Young Vietnamese leaders set sail

As many as 28 Vietnamese young leaders will embark on a 52-day voyage with their regional peers with the Ship for Southeast Asian and Japanese Youth Programme (SSEAYP) from October 23 to December 13.

young vietnamese leaders set sail hinh 0 They are among more than 300 youths from the 10 ASEAN countries and Japan who will visit Japan, Brunei, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam during the 45th voyage aboard the vessel Nippon Maru.

First Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union’s Central Committee Le Quoc Quan held a meeting with the Vietnamese young delegates in Hanoi on October 18.

Quan, also Chairman of the Vietnam Youth Federation’s Central Committee, said he expects the 28 young leaders will show confidence and amplify their strengths in communication and foreign language skills as well as social knowledge to leave their mark on the journey.

As ambassadors of more than 25 million youths across Vietnam, they need to be well-prepared and do their best to promote the beauty of Vietnam, he urged.

Le Hong Hoang, head of the Vietnamese youth delegation, said as 2018 marks the 45th anniversary of Vietnam – Japan diplomatic ties and the 45th year of SSEAYP, the delegation selected the theme “Embracing Vietnam” this year to not only “embrace” and promote the essence of Vietnam among international friends but also demonstrate a desire to use what they learn from the journey to improve their homeland. 

The SSEAYP is an annual youth exchange programme organised by the Cabinet Office of Japan and governments of Southeast Asian nations since 1974. 

The journey aims to promote friendship among the youths of participating countries, broaden their perspective of the world and strengthen their spirit and skills for international cooperation.

It is expected to cultivate youths capable of exercising leadership skills in various fields in the global society and to contribute to society in youth development. The participants will discuss social and youth matters and take part in various exchange activities both on board and in the countries to be visited.

Two dead as fire engulfs flower shop in Dak Lak

A huge blaze has left two girls dead in a flower shop on Nguyen Thai Binh street, Hoa Thang commune, Buon Ma Thuot city in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak. The fire was reported at 3 am on October 22.

According to local witnesses, residents heard a loud explosion and saw huge flames billowing from the flower shop on Nguyen Thai Binh street.

Local residents failed in their attempts to put out the fire, which rapidly spread to a jewelry shop nearby.

After the fire alarm was raised, five fire engines and 80 fire fighters rushed to the scene to tackle the blaze.

The fire was brought under control within 15 minutes. The victims were identified as Nguyen Thi Phuong Uyen, aged 15 and Nguyen Thi Van, aged 20.

The owner of the shop, Dinh Thi Hong Nguyet, was absent at the time the fire broke out, however, she did suffer severe burns when trying to save her child from the fire.

The cause of the fire is still being investigated.

Flood claims lives of two in Ha Giang

A flashflood triggered by torrential rains which hit Quang Binh district, northern Ha Giang province on October 22 caused one dead, another missing and great human and property losses, said the chairman of the district People’s Committee, Nguyen Tien Dung.

The flashflood also injured two people, swept away six houses and many cattle and damaged dozens of houses as well as large areas of rice crops.

Particularly, the floods caused severe landslides on highway 279 leading to Ban Ria commune. Facilities of Ban Ria commune’s Primary and Junior Secondary schools were seriously ruined.

Upon receiving the news, relevant forces led by Quang Binh district leaders rushed to the scene immediately to search for the missing and evacuate the flood victims to safer areas, while clearing landslide debris to restore traffic.

The district Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Search and Rescue initially provided VND5 million for each household of the dead and missing and VND3 million for those whose houses were swept away.

Biggest ever drug trafficking ring razed in Khanh Hoa

Police in Nha Trang City, Khanh Hoa province, has busted a large-scale drug-trafficking ring, arresting 4 suspects and seizing several packs of methamphetamine.

On October 21, the police caught red-handed Tran Minh Hoang, 27, while he was illegally transporting 2 packs of methamphetamine (weighing nearly 2 kg) on Thong Nhat street, Nha Trang City.

At the police station, Hoang, who has an address in Tan Lap village, Cam Thanh Bac commune, Cam Lam district, Khanh Hoa province), confessed to purchasing the drugs from some people and having smuggled them to the city for sale.

He also added that his wife, Hong Thi Chanh Tha, 34, from My Xuyen district, Soc Trang province, also bought 2 packs of methamphetamine and was waiting for buyers in Phuoc Hai district.

At noon, the police arrested Tha while in possession of one kg of methamphetamine.

Tha admitted that she bought the drug from Cambodian people, who travelled on a red 7-seater Toyota.

After expanding investigation, at 14:00 on the same day, the police, discovered the location of the suspected car. They immediately detained 4 other people and seized other related evidence.

Initial investigation indicated that the drugs were bought in Cambodia and transported to Khanh Hoa for sale. The suspects’ identifies are being investigated.

This is the biggest drug trafficking ring that has been busted by the provincial police.

Lotte Foundation presents scholarships to 78 Vietnamese students

On October 23, the Lotte Foundation under the Republic of Korea’s Lotte Group presented scholarships worth a whopping US$23,400 to 78 students with outstanding academic records from 10 universities in Hanoi.

The most important thing is to invest in education and train talented people, said Suh Sung Kwan, president of the Lotte Scholarship Foundation, adding that he hopes the scholarships will encourage students to pursue their dreams.

Bui Van Linh, a representative from the Ministry of Education and Training, thanked Lotte Group’s attention to education in Vietnam and congratulated the 78 outstanding students with financial difficulties. He said that this is a symbol for the ties of friendship between Vietnam and the RoK.

He hopes that the scholarship foundation will expand to students in remote and disadvantaged areas to help them have better learning conditions.

Wonders of Women’s Day

In Việt Nam, people celebrate woman’s day twice a year. Two whole days off from the drudgery of catering for men’s needs! Lucky ladies.

They observe Vietnamese women’s day on October 20 and international women’s day on March 8. Numerous events are being held by organisations nationwide on both days.

On those days, males are traditionally supposed to send gifts to the women in their lives, including grandmothers, mothers, aunts, friends and colleagues. Before the days, many boys wrack their brains to find gifts that can impress the women.

Some of these gifts and well wishes went viral on social media after Vietnamese Women’s Day last Saturday.

For example, the male students at Class 12A12 of Mạc Đĩnh Chi High school in the northern city of Hải Phòng gave their female classmates cobalt blue dép tổ ong (beehive slippers).

The slippers are very popular in Việt Nam, especially for males. The slippers were placed by the seats of every girl in the class, along with snacks as gifts. Great payback for being able to copy their homework all year, I’m sure.

Moreover, a girl from Chemistry-specialising class shared a greeting card with a wish written by her male classmate that: “Wish you laugh out loud as if having inhaled N2O [Nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas] , as light as hydrogen H2 [ hydrogen - the lightest element ever], as strong as N2 [ nitrogen] and as gentle as H20 [water]. Wish you health and hard study so that you can understand Newton’s binomial.” 

Get over it

The Rạch Ráng suspended bridge crossing Ông Đốc River in Trần Văn Thời District. —Photo plo.vn

Residents in the south of Viet Nam have some problems with their roads, and they’ve been told to build a bridge and get over it. Or wait for one to be built.

Agencies in the southernmost province of Cà Mau are seeking to identify the lifespan of Rạch Ráng suspended bridge crossing Ông Đốc River in Trần Văn Thời District.

The move comes after complaints by locals who have had to pay a toll for the bridge for years without being informed when the toll collection will stop.

The bridge was built by a private investor Liêm Duyên Hải Ltd Company, costing VNĐ 15 billion (US$643,000). It opened in July 2010.

Dương Ngọc Kiệm, director of the firm, said according to the contract signed with local authorities, the company could collect toll fees until the Government build another bridge to replace the company’s bridge.

Huỳnh Quốc Việt, director of the province’s Planning and Investment Department, said the province had allowed the investor to collect toll fees for the lifespan of the bridge.

However, Việt told Pháp Luật Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh (HCM City’s Law ) newspaper that he did not know the bridge’s life span and relevant agencies were studying it.

So the people using the Rạch Ráng Bridge might have pay forever, or at least, until the bridge collapses. Which probably be a worse outcome than having to pay forever. 

Uniform vs unique: no contest

Most businesses try to stand out from the crowd, and for good reason.

Lê Trọng Tấn Street in Thanh Xuân District, Hà Nội has had uniform regulations on shop signs for the last two years, thanks to local government officials.

The signs have the same design and size, in red or blue with letters in white. When first announced, many speculated making the entire street look the same may hurt businesses.

Well it will probably did, as the shrewd shop owners have now changed their designs to vary in designs, colour, size and even to advertise what it is that their store sells.

Vân Anh, a store owner said she changed the store sign to attract customers, clearly a revolutionary concept for local politicians.

An official from Thanh Xuân District People’s Committee told Zing.vn that the district’s agencies called on store owners to install signs with regulation size but would not intervene on the sign colours.

Director of the city’s Culture and Sports Department Tô Văn Đông said the city would review the advantages and disadvantages of the uniform store name signs.

That’s a meeting that probably won’t take too long. 

Hà Tĩnh’s resettlement residents thirsty for a decade

Dark yellow water found in a well dug by the resettled residents in Hà Tĩnh. Photo baohatinh.vn

Families in the central province of Hà Tĩnh who were relocated 10 years ago to make way for a development project still have no access to fresh water.

A total of 28 families gave up their land for the construction of the Cầu Treo Border Gate economic zone in 2008.

“We are still waiting for fresh water supplies in the resettlement area almost 10 years later,” Phan Đình Liên, a resident, told the local provincial newspaper.

Other residents expressed their disappointment, saying they had given up their land to contribute to local development but had endured hardships for a decade instead.

“Authorities promised that living conditions in the resettlement area would be much better than our original homes, but they’re not,” said Nguyễn Thị Nga, another resident.

According to residents, local authorities had visited the area several times over the years but no fresh water had reached them.

With hand-dug wells producing only putrid water, residents have no way out.

According to Liên, they had to filter the water as there were no other sources.

Phan Xuân Anh, the commune’s chairman, said the economic zone had supplied water filters for each family but they had all broken.

Anh said that commune authorities had asked for a water supply project to be started, but admitted that it would prove expensive due to the location. 

170 HCM City schools compete in Milo basketball tournament

A match being played on the opening day of annual Nestlé Milo Cup basketball tournament for HCM City schools on October 20. 

One hundred seventy teams from 85 primary, secondary and high schools in HCM City are taking part in the 2018-19 Nestlé Milo Cup, a city basketball tournament being held at the Phú Thọ Stadium in District 11 from October 20 to November 10.

Organised by the HCM City Basketball Federation and Nestlé’s Milo brand annually since 2005, the event two years ago become a part of Milo’s “Active Vietnam” programme and Project 641 of the General Department of Sports and Physical Training, the city culture and sports and education and training departments, which seeks to encourage a dynamic lifestyle and physical activity, especially among children aged 6 – 17.

Through the competition, Milo has gifted 320 basketball boards to primary schools to enable more children to play the sport.

The company said sports and nutrition are major factors in the development of children and their achieving good academic results. Sports also teach children about teamwork, the will to rise and confidence to win.

Biên Hòa City Police discover illegal sand exploiters

The ships are used by the exploiters to illegally take sand from the Đồng Nai River.

The Biên Hòa City Economic Police on Friday in the predawn hours discovered dozens of people on three ships illegally sucking and transporting sand on the Đồng Nai River. 

Seeing the police, the people shouted to each other and tried to run away.

The police chased them, and caught all of them after half an hour.

Initial investigation showed that all of the ships were equipped with a high-capacity sand sucking system. The police withdrew dozens of cubic metres of sand which had been sucked up.

The people admitted to the police that they drove the two ships slowly along the river to suck sand, and then moved the sand to the remaining ship. The sand then would be sold to sand traders along the Đồng Nai River.

The police are conducting further investigation on the case based on present law.

Illegal sand mining remains a serious problem in the province during the past years. The Đồng Nai provincial authorities have taken action to fight against illegal sand exploitation on rivers and canals. But the situation has not improved. 

43 fishermen rescued from distressed vessel off Truong Sa archipelago

All the 43 crew members were rescued from a sinking squid fishing ship off Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelago on October 19.

The squid fishing vessel coded Qna 91919 with 43 fishermen on board suffered an engine failure at 1am on October 11. It was then stranded in coral reef and was sunk by waves.

Immediately after getting emergency signals, two fishing vessels from Quang Nam province working nearby rushed in, rescued the distressed fishermen and brought them to Sinh Ton island of Truong Sa archipelago.

The 43 fishermen were brought to shore safely at 1:30am on October 19. The Qna 91919 ship, cost about VND3.5 billion, began fishing offshore on September 25.

Boat explosion in Quang Ngai injures at least 14

Six fishermen that were left injured and one tragically died in a fishing vessel explosion on October 17 in An Hai commune, Ly Son island in the central coastal province of Quang Ngai have overcome critical conditions after being hospitalized at Da Nang Hospital.

One victim has received special treatment while five other fishermen with minor injuries have been kept under supervision at the health station in Ly Son island.

According to preliminary information, at 10pm on October 17, a fishing boat with 14 crew members on board, captained by fishermen Truong Minh Kinh from Ly Son district was returning to the shore when the boat suddenly exploded while it was about six nautical miles from Ly Son Island. The incident sadly took one fisherman’s life and left  another 6 injured.

After the incident were notified, the authorities coordinated with relevant agencies in Ly Son district to urgently bring the vessel to shore. The injured victims were then taken to hospital for emergency treatment.

Vice Chairman of Ly Son district People’s Committee Nguyen Van Cuong said the cause of the incident is still under investigation. 

Fire destroys mobile phone shop in ThanhHoa province

At 0:15am on October 18, a huge fire broke out at a 3-storey house in Tran Phu road, Thanh Hoa city in the north central province of Thanh Hoa. Thankfully no one was harmed.

The fire sparked from the first floor of the house. Local residents in Tran Phu street failed to extinguish the fire as the front door was locked. After the fire alarm was raised, two fire engines and dozens of firefighters rushed to the scene to tackle the fire.

The fire brigade team used specialized equipment to break the door and the fire was brought under control after just 45 minutes.

According to a preliminary report, the fire was attributed to a short circuit. At present, the provincial department of fire prevention and fighting and police has joined hands to further investigate the cause of the fire.

RoK doctors give free medical checkups to people in Quang Ngai

A group of 18 doctors from Chung-Ang University, the Republic of Korea, are providing free health checkups and medicines to people in the central province of Quang Ngai from October 15 – 19.

The event is being held by the heavy industry manufacturer Doosan Vina in Hanh Nhan and Hanh Dung communes of Nghia Hanh district and Binh Khuong, Binh Thanh and Binh Chanh commune of Binh Son district in the province. It is expected to be visited by about 2,350 locals, bringing the total number of people benefiting from the event over the past 10 years to 23,800.

The doctors provide medical examinations and free drugs to the locals who suffer from common diseases like joint diseases, high blood pressure or gastrointestinal disorder. Those with more serious illness will be advised to visit hospitals.

In addition, Chung-Ang University also presented the Quang Ngai Hospital for Children and Women with 1.3 billion VND (55,440 USD) worth of medical equipment.

Doosan Vina and Chung-Ang University have supported the local health sector over the past decade, said Nguyen Dinh Tuyen, Director of the Quang Ngai Hospital for Children and Women. “I highly appreciated the efforts of Doosan Vina and Chung-Ang University in social corporate responsibility projects in Quang Ngai, not only in the field of healthcare but also in education and housing,” he noted.

On October 15, the Ministry of Health and the provincial People’s Committee presented certificates of merit to Doosan Vina and Chung-Ang University in recognition of their charitable health care programmes in Vietnam. 

The two have so far donated over 1.4 million USD to implement health care projects in Vietnam.

New multidimensional poverty approach produces encouraging results

The multidimensional approach to poverty, which has been adopted by Vietnam for nearly three years, have produced encouraging results, reflected in remarkable improvement in living conditions in disadvantaged areas.

After the MOLISA carried out a project on shifting to the multidimensional approach in poverty measurement, new poverty criteria based on multidimensional approach for 2016-2020 were issued under Decision 59/2015/QD-TTg in 2015. 

Under the new approach, poverty measurement was no longer based on only per capita income as in the 2011-2015 period. Instead, the measurement also took into account the access to basic social services which are health care, education, housing, clean water and hygiene condition, and information access. Access to basic social services is measured based on 10 indices, namely adults’ educational level, children’s schooling, access to medical services, health insurance, housing quality, per capita housing area, water for daily life, toilet facilities, telecom services, and assets serving information access. 

The poverty line regarding income was also adjusted up in alignment with specific situation in different regions.  

A national survey revealed that the multidimensional household poverty rate was 9.88% at the time the new approach was adopted. Of which, the number of households living under the poverty income line was 1.7 million, or 7.47% of the total. Meanwhile, 573,270 households, or 2.41%, lacked access to basic social services. 

By 2017, the poverty rate reduced to 6.7%, with remarkable improvements recorded in access to social services. For example, the rate of adults lacking access to education dropped from 19.61% in 2016 to 16.52% at the end of 2017, and the rate of children not able to go to school decreased from 6.77% to 5.4%.   

Meanwhile, the rate of inaccessibility to health care went down from 6.2% of households to 5.03%, and the rate regarding clean water access fell from 21.21% to 17.71%. Only 17.47% of households lacked access to information as of the end of 2017 compared to 21.25% in 2016.

The new multidimensional poverty criteria have helped ministries, sectors and local administrations better focus their resources and efforts on improving access to social services. 

The Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) will conduct more in-depth research with a view to perfecting poverty measurement based on the multidimensional approach, providing the foundation for designing policies on poverty reduction and social security. 

MOLISA Minister Dao Ngoc Dung said the ministry will propose priorities in investment in poor areas, especially mountainous and ethnic minority areas, with the aim of making greater improvements in living conditions and access to basic social services, reducing the rich-and-poor gap among regions and groups of population, and ensuring fairness among groups of beneficiaries of State support.