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Social News 23/6
Dong
Nai farmers battle pepper seedling thieves
Thieves
are stealing pepper seedlings of several pepper growers in the southern
A major
reason for the situation is the record rate of increase in the prices of
pepper, which is leading to high prices of the seedlings.
Pepper
farmers in Xuan Truong Commune of Xuan Loc District said hundreds of pepper
trees had been cut down by thieves in the last few days.
The
provincial authority has been investigating the cases.
The
leader of district farmers' association said the cost of a pepper seedling
was about VND20,000 to VND30,000 (US$10-15). So, pepper garden owners are on
guard day and night to protect their property.
Growing
a pepper plant takes a few years and hundreds of work hours, a pepper grower
said.
Storm
cools down central Vietnam while moving to southern China
Tropical
Storm Kujira has passed
At 4:00
am on June 22, the storm was located north of Hoang Sa, packing winds of up
to 90kph and squalls of 89-117kph, the
Storm
Kujira is moving north-northwest at 10kph, heading for the waters southeast
of
The
current movement of the storm will bring cool air and rain to central
At 10:00
am Monday the high temperature in the central city of
During
the early days of this week, there will be rain in many provinces in the
central region, easing the ongoing drought there, the center said.
Due to
the storm, the
In the
middle and southern areas of the
The
storm has also caused rough seas with gusts of up to 117kph in the waters
around Hoang Sa. Waves in the area were three to five meters high.
While
moving to
After
the storm hits southern
In the
coastal area from
Vietnamese
police have seized nearly 2,000 methamphetamine pills from a smuggler near
the country's western border in one of the year's largest narcotic busts.
Police
officials announced on June 21 that border guards arrested Lam Quang Trung at
the La Lay International Border Gate in the Dakrong district of Quang Tri
province after he was caught red handed attempting to smuggle the drugs
across the border.
Trung,
31, a resident of the A Luoi district of Thua Thien-Hue province had
previously been on the police’s radar as a suspected dealer and trafficker of
illegal contraband in the region.
On his
motorbike, authorities discovered an estimated 93 grams of the synthetic
substance and also seized a sword, two Thai knives, a laptop and other
related documents.
Trung
admitted he bought the drugs in Salavan province in
The case
is pending further investigation.
Golden
rains save farm produce in Quang Tri
Thousands
of hectares of rice and farm produce in central Quang Tri province will be
recovered thanks to heavy rains on the morning of June 22.
Director
of the provincial Hydro-Meteorology Forecasting Centre Phung Hong Long said
the average rainfall in the locality has been around 20-40 millimetres so far
today.
However,
the weather forecasts do not predict any other rainfall for the next 10 days.
Months
of scorching heat waves have dried up lakes, reservoirs and irrigation
facilities across Quang Tri, seriously affecting local livelihoods and
killing over 10,000 hectares of rice and food crops.
Lingering
heat waves have also led to the death of more than 500 hectares of pine
forests previously damaged by caterpillars.
Large
container ship passes through Soai Rap waterway
A
58,000-DWT container ship successfully passed through the newly dredged Soai
Rap waterway in
The MSC
Florida is a container ship registered in
In June
last year, the second phase of the Soai Rap dredging project was completed,
allowing Soai Rap to receive 50,000DWT fully loaded vessels and 70,000DWT
partially loaded vessels.
With the
ability to receive large vessels, the Soai Rap waterway will help shipping
companies reduce transport costs as it is the shortest route to
Previously,
large vessels that came to
The city
has 38 ports with a total length of nearly 13 kilometres, including large sea
ports such as Tan Cang – Cat Lai, Sai Gon and SPCT that account for a large
proportion of the country's sea goods transport.
Last
year, the city's ports handled a total of 109 million tonnes of goods, up 28
million tonnes against 2013.
The
municipal People's Committee has attributed the increase to the operation of
many transport infrastructure projects such as Tan Cang –
Bus
terminals told to focus on service
The
capital city has asked transportation companies to focus more on improving
service quality instead of increasing frequency on inter-provincial routes,
the Nhan Dan (The People) Newspaper reported yesterday.
As part
of efforts to make inter-provincial travel from and to the city more
comfortable and safe for passengers, it has asked the municipal Transport
Department to review bus schedules at all major terminals in the capital
city.
The city
People's Committee has also directed all bus stations in the capital city not
to increase the number of trips on fixed routes except during national
holidays or the Tet festival, the report said.
It
quoted Nguyen Quoc Hung, Vice Chairman of the city People's Committee, as saying
that from now until 2020, bus terminals receiving high traffic volumes should
also not increase the number of routes they service.
"Bus
terminals need to invest financial resources in improving service
quality," he said.
He also
said that new fixed-bus routes will be launched from the Nuoc Ngam and Yen
Nghia bus terminals that have the infrastructural capacity to handle more
routes and trips.
There
are 10 inter-provincial bus terminals in the capital city, with the six main
ones being: Giap Bat, My Dinh, Gia Lam, Luong Yen, Nuoc Ngam and Yen Nghia.
Most of
them are located at gateways to the city or on main roads that link the city
via ring-roads to various provinces.
Bus
terminals in the city serve 540 inter-provincial transport routes that link
Ha Noi with 42 provinces and cities in
A total
of 404 passenger transport enterprises have registered with the municipal
Transport Department to run on inter-provincial routes. These firms have been
allowed to operate 4,591 buses. Firms in Ha Noi account for 15 per cent of
the licensed enterprises, operating 1,263 buses. They serve 61 million turns
of passengers every year, and have recorded an average growth of 8.25 per
cent per year over the last several years, the report said.
Among
the 10 bus terminals, the My Dinh Terminal has the highest number of bus
arrivals and departures, at 1,600 arrivals and Nuoc Ngam Terminal has the
lowest at 220.
Transport
Department deputy director Nguyen Hoang Linh said the difference between the
two above terminals was based on city residents' demand for travel.
However,
he also said that some bus terminals were not effectively connecting with
public transport enterprises and failed to provide quality service. This
discouraged passengers from taking buses at these terminals, he added.
Funds
sought to provide fresh water for
City
authorities aim to provide access to hygienic water for all
Around
360,000 of 1.9 million households of the city do not have access to fresh
water. They are located mostly in the outskirts and must use rain water,
drilled-well water, or water pumped from canals, the city's Transport
Department has said.
To reach
the goal, the city needs total capital of VND5 trillion (US$240 million).
The city
has sought funds from the private sector to provide fresh water to rural
areas.
The Sai
Gon Water Infrastructure Joint Stock Company, for example, will manage water
supply and distribution in Cu Chi District. Several other investors plan to
provide 300,000 cubic metres of fresh water every day.
It is
expected that during 2016-2019, more investors from the private sector will
be sought.
"Related
departments like the Health Dept should educate customers about the use of
unhygienic water," the chairwoman of the city People's Council, Nguyen
Thi Quyet Tam, was quoted as saying in the Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberated Sai
Gon) newspaper.
The
deputy chairman of the city People's Committee, Nguyen Huu Tin, said the city
faced challenges in both human resources and budget for water supply
projects.
The city
plans to invest in a 1,256 km system to distribute fresh water to 116,700
households.
Another
1,500 fresh water tanks will also be provided to households without fresh
water. The remaining households will each receive a water treatment system.
"All
local residents will receive the same quality fresh water at the same price
of VND5,300 (US$0.25) for each cubic metre," Tin said.
Market
Watch seizes clothes with fake trademarks
The Ha
Noi Market Watch this morning confiscated thousands of sets of sports
clothes, jeans and underwear bearing fake trademarks of famous foreign
brands.
The
clothes were confiscated in a shop on Thai Thinh 2 Street in Ha Noi's Dong Da
District.
The fake
trademarks were for Levi's, Triumph and Nike.
The
owner of the shop, Ha Hai Dang, from the central
Dang set
up a website, www.shopnoiy.net, to advertise and sell his products online. He
told his customers that his products were from
Moreover,
Dang said his shop had been running for more than a year.
Compensation
agreed for tunnel project
Compensation
worth VND830 million (US$38,400) was paid to 110 households in Chiem Son
Ward, Duy Xuyen District in Quang Nam Province who were affected during the
construction of the Da Nang-Quang Ngai Highway yesterday.
Construction
of a mountain tunnel, part of the highway project, started in 2014 and used
explosives to blast through the mountain. The explosions were reported to
have caused damage to local residents' houses.
Work on
the tunnel was interrupted in May after residents complained about the damage
to their houses.
Bank
for Social Policies permitted to increase credit limit
The
Vietnam Bank for Social Policies (VBSP) has received the green light to
increase their credit ceiling from 6.5 percent to 10 percent, or 11.6 billion
VND (532,000 USD).
According
to Decision No 899/QD-TTg on amending the bank’s 2015 credit plan announced
by the Government, the bank’s total credit as of December 31, 2015 will reach
141 trillion VND.
It also
represents an increase of 4 trillion VND from the bank’s former plan as part
of the bank’s Development Strategy through 2020, approved by the Prime
Minister.
The VBSP
is allowed to increase the amount each household can borrow from 30 million
VND to 50 million VND.
Dong
Nai recognises 11 additional new-style rural communes
The
southern
The
communes are in Nhon Trach, Long Thanh, Thong Nhat,
Since
the new rural construction campaign began five years ago, 63 of Dong Nai’s
171 communes have met countryside development criteria.
In early
2015, Xuan Loc district and Long Khanh township were declared the first new
rural areas of the country.
For the
rest of this year, Dong Nai strives to add 25 communes to the list, raising
the number of new developed communes to 88, or 65 percent of the total.
Later
this year, Thong Nhat, Long Thanh and Nhon Trach will become new rural
districts towards transforming Dong Nai into a new rural province by 2020.
To that
end, the province will accelerate agriculture restructuring, building a farm
produce consumption chain and generating jobs.
The National
Target Programme on New Rural Development, launched in 2010, sets 19 criteria
for new rural areas covering infrastructure, production, living standards,
income and culture, among others. A district must have at least 75 percent of
its communes meeting all the 19 criteria in order to receive the title of new
rural district.
A
The
competition will run from June-October, encouraging participating individuals
and organisations across the city to develop unlimited designs of high
economic and artistic values.
It is
also to develop the sustainability and diversity of local handicrafts.
Entries
will be displayed for free at four booths at the 2015
The
organising board will provide competitors with funding for training and
adoption of advanced manufacturing equipment.
The
winning products will be wholly funded to appear at an international
handicraft fair overseas next year.
Held
annually from 2012-2014, the competition has attracted 300 competitors and
generated 800 new designs, many of them have gained popularity at home and
abroad.
Numerous
activities to celebrate Family Day
A series
of activities featuring the cultural identities of ethnic groups in the
Central Highlands will take place in the
As part
of activities to celebrate Vietnam Family Day 2015, the event will include
traditional festivals, a photo exhibition highlighting the matriarchy of a
number of Vietnamese ethnic groups, folk singing and dancing performances and
traditional games.
Traditional
handicrafts and specialities will be also introduced at the event.
The
event is expected offer insight into the traditional features of Vietnamese
families and those from the
Gia
Lai makes efforts to maintain friendly border
The
Central Highlands
Some of
the highlights of Gia Lai’s foreign policy are fostering people-to-people
contacts, increasing meetings and talks to share information and support one
another and speeding up projects to link the infrastructure, transport and
market system of the two localities.
Since
2010, leaders of Gia Lai and Ratanakiri have held regular meetings to solve
emerging matters and congratulate each other on special events, thus reinforcing
mutual understanding between the border guards of both sides.
Gia Lai
has also assisted Ratanakiri in building schools and its infrastructure
system while providing food and materials for the disadvantaged in poor areas
of Ratanakiri.
The Gia
Lai Border Guard and Fatherland Front Committee have presented six
“Solidarity-Friendship” houses worth hundreds of millions VND to poor
households in Ratanakiri. Meanwhile, a number of healthcare delegations were
sent to villages in the O Yadao district in Ratanakiri to provide free
medical services to locals.
The
provincial Border Guard also helped the Cambodian locality build a plan to
cope with natural disasters and implement rescue activities.
The two
provinces have worked closely in educating locals along the shared border to
strictly implement the treaty on border regulations and communicate the
significance of demarcation.
Currently,
the localities have finished planting 10 border markers and defined the site
for a marker at Le Thanh international border gate.
The
border guard forces of both sides have also coordinated closely in preventing
and combating crimes and illegal border crossings, contributing to ensuring
social order and security in both localities.
Dak
Lak focuses on coffee tree replacement
Authorities
of the Central Highlands
This is
part of the activities to replace aged coffee trees on 16,475 hectares
through 2020.
According
to the plan, as many as 4,423 hectares of coffee plants will be re-planted
during the rainy season this year.
Local
farmers and businesses have been using high-yield seedlings supplied by the
Central Highlands Institute for Agriculture and Forestry to re-plant,
according to the provincial Department of Agricultural and Rural Development.
The
province has zoned off nursing areas to supply high quality seeds and
seedlings to meet local demand. Each year, between 5-7 tonnes of coffee seeds
and more than four million seedlings are provided to local farmers and
enterprises.
The plan
also calls for incentives for coffee tree replacement in terms of financial
support, technical assistance and infrastructure facility improvement to contribute
to the sustainable development of the sector.
The
Central Highlands is now home to more than 90 percent of
Coffee
has also contributed to the socio-economic development of the
Thai
Nguyen vibrant with summer camp activities
A raft
of ebullient activities were held at the 2015 International Summer Camp,
organised in the northern province of Thai Nguyen on June 21 as part of
activities to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the normalisation of
diplomatic relations between Vietnam and the US.
Numerous
students from the
The
highlight of the cultural party was the exchange between students from Thai
Nguyen province and Thao & Get Down Stay Down band, a San Francisco,
California-based folk rock music group.
The
four-member band, including a Vietnamese- American- Thao Nguyen, a vocalist
and guitar player, treated the audience to 12 audacious songs from the album
“We the Common”.
The
event also featured brilliant performances by foreign students.
The
event left great impression on the participants, helping foster the
friendship, solidarity and cooperation between
On the
occasion, students visited famous destinations in Thai Nguyen province such
as the
National
grid project for ethnic region in Nghe An begins
A
project to connect ethnic households in central Nghe An province to the
national grid commenced on June 21 in Ky Son district.
The
project, scheduled to be completed by 2020, is expected to provide access to
the national power grid for 233 villages in 54 communes in the mountainous
districts of Que Phong, Quy Hop, Thanh Chuong, Quy Chau,
The
facilities will be jointly implemented by the Northern Power Corporation
under the Electricity of Vietnam (EVNNPC) and the Nghe An power company with
a total investment exceeding 780 billion VND (35.8 million USD), 85 percent
of which is sourced from the state budget.
New
technology helps farmers create higher yields
The
southern
The An
Thai hi-tech agriculture park, for example, has put a number of tillage
models using new-cutting edge production technologies in place from Israel,
Japan and the Republic of Korea to meet the Vietnamese good agricultural
practice (VietGAP) standards.
The
province has expanded the effective production models from the An Thai
hi-tech park to new-style rural areas, according to the provincial Department
of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Binh
Duong is now home to four hi-tech agriculture parks covering 979 hectares. It
also makes substantial technology investments in 84 breeding farms.
Local
farmers have successfully built trademarks such as the Lai Thieu mangosteen,
Thanh Thuy grapefruit and Hieu Liem mandarin.
Farmers
in Thanh Thuy district in particular sold 200-300 tonnes of grapefruits at
domestic and foreign market, generating an income of over 10 billion VND
(470,000 USD) per year.
Central
region analogue signals to be switched off
The central
city and neighbouring
The
central city and neighbouring
They
will be the first localities in the central region to stop broadcasting
analogue signals.
Following
a decision approved by the information and communication ministry on
‘Digitalisation programme in five central governance cities', the three
channels will stop broadcasting in the city and in northern Quang Nam
Province from next month, before seven analogue channels – VTV3, VTV9, VTV4
and VTV2, as well as DRT2, VTC1 and VTC9 – stop their broadcast from
September 30.
The move
follows the government's approval last year of a nationwide
analogue-to-digital migration plan, which will see the country's television
stations broadcasting all their content in the digital format by 2020.
Two
years ago, DRT became the first station outside a large metropolitan area to
use satellite services for live broadcasts.
Filling
canals to develop projects raises environmental concerns in Ho Chi Minh City
While
lowlands and canal systems are crucial for the drainage of Ho Chi Minh City,
large areas of such land plots have been zoned for realty projects, whose
developers do not hesitate to fill the waterways to serve construction.
The real
estate developers, however, do not violate any laws in doing so as they have
been allowed by local authorities to fill canals when obtaining the
investment license.
In some
projects, the developers are required to create lakes for water moderation to
prevent flooding in case of heavy downpours, but not all businesses comply
with the requirement.
Blocking
waterway from waterway
Residents
who live around the land plot zoned for the Riviera Point development in
District 7 have to suffer frequent flooding whenever it rains, as five out of
the six waterways that help drain the area have been filled up by the
developer.
The
waterways link the area with Ca Cam Canal, which has also been filled and
become a construction site for the nine-hectare residential area project.
Riviera
Point Co. Ltd. said it only builds what is approved in the investment
license, and the District 7 administration has admitted fault in approving
the project without asking the company to build a water moderation lake.
With the
waterways blocked, rainwater has nowhere to run and the area floods whenever
it rains.
Riviera
Point Co. has suggested enlarging the sewage system of the area to help with
the drainage, while local authorities said the developer must find a way to
build a lake for water moderation.
Elsewhere,
in District 9, Khang An Co. Ltd. has been allowed to fill part of the Ba Hien
Canal and its sub-waterways to serve its namesake residential area project
since 2003.
On June
14, Nam Phan JSC also started filling in another part of the Ba Hien Canal
for its project.
With the
presence of the two projects, some locals said they have forgotten that there
used to be a canal in the area.
The
project developers, meanwhile, both said they were permitted by the city’s transport
department to fill in the canal.
An Khang
Co. was only asked to develop a “suitable drainage system” for the project,
rather than building a water moderation lake.
“Neither
the companies nor the local authorities had a vision about the water moderation
lake then,” an official from the management board of the An Khang project
admitted.
But it
is now too late to back pedal, he added.
“Most of
the land plots within the project have already found buyers so it is
impossible to build a lake now,” he said.
Local
scientists have long warned that allowing realty projects to be developed in
lowlands and filling in waterways prove to be one of the causes of severe
flooding in Ho Chi Minh City.
Lowlands
in such districts as Can Gio and Nha Be must be kept intact so they can act
as natural places to store rainwater, according to an expert with the city’s
anti-flooding center.
“A
foreign expert once asked me why Ho Chi Minh City did not leave the lowlands
untouched to nourish its environment, but approved construction projects to
be built there instead,” an urban management official said.
Doctor
Ho Long Phi, director of the center for water management and climate change
under the Vietnam National University – Ho Chi Minh City, said allowing
developers to fill in canals and build sewage lines as “compensation” will
create a bad precedence.
“It’s
like an excuse for the inappropriate act of filling canals,” he said.
“The
canals serve the interest of the community, while the filled canals only do
good for the developers.”
VNA/VNS/VOV/SGT/SGGP/TT/TN/Dantri
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Thứ Ba, 23 tháng 6, 2015
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