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Social
News Headlines 26/6
Jail terms
for three upheld in bribery case
The appeal court of
HCM City's People's Supreme Court, yesterday, upheld the sentences of three
persons on charges of offering and accepting bribes.
The court upheld
the seven-year jail term to the former chief of the southern
The court also
upheld the 13-year imprisonment sentence to the company's former deputy
director Tran Thanh Tung for offering the bribe.
The company's
former director Pham Minh Quang was also sentenced to 13 years in prison for
offering a bribe, reducing one year from the first trial.
Suspects
found with fake MobiFone cards
The police in the
The four suspects
are all men in their thirties from northern
Earlier, on January
16 this year, the provincial police caught a man in Hai Xuan Commune of
The police said the
24,900 vouchers that they confiscated were just part of a larger number of
fake vouchers that the ring brought to
The four suspects
had allegedly used the fake vouchers as credit to borrow VND35 billion (over
US$1.66 million) from a bank in Hai Duong. The police said since the vouchers
had not been sold in the market, no customers had been affected.
Police
penalise ships for illegal sand ops
Police in the
northern province of Hai Duong's Tu Ky District, yesterday, decided to punish
three ships VND16 million (US$760) for illegal exploitation of sand.
The ships were
caught red-handed by local inspectors while trying to illegally exploit sand
at Thai Binh river section crossing Ngoc Son commune on Monday.
Local authorities
have increased measures to prevent illegal sand exploitation, including
conducting regular inspection.
Number of
road accidents, fatalities decline in H1
The first half of
the year saw fewer road accidents, with just around 12,800 cases compared to
over 14,800 cases in the same period last year.
The number of
fatalities in these accidents have also come down to 224 with 2,700 injured,
which was less than the figures for the same period in 2013, revealed the
latest National Traffic Safety Committee's latest report.
The statistics were
reported at an online conference organised yesterday to review the country's
traffic safety work during the first half of the year and discuss the
remaining work for the last months, including land clearance for National
Highway 1 and a part of the
Deputy Prime
Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, who is also chairman of the National Traffic
Safety Committee, expressed his appreciation at the good performance of 10
provinces in reducing over 20 per cent of the number of accident-related
fatalities during the first six months.
The provinces
receiving praise were mostly in the north. These included Bac Giang, Phu Tho
and Lang Son, along with Quang Ninh, Bac Ninh and Dien Bien. The exceptions
were Ha Tinh in the central region and Hau Giang, Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan
in the south. Bac Giang was the province with the best performance, as it had
managed to reduce its fatalities by more than 50 per cent.
Phuc also strictly
reprimanded nine other localities where accident-related deaths increased by
more than 25 per cent, including the southern provinces of Bac Lieu, Tra Vinh
and Dong Nai. Ben Tre, Kien Giang, Vinh Long and Ca Mau were also reprimanded
along with the
He was also unhappy
with six provinces that failed to finish land clearance work for the
construction of National Highway 1 and a part of the
He urged these
localities to complete land clearance by July 15 and warned that if they
failed to complete the work by the deadline, units and individuals involved
would be penalised.
Phuc also used the
occasion to remind relevant agencies and localities of the priorities of the
2014 road safety year – which is to tighten management over transport-related
business activities, control of vehicle weights and targeted reduction of
5-10 per cent in the figures of traffic accidents and accident-related
casualties.
He urged the
Ministry of Transport to speed up its work on reviewing, revising and
finalising legal documents on the conditions for businesses running
double-decker passenger buses, which should include a timetable, routes, and
age and licence of drivers to avoid recurrence serious accidents.
He also requested
the Road Maintenance Fund at central and local levels to allocate adequate
funding for the smooth operations of mobile vehicle weighing stations.
Southern
households make way for new urban development
More than 10,000
families in north-western
The Northwest
Metropolitan Area (NMA)'s zoning plans envisage a total area of more than
9,000ha in Cu Chi and Hoc Mon districts that will be divided into nine zones.
Developers have
already been identified for two of the zones -
Speaking at a
meeting on Thursday, Nguyen Viet Dung, deputy chairman of the Cu Chi People's
Committee, said the 10,000 families live on a total area of nearly 2,000ha.
The NMA
administration should have a roadmap to spell out which zones are to get
priority in implementation and the time frames for it, he said.
It should also
inform the affected residents about it so that they can feel secure about
their future, he said.
Ho Van Dung Anh,
deputy head of the Northwest Metropolitan Area Authority, said competent
agencies should allow the conversion of agricultural lands in these
residential areas into housing lands.
Of the 2,000ha
occupied by the families to be moved out, around 80 per cent is already
housing land.
When developers buy
these lands, they have to pay compensation to the occupants in accordance
with regulations, he said, possibly referring to the fact that housing lands
fetch higher prices.
The Northwest
Metropolitan Area Authority has urged the city administration to soon
announce broad regulations for urban and architectural planning, based on
which it could draft specific regulations for developing the NMA.
They will all have
the same colour scheme to ensure consistency, electronic signboards and
global positioning systems.
Of them 300 80-seat
vehicles to be manufactured by the Sai Gon Transportation Mechanical
Corporation will operate on compressed natural gas while the rest, of various
sizes, will run on diesel.
The People's
Committee will help transport companies and co-operatives obtain loans on
easy terms to buy the buses, with the operators only having to pay 30 per
cent of the cost upfront.
Speaking to Sai Gon
Giai Phong (Liberated Sai Gon) newspaper, Duong Hong Thanh, deputy director
of the city Department of Transport, said the 80-seat buses would run on main
routes.
Most of the main
routes run through large roads and so the operation of large buses would not
affect the traffic much, he said.
It was decided to
buy 560 large vehicles following calculations based on passenger demand on
the routes, he explained.
To improve the
services, his department would continue to review and adjust routes to allow
passengers easy and convenient access to buses, he said.
It would create
free parking lots for motorbikes and bicycles at bus stations and terminals
so that people can leave their personal vehicles there and use buses, he
said.
It would study
one-way streets to allow buses to run both ways on some of them, he said.
The department
would improve the work ethic of bus drivers and their assistants and use
gadgets to monitor the operation of buses, he said.
Buses would remain
the city's chief mode of public transport until 2020 since the first metro
line and bus rapid transit route would only be operational in 2017-18, he
said.
There are more than
3,000 buses running on 200 routes, meeting 10.7 per cent of people's
transport needs. The city spends more than VND1 trillion (US$47.6 million) a
year to subsidise their operations.
Buses carried 624.9
million passengers last year and the department hopes to increase the number
to 650 million this year.
Minister
vows to fix damaged roads
Transport Minister
Dinh La Thang has asked road agencies to identify the causes of and solutions
to subsidence on major roads across the country by the end of this year.
The deteriorations
have appeared on many major roads including National Highway No1 and No5,
part of National Highway No3 from Ha Noi to Thai Nguyen and the Noi Bai- Lao
Cai Expressway.
The problem has
caused headaches for the transport sector and stirred public outcry with
cracks even appearing on new roads opened only a few weeks or months prior.
Speaking at a
workshop held by the ministry on Tuesday to discuss road degradation,
transport officials and experts urged for the Government to tighten control
over the quality of asphalt used to build roads, road construction and design
and overloaded vehicles.
Head of the
ministry's Sciences and Technology Department, Hoang Ha said that the
subsidence was more common at major turns or at the top of sloped sections of
roads.
He said that
contractors were using poor quality materials, inflexible designs among
different parts of the roads or use the same pavement types for different
kinds of roads in different geographic and weather conditions.
"Overloaded
trucks make the situation worse," Ha said, citing that from northern Ha
Nam Province to Thanh Hoa, 23 per cent of trucks were found to be overloaded,
most of which were carrying three times the permitted weight.
Tran Xuan Sanh,
director of the ministry's Project Quality Management Department said that
lackluster materials, outdated technology and inexperienced contractors were
behind the poor quality roads.
Minister Thang
ordered that by next month, road project management boards and investors
would have to make plans to repair degraded roads, cracks and subsidence.
He added that
design consultants, supervisors, road project management boards and
contractors would need to improve their performance and boost independent
assessment.
He asked the
Project Quality Management Department to examine roads with expired
warranties in the three months following.
The department also
requested contractors to fix problems or they would be held responsible,
Thang said.
Minister Thang said
that he was also willing to approve any solution that could prevent
subsidence over the next five years.
Cities
target leprosy reduction
All provinces and
cities are expected to achieve key indicators related to leprosy elimination
by 2015, according to the agency that provides technical guidance to
hospitals for the national leprosy prevention programme.
There are four main
criteria: a leprosy prevalence rate of less than 0.2 per 10,000 population;
less than one new case per 100,000; less than 15 per cent degree-two
disability among new patients; and all medical staff and local authorities
should have basic knowledge of the disease.
Fifty two provinces
and cities achieved the four indicators by 2013.
Quang Ngai, Binh
Dinh, An Giang, Kien Giang, Binh Phuoc, and Tay Ninh hope to achieve them by
the end of this year, and the remaining city and provinces — HCM City, Ninh
Thuan, Binh Thuan, Gia Lai, and Kon Tum — by the end of 2015.
Deputy Minister of
Health Nguyen Thi Xuyn said that for the purpose they should focus on
activities to detect new cases and rehabilitate patients with leprosy.
At a national
meeting on accelerating leprosy elimination held yesterday (June 25) by the
National Hospital of Dermato-Venereology in Ninh Thuan Province, Assoc Prof
Dr Tran Hau Khang, manager of the country's leprosy prevention programme and
director of the National Hospital Of Dermato-Venerelogy, said the rate of new
cases decreased from 1.04 per 100,000 in 2004 to 0.29 last year.
The prevalence rate
also fell from 0.10 per 10,000 in 2004 to 0.02. The rate of new patients with
degree-two disability dropped from 16.9 per cent to 16.54 per cent, but the
speed of change was slow, he said.
The country has
18,000 leprosy patients with degree-two disability, one of the challenges
facing the programme, he said.
He called on
provinces and cities that have achieved the targets to continue with the
programme, warning that a failure to do so could see outbreaks again.
But a drop in the
funding for the programme is causing difficulties especially for those
provinces and cities planning to achieve the targets by 2015.
Xuyen called on
health officials in provinces and cities to take the initiative to carry out
examinations to detect new cases early, treat patients with free multi-drug
therapy, and reduce disabilities.
Dissemination of
information about the disease, prevention of disabilities, and rehabilitation
should be strengthened and health officials on the programme should be provided
training, she added.
The northern
mountainous
The centre, spread
over an area of 950 square metres, was built with an investment of more than
VND2.2 billion, or US$104,000, from
It is expected to
provide better healthcare to about 5,000 people, mostly from the
The healthcare
centre is part of
Under the project,
the construction of other 11 healthcare centres, worth VND26.8 billion or
$1.25 million, is scheduled to finish next month in the two provinces.
AFD funds
GI development project in Mekong Delta
The French
Development Agency (AFD) will earmark US$2 million for the four
The 2014-2017
project, with funding sourced from the French government, will be implemented
in
At a launch
ceremony in
GI is a very
important system, especially when
Farmers will first
benefit from their products if they are protected beyond national borders, he
said, adding GI also helps Vietnamese consumers easily gain access to
high-quality products.
During the past
decade, the interest in an enhanced protection system for geographic
indicators, a recognised system of certification for unique regional foods
and agricultural processes, has grown considerably around the world,
particularly in
National Office of
Intellectual Property of Vietnam (NOIP) Director General Ta Quang Minh
stressed that
The use of GIs will
promote the competitiveness of Vietnamese agricultural products and create
more income for local people, contributing to hunger elimination, poverty
reduction and sustainable development in rural areas, he said.
Currently, Vietnam
has 38 famous products certified GIs including Shan Tuyet Moc Chau tea, Tam
Xoan Hai Hau rice, Van Yen Cinnamon, Phu Quoc fish sauce, Buon Ma Thuat
Coffee, Doan Hung pomelo and Binh Thuan green dragon fruit.
Japanese
minister shares experience in promoting hi-tech agriculture
Japanese Minister
of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Hayashi Yoshimasa on June 25 visited
Saigon Hi-Tech Agriculture Park in
He hoped the two
sides will have more chances to share farming knowledge and discuss the
management of Japanese cooperative model.
Vice Chairman of
the municipal People’s Committee Le Thanh Liem said promoting high technology
and the application of biotechnology in agriculture has been one of the
city’s priorities.
Although the sector
accounts for only 1% of the city’s GDP, it plays a significant role in
economic development of five outskirt districts.
He said
After five years of
operation, Saigon Hi-Tech Park, the country’s first and largest of its kind,
has become a centre for researching and transferring agriculture technology
of
The park is hosting
14 projects in plant variety production, orchid cultivation, clean vegetable,
mushroom, herbal and ornamental plant farming and biological products for
agriculture.
Taiwanese
projects benefit needy children in central province
Underprivileged
children in the central
The projects of
Zhi-Shan Foundation (ZSF) from
During the period,
the ZSF has presented more than 1,000 scholarships worth some VND1.2 billion
(US$57,100) every year to children with disadvantaged backgrounds.
Since 2000, it has
given free surgeries totally worth about VND7.5 billion (US$357,100) to 670
children with deformities and helped rehabilitate the disabled under 18.
Under another
project supporting pre-school education since 2004, four nurseries have been
built at a cost of VND5 billion (US$238,000) in Gio Linh, Cam Lo and Hai Lang
districts while local staff trained in nutrition practice and health care.
It aims to ensure
access of all children in the target localities to education and reducing the
rate of malnourished ones to below 10%.
On this occasion,
the Quang Tri People’s Committee recognised contributions of the ZFS by
awarding certificates of merit to three individuals.
Local authorities
and the foundation also presented gifts to 914 students who achieved
outstanding academic results.
Founded in 1995,
the ZFS engages in long-term humanitarian international aid and development
work.
Official
urges new waste strategy
Urban waste
treatment should be handed over to private operators since public facilities
have proved inefficient, Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai has said.
Speaking at a
meeting with HCM City and Long An Province officials at the Da Phuoc
Integrated Waste Treatment Facility in HCM City's Binh Chanh District last
Saturday, he said: "The models of public operation of waste treatment
has not been successful, and so we should encourage private firms who have
sufficient resources and advanced technologies to invest in this
sector."
There are 458
dumping sites in the country at present but only 26 of them are
environmentally safe, he pointed out.
He said Da Phuoc's
waste treatment facility operated by the Viet Nam Waste Solutions Inc (VWS)
is appropriate for the country and should be supported by relevant authorities.
Da Phuoc has a
daily processing capacity of 10,000 tonnes of waste but now gets a mere 3,000
tonnes a day, he said.
To reduce the
pressure on dumps using outdated technologies, he ordered
Nguyen Huu Tin,
deputy chairman of the city People's Committee, said Phuoc Hiep dump in Cu
Chi District should be closed down due the environmental problems its
outdated technology causes.
The 3,000 tonnes it
currently treats daily would be transferred to Da Phuoc instead, he said.
To resolve the
problems that could arise after the closure of Phuoc Hiep, Da Phuoc would
offer jobs to its 300-odd workers, Huynh Thi Lan Phuong, deputy general
director of VWS, said.
Phuong also
unveiled plans to set up a green waste-treatment plant in Long An Province.
Located on 1,760
hectares in Tan Lap commune in Thu Thua District, the plant will use advanced
technologies from the
To cost $700
million, the plant will employ 6,000 to 10,000 workers and handle 40,000
tonnes of waste per day.
But its
construction has been delayed due to paper work, Phuong said.
"It took us 15
months to [get permission to] adjust the registered capital of the project.
"We have asked
relevant authorities to make it faster."
Hai approved of
VWS's green waste-treatment plant in Long An and ordered
Ha Noi to
inspect flood prevention preparations
Ha Noi will set up
13 teams to inspect storm and flood prevention efforts ahead of this year's
storm season, according to an official from the city's Flood Prevention and
Control Office.
The groups will
examine local dyke systems and irrigation works, said the Office's chief Do
Duc Thinh at a press briefing this week.
Vice Chairman of
the municipal People's Committee Tran Xuan Viet said at a recent press
briefing that it was essential to have specific plans to help mitigate the
consequences of disasters brought on by unusual weather patterns and climate
changes.
He stressed that
focus needed to be given to plans to evacuate local people and to ensure the
safety of construction projects or houses in low-land areas or along rivers.
Thinh, who is also
Director of the Ha Noi Department of Dyke Management and Flood Control, said
the department had developed various contingencies for the rainy season.
He said small
floods did not usually happen in the city in June but this month had
witnessed dangerous whirlwinds and rains.
Heavy rain that
lashed the city on Wednesday night caused flooding in some areas of the city,
while heavy rains on June 4 led to the death of a taxi driver after a large
tree collapsed nearby. Nearly 100 large trees had been uprooted and many
electricity poles were brought down during the storm.
The Ha Noi Water
Drainage Company estimates that there are about 10 inner-city sites that will
be vulnerable to flooding during the rainy season.
The rainy season
usually begins in July but this year it is expected to arrive earlier this
month.
According to the
National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting, about 10-12 storms and
tropical depressions may appear in the
The Red River Delta
in the north may be hit by 2-3 storms or tropical depressions, mainly in July,
August and September.
RoK helps
build vocational school in Quang Ninh
The construction of
a vocational school in northern Quang Ninh province began on June 23 under a
cooperation agreement between the Governments of Vietnam and the
Costing around 326
billion VND that are sourced from the RoK Government’s Official Development
Assistance and the local budget, the school will cover 22,400 square metres
in Hoanh Bo district.
The school is
expected to become operational in June, 2015. It targets to train about
700-1,600 students per year in five majors of mechanics, electricity, food
processing and preservation, construction material production, and tourism.
It will also
provide retraining courses for workers towards generating high-quality human
resources serving the province’s “green” economy.
Apart from Quang
Ninh, four similar schools have also been built in Hanoi, central Quang Ngai
province, and southern Binh Duong and Ca Mau provinces.-
Accordingly,
The programme,
recently approved by the Prime Minister, targets 89.7 percent of housing in
the city built permanently, up from 88.6 percent in 2011.
From now to the end
of 2015,
At the same time,
about 20,000 apartments with a total flooring space of 1.8 million sq.m will
be constructed for those who rendered services during wartime, civil
servants, military personnel, low-income earners, and other beneficiaries.
By 2020, the
average housing area for each people in the capital will stand at 26.3 sq.m
with respective figures in urban and rural areas of 29.1 and 22.1 sq.m.
Meanwhile, the rate
of permanent housing will be raised to 91.2 percent.
Under the plan,
Ben Tre
accelerates progress of public projects
The southern
The East Meets West
(EMW) has funnelled some 500,000 AUD (nearly 472,000 USD) provided by
To date, three out
of the nine have been completed. Ben Tre’s Clean Water and Rural
Environmental Sanitation Centre is mobilising necessary resources to soon
finish the remaining works.
The EMW has also
granted more than 3.6 billion VND (169,130 USD) in non-refundable assistance
to help the province build 4,250 toilets for local households.
However, the
progress of the project is quite slow due to the lack of effective
collaboration between stakeholders.
Vice Chairman of
the provincial Peoples’ Committee Tran Anh Tuan said the province will ask
the stakeholders to quicken the progress of the project and seriously realise
their commitments to the organisation.
WB-funded
project helps modernise land management system
A conference
examining the implementation of the Vietnam Land Administration Project
(VLAP), which was designed to help
Hosted by the
Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MoNRE) and the World Bank in
The MoNRE-built
project has a total investment of 100 million USD, including 75 million USD
funded by the WB. It has been carried out from 2008 in
Scheduled to be
completed by June, 2015, the project aims to develop a perfect land
management system in the targeted cities and provinces and to help people
utilise land information services, including instructions on land use right
certificates.
Speaking at the
event, Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Nguyen Manh Hien
urged authorities at all levels to speed up the granting of land use right
certificates to the users.
He also stressed
the need to intensify communications on the project to people, while focusing
on solving difficulties in deploying the project.
Under the project,
more than 30,400 ha of land were measured and drawn on an administrative map
and over 250,000 land use right certificates issued in the first half of this
year.
To date, nearly
1.59 million land use right certificates have been handed over to people in
the benefited localities, according to the MoNRE.-
Medical
sector seeks investment in human resources
The Ministry of
Health (MoH) held a meeting with foreign medical partners in
Participants
included representatives from several embassies, development cooperation
agencies, United Nations organisations, international banks, 12 medical
universities, 7 hospitals and nine medical centres.
MoH Deputy Minister
Le Quang Cuong said developing medical human resources plays an important
role in improving the quality and efficiency of healthcare services,
adding human resources development is one of the sector’s 7 priorities in the
2011-2016 period.
Cuong said he hopes
participants will put forward new training methods and share Government’s
orientations and action plans in line with development partners’ contribution
to the important field.
Dr Takeshi Kasai,
Chief representative of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Vietnam, said
the meeting aims to set two major orientations for the medical partnership
group and Vietnam in the future – new working mechanisms for the medical
partnership group and educational reform.
The first step
towards improving the quality of healthcare services is to reform education
and train medical staff, he said.
Delegates agreed
that the number of medical staff has increased significantly in recent years,
however, it does not meet the real demand, especially in the remote and
mountainous areas. The quality of services has been improved but there remain
many challenges.
In the coming time,
the healthcare sector will train general doctors and ensure the quality of
education and training in this field.
Source: VNN/VNA/VNS/VOV/SGT/SGGP/ND
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Thứ Năm, 26 tháng 6, 2014
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