No respite from cold spell in North VN

The National Centre for Hydro-meteorological Forecasting has reported that another cold spell is moving towards the south and would affect to the northern provinces of the country.

The centre warned that the northern provinces could experience low temperature and rainfall, starting on Wednesday night.

Due to the impact of the strong cold air, central provinces would see strong winds, the centre said.

The mountainous provinces are getting colder, with temperatures ranging from 9oC to 11oC.

Temperature could drop to 7oC at some places. It is expected to hover around 14oC to 16oCs in Hà Nội.

The cold weather will prolong over the week.     

National Cancer Hospital opens low-cost hostel

The National Cancer Hospital opened a 240-bed low-cost hostel for its patients and their family members at its Tân Triều branch in a ceremony held on Monday.

“The facility will provide low-cost accommodation for needy patients and their family members and will help them save money during their stay for treatment at the hospital,” Health Minister Nguyễn Thị Kim Tiến said during the opening ceremony.

“The facility aims to provide comfortable accommodation for the patients and their families. It will also help improve hygiene and reduce the congestion at the hospital, said hospital director Trần Văn Thuấn.

The hospital also undertook a series of 15 measures and successfully implemented advanced techniques to improve patient’s examination and treatment and satisfaction.

The facility was built with an investment of nearly VNĐ3 billion (US$133,000) funded by Thai CP Group, in response to the call to support needy patients by Health Minister Nguyễn Thị Kim Tiến.

According to the National Institute for Cancer Control, more than 160,000 new cancer patients are detected every year. There are 115,000 cancer deaths every year.     

Charity concert to support talent blind artists

A charity concert will be held by the Friends of Vietnam Heritage (FVH) and the Embassy of Sri Lanka in Vietnam at Residence of the Ambassador of Sri Lanka in Hanoi on March 5.

Music lovers will have a chance to enjoy traditional Vietnamese songs and range of music from different countries. All proceeds go to the Hope choir.

The Hope choir (photo) includes 20 talent blind singers and folk instrument musicians. They practice music under instruction of renowned pianist Ton That Triem and his opera singer wife, Nguyen Xuan Thanh.

Established 10 years ago by pianist Ton That Triem, the choir has trained and performed Vietnamese folk songs and music from numerous countries, singing in many different languages including English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Malaysian and African. The couple has helped members of the choir change their lives.

The choir has ever performed in front of former French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, former Australian Governor-General Quentin Bryce, His Majesty the King of Malaysia and Former US President Bill Clinton amongst many others.     

Spring of Love Festival receives nearly 300 units of blood

Around 500 members of the Hanoi High School Students of 1991-1994 School Year Group joined a blood donation festival named Xuan yeu thuong (“Spring of Love”) on February 26 to contribute 265 units of blood to Hanoi’s National Institute of Haematology and Blood Transfusion.

In addition to the voluntary blood donation, the former Hanoi high school students also presented over 2,000 meals worth VND50 million to disadvantaged patients being treated at the institute.

According to the medical facility, which supplies blood for treatment to more than 150 hospitals in Hanoi and the northern provinces, as of February 23, the total amount of blood in store was only about 600 units. In many hospitals, the blood Group O, A, and AB suffer a serious shortage and doctors have to mobilise patients’ relatives to donate blood while awaiting contributions from volunteers.

Doctor Pham Tuan Duong, deputy director of the Hanoi-based institute, said that mobile blood donations with a large number of contributions started yesterday, so in the next few days the institute earnestly called on the community to join hands and take part in blood donations.

He added that as of the 23rd day of 2015’s last lunar month (i.e. February 1, 2016), the institute had reserved over 10,000 blood units for Lunar New Year Festival but the reserve had suffered rapid depletion due to the amount of blood used in emergency cases during the nine-day holiday increasing by 30% over the average, while there was almost no contribution of blood in the days before and after the New Year.

For that reason, blood donation under the “Spring of Love” Festival by the group of former Hanoian high school students brings great meaning for patients, especially in the months after Tet when blood reserves are very low, the doctor stressed.

According to Nguyen Duc Hiep, the representative of the group, the event is among one of the group’s volunteer programmes to share with and support their community. A lot of group members donate their blood for the first time, but they all share a common motto: “Contributing a drop of blood, helping preserve a life.”

UK police release four Vietnamese men enslaved at ‘vast’ cannabis farm

Four Vietnamese men have been released by police in the UK after they were found working at a cannabis farm last week

An investigation found they had been trafficked and forced to work in slave-like conditions, the Guardian reported.

During a midnight raid on February 22, police in Wiltshire in southwest England found three Vietnamese teenagers and one adult in his 30s working at a vast marijuana farm inside a former nuclear bunker.

An age assessment put the three teenagers at about 19 years old. They were all released on February 24 and were told no further action would be taken against them, the report said.

Three British men were charged on February 24 with conspiracy to produce cannabis and conspiring to hold another person in slavery or servitude.

Paul Franklin from the Wiltshire police force said, as cited by the Guardian, that the four gardeners were victims. “No one would do this by choice.”

He explained that there was no natural light, no fresh air and no running water. “This was slave labor… We have never seen anything on this scale.”

His team found several thousand plants in the bunker’s 20 rooms, estimated to be worth more than US$1.2 million.

The Vietnamese men, who spoke no English, had been “very fearful and apprehensive” when they were arrested, he told the Guardian.

Police are trying to figure out how long the four workers had been held there and whether they were able to come and go freely or were locked inside the bunker, which was built in 1985 to serve as a government headquarters in the event of a nuclear attack.

“We believe they had no choice. I think they were held there in human-trafficking, slave conditions,” Franklin told the Guardian.

Around 3,000 Vietnamese children are in forced labor in the UK, many of whom end up in nail salons and illegal cannabis farms, according to local official figures.

Earlier this month a UK court overturned a 10-year sentence for a Vietnamese man on cannabis charges after judges found he was a victim of human trafficking.

Last month, people in Scotland also found a 16-year-old Vietnamese boy who was running from a human trafficking gang. Police said he would have been forced to work on a drug farm.

VOV debuts health and food safety channel

The broadcaster Voice of Vietnam (VOV) debuted its health and food safety radio channel (VOV FM89) on February 27.

Speaking at the ceremony, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam emphasised the need to raise public awareness of food safety and public health, and to ensure food safety during production and business activities, said Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam.

Ensuring public health and food safety helps promote the country’s agricultural strengths, tourism potential and socio-economic development, he said.

The channel will contribute to solving issues related to unsafe food, he stressed.

Hailing press agencies nationwide, including the VOV, for their devotion to protecting consumers, the Deputy PM called for more creative radio-broadcasting and television programmes that spread knowledge of health and food safety in the community. 

According to VOV General Director Nguyen The Ky, initially, the channel will be broadcast in Hanoi, the central city of Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh City and Can Tho in the Mekong Delta region.

With various categories, it is hoped to provide information on health, environmental protection and food safety.

Listeners can access the channel on FM89 MHz, or online. They can also call its hotline, send emails or listen via applications on smart phones.

Book encourages young people to travel more

Famous Vietnamese writer Di Li’s latest book - featuring her notes from adventures in Asia and Europe - was presented to the public late last week.

The work, Va Tuyet Da Roi Ngoai Cua So (And it’s Snowing Outside the Window), was written in the style of traveller’s notes. She describes her interesting meetings, difficulties and experiences in various cities in Asia and Europe that she visited: from Qatar to China, Myanmar, the Republic of Korea, the Netherlands, Hungary and Austria.

She also portrays in the book the life of some Vietnamese people that she met during her travels.  

The 278-page book, published by Writers Association Publishing House, has been praised by critics for providing useful and interesting information about the cultures of different countries and for encouraging young people to travel.

“The book is worth reading, as it encourages young people to be more curious about the world outside,” says writer Duong Thuy.

“Some people think that traveler’ notes are not literature and that writing them is quite easy. However, as more and more Vietnamese travel, everyone should recognize one thing: not everyone who travels can write a book. It’s difficult to write traveller’s notes, as it requires the writer to observe deeply and remember small details, take notes in shorthand, and take pictures quickly. Di Li did it very well,” he says.

Vu Phuong Lien, Director of the Lien Viet Publishing House, who has accompanied Di Li on different trips, said, “Di Li was an excellent guide during our travels together. My trips with her are always interesting, funny and unforgettable. When she wrote about them in the book, I couldn’t help smiling, as I am surprised by her sense of observation,” she says.  

Hasanthi Dissanayake, Ambassador of Sri Lanka to Vietnam and a good friend of Di Li, said at the book launch that she is very impressed by her writing style and hopes that she will write one day a book featuring the culture of Sri Lanka.

Di Li (whose real name is Nguyen Dieu Linh) is one of the most exciting and outgoing of a new generation of Vietnamese authors writing about modern Vietnam and its place in the world. She also works as a teacher and a journalist.

She has released many books, including crime thrillers, horror stories and humorous fiction. Her novel The Black Diamond was translated into English in 2012 and Cocktail was translated in the Netherlands in 2015. During her 10 years of writing, she has published nearly 30 books.

President urges better public health care

President Tran Dai Quang urged the health sector to continue reforms to provide better health care to all in Vietnam.  

Speaking at a meeting to celebrate the Vietnam Physician Day on February 27, the State leader praised the efforts of doctors, pharmacists and health workers in the cause of health care in the country in past years.

“The health sector has made many efforts to meet the increasing demand of public health care and protection during recent years, contributing to the country’s socio-economic development and international integration,” said he.

“The health care system from central to local levels, especially at grassroots levels, has been established and consolidated while the development of preventive medicine has helped control and eliminate many diseases and epidemics,” he added .

Medical services have been diversified while quality of service has been improved. Many modern and high-tech medical facilities were built nationwide. Many new advanced techniques were transferred to health workers at district and commune levels, easing overloads at central-level hospitals.

Quang said that the Party and Government have considered health care as one of the top priorities in the country’s development.

He suggested the health sector focus on strengthening food safety and hygiene; improving health care for mothers, children, especially ethnic and minority people; putting forward medical research and using science and technology advances for public health care and protection.

Health Minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien said that the health sector has implemented various measures to reform financial mechanisms, improve medical service quality, reduce hospital congestion and increase patient satisfaction.

“Vaccination rates for under-one children and pregnant women in the National Expanded Programme on Immunisation have reached above 90 percent and more than 10 million children were given vaccines against transmittable diseases yearly in the country,” said Tien.

The minister said that by the end of 2016, the health insurance coverage rate hit 81.7 percent of the country’s population, exceeding the target set by the National Assembly and the Government. Many new medical facilities were built, contributing to easing hospital overloading and improving quality of medical services.

On the occasion, 134 doctors and health workers nationwide were conferred the title of People’s Physician.

Dutch organisations support eye hospital in Vinh Long

An eye examination and treatment ward funded by the Netherlands’ Eye Care Foundation and De Heus company was inaugurated on February 27 at the Ophthalmology Hospital in the Mekong Delta province of Vinh Long.

Nguyen Thanh Hai, Director of the hospital, said the two organisations committed to provide 280,000 USD for an eye care project in Vinh Long province for the 2016-2025 period.

In the 2017-19 period, the hospital will open new eye care and treatment facilities and health training courses, as well as provide eye check-ups for local students and old people.

Vietnam-Cambodia friendship monument in Preah Vihear upgraded

A monument dedicated to patriotic Cambodians and Vietnamese volunteer soldiers was inaugurated in Preah Vihear province, Cambodia on February 27 after a period of restoration.

It is the sixth of 17 monuments across Cambodia that have been upgraded under a project funded by the Vietnamese Ministry of National Defence, towards the celebration of the 50th anniversary of  bilateral diplomatic ties.

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Long Savann, Vice President of the Solidarity Front for the Development of Cambodia’s Motherland (SFDCM)’s chapter in Preah Vihear, affirmed the Cambodian people always remember great contributions of Vietnamese volunteer soldiers and people to helping Cambodia escape from the Pol Pot genocidal regime. 

The monuments are the symbol of the everlasting Vietnam-Cambodia solidarity and friendship, he said, calling the young Cambodian generations to preserve them.

Previously, at their working session in late 2013, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee Nguyen Thien Nhan agreed on a plan to restore and upgrade 17 monuments to Vietnamese volunteer soldiers across Cambodia.

The SFDCM has coordinated with the Vietnamese Ministry of National Defence to implement the project. 

To date, six out of the 17 monuments have been restored. The remaining ones are scheduled to be completed by the end of 2017.

Quang Ninh accelerates building new-style rural areas

The northern province of Quang Ninh aims to have additional 11 communes meeting all new-style rural area criteria in 2017.

The targeted areas are Quang Yen town, Hoanh Bo, Van Don, Tien Yen, Hai Ha, Dam Ha districts, and Mong Cai city.

Cam Pha and Uong Bi cities are also looking for the new-style rural area status in the year.

In order to enhance the efficiency of new-style rural area construction, the province will implement the programme in tandem with its agricultural restructuring planning.

The locality has effectively implemented the project “One Commune One Product” (OCOP) from 2017 to 2020 and the project to lift 22 communes and 11 hamlets from the extremely disadvantaged list under the programme 135.

In 2017, all communes recognised as new-style rural areas will strive to develop residential area model and have at least 100 hamlets in the model.

The province aims to build An Sinh, Viet Dan and Binh Khe communes as the model of new-style rural area.

With such efforts, the province looks to reduce poor household rate by 3-4 percent in 2017.

It devises six measures, including implementing the new-style rural area criteria, enhancing the capacity for building new-style rural areas, promoting communication work, and training human resources.

It will also effectively implement and issue relevant policies while mobilising different resources for new style rural area building, and launching an emulation campaign on new-style rural areas across the province.-

HCM City launches Youth Month

HCM City’s Hồ Chí Minh Communist Youth Union on Sunday  kicked off “Youth Month” with social activities in the city’s 24 districts. 

The programme, whose theme is “HCM City’s Youth Develops a Civilised City and New Rural Areas”, promotes the role of youth in socio-economic development.

It has attracted thousands of members, including young people, public servants, soldiers and students at schools and universities in the city.

The 2017 Youth Month for volunteer groups will focus on repairing electrical systems, publicising the importance of fire prevention and fighting, teaching survival skills, maintaining traffic safety, building parks without rubbish, and creating green projects in residential areas.

After the opening ceremony, a group of young people collected rubbish on small lanes to create a clean atmosphere for residents in District 4.

Besides collecting rubbish, they installed lights, painted walls, took out advertisements, planted trees, decorated locals’ houses, and visited families subject to the Government’s preferential policies, the poor and disadvantaged elderly.

The programme also encourages residents to keep hygienic quarters, practice fire prevention, and promote food safety.  

Another group of young people, who have skills in various scientific fields, have launched training activities, including the teaching of animal breeding and farming techniques to residents in five outlying districts.

Continuing with the Green Sunday campaign, 1,300 young people of the city’s Hồ Chí Minh Communist Youth Union, Department of Natural Resources and Environment, High Command, Ministry of Public Security’s special police battalion No 2, Steering Centre of Urban Flood Control Programme cleared out waste, rubbish and water hyacinths in the Cầu Suối Canal in Bình Chánh District’s Vĩnh Lộc B Commune.

Lê Thanh Liêm, deputy chairman of the city’s People’s Committee, took part in the activity at the canal.

About 500 metres of the canal were cleared of water hyacinth within two hours.

2017 Youth Month celebrates the 86th founding anniversary of the Hồ Chí Minh Communist Youth Union. It will end on March 31. 

Hưng Yên determining cause of mass chicken deaths

Farmers in Hưng Yên Province are panicking over the mass deaths of Đông tảo chicken-a rare Vietnamese breed-following the Lunar New Year (Tết) festival.

Local authorities said they were coordinating with the veterinary office to determine the cause of the deaths, Dân Trí online newspaper reported on Monday.

Nguyễn Trọng Thuần, Deputy Chairman of the People’s Committee of Khoái Châu District’s Đông Tảo Commune where the special chicken are mostly raised, said the deaths occurred before and after Tết.

Locals were hiding their chickens because they feared  their own breeds could be infected and the deaths could affect the market consumption, according to Thuần.

He also affirmed that authorities had not yet identified the cause of the mass deaths, although farmers believed the chickens suffered from a blood disease, and not the flu.

“Following Tết holidays, the issue was reported  to the district’s veterinary centre and local households were asked to destroy their dead chickens following regulations for environment protection,” Thuần said.

“We are still counting the dead chickens so we cannot report the exact number right now,” he added.

However, according to the media, many farmers buried their dead chickens in the ground or threw them away randomly and this had adversely affected the environment. 

The dead chickens were thrown in canals and rice fields thus had led to a bad smell and risked the spread of an epidemic.

Lê Thị Kim, a local, told Việt Nam Television the stench could be smelt in the entire area and made people uncomfortable.

“A flock of 40 strong chickens in my farm also died due to contact with the dead chickens that were thrown all over the area,” Kim said.

The Đông Tảo chicken trademark is the result of a project started in 2013 by Hưng Yên ’s Department of Science and Technology and the Investip Company.

Distinctive for their gigantic drumsticks, Đông Tảo chicken have heavy figures, thick skin and red meat. 

The delicacy has long been popular among gourmet groups across the country. 

Hanoians happy to ditch war-time loudspeakers - survey

An online survey conducted by authorities in Hanoi has found that an overwhelming majority of the public want war-time loudspeakers that date back to the 60s switched off.

The survey was conducted from January 25- February 25 on Hanoi's government portal, and had more than 3,000 respondents. The results of the survey will be submitted to the city’s leaders for more consideration and a final decision, according to the municipal department of communications and information.

Hanoians said they think that the city’s loudspeakers are outdated in an era of broadband, wireless internet, cable and satellite television, hundreds of newspapers and magazines and social media platforms.

According to the survey, 90% of respondents said the loudspeaker systems broadcast “impractical” information.

Another sizable majority of up to 90% said they thought “it’s no longer necessary to retain” the loudspeakers.

Over all, only 4% of the public said they relied on the loudspeakers for news updates, and just over 10% said they thought the loudspeaker broadcasts were useful.

Hanoi's loudspeakers date back to the 1960s and 1970s when they delivered air raid warnings during the war with the US-backed South Vietnamese government.

Today they are used to deliver daily neighborhood announcements about local meetings, health updates, sanitation and other public issues. The same system is used in many parts across rural Vietnam.

The survey results turned out to comport with a previous poll by the city’s authorities that showed residents in inner Hanoi were less inclined to rely on the loudspeakers for information updates, Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper cited Phan Lan Tu, the director of the city’s department of communications and information, as saying.

However, she added that loudspeakers are still widely used to deliver messages from local authorities and community information in countryside villages and towns, and the system would still be used in rural areas for another period of time.

Loudspeakers are still found in most neighborhoods around the capital, and deliver messages from local authorities and even banks advertising their interest rates to its 4 million residents.

“It’s very costly. Local authorities at a district level have to spend hundreds of millions dong [on their loudspeaker systems], Mayor Nguyen Duc Chung said at a meeting earlier this month.

In contrast, Bach Thanh Dinh, the deputy director of the Hanoi police force, strongly opposed the plan to scrap the loudspeakers because the system can directly deliver messages from the Communist Party and the government to the public.

“Loudspeakers are a bond between the people, the Party and the government,” Dinh said recently. “If we release our grip [on the loudspeakers], we lose [the communication channel].”

Dental education center as per iTOP opens in HCMC

Ho Chi Minh City Maxillo-Facial And Dental February 24 opened an education center to increase information of dental health. 

Being the first one to provide consultation of dental health as per the iTOP (Individually Trained Oral Prevention) in the Southeast Asia, the center aims to increase people’s awareness of dental health importance. 

In addition to cultivating daily habit of taking care of dents, medical check-up and how to brush teeth properly, it also provides dental treatment, Orthodontic surgery, surgery for placement of dental implants, and treatment for kids.

Vietnam is the first Southeast Asian nation to implement iTOP and in the future, Vietnam will be chosen as training center for dental care for the region.

Festival celebrates song, dance of southern Vietnam

This year’s annual Mekong Delta Music Festival (March 9-12) will celebrate Don Ca Tai Tu song and dance that took root in southern Vietnam in the late nineteenth century.

During the event set to transpire at the Cao Van Lau Cai Luong Theatre in the province of Hau Giang, some 300 artists from across the south will perform hundreds of songs and instrumental musical pieces, says the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

The opening ceremony will include performances of the ever popular song Da Co Hoai Lang (Night Drumbeats for an Absent Husband), written in 1919 by composer Cao Van Lau, a native of the Mekong Delta province of Bac Lieu.

Instruments for Don Ca Tai Tu performances include the moon-shaped lute (kim), two-stringed fiddle (co), 16-string zither (tranh), pear-shaped lute (ty ba), percussion (song lang), monochord (bau) and bamboo flute (sao).

The violin and guitar are adapted. The guitar used by Don Ca Tai Tu artists has a deep, hollowed-out finger board, enabling musicians to play special ornamentation characteristic of Don Ca Tai Tu.

Dedicated medical workers, good ethic highlights of health sector in HCMC

On the occasion of the 62nd anniversary of Doctors’ Day, Ho Chi Minh City Party Chief Dinh La Thang yesterday lauded the sector’s achievement in 2016 adding that dedicated medical workers and good ethic are highlights of health sector in the city.

The standing party committee held a meeting with outstanding medical workers on the occasion to encourage and praise their contribution to taking care of people’s health condition for years. 

Party Chief Thang expected the sector to focus on monitoring diseases especially bizarre illnesses. He believed that each medical workers will try their best to make the sector prominent with its devotion. 

Speaking at the meeting, director of the Department of Health Dr. Nguyen Tan Binh pointed out the sector’s remarkable achievement including investing in facilities, treatment techniques such as using robot in operation, organ transplant, patient-centered services for patients’ satisfaction; cooperation between private and public facilities to reduce the overloaded hospitals, providing more emergency stations, satellite infirmaries, applying technologies in preventive medicine task and epidemic control.

The sector will continue improving treatment quality, assessing hospital quality, tackling overloaded big infirmaries, building more satellite facilities and pushing up the application of technology. 

Chairman of People’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Phong, Chairwoman of People’s Council Nguyen Thi Quyet Tam and others leaders in the standing party committee and more than 300 outstanding medical workers attended the meeting. 

On the occasion, Party Chief Thang congratulated deputy head of the Department of Health Dr. Thang Chi Thuong; Principal of Pham Ngoc Thach Medicine University Dr. Ngo Minh Xuan; Director of Gia Dinh People’s Hospital Dr. Nguyen Anh Dung; and former director of Tumor Hospital Dr. Le Hoang Minh who were awarded the title of People’s Medical Workers

Elsewhere in the city yesterday, Nguyen Huu Hiep, a member of the standing party committee and  representatives from the department of Health dropped by the house of Professor Nguyen Dinh Hoi, former director of the Medicine University. 

On the same day, the standing committee of the youth Communist Union in HCMC organized a meeting to award Pham Ngoc Thach Prize to 27 prominent medical workers. Deputy Party Chief Vo Thi Dung praised young medical workers who silently devote to taking care of people’s health.

These young medical workers are not only good at their skills but having initiatives, researches benefiting treatment for patients as well as volunteer to join charity activities.

After the award ceremony, young medical workers will partake in the journey ”Young doctors accompany with locals in border crossings” to provide consultation of healthcare and give free drugs to poor residents in the southern province of Binh Phuoc.

Nguyen Thien Nhan, chairman of the Vietnam Fatherland Front yesterday visited and congratulated medical workers of the Department of Health in HCMC. Accordingly, HCMC is a big city, the sector not only provides treatment to locals but also to patients in neighboring provinces in the South, said Mr. Nhan. 

Mr. Nhan expected the medical workers of the city will continue improving treatment quality to taking care of people’s health better.

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