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The Weekly Round Up, 2nd Week of August

Here are four stories to take note of before you head out for the weekend.

A Coming-Out Party in Hanoi

On the heels of Vietnam’s announcement that it is considering legalizing gay marriage, Hanoi hosted the city’s first ever gay pride parade. The event was small in scale, with about 100 people mostly riding bikes through the city’s streets. Mark Macdonald, writing for the New York Times, notes that this was actually not the first gay parade in Vietnam as various news media had reported. Another gay parade took place a decade ago in Vung Tau.

Deadly Aid

A reminder that delivering aid is never as easy as it seems: Maria McFarland Sanchez-Moreno and Naomi Roht-Arriaza write about how aid sometimes  inadvertently perpetuates human rights abuses in recipient countries, whether through poor planning or a failure to consider unintended consequences. Some countries where these problems have occurred include Ethiopia, Colombia, Uganda and Vietnam.  Specifically citing USAID and State Department snafus examples, Sanchez-Moreno and Roht-Arriaza call for bolder safeguards to ensure against human rights abuses.

Vietnam gains $4B Boost from ADB

The Asian Development Bank is providing Vietnam with $4 billion in loans and grants to improve the country’s infrastructure. The infrastructure improvements will be focused on agriculture and natural resources, education, energy, finance, transportation, water supply and other municipal infrastructure.

Vietnam ranks in world’s top 20 nations for internet use

In another sign of Vietnam’s growing global connectivity, Vietnam was recently ranked as the 18th country with the highest percentage of the population using the internet by the Viet Nam Internet Network Information Centre , an affiliate of the Ministry of Communication. Reportedly 35.4% of the population is online.

Photo by Flickr user emilio labrador (Creative Commons)

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