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Social
News 4/9
The government of
HCMC has licensed the establishment of a stem cell association to serve
hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.
According to health
experts, the biggest problem with hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is
a limited number of donors as
Stem cells can only
be extracted from biological siblings, making it difficult for patients to
have homologous bone marrow transplants.
At present,
hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is accessible in many countries.
However, most of them are done by a traditional method that removes the bone
marrow of the recipient to create an environment for stem cells to grow.
In 2012, the
National Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion was put into operation
to serve hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, the most advanced blood
disease treatment at present.
Biodiversity
conservation centre opened
A rescue and
conservation centre was opened in
The Hoang Lien
Centre is part of the park's biodiversity conservation and rescue project.
The centre is
entrusted with the tasks of rescuing, protecting and breeding plant and
animal species; providing advice on rescue and conservation measures;
establishing a biodiversity database, and increasing international
cooperation in the field of conservation.
Nguyen Quang Vinh,
director of the
The 30,000ha park
was recognised by the ASEAN Secretariat as a regional heritage site in 2006.
The park is
surrounded by a buffer zone of 38,724ha, which borders a number of communes
in the
More than 58,100
households with over 245,200 people in the central city of
The scenario, which
was approved by the city's People's Committee on Thursday, is designed to
help local residents brace for strong storms; typhoons, floods; flash floods,
reservoir breaks and tsunamis.
Since 1998,
disasters have killed 219 people in the city and injured 226 others, with
more than 138,000 houses damaged. Total losses are estimated at nearly VND10
trillion (US$476 million).
Firms
suspended for polluting
The Natural
Resources and Environment Department in the southern
Inspectors found
the companies had failed to build standard waste treatment facilities and
were discharging untreated waste into the environment.
They will only be
allowed to resume operations after waste treatment systems are completed in
line with regulations.
Local authorities
have extended the deadlines for the companies to complete their waste
treatment facilities twice. The latest deadline was June this year, but they
still failed to meet the regulations.
Int'l
police gather to fight human trafficking
Police from 17
countries are gathering in
Thanks to a
long-term partnership between the Australian Federal Police, the Ministry of
Public Security and
"Through
collaborative action, police are able to apply maximum pressure in detecting
and deterring people smugglers and human traffickers. By working together, we
can more effectively target organised criminal networks and prevent crimes
involving the irregular movement of people," said Steve Lancaster, the
Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner for Operation Sovereign
Borders at the ARLEMP opening ceremony.
At the event, Major
General Nguyen Phi Hung, deputy director general of the Police General
Department on Crime Prevention and Suppression also noted that: "
Prof. Gael
McDonald, President of RMIT Vietnam, also stressed that the university was
proud to continue to work with AFP and the Vietnamese government in
"delivering this important transnational policing programme."
"We have
witnessed that during the three weeks of intense cooperative learning,
participants have raised their level of respect, mutual understanding, and
their ability to collaborate across borders," he said.
ARLEMP graduates
have gone on to be appointed to international roles as Police Liaison
Officers with the United Nations and other leading international taskforce
teams addressing transnational crime, and often credit ARLEMP for helping
them to forge links and develop working relationships with other foreign
law-enforcement agencies.
Through these
postings, ARLEMP graduates are mobilising successful actions to combat
serious organised crime, including money laundering, people smuggling and
human trafficking.
Medical
devices lack oversight
There is much room
for improvement in the management of the quality and trading of home medical
equipment, according to health experts.
Dong Van Thanh,
deputy head of the Health Examination Ward of the Ha Noi-based
The useful
equipment helped people realise the state of their health and the need to
prevent and control any detected disease, but some of the equipment being
sold were of substandard quality, Thanh noted.
As a result, some
patients were getting erroneous blood pressure and blood sugar readings on
the defective machines and would learn, sometimes too late, that their health
had worsened and required immediate medical treatment, remarked Thanh.
"Home medical
equipment can only support treatment and disease supervision. The patients
should not depend too much on them because they can give erroneous
information," he added.
Moreover, the users
could buy the equipment on the internet or from small health appliance stores
to ensure that when the equipment malfunctions, they would be covered by
warranty or repair guarantees.
Tran Thanh Tam, a
trader of medical equipment on
Each machine was
worth only a few hundreds of thousands of dong, so many people did not
hesitate to buy, Tam added.
Nguyen Minh Tuan, director
of the Department of Medical Equipment and Health Facilities under the
Ministry of Health (MOH), told the Nguoi lao dong (Labourer) newspaper that
in the draft decree on medical equipment management, which the MOH earlier
edited and submitted to the Government, enterprises selling home medical
equipment must send documents on equipment quality to local medical stations
for review and inspection.
If the equipment
did not measure up to standards, it should be taken off the shelves.
Nguyen Viet Cuong,
chief inspector of the Ha Noi Department of Health, said that in the future,
city inspectors would improve their inspection of the origins of home medical
equipment that were being sold in shops.
"Residents should
be vigilant of unlicensed products because these don't have instructions for
use in Vietnamese and are not under warranty," Cuong said.
Workshop
proposes state budget increase for HIV/AIDS fight
Phan Thi Thu Huong,
Deputy Director of the MoH’s Department of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control
mave the suggestion at a workshop held in Ho Chi Minh City on August 29,
which discussed strategies for preventing HIV/AIDS in the coming time.
She noted that most
HIV/AIDS control programmes in the country have so far relied on foreign aid,
which provided 80 percent of total expenses. However, many aid projects have
been completed and many others have had their budget cut, requiring Vietnam
to promptly put in place a good strategy to sustain the results of HIV/AIDS
control efforts.
Statistics of the
Department show that there are nearly 220,000 persons living with HIV in
According to Huong,
the MoH has worked with the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS
(UNAIDS) in
At the end of April
this year,
Proposal
eyes housing support for half million poor families
Half a million poor
households in rural areas will receive support to improve their housing
conditions under a new proposal just submitted to the Government for approval
by the Ministry of Construction.
The proposal lines
out different types of support from the State budget for specific groups of
beneficiaries in the second phase of a State policy on housing support for
the needy.
A total of 18.4
trillion VND (1.15 billion USD) will be needed to carry out the plan, which
aims to improve the poor’s living standards and contribute to sustainable
poverty reduction.
The money will be
sourced from the central and local budgets, preferential loans and
contribution from the whole community, including the target people.
Under the plan,
each beneficiary household will receive aid in cash ranging from 5-14 million
VND depending on their specific situation and local conditions, as well as
preferential loans to build or upgrade their house that should be resistant
to floods and storms.
The target of this
plan are poor people not entitled to other housing support programmes which
are being or will be carried out, such as the scheme on building flood-proof
residential areas in the Mekong Delta, the resettlement programme for
residents living in disaster-prone and poor areas, and the building of
flood-proof houses for poor people in the central region.
Local statistics
showed that there are about 510,000 households facing accommodation
difficulties in the 2101-2015 period.
According to the
Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, the rate of poor households
in
USAID-funded
HIV prevention project launched in An Giang
A community-based
HIV prevention project funded by the US Agency for International Development
(USAID) was launched at a workshop held in the Mekong Delta
To be implemented
in 2013-2016 in the districts of Chau Phu, Phu Tan, Cho Moi and Thoai Son,
the project will focus on aiding HIV/AIDS patients in accessing care,
treatment and preventive services.
Its objectives are
also to provide management and medical treatment for about 980 people living
with HIV, sex workers, drug addicts, and gays and lesbians at their home as
well as in clinics, hospitals, preventive medical centres and HIV prevention
centres every year.
As part of the
project, training courses will be also organised to provide medical workers
with preventive skills and teach them how to effectively take care
HIV-infected persons, thus further aiding the national HIV-AIDS prevention
programmes.
At the workshop,
Bui Duc Duong, Deputy Director of the Department of HIV/AIDS Prevention under
the Ministry of Health underlined the need to raise public awareness of HIV
prevention, expressing his hope the project will be performed effectively in
the locality.
The project is
hoped to benefit a large number of people living with HIV/AIDS in An Giang,
while further fostering efforts to prevent transmissions in communities.
Along with An
Giang, similar projects are carried out in
Overseas
activities mark National Day
A number of events
were organised by Vietnamese embassies abroad in celebration of the 69 th
anniversary of National Day (September 2).
Addressing a
ceremony in Paris on September 2, Vietnamese Ambassador to France Duong Chi
Dung highlighted the increasing maturity of Vietnam-France relations,
especially since the two countries signed a strategic partnership agreement
in September 2013 during Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s visit to
He highly valued
the contributions made by the Vietnamese community to strengthening the
bilateral ties.
Guests emphasised
the two countries’ relations. Bernard Miyet, former United Nations
under-secretary-general for peace-keeping operations, said the historic ties
connected the people of
In
Ambassador Nguyen
Thi Hoang Anh hailed the success of the year 2014, which has seen a number of
exchange visits between the two countries. The two countries are preparing
for the 40 th anniversary of their diplomatic ties in 2015.
Clemens von Goetze
from the German Foreign Ministry expressed his hope that the next year will
bring more opportunities to strengthen citizen exchanges between the two
countries. A German business conference for the Asian-Pacific region (APK)
taking place in
During an event in
He also thanked the
Egyptian government for its help in evacuating Vietnamese citizens working in
That same day,
National Day receptions were held by the Vietnamese ambassadors to
Viettel
donates cattle to rural poor in Lao Cai province
As many as 2,000
breeding cows are to be donated to thousands of needy families in the
This move is part
of the programme “Joining hands with the community”, initiated by Lao Cai
People’s Committee and the military-run branch in Lao Cai in an effort to
develop agriculture in rural areas.
Most of the capital
for the programme was generated by Viettel’s new user-driven fundraising
campaign. As part of the campaign, every 15 customers signing up for Viettel
mobile services for three years contribute to the purchase and donation of a
cow, costing 15 million VND( 698USD) each.
During the first
three months of implementation, 120 cows worth VND 1.8 billion ( 85,714USD),
were given to disadvantaged households in Bac Ha, Muong Khuong, Si Ma Cai and
Bat Xat districts.
Since 2012, the
Vietnam Red Cross has donated 221 cows via the “ Cow Bank” project to help
poor farmers in Muong Khuong and Bac Ha escape from poverty.
Khmer
people enjoy sweet taste of success
Khmer ethnic people
in An Giang province’s Tinh Bien district are very proud of their sweet
speciality, Thot not sugar, which is made from the sap of palmyra palms.
This kind of palm
sugar is distinguished by its dark yellow colour, sweat taste and special
flavour, which is quite different from other sorts of sugar.
In Tinh Bien
district, almost all houses owned by the Khmer people are surrounded by
palmyra palms, sometimes fields full.
Thot not trees have
the appearance of both coconut palms and sugar date palms. Every year, the
trees produce fruit from October to the following April, according to the
lunar calendar.
Thot not sugar has
become popular for its sweet smell. It can be used for preparing sweetened
porridge or other similar dishes.
According to a
research by Indian scientists, palmyra palm sugar can be used for preventing
diabetes because of its light sweet taste. It is also good for preventing
strokes and heart problems, especially for children and women.
Thot not sugar is
produced by tapping the sap from the inflorescence of a palmyra palm. It
takes a palmyra palm 15 years to flower and produce enough sap for cooking
sugar.
In order to collect
the sap, workers must climb to the top of the palm tree, cut its flowers and
then catch the liquid oozing from the cuts. Once the sap is collected, it
must be cooked within 12 hours. Otherwise it can become sour.
In April every
year, in all corners of the area inhabited by the Khmer people, sugar
workshops operate.
Palm sap is poured
into a pan and is cooked until it becomes condensed and fragrant.
At first, the
cooking stage is thought to be simple, but it is not so. If the cook is not
careful, the batch of sugar will be burned. Therefore, it is necessary for
the cook to watch the fire and stir constantly for many hours to get a
delicious batch of sugar.
Neang Quach, a
producer of Thot not sugar in Nhon Hung Commune, Tinh Bien district said for
each batch of sugar, she pours around 30 litres of sap and then she will add
some more when it evaporates.
According to her,
about 90 litres of sap can produce around 16 kilos of sugar. When the sap is
condensed, she will take the pan out and stir firmly. Moreover, it is
necessary to control the fire carefully.
When the cooking
stage is finished, palm sugar is poured into small round moulds and then
packed in plastic bags. There is also a traditional way of packaging where
the sugar is covered by dry palm leaves.
Today, Thot not
sugar is distributed in many localities in the country and also exported to
A palm tree can
only give about 20 kilos of sugar each crop. In order to cook a batch of
sugar, it is necessary to extract from so many trees. During the peak season,
even at night, many people still work hard to get the last drops of the sap
from the trees.
An Giang province
now accommodates 30,000 palmyra palms that can produce more than 6,000 tonnes
of sugar a year. This is the main income source of the Khmer people.
Tuyen Quang
completes yearly reforestation plan
The northern
mountainous
Le Tien Thang,
director of the department, said five districts and a city have surpassed
their targets while only Na Hang district has met 99 percent of its plan.
The result is
attributable to the department’s close coordination with authorities at
communal and district levels as well as forestry companies to clear up land
for reforestation and raise local people’s awareness of the forest’s roles
and value, thus encouraging many economic sectors to invest in forest
planting.
With 60 percent of
its natural area under forest, one of the highest coverage rates in the
country, Tuyen Quang has long considered commercial forestry as one of its
spearhead economic sectors. The province currently houses more than 50
factories processing forestry products.
30,000
tourists visit grave of General Vo Nguyen Giap during holidays
Border gate guards
in the central
Nguyen Cao Ky,
deputy head of the provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism said
that there was an increase in the number of domestic and international
visitors arriving in the Vung Chua-Dao Yen (
More than 2.2
million tourists, a surge of 145 percent compared to the same period last
year flocked to the area.
Also in the
national holidays, thousands of travelers flew to Quang Binh to visit the
legendary general’s memorial house in An Xa Village, Loc Thuy Commune, Le
Thuy District.
Other international
well-known tourist destinations such as Thien Duong ( Heaven) Cave and
The National
Holiday lasting four days since the last Saturday has boosted the purchasing
power which was in a long drop especially in traditional markets in
According to
traders, the purchasing power increased by 30 percent compared to before the
holiday in traditional markets such as Van Thanh, Tan Son Nhat, Pham Van Hai,
Hoang Hoa Tham, Binh Trieu and Go Vap. The highest increase was on seafood
group, reaching 50 percent.
Seafood and
vegetable prices have been up by 5-10 percent while pork and chicken prices
remain unchanged. However, it is predicted that prices will soon return as
before after the holiday, .
Supermarkets and
malls saw more customers during the holiday. The revenue at several
supermarkets increased 30-50 percent thanks to large promotional programs.
Country's leading
supermarket chain Co.opMart reported sales higher than normal days by 40-50
percent in the first week of its promotional program ‘Proud of Vietnamese
Goods’. The bestselling has been on food, chemical products and
cosmetics.
Several businesses
attending in the Promotional Month Fair at the Phu Tho Indoor Stadium,
District 11, have also reported good sales.
HCMC
authority asks Education Department to report on E-textbook plan
Ho Chi Minh city's
People's Committee yesterday asked the Department of Education and
Training to report a plan on requiring elementary students to use tablets
that has currently raised public concern.
The committee also
asked the director of the Department of Education and Training to
recapitulate opinions of educational experts, teachers and the public after
two seminars on the project " E-textbothe and tablets" and send the
report to the city authority.
Last month the
department suggested the plan to be used for the 2014-2015 academic year and
obeyed for all 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders in the city. The plan is expected to
use electronic tablets in "smart classe" where traditional textbooks
are replaced by modern tablets integrated with e-textbooks.
The plan is
estimated to cost around VND4 trillion (US$188,902,007) with a tablet worth
VND 3,000,000. However, newspapers in the city published that they discovered
a similar tablet bought in
It has faced
parents and the public's opposition. Accordingly the city authority asked the
education department to urgently report the plan.
Vietnamese
workers in
Nearly 100
Vietnamese people currently working in
Getting bank loans
of nearly VND100 million to pay for a chance to work in Belarus, many out of
the 98 Vietnamese people recorded as working in Belarus are now suffering
from starvation, instead of the lifestyle-changing experience they expected.
Some have even been reduced to homelessness and begging for food.
These workers have
signed contracts to work in
Vo Van Tam, from
central Ha Tinh Province, said, “We’ve signed a three-year labour contract
with IDC and INMASCO with a promised monthly payment of USD500 per monh. I
had to pay a total of nearly VND100 million for INMASCO, so I had to use our
family’s house as collateral. ”
Other Vietnamese
nationals were compelled to take out loans to pay for these fees, but the
services offered were very disappointing to them after being promised so
much. Frequently, the contracts they were under required them to take on
harder labour.
“While we’re all
under clear work contracts, some people had to go to work as cleaners at
construction sites and work overtime for low pay. Even though they promised
to pay us USD500 per month, we received only USD350 for March. We still
haven't been paid for April, May and June,” said Nguyen Van Dieu, from Ha
Tinh Province.
Another worker,
Tam, said he had to work for 12 hours a day instead of the eight hours she
had agreed to. His payment was cut to between USD300 and USD400 per month
because he did not work overtime.
Because of these
problems, eight workers have been sent back to
“When we ask the
company for basic payment, they actually hired gangsters to force us to
continue to work. The situation is only getting worse. When we’re ill we
still have to work. In April, one worker from Ha Tinh Province died because
she was sick and die not receive proper medical care," said a worker
named Vinh.
Some members of the
group have called upon the Vietnamese embassy for help. The embassy, however,
stated that they were unable to provide support, forcing some into
homelessness and destitution.
In August a
representative from INMASCO traveled to
Tran Quang Toan, from
INMASCO, admitted that the situation was not ideal, saying that they are
trying to demand payment from the employers in
Graduates
fall into Japanese labour export trap
Many new graduates
from
Taking advantage of
the government’s policy to send graduates to
Hao, of
Many people have
sent petitions denouncing the similar fraudulent cases. There are a number of
organizations that take advantage of students and recent graduates in this
way, however they are difficult to get a hold of, as their
"hotlines" are often not active.
Recently, Molisa
announced a programme to recruit labourers from 19 cities and provinces for
technical training in
Nguyen Ngoc Quynh,
head of the Overseas Labourers Management Department under the Molisa, said
that only the centre is allowed to recruit labourers for this particular
programme.
Each city and
province is permitted to invite 80 individuals. Then they will have join a
training programme in
Each labourer should
be provided with an annual subsidy of around 90,000 JPY for the first and
second year, and 100,000 JPY for the third year.
Resettlement
project to save ethnic minorities remains stagnant
Even though a
resettlement project to save an ethnic minority group in the central
The project got the
prime minister’s approval and was aimed at moving hundreds of ethnic minority
households living at Bung and Khe Con villages in Con Cuong District to
resettlement areas in Thach Ngan commune between 2007 and 2009.
However, only 42
households have been taken to the new resettlement area by now, while the
rest, more than 150 households, continue living in the forest.
Construction on resettlement
area No. 2 in Thach Ngan was started in January, 2011, and was meant to
accommodate 35 households. But, there is still nobody living there, leaving
more than 30 houses on stilts abandoned. The area’s infrastructure, including
a culture house, school, clean water supply system, power generation station
are being overtaken by plant life.
Tran Anh Tuan, head
of Resettlement Project Management of Con Cuong District, said the sluggish
pace of construction is due to a number of reasons, such as the lack of
capital and substandard planning.
For many years,
resettlement area No. 3 in Thach Ngan District has remained an unused plot of
land.
According to a
report from Con Cuong District People’s Committee, as of August 2014, a total
of VND72 billion (USD2.4 million) has been disbursed for the resettlement
projects in the locality. But after the eight-year project, only resettlement
area No. 1 has been put into use.
The Dan Lai ethnic
minority group is very isolated from the modern world and has suffered from
poverty for many years. One of the more serious problems facing the community
is intermarriage.
To aid this group
the prime minister approved a decision with a total capital of VND93.24
billion in 2006. However, it has yet to make much progress.
“When the Dan Lai
people gather in Pu Mat National Park they hunt animals and destroy
forestland for living space. This will ultimately have a bad impact on
attempts at preservation of the national park,” Tran Xuan Cuong, deputy
director of Pu Mat National Park said.
The Dai Lai people
also have the custom of sleeping sitting up. According to some sources, there
are around 3,000 Dai Lai people.
Three
non-subsidized bus routes in HCMC will be suspended early this week due to
poor operations.
They are Cho Lon
Bus Station-Binh Chanh District (route No. 92), Cho Lon Bus Station-Binh Dien
Wholesale Market (route No. 105) and Hung Long Market-Binh Dien Wholesale
Market (route No. 106), according to the HCMC Passenger Transport Management
Center under the Department of Transport.
The center said it
is rearranging the city’s bus routes to make them more efficient. Four other
bus routes – An Thoi Dong-Tam Thon Hiep (route No. 63), Ly Nhon-An Nghia
(route No. 125), Cho Lon Bus Station-Binh Hung Hoa (route No. 143) and
District 8 Bus Station-An Suong Bus Station (route No. 111) have also been
suspended due to inefficiency.
The city had over
2,800 commuter buses with 110 of them subsidized by the city government and
they met a mere 10.7% of commuter demand last year, according to the center’s
statistics.
Commuter bus
subsidies steadily mounted, from nearly VND1.36 trillion in 2011 to VND1.47
trillion in 2013.
The city expects
650 million commuters to travel by bus this year. It will invest in a fleet
of 1,680 new buses to replace old ones by 2017 with 300 fueled by
locally-made compressed natural gas (CNG).
Online
schooling program presented
The Internet School
of Saigon Joint Stock Company on Wednesday launched an online schooling
program featuring eight subjects at high school level for those wishing to
study online.
The Internet School
of Saigon (ISS) is part of a project to digitalize lectures of high school
level prescribed by the Ministry of Education and Training.
Le Thanh Hung,
chairman of the company, said this program has 800 online lectures for eight
subjects: mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, literature, history,
geography and English from grade 10 to 12.
Learners can sign
up at www.iss.edu.vn and start to learn through computers or mobile gadgets
such as tablets or smartphones. In addition, students can use their social
network accounts on Facebook, Google Plus or Yahoo to log in ISS.
Nguyen Bac Dung,
former headmaster of
Parents can
register to study with their children following online tutorials.
According to ISS,
the online teaching system allows 20,000 users to access the site at a time,
and the firm keeps working to expand it.
Current tuition
fees applied for grade 10-12 is VND50,000 per subject for a semester within
one year. The ISS will offer preferential fees for students who sign up for
multiple courses at once. Discount rates are just half the normal levels
depending on specific cases.
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Thứ Tư, 3 tháng 9, 2014
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