if this has something to do with the just concluded plebiscite,” Albayalde, the national police chief, told ABS-CBN TV network.

Militant groups

Aside from the small but brutal Abu Sayyaf group, other militant groups in Sulu include a small band of young jihadis aligned with the Islamic State group, which has also carried out assaults, including ransom kidnappings and beheadings.

Abu Sayyaf militants are still holding at least five hostages, a Dutch national, two Malaysians, an Indonesian and a Filipino, in their jungle bases mostly near Sulu’s Patikul town, not far from Jolo.

Government forces have pressed on sporadic offensives to crush the militants, including those in Jolo, a poverty-wracked island of more than 700,000 people. A few thousand Catholics live mostly in the capital of Jolo.

The cathedral is in Jolo town center in front of a square and near a budget hotel, a bank and commercial stores as well as a public market. (VOA)