SOCIETY IN BRIEF 11/7 Hanoi to use 990 billion VND for road upgrade The capital city of Hanoi will spend nearly 990 billion VND (47 million USD) upgrading and expanding a road from Long Bien Bridge to Vinh Tuy Bridge. The municipal People’s Committee approved in principle the project, which will be implemented between now and 2014. The project will construct a 2.5-kilometre section from Long Bien Bridge to Tran Quang Khai road and the other, which is 2.2 kilometres long, stretching from an intersection between Tran Quang Khai and Tran Hung Dao roads to Vinh Tuy Bridge. The Committee assigned relevant departments to work closely together to ensure the progress of the project. HCM City considers road naming standards HCM City People’s Committee has proposed to name new roads after islands and specialties of the Southern areas. They also proposed eight common rules to name roads and public constructions during the 10th meeting about criteria for naming roads. Names of famous beauty spots, historic events and figures include names of revolutionary martyrs and Vietnamese Heroic Mothers or who have contributed greatly to the region will still be the first choices for naming roads. If a historic figure has several names, the city will choose the most well-known name, except in some special cases. Furthermore, city are only to use names of the deceased. The proposal to name roads and constructions after flowers and specialties of the Southern region caused some debate. Many said though the specialties are delicious, it would not be appropriate to name roads after them. The idea of using flower name for roads is also under contest because HCM City does not have any special flowers. In fact, there are several roads in Phu Nhuan District which were named after flowers, but it seems to only cause troubles in finding them. Therefore, deputy Tran Huu Tri from District 6 said, "I suggest naming roads after islands and archipelagos. This is a meaningful and necessary deed right now." Incence burning has old Hoi An catch fire An old house in Tran Phu street in the old quarter of Hoi An City caught fire yesterday morning after the owner burnt incense inside, said vice chairman of the city's People's Committee Truong Van Bay. While firefighters extinguished the blaze within an hour, most of the two-storey 100sq.m house's wooden interiors and floors were damaged. No one was injured in the blaze. Local residents burn incense on the first and 15th day of each lunar month. Train collides with container truck A train travelling to Hai Phong hit a container truck on National Highway No 5 at 5.15pm yesterday, leaving three carriages overturned. No casualties were reported. Containers fell into a nearby rice paddy. The container truck and trailer was driven by a 27-year-old man from Hai Duong. Responsible bodies attended the scene to settle traffic problems and investigate. Company bans press after labour accident Leaders of a company based in Haiphong City have been trying to prevent local police and journalists from visiting the site where two workers died on the job. The accident happened at 8:20am on July 9, in Haiphong Thermal Power JSC in Tam Hung Commune, Thuy Nguyen District. A large amount of furnace slag poured onto two workers, Ngo Thi Lan and Cao Thi Thao, while they were cleaning the furnace. After the accident, the communal authorities and Hoang Vy, the labour supply company that introduced Lan and Thao, quickly transferred the two workers to Thuy Nguyen District Hospital. However they died at the hospital due to severe burns and gas inhalation. Many journalists attempted to investigate the accident, but they were barred entry. All of the company's gates were closed and the guards were hostile towards the journalists. The company leaders have also kept silent and have not offered any condolences or compensation to the victims' families. Chairman of Thuy Nguyen District People's Committee, Nguyen Tran Lanh said, "As of July 10 the police still did not have access to the property." Ha Noi sees rise in pink-eye disease The number of people suffering from pink-eye disease (conjunctivitis) has sharply increased in Ha Noi in recent weeks, according to the Central Eye Hospital. About 100 people, both children and adults, have visited the hospital for conjunctivitis-related checkups and treatment every day, according to Doctor Vu Thi Tue Khanh from the hospital. The hot weather and air pollution in the area has allowed viral infections to develop. It usually takes seven to ten days for a patient to recover, Khanh said. Patients are advised not to self-medicate. Deadly farming dispute leaves seven dead Seven people have been detained following an investigation into three deaths and nine injuries caused by warring farmers in the northern province of Thanh Hoa earlier this week. Clashes took place along the province's Yen River over a disputed clam farming area. On Sunday, around 100 farmers from two neighbouring villages in Quang Xuong District's Quang Nham Commune and Tinh Gia District's Hai Chau Commune reportedly fought each other with weapons including bricks, sticks and knives. The provincial People's Committee has asked local authorities including the police, military, People's Procuracy, People's Court and district people's committees to co-operate with the investigation. The provincial departments of home affairs, agriculture and rural development, natural resources and environment have been assigned to work with local authorities to define the land rights and responsibilities for aquatic cultivation on the river area between the two villages. Death sentence handed down to four drug traffickers Four men were yesterday sentenced to death for drug trafficking and possessing illegal weapons by northern Hai Phong city's People's Court. They include Nguyen Van Binh and Le Anh Tuan from Hai Phong, Chu Van Duy from northern Son La Province and Nguyen Van Hoa from Ha Noi. Binh and Duy were arrested in 2011 while smuggling drugs by car from Son La to Hai Phong for consumption. Police seized 18 heroin cakes (more than 6.1kg), 31 synthetic drug tablets weighing 2.86g and two guns with nine bullets. An investigation by Hai Phong police found that Binh and Duy, together with Tuan and Hoa, had been involved in drug trafficking from 2009 to November 2011. During the period, Binh, Duy, Tuan and Hoa were found to have smugglde 150, 144, 95 and 85 cakes of heroin respectively. Each cake of heroin is equivalent to 350g. Free milk donated to underprivileged children About 300 poor and underprivileged children in central Quang Binh Province on July 10 received free milk from the Viet Nam Rising Milk Fund. In its fifth year of operation, the fund is supported by the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, the Viet Nam Children Sponsoring Fund and the Viet Nam Dairy Products Joint Stock Company (Vinamilk). The fund's goals are to reduce the ratio of malnourished children nationwide by creating opportunities for Vietnamese children to drink milk every day. The free delivery of milk, equivalent to 26,000 glasses, in Quang Binh, marked the fund's first stop on this year's journey. The following destinations in July and August will be northern Yen Bai Province and Kien Giang Province's Phu Quoc Island District. For this year, the Milk Fund will provide free milk worth VNe6 billion (US$288,000) to 13,500 underprivileged children living at children's care centres located in 58 provinces and cities nationwide. Over the last four years, the Milk Fund has offered 20 million glasses of milk, worth around VNe75 billion ($3.57 million) to nearly 300,000 poor children nationwide. The fund showed that 26.7 per cent of Vietnamese children suffered from stunted malnutrition and 16.2 per cent of them were underweight form malnutrition in 2012. One in every four Vietnamese children under five is stunted, with low consumption of milk being one of the reasons for the high malnutrition rate, according to the institute. Can Tho boosts clean water supply Can Tho, the largest city in the Mekong Delta, has planned to build 70 water-supply plants from now to 2020 in order to supply more residents with clean water, according to the city's Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. The cost will be VND700 billion (US$33 million), of which VND350 billion will be from the State budget and the remaining from commercial sources as well as local residents. More than 24,000 households living in areas with a water-supply network do not have access to clean water. City authorities also said that household bore wells that meet quality standards would be upgraded to ensure that water is clean. Only 51.5 per cent of households in the rural outskirts of the city, where about 400,000 people live, have access to clean water. The city has a total of 424 clean-water stations, with a processing capacity of four to 20 cubic metres an hour, and 48,378 bore wells Ha Noi looks for ways to ease bus station overload Ha Noi People's Committee Chairman Nguyen The Thao has asked for the prompt construction of temporary parking zones near coach and bus stations to ease overloading. He urged action following an inspection of parking areas near stations in Hoang Mai, Tu Liem and Dong Anh districts on Tuesday. He said that building temporary parking facilities for My Dinh and Giap Bat bus stations - the city's most crowded - was essential to ensure traffic order and safety and make travelling more comfortable for passengers. He also checked the feasibility of creating further parking space along the city's ring road No.3 and the Bac Thang Long-Noi Bai highway. The municipal People's Committee held a working session with the capital's Transport Department on Monday to discuss plans to reorganise bus routes in the city. There are six main bus stations in Ha Noi: Giap Bat, Nuoc Ngam, Gia Lam, Luong Yen, My Dinh and Yen Nghia, and most of them are overloaded. My Dinh is the worst offender, with more than 920 bus trips departing from the station on average each day, according to the transport department. In order to ease overloading at the station, the department proposed plans to transfer between 300 and 400 buses from the station to others, equivalent to 30 per cent of its capacity. Thao asked the department to research further before putting these plans into practice, in order to ensure the re-routes would not cause traffic disorder and negatively impact transport businesses. He also instructed the department to work with relevant agencies to check the total number of bus trips entering the city from other localities, in order to research the need for more bus stations. Bird flu contained for now, but scientists expect return The bird flu outbreak that began early this year in six provinces is under control but likely to return, the Animal Health Department said yesterday. Thirty three communes in five provinces — Dien Bien, Khanh Hoa, Kien Giang, Tay Ninh, and Vinh Long — were hit by the A/H5N1 bird flu, according to the department. Around 61,700 birds were culled. H5N1 also infected swallows in central Ninh Thuan Province in March, resulting in nearly 10,000 swallows being culled. But in May the province announced the epidemic had ended. Last year 71 communes in 20 provinces had reported outbreaks in the first half, and 30 per cent more poultry had to be culled. But Pham Van Dong, head of the department, expected the disease to rear its head again soon, saying: "The return of A/H5N1 outbreaks would be scattered in the areas that were hit by the disease." However, all 2,554 samples taken from smuggled and low-quality poultry — both live and dead — tested negative for the A/H7N9 virus, he told a conference held in HCM City yesterday. Some 140 livestock markets in 44 cities and provinces are kept under surveillance for poultry and animal diseases, he said. Thus, foot-and-mouth and blue-ear diseases in pigs are also under control, he said. Only Phu Yen and Dak Lak Provinces have reported the two diseases in the last 21 days. But the department is wary of foot-and-mouth outbreaks in the next few months due to cattle smuggling from Laos and Cambodia. Blue-ear disease is also expected to spread in a wide arc in the upcoming period in the south besides some endemic areas. More than 600 heads of cattle hit by foot-and-mouth disease in six provinces were culled in the first six months. Blue-ear disease killed more than 25,000 pigs in 12 provinces during the period. Ministry reviews program on nutrition, food security Malnutrition is usually prevalent among children in remote mountainous areas, said Nguyen Thanh Long, deputy health minister at a meeting to review the implementation of the program ‘Integrated Nutrition and Food Security for Children and Vulnerable Groups in Vietnam’. Long said poor nutrition is common in remote mountainous regions. Thus local food in the region must be more balanced and diverse. In three years since implementation, the program has opened a new chapter in nutrition and food security in Vietnam, said Long. The joint program of integration of nutrition and food security for children and vulnerable groups in the country was implemented in the country from January 2010 to December 2012 at a cost of US$3.55 million, including a non-refundable sum of $3.5 million from the Spanish Millennium Development Goal Achievement Fund through the Food and Agriculture Organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Health Organization. Vietnamese citizenship granted to 576 immigrants The People’s Committee of Ho Chi Minh City granted the Vietnamese citizenship to 576 undocumented immigrants on July 9. The above people have been living in Vietnam for more than 20 years and been complying with the law of the country, hence they were permitted to apply for Vietnamese citizenship. Among the new citizens was Quach Tan Thanh from Le Van Tho Street in Go Vap District who could not hide his happiness when he received his citizenship papers. He exclaimed, ‘We really love our adopted country, Vietnam, which has helped us for more than 20 years in the most difficult years of out lives. We want to settle down here to contribute more for the country’s growth. Today we really are proud citizens of Vietnam.’ Worldskills competition awards 7 Vietnamese contestants Vietnam has won seven medallions for Excellence at the week-long Worldskills Competition, which concluded in Leipzig, Germany, on July 7. Vietnamese contestants took part in 12 skills categories: cooking, restaurant services, electronics, carpentry, bricklaying, wall and floor tiling, web design, information technology software solutions, refrigeration, fashion and mechatronics They demonstrated skill to a level matching both ASEAN and international standards, said Cao Van Sam, Deputy Director of the Department of Vocational Training. This year’s competition was dominated by a strong showing from East Asian countries, especially the Republic of Korea and Japan. The RoK led the competition with 23 medals, including 12 golds. Switzerland was the highest ranked European country with 17 medals (9 golds). The 2013 Worldskills Competition was the biggest so far, with more than 1,000 contestants representing 65 countries and territories competing in 46 categories. Overseas Vietnamese seized for drug trafficking Customs officers and border-guard forces at Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat Airport have arrested V.M.D., a Vietnamese national residing in Canada, for illegally transporting 2,065 ecstasy pills. V.M.D., 26, was caught while he attempting to smuggle the synthetic drugs from Hong Kong to Vietnam on board a CX767 airplane. The ecstasy pills were hidden in his luggage and uncovered during an inspection at Tan Son Nhat airport. Relevant agencies are broadening the scope and scale of their investigations into the case. Seminar discusses state agencies’ anti-corruption role The Government Inspectorate has held a July 9 seminar in Hanoi to discuss the role of state agencies in detecting and combating corruption. Delegates debated current levels of supervision and methods to uncover and control emerging forms of corruption. Around 282 cases of corruption are recorded each year. Last year, 89 incidents were detected involving total assets worth VND104 billion.  Anti-corruption and waste prevention initiatives continue to operate on a significant scale. Government Inspectorate Research Institute Director General Nguyen Quoc Hiep said combating corruption requires as much timely and accurate intelligence as possible. Government agencies should also accept individual responsibility for controlling corruption within their ranks. Poor people receive free health services More than 2,500 poor people in the two central provinces of Quang Nam and Quang Ngai enjoy free health care and medicine from a charity programme run by the Korean Doosan Vina Inc. and the Hospital of Chung Ang University. Accordingly, it costs US$133,200 to check the health of 1,500 elderly people and children in Quang Ngai province and about 1,000 poor people in Quang Nam province. Within the framework of this fifth charity programme, 13 children with cleft lips will receive free surgery and two children with congenital heart disease will later be transferred to the Hospital of Chung Ang University in the Republic of Korea for surgery. On the first day of the five-day programme, nearly 600 patients were examined and given medicine, said Dr. Lee Chee Song, the head of the charity group. Since the programme was launched in 2009, nearly 12,000 people in these two localities have been given health check-ups, and 60 children suffering from cleft lips, 19 cataract patients and two children with heart disease have been operated on. To date, the programme funding has received US$1.88 million. Vietnam youth lack contraceptive information Adolescent abortion accounts for 20% of total abortion and one-third of Vietnamese youth have yet to access information on contraceptive methods. The figure was released at a press briefing in Hanoi on July 10 by Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Viet Tien in response to World Population Day (July 11). Tien said this year’s focus is on adolescent pregnancy, as it affects children and future generations. There are a number of concerns around adolescent reproductive health and pregnancy, such as unsafe sex, unwanted pregnancy, unsafe abortion and sexually transmitted infections. In 2011, 46 out of 1,000 Vietnamese youth had children. The rate is higher in the low-qualification group, low-income group, ethnic minority group and those living in midland, northern mountainous and rural areas. Arthur Erken, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) country representative, said adolescent pregnancy is an urgent issue that adolescent girls are facing. This is not only health problem but also a developmental issue. It is caused by poverty, gender inequality, violence, and early marriage. The UNFPA representative suggested that adolescent girls should be provided with more advice so that they can develop comprehensively and understand their rights. If they get married at a right time, they will enjoy good health and produce healthy babies. A Ministry of Health representative expressed hope that the media will enhance communications campaigns on population and family planning, including reproductive health, sexual health and exemplary role models in the field. Vietnam-Laos youth friendship exchange A friendship exchange between Vietnamese and Lao youth will take place in Son La, Tuyen Quang, Hanoi, Nghe An and Ha Tinh from July 15-22. This is part of the 2012-2017 cooperative agreement between the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union (HCYU) and the Lao People’s Revolutionary Youth Union (LPRYU). Main activities will include a courtesy visit to Vietnamese Party and State leaders, presentation of Vietnam’s Independence Order (first class) to LPRYU and the Laos’ Freedom Order to the HCYU Central Committee and inauguration of Internet chat rooms for My Bang villagers in Tuyen Quang province. In addition, participants will have the chance to stay at local people’s houses in Cua Lo town, Nghe An province and meet with young members of the Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group and the Vietnam Post and Communication Group and visit local museums as well as cultural and historical relic sites. Road construction clears city congestion Traffic congestion in HCM City's major areas has been significantly reduced as more and more new roads and bridges have been built in recent years, a city official has said. The situation has improved at the eastern and western gateways of HCM City, especially on the Ha Noi Highway from Dong Nai bridge to Sai Gon bridge, and from Binh Dien bridge to Nguyen Van Linh roundabout in Binh Chanh District. Traffic congestion eased after the construction of Ha Noi Highway, the main gateway of the city that connects to southeastern provinces. The highway has been upgraded and expanded into 16 lanes. Traffic has improved on the section from Sai Gon Bridge to Thu Duc intersection on the expressway. One of the most significant projects is 20 km-long Vo Van Kiet Avenue, with six to 10 lanes. It connects with National Road 1A (in Binh Chanh District) passing through districts 6, 5, 4, 1 and 2, to Ha Noi Highway. The Vo Van Kiet Avenue has helped ease traffic congestion in both eastern and western directions, making way for trucks to go in and out of Cat Lai Port in District 2. In addition, the Belt Road 2 has also contributed to easing traffic jams by restricting trucks and container trucks from entering the inner city. Sections of the Belt Road 2 includes National Road 1A from Go Dua traffic circle in Thu Duc District to Ho Ngoc Lam and Nguyen Van Linh streets, as well as Phu My bridge to the Go Dua traffic circle. The Tan Son Nhat – Binh Loi – Outside Belt Road, of which some sections are nearly finished and will be open to traffic soon, is another project that has helped the city cope with traffic jams. The road will ease traffic congestion in Tan Binh, Phu Nhuan and Go Vap districts and on certain streets leading to the inner city, including Nam Ky Khoi Nghia-Nguyen Van Troi, Hoang Van Thu and Phan Dang Luu streets. In addition, many flyovers in the city have also helped ease traffic congestion, including one at Thu Duc intersection and one at Hang Xanh roundabout. The city's Department of Transport has also reorganised traffic flow on many streets like Nguyen Thai Son – Pham Ngu Lao in Go Vap District, and at Bay Hien intersection. Traffic flow has also been eased at Suong Nguyet Anh and Bui Thi Xuan streets in District 1. The department said that it would continue to conduct research to reorganise traffic flow at many streets and intersections across the city. The department has also modified traffic lights at 129 areas where there is dense traffic flow, especially during peak hours. It will also set up more electronic boards on large streets to help traffic commuters learn more about directions, traffic lanes, and potential traffic jams. To solve traffic congestion in a sustainable manner, Tat Thanh Cang, director of the Transport Department, said the city needed to plan and develop infrastructure, including roads, railways and waterways and air routes, in a unified manner. The city must also develop public transport and restrict the use of personal vehicles, he said. In addition, the city will need to develop many more flyovers, metro routes and extensive bus routes that connect with many areas in the city and with metro stations, he added. Source: VOV/VNA/SGGP/Dan Tri/VNS