Drug use on the rise in Đồng Nai Province

Police inspect drug use at a bar in Đồng Nai Province’s Biên Hòa City. — Photo baodongnai.com.vn

The number of drug users is rising in the southern province of Đồng Nai, causing public concern in the region.

A meeting held by Đồng Nai Province’s Party Committee on drug control and prevention has revealed that there are nearly 4,500 drug users in the province, some 1,100 more than 2017.

Of these, 820 drug users are receiving treatment at rehabilitation centres.

Most drug addicts are between 16-30 years old and have no stable jobs or are unemployed.

The drug-users tend to be young, while up to 80 per cent of them use methamphetamine.

In addition to popular drugs, some new kinds of drugs like synthetic cannabis and khát (Catha edulis) leaves are being used.

The extreme dangers of amphetamine-type stimulants, especially methamphetamine, cause difficulties in rehabilitation work.

To cope with the situation, the provincial Party Committee has asked local authorities to enhance the dissemination of drug prevention in schools, offices and residential areas.

The police, customs and health sectors in the province were requested to crack down on the trade and use of drugs while strengthening inspections of enterprises engaged in the import of substances for agriculture and other legitimate uses to slow the illegal trade and production of drugs. 

New tunnel route in the centre to open next year

Workers at the construction site. A tunnel running through the Cù Mông Pass on National Highway 1 between the central provinces of Bình Định and Phú Yên will be put into operation in January 2019. - Photo dantri.com.vn

A tunnel on National Highway 1 between the central provinces of Bình Định and Phú Yên will be put into operation in January 2019. 

Lưu Xuân Thủy, deputy general director of Đèo Cả Investment Joint Stock Company, on Tuesday said that construction units were working day and night to complete the project so it could open to traffic before the Lunar New Year (Tết).

Works on the 6.6km tunnel, running through the Cù Mông Pass, began in September 2017, Dân Trí online newspaper reported.

The company said the tunnel, built with investment of VNĐ3.92 trillion (over US$170.4 million), would allow vehicles to travel at a maximum speed of 80km per hour.

Each side of the tunnel road will have two 2.6km lanes, helping vehicles reduce time and money, while also boosting trade as well as economic development for the south central region.

On the same day, Đèo Cả Company and Central Construction University also launched a landscape design competition to create a unique point for the tunnel.

The contest will run until October 15. 

Court puts away car smugglers for long time

Three men who got a luxury car smuggled from Cambodia receive long jail terms at their trial in Tây Ninh on Sept 18. 

Three people who got a luxury car smuggled from Cambodia to HCM City and forged its papers have received stiff prison sentences.

The Tây Ninh Province People’s Court on Tuesday sentenced Nguyễn Đắc Tuyên, 41, of Hà Nội to 16 years in jail.

Two other men, who conspired with him and abetted him in the criminal acts, Phùng Viết Đông, 38, and Phùng Tuấn Anh, 29, got 14 years apiece.

They were charged with smuggling and forging seals and documents of official agencies.

According to the indictment by the province People’s Procuracy, on April 20, 2015, law enforcement authorities caught the three in a Lexus RX350 with a fake Cambodian number plate as they were travelling from HCM City to Hà Nội.

The trio confessed that Tuyên had asked Đông and Anh, brothers, to smuggle a luxury car at a low price from Cambodia to Hà Nội.

While Đông and Tuyên were responsible for buying the car and making the fake plates, Anh faked the car’s papers.

A day earlier they had gone to a garage in Cambodia and bought the car for US$39,000 and struck a deal with the seller to deliver it to HCM City.

Tuyên went to Maximark Cộng Hoà Supermarket in HCM City’s Tân Bình District to take delivery the day they were caught by the police.

The smuggled car, a 2013 model, costs much more in Việt Nam than in Cambodia due to taxes and fees.

It has been seized by the authorities.

Land certificates granted to religious foundations

Chief nun Trúc Liên of Phước Quang Pagoda said every members of the pagoda felt happy about the land certificate granting.

Hồ Chí Minh City authorities on Tuesday granted land certificates to eight religious foundations.

The foundations include Minh Đức Parish in District 9, the Lovers of the Holy Cross of Gò Vấp in Hóc Môn District, the Monastery of Sisters of St Paul of Chartres in Bình Thạnh District and pagodas including Bát Nhã, Huyền Trang, Kỳ Viên, Phước Quang and Ngọc Diệp in District 3.

Chief nun Trúc Liên of Phước Quang Pagoda said every member of the pagoda felt secure about the legitimacy of the entity thanks to the certificate.

“It’ll be easier for us if we want to repair the monastery in the future,” she said.

Nguyễn Toàn Thắng, director of the city department of environment and natural resources, said municipal authorities always paid attention to granting of land certificates to religious units.

He said the department had granted land certificates to 800 such land lots. Religious units that had not been granted land certificates should work with local authorities to complete required documents and procedures to attain certificates.

The city is trying to grant land certificate to all religious foundations in the city by the end of 2019.

30,000 newborns in An Giang to be screened for congenital heart disease

An Giang Hospital of Obstetrics Gynecology and Pediatrics on Tuesday (September 18) launched a project to help obstetrics facilities detect congenital heart disease in newborns. 

An Giang Hospital of Obstetrics Gynecology and Pediatrics has launched a project to help obstetrics facilities detect congenital heart diseases in newborns.

The one-year project, part of the Heart for Children programme funded by Viettel, will help 30 obstetrics facilities in the Mekong Delta province of An Giang carry out consultancies with cardiovascular physicians at Hà Nội Medical University Hospital and An Giang Cardiovascular Hospital.

As many as 30,000 newborns are expected to be screened for congenital heart disease.

Children with heart diseases will receive financial assistance to undergo surgery if their families cannot afford it.   

The Heart for Children programme has provided free surgeries for more than 4,500 disadvantaged children across the country for nearly 10 years.

Road project lasts a decade due to land clearance stagnancy

A project to build a road linking National Highway 3 and industrial zones in Hà Nội’s Sóc Sơn District was approved in 2009, but land clearance work is still incomplete, reported Kinh Tế & Đô Thị (Economic and Urban Affairs) Newspaper.– Photo kinhtedothi.vn

A project to build a road linking National Highway 3 and industrial zones in Hà Nội’s Sóc Sơn District was approved in 2009, but land clearance work is still incomplete, reported Kinh Tế & Đô Thị (Economic and Urban Affairs) Newspaper.

The stagnant progress has been causing difficulties for local people.

After the project was approved, Nguyễn Văn Minh’s land in Hương Đình Village of Mai Đình Commune was to be used for the project, meaning his family would have to move.

But for 10 years, his 12-member family has been living in the same place because no resettlement land has been allocated.

His house is small and run-down, but he has been forbidden from upgrading or rebuilding it as the land belongs to the project.

“The house is too small for 12 people but I can not upgrade or rebuild because my house is on project land”, Minh told the paper.

“The small living space has seriously affected our lives”, he added.

Minh was one of the dozens of families affected by the project’s ground clearance, the paper said.

The stagnancy of ground clearance has pushed many households into difficulties because they had nowhere else to go, yet were not permitted to rebuild  their houses, not even to build infrastructure for agricultural production.

The project, worth VNĐ360 billion (US$15.4 million), started in December 2010 with initial funding of VNĐ216.3 billion (US$9.2 million) allocated by Hà Nôi.

Four years later, the project was suspended due to a lack of funds for 2014-2016.

For 2017-2018, Sóc Sơn District was provided VNĐ120 billion (US$5.1 million) to continue the project.

However, for the last two years, the ground clearance work has been at a standstill because there was no land for resettlement.

Local authorities blamed residents for the slow land clearance.

Sóc Sơn’s project management board’s vice director Nguyễn Bá Hoàng said “because the project lasted for nearly 10 years, 19 families whose lands would be revoked for the project rebuilt their houses or other production infrastructure facilities”.

“As per regulations, the families would be offered 10 per cent of the construction cost as compensation but the locals asked for 100 per cent of the expense”, he said.

The district had asked the municipal authority to increase the compensation but the request was rejected, Hoàng said.

Recently, the project management board asked the municipal authority to move 19 households to a resettlement area in Hương Đình Village of Mai Đình Commune.

This would keep the families in the same commune, said Hoàng.

“The households were asked to accept the compensation and agree to move to new places to help complete the road project”, Sóc Sơn District’s People's Committee vice chairman Đỗ Minh Tuấn told the paper.

They might be forced to move if they don’t comply, Tuấn said. 

Programming contest for kids invites entries nationwide

Young tech talents aged between eight and 15 years old across the country are invited to take part in the Minecraft Hackathon, themed “Smart City”.

The competition is held by Microsoft Vietnam, Teky Steam Academy, and the Central Council of the Ho Chi Minh Vanguard Children’s Union to look for talented kids in creative programming.

It is a new and exciting playground for students that will inspire their love for science and thirst for creativity, said Nguyen Pham Duy Trang, Vice President of the Central Council of the HCM Vanguard Children’s Union. It is also an opportunity for them to show their ways to address today’s issues, such as traffic jams, pollution, and other environmental problems, she added.

It is the first programming contest ever held for kids nationwide which is based on Minecraft programming languages like Makecode-Minecraft, Tynker-Minecraft, and Python-Minecraft.

Both Vietnamese students and foreign children living in Vietnam are eligible to compete in the event. It is expected to attract more than 5,000 students from 300 elementary and secondary schools all over the country.

Contestants are required to develop a smart city with houses, buildings, and streets in which information technology and artificial intelligence are applied to improve urban living standards and quality of public services and enhance the efficiency in use of power and natural resources.

From September 2018 to March 2019, the organiser will hold a series of events at schools to introduce Minecraft programming and answer inquiries about it.

All entries must be submitted to the competition’s official website at https://minecraft-hackathon.com/ from January 1 to March 31, 2019. Online voting will open from April 1-14, 2019.

The five teams with the highest number of votes will go through to the final round in Hanoi in late April 2019.

Khanh Hoa: Bicycles presented to disadvantaged students

The National Fund for Vietnamese Children (NFVC) on September 19 teamed up with AIA Life Insurance Company in Vietnam to present 70 bicycles, gifts, and five life insurance contracts each worth 20 million VND to 75 poor students in the central province of Khanh Hoa.

The donations, worth a total of 250 million VND, were part of the “Real Life Journey” campaign which consists of 13 charitable events taking place across the nation this year. The campaign is expected to present about 3,000 bicycles and 100 free life insurance deals for impoverished children nationwide.

Founded in 2014, the “Real Life Journey” programme hosts a series of charitable cycling events which has given away nearly 7,000 bicycles to children living in difficult circumstances across 50 cities and provinces in Vietnam.

In Vietnam, there are just over 200,000 children who have to drop out of school each year due to a lack of transportation access to school. With schools beyond walking distance, many families also cannot afford a bicycle to get them to school each day.

According to statistics by the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs, many students living in remote areas have to walk 5-10 km, or even more, each day to get to school. They have to get up at 4am each morning just to get to class on time.

This challenge has tremendous impacts on their academic results and the possibility of them continuing their studies in the future.

The donors hope that each bicycle will bring the students greater opportunities to pursue education and have a better future.

Smart City Summit expected to help Hanoi choose suitable steps

Participants at the ASOCIO Smart City Summit 2018 visits a booth at the event 

The freshly-ended Asian-Oceanian Computing Industry Organisation (ASOCIO) Smart City Summit 2018 was expected to help Hanoi choose suitable measures and steps to improve living conditions for its residents and promote the city’s growth and socio-economic development, said Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Nguyen Duc Chung.

As one of the super cities in the world in terms of area and population with rapid urbanization speed and population rise, Hanoi has faced great challenges in planning, traffic, security, health care, education, power, housing, and environmental pollution, he said.

The municipal leader stressed that the city is looking towards the model of a smart city, bringing convenience, safety and friendliness to all people basing on the application of key technologies in the fourth Industrial Revolution.

Vietnam has set a target of at least three cities having master plans on smart city building approved and implementing the development of infrastructure and facilities for a smart city.

The ASOCIO Smart City Summit 2018, themed “Creating Smarter City and Securer City by Digital Solutions,” saw representatives of more than 10 countries and experts share their viewpoints, strategies, policies and experiences in building smart cities, and giving ideas in speeding up the building of such cities in Vietnam and the region through the applying of new technologies such as IOT, Big Data, and artificial intelligence (AI).

They also discussed various relevant issues such as proper models for smart city building, support policies, human resources, digital infrastructure and cyber security, and the development of startup and innovation ecosystem.

ASOCIO President David Wong shared Chung’s opinion, saying that rapid growth will accompany with various problems such as infrastructure overloading; environmental, air, and noise pollution, affecting the lives and business activities of local people.

A report by the UN predicts that in 2050, two-thirds of the global population will live in cities, with the highest urbanization being seen in Asia and Africa. The number of urban citizens will rise from 53 percent to 64 percent, it said.

Wong stressed the need for closer connectivity among cities to deal with the above-mentioned problems and supported Hanoi’s plan to build a smart city in three phases from now until 2030, with three key pillars of health care, transport and tourism.

Meanwhile, Yvonne Chiu, Chairwoman of the World Information Technology and Service Alliance (WITSA), said that the alliance is willing to ensure digital transformation, benefiting cities and ensuring security and safety for smart cities when they are built.

Jay Jenkins, head of the Google Cloud Business in Southeast Asia, said that Hanoi has owned favourable infrastructure factors, including numerous Vietnamese addresses listed in Google Maps and Google My Business. 

Regarding measures to mobilise resources for smart city building, Chairman of the Hanoi People’s Committee Nguyen Duc Chung said that along with the city’s budget, Hanoi will call for contributions from technology firms in the city.

Chung also expressed his wish that leading experts in smart cities and policymakers in Vietnam and the world will give the city specific recommendations for it and other cities in Vietnam to succeed in building smarter, safer cities, thus improving the living environment for locals and promoting their socio-economic growth.

Vietnam, Russia cement cooperation in education

National Research University of Electronic Technology (Source: Study Advisor)

A delegation of Russia’s leading universities recently held working sessions with representatives from several Vietnamese universities and high schools and the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training’s International Cooperation Agency to discuss boosting cooperation in education.

The Russian universities included the Higher School of Economics, the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, the Moscow Aviation Institute, the Ural Federation University, the Tula State University and the National Research University of Electronic Technology.

The working sessions were part of the 10th stage of a long-term education project called “Russian Universities” implemented by the Russian Centre of Science and Culture in Hanoi.

Natalia Shafinskaya, director of the centre, said the project is part of efforts to realise agreements between the two countries, while contributing to strengthening education affiliation as part of Vietnam-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership.

Representatives from Russian universities also participated in an exhibition to introduce the country’s education to Vietnamese students. The exhibition is taking place at the Russian Centre of Science and Culture in Hanoi from September 17-21.

Quang Nam to launch smart tourism model

Authorities of the central province of Quang Nam are working on a plan to launch a smart tourism model, contributing to making tourism a key part of the province’s economy.

Tran Van Tan, vice chairman of Quang Nam Province People’s Committee, said that the province will hire the services of Vietnam Post and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) to develop the plan. 

The smart tourism is expected to help users search for information related to accommodation, food, tourism destinations, shops, entertainment, travel and events.

The integration of digital maps of the system also makes it easy for travellers to find the way, search for surrounding places and even create their own schedule.

For management agencies, the smart tourism will provide statistics; reporting data; information about users, businesses, news, events and photos; feedback and suggestions from tourists about the quality of services; contributing to helping them make appropriate adjustments and strategies.

Some localities in Vietnam such as Ninh Binh, Da Lat and Phu Quoc have applied this system. 

By late last year, VNPT and the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) agreed to promote the local smart tourism.

Under the three-year agreement, the two sides would support each other in their development. They would annually build suitable co-operation programmes to advertise the country’s tourism sector to local and foreign tourists by applying modern IT solutions and services.

VNPT would consult and co-operate with VNAT to build a master plan on IT master plan for the tourism sector and to build a development plan for smart tourism.

Scholarships presented to students in northern mountainous provinces

Disadvantaged students in 10 northern mountainous localities received “Vietnamese Seeds Fund” scholarships from Nhan dan (People’s) Newspaper on September 18.

Some 1,000 scholarships worth 3 million VND each were handed to outstanding students during a ceremony held in Dien Bien Phu city of the northern province of Dien Bien. 

They are students from the provinces of Tuyen Quang, Yen Bai, Cao Bang, Bac Kan, Lang Son, Lao Cai, Ha Giang, Lai Chau, Son La and Dien Bien.

The scholarships aim to ease difficulties of students in mountainous regions and support their studies.

Transport challenges and modest economic growth have caused various obstacles for education in these provinces. In addition, the areas are hit by floods and landslides each year, affecting people’s livelihoods and the education sector.

Prior to the start of the 2018-2019 academic year, various schools in Son La, Dien Bien and Lai Chau suffered great losses due to heavy rains and flooding. 

Established in 2012, the “Vietnamese Seeds Fund” of Nhan dan newspaper aims to step up the campaign for building a learning society, which involves improving the quality of learning at schools nationwide.
Vietnam Social Security receives ASEAN award in IT

The Vietnam Social Security (VSS) has been honoured for applying information technology in developing health insurance management, medical reviews and payment services by the ASEAN Social Security Association (ASSA).

A ceremony to announce the award was held as part of the 35th ASSA Board Meeting in Khanh Hoa city, the central province of Nha Trang on September 19.

To meet the demand of management and improve the efficiency of health insurance assessment, the VSS built a Health Insurance Medical Information Review System to connect more than 12,000 medical centres nationwide and to standardise data input for data sharing and information exchange between medical centres and social insurance agencies.

Duong Tuan Duc, director of the Centre for Health Insurance Appraisal and Multi-level Payments in the North under the VSS told the Vietnam News Agency that VSS started to apply IT to the sector’s activities in 2015 and the awarded system is one of the 16 applications it has put into operation since 2016.

“The system was designed to check all of the documents sent to the VSS by medical units to claim health insurance,” Duc said. “It not only helps supervise the payment of health insurance but also discovers prescriptions which are not in line with the Ministry of Health’s regulations or services which are not covered by health insurance,” he added.

Organisations from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Phillippines also received the award in the IT category at the ceremony.

The ASSA Recognition Awards started in 2015 to share successes with other member orgnisations in the categories of Innovation, Transformation, Customer Service, Strategic Communication, Information Technology, Insurance Coverage, Financial Literacy and Governance.
 
This year’s awards were granted to 17 organisations in all eight categories.

The ASSA was found in 1998 following the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement in Bangkok, Thailand on February 13 that year, involving heads of social security institutions from the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. Representatives from Laos and Vietnam also attended the signing ceremony as observers. Later that year, the Vietnam Social Security became a member of ASSA.

This is the fifth time the Vietnam Social Security has chaired the ASSA Board Meeting. It undertook the chairmanship during 2002 – 2003 and organised the ASSA Board Meeting in 1999, 2002, 2005 and 2010. ASSA members now comprise 19 social security institutions from 10 ASEAN nations.-

Central Highlands prioritises teaching of ethnic minorities’ languages

Central Highlands provinces are improving education of ethnic minorities’ languages for primary and secondary pupils.

Currently, the languages of Ede, Jrai, Bahnar, K’hor and M’nong ethnic minorities are taught for thousands of students in Dak Lak, Gia Lai, Kon Tum, Lam Dong and Dak Nong province. Dak Lak alone houses more than 14,416 students studying these languages at 718 classes across 124 primary and secondary establishments.  

In recent year, the localities have organised communications campaigns to encourage parents to voluntarily enroll their children on ethnic language courses at school. Many local schools employ textbooks published by the Ministry of Education and Training in Ede, Jrai, Bahnar and K’ho languages for 3rd, 4th and 5th graders. In boarding schools for minority students, the education takes place in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades using local teaching programmes and documents.

Since the beginning of the 2018 – 2019 school year, Dak Lak province has given free new textbooks in Ede language to 13,170 Ede ethnic pupils in 3rd, 4th and 5th grades and 133 Ede language teachers across 106 local primary schools. The provinces of Kon Tum, Dak Nong and Lam Dong have annually spent hundreds of billion VND on printing textbooks in ethnic minority languages and purchasing teaching tools and equipment.

Most language teachers in the region have been trained at universities and colleges, and taken part in courses on ethnic language education.

Hanoi-Saigon is world’s seventh busiest air route

The Hanoi-Ho Chi Minh City flight path is among the most crowded in the world, new data from British aviation analysis company OAG shows.

Some 6.7 million passengers flew between the two cities last year, making the route the seventh busiest, UK newspaper The Telegraph quoted OAG as saying.

Vietnam Airlines, Vietjet Air and Jetstar Pacific have been launching an increasing number of flights on the sector, and there are 45 daily flights now. The travel time is two hours and ten minutes.  

The Jeju-Seoul Gimpo route topped the list with more than 13 million passengers, followed by Melbourne - Sydney, Sapporo - Tokyo Haneda, and Fukuoka - Tokyo Haneda.

In 2016, the OAG data had showed the Saigon-Hanoi route to be the seventh most crowded.  

Vietnam’s aviation market is growing at the third fastest pace in the Asia-Pacific region, according to the aviation aministration.

Vietnam had more than 94 million air passengers last year, a 16% increase from 2016.

The country’s biggest airports are Tan Son Nhat in Saigon and Noi Bai in Hanoi.

Vietnam takes Bali’s place as top Aussie travel choice

Vietnam has become the favourite travel destination for Australians, pushing Indonesia's Bali off that perch, says booking site Webjet.

Booking data from Webjet, the largest online travel booking site in Australia, shows that Vietnam has overtaken Bali to become the most favorite travel destination for Australian tourists.

Volcano eruptions and earthquakes have deterred Australian tourists from returning to Bali, and the number of tours to the beautiful island has reduced significantly over the past year, Australian news website news.com.au quoted Webjet's managing director John Guscic as saying.

Instead, more Australian visitors are showing greater interest in Vietnam, a country known for beautiful beaches, mountains, rice terraces, world heritage sites, plus low cost of living. Vietnam has also achieved renown as a dream destination for expats.

The online booking site has reported a 63% growth in full-year profit thanks to a bookings surge to Asian countries, mainly Vietnam.

Australian travel blogger Phoebe Lee, who has taken global viewers through Hanoi in two CNN commercials, told VnExpress that she had visited Ha Long Bay and the central ancient town of Hoi An, two the most popular places in Vietnam, with her husband Matt, a videographer.

“We loved them so much we can’t wait to go back,” Lee said.

“The locals are inclusive, they really want you to experience Vietnam and they’re so happy to share it with you and talk to you. I’ll never forget the warm smiles and kindness I’ve experienced in Vietnam.”

Australia has always been Vietnam’s top 10 feeder markets, and the number of Australians to Vietnam grew by 10.8% year-on-year in the first eight months of this year, accounting for 3% of all foreign arrivals.

Last year, the country welcomed 370,000 Australian tourists, a 11.5% increase from a year before.

Vietnam has tried to relax its entrance procedures with an e-visa policy which is now available to people from 46 countries, with Indians and Australians added late last year.

Visitors with e-visas can touch down at any of Vietnam’s eight international airports, including Tan Son Nhat in Ho Chi Minh City, Noi Bai in Hanoi and Da Nang in the central region.

They can also arrive via land at 13 international border gates, and via sea at seven ports across the country.