The first buffalo fighting festival in Hanoi

On February 23, thousands of people flocked to the Phuc Tho district stadium to watch the first ever buffalo fighting competition in Hanoi.However, after watching the event, many people wondered whether such an event should be maintained in the modern time?

Thousands of people watch the competition in rain.   The dragon dance opens the event.   The buffalos - the festival's main character - appear in the audience cheering.   The competition attracts 32 buffalos. They were divided into 16 pairs for the qualifying round on February 22. Eight pairs were chosen for the finals on February 23.   To ensure the safety of the audience, the organizers set a steel fence.   A pair of buffalo after the fight.     A winning buffalo leaves the “mat” with the audience cheering.   The organizers prepare an excavator to move dead buffalo out of the playground.   A man is disappointed when the buffalo of his home team lost in the fight.   The fiercest fight is the one between the buffalo of Mr. Hoang Van Toan from Do Son town, Hai Phong city and the buffalo of a company from Phuc Tho district, Hanoi. The buffalo from Hai Phong was killed immediately in the first second of the fight, after being butted but its rival.   Tens of thousands of spectators were surprised.   The dead buffalo was pulled out by 20 people.   The champion is the buffalo of Mr. Trinh Quang Tuyen, from Sen Chieu Commune, Phuc Tho District. The owner of the champion receives three taels of gold and the owner of the runner-up buffalo gets two taels of gold.

Flag-raising ceremony for two first submarines held in Cam Ranh

The submarines, named HQ-182 Hanoi and HQ-183 Ho Chi Minh City, have been delivered to Vietnam pursuant to a 2009 contract signed during PM Dung’s visit to Moscow for the purchase of six diesel-powered 636 Varshavyanka (kilo)-class submarines.As scheduled, the third vessel coded HQ 184 Haiphong will be delivered to Vietnam in 2014, and the last of its kind will be handed over by 2016.

Naval soldiers are ready for the flag-raising ceremony.   PM Nguyen Tan Dung at the ceremony.    The PM gives the flags to the captains of the two submarines.   Admiral Nguyen Van Hien, Deputy Minister of Defence cum Commander of the Navy, also presents the naval flags to the two captains. A submarine captain reports to the PM.    PM Dung and the captain of the Ho Chi Minh submarine.   The national flags on the two submarines.    PM Dung gets into one of the submarine.    PM Dung on the Ho Chi Minh submarine.        Ships and planes of the Navy perform at the ceremony.   PM Dung and Deputy Minister of Defence Truong Quang Khanh talk with Russian experts.

Plane search signal 'important lead'

Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston called the discovery in the southern Indian Ocean an "important and encouraging lead".He warned that the data were still unverified.British naval ship HMS Echo is sailing to the area to investigate further.It is expected to arrive in the early hours of Monday.Australian aircraft were also on their way, Air Chief Marshal Houston told reporters. Australian naval vessel Ocean Shield would also head to the latest search area once it had investigated a third acoustic detection elsewhere.Both HMS Echo and ADV Ocean Shield have technology able to detect underwater signals emitted by data recorders. 

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared on 8 March with 239 people on board. Investigators believe it crashed in the Indian Ocean although no confirmed debris has been found. The battery-powered signal from the "black box" recorders fades after 30 days.

Caution urgedAfter confirming details of the first pulse detected on Saturday which had "characteristics consistent with" an aircraft's flight recorder, Air Chief Marshal Houston told a news briefing at Pearce Air Base near Perth of a second signal.

"[Saturday] afternoon Perth time, there was another acoustic detection less than 2 km (1.2 miles) from the original."

The signal detected by Haixun 01 reportedly had the same frequency as those emitted by flight recorders

The second signal lasted about 90 seconds, he said.The search co-ordinator insisted the latest developments should be treated as unverified "until such time as we can provide an unequivocal determination"."We are working in a very big ocean and within a very large search area, and so far since the aircraft went missing we have had very few leads which allow us to narrow the search area," he said.

Richard Westcott reports on the use of a pinger locator to find a black box

"I assure you that we will follow up and exhaust every credible lead that we receive."

A dozen military aircraft and 13 ships are already searching three areas about 2,000 km (1,240 miles) north-west of the Australian city of Perth.They will cover some 216,000 sq km on Sunday.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott earlier said he was "hopeful but by no means certain" that the signal detected on Saturday was linked to missing flight MH370.Haixun 01 picked up the first so-called "ping" signal at about 25 degrees south latitude and 101 degrees east longitude, state-run Xinhua news agency said.The signal reportedly had a frequency of 37.5kHz - the same as that emitted by the flight recorders.Three people on board the boat were said to have heard the pings, which were not recorded as they came suddenly.

Xinhua also reported that a Chinese military plane had spotted a number of white floating objects about 90km away a few hours earlier.Flight MH370 disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing four weeks ago.Malaysia earlier announced it had set up three ministerial committees to help co-ordinate the search, and a new investigation team which would include members from Australia, China, the US, the UK and France.

Licadho data ‘not real’: gov’t

The government yesterday accused Licadho of producing wildly misleading figures on land grabs, following the rights group’s announcement earlier this week that land conflicts in Cambodia have affected more than half a million people since 2000.Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Sar Sovan, secretary of state at the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction, said the ministry does not accept the NGO’s findings, adding that the government has its own, more accurate figures. 

“The ministry does not recognise this figure, because it is not real. The figure we have in our hands now is not research. It’s real, and I have enough numbers to prove it,” Sovan said.But Licadho director Naly Pilorge slammed the ministry’s dismissal.“[Yesterday’s] reaction is a typical denial by a government that consistently ignores evidence-base criticism whilst failing to address the hard facts,” she said.“The government, and in particular the Land Ministry, would do better to spend its time coming up with lasting solutions to the problem of land grabbing than holding press conferences to deny the undeniable.”

In May 2012, Prime Minister Hun Sen issued a moratorium on new economic land concessions, and initiated a land-titling scheme shortly thereafter.According to figures collected by the ministry since then, “of every 1,000 land titles [issued, there are just] three or four conflicts”, Sovan said.

Sovan added that in the 357 communes across the country in which land-titling has taken place, land conflicts are not a major problem.“On average, one village has disputes [affecting] less than one person,” he said. “The accusation of failure is not real. According to Licadho, however, the “shameful milestone” of half a million people affected only scratches the surface of the problem.“The figure of half a million Cambodians affected is based only on land conflicts that have been investigated by Licadho’s 13 provincial offices over the past 13 years,” Pilorge said.

“This is only half the country, and as such the figure does not begin to represent the true number of individuals affected throughout the country.”

Tens of thousands join red rally

Tens of thousands of people from across the country joined a pro-government rally on Saturday where leaders warned that the courts were trying to "take over power without elections".

 

Crowds built throughout the day along Aksa Road in Bangkok's Thawi Watthana district, where the red-shirt United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) intends to mass until Monday. The event... has been billed as a last-gasp attempt to save the government of caretaker Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, whose future appears likely to be decided by the courts within a few weeks.

As the red-shirts gathered, anti-government protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban was rallying supporters 20 kilometres to the east in Lumpini Park for a "final battle" - an expression he has used on several...
The propaganda war, meanwhile, has grown more intense. Crudely Photoshopped pictures surfaced on the internet yesterday of red-shirted marchers wearing traditional Burmese lungyi, with the suggestion that...

The movements led by Mr Suthep and UDD chairman Jatuporn Promphan have also been obsessed with the number of people each side can attract. One image tweeted widely on Saturday showed what appeared to be...

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