Ministry of Culture releases shocking figures VietNamNet Bridge – On the morning of April 4, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism held a press conference reporting its operations in the first quarter of 2013, with shocking numbers.   VND2 million ($100) was the total fines that the Ministry’s inspectors collected during the early-year festival season, after checking 46 festivals in 17 provinces in the country.  Explaining about the modest fines, the inspection team said the fines were collected from the Huong (Perfume) Pagoda Festival in Hanoi. This was the only place where violations were detected and handled. This is a surprise number because earlier, the local media reported rampant violations at traditional festivalsthroughout the country.  VND67 million ($3,200) was the fines the Performing Arts Agency collected from violations in performing art activities in the first three months of 2013. Decree 79 was released one year ago to address performing art activities. The representative from the Performing Arts Agency said at the conference that management of performing art activities last year was conducted “thoroughly and aggressively.” Besides the old issues related to performers, such as wearing scanty outfit on the stage, lip sync or posting sexual clips on the Internet, the Performing Arts Agency informed a new form of violation: indirect advertisement on television. The agency also said to receive 2,000 songs composed before 1975 that ask for the agency’s licenses for circulation in the first three months of 2013. Eleven red books (land use right certificates) were recovered relating to the scandal in which the Director of the Phong Nha - Ke Bang National Park used these red books, which are the assets of the national park, to mortgage to solicit for project approval. A national and world natural heritage was “mortgaged” but the incident was detected quickly and the land was revoked.   Four applications are the number given by the Department of International Cooperation for extending the deadline for receiving applications for the Tourism Ambassador position for another six months. The agency wanted to have more candidates for the post. Explaining about the change of the time for appointment and the duration (from one to two year term) of the Tourism Ambassador, the Director of the International Cooperation Department said that the changes are necessary to fit the actual work. Zero is the number of individuals who must take responsibility for the incident of mistakenly displaying the picture of China's Leshan Giant Buddha – the world highest stone statue in the booth of Vietnam at the international tourism fair in Germany in early March 2013. A representative from the Vietnam National Tourism Administration (VNAT) said that the VNAT would get full responsibility regarding this unfortunate incident but no person has been punished. The reason is that the disciplinary panel is in the process of reviewing the evidence relating to personal liability for the incident before drawing conclusions. Nguyen Hoang