Pico Dragon: Vietnam micro satellite at ISS

Pico Dragon, the Made-in-Vietnam micro satellite 

Credit: VNSC

Pico Dragon, the Made-in-Vietnam micro satellite, was shipped to the International Space Station ( ISS) Sunday to prepare for a mission in space, state-run Vietnam News Agency reported Sunday.

Accordingly, the micro satellite, together with three other micro satellites of the United States, was carried by Japan's Kounotori 4 (HTV-4) cargo spacecraft.

The two-stage H-2B rocket carrying the HTV-4 ship lifted off at 4:48 am Tokyo time (19:48 GMT Saturday), initiating a five-day journey to the International Space Station.

Vietnam's Pico Dragon is programmed to capture images of the earth, collect space environment data and test communication systems, said the report quoting sources from the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology.

The 10x10x11.35 centimeter cube weighting nearly one kilogram is the first of its kind developed by young Vietnamese engineers and researchers of the National Satellite Center, an affiliate of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology.

It is planned to stay at the ISS for two to three months before going into space.

In May this year, Vietnam's first remote sensing satellite, VNREDSat-1, was launched into orbit from the Kourou launch pad in Guiana of France.

At 04:48 am Japan time (02:24 am Vietnam time) on August 4th 2013, at Yoshinobu launching pad at Tanegashima space centre, Vietnam’s micro satellite Pico Dragon was carried into space on Japan’s HTV-4 (Kounotori 4) cargo spacecraft.

ESA ISS Image: Vietnam coast line, fishing boats all the way to Hanoi

Vietnam coast line, fishing boats all the way to Hanoi

Credit: ESA/NASA

H5N1: AVIAN Flu death in Vietnam

A 38-year-old woman has become the first victim of bird flu in Vietnam in 2010, bringing the country's toll from avian influenza to 58, the health ministry said Friday.

The woman died Tuesday in the southern province of Tien Giang after two days of unsuccessful hospital treatment, said the ministry in an online statement.

The victim had killed and cooked sick waterfowl, the statement added.

Vietnam's last death from the H5N1 virus was in December.

At present, outbreaks of bird flu among poultry have been reported in five provinces.

Vietnam ranks second after Indonesia for the highest bird flu death toll, according to the World Health Organization.

The H5N1 virus typically spreads from birds to humans via direct contact, but experts fear it could mutate into a form easily transmissible between humans, with the potential to kill millions in a pandemic.

Betrayal by Vietnamese Wildlife farms

Restaurant workers skinning a crocodile from a Wildlife farm that pretends to protect endangered species (Image: AFP/Getty Images)

WILDLIFE farms are supposed to promote conservation by providing a sustainable alternative to hunting animals in the wild. But those in Vietnam are having exactly the opposite effect, says a study by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in New York.

Over the past two decades, dozens of commercial wildlife farms have sprung up in Vietnam. WCS investigators and Vietnamese officials who visited 78 farms undercover found that half had taken original breeding stock from wild populations, and 42 per cent were still doing so.

Animals farmed include snakes, turtles, crocodiles and monkeys. Worst affected are species such as tigers and bears, whose body parts or secretions are valued in traditional medicine. Not only are they slow to breed, but farms can also be used to launder products from animals killed in the wild.

Wildlife farmers should have to prove the source of their animals, and penalties for breaching wildlife laws should be increased, the WCS concludes.