I am sitting on the 18th floor of the Renaissance Riverside Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), the former Riverside Hotel Sai Gon, reading about the 30-year War (1945-1975), described as a two-stage war of liberation by Vietnam, fought against the French, supported by the British and the Kuomintang - culminating with the expulsion of the French and the creation of a temporary North Vietnam (this part underlined by the Geneva Agreements of 1954, and then against the US and the South Vietnam forces (this part ending with the formation of the united Vietnam).

I am rather wondering - why did the US effectively displace the French and the British - after all Vietnam was not an oil rich country? OK, I know the US describes the Vietnam debacle in different terms - the US talks of a Cold War with the Soviets that got heated up in proxy wars - but really, how do the French feel about having left to the US their IndoChina colonies, and how do the British feel about having left to the US their Iraq oil posessions? I am intent of continuing reading the Vietnam account of their own place in 20th Century history. I took nevertheless leave from the book and went to read the e-mails.

Surprise - found the attached article about the US and Russia (the new version of the Soviets) reaching an agreement to save the polar bears who hold joint residency - in US and Russian territory. So, it is possible to bend rules of military-industrial economics and reach agreements that result in rather positive results. Could something like this be an example to what goes on in September 2007 in New York and Washington DC? Could the listeners to Schwarzenegger and Al Gore say someting to the powers in confrontation - if you did this for the bears - could we try to do something for other species also?

Polar Bears Shared by U.S., Russia to Be Managed Jointly
WASHINGTON, DC, September 24, 2007 (ENS) - The United States and Russia have ratified a treaty for the long-term conservation of the population of the polar bears shared between the two countries. These are about 2,000 bears that inhabit the Alaska-Chukotka or Chukchi Sea between western Alaska and eastern Russia.
The treaty unifies American and Russian management programs that affect this shared population of bears and calls for the active involvement of Native people and their organizations in future management programs.
The treaty provides the framework for long-term joint efforts such as conservation of ecosystems and important habitats, harvest allocations based on sustainability, collection of biological information, and increased consultation and cooperation with state, local, and private interests.

Polar bear in the Chukchi Sea
(Photo courtesy U.S. State Department)

Today, habitat loss, illegal hunting, and the diminishing extent, thickness and seasonal persistence of sea ice pose the most serious threats to polar bears.
As a result of these concerns, the polar bear was proposed for listing as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in January of this year. A decision on the proposed listing is scheduled to be announced in January 2008.
“This agreement is a testimony to years of cooperative conservation efforts among biologists and Native peoples from the United States and Russia,” said the Service’s Alaska Regional Director Tom Melius.
“It protects the ability of the Native people of both nations to continue their traditional ways of life, while helping ensure that healthy populations of one of the Earth’s most magnificent marine mammals will continue to wander the Arctic ice for generations to come,” said Melius.
Several joint research and management efforts between the United States and Russia have been successful in the past but until recently the United States and Russia have managed the shared Alaska-Chukotka polar bear population independently.
In recent years, Melius says, a sizable illegal harvest has occurred in Russia, despite a ban on hunting that has been in place since 1956.
In Alaska, subsistence hunting by Natives is allowed as long as this does not affect the sustainability of the polar bear population.
The Russian government is prepared to enact a decree which would legalize a sustainable harvest by Chukotka Natives. Each country would then have the right to one half of a jointly determined annual harvest limit.
Under the treaty, a sustainable harvest by Alaska and Chukotka Natives is allowed, but taking females with cubs or of cubs less than one year old is prohibited.
The treaty also prohibits the use of aircraft and large motorized vehicles in the taking of polar bears and enhances the conservation of specific habitats such as feeding, congregating, and denning areas.
On October 16, 2000, the U.S. and Russia signed the bilateral agreement on the conservation and management of the shared Chukchi/Bering Seas polar bear population. In July 2003, the Senate, through a unanimous vote, provided its advice and consent. Legislation to implement the treaty was passed during the 109th Congress and signed into law.
Melius says this new treaty enhances and fulfills the spirit and intent of the 1973 Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears among the United States, Russia, Norway, Denmark (for Greenland), and Canada.
Polar bears at low densities over vast areas of the Arctic. Current estimates of the world’s 19 separate populations range from 20,000 to 25,000 bears.