Social News 8/8 Smuggled elephant tusks seized in HCM City Suspect goods seized recently by Listed in the World Red Book, African ivory tusks are banned from importing and exporting. Sent from They were later sent to the Further investigation into the case is underway.- The Accordingly, from August 10, more than 1,300 medical service prices will be increased with an average increase of 20%. The increases will apply to public general hospitals, specialised hospitals, medical treatment centres, maternity homes, and clinics in In patients undergoing treatment at public medical facilities prior to the effective date of the adjustment will be charged based on the old rates until discharge. In addition, medical service fees at central hospitals will now be applied at lower-level hospitals too. Price increases have been applied to over 800 healthcare services in OVs evacuated from Most Overseas Vietnamese (OVs) in The information was released by Vice Chairman of the OVs Association in “They are gathering in buildings with underground tunnels to protect themselves from the blasts of artillery and mortar shells,” Tien said. He reported Speaking at an August 4 press briefing, Ukraine National Security and Defence Council spokesperson, Andrey Lysenko, said hat Ukrainian troops are prepared to attack Donbass region where the rebels have taken a stronghold. Requiem held for Vietnamese, Lao martyrs A requiem was held in Buddhist monks, nuns and followers prayed for martyrs’ souls and for the country’s peace and people’s prosperity. The ceremony was to call on younger generations of On the occasion, the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV)’s branch in Vietnamese, Lao provinces push for mutual development The Central Highlands Under a memorandum of understanding signed in Kon Tum on August 6, both sides will facilitate all-level visits, and propose new areas of cooperation while sharing experience in Party build-up, new rural development and poverty reduction in their border areas. On trade activity, they will encourage business communities to explore chances in tourism, agriculture and mining via exhibitions. The two provinces plan to upgrade the Dak Blo – Dak Ba border gate into a major one and ask the Vietnamese government for continuing supply of official development assistance to To ensure border security, police, border defence and armed forces will hold regular talks, upgrade and increase the number of border markers planted in their localities. Kon Tum and Sekong signed memoranda of understanding in 2010 and 2012. The former offered assistance in professional training and crime combat while the latter lent a helping hand in the search and repatriation of remains of Vietnamese experts and volunteer soldiers fallen in Sekong also helped Kon Tum connect with the economic corridor linking central More support for Quang Ngai fishermen The Fishermen Support Fund of central Quang Ngai province has raised over 40 billion VND (1.9 million USD) for its local fishermen after three years of operation. The fund has provided 25 billion VND (1.1 million USD) to assist 350 fishermen and build houses for families of Agent Orange/Dioxin victims. It also presented 100 million VND (4,700 USD) to the Vietnamese law enforcement authorities at sea and built two fishing boats worth 14 billion VND (660 million USD) for fishermen. Fort Hood Col. Viet Xuan Luong became the first Vietnamese American to be made a general in US history in an August 6 ceremony at Cooper Field at Fort Hood, attracting Austin police and members of the local Vietnamese community. Members of the Police Department’s office of community liaison accompany more than 100 members of According to Statement.com, Luong’s family evacuated Binh Nguyen, the “It’s a very proud moment for myself,” Nguyen said. “It’s rare to come across another Vietnamese-American in the Army let alone one so highly ranked.” Fund helps grow trees around Dien Bien Phu A fund has been established, called "One Million Trees for These activities are part of a series of projects in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the historical victory at The tree-planting programme drew the participation of several high-ranking officials and other well-known figures, including Nguyen Hanh Phuc, member of Central Party Committee and chairman of the National Assembly’s Office, Pham The Bao, an official from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MoNRE), Bui Thu Huong, Vinamilk’s External Affairs director. Vo Hanh Phuc, daughter of the late General Vo Nguyen Giap, and Miss Vietnam 2010, Ngoc Han. With the help of local residents and hundreds of local young volunteers, 40,000 green trees were planted on Doc Lap Hill as well as several other historical sites in Bui Thi Huong said, “The programme's goal is to improve the living environment in this area." According to Huong, the fund has helped launch similar programmes in 10 other localities across He said, “The programme is important because it fosters respect and protection of the environment. We hope that the result will be more awareness and creative solutions to living a green lifestyle." Between 2012 and 2013, the fund helped plant nearly 100,000 trees in 10 cities and provinces nationwide. This year they intend to plant between 120,000 and 150,000 more. The HCMC government has stressed that only locally-produced goods will be allowed for advertising on buses and that slogans of these products printed in Vietnamese language are allowed on the exterior of buses. After approving a pilot scheme submitted by the HCMC Department of Transport to put ads on buses in the city, the city government requires that colors of those advertisements must be aesthetically attractive and should not resemble those of traffic signs. The transport department has been told to complete the pilot project before the end of this month in accordance with regulations and based on the opinions contributed by relevant agencies. According to the department’s pilot project, advertisements will be placed on 156 buses operating on ten routes in the city. The chosen buses are those which can carry 40-80 passengers. After one year of test-operation, the agency will review the pilot scheme before deploying the project on all buses in the city in order to reduce state subsidies for commuter bus services. Trung Luong-My Thuan expressway to get off ground this year Construction of the 54-kilometer Trung Luong-My Thuan expressway section is scheduled to begin this year after the Ministry of Transport approved the building plan for this project last week. Cuu Long Corporation for Investment, Development and Project Management of Infrastructure (Cuu Long CIPM), the owner of the project, said the project must be divided into two stages to make it easy to raise investment capital as the whole section requires a hefty VND25 trillion if it is carried out in accordance with the original plan. In stage 1A, the expressway will be built under the build-operate-transfer (BOT) format and have two lanes plus emergency stopping bays. There are two capital recovery plans. For the first plan, the investor would collect tolls from both HCMC-Trung Luong and Trung Luong-My Thuan sections over a period of around 15 years starting 2019. Regarding the second plan, the investor would collect tolls from users of the Trung Luong-My Thuan expressway over a period of 20 years starting 2019 plus support from the State for the toll collection right for the HCMC-Trung Luong expressway for a certain period. In stage 1B, the expressway will be expanded to six lanes using official development assistance (ODA) loans in the second phase. Deputy Minister of Transport Nguyen Van The has told Cuu Long CIPM and relevant agencies to revise the expressway project design before August 10 in preparation for work to begin on the section. The project owner will also evaluate the financial capability of investors and contractors and report to the Ministry of Transport before August 15. Earlier, the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV) was assigned to invest in Trung Luong-My Thuan expressway project. However, the bank had to return the project after two years, citing difficulties in fund raising. Then, Cuu Long CIPM was picked to replace it. The Trung Luong-My Thuan section is part of the HCMC-Can Tho Expressway, which is expected to reduce traveling time between HCMC and the Mekong Delta. This expressway has three sections, namely HCMC-Trung Luong, Trung Luong-My Thuan and My Thuan-Can Tho. The 40-kilometer HCMC-Truong Luong section was opened to traffic in February 2010. Easier access to loans for low-income civil servants to buy homes The HCMC Housing Development Fund (HOF) is expected to propose allowing low-income civil servants to borrow more than the current ceiling of VND400 million to buy homes in the coming time, the fund’s chairwoman said. Dao Thi Huong Lan, who also director of the HCMC Department of Finance, told a ceremony to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the fund last week that HOF has disbursed more than VND610 billion for nearly 2,000 low-income earners in the past decade. Speaking to the Daily on the sidelines of the event, Lan acknowledged that the amount remains modest, partly because the fund is intended for the civil servants who get wages from the State budget and are permitted to borrow no more than VND400 million and no higher than 70% of the total value of a home they want to buy. Lan said Nguyen Ngoc Thach, director of Thach said borrowers from the education sector account for 49% of the loans, the health sector for 15% and others for 19%. The fund has financed many enterprises to build resettlement areas and budget homes for workers. The fund provided VND329 billion for nine housing projects in 2007-2010. In the past decade, Department of Finance director Dao Thi Huong Lan said the city has plans to develop 2.7 million square meters of social housing in 2012-2015 as part of a housing development strategy for 2020 with a vision toward 2030 in the city. Up to 1.3 million square meters of the total area, equivalent to 17,500 apartments, will be set aside for low-income people to buy or rent while 800,000 square meters is used to meet the housing demand of 93,000 workers. Can Tho aims to bring clean water to 93 percent of rural population The Mekong Delta City of Can Tho has set a target that 93 percent of the local rural population will have access to hygienic water by the end of this year. To achieve the goal, the city has invested over 30 billion VND (1.42 million USD) in building a clean water supply system, with a daily capacity of 2,600 cu.m per day, in Vinh Thanh district. The project will enable 5,500 households in the two communes of Thanh Thang and Thanh Loi as well as Thanh An town to access water meeting the standard of the Ministry of Health. Eight other water supply stations have also been constructed, serving 5,739 households in seven communes of six districts namely Phong Dien, Vinh Thanh, Thoi Lai, Co Do, Cai Rang and Thot Not. This forms part of Component 3 in a World Bank-funded project on water supply and rural environmental sanitation in the Mekong Delta region, to be implemented from 2011 to 2016.- Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai on August 6 inspected the progress of some urban railway lines in At the working session with municipal officials, the Deputy PM said the Ben Thanh - Suoi Tien section is the first metro line to be built in The slow disbursement of Official Development Assistance capital and partnership capital were the main reasons for the delay of some big projects, he noted. Hai also ordered officials of neighbouring Binh Duong province to clear land for the building of the Ben Thanh - Suoi Tien underground line, which partly traverses its Di An district, by this October at the latest. The HCM City Management Authority for Urban Railway reported that it has drawn up a plan to establish a State-owned limited liability company which will be in charge of operating the Ben Thanh - Suoi Tien and Ben Thanh – Tham Luong urban railway lines. The plan will be submitted to the Prime Minister for approval in near future, representatives from the authority said. The construction of the 19.7km-long Ben Thanh - Suoi Tien line was started in August 2012, and it will begin operation on a trial basis in 2019. Meanwhile, the 11.3km-long Ben Thanh – Tham Luong line has been built since August 2010 and is scheduled to be completed in 2018. They are two out of the seven urban railway lines to be opened in Poverty, new rural areas get priority in public investment The Prime Minister has instructed that only two national target programmes will be carried out in the period from 2016-2020, which are poverty reduction and building new-style rural areas. In a directive issued on August 5 on planning public investment for the five year period, PM Dung said he made the decision with the aim of avoiding overstretching resources in order to focus capital on the most necessary projects. He required ministries, sectors and local governments to try and complete halfway projects under other national programmes, and not to propose new ones. In making plans on investment using capital sourced by the State budget, central and local Government bonds, Official Development Assistance and preferential loans, the PM instructed ministries, sectors and local authorities to take into serious consideration the situation of public investment in the 2011-2015 period and socio-economic development plans for the 2016-2020 at both national, sectoral and local levels. The public investment plans should also be based on the national strategy on public and foreign debts for 2016-2020 and vision to 2030, the master plan on economic restructure and growth model shift for 2013-2020 as well as approved restructuring plans of sectors and State-owned economic groups and corporations. The directive made clear that all outstanding debts in capital construction must be settled before December 31, 2014, and no more debts will be allowed to occur as from 2015 in line with the Law on Public Investment.- Activities mark Day for Agent Orange Victims A wide range of activities are being held to mark the Day for Agent Orange/Dioxin Victims (August 10) and the 53rd anniversary of the Agent Orange catastrophe in Chairman of the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (VAVA) Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Van Rinh said the events aim to raise public awareness on the issue while calling for domestic and foreign assistance and support for the Vietnamese victims as well as the struggle for justice for the Vietnamese victims. A mobile texting campaign was launched on August 4 to collect money in support of AO victims nationwide. From now to September 30, people can support the campaign by texting DACAM to 1409. An exchange programme will be held at the Hanoi Opera House on August 9. An exhibition - themed “Agent Orange – Sense and Justice” is underway in the Mekong Delta city of During the war in An estimated 4.8 million Vietnamese were exposed to the toxic chemical, with over 3 million of them dying or painfully struggling from its serious effects. Not only Vietnamese but people from many other countries also became victims of this mass-killing chemical. Former Soviet military experts’ contributions hailed Vietnamese Ambassador to Russia Pham Xuan Son has highlighted former Soviet military experts’ great contributions to Son made the praise at an annual meeting with 120 former Soviet military experts who had assisted He expressed his deep gratitude to the experts, who had helped For their part, the former Russian experts recalled their unforgettable memories of the time when they served in On August 5, 1964, the Fighting back, Vietnamese armed forces shot down eight aircraft and arrested the first As many as 18 lecturers from The course, organised under the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the ‘Lowering Emissions in Asia’s Forests (USAID LEAF) programme and the United States Forest Service (USFS), is part the nine-course training programme on regional climate change, which began in October 2012. The programme includes four major modules, namely overview of climate change, measures to ensure environment and society, reduction of emissions in land use planning, and carbon control. The USAID LEAF programme director, David Ganz, spoke highly of the participation and remarkable contributions of Vietnamese universities to the programme, expressing his hope that they will play a vital role in developing similar training courses in Ass. Prof. Dr. Bui The Doi from the These events help participants get insight into issues relating to climate change as well as improve their skills in teaching and doing scientific research in the field, he added. Sanitation project benefits Binh Dinh locals As many as 520 hygienic toilets have been built in the central The facilities will be handed over to households living under the poverty line in Tay Son, Phu My and Tuy Phuoc districts, according to the provincial Preventive Medicine Centre. The project with a budget of 687,510 AUD (649,000 USD) is being carried out between 2013 and 2017 with the aim of supplying clean water for 3,254 families and supporting the construction of toilets meeting the health ministry’s standards on sanitation for 4,250 others. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), over 45 percent of rural families in 10,000 ex-inmates jobless, risk backsliding in About 10,000 former prisoners are now out of work and thus likely to commit crimes again in These are among the 25,000 ex-inmates who were released between 2012 and 2014 after serving their jail terms, Colonel Dinh Thanh Nhan, deputy director of the HCMC Police Department said at a conference on Tuesday. The 10,000 former prisoners cannot find a job as they are unskilled or beyond the working age, Col. Nhan elaborated. These people do not have enough money to start their own business either, the deputy director added. “So they run a high risk of relapsing into crime again,” Colonel Nhan said. Last year, the relapsing rate was 5.3 percent and it rose to six percent in 2012, Col. Nhan revealed. Speaking at the conference, Lieutenant General Cao Ngoc Oanh, head of the Police General Department for Justice Assistance and Execution of Criminal Judgments, asked relevant agencies to seek measures to help ex-prisoners land jobs as soon as possible so that they can have a stable life. Having a job will help ex-inmates re-integrate into society soon, erase their complex about their past, and not relapse into crime, the official said. At the event, the department hailed 403 former prisoners for making considerable progress in their life. Of these, 17 have got rich and provided others who are also ex-prisoners with good jobs. DNA test suggests recovery of DNA testing has shown one of the bodies collected from a river in Test results from the Ministry of Public Security’s But police have yet to arrive at any final conclusion on the recovery of the woman’s corpse that has not been found since she died in 2013. Le Thi Thanh Huyen died post-surgery at the age of 37 at Cat Tuong Beauty Salon after she had an operation there on October 19, 2013. According to the case file, Huyen came to the salon on that day to have an abdominal liposuction and breast lift surgery. After being anesthetized, she underwent aesthetic operations performed by Dr. Nguyen Manh Tuong, 41, the owner of the salon, from 12:00 pm until 4:00 pm. Thirty minutes after the surgery, Huyen had difficulty breathing and started foaming at the mouth. Dr. Tuong gave her an injection and she appeared to recover. But at 5:45 pm, Huyen’s body suddenly turned blue and her blood pressure could not be measured. Dr. Tuong then put Huyen on a respirator and gave her a cardiotonic but could not save her. Dr. Tuong and Dao Quang Khanh, a security guard at his salon, carried Huyen’s body in the doctor’s car to After investigation, police arrested Dr. Tuong and Khanh on October 22 last year. Before his arrest, Dr. Tuong worked as a doctor at Hanoi-based Police also concluded that Khanh had stolen an iPhone 5 from Huyen’s handbag. Based on Dr. Tuong’s testimonies to investigators, Huyen’s family and competent agencies have spent a lot of time and effort searching for the body. Police have charged Dr. Tuong with “breaching regulations on medical examination and treatment, drug production, preparations, supply and sale or other medical services” and “interfering with human corpses, graves, and/or remains.” Meanwhile, Khanh has been indicted for “interfering with human corpses, graves, and/or remains” and “stealing property.” The Hanoi People’s Court opened a trial for the two defendants on April 14, 2014 but delayed it the same day and returned the case file to the investigation agency for clarification of some professional issues related to the woman’s death. No court hearing has ever conducted again ever since. 250 kg bomb detonated A 250kg bomb left over from the war in Ha Tinh Province has been detonated in a controlled explosion on August 5. The construction management board of Thach Ha District found the bomb during pre-construction digging for a road. The bomb was 1.7 metres long and had a diameter of 35 cm. It was located within one of the key bombing sites of the American War. Upon learning of the bomb, the Military Command of Ha Tinh Province quickly arrived at the site and blocked off traffic. They also cooperated with municipal authorities to move the bomb to a shooting range in Ngoc Son Commune where it was detonated under controlled conditions. Source: VNN/VNA/VNS/VOV/SGT/SGGP/ND |
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