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Richard Blystone correspondent at AP later CNN dies at 81

2018-07-02T19:36:12Z

DaneBolden:

Richard M. Blystone, a longtime Associated Press correspondent who covered the Vietnam War and went on to become one of the first journalists at the CNN network even before it went on air, died Tuesday in London. He was 81. His sister, Louise Reilly, said her brother died in a hospital of cardiac failure, following a stroke. Blystone began his career with AP in Atlanta in 1965, covering the civil rights struggle, and later worked at the news cooperative's New York headquarters before moving to the AP's Saigon bureau in 1970 at the height of the Vietnam War. He covered [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html du lịch Bắc Kinh] major [http://Data.Gov.uk/data/search?q=combat%20action combat action] and, in 1973, became AP's Chief of Bureau in Bangkok, Thailand. In this Feb. 5, 1979, photo, Associated Press foreign correspondent Richard Blystone poses for a photo in the AP's London bureau. Blystone, a veteran AP correspondent who reported from Vietnam and was one of the first journalists at CNN, has died in London at 81. His sister, Louise Reilly, said her brother died Tuesday, April 17, 2018, of cardiac failure after a stroke. (AP Photo/Peter Kemp) Michael Putzel, a former Saigon colleague of Blystone, recalls that "his dry humor and running cartoon strip about AP life kept the Saigon bureau entertained." While in Bangkok, Blystone uncovered and reported the story of 54 barefoot, ragged children held as slave laborers in a garment factory. A police raid followed, freeing the children. Blystone remained involved in coverage of strife in Indochina, and in a story from [http://www.purevolume.com/search?keyword=Phnom%20Penh Phnom Penh] before the takeover by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, he described how the wives and children of Cambodian soldiers missing in action "live in squalor and desperation . high in Phnom Penh's sports stadium." After the fall of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge, he flew in a small chartered plane to the bomb-cratered Phnom Penh airport to pluck a Cambodian AP newsman - Chaay-Born Lay - and his wife and two children to safety. They were pulled into the aircraft as it rolled along the runway for takeoff. AP's Chief U.N. Correspondent Edith M. Lederer called him "one of the smartest, sharpest war correspondents I met and worked with at AP in Vietnam - a veteran who knew the U.S. military." "He had a wonderful irreverent streak and didn't suffer fools, but he cared deeply about the victims of war and telling their stories to the world. He was a stickler for accuracy, a master wordsmith, a wonderful friend and an original member of the Chinese Eating Club I started when we both lived in London," Lederer added. In 1977 and 1978, he was an Edward R. Murrow Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and then moved to the AP's London bureau until he joined CNN in June 1980, three weeks before the then-fledgling news network went on the air. He went on to cover many wars and conflicts for CNN from its earliest day and became a senior correspondent for Europe, Africa and the Middle East. At CNN, Blystone covered some of the world's biggest hotspots. He reported on the Iran-Iraq war, civil war in Lebanon, the collapse of communism in the former Soviet Union and its satellite nations, famine in Africa, U.S. interventions in Somalia and Haiti, the Gulf conflict, [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html vtr.org.vn] Northern Ireland and NATO's bombing of Kosovo. But as a change of pace from politics, war, violence and famine, Blystone also produced wry and droll reports on quirky events such as the traditional gathering of the Royal Swans near London. His 1999 CNN series "An Iron Curtain Odyssey", chronicling a 3,000-mile (4,800-kilometer) trip down the political fault line that once divided the world, followed a decade after his first report of the same title was filmed as the Iron Curtain was coming down. Journalist Steve Hurst, who worked with Blystone at both AP and CNN, said "Blystone was the best writer I ever worked with. He was an even better man, and I and all who knew him have suffered a great loss." Blystone retired from CNN in 2001, returning briefly for assignments in Kuwait and Iraq in 2003. In retirement he freelanced, produced documentaries and taught journalism for a semester in Botswana. He lived part of the year in London and part in Maine. A native of Elmira, New York, Blystone was a graduate of Amherst College who served a stint in the U.S. Navy as an officer assigned to an anti-submarine patrol squadron flying out of Brunswick, Maine. He began his journalism career with brief stints at the Elmira Star-Gazette and the Scandinavian Times, in Copenhagen. He was the son of [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html tour bắc kinh từ hà nội] the late Eugene Blystone and the former Bernice Mary Robinson. Besides his sister, he is survived by his wife of 54 years, the former Helle Pechter, three children and one grandchild. ___ Claude Erbsen, a former AP vice president and director of world services, reported from New York. In this undated photo, Richard Blystone, Associated Press foreign correspondent in Vietnam and later Bangkok, talks on the phone in AP's Saigon bureau in Saigon, later renamed to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Blystone, a veteran AP correspondent who reported from Vietnam and was one of the first journalists at CNN, has died in London at 81. His sister, Louise Reilly, said her brother died Tuesday, April 17, 2018, of cardiac failure after a stroke. (AP Photo/Neal Ulevich) Advertisement

Tory rebels urged to back Theresa May in crunch Brexit votes

2018-07-01T16:53:15Z

DaneBolden:

Two senior Conservatives from the Leave and Remain wings of the party have come together to urge Tory MPs to back Theresa May in a series of crunch Commons votes on Brexit. Former home secretary Amber Rudd, a leading Remain supporter, and ex-party leader Iain Duncan Smith, a long-standing Brexiteer, warned defeat could lead to the fall of the Government. In a joint article for The Sunday Telegraph, they said that voting to overturn or water down a series of amendments inserted by the Lords into the EU (Withdrawal) Bill should be a �no brainer�. Iain Duncan Smith was among those who backed a Leave vote (Stefan Rousseau/PA) They said Labour would be quick to exploit any setback for the Government for their own purposes. �Jeremy Corbyn will do everything he can to stop us,� they warned. �That includes cynically trying to frustrate the Brexit process for his own political ends, as he will try to do next week when the Commons votes again on the EU (Withdrawal) Bill. �So it behoves us all to [http://Www.estateguideblog.com/?s=demonstrate%20discipline demonstrate discipline] and unity of purpose in support of the Prime Minister. �We cannot allow ourselves to become divided and risk losing the precious chance to go on implementing policies that transform lives.� While Amber Rudd supported the Remain side (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Ministers - who have accepted just one of the 15 amendments to legislation - are confident of winning most of the votes when the bill returns to the Commons on Tuesday and Wednesday. However, pro-EU Tory rebels believe they could be vulnerable on key measures including the customs union and a requirement for Parliament to have a decisive say over what happens next if it rejects a final Brexit deal. With the Government dependent on the DUP for its majority, Tory whips are expected to crank up the pressure on potential rebels to ensure they have the numbers when it comes to the divisions. They may be boosted by support from a handful of pro-Brexit Labour MPs. Former deputy prime minister Damian Green wrote in the Sunday Express that the majority of the crucial votes would �pass easily�. He said: �The Westminster air is again full of the scent of rebellions, chaos and catastrophic Government defeats. �I predict they simply won�t materialise for one simple reason: the whips can count. �If they think that the Government won�t have a majority, they advise a change in policy.� Theresa May, in Quebec for the G7 summit, denounced the unelected peers who passed the amendments, accusing them of going far beyond their role as a revising chamber. �Let�s remember what the Withdrawal Bill is for: it�s about delivering a statute book that is ready for Brexit day,� she said. �Of course, the Lords has a revising role to play - but some of the amendments that were passed and the comments that were made went far beyond that. �You had peers talking about stopping Brexit or trying to tie the Government�s hands in the negotiations. �This Government is delivering on the decision made by the country in the referendum to leave the EU and we will not accept anything that prevents us from taking back control of our money, laws and borders.� Theresa May In their article, Ms Rudd and Mr Duncan Smith said the bill was not about competing visions of the future, but a �technical measure� to ensure there was �legal certainty� when Britain left the EU in March 2019. �The disagreements [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html du lịch Bắc Kinh] in the party do not extend to whether we should leave, only how we do it,� they said. �So for Conservatives of every outlook, givingour full support to the Government this week should be a no-brainer. The House of Commons backed the Withdrawal Bill at third reading with a clear majority. Not a single Conservative voted against it.� For Labour, shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer said pro-EU Tory MPs had a chance to alter the direction of the negotiations if they voted with the opposition on the key amendments. �If Tory MPs who care about these amendments vote with us there is a real chance for Parliament to change the course of the Brexit negotiations and bring some order where there [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html vtr.org.vn] is real chaos,� he told BBC One�s The Andrew Marr Show. Advertisement

Vietnam floating market struggles to stay above water

2018-06-20T14:40:04Z

DaneBolden:

A vendor prepares vegetables that she sold to a resident of a house boat in a canal off the Song Hau river in the floating Cai Rang market in Can Tho, a small city of the Mekong Delta Fixing weighing scales used to be good business on Vietnam's floating Cai Rang market, but the last repairman on the river now makes just a few dollars a month as modernity pushes traders to land. Surrounded by dusty old scales on his cluttered houseboat, Nguyen Van Ut says vendors are giving up their boats for better lives on terra firma where supermarkets draw the traders who once thronged the waterway. "I don't have many customers now. In the past, it was alright, but now many boats have left the floating market... people on vessels have switched to vehicles," the 71-year-old told AFP. He got into the repairs business 30 years ago on the Can Tho river to support his surviving children after his wife and two of his sons drowned in an accident. For a time life was good, but now he relies on handouts from his children -- three of them work in nearby Can Tho city. A resident of a house boat yawns as he swings on a hammock on the vessel in a canal off the Song Hau river at the floating Cai Rang market in Can Tho, a small city in the Mekong Delta Once reportedly two kilometres long, the Cai Rang market is a shadow of its former self. There are about 300 boats on the water now, down from 550 in 2005, according to the local tourism office. It has fallen victim to the economic rise of the Mekong Delta, which has rapidly developed over the last decade. Industrial and construction sectors have created nearly 570,000 jobs, hauling many from poverty. But people like Ut have been left behind, unable to afford a life on shore. Even vendors making a decent wage from the tourists who flock to the market yearn for the perks of living on land: better housing, better jobs and modern amenities. Nguyen [http://Www.purevolume.com/search?keyword=Thi%20Hong Thi Hong] Tuoi started working on the water when she was a child, just like her mother and grandmother before her. Though she earns decent money, she doesn't expect her daughter to carry on the family tradition. [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html du lịch Bắc Kinh] Boats lie anchored in a canal off the Song Hau river in the floating Cai Rang market in Can Tho, [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html tour bắc kinh từ hà nội] a small city of the Mekong Delta "In the future, I will let my daughter live on land so she can study and have a proper job," the 34-year-old told AFP, as her elderly mother rested in a hammock surrounded by sacks of tapioca on their boat. It's a common aspiration for young people in Vietnam, where more than half the country's 93 million people are under the age of 30 and eager to move to fast-growing cities for work. [http://Data.gov.uk/data/search?q=-%20Supermarket - Supermarket] squeeze - The origins of Cai Rang market reach back to when Vietnam and neighbouring Cambodia and Laos were occupied by the French, who readily exploited the natural resources of the colony previously called Indochina. The Mekong Delta's web of canals -- both natural and man-made -- were used to transport goods and people in the absence of a reliable road network. Kim Hui, 70, and her five-year-old granddaughter Nguyen Thi Ngoc Huyen sit inside a boat that they call home in a canal off the Song Hau river at the floating Cai Rang market in Can Tho, a small city in the Mekong Delta There are about a dozen surviving markets in Vietnam's Mekong Delta today, though like Cai Rang, many have shrivelled. "The local government is trying to keep the floating markets alive to (preserve) the culture and attract more tourists," said Nguyen Thi Huynh Phuong, a lecturer at nearby Can Tho University who [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html vtr.org.vn] has researched the market's history. It still functions as a wholesale market, with vendors waking each day before dawn to load boats with watermelons or radishes and advertising their products by spearing them to a bamboo pole on the bow of the ship. But its charm also draws millions of visitors each year who buy noodles, fruit and coffee from water traders, making it a well-established pit-stop on the Mekong tourist trail. Recognising the market as a tourism hotspot, the government designated Cai Rang as a national heritage site last year. For vendors like Ly Hung, who has lived on the water for 26 years, visitors have helped to maintain a traditional way of life. "Without tourism this floating market would disappear," he said. Advertisement

User:DaneBolden

2018-06-18T12:29:56Z

DaneBolden: Created page with "My name is Dane (26 years old) and my hobbies are Nordic skating and Exhibition Drill. Also visit my weblog ... [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-..."

My name is Dane (26 years old) and my hobbies are Nordic skating and Exhibition Drill. Also visit my weblog ... [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html du lịch Bắc Kinh]