Social News 29/8 Fine might up to $1,800 for overloaded vehicles   Overloaded vehicles will face a fine of up to VND40 million (US$1,800) if a proposal forwarded by the Directorate for Roads of Viet Nam to the Ministry of Transport comes through. The proposal came after the Noi Bai – Lao Cai Expressway's Operation Centre found nearly 300 overloaded trucks, mostly carrying frozen foods, in the course of only four days, between last Tuesday and Friday. At present, vehicles are fined VND7-8 million ($310-355) for carrying more than their permitted load capacity. Nguyen Van Huyen, director of the directorate, has ordered the authorised agencies to tighten inspections to check overloaded vehicles travelling between Hai Phong and Lao Cai. Huyen also asked the Viet Nam Expressway Corporation to co-operate with the traffic police in localities, including Ha Noi, Hai Phong, Quang Ninh, Hai Duong, Vinh Phuc, to carry out more patrolling checks to bring the situation under control. Fishermen still missing in Binh Thuan province Search operations are going on to locate seven fishermen who were reported missing after their fishing boat capsized in a tornado on Monday night in the sea off the southern province of Binh Thuan. On Monday night, fisherman Vo Van Hung, 32, from southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau province's Xuyen Moc District, and seven other fishermen on the boat, BV 95568-TS, were on their way back home after spending 20 days at sea when a tornado struck the area they were fishing in. It reportedly flooded the boat. Vo Hoai Vui, Hung's younger brother, who survived the mishap, said he was still in shock following the incident in which his brother and other fishermen are still to be traced. That night, as the other fishermen slept and Hung, the captain of the boat, was steering it back to shore, the tornado struck, tossing the boat around. Vui said that he and another fisherman managed to escape through the hatch at the rear of the boat before it capsized. The two survivors managed to stay afloat by calling out to each other during the night, Vui said. He managed to stay awake and survived, but the other man died of exhaustion. Pham Hien, director of the Maritime Search and Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Ba Ria-Vung Tau City, said that the centre has dispatched a ship to the scene and co-ordinated with the coast guards and border guards in Binh Thuan province to search for those missing. Vietnam labor productivity far behind ASEAN countries Vietnam's labor productivity has managed to narrow its gaps with other Southeast Asian countries, but it will be decades long before the country can catch up with them, the Ministry of Planning and Investment said. Each Vietnamese laborer produced around US$3,530 last year, up 4.9% year on year, news website Saigon Times Online quoted the ministry as saying in a report recently submitted to the government. Between 2005-2014, the productivity grew 3.7% on average a year, which was "quite fast," the ministry said. As of 2013, Vietnam managed to narrow the gaps between its labor productivity with those of other Southeast Asian countries by up to nearly 42% from the distances estimated in 1994, it said. According to the latest figures, Singaporean labor productivity was 18 times higher than Vietnamese, while Malaysia and Thailand were 6.6 and 2.7 times higher, respectively. Vietnam's labor productivity was 1.8 times lower than those of the Philippines and Indonesia. However, based on purchasing power parity, the gaps have been increased since 1994, the ministry said. With Singapore, for instance, Vietnam saw the distance go up more than 49% to US$62,052 in 2013, and 17.5% to US$9,314 in comparison with Thailand. Even though Vietnam's economy continuously expanded with its gross domestic product increasing 29 times between 1990-2014, it was still small compared to some ASEAN countries -- Thailand's GDP was 4.8 times higher than Vietnam's last year, the ministry said in an explanation for the big gaps. It forecast that Vietnam will be able to catch up with the Philippines in 2038 and Thailand in 2069. Traffic accidents claim 5,821 lives in eight months As many as 14,622 traffic accidents were reported in the first eight months of this year, killing 5,821 people and injuring 13,234 others. Nguyen Trong Thai, Head of the National Committee for Traffic Safety Office said traffic accidents dropped from last year’s corresponding period in terms of collisions (12.49%), fatalities (3.98%) and injuries (16.04%). Between July 16 to August 15 alone, there was 1,720 traffic collisions, leaving 654 people dead and 1,591 others injured. In the first seven months of 2015, there were 12,910 traffic crashes, resulting in 5,167 deaths and 11,484 injuries. Vietnam police hunt for trafficker of African elephant tusks Police in central Vietnam are hunting for a 40-year-old man who fled from the scene of a traffic accident, leaving behind 16 African elephant ivory tusks. Police officers in Tam Ky City of Quang Nam Province on August 24 said they have issued a wanted notice for Nguyen Van Quy, 40, from the north-central province of Ha Tinh, on charges of “breaching regulations on the protection of precious and rare wild animals” pursuant to Article 190 of the Penal Code. According to the case file, a traffic accident occurred between a four-seat Camry car driven by Quy and a bus on the Nguyen Hoang bypass in the city on June 7. Immediately after the accident, Quy and another man in his car tried to bring five sacks along with them and escape from the scene, but they failed. The African elephant tusks seized by police in Tam Ky City of the central province of Quang Nam on June 6, 2015. Traffic police who handled the accident searched the sacks and found a total of 16 alleged elephant tusks inside them. Police sent samples of the items to the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources (IEBR) for testing and the test results showed that all of them are African elephant ivory tusks, with scientific name Loxodonta Africana, police said. While police have been handling the case, Quy fled from his residence. Police have also detected that the number plate of Quy’s car is fake. Many cases of trafficking wildlife parts have recently been uncovered in Vietnam. On August 13, customs officers at Tien Sa Port in the central city of Danang seized a total of 593kg of elephant tusks and 142kg of rhino horns hidden inside blocks of fake marble shipped from Mozambique. The day before that, customs officers at Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi seized 95.54kg of purported elephant tusk parts and one alleged rhino horn weighing 4.76kg that were shipped from Africa. The samples of these items were sent to the IEBR for testing, customs officer said. Currently, the price for rhino horn on the black market can reach US$133 per gram, while that of ivory is around US$2,100 per kg, they added. On April 16, the airport customs also seized 65.42kg of elephant tusks and rhino horns transported from France. The trade in tusks and rhino horn is banned under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora as well as Vietnamese law, as the two items are listed in the World’s Red Book, customs officers said. Most Vietnamese ignore nutrition Most Vietnamese people don't pay attention to nutrition, says Nguyen Thi Lam, the deputy director of the National Institute of Nutrition. Nutrition awareness was lacking among people with low incomes and those who were better off, the rich often ate a lot of food but with little nutrition, while some children suffered from malnutrition and rickets because their mothers lacked the knowledge to raise their babies properly, she said. A recent survey by the National Institute of Nutrition found people in the countryside consume 200 grams of vegetables a day on average, half of what the World Health Organisation recommend. This figure was unchanged from 1985 when Vietnam was short of a lot of foods, including vegetables. Le Bach Mai, deputy director of the institute, said at a conference on food safety held in Hanoi last week that the amount of starch consumed daily in Vietnam had doubled in the past decade from 16 to 33 grams per person. Vietnamese children often drank too many soft drinks and too much sweetened milk, she said. A soft drink can contains 36-63 grams of sugar, while only 20 grams a day is recommended. Too much sugar could increase tooth decay. While tooth decay could be cured, other diseases like metabolic disorders and diabetes were long term issues, she said. Mai said 43% of cancer cases in the country were related to food consumption. These include the consumption of unsafe food, poor nutrition and improper food processing. Lam, the deputy director of National Institute of Nutrition, advised people to include protein, fat, minerals and vitamins in their diet. She said every person should eat between 15 and 20 different kinds of food a day to ensure they have enough nutrition. Experts blame the low number of people eating vegetables on the fear that they are not safe. Hanoi currently produces about 40% of the demand for vegetables and meat, the rest must be imported from other regions. The city consumes about 800-1,000 tonnes of fruit and vegetables per day and 1,000 tonnes of meat. Meanwhile, inspections by Hanoi Department of Agriculture and Rural Development on units that produce vegetables in Hanoi's six districts found 36 cases violating regulations on safe vegetable production. Nguyen Duy Thinh, from the Institute of Biotechnology and Food Technology under Hanoi University of Technology, said many people often asked their relatives to bring food from the countryside as they believed the food was safer than what was available on the market. Many farmers lacked the knowledge to properly use fertiliser, pesticides and growth stimulants, he said. Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam confirmed the rampant use of chemicals in agricultural production at a meeting with representatives of foreign donors and organisations who aim to ensure food safety and hygiene in Vietnam. While visiting some suburban districts Dam discovered that many farmers have two separates areas for planting vegetables - one for sale to the market and the other for their own family. According to Vietnam Food Administration under the Ministry of Health, 3,100 people across the nation have suffered from food poisoning during the first seven months of this year. Among them, 19 people have died. The number of food poisoning cases and fatalities has decreased compared with the same period last year, which recorded 98 cases and 26 fatalities. AEC challenges GCN City's workforce The high rate of educated workers and their capacity to rapidly adapt to new jobs are advantages HCM City can rely on when the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) comes into being at the end of this year, but the city's human resources need to improve their English and professional skills, a workshop heard on Tuesday. Le Van Kiem of Ton Duc Thang Vocational College of Technology told the workshop — on the opportunities and challenges for the city's human resources following the AEC's formation — that the ratio of the work force with tertiary education topped 69.9 per cent last year compared to the national average of 38 per cent. However, a large proportion of manual workers are untrained, he said. When the AEC is formed, Viet Nam would account for 15 per cent of its work force, he said. He quoted a joint International Labour Organisation-Asian Development Bank report titled "ASEAN Economic Community 2015: Managing integration for better jobs and shared prosperity" as saying the number of jobs in Viet Nam would increase by 10.5 per cent in 2025. In 2025 Viet Nam's labour productivity is expected to be double the 2010 rate, with workers with ordinary skills also getting an opportunity to improve their skills, he said. Freer flow of skilled labour within the region would boost socio-economic development in member countries, he added. But the ASEAN Mutual Recognition Arrangement allows the free movement of workers only in the fields of engineering, nursing, architecture, surveying, medicine, dentistry, and accountancy, which account for just 1 per cent of the country's total workers. This would restrict the chances of Vietnamese workers, experts told the workshop. Fix subsidence along key expressway by Sep 30 Minister of Transport Dinh La Thang has ordered the Viet Nam Expressway Corporation to fix subsidence appearing along the Noi Bai – Lao Cai Expressway before September 30. The move is aimed at ensuring traffic safety for road users along the longest expressway in the country, Thang said. If the corporation failed to complete the work as scheduled, the toll that they had been collecting from the road users would be suspended, Thang said. The toll collection would only be re-started once the issue was fixed, he said. The ministry said the subsidence were detected in July. The ministry asked the corporation to deal with the problem expeditiously before August 15. However, only 11 of the 22 subsidence spots have been fixed so far. Dao Quang Tuan, director of the expressway's Management Board, said the corporation would mobilize all resources to fix the subsidence problem before September 30 as per Minister Thang's orders. Tuan said prolonged hot weather was partially to be blamed for the subsidence occurring along the expressway. The 245-km expressway was opened last September, running through the northern provinces of Vinh Phuc, Phu Tho and Yen Bai before reaching Lao Cai. The expressway helps shorten the travel time from Ha Noi to Lao Cai from seven hours to three and a half. 2 workers killed as crane falls Two workers were killed after a crane fell on a construction site where a dyke was being built on a local river in Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta Dong Thap Province's Tan Khanh Dong Commune yesterday afternoon, online newspaper Tuoi tre (Youth) reported. The two victims were employed by the Nam A Construction Joint Stock Company. The company was hired to build the dyke. The cause of the accident remains unidentified. While one worker died on the spot, the other died on the way to HCM City's Cho Ray Hospital. Local police are further investigating the case. PM approves BOT highway project plan Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has approved in principle a plan to invest in an extension of National Highway No 3, connecting Ha Noi and the northern Thai Nguyen Province. Under the plan, the transport ministry will implement the build-operate-transfer project. A group of investors had suggested to the transport ministry in June the upgrade of the extension of the highway to increase the speed limit from the current 80km per hour to 100km to 120km per hour. The project will include widening of the road, the construction of emergency stop points and of a 2cm-thick asphalt and concrete road to ensure the safety of vehicles running at high speed. Service and operation stations will also be built on the highway, with the toll system following the Intelligent Transport System model. About VND3.2 trillion (US$140 million) is proposed to be invested in the project, which is scheduled to begin in October, with the road being opened to traffic next May. Six toll booths will start collecting toll taxes next June. The payback period is estimated to be 21 years and six months. National Highway No3, connecting Ha Noi and the northern Thai Nguyen Province, opened to traffic last January. The construction of the highway began in November 2009, with an investment of more than VND10 trillion (US$440 million), which was sourced from the Japanese official development assistance (ODA) and the state budget. The four-lane, 64km route runs through Ha Noi, Bac Ninh and Thai Nguyen. One of the seven highways leading to the capital city, it is expected to reduce traffic jams, boost trade exchanges between Ha Noi and neighboring provinces and lure more investment to the northern provinces. Planning lacks guidelines The Vietnamese Government may only be able to finance one third of the 20,000 or so planning projects it has prepared for the nation, Vu Quang Cac, Director General of the Department for Planning Management told a conference in Ha Noi on Monday. Cac said US$400 billion was needed to carry out all the approved plans, but added that there was only between $100 billion to $150 billion to do the work. He added that there were nearly 20,000 plans and projects to be undertaken, ranging from socio-economic master plans to plans for districts, towns and regions. The conference, held to discuss the drafting of the Planning Bill, was organised by the Economic Committee of the National Assembly, the Ministry for Planning and Investment (MPI) and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-Habitat. The director said Government planning was full of shortcomings and limitations and was in dire need of a revamp in administrative procedures and in development to become an effective tool for socio-economic development. Cac noted that planning was often abused by local authorities, admitting that those issuing licences often created unnecessary problems that obstructed business activities. . He also said that many of the plans lacked a scientific basis, were inconsistent or overlapped other plans. Professor Detlef Kammeier at the Bangkok-based Asian Institute of Technology said Vietnamese planning agencies must stop competing with each other to balance the country's collective and private planning processes. He noted that a country's objective in planning should not just be GDP growth, other factors such as environmental and public well-being must also be considered. Professor Nguyen Quang, UN-Habitat Manager in Viet Nam, said there was a need to build a set of key principles to guide the planning process. He said these should promote local participation, transparency and accountability. The MPI introduced the draft Planning Bill during the conference. Containing six chapters and 66 articles, the draft Planning Bill is seen as a major step towards setting up a comprehensive planning system in Viet Nam. It is expected to be presented at the National Assembly's 10th meeting next October for debating and the 11th meeting in March 2016 for approval. VN addresses threat of zoonotic diseases "Viet Nam actively took action to prevent diseases that could be transmitted from animals to humans", said Nguyen Thanh Long, Deputy Health Minister at an international health conference yesterday in Ha Noi. The conference, on zoonotic disease control, was the first of its kind held in Viet Nam. It was co-hosted by the Vietnamese and Indonesian governments responding to the World Health Organisation's Zoonotic Disease Action Package (ZDAP). Representatives from nearly 30 countries, international organisations and government agencies attended. For the past 10 years, the health and agricultural ministries ministry have both taken action to prevent and control zoonotic infections. This was particularly effective in responding to highly contagious avian influenza in Viet Nam and other countries, said Vu Van Tam, Deputy Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development. An action plan for the first year of a five year target is expected to be completed before the conference ends today. Participants also discussed the package's priorities and will propose them to the WHO's Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) Ministers' Meeting to be held in Seoul in the Republic of Korea next month. Launched in February 2014 by US President Barack Obama with the WHO and other international partners, GHSA has attracted the participation of 44 countries. At the conference, US Ambassador to Viet Nam Ted Osius pledged that the US government would dedicate time, effort, resources and expertise to reach the package's goal. There have been more than 200 recorded emerging diseases which transmit from animals to humans that impact on public health and the global economy. "Sixty per cent of all diseases and 75 per cent of emerging diseases that have affected humans in the past 30 years originated from animals", said Pratobha Mehta, United Nations resident coordinator in Viet Nam. In Viet Nam poor hygiene, small-scale poultry and cattle breeding and the habit of eating pig blood pudding led to zoonotic infections, said Tran Dac Phu, director of the department of preventive medicine. In addition, the management of animal importing across borders was poor, Phu said. Bailiffs prove useful in society A conference to review the activities of bailiffs during the past two years has concluded that they were positive. The meeting, held in the capital city yesterday, was organised by the Ministry of Justice and the Steering Committee which revolved around a pilot project on bailiffs in accordance with a National Assembly Resolution issued on November 23, 2012. Participants said that the positive results included establishing 53 bailiff offices in 13 localities nation-wide. HCM City has 11 offices. They agreed that all offices had gradually secured a foothold in society as well as in legal aid activities. At present there are 643 people working in the 53 offices nationwide, of which 134 are enforcement agents; 295 professional secretaries and 214 staff. By July 31, bailiff offices had sent out more than 819,000 notices of enforcement and verified 781 cases for enforcement of court decisions while directly executing 322 cases involving more than VND119 billion (US$5.45 million). Bailiff services faced many challenges, particularly co-ordination with ministries, sectors and localities and in raising people's awareness about the role of bailiffs in society. HN proposes to halt road maintenance fee collection Ha Noi's transport department has suggested to the capital's People's Committee that the collection of the annual road maintenance fee from motorbike owners should halt from next year. A transport department report says nearly VND100 billion (US$4.4 million) has been collected from motorbike owners in annual road maintenance fees since 2013. However, the report said the collections fell in 2013, 2014 and in the first six months of 2015, amounting to VND55 billion ($2.4 million), VND36 billion ($1.6 million) and just VND3.6 billion ($160,000), respectively. Director of the transport department Vu Van Vien said no specific deterrent measures for people who neglected to pay the fee were blamed for the drop in collections. There were no regulations as to who would inspect and penalise violators and manage the money collected, he said. Thus, the department asked the capital's People's Committee to temporarily suspend the fee collection till the transport and finance ministries fixed the problem, he said. At present, the tax is VND50,000 (US$2.2) per year for motorbikes of less than 100cc and VND100,000 ($4.4) for motorbikes of 100cc and above. There are more than four million motorbikes in the city. In a related move, the finance ministry said the government should temporarily suspend the collection of the annual road maintenance fee from motorbike owners from January 1, 2016. The proposal came after the fee collection process faced several difficulties nationwide, the ministry said. Fewer traffic jams bother HCM City The number of traffic jams of more than 30 minutes in HCM City has fallen except in peak hours, festivals and city's gates, the deputy head of the municipal Traffic Safety Committee has said. "The number of traffic accidents and motorbike races at night has fallen but serious accidents related to containers and trucks are causing concern," Nguyen Ngoc Tuong was quoted as saying in the Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberated Sai Gon) newspaper. By the end of 2014, nine sites accounted for the highest number of accidents. The municipal Transport Department in co-operation with Traffic Police and local authorities have increased patrols and given severe fines. They have also promoted awareness among local residents, and solved technical problems. While traffic jams no longer exist at the nine sites, two new sites in District 9 now have traffic congestion. The city plans to invest in transport solutions to solve the problem at the two sites. From now to the end of this year, the municipal Traffic Safety Committee will promote education about traffic safety through the media. The Committee will also work closely with authorities to tighten traffic management and control vehicle weight. "We will broadcast commercials and adverts about driving in the correct lane, and the importance of quality helmets. A new programme on drunk driving will also begin," Tuong added. Traffic patrols will also increase in certain areas. "Co-operation to ensure traffic safety will be enhanced among city departments, including healthcare, education and vocational training, science and technology as well as authorities in 24 districts," he said. Two arrested for trafficking women in Ha Giang Police in the northernmost province of Ha Giang have arrested two men for trafficking women to China and have successfully rescued a trafficking victim. Nguyen Ngoc Chau, director of the province's Crime Investigation Police Department, said yesterday that the police had also discovered that the two men had sold another two women to China in 2012. In 2012, Mai Minh Lam, 26, residing in Quan Ba District, asked Vang Tai Dung, 26, living in Dong Van District, to help him find a woman to work in China. Lam then received 3,800 Chinese yuan (nearly US$600) after tricking her girlfriend into illegally crossing the border and going deep into inner China. The victim was sold to a Chinese man for 4,500 Chinese yuan ($700). Ha Giang Police rescued her and helped her return home following the investigation. Chau said the trafficking of women and children had become increasingly complicated as traffickers' methods and practices were getting more sophisticated. They persuade women from poor families in the area to work in China, promising them a high salary. The trafficked women are then forced into prostitution or sold to Chinese men as wives. Ha Giang Border Guards said it would coordinate with the relevant authorised agencies to raise people's awareness and intensify the fight against trafficking women. Ha Giang is the northernmost mountainous province and shares a 274-kilometre-long border with China. Experts discuss rising rate of prostitution, drug crime The rate of prostitution and prostitution-related crimes has increased sharply in the country, while measures to deter such activities have not been successful, a meeting in HCM City has heard. "The current definition of prostitution does not cover new activities, such as prostitution among the same sex or transgender people," Nguyen Trong Dam, Deputy Minister of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs, has said. Speaking at the meeting held on Thursday reviewing social-evil prevention activities in the first eight months of the year, Dam said the problem was due to limited funds and a lack of policies to help prostitutes re-enter the community. Only 31 out of Viet Nam's 63 provinces and major cities have set up opium treatment programmes, which include withdrawal from the drug and post-treatment. Only nine provinces have offered full treatment to 5,000 of the total number of 205,000 opium addicts in the country. "Local authorities have not paid enough attention to this programme, but they have also had financial difficulties," Dam said. At the meeting, delegates from Ha Noi, HCM City, the southern province of Khanh Hoa and northern province of Bac Giang spoke about the challenges in implementing the opium treatment programme. They said it was difficult to identify where the addicts live and the person who has the right to admit the addict to a rehab centre. The duration of the treatment period is also problematic, they said. Dam said localities needed to raise public awareness about the problem and establish an action plan. "Local authorities also must prepare expenditures for social evils prevention and submit solutions to the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs along with other relevant authorities," Dam said. By the end of September 2014, the country had recorded nearly 205,000 drug addicts, a fourfold increase compared to 20 years ago. Fifty-three provinces have 187 rehab centres for opium addicts, 54 more than in 2014. More than 97,000 bars, massage, karaoke, restaurant and coffee shops in the country take part in some kind of prostitution activity, an increase of 21,000 businesses and 11,000 staff compared with 2014, according to the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs. For the first eight months of the year, nearly 2,500 prostitutes were arrested. Mekong bridge cuts travel time The My Loi bridge linking the two southern provinces of Long An and Tien Giang, which opens to traffic tomorrow (Saturday), will reduce the distance to the latter province from HCM City to 25km, or just a fourth of the current distance. The 2.6km bridge over the Vam Co River, which links national highway No 50 in Can Duoc district, Long An, and Go Cong town in Tien Giang, cost VND1.4 trillion (US$61.2 million) to build under the build-operation-transfer model. It has a width of 12m and two lanes for cars and motorbikes and two for bicycles. Until the bridge was built, residents of Go Cong were forced to take National Highway No 1 or the HCM City - Trung Luong Expressway to HCM City, a distance of 100km, if they wanted to travel by road, or take the My Loi ferry. According the Ministry of Transport's Management Project Unit No 7, which oversaw the bridge construction, National Highway No 50 has a very important role in transportation between HCM City and the Mekong Delta. It has been upgraded to ease the burden on National Highway No 1, it said. But the Vam Co River acted as a barrier to transportation and, thus, the region's socio-economic development, it said. Therefore, the new bridge is necessary to fully utilise National Highway No 50 and create favourable conditions for socio-economic development and ensure national security in the coastal areas of the delta and HCM City, it added. VNS/VOV/VNA/SGT