The first U.S. Travel Forum held in Hanoi   

On May 22, 2015, the U.S. Embassy Hanoi – Consular Section hosted the first-ever U.S. Travel Forum for travel agencies, business groups, and student organizations at the Hanoi Melia Hotel.  The event was organized as part of Mission Vietnam’s series of activities to celebrate the 20th anniversary of normalization of U.S.-Vietnam relations and was aimed to increase people-to-people connections between Vietnam and the United States.  

The event promoted educational, tourism, and business travel to the United States, introduced Mission Vietnam’s Mail-In Visa Renewal Program, provided updated information on the visa application process, and highlighted Mission Vietnam’s fraud prevention efforts. Among the benefits of the expanded Mail-In Visa Renewal Program are:  applicants whose prior visas expired no more than 48 months previously are now qualified to renew visas by mail and can, in most cases, avoid a personal interview.  For more information about the new “Mail-In Visa Renewal Program,” visit http://www.ustraveldocs.com/vn/vn-niv-visarenew.asp

Over 100 guests participated in separate sessions held for Travel Agencies, Business Groups, and Educational Advisors.   Participants had a unique opportunity to speak directly with Consular Officers about the U.S. visa application procedures; common problems encountered by applicants and travel coordinators; ways to streamline the visa application process; as well as the roles and responsibilities of travel agencies and educational advisors in facilitating legitimate travels and preventing fraud.  

Deputy Public Affairs Officer Michael Turner highlighted studying abroad opportunities and the services that the EducationUSA Advising Center has to offer for Vietnamese students and scholars. For more information about studying in the United States, visit http://vietnam.usembassy.gov/educationusa.html.  

Jetstar Pacific offers 7,000 cheap tickets

Budget airline Jetstar Pacific will offer 7,000 tickets at only VND7,000 a ticket on its international and domestic routes, from 11am to 12:59pm on July 22.

Tickets (excluding tax and other additional fees) are available on the airline’s website at www.jetstar.com.

The promotion is being launched to celebrate Jetstar Pacific’s seventh anniversary.

The airline will also kick off two other promotions from May 27: “Everyday Low Fare” and “Super Promotion Weekend”.

Vietnam Airlines started selling Jetstar Pacific’s tickets on its ticket booking system as of May 21. The co-operation between Vietnam Airlines and Jetstar Pacific aims to offer the best service to passengers.

General Director of Jetstar Pacific Le Hong Ha has expressed his hope that Jetstar Pacific can change passengers’ experience of using a budget airline.

Mekong Delta province prosecute 40 for cigarette smuggling

Authorities in the Mekong Delta's Tay Ninh Province put a halt to 838 cigarette smuggling operations and confiscated nearly 600,000 cigarette packs from October 2014 to March 2015.

Further, criminal proceedings have begun in 16 cases, with 40 individuals facing criminal charges for cigarette smuggling.

Deputy Chairman of the province's People Committee, Tran Luu Quang, noted that greater efforts to fight off cigarette smuggling in the province has resulted in a reduction in cigarette smuggling.

However, the lack of co-ordination among provincial authorities made the task more difficult, as smuggling operations often move from one province to another to avoid the authorities.

Vietnam arrests 2 Korean fugitives wanted by Interpol

Police in Hanoi said they would hand over to the Republic of Korea (RoK) authorities two fugitives who were hunted for allegedly defrauding a dozen of victims of US$9 million in their native country.

Kang Yoon Yong, 56, and his girlfriend You You Yong, 53, were arrested at a rented luxury apartment in Hanoi on May 13, police said.

The couple reportedly offered a group of RoK people a chance to invest in a “horse racing business” and swindled approximately US$9.1 million from the victims in April 2012.

You You Yong, 53, and her accomplice Kang Yoon Yong, 56, are arrested by Vietnam police in May. Photo provided by the police.

 They later fled RoK and entered Vietnam. They have never returned since.

The money had been sent to an international bank account before their escape.

Interpol later issued a notice searching for the pair.

At a police station in Hanoi, the couple admitted to the fraud three years ago. Before the arrest, they had switched from one house to another in Hanoi to avoid detection.

Local police said they are completing legal proceedings before handing over the case to RoK police.

Three Chinese drug traffickers arrested in Vietnam

Police forces in the northern province of Lang Son on May 20 arrested three Chinese nationals for illegally transporting 1kg of synthetic drugs into Vietnam.

They are Nong Kang Wu (35), Huang Ying Quan (53) and He Zhi Ning (43), residing in Guangxi province, China.

The police also seized a gun along with 17 bullets and untold amounts of property suspected of being associated with the criminal enterprise.

Vietnamese authorities are carrying out further investigation into the case.

Vietnamese students win bronze medal in I-SWEEEP

Three Vietnamese students from Tran Dai Nghia High School for the Gifted in HCM City have won a bronze medal at the International Sustainable World Energy, Engineering and Environment (I-SWEEEP) competition held in Texas, the USA.

Three Vietnamese students,Tran Gia Khang, Nguyen Tran Phuong Vy and Nguyen Thi Dan Anh are all 11th graders from Tran Dai Nghia High School for the Gifted.  Their project is titled, “Extraction of butanol from biological cultures of selected high-butanol-resistance microbial species”.

The competition took place in Texas, the US from May 7 to 11. Vietnamese students are expected to return home on May 30.

One man electrocuted, appliances damaged in short circuit

A short circuit in the high-voltage 110Kv grid killed one man while causing a four-hour black-out and damaging electrical equipment in 300 households in Lien Chieu district last night.

Senior Lieutenant Colonel Mai Bay, head of the investigative police team of the district, confirmed that the incident occurred at around 8 pm in a residential area on Doan Phu Tu Street and killed a 26-year-old man while also damaging electric fans, refrigerators and computers.

He said the man, who was identified as Bui Phuc Hiep, 26, in Lien Chieu district, was using his mobile phone at a restaurant while it was charging. The electric shock from the high-voltage line killed the man.

The police official said the short circuit occurred when two workers from the Military Telecommunications (Viettel) Group were pulling a cable over the high-voltage line causing it to explode.

The police is investigating the case.

Last year, a worker was killed when he suffered an electric shock on touching the exposed power grid near a construction site.

Two killed after truck slams into HCM City bike shop

A truck carrying sand crashed into a shop selling used motorbikes in HCM City's District 8 yesterday morning, killing two people and injuring three others.

The vehicle veered out of control after crossing Nhi Thien Duong Bridge possibly because of a brake malfunction, with the driver Ho Van Truc, 26, of Bac Lieu shouting warnings to people in front.

According to witnesses, there were four occupants inside, including the building owner — Bui Thi Phuoc, 62, Do Thi Sau, 78, Do Van Tu, 48, and Lam Lien Tai, 47 — and two customers, La Han Lu and Phan Tu Mai, when the truck crashed.

Phuoc, the owner, and Lu, 40, died on the spot and the other three were rushed to hospital.

The driver fled after the accident.

Tai, the owner of the shop, said a wall collapsed and fell on him but fortunately he was not injured seriously.

Compensation too low for wrongful conviction

The People's Court of Buon Ma Thuot City yesterday passed a verdict requesting the city's People's Procuracy to pay more than VND2.8 billion (US$130,000) as compensation to a man who had been wrongly imprisoned.

The two-day trial in the in the Tay Nguyen (Central Highlands) province of Dak Lak followed the case in which local Dinh Quang Dien, director of the Quang Dien Company, sued the city's People's Procuracy for the 243 days he said he was falsely imprisoned.

The online news vietnamnet reported earlier that Dien was demanding about $800,000.

The People's Court said the compensation included mental hardship, fines for slow tax payment, losses of income, land rent, downgraded manufacturing workshop and bank interest.

Speaking to reporters after the trial, Dien said he refuted the verdict and would take the case to a higher court as the damages caused by the wrongful imprisonment cost him and his family a lot, both financially and mentally.

According to the verdict, on June 21, 2011, investigators in Buon Ma Thuot City started investigating and detained Dien following an anonymous denunciation accusing him of having committed fraud.

The city's People's Procuracy issued a detainment decision the next day.

The case was transferred to the Dak Lak Province's investigators who concluded that Dien's activities were not criminal and terminated the case.

By the time Dien was out on bail in February 2012, he had been in custody for nearly one year.

The Buon Ma Thuot City's People's Procuracy organised a public apology for Dien and compensated him VND267 million ($12,700). However, Dien did not agree with the compensation and decided to sue the city's People's Procuracy.

Samsung Nanum Village inaugurated

An inauguration ceremony of Samsung Nanum Village, worth total more than VND20 billion, was held in northern Bac Ninh province on May 20.

Of VND20 billion, Samsung Electronics Vietnam Co. Ltd. invests VND15 billion, and the rest is from local peer funding.

Samsung Nanum Village began construction in October, 2013 and it now includes a cultural house, a kindergarten, primary and secondary schools and a medical centre.

Samsung Electronics Vietnam Co. Ltd. Deputy General Manager Hoseok Cho, said that the construction is expected to contribute greatly to the ongoing development of the locality.

Samsung Nanum Village is one of Samsung corporate citizenship initiatives that targets low-income, underprivileged areas for sustainable, economic development.

Nation needs more action to combat climate change

Vietnam has been told to strengthen its response to climate change by including strategic investment in a low-carbon future in its planning and budgeting strategy.

This was the message from a Climate Public Expenditure and Investment Review for 2010-13 announced at a meeting on May 21 by the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the World Bank.

It was issued after the report's findings showed that the Government spent a limited amount of its own resources for climate change mitigation, including low-carbon energy generation (about VND4 billion equal to US$183,000) and energy efficiency measures (about VND76 billion equal to US$348,000).

In the meantime, the report said about 88% of the total budget for climate-change response during 2010-13 was spent for direct activities, such as building infrastructure, building dykes to protect coast and greening forest.

Nine per cent was directed towards science and technology development and three per cent for making policies and management activities related to climate-change response.

The total budget for climate-change respond during 2010-13 was about VND14.9 trillion (US$683 million).

In addition, experts said that although the Government dedicated a significant amount of spending on climate change activities as well as established political agenda through climate change and green growth strategies, the agenda had not realised its full potential, shortcoming were found - and some important activities remained underfunded.

Pham Hoang Mai, Director General of the ministry's Science, Education, Natural Resources and Environment Department, one of authors of the report, said that to integrate climate change into the budget, the country needed to introduce a climate budget.

In the long term, this budget could become a rolling programme based on an annually updated medium-term fiscal framework, he said.

Mai also said an important task would be to establish a strategic direction for climate-change response plans and expenditure in the social-economic development plan 2016-20.

Victoria Kwakwa, the World Bank Country Director for Vietnam, said that mainstreaming climate change into the budget would strengthen Vietnam's resilience against the impacts of a warming world, make communities less vulnerable, and tackle the emissions challenge as Vietnam continued its journey toward a greener and prosperous future.

According to experts, Vietnam's greenhouse gas emissions and overall carbon intensity have significantly increased as a result of the economic expansion.

Statistics from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment showed that greenhouse gas emissions rose from 103.8 millions tonnes of carbon dioxide to 246.8 million of tonnes between 1994 and 2010.

Thus, the report helped accelerate the country's transition to a low-carbon economy, said Louise Chamberlain, Country Director for the United Nations Development Programme.

On May 20, the Consulate General of South Africa in Ho Chi Minh City, in cooperation with VASS Assurance Corporation, presented 100 gifts to children with cancer in Hospital District 2.

VASS General Director, Do Thi Minh Duc, said that the gifts are to encourage child cancer patients on the occasion of upcoming International Children’s Day (June 1).

Earlier, VASS Assurance Corporation and the Consulate General of South Africa awarded a scholarship worth VND50 million to Nguyen Dinh Chieu Special School for Disabled Children in Ho Chi Minh City.

Recently, VASS had carried out other charity programmes in neighboring provinces, including Lai Chau, Phu Yen, Binh Dinh, Da Nang, Quang Nam, Nghe An, Haiphong, Quang Ninh and Ben Tre.

The company has helped build schools and cultural houses, deliver scholarships and donate warm clothes for poor children in the cooler, mountainous regions.

Quang Binh fishermen given shipbuilding loans

A branch of the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV) based in the central coastal province of Quang Binh will offer shipbuilding and upgrading loans worth over 33.7 billion VND (1.6 million USD) to two local fishermen and one company.

Each credit contract is equivalent to a maximum 95 percent of the costs required to build or renovate ships.

The BIDV branch has so far signed credit contracts worth more than 40.7 billion VND (1.9 million USD) with four out of 16 clients approved by the provincial People’s Committee.

The lending is prompted by the government’s Decree 67 which stipulates provisions for fisheries development, including supporting fishermen in building high-capacity, iron-covered ships designed for offshore fishing, a practice that could earn them higher incomes.

Commercial banks nationwide have pledged about 14 trillion VND (658 million USD) in loans for organisations and individuals wishing to build new ships or upgrade their existing fishing vessels. Borrowers must be approved by the municipal or provincial authorities.

As many as 2,079 new off-shore fishing ships and 205 logistics ships will be built under this decree, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Heritage and sustainable development discussed in Hue

A conference titled ‘Heritage and Sustainable Development’ was held on May 21 by the International Association of French Francophone Mayors (AIMF) in the ancient imperial city of Hue in the central province of Thua Thien Hue.

Addressing the event, Pierre Baillet, standing secretary of the AIMF, emphasised that the association takes interest in global cultural issues alongside development, heritage and discovery.

The AIMF wants French-using cities in Southeast Asia to be better connected with each other and with other dynamic Asian cities in exchanging information and sharing experience on urban heritage and sustainable development.

Nguyen Van Thanh, chairman of Hue city’s People’s Committee, said that the AIMF has made a lot of efforts over the past years to help cities preserve and promote the cultural heritage while managing and planning urban areas in line with sustainable development.

As a positive member of the AIMF, Hue has always actively participated and contributed to the association’s activities, evidenced by the city’s determination to integrate into the international and French community while preserving, developing and promoting its heritage values, Thanh added.

Vietnam plans for a green future

Vietnam should bolster activities to cope with climate change by including strategic investments in low-carbon growth in socio-economic development and budget planning in the next five years.

The initiative was proposed in a report released by the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), under the support of the World Bank (WB) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in Hanoi on May 21.

Addressing the event, Deputy Minister Nguyen The Phuong said Vietnam is one of the first countries in the region to implement green growth and the new initiative will further strengthen the country’s ambitions in green investment.

He added that Vietnam will strive to obtain its Millennium Development Goals in 2015 and has prioritised activities to alleviate climate change and boost green growth.

According to the WB’s Country Director in Vietnam, Victoria Kwakwa, the inclusion of climate change in budget planning will help to increase Vietnam’s adaptability to the impacts of global warming and pollution and help the country progress towards a greener and more prosperous future.

UNDP’s Country Director in Vietnam, Louise Chamberlain, said governments around the world are coping with climate change by improving their national budget planning systems and public spending quality.

The Vietnamese government has allocated funding from its budget for climate change activities and green growth, and built a target programme with strategies and plans of actions on this field, but the programme has not yet met its full potential due to insufficient funding.

Son La to prosecute Chinese woman for human trafficking

Police in the northern mountainous Son La province on May 20 arrested and started legal proceedings against Yang Mo, a resident of China’s Yunnan province, for her involvement in a cross-border human trafficking case.

The defendant and her accomplice, Giang Van Chenh from Lao Cai province, were arrested on May 15 when they were apparently transporting three victims to China from Son La coach station.

It is believed that Yang Mo used a false identity and made phone calls to the victims duping them into getting married to Chinese men.

She allegedly asked the victims not to inform their families when leaving their homes.

The case is currently under further investigation.

Vietnam traffic fatalities down nationwide

Traffic deaths totalled less than 9,000 in 2014 with a concurrent decline in the number of reported crashes, according to a recent National Traffic Safety Committee (NTSC) report.

Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc made the details of the report public on May 20 at the opening ceremony for the 9th plenary session of the 13th National Assembly (NA) in Hanoi.

“We made significant progress in reducing traffic accidents and fatalities in 2014 compared to the previous year,” Phuc said, noting especially high reductions during the Lunar New Year holiday.

Last year, the number of reported traffic accidents dropped 13.8% to 25,322 resulting in a contemporaneous decrease in traffic deaths of 4% to 8,996, while the number of serious injuries fell 17.2% to 24,417.

Phuc also revealed that in the four months leading up to May this year the number of people killed in traffic accidents dipped 4.6% compared to the corresponding period in 2014 with an accompanying decrease in accidents to 7,584 and injuries to 7,070.

Despite the progress made, using mobile phones to talk or text messages and driving under the influence of alcohol continue to be the major causes of accidents and we need to do more, said NA Committee for Economic Affairs Nguyen Van Giau.

Efforts involving legislation, enforcement and education are proving that it is possible to influence people not to drink and drive. However these programs must be continued because the problem is still far from being under control, Giau said.

Vietnam responds to World Oceans Day

Vietnam’s Sea and Island Week 2015 will take place from June 1-8 in response to the United Nations World Oceans Day (June 8), according to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MoNRE).

Various activities will be held across the countries, with main events to be hosted by the central coastal province of Quang Ngai, under the theme of “Blue Ocean, Green Planet.”

Vietnam was among the first nine nations responding to the World Ocean Day launched by the UN General Assembly in 2009. The country has been observing the day annually since then with a Sea and Island Week.

The event aims to raise public’s awareness of the role and special importance of seas and oceans to human life and sustainable development as well as the country’s sea and island sovereignty.

During the Sea and Island Week this year, the MoNRE and the Quang Ngai provincial People’s Committee will hold a meeting to celebrate the World Oceans Day and Vietnam Sea and Islands Week, a cycling parade and beach cleanup programmes, among others. Quang Ngai will also organize a conference to promote investment in the province’s marine economic sectors.

Vietnam has adopted a marine economic development strategy with the goal of raising the proportion of sea-based sectors to 53-55 percent of the national GDP and 55-60 percent of export revenues by 2020.

Nation needs more action to combat climate change

Viet Nam has been told to strengthen its response to climate change by including strategic investment in a low-carbon future in its planning and budgeting strategy.

This was the message from a Climate Public Expenditure and Investment Review for 2010-13 announced at a meeting yesterday by the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the World Bank.

It was issued after the report's findings showed that the Government spent a limited amount of its own resources for climate change mitigation, including low-carbon energy generation (about VND4 billion equal to US$183,000) and energy efficiency measures (about VND76 billion equal to $348,000).

In the meantime, the report said about 88 per cent of the total budget for climate-change response during 2010-13 was spent for direct activities, such as building infrastructure, building dykes to protect coast and greening forest.

Nine per cent was directed towards science and technology development and three per cent for making policies and management activities related to climate-change response.

The total budget for climate-change respond during 2010-13 was about VND14.9 trillion (US$683 million).

In addition, experts said that although the Government dedicated a significant amount of spending on climate change activities as well as established political agenda through climate change and green growth strategies, the agenda had not realised its full potential, shortcoming were found - and some important activities remained underfunded.

Pham Hoang Mai, Director General of the ministry's Science, Education, Natural Resources and Environment Department, one of authors of the report, said that to integrate climate change into the budget, the country needed to introduce a climate budget.

In the long term, this budget could become a rolling programme based on an annually updated medium-term fiscal framework, he said.

Mai also said an important task would be to establish a strategic direction for climate-change response plans and expenditure in the social-economic development plan 2016-20.

Victoria Kwakwa, the World Bank Country Director for Viet Nam, said that mainstreaming climate change into the budget would strengthen Viet Nam's resilience against the impacts of a warming world, make communities less vulnerable, and tackle the emissions challenge as Viet Nam continued its journey toward a greener and prosperous future.

According to experts, Viet Nam's greenhouse gas emissions and overall carbon intensity have significantly increased as a result of the economic expansion.

Statistics from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment showed that greenhouse gas emissions rose from 103.8 millions tonnes of carbon dioxide to 246.8 million of tonnes between 1994 and 2010.

Thus, the report helped accelerate the country's transition to a low-carbon economy, said Louise Chamberlain, Country Director for the United Nations Development Programme.

Vietnam boosts disaster prevention efforts

The Party, State and Government, along with ministries, agencies and localities, have paid attention to natural disaster prevention, with a series of plans and projects put in place.

According to Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Hoang Van Thang, the task was performed strongly in 2014.

Decrees instructing on the implementation of the Law on Disaster Prevention were issued, while communication efforts were intensified helping raise public awareness of the law.

Additionally, disaster prevention infrastructure facilities were built and upgraded and a map of areas at high risks of flooding was formed.

By the end of 2014, nearly 750 km of dykes and embankments, and 235 flood control dams were upgraded, and 125 hectares of trees were planted for preventing water.

The National Steering Committee on Disaster Prevention and Control worked closely with ministries, agencies and localities to give swift and detailed instructions on coping with natural disasters, focusing on measures to protect boats operating offshore and in rivers.

The National Meteorology and Hydrology Centre has forecast that Vietnam is likely to face dangerous negative weather in 2015.

In order to proactively deal with disasters, active response measures should be rolled out and activities to evaluate the safety of water reservoirs, dykes and other infrastructure facilities must take place, the centre said.

Disasters across the country in 2014 left 113 people dead or missing. They also damaged nearly 2,000 houses, submerged 230,000 hectares of rice and crops and destroyed many traffic and irrigation works, causing a total estimated loss of over 2.8 trillion VND (nearly 129 million USD).

Month-long action program for children launched

In a bid to tighten the connection between social organizations, families and the community on the importance of children as well as offer children safe and healthy living environment, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism launched the month-long action program for children themed “Listening to children’s word”.

As per the program, activities for entertainment will be held and the program will offer a safe summer vacation for all children especially these children from disadvantaged families and in distant districts.

They can have an enjoyable summer vacation.

In June, the departments of culture, sports and tourism in provinces will enhance information of family role and importance in raising and protecting children via public media.

Local governments will create and offer chance for children to participate in activities and trips to historical sites and monuments as well as playing sports.

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