Social
News 19/10
Local news
sites remain blocked
Users remain
blocked from the websites of Vietnamese newspapers with platforms hosted by
the Vietnam Communications Corporation (VCCorp) since October 13.
The newspapers
include Thoi bao Kinh te
Nguyen The Tan,
deputy general director of VCCorp, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that the
breakdown of its
He said the company
was prioritising the repair of the newspaper websites to enable them to
re-open.
Asked about the
reasons for the breakdown, Tan said the company needed to check further and
verify, although it specified errors in the
A Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) was signed between the Centre for Vietnam Science and
Technology Internationalisation Promotion under the Ministry of Science and
Technology, and
According to the
MOU, the two sides agreed to cooperate on training and exchanging staff at
research and technological institutions, participating in research projects
and organising joint workshops to promote science and technology.
At the signing
ceremony, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Pham Cong Tac said he
believes the five-year MOU will help further bilateral cooperation on science
and technology. He added that the two sides should put forward specific
measures and projects to ensure the effective implementation.
Vietnam-US
Friendship Association’s efforts praised
The Vietnam-US
Friendship Association (VUFA) has made significant contributions to
increasing mutual understanding and exchange between the people of
Hong made the
remarks at a seminar in
He noted that VUFA,
which was established on October 17, 1945, was the first bilateral friendship
association connecting Vietnamese people and those in the rest of the world.
Hong also urged the
association to exert more efforts for the growth of bilateral ties,
especially in the context that the two countries are celebrating the 20 th
anniversary of normalisation of their relations next year.
Besides holding
activities to further foster mutual understanding between the two peoples,
the association should continue working closely with US partners to deal with
matters left by the war, including issues related to Agent Orange/dioxin and
unexploded ordnances.
According to VUFA
Chairman Nguyen Tam Chien, the people-to-people ties have contributed
significantly to strengthening the solidarity and mutual understanding between
the people of
The association
also played a remarkable role in the process of normalising bilateral
relations through facilitating exchanges and cooperation between social and
people’s organisations in various fields.
During the seminar,
participants also gave their ideas for the association to help promote the
comprehensive partnership between
Filipino
pirates attack Vietnamese fishing vessel
Two Vietnamese
fishermen were shot when Filipino pirates attempted to seize their vessel
near Kudat town in Sabah,
The remaining crew
members were unharmed but “very shook up” by the traumatic ordeal.
Police report the
seamen on the ship were attempting to flee their attackers when the shots
were fired seriously wounding the two who were rushed to nearby
At present, patrols
vessels, the Royal Malaysian Navy and law enforcement agencies are actively
searching for the gunmen, according to Malaysian media reports.
The People’s Court
of southern Tay Ninh province on October 16 sentenced two Cambodian nationals
to a total of five years in prison for illegal cross-border money transport.
According to the
indictment, the two offenders, born in 1955 and 1993, were caught by competent
agencies on July 7, 2014 illegally transporting 81,900 USD from
They admitted that
they were hired by four other Cambodians with a pay of 5 USD per 10,000 USD.
World
Disaster Report focuses on culture and risk
The Viet Nam Red
Cross (VNRC), in collaboration with the International Federation of Red Cross
and Red Crescent Societies, today released the 2014 World Disaster Report.
The report focuses
on culture and risks in relation to disaster prevention and advocates
solutions that will address often-neglected factors and related human
behaviour. These factors strongly affect the way in which people interpret
and behave in relation to the risks they face.
There is an urgent
need to ensure that humanitarian organisations, governments and donors
recognise these human dynamics and take cultural differences into account, so
that they do not have unrealistic approaches to disaster risk reduction.
"The report
aims to bring these cultural issues into the open for discussion so they are
better incorporated in disaster risk reduction and climate change
adaptation," said VNRC Chairman Nguyen Hai Duong at the event.
"The report
will also help strengthen awareness and collaboration of organisations,
institutions and mass media on disaster risk reduction, and rehabilitation,
and global climate change adaptation," added Duong.
The report explores
the different ways in which culture affects disaster risk reduction and
climate change adaptation, and how disasters and risks influence culture. It
examines why people choose to live in areas prone to hazards, and how culture
and beliefs enable them to live with the risks they face.
The World Disaster
Report calls for a more comprehensive, people-centric approach in order to
ensure that future disaster risk reduction interventions are culturally
sensitive, more acceptable to local people and therefore, more effective.
VNRC statistics
said that natural disasters affected the lives of about 100 million people
world-wide in 2013, of which 87 per cent live in
EVN
successfully completes submarine cable projects
The Vietnam
Electricity Group inaugurated three submarine cable projects to transit power
from the inland to island districts from October 2013 to September 2014. This
was marked as a great achievement of
With the three
submarine cable projects to Ly Son, Phu Quoc and Co To islands, the EVN has
completed distribution, management and trading of electricity to 8 out of 12
island districts of the country.
These island
districts are far from the mainland and have strategic positions in terms of
security, national defence and economic development in the northern, central
and southern regions.
According to Deputy
Chairman of EVN Nguyen Tan Loc, the power supply projects to island districts
received strong supports from the government, ministries and sectors and
localities to complete these projects as soon as possible.
To complete these
projects, the EVN had to deal with a tonne of work ranging from capital to
technical issues.
The success of
submarine cable projects to island districts proved EVN’s management
capability. The EVN chose suitable solutions on raising capital, selecting
relevant technical solutions, and conducting effective project management.
According to
representative from EVN’s Sales Department, one of the difficulties when
implementing those projects was raising capital and looking for technical
solutions. The islands are tens of kilometres away from the mainland shores
with complicated terrains, deep sea and unfavourable weather conditions.
Furthermore, undertaking projects in the sea require experienced and skilful
contractors and only a few contractors could meet these standards. Therefore,
there were few options and the investment costs were usually very high.
Nguyen Thanh, the
Deputy General Director of the Central Power Corporation (EVN CPC) said that
although bidding packages were assigned to contractors and electricity
companies, EVN CPC still had to make coordination and supervised to make sure
that the works went smoothly and met quality and progress requirements. As
this was the first time that EVN CPC acted as the investor of a project using
new techniques, it had to study and learnt experience from previous projects
and worked out plans to tackle rising issues during the construction process.
2014 int’l
conference on communications, technologies kicks off
The 2014
International Conference on Advanced Technologies for Communications (ATC)
was officially launched in
It takes places
every year and is organised by the Radio Electronics Association of Vietnam
(REV) under the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC).
The event acts as a
platform for scientific and technological exchange between Vietnamese and
international scientists and engineers in the fields of electronics and
communications and enables experts to present their latest research.
This year’s
conference features nearly 300 scientific articles by approximately 700
researchers from 26 countries in Asia, Europe and America in numerous fields,
including technological trends, the future generation of mobile networks (4G
and 5G), and information security and network systems.
The conference ends
on October 17.
Nhan Dan (People)
newspaper, the central organ of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV),
launched its representative office in
The opening
ceremony was attended by Cambodian Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith
and Vietnamese Ambassador to Cambodia Thach Du.
Speaking at the
event, Nhan Dan Editor-in-Chief of Thuan Huu newspaper expressed his
gratitude to the Cambodian and Vietnamese leaders and relevant agencies for
actively supporting the opening of the office.
He also stressed
the role of the representative office in strengthening the traditional
friendship and solidarity between the two nations and their people.
The office is
expected to increase the dissemination of information on Vietnamese Party and
State policies and follow socio-economic development in both countries, he
added.
On his part,
Minister Khieu Kanharith reaffirmed the time-honoured bilateral relationship,
notably in the field of media, and expressed his gratitude for the support of
Furthermore, he
pledged to facilitate the office’s operations with a hope that Nhan Dan’s
Cambodian outlet will help boost the comprehensive cooperation between the
two countries.
This is the fifth
overseas representative office of Nhan Dan newspaper, after
Alarm bell over health of local firms
Economic expert Le
Dang Doanh has said it is time to ring an alarm bell over the declining
health of Vietnamese enterprises and that the Government should extend
further help to them to ride out tough times.
Speaking to the
Daily on the 10th celebration of the Vietnam Businesspeople Day on October
13, the former director of the Central Institute for Economic Management said
enterprises are in the most pessimistic mood since the country adopted doi
moi (renovation) policy less than three decades ago.
Doanh was concerned
that the real number of inactive enterprises is much bigger than 200,000 as
reported by relevant agencies over the past four years because a lot of firms
have not announced their closings due to debt problems.
Between January and
September, over 70,000 companies were dissolved, went bankrupt or halted
operation compared to over 52,500 firms newly established in the period,
according to a report of the Ministry of Finance.
However, the
General Statistics Office reported that there were over 48,300 firms
dissolved, halting operations and filing for closures in January-September, a
year-on-year rise of 13.8%.
Entrepreneurs have
been disoriented and felt lost. For instance, land prices have advanced by
2.4 times this year, causing challenges to businesses, Doanh said.
In a recent meeting
between enterprises and the government of
Besides, local
enterprises cannot compete with foreign firms with a tax payment time of 872
hours a year, versus an average level of 172 hours in ASEAN nations, he
added.
Sub-licenses have
mushroomed after 286 licenses were eliminated owing to the 1999 Enterprise
Law. Certain civil servants wanted new licensing requirements to take bribes
from enterprises, Doanh assumed.
“I suggest
associations and entrepreneurs raise their voice to help make the amended
Enterprise Law a breakthrough in structural reform and business environment
improvement,” Doanh said.
Dau
Giay-Phan Thiet expy set to get going next year
A much-awaited
public-private partnership project to build the Dau Giay-Phan Thiet
Expressway will start rolling next September for completion in 2019, the
Transport Ministry said after a meeting with the World Bank on October 13.
The WB delegation
and the Transport Ministry at a working session on October 13 afternoon
reviewed the project preparation and finally agreed on its timeline. It will
be the first-ever infrastructure project to be executed under the PPP format.
The Transport
Ministry is now selecting the second investor via competitive bid for
building the 100km expressway stretching from Dau Giay Junction in
Bitexco has been
chosen by the Government as the first investor, which will contribute 60% of
the cost, while the second investor will pay the remainder.
Deputy Minister of
Transport Nguyen Ngoc Dong said as the expressway is the first project of its
kind to be developed under the PPP format, there may be many problems
surfacing during the implementation process.
However, the
investors would be offered many incentives to build the street, he said.
“The bid winner
will be offered a grant from the World Bank. In addition, the investors will
not have to look for commercial loans from banks, as the global lender will
offer a soft loan for the project,” Dong said.
Site clearance for
the project will be assumed by the Government. It is estimated that the
Government as a stakeholder in the project will pay some US$257 million out
of the project’s total cost estimated at US$750 million.
The expressway once
in place will help shorten the traveling time between HCMC and other
southeastern provinces, and serve as a strong catalyst for industrial and
tourism development in localities the expressway runs through. It will also
help ease traffic on
Climate
change to make storms more disastrous
The number of
people killed by storms in the country has edged down in recent years but
storms are forecast to be more damaging in the future due to extreme weather
patterns, said Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai.
Speaking at an
online conference on how to respond to storms held by the Central Committee
for Flood and Storm Control in collaboration with the National Committee for
Search and Rescue last week, Hai said storm fatalities have dropped by half
compared to 20 years ago.
“There were as many
as 500 deaths a year caused by storms 20 years ago. Now, the number has
slipped to a little more than 200 a year,” said the deputy prime minister.
More powerful
storms are likely to emerge due to ongoing climate change and global warming.
Citing Super Typhoon Haiyan that swept through
Huynh Thi Lan
Huong, deputy director of the Vietnam Institute of Meteorology, Hydrology and
Climate Change, told the conference that storms in many regions across the
country are forecast to be more damaging. The likelihood of rising water
levels is also expected to occur more.
The deputy prime
minister at the conference ordered localities to check and upgrade necessary
infrastructure for cushioning the impact of storms and providing shelters, as
well as improve the weather forecasting capabilities.
Campaign
launched for the poor in Hanoi
A total of
VND52.433 billion (US$2.5 million) was raised to support needy households in
The campaign, which
lasts until November 18, is to call for more people to join hands in helping
the needy people.
More than 30,000
houses have been built and repaired for needy families thanks to financial
assistance from the city’s Fund for the Poor for the past 14 years, while the
figure in the first nine months of 2014 was 500.
In 2013, the Fund
mobilised VND45.121 billion (US$2.15 million) to help build, repair more than
700 houses, to provide over 5,000 scholarships and financial assistance to
the poor for medical check-ups and production.
Additionally, many
businesses have donated hundreds of billions of VND to social welfare
programmes such as construction of schools, community houses and roads.
The city currently
has 45,732 poor households and 43,718 near-poor ones, accounting for 2.66%
and 2.55% of its population, respectively.
Local
teachers get global
Local teachers Mai
Tien Minh and Tran Phat Thuan Quynh from
Minh from
Scholarship
recipients were chosen by a judging panel of Cambridge English’s experts
based on their short essays on building Cambridge English Teaching Framework
and solutions to teaching challenges in a classroom.
The quartet will be
funded to attend the International Association of Teachers of English as a
Foreign Language (IATEFL) at Manchester Central in
Pham Hoang Uyen,
development director of Cambridge English Language Assessment in
Interviews and
essays of the four winners will be updated on http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/iatefl-scholarships/
Cambridge English
Language Assessment is a non-profit organization and a department of the
Rapid bus
system set for test run in Hanoi
A pilot Bus Rapid
Transit (BRT) route will be deployed in the coming months as a forerunner to
upgrading the nation's public transportation system.
The Ministry of
Transport's Finance Department and the Hanoi Transport Company will rearrange
routes to better cope with rising public transport demand in some areas and
less demand in others.
The pilot route
will run from Kim Ma to Yen Nghia bus station, through Giang Vo, Lang Ha, Le
Van Luong, Lang Ha, Le Trong Tan and
The 90-passenger
busses will arrive every three to five minutes, and travel 22 kilometres per hour.
Passengers must buy
electronic tickets at the bus stop before getting on board.
All rapid buses
will be linked to their control centre through a GPS to make handling
unexpected problems more efficient. The system will connect to traffic
lights, as well, giving rapid busses first priority to cross intersections.
The World Bank
funded the 49 million USD project, including infrastructure, bus stations and
vehicles.
Paper firm
fined for dumping toxic waste
The People's
Committee of the southern
The Anh Sang paper
company, located in Go Dau District, released 20cu.m of untreated waste each
day into the Vam Co Dong river.
Test results from
samples of the released waste water revealed that the chemical oxygen demand
(COD) in the river was 14.6 times more than permitted levels. Additionally,
the biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5) during the five-day test was 5.98 times
higher than permitted levels.
As of next year,
all documents issued by HCMC’s departments and agencies will be sent and
received via a document management system, except for those confidential.
The city’s
Department of Information and Communications told a press conference on
Monday that the system will monitor 40% of the total number documents
exchanged between the city’s departments and agencies as of year-end and the
rate will be raised to 100% by 2015.
According to the
department, the progress of accessing the system between all agencies has
been smooth, which makes the document exchange easier and more convenient.
Vo Thi Trung Trinh,
deputy director of the department, said the city authorities have officially
deployed and operated the system for all its agencies. All documents have
been collected to a data center, thus helping the authorities easily connect
and share information.
Earlier, the city
government has stopped receiving paper documents from its affiliated agencies
and shifted to using the system except for confidential documents since the
middle of last month.
Currently, all 24
districts, 12 departments and the city government office have been connected
to this document management system.
The department
added the city government also sends invitations for meeting by mobile
messages instead of papers as before.
Lack of
downtown bus stops for visitors
Downtown HCMC lacks
bus stops for tourists to drop off though this central quarter is home to
many destinations for sightseeing and shopping.
Some travel firms
have complained that several streets in the center are restricted or
off-limits to vehicles due to construction works in progress.
Tourists often go
shopping along the main streets like Dong Khoi, Le Loi and Nguyen Hue.
However, Dong Khoi is now the only street where buses of the travel firms can
stop for passengers to get off, while the other two streets are now closed to
traffic.
Even for
Phan Xuan Anh,
chairman of Viet Excursions Travel Company, explained coaches used for transporting
foreign travelers are usually big and takes much time for passengers to get
on and drop off. As a result, these travel companies are afraid of being
fined.
Some firms of the
HCMC Tourism Association also suggested that the city government should
arrange suitable places for buses to let tourists get off.
Anh added the
authorities should allow buses to stop at unoccupied spaces near the HCMC
Post Office and Opera House, or allow such vehicles to stop longer in the
city center.
The city welcomed around
3.1 million foreign tourists in January-September, a year-on-year rise of 9%.
Former
forest ranger, deforester jailed
The People's Court
in the central highland
According to the
indictment, in 2008, Chu Van Lam, former deputy head of the forest management
board of New Architecture Co., Ltd., and Ho Huu Hien, director of Vinh Hien
Co., Ltd., worked together to chop down trees and reclaim virgin soil without
licences from authorised agencies.
They reclaimed
about 70 hectares of soil, causing a loss of nearly VND9 billion (US$423,000)
for the State.
Paper firm
fined for dumping toxic waste
The People's
Committee of the southern
The Anh Sang paper
company, located in Go Dau District, released 20cu.m of untreated waste each
day into the Vam Co Dong river.
Test results from
samples of the released waste water revealed that the chemical oxygen demand
(COD) in the river was 14.6 times more than permitted levels. Additionally,
the biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5) during the five-day test was 5.98 times
higher than permitted levels.
Vietnamese
farmers to improve skills overseas
The People's
Committee of the central province Quang Ngai is planning a project to send
farmers abroad to participate in study tours and training courses from
2015-2020.
Under the VND8
billion (US$377,040) project, the province will send 120 to 150 farmers and
managers of farms and agricultural cooperatives to
They will learn
from foreign experience in building new-style rural areas, developing models
of economic cooperation in agriculture, managing large-scale farms
management, as well as preserving and processing products.
They will also study
how to build brands for agricultural products and apply advanced technology
in production to increase added values.
After the study
tours, the trainees will become a major force that actively contributes to
the new-style rural area building movement in the locality, Tho said.
Quang Ngai province
has more than 286,200 households living on farming, aquaculture, handicrafts
and agricultural services, accounting for 46% of the total population.
Source: VNN/VNA/VNS/VOV/SGT/SGGP/ND
|
Chủ Nhật, 19 tháng 10, 2014
Đăng ký:
Đăng Nhận xét (Atom)
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét