Man uses saw to cut bomb, loses legs

A 47-year-old man was critical after being injured while attempting to cut an unexploded bomb in Dong Xuan District of Phu Yen Province.

Tran Van So was trying to cut the bomb with a saw on Monday when it exploded. So suffered broken legs and received several injuries on his body. Doctors had to amputate his legs later.

The victim's wife said their family, which makes a living from farm work, was facing economic difficulties.

Girl missing in Vietnam found dead in Cambodia

An eight-year-old Vietnamese girl was found dead in Cambodia’s Svay Rieng province, near the border with Vietnam on March 19.

Ngo Ngoc Phut was a 2nd grade student of Binh My 2 primary school in Binh My commune, Cu Chi district, Ho Chi Minh City. She was reported missing after leaving school on January 26. No trace of her has been found since then despite great efforts from her family and relevant agencies.

According to the People’s Committee of Loi Thuan commune, Ben Cau district, Tay Ninh province, local authorities and border guards at Moc Bai international border gate have handed over Phut’s body to her family.

The police are making further investigation.

Fisherman goes missing off Phu Yen

A fisherman was missing after his boat capsized in the sea off Hoa Hiep Trung Town, Dong Hoa District in the central Phu Yen Province on March 15.

According to Lieutenant-Colonel Le Van Minh from the Phu Yen Coast Guard Headquarters, the missing fisherman is 60-year-old Le Rung.

Rung and a friend named Tran Chay, born in 1963, went fishing for lobsters on the afternoon of March 15. When the boat capsized, Rung reportedly drowned, while Chay swam to safety.

On March 18, a fisherman named Vo Van Em, born in 1973, reportedly died of appendicitis during a fishing trip off the Dai Lanh cape in Dong Hoa District.

Upgraded martyrs’ cemetery inaugurated to mark Happy Road in Ha Giang

A ceremony was held on March 18 to inaugurate upgrades to a martyr cemetery in Yen Minh district, the northern mountainous Ha Giang province, as part of activities to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the “Hanh Phuc (happiness) Road” (March 20, 1965-2015).

The cemetery is the final resting place for the 14 young volunteers who lost their lives during the road’s construction, said Vice Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Tran Duc Quy, who is also Head of the organisation board of the road’s 50th anniversary celebrations.

The province has invested nearly two billion VND (93,000 USD) to upgrade the cemetery in an effort to demonstrate gratitude and respect for 2,500 young volunteers who built the road over six years from 1959 to 1965.

The road, named by the late President Ho Chi Minh, stretches 166 kilometre through the four mountainous districts of Quan Ba, Yen Minh, Dong Van and Meo Vac and has brought substantial changes to the local socio-economic situation.

The volunteers came from the northern provinces of Cao Bang, Bac Kan, Lang Son, Thai Nguyen, Tuyen Quang, Ha Giang, Hai Duong and Nam Dinh.

Food safety control transform needed

A national conference on the challenges to Vietnam’s food safety management was held by the Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Development (MARD) and the Embassy of Canada in Vietnam in Hanoi on March 19.

Addressing the event, MARD Deputy Minister Vu Van Tam highlighted that food safety has come into public focus due to its major impacts on social health and socio-economic development.

The matter has been a top priority for the agriculture sector in recent years. This year was designated “the year of food safety” and its spirit and promotion plan will be continued through a number of years towards ensuring food quality for domestic use and export purposes, he added.

Tam stressed the need for an effective management mechanism to positively transform current food safety control efforts.

According to Nguyen Nhu Tiep, Director of the Department for Agricultural and Seafood Products Quality Management, Vietnam has an established legal framework and policy in accordance with the WTO agreement on the application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) as well as Codex’s international standards, guidelines and recommendations.

Food safety control system initiatives have been specifically assigned to the MARD, the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT), enabling an effective collaboration between the three.

However, he also pointed to several problems, including delays in related legal documents and insufficient published guidelines, the lack of linkages between input and output safety management in food production and the lack of capable personnel, infrastructure and funding.

Lucia Frick, Consultant at the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, suggested the three ministries increase the effectiveness of their collaborative efforts and accelerate the handling of violations with highly capable inspectors.

It is also vital to have a transparent food safety control system at local levels, she said.

Shashi Sareen, Senior Food Safety and Nutrition Officer at FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, said it is necessary to strengthen collaborative efforts between the MARD and the Department of Food Hygiene and Safety under the MOH to deal with related controversial issues.

Deformed calf with two heads born in Vietnam

A new born calf attracted a lot of attention in Ta Nup Village of Vietnam's Mekong Delta: it had two heads, two snouts, four eyes.

Its owner, Chau Chanh, told An Giang newspaper that his cow had given birth to the calf at around 4:30 PM on March 17.

“At first I thought she was having a twin. But we found out that they belong to only one calf after pulling the animal out,” he said. "I've never seen anything like this before."

The calf, weighing about 15 kg, died about four hours after birth.

According to the scientists, the condition, called polycephaly, is extremely rare. The calf was supposed to be a twin, but the egg inside the mother failed to split.

The website WPTZ.com in 2013 quoted Dr. David Rockwell, a veterinarian, as saying that calves with such a rare deformity seldom survive beyond several hours or days.

Vietnam accepts first 10 surrogacy requests

Nearly 100 applications for surrogacy have been sent to three designated hospitals, ten of which have met the required conditions, over the past three days after Vietnam’s new regulation on surrogacy on humanitarian grounds took effect, the Ministry of Health has said.

The new regulation is part of the revised Law on Marriage and Family that came into force on Mach 15, allowing people to act or have others act as surrogate mothers for humanitarian purposes on a voluntary basis after satisfying certain requirements, the ministry said.

The three major clinics assigned by the ministry to handle surrogacy cases are the National Hospital of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Hanoi, the Hue Central Hospital in the central city of Hue, and Tu Du Obstetrics Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, said Nguyen Viet Tien, Deputy Minister of Health.

So far, ten of the surrogacy applications sent to the National Hospital of Obstetrics and Gynecology have met the requirements for surrogacy under the new regulation, the ministry said.

Accordingly, these ten surrogacy cases have become the first to be approved in Vietnam, the ministry added.

Before the Law on Marriage and Family was amended last year, many infertile couples had to go abroad to have others act as surrogate mothers at a very high cost, Deputy Minister Tien said.

Therefore, the new regulation is a humanitarian one that gives childless couples the opportunity to have children, the official said.

About 500-700 couples have the need for others to act as surrogate mothers in Vietnam every year, according to national broadcaster Vietnam Television.  

A surrogacy is a case in which the embryo of a biological child of a woman and her spouse is implanted into the uterus of the recipient after it is created through the in-vitro fertility technique, the ministry said.

Hospitals that can perform the in-vitro fertility technique are fully capable of handling surrogacy cases, Deputy Minister Tien said.

Under the new regulation, surrogacy is allowed when the woman who has found another woman to act as a surrogate mother has no uterus, has a deformed uterus that is unable to bear a fetus, or has had her uterus cut off.  

Surrogacy is also allowed when a woman suffers health problems that can endanger her life and the fetus if she gets pregnant, or when a woman has undergone repeated miscarriages or has repeatedly failed to get pregnant despite the support of reproductive assistance techniques.

 Member of overseas organized crime gang arrested

Vietnamese police have apprehended a local woman for cheating dozens of people out of their money through a scam organized by an overseas group led by Malaysians and Nigerians.

Police in Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday arrested Le Thi Phuong Trang, 38, on charges of “appropriating property through swindling” pursuant to Article 139 of the Penal Code.

Trang, living in Tan Binh District, was a member of a foreign organized crime group that conned many Vietnamese people out of their money through a scheme in which she asked her victims to pay customs duty by bank transfer for the “gifts” she claimed to have sent to them from abroad, police officers said, adding that Trang actually sent no such presents to the “prey.”

Some Malaysians and Nigerians led the criminal ring and Trang joined them when she previously lived in Malaysia, police said.

Investigators said Trang and other members of the ring got acquainted with Vietnamese people on Facebook.

When their relations became closer over time, Trang told her potential victims that she would send “valuable gifts” from abroad to them and asked them to prepare money to pay customs duty for these.

The woman then made phone calls to one of her possible victims, during which she posed as a staffer from a Vietnam-based foreign transport firm and said that customs officers had detected a large sum of money in the parcel of gifts shipped to her victim.

Trang told the victim to pay a fee to a designated bank account to receive the parcel, without forgetting to warn that if her victim failed to do so, the gift would be confiscated.

Many people have followed Trang’s instructions and lost a lot of money to the swindler.

The money transferred by the victims to accounts designated by the ring was later withdrawn with credit cards in Malaysia, investigators said.

In February alone, Trang called hundreds of people in Vietnam and 10 of them transferred a total of VND1 billion (US$46,550) to the account she then designated, investigators said, adding that the ring gave her VND100 million (US$4,655) out of the total, news website VnExpress reported.

From March 3 until her arrest, Trang rung more than 30 people, most of whom were women, according to VnExpress.

Three of these people transferred to Trang a total of US$10,000 and VND80 million (US$3,720), the newswire cited investigators as saying.  

Police are further investigating the case.

Quang Nam takes part in Helmets for Kids programme

The central province of Quang Nam is the 26th locality to take part in the Asia Injury Prevention (AIP) Foundations road safety programme of Helmets for Kids, which began in 2000.

High-quality helmet donations and road-safety education are part of the programme.

The AIP Foundation organised a kick-off ceremony in the province on March 17. At the ceremony, 2,987 students and teachers at five primary schools in the province were gifted helmets.

Mirjam Sidik, CEO of AIP Foundation, said: "We have seen improved road-safety knowledge and behaviour among students, resulting in lives saved from the use of helmets."

This year, the programme aims to present helmets to around 9,100 students and teachers at 44 schools in four provinces of Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Nam and Dong Nai.

The selected schools are located in four of 15 major provinces implementing the National Child Helmet Action Plan, which aims to reach 80 percent child helmet-wearing rates by 2016, Sidik said.

The programme is carried out under cooperation with the National Traffic Safety Committee and the Ministry of Education and Training with sponsorship of Johnson & Johnson.

Dong Nai shares traffic safety experience with Cambodia

A delegation from the Cambodian National Road Safety Committee (NRSC) arrived in the southern province of Dong Nai on March 18 to study local experience in road safety management and helmet law enforcement.

Director of the Department of Transportation Nguyen Van Diep informed his guests about the efforts to raise the public’s awareness of using helmet while driving after the law was issued in 2007, particularly communication campaigns.

He said as a result, in 2014 the number of traffic accidents in the province dropped by 20 percent and traffic injuries by 38 percent from the previous year.

In Cambodia, more than 60 percent of road crash fatalities every year involved motorcyclists, with a high death rate from head injuries, according to Ty Long, Deputy Director of Public Order Department under Cambodian Ministry of Interior.

He said Cambodia is working to finalise a law requiring helmet wearing for all motorcycle passengers.

On the same day, the Cambodian delegation also made field trips to main roads in the city of Bien Hoa to observe traffic control work and dealing of violations.

Vietnam aids Laos in television personnel training

The Junior College of Television under the national Vietnam Television (VTV) will assist the Lao National Television (LNTV) in personnel training under a cooperation agreement inked in Vientiane on March 18.

Among those attending the signing ceremony were Lao Deputy Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism Savankhon Raznontry and Minister Counsellor of the Vietnamese Embassy Hoang Xuan Hai.

Running through 2017, the programme will send 10 LNTV staff members to the Vietnamese junior college each year for training in journalism, filming, television technology, telecommunication, and informatics.

LNTV General Director Bounchao Phichit thanked Vietnam’s Party and State as well as the VTV for their assistance, illustrating the special relationship between the two countries.

The training programme is part of a cooperation agreement signed between the VTV and the Lao Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism in February 2012.

On January 30, the VTV presented professional equipment worth 100,000 USD to the LNTV within a cooperation memorandum of understanding inked between the two sides in 2014.

Ho Chi Minh City will embrace its connection with Slovak localities in the coming time and enhance bilateral cooperation in justice, education-training, science, technology and industry.

The city encourages and will create conditions for Slovak firms to do business in the city, Vice Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Tat Thanh Cang told Slovak Minister of Justice Tomas Borec at a meeting in HCM City on March 17.

The guest said Slovakia is willing to share its experience in judicial reform and legal system improvement for Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh City in particular.

He added that Vietnam and Slovakia are witnessing sound cooperation in various fields such as energy, petrochemistry and military technical.

He said he hopes the two countries will promote the bilateral traditional friendship in the future and focus on building and developing cooperation between localities.

A project of the Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund (JAIF) to disarm bombs and mines that still remain from wartime in Vietnam’s central Ha Tinh province has received approval from the Prime Minister.

The project, funded by Japan, will clean 2,550 hectares of land contaminated by bombs and mines, up to a depth of 5 metres, spread across 12 communes in the districts of Ky Anh, Huong Son and Can Loc.

The Japanese government has provided US$4 million non-refundable aid to help Vietnam carry out this work in just over two years.

More than 800,000 tonnes of unexploded wartime ordinance remains buried across 21 percent of Vietnam’s land area. The central provinces of Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri, Thua Thien-Hue and Quang Ngai are particularly badly affected.

Leftover explosives have killed about 42,130 people and injured another 62,160 who are now struggling to make ends meet every day, according to the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.

Thua Thien-Hue to host national heath conference

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung will be the guest of honour at a national conference exploring health and assistive technology issues to be held on March 24-25 in Thua Thien-Hue province.

This national conference will give 300 representatives from a host of organisations the opportunity to put their heads together and share ideas and experiences with the aim of improving the quality health care throughout the nation.

The event is being organized by the Ministry of Health in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank (WB) and the European Union (EU).

Bird flu outbreak at farm in Thanh Hoa

Farmers around the country have been told to be on alert after a case of bird flu was confirmed at a poultry breeding farm in the central province of Thanh Hoa.

The Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said there are multiple cases at the farm, but insists the risk to public health is "very low" and there is no risk to the food chain.

Officials from the department have banned the transport of chickens and ducks from the farm and have initiated measures to sterilize the infected areas and supervise local residents on procedures to prevent the outbreak from spreading.

The outbreak was discovered March 12 on a flock of 293 poultry raised by Le Dang Nhat, a resident living in Hai Linh commune in Tinh Gia District.

Samples taken from all of the animals tested were positive for the bird flu strain A/H5N6, the first outbreak of the flu in the province.

Ta Quang Buu Scientific Award 2015 kicked off

The second Ta Quang Buu Award 2015 has been launched in Hanoi on March 10 by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

The annual scientific prize named famous Vietnamese scientist Professor Ta Quang Buu (1910-1986) aims at encouraging and honoring scientists who have outstanding achievements in basic research in fields of natural sciences and technology; and contributions to boosting basic science research in particular and Vietnam science towards the international level as well as setting the stage for the country’s science and technology to integrate and develop further into the world.

This year’s award will be offered to Vietnam scientists who are the authors of excellent basic research works in natural sciences (mathematics, computer science and information, physics, chemistry, earth science and environment, biology, and other natural science fields), technological science and technique, medical science, and agricultural science.

Winners will receive cash prizes of VND50-200 million.

Submissions can be sent to the National Foundation for Science and Technology Development at 39 Tran Hung Dao Street in Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem District from March 6-April 18. Participants get a registration form at www.nafosted.gov.vn.

The award ceremony will be held in May.

The 2014 Ta Quang Buu Award went to Professor Nguyen Huu Viet Hung for his research on the homomorphisms between the Dickson-Mui algebras as modules over the Steenrod Algebra; and Associate Professor Nguyen Ba An for the “Joint remote state preparation via W and W-type states” project.

Nutritional supplements fail quality requirements

While carrying out unscheduled check to HAPU medical center in Thanh Xuan District in Hanoi on March 15, inspectors from the Ministry of Health discovered two nutritional supplements which failed the quality requirement.

Accordingly, inspectors asked to suspend the circulation of the two kinds in the market. Nutritional supplement Acannthopax extract liquid 100ml per pack with expiry date July 3, 2017 made by a Korean company and imported by Khanh Tan Commercial Company has no Saponin - historically understood to be plant-derived while in the registration document, it declares to have more than 270 mg per ml of Saponin.

Inspectors also took a nutritional supplement sample from booth 344 of Top queen collagen Vietnam Company for testing. Test result showed that the US-made Perfect Slim with expiry December 10, 2017 imported by Khong Gia Service and Commercial at 113 Nguyen Cu Trinh Street in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 1 contained banned chemical Sibutramine.

Ca Mau forwards coastal afforestation to mend sea dyke

Climate change has worsened coastal landslide and erosion in the southernmost province of Ca Mau, where many dyke sections have been slipped into the sea. Local authorities thus have sped up afforestation projects to prevent these breaches from enlarging.

Ca Mau has three sea-facing sides with a total length of 254 kilometers, accounting for one third of the Mekong Delta’s beach.

Erosion has quickly occurred and narrowed protection forest area along coastal areas in recent years. Among the worst hit are estuaries in the western sea dyke of the province.

“Landslide has approached closely to my house and I don’t know where to move in now,” said Tran Anh Le living near Cai Cam estuary.

Similar condition has also tormented those in the eastern side of the province. Tran Van Tu settling near Ganh Hao estuary in Dam Doi District said that coastal landslide has forced many people to continuously evacuate for the last five years.

A survey by the province’s Irrigation Department shows that about 40 kilometers along the seaside are suffering dangerous landslide. The most vulnerable spots comprise Ganh Hao estuary, Khai Long area, western sea dyke and Ca Mau cape areas.

Provincial authorities have launched a pilot project to build 300 meters of stone embankment under seawater in the western sea dyke, U Minh District since 2010, said the department's head Nguyen Long Hoai.

Embankment construction has been combined with afforestation to brake erosion and mend burst sea dyke sections. It holds back waves and permit seawater to bring silt deposit through to create alluvial grounds for afforestation.

The province has continued building such stone embankments along 10 kilometers of most vulnerable areas in the western and eastern sea dykes.

Mr. Hoai said that they are seeking to reduce construction costs by using mangroves or bamboos to replace stones.

According to a climate change scenario by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Ca Mau will be one of the hardest hit provinces. If sea level is estimated to rise 25 centimeters by 2040, over 4,693 square kilometers of land will be flooded under 1-1.2 meters of seawater, accounting for 85 percent of the province’s natural area.

Indoor air pollution concern raised after supermarket suffocation

Pham Ngoc Dang, vice chairman of Vietnam Association for Conservation of Nature and Environment has raised concerns about indoor air quality after dozens of people recently fainted at Big C Supermarket in Hanoi's Nam Tu Liem District.

A staff at Big C Supermarket in Hanoi's Nam Tu Liem District fainted while working in the supermarket on March 14.

Dang said the ventilation system in many buildings in Vietnam have not been carefully designed to fit with the weather. Meanwhile, Vietnam does not have guidelines for indoor air quality.

"Some indoor air pollutions are caused by inappropriate construction designs. These designs allow carbon monoxide or mono-nitrogen oxides travel across the building," he said.

"We only have guidelines on noise pollution. Air pollution is only mentioned at factories or other manufacturing environments. Building owners and managers do not aware about this problem."

Dang suggested the government to issue guidelines for everyone, especially the architects and construction workers.

On March 14, many people arrived at The Garden Building to attend a concert of South Korean singer Kang Tae Oh. Even though the underground parking lot was packed, a large number of drivers still turned the engines on. On this day, the ventilation system of the building encountered problem so the gas and fume in the parking lot had no where to go but up to the supermarket, which is also underground.

Customers and supermarket employees experienced dizziness, nausea and could not breathe properly. Dozens of people fainted and were transferred to hospitals.

A representative of Big C Supermarket said affected people have been released with stable conditions after receiving treatment at hospitals.

A National Environment Report on air pollution issued in 2014 showed that the air in Vietnam is being seriously polluted. In 2013, Vietnam had 258 days of bad air quality and one day with harmful air.

The World Health Organisation also raised a warning bell over indoor air pollution years ago. In 2012, 7 million premature deaths was linked to air pollution exposure, in which 3.3 million deaths linked to indoor air pollution.

Give them a chance

Since news that a group of school boys and girls attacked a girl of grade seven at Ly Tu Trong secondary school in Tra Vinh Province broke early last week, debate over how to deal with these violent teenagers has heated up in the media.

In similar cases of physical attacks, schools often temporarily or indefinitely suspend those students involved. This approach might be taken by Ly Tu Trong school and the local education authority this time, which is evident in what the director of Tra Vinh Province’s Department of Education and Training, Nguyen Thanh Nguyen, said while speaking to the media.

He said the department will be meeting with a discipline committee and other relevant units this week to thrash out measures to tackle the students involved in the violence, including the class leader of whom the victim is a classmate. The school has informed the relevant authorities, including the local police, of the case.

This gang violence took place in mid-January after the victim refused to obey the class leader, but the school’s management had not known it until video footage of barbaric beating appeared on social media.

Nguyen did not elaborate on how to solve this issue but made a worthwhile point when saying the discipline committee would be working with parents to educate the student attackers since they are 12 or 13 years old.

They must be disciplined, of course, but should be given a chance to correct themselves at the same time. If they are thrown out of school, they might easily succumb to social vices. It is the responsibility of schools to educate them to become good persons. A cold-blooded school violence cannot be answered with a cold-blooded resolution. Tit for tat will not work.

The case also raises a big question about the role of teachers. The victim had been bullied for a long time but the teachers in charge of the three classes to which the attackers belong. They should be held accountable for the violence that happened in broad daylight as the beating has left little physical trauma but serious emotional and psychological trauma might be sustained for a long time.

RoK's NA Speaker exchanges with HCM City students

On March 20,  National Assembly of the Republic of Korea (RoK) Speaker Chung Ui-hwa met with students from the Ho Chi Minh University of Social Sciences and Humanities (HCM-USSH) as part of his trip to Vietnam.

He highlighted cultural and historical similarities from both nations to develop close bonds, especially among younger generations.

As many as 130,000 Korean people are living in Vietnam while Vietnamese people number 120,000 in the RoK.  

The Korean top legislator described Vietnam's young population as huge potential for national development in the time ahead.

Around 13 Vietnamese universities and colleges provide Korean study courses, and four Korea universities have Vietnamese faculties.

The HCM-USSH- the leading Korean education provider in Vietnam has taught more than 2,000 students over the past two decades.

Supreme People’s Court must ensure equitability in judgments

Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong has urged the Supreme People’s Court to improve judgment quality and ensure verdicts are equitable and lawful.

The court must build on achievements over the past 70 years and address restrictions in the field to increase its protection of the legal rights and interests of the State and people, said the Party chief at a working session with key court officials in Hanoi on March 20.

He asked the court to increase coordination with relevant agencies to combat and prevent corruption, especially in reclaiming corrupted assets from major anti-corruption cases.

The court needs to improve law and ordinance making projects by proposing amendments or supplements to their contents or proposing new necessary laws in the spirit of judicial and institutional reforms, he said.

He requested the courts at all levels to enhance collaboration with judicial agencies to create high levels of consensus and democracy in the internal sector while concentrating on building the Party and political system in the State management agencies as well as improving personnel training.

According to Chief Judge of the Supreme People’s Court Truong Hoa Binh, the courts addressed 1,382,352 of the 1,411,185 accepted cases between 2011 and 2014, or 92.8 percent, including a number of serious economic and corruption cases that drew public attention.

The Supreme People’s Court submitted four laws to the National Assembly for approval, including the revised Law on the organisation of the People’s Courts, in order to institutionalise new regulations stipulated in the Constitution and the Party’s viewpoints on judicial reform.

Judicial officials proposed increasing the court workforce and prioritising expenses for information technology for the staff to facilitate the fulfilment of the sector’s key tasks.

Workshop connects Vietnamese students, Japanese enterprises

A workshop was held in the Japanese city of Osaka on March 18 to support Vietnamese graduates in the Kansai region seeking job opportunities.

The workshop, organised by the Vietnamese Consulate General in Osaka, brought together the fresh Vietnamese graduates, small and medium-sized Japanese businesses investing or planning business expansion in Vietnam, and Japanese officials.

Participating Japanese firms all spoke highly of Vietnam’s young, competent human resources, in particular their skills and hard-working spirit.

They also presented their business plans in Vietnam in the coming time, highlighting the demand for high-skilled employees in the fields of mechanical engineering and high-tech agriculture.

Meanwhile, the Vietnamese students expressed their hope that this type of workshop will help job seekers’ needs meet Japanese employers’ requirements.

Currently, there are about 1,500 Vietnamese students studying in universities across the Kansai region.

Bach Mai Hospital, GE Healthcare sign training deal

The Bach Mai General Hospital and GE Healthcare today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to provide an education programme for improving patient connectivity and clinical decision making for physicians at the Ha Noi-based hospital.

"The signing of this co-operation agreement today opened up great opportunities for transferring expertise and enhancing education between GE's leading experts and Vietnamese colleagues, in order to access high-quality health services, and ensuring the safety of patients, especially critically ill patients," said the Director of the Bach Mai Hospital Professor Nguyen Quoc Anh.

The collaboration includes a US$250,000 worth patient monitor system, which will be used to help train physicians across the country on how to better utilise patient monitors. The programme will also help improve patient care and treatment, especially in the Emergency Department and Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Bach Mai General Hospital.

Under framework of the programme, GE Healthcare will provide more than 30 of the company's B40 and CARESCAPE B650 patient monitors, in addition to two CIC Pro central monitoring stations. These systems can assist clinicians in potentially reducing a patient's duration of stay and mortality in the ICU.

Police destroy thousands of cigarette boxes

About 150,000 cigarette boxes were set on fire by police in the central Quang Tri Province in an attempt to destroy tobacco seized during smuggling raids.

The products burnt carried international trademarks, such as Jet, of which 95,962 boxes were burnt; Hero (41,328 boxes); and Esse Light (8,320 boxes).

The cigarette boxes were taken into custody during crackdowns on smuggling in the province's towns and districts from August last year till February this year.

A great deal of tobacco produced in other countries is also smuggled into Quang Tri through its border post of Lao Bao.

Viet Nam has banned public smoking, but it has not been strictly enforced yet. Experts said the tax levied on tobacco goods should be higher to reduce demand for cigarettes.

Truck detained for carrying smuggled timber

Police in the central Quang Binh Province stopped a truck at Ba Don Town and found it was carrying smuggled timber.

The truck was travelling from the border district of Tuyen Hoa to the town. Its driver failed to show valid documents for a total of 3.3cu.m of timber, which is mentioned in the rare species list of Viet Nam.

Police suspected the timber was illegally purchased from Laos.

They seized the timber consignment and detained the truck temporarily for further investigation. Quang Binh Province is a hotspot of timber smuggling from Laos.

HN police to prosecute suspected child traffickers

Two persons accused of child trafficking in Bo De Pagoda in Ha Noi's Long Bien District will be prosecuted, Ha Noi Police said.

This follows the arrest of two women for allegedly selling a nine-month-old baby at the pagoda, a home for orphaned and abandoned children in Long Bien District, according to Phu Nu (Women) Newspaper.

One of the accused is Nguyen Thi Thanh Trang, 37, the caretaker of the children supported by the pagoda.

The other is Pham Thi Nguyet, 35, a woman from northern Ninh Binh Province.

The women have been charged with "trading in, fraudulently exchanging or appropriating children".

According to the report, the boy was found in front of the pagoda in 2013. A couple who often visited the pagoda agreed to be godparents to the boy and named him Cu Nguyen Cong.

Then, in 2014, the boy disappeared. Last August, Trang was arrested by the police for allegedly selling the boy to Nguyet. Following investigations, police gathered enough evidence to indict the pair for child trafficking .

VNA/VNS/VOV/SGT/SGGP/TT/TN/Dantri