Deaths in Vietnam, other wars undercounted - study

New estimates of war deaths in 13 nations including Vietnam, Ethiopia and Bangladesh show that previous counts vastly understated the lives lost to war in the past half century, researchers said on Thursday.
The new estimates relied on data from nationally representative population surveys done by the U.N. World Health Organization in these countries earlier this decade to calculate death tolls in wars waged from 1955 to 2002.
In most of the countries, this method pointed to much higher loss of life than broadly cited media estimates of the various war death counts had shown, the researchers said.
For example, the method indicated 3.8 million Vietnamese died in the protracted fighting in Vietnam, mostly from 1955 to 1975, compared to previous estimates cited by the researchers of 2.1 million.
Christopher Murray of the University of Washington said the findings, published in the British Medical Journal, suggest standard ways of tracking war deaths using media, eyewitness and combatant accounts tend to underestimate deaths, particularly in smaller wars.
Murray, who heads the university's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, and colleagues designed a method of figuring violent war-related deaths using data on siblings of respondents in large household surveys conducted later in peacetime.
Random samples of people in the 13 countries were asked about their brothers and sisters, including whether they had died of wartime injuries. The researchers then extrapolated the data to come up with national death toll estimates.
In Ethiopia, the method indicated there have been 579,000 wartime deaths, higher than the previous estimate cited in the study of 275,000. In Bangladesh, the toll was put at 269,000, up from the previous estimate of 58,000.
Country by country, on average, the old estimates were about three times lower than the new ones.
In the 13 countries combined, the new method figured there were 5.4 million deaths from 1955 to 2002, topping the previous combined estimates of 2.8 million, the researchers said.
In Bosnia, the researchers figured 176,000 war deaths, up from the 55,000 previous estimate. In Sri Lanka, the new estimate was 215,000 deaths, compared the previous estimate of 61,000.
In Zimbabwe, the new estimate was 141,000 war deaths, compared to the previous estimate they cited of 28,000.
Other countries examined in the study were Myanmar (Burma), Georgia, Guatemala, Laos, Namibia, the Philippines and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The study did not look at war dead in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Ziad Obermeyer of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, another of the researchers, said accurate estimates of death tolls during wartime are extremely difficult to make.
He also said the findings undercut the idea that the advent of modern weapons like "smart bombs" had made war less lethal. (Editing by Todd Eastham)

Old man owns over 5 million books

With over 5 million books of all kinds, Nguyen Hong Sanh in the southern city of Vung Tau owns the highest number of books in Vietnam. Anyone who goes to Sanh’s house to seek books or search for data is warmly welcomed. Everyday he receives hundreds of people from everywhere.
When did you begin collecting books?
I studied literature at the Saigon Teacher Training College so I love reading and collecting books. Books are the greatest and closest teachers. They are also enthusiastic teachers. Even at 2-3 in the morning, if I need some knowledge, this teacher is ready. I don’t want to have only one enthusiastic teacher in my house, so I received one by one to my house…

In 1986, when the country entered the Doi Moi period, I was able to collect books. Each day I tried to buy books, both old and new, with all of my money. I tried to buy valuable books at any cost, even though I had to sell something in my house or I had to borrow money from somebody. All of my income was spent of books.

It is lucky that my wife could support my children. Apart from my salary, I also write songs and tuong and cheo scripts to support my family. I presently have around 70 scripts of tuong and cheo arts and around 8,000 moral songs.

Besides collecting books, do you have any other pleasure?

Yes, that’s don ca tai tu (traditional southern music). I was born in the southwestern region so I loved don ca tai tu when I was a child. Every Friday night, my friends would gather in my house to listen to my songs. I have around 50 don ca tai tu students.

What difficulties do you face in preserving your books?

In 1990 I lost up to 1,500 books within one night because of worms. After that accident, I had to rebuild the ground and buried dozens of kilos of worm-killing chemicals.

It is also very difficult to classify books. Sometimes someone comes to my house to borrow a book that I know clearly that I have it but I need several days to find it.

You have 5 million books. Are you still collecting books?

The number of books is increasing and decreasing every day. But now I don’t buy a lot of books because my house is small so I only choose valuable ones.