Social News 6/10 Hanoi - Thanh Hoa high-quality express train launched   The Vietnam Railway Corporation on October 3 launched a high-quality express railway service for the Hanoi - Thanh Hoa route. As scheduled, the SE 33/34 train will operate every Saturday and Sunday. The train departs at 08.15am from Hanoi and arrives at Thanh Hoa station at 11.46am. The Thanh Hoa - Hanoi service departs from Thanh Hoa at 12.50 and arrives in Hanoi at 16.35. The train is equipped with modern facilities, including clean amenities, an attractive interior design, news bulletins and a cafeteria, as well as televisions, wi-fi, and a souvenir and newspaper kiosk. With professional staff offering high quality services, the new Hanoi-Thanh Hoa / Thanh Hoa-Hanoi services are expected to meet the increasing demands of both domestic and international passengers. Fishermen still missing in Binh Dinh  Search operations are underway to locate 13 fishermen who were reported missing after their fishing boat capsized in a tornado on Sunday night in the Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelago's waters. This central coastal province's Rescue and Natural Disaster Prevention Committee reported on Sunday night that the boat, BD 97153-TS, had suffered a breakdown at sea when a tornado struck the area. The committee is co-ordinating the search with the Coast Guard and border guards in the province. Every effort is being made to contact other fishing boats operating in the area or nearby. It has been reported that the captain of the missing boat, Nguyen Ngoc Hung, who lives in Hoi Nhon District, Binh Dinh Province, and his crew had tried hard to repair the mechanical fault but had failed. The missing boat, built to offer 700 horsepower, was running at a speed of 1.5 nautical miles per hour. At 5pm on Sunday, heavy rains fell on Binh Dinh Province. Former bank officers prosecuted for money misappropriation Three top directors of Viet A Bank in southern Bac Lieu branch office have been prosecuted for deception and misappropriation of nearly VND20 billion ($870,000). They are former director of the branch, Vo Thanh Cong, former deputy director of the branch, Tran Quoc Thong, former deputy director of Hoang Van Thu transaction office of the bank, Pham Xuan Hung Other five ex-officers of the branch were also prosecuted for "violation of lending regulation" Vo Thanh Cong allegedly borrowed VND5 billion (US$220,000) from chief accountant of Bac Lieu Lottery Company, Tran Thanh Hau at the monthly interest rate of 9 per cent on January 2013. When he could not pay the money, Cong mortgaged saving books of one of the bank's clients, Bac Lieu Lottery Company to borrow VND5 billion (US$220,000) from Bac Lieu branch of Viet A Bank Former Deputy Director of the branch, Tran Quoc Thong used the same trick to borrow nearly VND60 billion ($2.6 million) by mortgaging saving books of Bac Lieu Lottery Company. Thong's crime was detected and he repaid a total of VND40 billion ($1.7 million) and kept VND12.5 billion ($546,000). Pham Xuan Hung allegedly appropriated VND2.4 billion ($104,000) from Bac Lieu branch of Viet A Bank using the same tricks.  Two drug traffickers caught in Quang Tri Two men were caught carrying nearly 600 drug pills in a commune in this province's Huong Hoa District, which is close to the Lao Bao border gate with Laos. The province's border guard commanders announced this morning that two residents of the central Quang Binh Province -- Nguyen Tho Nam, 19, and Nguyen Xuan Huyen, 37 -- were caught with the drugs. The men said they had crossed the border illegally to purchase drugs in Savanakhet in Laos for consumption in their home province. The border guards seized 595 pills from them. The guards are working with the local police to investigate the case further. Nam and Huyen had been released from jail several weeks ago, before they got involved in the drug trafficking.  Hai Phong: Blaze in chemical store causes panic to local residents Local residents were in a state of panic after chemical store located in the centre of a residential quarter in Hai Phong northern coastal city suddenly caught fire on Sunday.  Two fire engines with 50 firefighters extinguished the fire after an hour. According to initial investigations, a foreign invested-enterprise had rented a 30sq.m top-floor of a seven-storey building at Hong Bang District's Bach Dang residential quarter from Hai Long Joint-stock Company to test chemicals. Some witnesses said there was a strong smell of chemicals at the scene after the fire. A black waste water was on the floor. A resident said that in 2014, keeping in mind their safety, they sent complaints to the local People's Committee, but there was no feedback. To Ðinh Ð?i, chairman of Hong Bang District People's Committee, said local authorities and police are investigating the cause of the fire.  VFF suggests unity-related matters be added to Party Congress draft do Problems relating to the great national unity should be added to draft documents to be submitted to the 12th National Party Congress, slated for early 2016, the Vietnam Fatherland Front (VFF) presidium said at its meeting in Hanoi on October 3-4.  VFF Vice President and General Secretary Vu Trong Kim said the 12th National Party Congress is a political event of paramount importance which will review 30 years of “doi moi” (reform) efforts since 1986 and the implementation of the 11th National Party Congress’s resolution, and map out orientations and missions on national development between 2016 and 2020.  Participants at the meeting paid heed to building and bringing into play the great unity within the Party and among people, saying that unity is the greatest power to help the country weather all challenges throughout history.  Former VFF President Huynh Dam stressed that Vietnam wouldn’t have succeeded in national protection and development if it had lacked the great unity. The unity within the Party is a precondition for the unity in the entire people, and this issue must be clarified in the draft documents. He stressed the need to enhance the role of the VFF, which is a political alliance and a voluntary union that is able to protect people’s legitimate rights and gather Vietnamese people’s solidarity.  Nguyen Tuc, head of the VFF’s advisory council for cultural and social affairs, said the Party needs to help the entire political system grasp thoroughly the late President Ho Chi Minh’s ideology on the great national unity.  He noted that nowadays, intensifying unity must be closely associated with ensuring people’s interests, and one of the momentums for people’s strengthened unity is their right to mastery respected.  At the VFF presidium’s meeting, attendees also gave feedback on other issues raised in the draft documents such as the building of a pure and strong Party, the political system reform, education – training and science – technology.  VFF President Nguyen Thien Nhan said the front will have a working session to report the opinions to the Political Bureau and the Party Secretariat. Pilot course to enhance urban development capacity The Academy of Managers for Construction and Cities (AMC) and the World Bank (WB) are joining together to organise a pilot course from October 5-10 on enhancing the capacity of city leaders in construction management and urban development. AMC President Tran Huu Ha said that the training course, which applies WB models with positive teaching methods, will promote planning and construction investment management among urban managers. Meanwhile, WB Country Director for Vietnam Victoria Kwakwa pledged to support Vietnamese urban areas through sharing experience learnt from other advanced urban areas in the world. According to Deputy Minister of Construction Do Duc Duy, urban areas, which contribute 70 percent to the State budget, have affirmed their position in promoting the labour and economic transfers in localities and regions nationwide. He said that human resources are a key factor in boosting sustainable urban development in addition to regulatory and mechanism improvements, given that urban systems in Vietnam are developing well in terms of scale, but lack comprehensive social and technical infrastructure. AFD helps Lao Cai improve infrastructure, protect environment The French Development Agency (AFD) aided over 20 million EUR from 2008 to September 2015 to help northern Lao Cai province improve infrastructure and protect environment. The money was spent on building and upgrading 305 km of roads in rural areas and the public lighting system, constructing waste treatment facilities, and developing ecological tourism in Sa Pa, Bac Ha and Si Ma Cai districts. The provincial People’s Committee and the French agency co-organised a conference in the locality to review the seven-year programme in Lao Cai on October 5. In August 2008, the AFD pledged a non-refundable aid package worth 0.8 million EUR and an over 20-million-EUR loan to help Lao Cai to implement projects improving rural infrastructure in Sa Pa, Bac Ha and Bat Xat districts and developing eco-tourism at Hoang Lien national park. Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Doan Van Huong proposed the AFD consider the disbursement deadline of the projects to June 30 next year and expand to other local districts. The French agency is also expected to further support Lao Cai to build socio-economic development plans and strategies in the middle and long run, focusing on Sa Pa, Bac Ha and Bat Xat districts and Lao Cai city in green urban development, ecological tourism, environmental protection, climate change adaptation, and natural disasters risks mitigation, he said. The same day, a waste treatment and recycling factory, the largest of its kind in the northwest region, was inaugurated in the local Dong Tuyen commune. The factory was built with a total investment of 81.25 billion VND (3.57 million USD), 66.3 billion VND (2.95 million USD) of which came from AFD loans. UK aid for Quang Binh to begin scoring public services Authorities of the central province of Quang Binh on October 5 received over 17,900 USD from the UK’s non-governmental organisation Oxfam to undertake a public service assessment project.  The M-Score project, initiated by Quang Binh authorities and Oxfam, is meant to collect public feedback through a mobile phone scorecard to measure the quality of public administration services and the performance of public officials in serving citizens.  With the project, the province hopes to improve public services at the grassroots level, increase equal access to public services among vulnerable groups including ethnic minorities and women, enhance the transparency and accountability of administration offices and create a tool to score publically-elected units and leaders of administration agencies.  From 2013-2014, Quang Binh topped the country in provincial governance and public administration performance indexes conducted by the Vietnam Fatherland Front’s Centre for Research and Training, the Centre for Community Support Development Studies and the United Nations Development Programme.  The province finished first with top rankings in five of the six dimensions including transparency, accountability, corruption control in the public sector, public administrative procedures and public service delivery. Nutrition and food security discussed in Hanoi Nutrition and food security for women and children were the highlights of a workshop held in Hanoi on October 5. Under a project funded by the Spanish Government, the food security component will be implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, and the nutrition focus will be carried out by the Ministry of Health. The workshop presented the initiative’s blueprint as well as guidance on performing tasks and reporting, among others. According to Deputy Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long, the project aims to reduce the rate of malnutrition among children under the age of five while ensuring food supply for domestic households as part of national master plans on these issues through 2020. If conducted effectively, the scheme will benefit pregnant women, women of childbearing age and children under five years old. Apart from central agencies, such as the Department of Maternal and Child Health and the Vietnam Food Safety Association, funding will be also allocated to Ninh Thuan and Lao Cai provinces for 2015 – 2016. As such, the two localities will focus on improving medical programmes to promote breastfeeding and nutrition supplements while carrying out suitable farming production models. Citizens to supervise investment projects Citizens will have the right to supervise investment projects at grassroots level through Community Boards of Investment Supervision from October 20, according to the Government's new decree on investment supervision and valuation.  Under the new decree, boards formed by residents not holding posts in communal agencies or having relationships with investors or contractors will be able to request detailed information regarding investment plans in their locality from state management agencies. The board can also request information from developers and investors such as detailed land and architectural plans, compensation, site clearance and resettlement schemes, plans for waste treatment and environmental protection. For projects using community resources, developers and investors can be requested to provide information on the process, technical rules, categories and norms of supplies; acceptance test results and construction settlement. Citizens are able to recommend the suspension of the investment or operation of the project to relevant authorities if they suspect illegal activities are occurring. They can also do so if investors do not provide public information about projects as required by law.  The decree aims to guarantee investment activities are in accordance with approved plans, consistent with the goal of socio-economic development and reduce the waste of state capital and property. Sene Dolta festival greetings to Khmer people in HCM City Deputy Head of the Government Committee for Religious Affairs Tran Tuan Hung extended his greetings to Buddhist Khmer dignitaries, monks and people on the occasion of the upcoming Sene Dolta festival, a Khmer holiday to honour ancestors.  Hung and representatives of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee and the Vietnam Buddhist Shangha visited and met Khmer dignitaries, followers, intellectuals and students at Candaransi Pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City on October 4.  The Sene Dolta Festival is one of the largest annual Khmer festivals, along with Chol Chnam Thmay (New Year) and Ooc Oom Bok, a festival to thank the Moon for good harvests.  It is held from the 30th day of the eighth lunar month to the second day of the ninth lunar month each year, which falls on October 12-14 this year, during which Khmer people pay tribute to their ancestors and take part in community celebrative activities with traditional songs and dance after a hard working year.  The majority of Vietnam’s Khmer population lives in the southwestern region, who worship at more than 450 Khmer pagodas. Vietnam-Germany University advised to think globally Binh Duong-based Vietnam-Germany University should provide international-standard training for not only local students but also those from other Southeast Asian countries, President Truong Tan Sang has said. During his working session with the university managing board in southern Binh Duong province on October 4, the President said the university is one of the five training projects that Vietnam has cooperated with foreign partners. The 200-million-USD university focuses more on practice, technology application, and science research, aiming to produce a workforce of high calibre satisfying the country’s development goals, he noted. He underlined the need to develop a contingent of competent local and foreign lecturers who could pass on technological and scientific research skills needed to students in an efficient and practical fashion. This should be viewed as a breakthrough in the country’s university and postgraduate education reform effort in service of national industrialisation and modernisation by 2020, the State leader stressed. The VGU is one of the first new-model public education establishments of Vietnam. It was founded in 2008 on an area of 50.5 ha in Binh Duong province, under a cooperation agreement between Vietnam and the German Federal State of Hessen. According to the managing board, the unit has trained nearly 1,500 students through 11 training programmes in English and German so far, focusing on science-technology, engineering, information technology, business management. It has set a target of raising the number of students to 5,000 by 2020 and 12,000 ten years later. With the target of becoming an international-standard university for science studies, the unit provides high-quality training programmes under the standard of Germany’s partner universities. The VGU currently offers Bachelor’s and Master’s courses, covering the fields of engineering and natural sciences, economics and management, which are suitable with Vietnam’s development and international integration demand. Training course organised for health workers in “dengue hot spots” As many as 135 health workers in several central and Central Highlands provinces seeing noted increases in the number of dengue cases took part in a training course on dengue treatment on October 5. The participants, hailing from the central province of Khanh Hoa as well as Lam Dong and Dak Lak in the Central Highlands, were equipped with treatment methods for dengue among children and adults to pass on to their colleagues at home. Luong Ngoc Khue, Head of the Medical Services Administration (MSA) under the Ministry of Health, stressed the need for the health sector at the grassroots level to strengthen communications given the increasing number of dengue patients. It is essential for local medical centres to make early diagnoses, keep a close watch on patient symptoms and swiftly transfer out-of-control cases to higher-level hospitals to avoid fatalities, he said. Following the course, which took place in Nha Trang city, an MSA delegation inspected dengue treatment procedures in a handful of hospitals in Khanh Hoa province, which together with Dak Lak, saw dengue cases rise more than three-fold over the same period last year. According to the World Health Organisation, dengue fever is contracted through bites from dengue-infected mosquitoes, causing headaches, fever, exhaustion, severe muscle and joint pain, swollen glands, vomiting and rashes. There is no medication to treat the disease, only to ease the symptoms. The disease is currently at its peak in Vietnam, with 25 deaths and 40,000 confirmed dengue cases. Ho Chi Minh City has the highest number of patients with 9,000. Hanoi official blames congestion on drivers Hanoi officials are not happy with how local drivers behave on the streets, asking them to learn from their peers in Ho Chi Minh City. Nguyen Quoc Hung, vice chairman of Hanoi, has blamed the city's chronic congestion problem on people who encroach on opposite lanes and refuse to cooperate with traffic cops.  “If the manners of drivers in Hanoi are as good as those of drivers in Ho Chi Minh City, the traffic situation will improve a lot,” Hung said, as cited by national radio broadcaster Voice of Vietnam. He added that many vehicles in his city are overloaded and traffic is also worsened by public projects that take away so much space, including an elevated railway and a subway being constructed in the city downtown.  Hung said the city recorded 412,000 traffic violations during the first nine months this year, with a combined cash fine of VND119 billion (US$5.3 million).  Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, chairman of the National Traffic Safety Committee, said the amount is lower than that of Ho Chi Minh City, without providing comparative data.  Phuc said Hanoi should be stricter with traffic violators and also contractors of public projects who keep dragging behind schedule.  Hung's remarks may make it look like Ho Chi Minh City does not have traffic problems, but the southern metropolis is indeed struggling with a fast growing number of vehicles and an inadequate and sometimes forgotten public transport system. The city is banking on a new metro system to reduce the use of personal vehicles. Still the first line in the network will not be completed until 2018, if there is no delay. Medical experts learn about telemedicine in Germany Medical experts from the Administration for Medical Services (AMS) at the Ministry of Health (MoH), Thanh Hoa and Yen Bai provinces have conducted a study tour of Germany to learn about telemedicine under the programme "Strengthening Provincial Health Systems”, implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. This study tour was led by Vice Minister of Health Prof. Nguyen Thi Xuyen and dealt with the topic “IT for medical knowledge transfer – IT and Continuous Medical Education”. It was intended to gain knowledge from different institutions in Germany about how to plan, implement and manage such a Telemedicine Network.  Subsequently, the 20 participants learned at the German Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) which steps a government needs to undertake in order to implement the network.  They also got hands-on experience from Hospitals and private medical practices on how to make use of modern information technologies (IT) for treatment and knowledge transfer. The group of 20 participants was composed of experts from the MoH and from GIZ, hospital leaders from seven hospitals, including the Viet Duc Hospital in Hanoi, and managers from the provincial Departments of Health (DoH) in Yen Bai and Thanh Hoa provinces. In her closing remarks, Vice Minister Prof. Nguyen Thi Xuyen highlighted the considerable potential of telemedicine for treating patients in Vietnam and the valuable experience all participants of the study tour had made. The Vietnamese-German Development Cooperation’s Programme “Strengthening Provincial Health Systems” has supported Vietnamese partners since 2009 and is commissioned and funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). On behalf of BMZ, the programme is carried out by GIZ. During its implementation period from 2009 to 2017, the programme aims at strengthening the capacity of provincial DoHs and decentralised health facilities in cost efficient health management and needs-based delivery of quality health services, with a major focus on preventive and curative services.  The necessary equipment for the pilot telemedicine network will be provided through the financial cooperation with the KfW Development Bank. Hospitals bringing back house calls Vo Thi Yen, 80, of HCM City's Phu Nhuan District, who has heart disease and arthritis, no longer has to queue for her turn at Thong Nhat Hospital; the hospital now comes to her house to treat her. And, the doctors who come home spend a lot of time with her unlike at the hospital, where, like at most public hospitals, they barely have a few minutes for each patient. "I can ask them a lot of questions," a gratified Yen says. Under a new programme, several hospitals have begun to send doctors to the homes of old and infirm patients and those with disabilities who have chronic diseases. Doan Trong Huy, 81, of District 3 has also been getting physicians from the hospital for the last four months. He also has heart disease besides hypertension and diabetes. Besides Thong Nhat, Go Vap, Binh Thanh, Xuyen A, and Thu Duc are some of the other hospitals that have started this service. To avail the service, patients need to register with a hospital. People with health insurance are covered though they need to pay a little extra for it. Go Vap Hospital, for instance, charges VND200,000 (US$8.8) for a house call for patients living in the district, and VND300,000 ($13) for others. Truong Quang Anh Vu, head of Thong Nhat Hospital's general planning division, said the hospital charges VND250,000 ($11). It has been providing the service for six months and 236 patients have availed it, he said. Doctors and patients have to set up a schedule for a visit, he said. At Binh Thanh District Hospital, 130 patients use the service, including 10 poor people who get it for free. Hospitals said the service is one way to improve patients' satisfaction. But Vu said the problem they face is that there are no guidelines for the service in the Law on Medical Examination and Treatment. The Ministry of Health has yet to oblige either. Doctors make the house calls after their stipulated working hours, Vu said. The ministry should issue regulations to streamline the service, he said, adding his hospital is waiting on it to set up a team of doctors who will make house calls during working hours. Tang Chi Thuong, deputy head of the city Department of Health, said the department advocates that hospitals who can should offer the service.  Children's hospital in HCM City pushed beyond capacity The number of in-patients at HCM City Paediatrics Hospital No.1 has increased to a 10-year high, with 2,099 as of this week. Speaking at a press meeting yesterday, Ngo Ngoc Quang Minh, head of the hospital's General Planning Department, said the hospital had only 1,400 beds. Sixty-five per cent of the patients are from outside HCM City. The number of out-patients also rose, from an average of more than 5,200 patients per day in early September, to 6,200 patients per day. Minh attributed the surge in the number of patients to an increase in cases of dengue fever, hand-foot-and-mouth disease, and respiratory diseases. The number of in-patients with dengue fever in September increased twofold compared to August, he said. Last week, nearly 60 patients with dengue fever were hospitalised. In August, the hospital reported a weekly average of 25-30 in-patients with dengue fever. The number of in-patients with hand-foot-and-mouth disease in September rose threefold compared to August. Last week, nearly 300 patients with hand-foot-and-mouth disease were hospitalised. In August, the number of in-patients with the disease ranged from 80-90. In September, the hospital reported more than 400 in-patients with dengue fever, including 120 serious cases. Three children died. The number of in-patients with respiratory infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia has also increased significantly over the last two months. To cope with severe overcrowding, the hospital has installed fans and upgraded areas along corridors, adding 150 beds for in-patients, said Le Bich Lien, deputy director of the hospital. The emergency room has added 12 beds to serve more patients. In the health check-up department, doctors and nurses have had to work during the noon break from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm to serve the increasing number of patients.  Chess Championships begin in Can Tho The National Top Players Xiangqi (Chinese Chess) and Chess Championships begins on October 10 in the southern province of Can Tho. Nearly 100 competitors from 16 provinces and cities nationwide will take part. Grandmasters Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son and Nguyen Duc Hoa of Can Tho will also play in the tournament. Women-friendly workplace policies encouraged Women with a child under one year of age will be able to work one hour less each and not lose salary, the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs has announced. Under Government Decree No. 85/2015/ND-CP, effective from November 15, 2015, enterprises, in return, will be subject to lower corporate income taxes, with spending on women-friendly measures becoming deductible. Employers are also encouraged to put conditions in place to help women with children older than one year of age, for example in regards to breastfeeding or storing milk. Local authorities will be responsible for directing and implementing the construction of kindergartens at places with many women employees. In January the social insurance law for men with wives giving birth was amended. They were given five days off if their wife gave birth naturally, seven days if it was a cesarean section or a birth with a term of less than 32 weeks, and ten days if twins were born. For triplets or more, every additional child results in three more days off. Total precipitation increases by 9 percent in city Ho Chi Minh City experienced 83 medium and heavy rains in the first nine months of the year, decreasing 13, 5 percent compared to the same period last year, reported the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transport.  However, the total average heavy precipitation in the area reached 792, 85mm which increased 9 percent in comparison to the same period in 2014.  Prolonged heavy rains swept through Ho Chi Minh City on the large scale on September 15.  The highest rainfall reached  92mm at Ly Thuong Kiet station, and 142 mm at An Lac station that inundated many city’s districts under 0, 1- 0, 15 meters of water such as Binh Thanh, Tan Binh, and district 2, 6, 8, 12.  Floods blocked many routes, causing prolonged traffic congestions in city. Ministry warns bird flu transmission The Ministry of Health yesterday urged the Department of Health in the northern province of Lai Chau to increase prevention against bid flu A/H5N6 transmission to human as the province is facing outbreak of bird flu. The ministry asked the department to increase preventive measure against the fatal disease when outbreak of bird flu re-occurred in a flock of waterfowl in Binh Lu Commune in Tam Duong District. The local government and vets should together control the disease and destroy diseased poultry and The health sector must soon discover infections and treat them following the Ministry's guided methods, the ministry said. Medical facilities must quarantine infection to prevention transmission and inform to preventive medicine center to spray chemicals, the ministry added. VNA/VNS/VOV/SGT/SGGP/TT/TN/Dantri