Homosexuality and LGBT rights in Vietnam Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Homosexuality and LGBT rights in Vietnam - Essay Example The country hosts highly talented people belonging to a variety of professions including artists, scientists, lawyers, and economists. Still, the discrimination of the society toward the LGBT community in general is overt. Vietnam is just another country among a range of conservative countries in which homosexuality is perceived as a taboo. While people hold different views about it, the view against homosexuality is carried by a vast majority of people in the society. Although a Google search over the keywords â€Å"Dong tinh† leads an individual to more than 250 million links in a fraction of a second, yet most of the links reveal the negative stance of the society of Vietnam over the topic of homosexuality. Most people in Vietnam express curiosity and distress over the topic, and articles citing cases of discrimination against the homosexuals in different ways can be readily found. However, the situation has started to change recently in favor of the LGBT community in Vietn am, even though the country has to go a long way before equality of rights of the LGBT community can be established. A major hurdle in the way of social acceptance of the LGBT community in Vietnam is certain misunderstandings. At a conference organized for gay-rights, Le Quang Binh, the think-tank leader mentioned that while 57 per cent of the Vietnamese thought of homosexuality as a social fad, 48 per cent of them thought that it was a curable condition. Nguyen Thanh Tam, the Viet Pride founder recalled the curiosity shown by people to see the rainbow flags at the last year’s event in these words, â€Å"People were running up to us asking why we were carrying rainbow flags. They wanted to know what product we were marketing† (Tam cited in Phillips). According to the LGBT activist Tam, life for the lesbians is made particularly complicated by the police as the police hauls them in for questioning on charges that while their gender is mentioned as female on their identity cards, they look like boys to the cops. A major barrier in the way of the LGBT movement is social conformity. Peopl e belonging to the minority are understood by others with difficulty since people tend to follow the norm that being different is bad. Rights of the LGBT community in Vietnam is a pleasant outlier among the human-rights statistics’ bleak set. The police has arrested many dissident bloggers in 2013 whereas the total number of political prisoners in detention in Vietnam surpasses 150 (Phillips). The case of Dieu Cay, the campaigning journalist is one of the most high-profile cases in Vietnam. â€Å"Suffering a raft of serious health problems that require round-the-clock care, the activist is serving a 12-year sentence for â€Å"disseminating antistate information and materials,† and on June 22, embarked on an ongoing hunger strike to protest his treatment† (Phillips). Same-sex couples in Vietnam have been fined for many decades for holding the relationship ceremonies in the past. Contrary to the decades-long history of anti-gay sentiment in Vietnam, circumstances have started to change in favor of the LGBT community as a result of alteration in the laws. Gay and lesbian couples are likely to soon be allowed to conduct ceremonies of relationship in Vietnam. Lawmakers in Vietnam have started to conduct a debate regarding the hope of the advocates of gay rights and their allies that Vietnam might permit same-sex marriages in near future. Of late, the National Assembly of Vietnam has scheduled the commencement of a debate regarding amendment of the Law of Marriage and the Family which would, in effect, annul the ban placed over same-sex marriage, though the law would not allow

Uncovering the Mystery of Capital Review Essay Example for Free

Uncovering the Mystery of Capital Review Essay Nigeria post independence has aimed to develop an economic system in which investment and ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations. Sadly she suffers the same fate most developing countries and former communist nations that trend the same path encounter: Abject Failure. Hernando De Soto in his book; The Mystery of Capital, studies the effect of capitalism in the west and tries to analyse why such a strategy is so successful there, but fails to make an impact every other place it is being introduced, Nigeria inclusive. Capitalism entails among other things foreign investments, stable currencies, transparent banking practices, free trade and also privatisation of state owned industries. However, Hernando describes the major ingredient that is missing in countries trying to adopt capitalism as â€Å"Ability to produce Capital†. Capital is a force that raises the productivity of labour and creates the wealth of nations. It is the lifeblood of the capitalist system, the foundation of progress and the one thing that poor countries of the world fail to produce. Nigeria is a typical example of a country with vast potential that has tried and failed to adopt capitalism system of governance and this is due to the fact that she has failed to produce enough capital to propel her growth. Nigeria has adapted all the western inventions that support capitalism system but has failed to set up the necessary structure required to take off the system. In the west, every asset is represented in a property document that is the visible sign of a vast hidden process that connects all these assets to the rest of the economy. Effective documentation of such asset can lead to the becoming source of capital. The west has effectively implemented such a system and as such draw capital out of the assets documented. In America for instance, mortgage on the entrepreneur’s asset is the easiest source of fund. This is due to the fact that the assets are registered and well documented, can be proven to belong to the said entrepreneur, has a documented value that covers the credit amount he needs, and can be sold off legally to recover the credit if it crystallises. The same cannot be said of Nigeria, where assets are poorly registered, documentation outdated and exchange of assets from one owner to another is largely untraceable. Trade within the country is usually focused on local buyers who usually have a long friendship with the property owner and a certain level of comfort in the transaction. Most capitalist nations suffered similar problems before finally perfecting the implementation of the capitalist system. The United States in 1783 had to deal with illegal squatters and settlers who occupied land that legally did not belong to them. This was as a result of no one legal system acceptable in all parts of the country that indicated the various processes that had to be used to legally acquire such lands and document the transaction. Nigeria also suffers similar problems presently as a flaw legal system is implemented and fails to check the various transactions that involve acquisition of assets that can lead to capital generation for the nation. Hernando De Soto analysed that capital is the most essential component of western economic advancement and is also the most neglected by developing including Nigeria. He explained that for any nation to successfully implement capitalism, certain areas of the transition had to be conquered. They are: 1. Mystery of Missing Information 2. Mystery of Capital 3. Mystery of Political Awareness 4. Mystery of Lessons of the West 5. Mystery of the Legal failure Nigeria is a country that suffers from poor record keeping and this has often lead to problems where identification of owners of various asset, verification of addresses, description of assets, and imposition of charges and regulation becomes necessary. Identifying the proper owner of a particular asset becomes a cumbersome problem as records are usually not updated and such assets might have changed ownership more than once in the last couple of years. Cases of illegal acquisitions become common place with complaints being logged in courts and other legal bodies for a resolution of such conflicts. Poor documentation and recording processes often leads to the emergence of an illegal trade that often tends to cripple the conversion of assets into capital. The high demand of the legal system in the country makes it difficult for the average citizen to fulfil all the required criteria under law to acquire such assets. The high fees and charges coupled with the often times prolonged delays encountered before completion of the legal documentation acts as obstacles of legality to citizens, who opt out of such a legal system and prefer to take part in illegal trade transactions that are not documented by the government and as such leads to a loss of potential capital that asset could generate. Such illegal transactions are governed by the laws the trade merchants implement to suit them and not those of the government. Illegal businesses have become the norm in the Nigerian economy. They are not registered or recognized by the government, and this is due to the negligence of the government concerning the importance of having a registration system that will be responsible for keeping details of all businesses that are running in the country and therefore improve the capital generating capacity of such a country. Various sectors of the Nigerian economy have been attacked by such businesses, be it transportation, real estate etc. The conversion of such assets into capital can only be achieved when such black marketers are properly registered and guided by the law of the government. The sectors of the economy that are classified as undercapitalized is a world where ownership of assets is difficult to trace and validate, governed by no legally recognized set of rules. Hernando De Soto states in his book that about 80 percent of the world is undercapitalized. This means that there is mass failure in drawing economic life from their assets to generate capital. People own assets as security and do not have the required know how to convert such assets into capital for their businesses. This leads to such assets categorised as dead capital, as there is no conversion process available to generate the said capital. Capital is responsible for two things, namely; 1. Capturing the physical dimension of assets 2. Generate surplus value Every country requires capital, as that is the part of the country that initiates surplus production and increases productivity of the nation. Every asset requires an external man made process that allows the identity of the potential of the asset and also to convert this potential into capital. The process is setup not to create capital, but to protect the ownership of such property. The west for example creates such wealth from the formal property system which has over the years been streamlined to a credible system, guided by the rule of the government and registered and recognised by the said government. Adam Smith states that the division of labour and subsequent exchange of products in the market was the source of increasing productivity. This was made possible by capital which is the stock of assets accumulated for productive purposes. This accumulated resource was used to support specialised enterprises until they could exchange their products for other things they needed. The more the capital means more specialization and thus, the higher the society’s productivity. However, assets must be fixed and realised to become active capital and put additional production in motion. Every asset must be registered to a particular person or group of persons to be considered to be productive. This helps to confirm the existence of the said asset as well as the processes required to convert them into capital generating transactions. The introduction of a formal property system is necessary to provide the process, forms and rules that fix assets in a condition that allows the realization of such assets as active capital. These assets have to be described and organised according to their economic values. The record is updated into a recording system and a title for the assets now is given to enable easy identification. This should be guided by a set of legal rules. This describes the creation of a formal property system where capital is born. Nigeria still finds it difficult to identify the owners of certain assets as the recording system is outdated and there is no formal property system being developed. This often leads to lengthy and cumbersome procedures for sale or lease of property. The majority of citizens who are classified as the poor of the economy usually do not have access to the property mechanism that could be used to produce, secure or guarantee greater value in the expanded market as against the lack of entrepreneurial knowledge that the west assumes is the cause of failure of the capitalism system in such countries. Upon examination, it can be drawn that the west cannot paint a broad picture of their formal property system used as a means for generation of capital. This is as a result of the system being hidden in thousands of pieces of legislation, statues, regulations and instructions that govern such a system. This formal property system produces as a side effect various consequences that lead to capital generation. They are: 1. Fixing the economic potential of assets: This is as a result of the proper and effective registration and description of property that help in tracking changes in ownership of such property as well as their value generating capacity. 2. Integrating dispersed information into one system: The development of a single legal system to govern the property system is a necessary control measure used in ensuring up to date records of all registered property in the government’s records. 3. Making people accountable: Registration of owners of property meant people no longer are anonymous and could be easily located. This formal system encourages people to respect title, contracts and obey the laid out laws. Failure to adhere to such laws lead to the offence being recorded in the system and this poses a reputation risk with other parties for the defaulting citizen. The unavailability of such laws is the major reason for the inability of citizens to make profitable contracts with strangers; they cannot also get credit facility, insurance and utility services. 4. Making assets fungible: Assets become more accessible and are able to do additional work to generate capital. Registered assets are easily combined, divided, mobilized and used to stimulate business deals. Such assets are able to be fashioned to suit practically any transaction.

kick the habit Essay -- essays research papers

Most people know that smoking tobacco can cause lung cancer, but what they do not know is that it can cause many other cancers and illnesses. It is not enough to eat healthy and workout regularly, if you keep that bad habit then you are just limiting yourself from your full potential and performance. In our profession it is vital that we are able to perform at our peak when it counts, lives may depend on us and we need to take that into serious consideration every time we put a cigarette to our mouth. Diseases, moral, overall appearance, are just some of the things affected by smoking cigarettes. You not only hurt yourself when you smoke, you are hurting everyone else around you.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  It is not enough just to talk about working out and eating healthy in the fire service, in some cases it is hard just to implement that into a firefighters routine. A firefighters life expectancy is already lower than that of a person that is not in the fire service, a smokers life expectancy is at least 8 years lower than that of a person that does not smoke. When you combine these two together you are just asking for an early grave. It is a proven fact that smokers die sooner than non-smokers, this results in thousands of dollars lost in social security taxes which inevitably ends up in the non smokers pocket. Cigarette tax is more money from the smoker to the non-smoker. A firefighters health is vital to his profession meaning that he is not able to afford to be ill while at work. On average smokers miss about seven days of work a year while the non-smoker only misses on average of four. That’s over twenty-five percent of work a year that a smoker misses compared to a non-smoker. I don’t know about anybody else but I would want a partner that I could depend on and be confident in when it comes down to crunch time.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Cardiovascular disease is the biggest disease leading to death as a result due to smoking. As we grow older our arteries harden up and we get cholesterol and other fat deposits clogging our arteries leaving them narrow or even blocked. Smoking accelerates this process rapidly and blood clots are two to four times more likely to form. Cardiovascular disease comes in many forms and they are more likely to occur to people who smoke regularly. Coronary thrombosis, Cerebral thrombosis, high blood pressure, kidney... ...und you and it could also be a turnoff to a possible employer.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Many of us in the fire service did not get into this profession for the money or glamour or anything other than the reward that it provides at the end of every hard working day. We put our lives on the line every time that siren rings, we want to help people and our rewards come from lives being saved and keeping people out of danger. As a team we need to remain strong not only for ourselves but for each other. Being physically fit and keeping a clean and healthy body are major factors that contribute to our success. Its like the old saying â€Å"you are only as strong as your weakest link†. Take for instance a crew is fighting a fire and your bottle runs out after ten minutes, then the team has to leave because of your inability to stay healthy. The fire grows more intense and out of control because you were not prepared. We depend on one another so we each individually need to make sure that we are prepared each and every time that we step on that truck. So remember when you smoke you are not only hurting yourself, you are also hurting everyone else around you.

Reasons for the Spratly Island Disputes Essay

The main reason for the conflict within the Spratly islands lies in the territorial disputes and quarrels among the different countries. Natural resources include fish, guano, undetermined oil and natural gas potential. There are mainly 2 reasons for disputes to occur in these islands mainly 1. The potential oil and natural gas reserves that lies dormant under the Spratly Islands. 2. Construction of the Busiest port Asia’s had been experiencing a rapid economic boom with giants such as China emerging as the next economic superpower. However, its economic advancement requires a large amount of energy and to claim the Spratly Islands would be useful for the countries’ future economic advancement. The 6 countries involve in the conflict is mainly Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines, China, Taiwan and Vietnam. Each of these countries requires the oil and natural resources within the sea bed of the Spratly islands to serve for these economic needs. Many of the emerging Asian countries require oil from the Middle East and Africa, these resources would have to pass through the Strait of Malacca into the South China Sea. The Spratly Islands lies on the strategic lines of the South China Sea therefore means that all 6 countries hope to have their hands on the Spratly islands to set up a sea port along the South China Seas. Over half of the world’s merchant fleet sails through the South China Sea every year. Therefore setting up a sea port at the Spratly Islands would therefore create one of the busiest ports in the world. This port will create numerous job opportunities and revenues for emerging countries. This had therefore sparked a part of the conflict as due to countries desire for the strategic location to belong to them, they would quarrel and fight over the claims of these islands to support their economic needs. However, the main reason for the conflict for the Spratly Islands would still be the scarce oil and natural resources found in the Spratly Islands. The future world is a world of a competition of economic development and economic gains and to obtain a substantial amount of oil and natural gas is the ability to create energy. The more energy a country has, the faster it can develop, the faster its economy can grow and become robust. Indeed, the strategic location of the Spratly Islands is also a cause for the conflict among the 6 countries. However, there is already a shortage of oil and natural gas in the world but there is not yet a shortage of strategic location in the South China Sea. The oil and natural resource is the main reason for the Asian countries to fight over these areas and it being a strategic location is merely an addition to their claim over these islands.

Healthy: Nutrition and Correct Relax Method Essay

People do different things to stay healthy. Personally, I think that three ways to be healthy are to do exercise regularly, eat moderately and relax correctly. To begin with, doing exercise regularly is very important so as to maintain a healthy condition. If you activate your body regularly, such as doing exercise every early morning or play sport at weekend, you will become both well-built and healthier. All poisonous substances are given out. that will clear your body, strengthen your bone, tone up your muscle and so forth. Next, a balanced diet is also crucial. in modern life, people have to do lots of things, so they usually run out of energy and work up an appetite at the end of day. Therefore, they need to be supplied the foods that must be both mutritious and balanced to recover and refill energy for a new day. A diet should include high fiber, high protein, lots of vegetable, cut down on fat and keep off smoking and drinking too much. Finally, you have a correct relax method. Especially, you must sleep at least 8 hours per day and shouldn’t stay up late. You should read, sometimes, joke stories; watch comedies or tell jokes with your friends and family because smiling is a dramatic method that help healthier. To sum up , health is a priceless gift of oneself. As long as you have your health, nothing else matters. For wise people, they always know how to do stay healthy. For me, three indispensale things are to activate the body, eat scientifically and refresh wisely.