Can Tho plans to move erosion-affected households

An erosion happens at Thoi Loi area, Can Tho in May this year

Authorities of the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho have planned to spend VND555.39 billion (USD25.22 million) on moving thousands of households at risk from erosion.

The municipal people’s committee on September 6 held a meeting on the issue.  

A representative from the city’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said that the plan would see 9,353 households with a total number of 37,306 people in areas affected by erosion relocated to safer areas. 

Around 5,309 households are expected to be moved by 2020.

The city has also planned to build nine dykes worth a combined investment capital of VND2.441 trillion (USD110.95 million) to protect rivers and canals.

According to the Can Tho Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, roughly 2,600 local households with 18,400 people in total are located in areas at very high risk of erosion.

Nguyen Ngoc He, director of the department, said that between 2010 and 2017, 153 incidents of erosion had occurred in Can Tho, leaving four dead and five injured. The incidents also damaged 53 houses costing an estimated VND20 billion.

In the first eight months of this year, erosion was blamed for VND33.6 billion in losses for the city.

Bank robbers arrested in Khanh Hoa

Police in Khanh Hoa Province arrested two suspects in a bank robbery on September 6.

Colonel Dang Duc Luan, head of the police department in Ninh Hoa Commune said they had arrested two men, 36-year-old Tran Hoang Nhat Hung and 30-year-old Dam Minh Quang who robbed a Vietcombank branch in Ninh Hoa Commune on September 5 with a gun.

At 10 am on September 5, the masked men arrived at the Vietcombank branch office by motorbike. One man stayed outside while the other brought the gun and bags inside. The man threatened the bank employees and after taking the money, they fled the scene but left the gun behind.

The police quickly arrested the men, seized four guns, dozens of bullets and about VND3bn (USD128,700) buried under an abandoned house. The police in Ninh Hoa Commune and the criminal police department in Khanh Hoa were awarded VND10m each for the speed case. 

Hung and Quang admitted that they had robbed the bank and took away VND4.5bn (USD193,000) of cash. Since they used the masks, they thought that no one could discover their identities and kept on living as usual.

The new blue buses with free wifi have been in operation on three routes in Hà Nội since the start of this month. - Photo courtersy of Transerco

The Transport Corporation Hà Nội (Transerco) has replaced buses on three routes with modern vehicles equipped with free wifi and other conveniences.

The new buses went into operation in September on route No.62 (Yên Nghĩa-Thường Tín), route No.91 (Yên Nghĩa-Kim Bài-Phú Túc) and route No.92 (Nhổn-Sơn Tây-Tây Đằng).

These routes are key connections from suburban districts to the city centre.

The bright blue buses have lower floors, modern emission standards, free wifi, modern GPS management software and three security cameras.

Four LED boards show bus schedules and other bus route information.

This year Transerco plans to launch 13 new bus routes and pilot electronic transportation cards used on BRT route 01, connecting Kim Mã and Yên Nghĩa bus stations. The company is looking to apply the e-cards on the city’s entire bus network.

So far this year the Hà Nội Transcerco has changed the schedules on 16 bus routes and registered to invest in 66 new vehicles that meet emission standard EURO 4. Software systems and other technological devices have also been installed to supervise departure and arrival times and speeding.

Last year 258 old buses were replaced, the largest number of buses ever replaced in a year, accounting for 30 per cent of the company’s buses.

The van at the site of the accident. — Photo baotintuc.vn

Two men died after being trapped inside a van that plunged over the edge in Hòa Bình Province’s Tân Lạc District Monday.

More than a hundred rescuers, including communal authorities, police and soldiers were mobilised to help with the rescue.

The van, a flatbed recovery vehicle, was being driven by Chu Danh Bình in the direction of Sơn La – Hà Nội. Another man, Nguyễn Văn Tùng, from Hà Nội, was sitting next to him. The van was carrying a 16-seat vehicle.

It crashed in an area of Đá Trắng Mountain Pass, located on Highway 6 connecting Mai Châu and Tân Lạc districts in the province.

The front of the van was completely smashed up and the vehicle it was towing was also severely damaged.

The cause of the accident is under investigation. 

Five people prosecuted for producing 'dirty' peppercorn

A sample of coffee, used batteries, dirt and rock dust seized by Đắk Nông Province Police. 

An investigation into the production of “dirty” peppercorn in the Central Highlands province of Đắk Nông has to led arrest warrants being issued for five suspects, Phan Thanh Hải, head of the provincial People’s Procuracy, confirmed on Tuesday.

Đắk Nông Province Police have arrested Phan Thị Dung, Lê Thị Hồng Thơ, Nguyễn Thị Thanh Loan, Nguyễn Xuân Bảo and Trần Văn Tuấn, Loan’s driver.

According to their testimonies, Phan Thị Dung’s family-run company in the southern province of Bình Phước started mixing black powder extracted from used batteries, rocks, dirt and low quality coffee beans into the peppercorn they were producing in 2015.

Dung’s partners accepted an impurity percentage in the peppercorn of 1 to 2 per cent, so she added other “ingredients” to make greater profits.

Dung bought the raw materials from Lê Thị Hồng Thơ in Đắk Song District and instructed Nguyễn Thị Thanh Loan and Nguyễn Xuân Bảo in Đắk R’Lấp District to produce the final mixture.

On April 22, Đắk Nông Province Police seized nine tonnes of peppercorns at Dung’s factory in Bình Phước District, and analysis found that the mixture contained 18.34 per cent of impurities including a toxic chemical called manganese dioxide.

Prolonged manganese exposure can poison and damage the brain, and the effects are irreversible and can lead to hallucinations and death.

The accused also admitted that from 2015 to 2018, they sold up to 400 tonnes of the mixture for VNĐ9,000 to 12,000 (39 cents to 51 cents) per kilogramme, of which Thơ took a cut of VNĐ1,000 to 3,000.

However, due to a lack of evidence, law enforcement officers can only charge them for the nine tonnes seized from Dung’s factory.

Accessible bus stops set up in HCM City

One of the new bus stops that aim to attract more passengers. — Photo zing.vn

New accessible bus stops for students and people with disabilities have been set up on Lê Quý Đôn Street in District 3, the online news outlet zing.vn reported.

The bus stops are equipped with real-time bus trackers, disabled access, cameras and modern lighting.

Local authorities also plan to construct barriers along the pavements of Võ Văn Tần and Lê Quý Đôn streets.

The efforts aim to protect pedestrians and encourage people to use public transport.

Earlier last month, HCM City’s Department of Transport asked the city’s People’s Committee to increase subsidies for bus cooperatives by VNĐ330 billion (US$14 million) each year due to a shortage of funds.

The city subsidises more than 1,300 buses, including 400 that serve workers and students.

Air pollution in HCM City is getting even more serious than the level of pollution emitted by industrial zones, so the use of environmentally-friendly buses, including two bus rapid-transit systems, is being promoted as a potential solution to cut greenhouse emissions.

By 2020, the city is forecast to have around ten million vehicles, including 800,000 cars. Most families in HCM City own at least one motorbike. 

Ministry to merge vocational facilities

The Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs have said they plan to reorganise and merge thousands of vocational facilities for better management and to be more efficient.

Vocational facilities in Vietnam has improved greatly both in scale and quality. In 2016, the facilities received 290,231 students, 310,000 last year and an estimated 320,000 this year. 85-90% of them are secondary schoolers.

However, vocational facilities may only thrive when they have close links with local firms. Moreover, the belief that only college-graduated students can find good jobs and are given high regards in society is still strong. Vietnam has 1,954 vocational facilities but many are struggling to recruit new students.

For the past two years, the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs have reviewed and merged some district-level facilities. They reduced up to 363 facilities after merging three facilities into one or two. 

By 2021, the ministry plans to reduce 10% of the public vocational facilities. The figure will be 20% in 2025 and 40% in 2030.

Saigon’s war crimes museum named among world’s top 10 by TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor readers have picked Saigon's War Remnants Museum among the world's top 10 museums.

Founded in 1975, the museum on Vo Van Tan Street in District 3 is a must-see for anyone who wants to know Vietnam’s history.

It has more than 20,000 artifacts, images and documentaries that relive the atrocities, including war crimes perpetrated by colonial and imperial forces, and millions of Vietnamese suffer the consequences to this day.

Musee d'Orsay in Paris dominates the list of top 25 museums picked by the US.travel website, followed by the National 9/11 Memorial & Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the British Museum in London, and Prado National Museum in Madrid. 

In the regional ranking, the War Remnants Museum tops the list, beating the Palace Museum in China’s Forbidden City and Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Japan.

The Vietnamese Women’s Museum and Vietnam Museum of Ethnology in Hanoi and the Robert Taylor Museum of Worldwide Arms in the southern province of Vung Tau made it to the top 25 list in Asia.

The list, compiled by TripAdvisor, the world's most popular travel guide and review website, takes into account the quality and number of traveler reviews and ratings published on its website over a 12-month period.