HCM City's traffic jams yet to be tackled

HCM City is yet to take drastic action to tackle traffic jams on inner city streets even though the problem has been prioritised by local authorities.
Director of the city's Transport Department Tran Quang Phuong said traffic jams were becoming more serious in the city.

Exhaust discharged by vehicles has reached alarming levels so authorities should restrict use of personal vehicles in the downtown area, said Phuong.

So far this year the city recorded 65 large traffic jams that lasted more than 30 minutes, an increase of 30 compared with last year. There were up to 16 traffic jams that lasted 4 to 9 hours.

The plan to address traffic congestion was promulgated nearly three months ago, but many districts still haven't developed specific plans to solve the matter despite being asked by the city's Department of Transport to do so.
 
Deputy director of the department Le Toan said that so far only two offices, the Department of Transport and the Binh Thanh District People's Committee, issued detailed plans on preventing traffic jams to their subordinate units.

Deputy chairman of the municipal People's Committee Nguyen Huu Tin blamed the localities' sluggishness for holding up the city's work on curbing traffic jams.

He asked the Department of Transport to require localities to send their detailed plans on reducing congestion to the department before September 15.

Explaining the reasons why Tan Binh District has not drafted specific plans on the issue, the head of the Urban Management Division under the district People's Committee Nguyen Thi Hong Hanh said many projects on installing sewage systems recently were carried out in the district's main roads and this road work was the main cause of traffic jams in the district.

The projects' rate of progress was quite slow although the committee had reminded contractors many times to carry out the work as soon as possible, she said.

Director Phuong proposed to set up a steering committee on preventing traffic jams to improve the plan's effectiveness.

Meanwhile, Tin said work on preventing traffic jams should go hand in hand with dissemination and strict punishment for violations.

As many as 33 traffic accidents were reported across the country each day, killing 28 people and injuring 24 others, according to the Ministry of Public Security's Department of Road and Railway Traffic Police.

In Ha Noi, the city police strengthened their management on traffic safety during the past two weeks, and by Thursday they had fined more than 780 cases of traffic safety violations.

The most common violation included not wearing helmets on motorbikes and going through red lights. The police also detected hundreds of drivers who made a number of violations such as speeding and not obeying orders from traffic police.

Feast or famine in HCM City schools

With the new academic year beginning in HCM City, schools are facing the usual paradox – while some of them are forced to admit too many students, others have so few that they even have to shut down temporarily.

Many primary schools in District 3 – like Nguyen Thai Son, Luong Dinh Cua, Ky Dong and Phan Dinh Phung – have an average of 45 students in each class though the Government recommends a maximum of 35.

Many primary schools in districts like Go Vap, 12, 8, 9, Hoc Mon and Binh Thanh face the same situation.

Many secondary schools have also been forced to admit too many students.

In Vietnamese cities, public schools do not have the right to turn away students living in the same district, and many people are known to fake residence papers to put their children in reputed schools.

On the other hand, primary schools in District 8 like Dinh Cong Trang, Ly Thai To, and Van Nguyen have not admitted many students despite getting several from other districts because their facilities are not considered to be very good.

Phan Van Han Primary School got 25 per cent too few applications.

Le Chi Truc Primary School in District 3 only received 90 applications for first grade though it has a capacity of 116 despite the upgrading its facilities just recently.

Some schools in Districts 1 and 10 too have found few takers.

Some private schools in the city have closed for the year because they received too few applications.

For instance, Phuong Nam Private Primary School in Tan Binh District, which opened 13 years ago, only saw applications for first grade.

Nguyen Thi Thanh Binh, its principal, said that the school has applied to close for a year, and transfer its existing students to other schools.

Khai Tri private school in District 5 did not receive a single application for admission to primary level, a local education official told Nguoi Lao Dong (The Labourer) newspaper.

Several other secondary schools in Districts 3 and 5 too have failed to fill their full quota.

The principals of many of them blamed it on parents scrambling to put their children in famous schools.

Caterers to improve food safety transport

The city plans to issue regulations on the vehicles used to deliver meals to factories in an aim to prevent further cases of food poisoning at industrial parks and export processing zones.

For the first six months of the year, nearly half of inspected ready-made meal providers and kitchens at industrial parks (IPs) and export processing zones (EPZs) in HCM City were found in violation of food safety and hygiene regulations, according to Pham Kim Binh, deputy head of the Department of Health's Inspectorate.

This year, only five major incidents of food poisoning have occurred, but the number of affected workers was the same as last year, health officials have said.

To date, a total of 628 workers in the city have been hospitalised due to food poisoning, compared to 13 incidents with 734 workers last year, said Huynh Le Thai Hoa, head of the city's Food Safety and Hygiene Department.

Recent food poisoning cases seemed to be unrelated to hot weather, Hoa said at a conference held yesterday to discuss measures to prevent food poisoning in the city.

All five incidents this year occurred between the first two weeks of July, while April and May saw more cases due to hot weather.

Food processing facilities were responsible for four out of five food poisoning cases this year, Hoa said.

Meals had been prepared hours before being transported to factories by vehicles not designed for food deliveries.

He called for closer coordination between related departments and agencies to step up inspections at the city's three major wholesale markets to ensure clean and quarantined livestock products.

Frequent inspections and strict fines on food processing facilities that violate city regulations should be taken, he said.

A total of 530 food processing facilities and kitchens at IPs and EPZs were inspected during the first six months of the year.

Inspectors fined 181 enterprises VND660 million (US$32,000) for failure to maintain required food safety and hygiene standards and suspended operation of 11 enterprises.

Unclean food containers, poor hygiene in kitchens, low-quality materials and unquarantined livestock products were the most common violations.

Many food processing facilities were found operating without food safety and hygiene certificates, and even certified facilities had failed to comply with regulations.

A total of 1,036 enterprises operating at 13 IPs and EPZs employ 256,000 labourers, according to Ho Xuan Lam, head of the Labour Management Office of HCM City's Export Processing and Industrial Zone Authority (HEPZA).

Of that figure, 199 enterprises prepared meals for workers while 371 enterprises received meals from food processing facilities, Lam said.

The remaining enterprises paid workers in cash for their meals, he said.

Lam said that 28 workers from the Lien Hung Company in the Tan Tao Industrial Zone were hospitalised after eating meals provided by a food supplier that did not have a food safety and hygiene certificate.

HEPZA said it was reluctant to ask companies operating in IPs and EPZs to set up kitchens and prepare food for their workers instead of contracting with outside food suppliers because there were few regulations and legal documents related to the matter.

The city has more than 57,000 food trading and processing facilities, including 4,800 food processing facilities.

Gang faking university exam results prosecuted

Four people have been prosecuted for counterfeiting university entrance exam results, forging the seals of organisations and agencies.

It was alleged that they made 35 fake certificates in 2010 for families in Ha Noi, Quang Ninh, Hung Yen and Hai Duong, whose children had failed their university exams. The families had to pay them tens of million dong so that their children would be admitted to the Thanh Tay University.

Nguyen The Hung, the ringleader, had earned VND100 million (US$4,900), and other members had received from VND30 to VND40 million.

12 Vietnamese fishermen return home

Twelve Vietnamese fishermen who were rescued during a recent storm in the Philippines fly home yesterday.

Vietnamese ambassador in the Philippines Nguyen Vu Tu saw the fishermen off.

Earlier, the ambassador made a visit to Palawan Province to thank the Philippines sailors for saving the lives of the fishermen.

The QNg 90510TS fishing boat sent out a distress signal after being caught in the storm. The crew were rescued by the Philippine navy on July 27.

The Philippines' help with repatriating the fishermen is an expression of the friendly relations enjoyed between the two countries and their navies, the ambassador said.

Vietnam not to announce a hand-foot-mouth pandemic

As eight provinces and cities have reported a slowdown of hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD), the Ministry of Health has decided not to announce a HFMD pandemic.

The decision was announced yesterday by Deputy Minister of Health Trinh Quan Huan at an online conference with eight provinces and cities that have been most affected by HFMD: Hanoi, Thanh Hoa, Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai, Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Binh Duong, Tien Giang, and Ben Tre.

“For the time being, the ministry does not declare a pandemic as the number of new cases has deceased and all of the most affected provinces and cities have put it under control,” Huan said.

The disease reached its peak in Ho Chi Minh City on June 22 with 101 new cases but the figure has gone down to 30-40 cases per day in the past four days, said Dr Pham Viet Thanh, Director of the HCMC Health Department

Similarly in Tien Giang, the number of new patients has dropped from 58 per day a few weeks ago to 5-10 at present.

Statistics from the Epidemiological Hygiene Institute and the Pasteur institutes countrywide also showed that the total number of new patients have gradually dropped, according to the ministry’s Preventive Health Department.

Dr. Huan urged all of the 8 provinces and cities to continue their efforts to further drive back HFMD from now until the year’s end. “Otherwise, the disease may spread again and a pandemic will occur next year.”

Huan also said that many local governments had yet to earmark 30 percent of its health budget for prevention and control of diseases, including HFMD, as required by Resolution 18 of the National Assembly, adding that by August 25, all provinces and cities must submit their detailed plan to cope with HFMD to the ministry.

As of yesterday, HFMD has spread to 52 provinces and cities, affecting more than 35,000 people and killing 83. HCMC continues to be the most severely hit with 7,683 patients and 24 deaths.
 
Gold shop evades $2.96 mln in tax

Hoang Khiem Gold Shop in Ca Mau Province has been found to have falsely reported the loss of 1,350 invoices in order to evade as much as US$2.96 million in tax.

According to the Tax Sub-Department of Dam Doi District where the shop is situated, the shop reported an average sale of VND714 million per month but the actual figure was 900 times higher: over VND642 billion (US$30.9 million) per month.

Hoang Khiem could sell as many as 8,000 taels of gold (1 tael is equal to 1.2 ounces) everyday and most of the gold was sold to the Saigon Jewelry Holding Company (SJC) in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, said the tax authority.

From 2006 to June 2011, the shop reported a loss of 27 invoices rolls consisting of 1,350 invoices. Hoang Khiem also bought about 7 tons of gold last year and then processed the gold into 9999 gold products to sell but failed to prove the origin of the gold.

According to Dan Tri Newspaper, Ca Mau Province has set up a joint inspection team to determine whether Le Thanh Du, head of Ca Mau’s tax department, had abetted the shop.
 
HCMC clinic offers illegal hymen surgery

A clinic in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 11 has been found offering hymen surgery, a service the municipal health department said was beyond the clinic’s capacity.

In a 30-page booklet titled “Huu Nghi Trung Nam” offered to its patients and passers-by, Trung Nam Clinic said there are three methods to restore a damaged hymen: the “traditional method,” which costs VND1.8 million, the “normal technology,” which costs VND3.5 million and the “nano technology,” which costs VND4.2 million.

The publication also advertises other services such surgery to narrow the vagina and to prevent early ejaculation.

“All services will be performed by top Chinese doctors,” the ad said.

Pham Kim Binh, deputy general inspector of the HCMC’s Department of Health, told VnExpress Newswire that Trung Nam Clinic had flouted health regulations several times.

Binh was quoted by VnExpress as say Trung Nam was fined for employing foreign doctors without registering with the health department in June and violating the advertising regulation a month later.

Binh added that the clinic was only licensed to perform medical services on the otolaryngology and birth planning.

“So all of the surgeries advertised in their publication are beyond their licensed functions,” Binh said.

Doctor Le Minh Hai, head of the Private Medical Service Management Bureau under the Department of Health, said his unit was investigating the clinic.

Girl hit by ball on busy street, suffers traumas

A 20-year-old girl fell off her motorbike and hit her head against the road after driving into a plastic ball that a group of amateur young footballers were playing with on Hung Vuong Street in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 5 on Friday evening.

She dropped down unconscious while the youths ran away in panic.

She was taken to Cho Ray hospital for treatment.

Neighbors said many young men often gather on the street’s sidewalk to play football, which poses danger to street-goers.

A similar accident happened on the same street some days earlier, causing slight injuries to a woman.

Firefighter hailed as hero for saving Hanoi workers

A firefighting policeman has been hailed as hero after risking his own life to save three female workers stuck in a huge fire which hit a company on Nguyen Van Cu Street in Hanoi’s Long Bien District Thursday.

While trying to put down the fire, Pham Thanh Tuan and his comrades found three workers aged between 26 and 30 stuck on the third floor. Regardless of the raging fire and smoke, they bravely stormed into the rescue.

Doctors at Viet Duc Hospital said Tuan has two broken ribs and suffered head injuries but his heath is recovering.

The fire-hit company manufactures labor safety equipment.

The devastating scene inside the company after the fire - photo by VnExpress

It took more than one hour for five trucks and 40 firefighters to extinguish the fire.

The fire caused damage to most assets in the company but there were no report of human casualties.

Police are investigating.

Two-headed calf born in central province

Many people have been flocking to the village of Van Dinh in My Loc commune in Phu My district in the central province of Binh Dinh to see the newly-delivered brown calf that has two heads and four eyes.

“It is unbelievable to see my cow giving birth to a two headed calf,” a farmer named Hung told Dan Tri newswire.

The mutated calf has four eyes, two mouths, and two pair of ears but other parts of its body are normal.

According to Hung, the cow has delivered 6 normal calves before.

Youngsters kill restaurant boss’ son for robbery

After days of hiding, three youngsters who killed an 18-year-old young man at a restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City for robbery gave themselves up to the police.

Ho Le Nguyen Loc, 16, from Binh Chanh District, and Tran Cong Chat and Tran Cong Chon, two twin brothers, 21, from Tien Giang Province, had worked for Thao Nguyen Xanh Restaurant in Binh Chanh District before committing the crime on August 9.

The three were detained yesterday for investigation on charges of murder and robbery, police said.

The victim was Le Minh Tam, son of the restaurant’s owner.

According to case file, during midnight of that day, the three came to the restaurant, called Tam and asked him to let them in for a stay until the next morning.

Right after stepping into the restaurant, the group attacked Tam and killed him. They then hid his body under a sewerage outside the restaurant.

They then took away a motorbike, 2 computers and VND300,000 (US$14.5) from the restaurant before leaving the scene. They later sold all the stolen items for cash and shared the money.

On August 13, they fled from their residence after knowing that the restaurant’s boss had found his son’s body and reported to police.

150 families claim damages from polluting plant

About 150 farming households in Long Thanh District, Dong Nai Province, have filed a claim for compensation from a wastewater treatment plant that has released untreated wastewater into a nearby canal.

Earlier, an inspection team from the Ministry of Public Security caught Sonadezi Service Joint Stock Company, a state-owned waste-treatment plant in Dong Nai, discharging poorly-treated wastewater into the Ba Cheo canal that flows into the Dong Nai River.

Sonadezi, situated in Long Thanh Industrial Park, Long Thanh District, is a company in charge of handling wastewater from 42 enterprises inside the Park.

On August 3, the plant released about 9,300 cubic meters of black wastewater with a stinking odor into the canal which is the main water supply for about 500 hectares of farmland in the district’s Tam An commune.

The police found a sewerage system buried underground serving to unload the wastes from the plant into the canal.

After testing the wastewater samples taken from the plant, the provincial Natural Resource and Environment Department concluded that those samples exceeded the country’s allowable limits on color, Fe and chemical oxygen demand (COD) in wastewater.

The Tam An commune authorities yesterday, in cooperation with the Long Thanh district Farmers’ Association, the Department of Natural Resource and Environment, and the Fatherland Front Committee, held a meeting with those households to listen to their opinions.

Some wondered why the authorities failed to stop the pollution that had been taking place for years.

In reply, Vo Van Luat, chairman of the commune people’s Committee, said that authorities had inspected the plant many times and reported the problem to higher levels of administration.

“They [higher authorities] promised to deal with the plant but have yet to take any actions so far”, Luat said.

Dang Kim Phung, deputy chairperson of the Fatherland Front Committee, said, “Currently, relevant agencies have yet to conclude about the level of damage Sonadezi has caused to the environment and agricultural production. When such a conclusion is available, we will instruct those affected by the pollution to officially take legal action against the company for damages.”

Big C supermarket security guard beats customer

A 34-year-old man had to be hospitalized Thursday after he was allegedly beaten on the head by a security guard at the Big C An Lac Supermarket in Ho Chi Minh City where he had been shopping.

A reader yesterday told Tuoi Tre that Nguyen Van Duong, from Ho Chi Minh City’s District 11, took his 14-month-old child to the supermarket, in Binh Tri Dong Ward, Binh Tan District, to do some shopping on the night of August 18.

When Duong left the check-out counter, his child had taken an item by chance from a shelf. A security employee found out and stopped Duong for examination.

When Duong was pushing the shop cart towards the guard, he accidentally let the cart hit the latter, who then struck Duong’s head with a baton several times, the reader continued.

“Duong had to go to hospital to have the wounds on his head sewn up with several stitches,” the reader said.

Duong Thi Quynh Trang, Big C director of external affairs and public relations, later explained to Tuoi Tre about the incident.

The guard head reported that when a security guard named Hai stopped Duong to ask about the item being held by the child, Duong replied that that item had been paid for.

After checking with the counter, Hai found the item had not been included in the voucher, Trang said.

“Duong was asked to pay for the item and he then pushed his cart into Hai, who then walked away from him, but Duong continued to push the cart into Hai again. When Duong came out of the supermarket’s gate, Hai ran after him and beat him on the head with a baton. Other guards stopped the attack and took Duong to hospital,” she said.

Hai lost temper in dealing with Duong and his violent act violated regulations specified in his work contract with the supermarket. Big C will punish him at the ward police’s request, Trang affirmed.

She said she would, on behalf of the supermarket management board, apologize to Duong.

Hanoi man detained for storing drugs, weapons

Hanoi’s Thanh Xuan District Police yesterday arrested 33-year-old Tran Van Thu, from Long Bien District, after they discovered drugs and a number of weapons in a hostel room he was staying at on Giai Phong Street.

The police also found in the room 2 packs of drugs, 180 grams of yellow powder, which was suspected to be the brimstone to make dust shots, and a device to smoke methamphetamine.

Upon checking Thu’s car, the police also found many assault weapons, including a K50 submachine gun, a K54 pistol, 114 bullets, a Japanese sword, a sword, a knife and a dagger.

On Thursday (August 18), a raid by Cau Giay District Police into the Kim Xuan hostel on Doan Ke Thien Street also found 10 groups of youth possessing and taking drugs in ten of the rooms.

The police detained 23 people and seized 4 guns, many drug-inhaling devices and VND23 million.

Two of the arrested youths were yesterday indicted for “illegally possessing and trading drugs,” the police said.

Early this week, Hanoi police also discovered three pistols, bullets, and drugs in a rented car after they stopped a man for violating traffic rules on Hoa Bang Street.

On August 12 they pulled up 27-year-old Tran Ngoc Son of Hai Duong Province for driving on the wrong lane and asked him for documents.

On suspicion, they forced him to open the door and found 49 ecstasy pills and the guns in his briefcase.

Hanoi restaurant destroyed in gas explosion

Hai Xom Restaurant in Ba Dinh District, Hanoi, was destroyed in a devastating explosion of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders early yesterday morning, but no casualty was reported.

The explosion broke out at the kitchen area of the restaurant at about 3am August 19, causing heavy damage to the entire restaurant and shaking many neighboring houses, witnesses said.

A lot of dining tables and chairs, kitchen utensils, glass doors and windows, and other facilities of the restaurant broke into pieces, but fortunately, there was no casualty since nobody was in the kitchen area or nearby at that time.

Police came to the scene for investigation and initially ruled that some gas had leaked from one or more of the unsafe LPG cylinders and then set fire to the kitchen’s cook stoves, causing the explosion.

Police are continuing investigation into the cause.

City busts 530,000 smuggling cases last decade

Ho Chi Minh City has cracked down on 532,300 cases of smuggling during the past ten years, authorities said Friday at a conference to summarize the city’s decade-long campaign in the fight against smuggling and fake products.

Nguyen Thi Hong, deputy head of the municipal People’s Committee, said the fight against smuggling was getting more difficult since the smugglers and producers of fake product have become more cunning and their methods more sophisticated.

She said a great variety of products and goods have been illegally brought into the city, including consumer products, cars, motorbikes, electronics, chemicals and children toys, most of which are from China.

All of the seized products in the last decade are valued at VND7.8 trillion (US$390 million), she added.

In related news, Hanoi authorities yesterday (August 19) inspected some toy shops on Hang Ma Street and Luong Van Can Street and found hundreds of toys smuggled from China, newswire VnExpress reported.

Hoang Dai Nghia, deputy head of the market management team No 14, said they had seized a total 572 toys which had Chinese origins and which did not have quality guarantee stamps and valid invoices.

For their part, the market management team No 2 said since early this week, they have caught as many as five children shops selling smuggled toys and confiscated a total of 4,000 products.

The authorities’ crackdown also found TOSY spinning top, a high-tech made-in-Vietnam toy, being faked and freely sold at toy shops on Hang Ma and Luong Van Can Streets.

The fake products violate the intellectual property of TOSY Robotics JSC, authorities said.
The bogus toys claimed to have a boomerang-like function, which has been patented by TOSY Robotics JSC in Vietnam and Korea.

The products not only imitate the designs and packaging but also rearrange the authentic brand name “TOSY” into “TOYS”, they added.

Famous Italian surgeon returns to help children  

Italian surgeon Roberto DeCastro, who successfully performed genital organ regeneration surgery on a Vietnamese boy who lost his penis and a leg in an attack by a wild animal, was on a working visit to Vietnam.  

Prof. DeCastro had performed similar surgery to 15 patients worldwide.

Associate Professor Dr Tran Thiet Son, Head of the Hanoi Medical University’s Plastic Surgery Department, said the genital organ regeneration surgery using the patient’s own tissue and blood vessels that Prof. DeCastro had performed to create a penis for the boy, Nguyen Thien Nhan, was the latest method in the world.

With the support of the President of the Asia Injury Prevention fund, Greig Craft, the adoptive father of Nguyen Thien Nhan, DeCastro and his team launched the “Regeneration of sex organs for Vietnamese children” programme two months ago.

Under the programme, the Italian surgeon joined his 16 colleagues from Vietnam to provide free examinations for 80 children with genital defects.

From now until November this year and in April 2012, 10 children will receive operations from DeCastro and his Vietnamese and Italian teams, while the remainder will be treated at the National Paediatrics Hospital, Vietnam-Germany Hospital, Cho Ray Hospital, Central Military Hospital 108 and Saint Paul’s Hospital.

Such surgery needed support from both domestic and foreign organisations and individuals, as well as financial support from the Asian Injury Prevention fund, said Prof. DeCastro.

In 2008, DeCastro had performed surgery on Nhan, recreating his penis using the boy’s own tissue at a hospital in the US.

The child was discovered in a jungle in the central Quang Nam province in 2006 after being abandoned at birth by his mother. He had been mauled by a wild animal, thought to be a dog, which chewed off his leg and badly savaged his genitals.

PV