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PRESIDENT MICHAEL D. HIGGINS will welcome the President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, H.E. Tô Lâm, and his wife Madame Ngô Phýõng Ly on a state visit to Ireland next week.
Lâm and his wife’s visit will begin on Wednesday and continue to Thursday.
The state visit by President Tô Lâm is the first state visit to Ireland by a Vietnamese President.
In November 2016, Higgins became the first Irish head of state to make a state visit to Vietnam. While there, he visited Hanoi, Dong Ha and Ho Chi Minh City.
Lâm assumed the office of president in May of this year, and holds both the title of president and General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam. His successor, Võ Văn Thưởng, resigned following allegations of wrongdoing and regulation violations after a year in power.
In June, Lâm welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin to Vietnam, where they pledged to strengthen ties amidst Russia’s continued war on Ukraine.
Vietnam has been in a state of turmoil, having been hit with economic losses placed at almost €3 billion euro following the deadly Typhoon Yagi earlier this month, that swept across the country and resulted in hundreds of fatalities.
“This week’s Visit by the President and accompanying Ministers will serve to strengthen the historical, cultural, educational and diplomatic ties between the two countries,” said President Higgins.
There will be a ceremonial welcome at Áras an Uachtaráin on Wednesday for the visiting leader, Higgins’ office said, followed by a meeting between the two heads of state.
That evening, the President and his wife, Sabina Higgins, will host a state dinner in honour of President Lâm and Madame Ly.
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Pretty sure most of the world just want some food and aren’t starving to death because of lack of a wifi signal.
True, but in fairness to them, they are not foods companies, they are tech companies. They are simply trying to do what food companies and governments should have done a long time ago.
They just want to datamine more people
Was looking at new update for Facebook app the want to record phone calls and take pictures from ur device
Thats the Facebook Messenger app. It is going down the Voip route. Sure Viber and the like records stuff on you already. Nothing new or alarming here that what is already known.
It’s a bit like McDonalds saying they want an outlet on every street corner.
Expand their customer base? Make business sense.
It’s amazing how some parts of the world has no Internet, but then when you look at Ireland even for a first world country we have areas with no TV or net.
Not to argumentative but satellite broadband and tv reach all parts of Ireland at this stage. Grand it, it is expensive and the broadband not up to speed but it’s a start
A very cynical lot on here today. Internet would improve their lives. Not all the people in the developing world are starving. They live a basic life and affordable internet would give them an opportunity to improve their lives.
Lots of people talking about food & clean water & that the internet is not that important. Imformation is power. If we give the whole word free internet access maybe they can feed themselves better with it or at least tell the rest of us whats going on. These ideas are great. They give everyone on the planet the chance to be involved with the rest of the world. True equal rights globally.
Information is power, and Mark hasn’t got enough if it yet
Not to mention lots of wonderful sales & marketing opportunities to be had…..and all under the guise of helping people. Sweet. : I
How noble of Facebook et Al to offer Internet cheaply to these areas. I’m sure it has nothing to do with improving their bottom line by selling the information of uneducated and and vulnerable people to other companies and their own ruthless government. No, this is done purely out of the goodness of their hearts. Another time magazine man of the year award in the offing for mark, while Bradley manning gets 35 years in jail for exposing crimes of USA.
Of course it is being done for great PR and to build more customer relationships but who cares if it does good? The ‘bottom line’ is it will improve people’s access to the internet. Microsoft recently gave some PC tablets to a group of children in a small, rural village in Ethiopia, the results were astonishing. http://www.technologyreview.com/news/506466/given-tablets-but-no-teachers-ethiopian-children-teach-themselves/
Access to information is they greatest gift that you can give someone. If a private company makes a profit out of it, does it matter? The advancement of media has exposed the psychopathic tendencies of corporations business dealings, this has resulted in private companies needing to engage in a lot more philanthropic exercises to boost their PR and repair their images, surely this is a step in the right direction?
Also, why does every story have to resort back to US War crimes!?! The US are the new bankers!!!!
There’s nothing philanthropic about Mark Zuckerberg. Everything that he does is to make a profit. Of course that’s what companies should be doing, making profits. But masquerading as some kind of benevolent force for good makes me sick. The Internet isn’t really what people without electricity need. Of course the Internet has great benefits. Facebook is not one of them.
My point about US war crimes is that Mark Zuckerberg gets man of the year for operating a profitable company that sells the data of its users while Bradley manning Julian assange and Edward snowden get vilified for exposing criminal acts by govts worldwide.
Of course it is to make profit, no doubt, but it will have benefits. There are more and more companies seeking to improve their PR and advertise through ‘charitable’ methods. Surely, companies pouring money into these works rather than multi-million television campaigns is better on the whole for people. It is a massive change around for companies to be doing this, it is far from perfect and their motives are profit, but I am just making the point that it is a step in the right direction for private companies. Why does this make you sick? It makes me ‘sick’ that these countries governments are so inept at accommodating the needs of their people. In a perfect world, private companies should not have to be engaging in such activities, as governments would address these issues, but at least the strings attached to private companies is just generally good PR and as not near as horrible as the ‘aid’ packages given by governments in the past.
Your Snowden point is valid, it just seems to be a US comment in every article on the journal these days, I didn’t merely aim that at you, and the comparison is very valid here.
Tesco online shopping will then be available worldwide so food problem will be solved.
Priorities? These software companies that are highly inflated bullshit machines that collect data in order to monetize it. As much as the idea of a food tablet that would solve world hunger, which was one of the solutions back in the 70′s. Giving people computer tablets is not going to help in any way. The last thing you need when your hungry is a advertisement tool which is what the Internet has become.
Education should always be a priority. Charities attempt to teach farming to people so they can feed themselves but their man power and scope is very limited. Yes, giving food is important too, but what happens when it runs out? Also, do you just leave them become dependent on hand outs? If you can teach people to fend for themselves, then they can rise out of poverty. The above link demonstrates the power that a PC tablet can have on poverty stricken areas.
Mobile technology is turning us all into Zombies, next time your on a train or at the Bus Stop count how many people who are glued to their devices. It is quite sad and we are just becoming slaves to these corporations, they know where we are, what we like, who we communicate with, what our future plans are.
I work in IT myself and find technology getting even more scarier with newer technology on the rise. Connecting the world to the internet is fair enough but there will always be a method behind the madness. Maybe solve famine and war before giving a malnourished poor Somalian a smart phone.
With all the billions of euro/dollars that these companies make could easily help fix this sick world. I know they are technology companies with innovative ideas but surely someone else can say wait a minute lets fix this issue before we move forward.
I’m not really sure what Facebook are offering this collective, all of the other companies provide infrastructure and can reduce the cost of hardware, but Facebook? They can only stump up cash but will piggyback the rest to increase subscribers so will get the most out of it.
For those cynical of the tech companies intentions, they all have ethical programs in place, such as Ericsson “rescue”which provided a instant phone network in Indonesia, Haiti and others during their disasters to assist the rescue operations – it’s not always chasing the dollar.
Ya I will have to argee with cormac food and clean water would be more helpful then checking garda checkpoints cork
Great idea, let’s start with the midlands and work towards Internet for the west. An ambitious plan but with the right minds it could be possible.
2/3 of people in the world just want clean water.
This article should be entitled nsa wish to expand their spying network
The don’t want to ‘give, the world the internet access, they want to expand their market for increased income from advertising.
There’s a subtle but distinct difference there.
I can see twitter in a couple of years,
LOL today my country is failing to protect my human rights but OMG gangnam style, anyway better get back to the sweat shop to fund my 10 sibling’s twitter addictions
But in all seriousness, I don’t think “smart phone” based technology can really tackle problems where communities can scarcely afford a communal phone for emergency use. And I’m not saying that there won’t be positive side effects as a direct result of this project but it seems disingenuous to all parties involved to pretend that the primary goal is anything other than broaden your market and increase revenue. Go ahead and make your logical business decisions just don’t act like angels, okay?
Some of this research should prove useful to developed markets too so I am glad it is happening at least.
have your say