Slashdot Mirror
Vietnam Courts Microsoft and Vice Versa
wbren writes "Bill Gates and Vietnam's Prime Minister Phan Van Khai have signed two 'memoranda of understanding' regarding Microsoft's presence in Vietnam, according to this AP story. They met Monday at Microsoft's Redmond headquarters for a closed door meeting and a tour of Microsoft's "home of the future". The agreement reached is expected to strengthen Vietnam's IT industry, as well as provide software training for 50,000 of the country's teachers. Khai's visit also triggered protests in Seattle, reminding everyone of Vietnam's human rights record."
Microsoft vice-president Lyndon Johnson was keen to point out that the first 21,000 people that MS have sent to Vietnam were not classified as salesmen, but are merely civilian "advisors".
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Weird, because previously the Vietnamese were known for their choice of light, modifiable systems that proved very effective against monolithic, bloated American engineering.
Now it'll be the other way around -- take that, Charlie!
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
As if the US hadn't already done enough terrible things to this country. ;-D
Joke aside, I don't really see the relevance of the story. MS has relationships with many governments, that the Vietnamese governemnt is now also among them doesn't strike me as exceptional.
Finally, I also don't understand what mentioning the human rights situation in Vietnam has to do with this article. Don't get me wrong, pointing this situation out is important, but why in this context?
MS and other big software houses do frequently deal with nations that have a very bad track record when it comes to human rights. (And in case you didn't notice, free software does too. Just think about China using Linux). So I again have to ask: What's the news?
http://www.hrw.org/doc/?t=usa
... that Charlie will surf, and with Internet Explorer?
...as well as provide software training for 50,000 of the country's teachers....
The US has more than 3 times the population of Viet Nam. Do we have 50000 teachers who have some IT training?
Just put this story together with yesterday's story about US students turning away from computer related careers. What does Viet Nam's government do to get something out of Microsoft that our own state and national govt won't do?
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
speaks volumes when the first time a head of a country comes to the US in over thrity years goes to Microsoft first and then Washington.
Scarry - very scarry.
People whose rights are violated in the USA, unlike many other countries, have recourse to a free press and the courts; which is more than can be said for the Socialist Worker's Paradise of Vietnam.
Actually I'm sorry to say that people just don't have those rights any more in the US. They can be imprisoned without knowing why, their lawer isn't allowed to talk about the charges, they can be deported to third countries for torture or just thrown out of the country (see recent case of an Iranian teenager) or they can be shipped off to someplace like Guantanamo Bay where you have exactly zero rights and are very deliberately dehumanized. Now you can argue about the justification for this if you like, but the US would rank well below Canada and many European countries (just for example) in a scale of civil rights or freedom right now.
Your point about it being quite possible for US citizens to criticise other nations is spot on though, whatever their govt. is doing.
You want to say: "Don't worry, in theory you still have you rights."
No, I said what I wanted to say. Rights are rights, and their infringment doesn't negate them. The Japanese Americans who were put in concentration camps by Roosevelt's regime were eventually able to obtain redress in court, because their rights still exist.
The important point here, is that governments do not create rights. People create governments to secure our rights. When governments fail in that duty, then it's time to throw them out, and institute a new government in place of the one that failed. (Ex: the American Revolution, the English Civil War, the Armed Struggle against Apartheid, etc.)
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."