World cup qualifiers

The two themes will be taken up at the World Journalists Conference 2021 hosted online by the Journalists Association of Korea (JAK) on April 18-20. The annual media event has been held without interruption since 2013, addressing various themes related to media choices, outlooks and strategies regarding prominent global issues.

“Our work in the field and at the editor’s desk have shown us the extent of the difficulties that have plagued many people’s lives since last year,” JAK President Kim Dong Hoon said.

“Our imperative for this conference is to cooperate and coordinate information in preparation for the post-COVID era. After all, our existence in the global village taught us that a single state’s precautionary measures are insufficient to end the spread of infectious diseases.”

On the first discussion day, journalists will debate the sweeping changes across people’s lives, assess the role of the media and how the media landscape is likely to look in the post-COVID era.

“The global climate issues theme of this year’s World Journalists Conference will allow us to discuss the accelerating crisis of climate change and environmental damage,” Kim Dong Hoon said.

“We are focusing on issues of great importance that must be addressed to ensure peace and prosperity across the globe.”

The 2020 conference, dedicated to the themes of fake news virus, COVID-19 measures, and peace policy, was also held online following travel and quarantine restrictions imposed by the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The World Journalists Conference has grown into one of the foremost journalist conferences in the world with rich discussions on relevant and prominent issues in journalism,” Kim Dong Hoon said.

The Journalists Association of Korea, founded in 1964, has more than 10,000 members from 188 media companies.

In particular, ST25 rice was sold for more than $1,000 per ton and Jasmine rice for $600 per ton.

The Vietnam National Seed Group (Vinaseed) has also inked many contracts to export rice to Australia, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic at high prices.

The first batch of Vietnamese rice exported in 2021 was 1,600 tons of Trung An High-tech Agriculture Joint Stock Company. Its two types of Jasmine rice were sold for $680 and $750 per ton.

Pham Thai Binh, general director of Trung An, told VietNamNet that the company has changed its policy: producing and exporting high quality rice only.

Vietnam was known for exporting low-grade, low-priced rice for the past 30 years. Now, Vietnamese firms export high-quality rice for high prices. Vietnam is also the producer of ST25, the most delicious rice product in the world.

According to Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Quoc Doanh, after more than 30 years of conquering the world rice market, Vietnam is no longer inferior to others in terms of the quality and price of its exported rice. The country currently has many valuable rice varieties and the price for Vietnamese rice is sometimes higher than that of Thailand and India.

Doanh said that five to six years ago Vietnam had 35-40% of high-quality rice varieties, but now the ratio is 75-80%. As the quality of rice has increased, the export price has risen very quickly. The rice industry has been successfully restructured in recent years, although the rice cultivation area has been reduced.

Recently, many people were “startled” by the information that Vietnam imported rice from India. But for experts, this is ‘the new normal’ of Vietnamese rice. Vietnam lacks and has to import low-grade rice to process cattle-feed as the proportion of high-grade rice varieties is overwhelming.

The Bangkok Post on January 25 commented that this is “Vietnam’s wise rice strategy”. Vietnam chose to import Indian rice at lower prices to meet domestic demand, while focusing on producing high-quality rice for export. The production of high-quality rice is on the right track with the world, taking advantage of export opportunities to the EU when the EVFTA went into effect.

Dr. Dang Kim Son, former director of the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development, acknowledged that rice is the most successful export commodity in recent years. From exporting 1 million tons per year, Vietnam has become the world’s leading rice exporter. If in the past, the price for Vietnamese rice was much lower than the world rice price, especially Thai rice, now it is equal or even higher.

Vietnamese rice holds No. 1 position in world

In mid-2018, when the price Vietnamese rice surpassed Thailand’s, many people called it a “miracle” because, for many years, Vietnamese rice had been inferior to Thai and Indian rice in both quantity and quality.

As a result, the position of Vietnamese rice has changed. In 2020, Vietnam overtook Thailand to become the world’s second rice exporting country, with 6.15 million tons, earning $3.07 billion. Notably, the export volume decreased by about 3.5% but turnover increased by 9.3%.

Vietnamese rice has surpassed both Thailand and India to take the number one spot in the world in terms of selling price. In 2020, with an average export price of $499 per ton, an increase of 13.3% compared to 2019, Vietnamese rice farmers earned high profits. It is estimated that with an output of about 7 million tons per hectare, farmers can earn from VND65-VND70 million per hectare, while the cost is only about VND16-VND17 million per hectare. It means a profit of 70%, equivalent to about VND50 million per hectare.

In early 2021, Vietnamese rice maintained its top position in price. On March 25, the price for Vietnam’s 5% broken rice increased to $515-520 per ton, compared to $500-$518 per ton for Thai rice and $398-403 per ton for Indian rice of the same kind. In January 2021, Vietnam’s rice export price hit $551.7 per ton.

‘Heavenly pearls’

According to the Vietnam Food Association (VFA), rice exports in 2021 will be very positive. The Asian rice market started to heat up again as customers were rushing to buy. Many countries have great demand for fragrant rice and sticky rice, which are an advantageous commodity of Vietnam. Vietnam’s export outlook is wide open thanks to opportunities from a number of markets that have signed free trade agreements (FTA) with Vietnam. In particular, under the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), Vietnam has a quota of 80,000 tons of rice per year with 0% tax.

However, Pham Thai Binh said that to ensure a stable future for Vietnam’s rice export, it is necessary to strengthen the link between enterprises and farmers to improve quality of rice. Local governments need to find solutions to promote these links. This is a prerequisite for enterprises and farmers to jointly produce rice for export to serve various needs of the international market.

Agricultural expert Hoang Trong Thuy said that rice trading firms should keep shifting the structure of exported rice to high value-added types because if Vietnam produces low-grade rice, it will not be able to compete with India and Pakistan. Investing in the production of high-quality rice will help increase export value and enable Vietnamese rice to enter big markets such as Japan, Korea, and the EU.

Tam An

Dr Tran Nguyen Anh Tu, deputy head of the department of skin aesthetics at the Ho Chi Minh City Dermatology Hospital, where the girl was hospitalized, said at annual scientific conference on Sunday this was the first case of the condition recorded in Vietnam.

The child’s family said she was born deaf and unable to speak and with physical and mental disabilities.

She was hospitalized with brown skin spots (lentigines) on her face and body, and abnormalities in the jawbone, spine, shoulder, chest, and teeth.

A genetic analysis at the HCMC University of Medicine and Pharmacy’s Center for Molecular Biology found he had a mutation of the PTPN1 gene, which is believed to cause the very rare condition.

LEOPARD, which is also known as the Noonan syndrome, is an acronym for the abnormalities associated with the disorder like lentigines, ECG conduction abnormalities, ocular hypertelorism, pulmonary stenosis, abnormal genitalia, retardation of growth, and deafness.

Since it was first described in 1936, there have only been 200 confirmed cases in medical history, Tu said.

Those diagnosed with the condition need to be closely medically monitored and have their heart checked once a year for early diagnosis of abnormalities.

A disappointing game was settled 10 minutes after the interval as the in-form Nigerian striker slotted at the second attempt after good work by Jamie Vardy.

* Mason Greenwood continued his fine run of form with a second-half brace which helped Manchester United to a 3-1 home win over Burnley in the Premier League on Sunday and kept them on course for a top-four finish.

* Arsenal substitute Eddie Nketiah struck deep into stoppage time to cancel out Josh Maja’s second-half penalty in a 1-1 draw with relegation-threatened Fulham in the Premier League on Sunday.

* Sevilla came from behind to win 2-1 at Real Sociedad on Sunday (Apr 18) and stay in contention for an unlikely La Liga title bid.

* Borussia Dortmund striker Erling Haaland scored twice in four minutes on Sunday, ending his seven-game goal drought in all competitions, to help his team to a 4-1 win over Werder Bremen in the Bundesliga and revive their hopes of a top four finish.

* Juventus slipped to a last-gasp 1-0 defeat at Atalanta on Sunday as Gian Piero Gasperini’s side leapfrogged the champions into third place in the Serie A standings. Juve, missing Cristiano Ronaldo due to injury, struggled to break down the in-form hosts without their Portuguese talisman and were forced to defend for much of the second half against Serie A’s top scorers.

* Christian Eriksen’s first league goal of the season earned Inter Milan a 1-1 draw at Napoli on Sunday (Apr 18), moving the league leaders nine points clear at the top of the Serie A standings.

* AC Milan secured a first home Serie A win for over two months with a nervy 2-1 victory over Genoa on Sunday to boost their hopes of a top-four finish.

* Paris St Germain stayed in the hunt for a fourth successive Ligue 1 title after Mauro Icardi scored in the dying seconds of stoppage time to secure a dramatic 3-2 win over St Etienne on Sunday.

* Miami will host a Formula One race from next year as part of a 10-year-deal announced by the sport and local organisers on Sunday (Apr 18). The grand prix at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, home of the Miami Dolphins NFL team, will be a second Formula One race for the United States in addition to the one in Austin, Texas.

* Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo claimed a second consecutive MotoGP victory after leading almost from start to finish at the Portuguese Grand Prix on Sunday as six-times world champion Marc Marquez finished seventh in his first race in nine months.

* Twelve of Europe’s most powerful clubs announced the launch of a breakaway European Super League on Monday (Apr 19) in a potentially seismic shift in the way football is run. Six Premier League teams – Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham – are involved, alongside Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, Juventus, Inter Milan and AC Milan.

* Paris St Germain ended Olympique Lyonnais’ five-year reign as European champions as they progressed to the women’s Champions League semi-finals on away goals after securing a 2-1 win on Sunday.

* Roger Federer will kickstart his claycourt campaign at next month’s Geneva Open as he steps up his preparations for the French Open, the 39-year-old Swiss wrote on Twitter on Sunday. After missing more than a year following two knee operations, Federer returned on Tour at last month’s Qatar Open, where he suffered a quarter-final defeat by Georgia’s Nikoloz Basilashvili.