Grant to help Quang Tri clear unexploded ordnance

The central province of Quang Tri will receive US$2.9 million from Norwegian People's Aid (NPA) to clear mines and the remains of explosives left behind after the nation's wars.

The funding comes under an agreement signed between the NPA and Quang Tri Province People's Committee yesterday on implementing a project for Restoring the Environmental and Neutralising Effects of the War (RENEW).

The project aims to minimise the number of accidents, injuries and deaths caused by mines and explosive remnants that are still present years after the wars ended.

An officer educates members of the Van Kieu minority living in Da Krong District about the danger of mines and how to prevent accidents with mines or explosive remnants left over from war. (Photo: VNS)

Funding will be provided to Trieu Phong, Cam Lo, Hai Lang and Da Krong districts to implement the project from 2012 to 2014.

At the signing ceremony, standing vice chairman of the committee Nguyen Duc Chinh committed to asking localities to closely co-operate with NPA to effectively carry out the programme.

Quang Tri is known as one of the provinces most heavily affected by mines and bombs. According to the Steering Committee of the National Action Plan to solve the post-war consequences caused by bombs and mines, the removal of bombs, mines and other types of explosives in Viet Nam is expected to take hundreds of years and cost around $10 billion.

The NPA, founded in 1939, is one of Norway's largest non-governmental organisations and has been involved in mine clearance activities since 1992. It is currently engaged in more than 300 projects in 30 countries.

The organisation began offering financial and technical assistance for Viet Nam mine clearance activities in 2007.

Policeman returns $1,500 left in ATM booth to owner

Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Xuan Mai in northern province of Nam Dinh turned in a bag of US$1,500 together with a camera he found in an ATM booth to his mobile police office last Wednesday.

According to Colonel Dinh Ngoc Bich, on the previous evening, Mai was patrolling around Nam Dinh branch’s VietinBank when he discovered a black bag inside an ATM booth.

As there was a power cut and no one around, Mai called up a colleague and they together checked the bag to find a VND10 million ($500) camera and stacks of VND500,000 bills worth VND30 million ($1500).

The owner of the bag later came back to the bank and claimed his property. He said after finishing the transaction, he was in a hurry and forgot it.

Colonel Bich said Mai has two children and his wife is a teacher with a decent income.
His act should be an example for other police to learn from.

Nation launches population planning month

Viet Nam's progress in reducing the birth rate over the last 20 years helped prevent the addition of another 18.5 million people to the population, said Head of the General Office for Population and Planning Duong Quoc Trong at a press conference yesterday to launch the national population planning month, which begins today.

"Imagine if we added another 18.5 million people to the current population, how overloaded cities such as Ha Noi and HCM City would be," Trong said. "Viet Nam's remarkable progress in population planning has contributed a great deal to our socio-economic picture."

In 1961, Viet Nam issued the first legal document that called for better planning in population and reproductive health. Since then, the population growth rate has decreased from 3.5 percent in the 1960s to 1.5 percent in 2010. With the number of children on average per woman dropping from 6.3 in the 1960s to the current two, Viet Nam's population control programme has been considered one of the most effective in the world.

Tran Van Chien, deputy head of the General Office for Population and Planning, said that over the past 20 years, funding for all activities related to population and planning between 1991-2011 was only VND8.4 trillion (US$40 billion). "We have to acknowledge that the progress in family planning and population is critical to the country's socio-economic progress and contributes directly to increasing the annual GDP per capita," Chien said.

As the pressure to reduce the birth rate lowers, officials said efforts during the 2011-20 period would be focused on improving the quality of the population, which means improving access to healthcare for mothers and newborns, taking advantage of the "golden" population, taking a pro-active approach to controlling population growth and reducing the sex ratio imbalance.

Last month, in its national strategic population and reproductive health plan for 2011-20, the Government also outlined 11 targets to maintain the well-being of the population, such as maintaining the population growth rate at around 1 percent in 2015 and to the stable level of 1 per cent or lower in 2020, and increasing the human development index to the world medium level by 2020.

During the national month of population planning, various activities and forums will be held nationwide to increase awareness at all levels on population planning activities, especially in remote localities.

Viet Nam's population at 87 million is still the 13th largest in the world.

Hanoi slashes HIV/AIDS infected people

The number of new HIV/AIDS infections and HIV/AIDS caused deaths in 2011 has fallen by between 16- 20 percent over the past year.

A grand meeting was held in Hanoi on November 30 to respond to World AIDS Day (December 1).

After 18 years of coping with the HIV/AIDS epidemic, 23,000 infections have been reported in Hanoi.

Addressing the meeting, Vice Chairwoman of the Hanoi municipal People’s Committee, Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc called on the administration and people of the capital city to associate activities concerning the prevention and control of HIV/AIDS, drugs, and prostitution with socio-economic tasks.

Hanoi pledges to step up communication on HIV/AIDS prevention and control with the aim of raising public awareness of HIV/AIDS and promoting respect for human rights, thus helping to abolish discriminatory treatment against HIV infected people while assisting them with integration into the community, Ngoc said.

She also highlighted the need to help people have easier access to services for healthcare, treatment, and HIV preventive medicine without discriminating against gender, social status, nationality, and religion.

In response to the National Action Month for HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control, many districts in Hanoi have organized parades disseminating information about HIV/AIDS and have called on the community to provide more than VND1 billion in support for HIV/AIDS infected people.

Over the year, Hanoi has carried out the action program for HIV/AIDS prevention and control in practical ways such as developing communication models, intensifying services for consultancy and voluntary HIV tests, and providing care and medical treatment for people infected with the virus.

The city now has 42 volunteer groups with more than 1,000 members who regularly support HIV patients.

Nail technician jailed over $83k lottery jackpot

The Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court sentenced Wednesday a 38-year-old woman 7 years in prison following her “taking advantage of others’ trust to misappropriate property” seven months ago.

Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy, a nail technician hailing from HCMC’s District 8, was convicted of having deceived her neighbor Tran Thi Hoa to get a lottery ticket that won the jackpot.

Thuy admitted she visited Hoa’s place on April 29 and called in a lottery ticket seller to check her ticket against the day’s results.

Hoa gave her ticket to Thuy and asked the nail technician to check the results for her as well.

Thuy then said the ticket did not win anything while it actually hit the jackpot – aka special prize in Vietnam. Hoa totally trusted her and said nothing.

The nail technician secretly exchanged the jackpot-winning ticket for VND1.75 billion (about US$83,000 then) at an agent.

Hoa asked for it back after the seller had returned to notify her of the jackpot, but Thuy denied the ticket had won any prize, saying she had thrown it into some unknown trash can.

The neighbor reported the case to local police afterward.

Vietnam considers suspending breast cancer drug

The Drug Administration of Vietnam (DVA) is considering the suspension of Avastin, a drug used to combat breast cancer, after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) revoked its approval of the treatment since it has not been shown to be safe or effective.

The DAV said Monday that the FDA had concluded that Avastin is not effective in delaying tumor growth in metastatic breast cancer, and that it causes fatal side effects like heart failure.

"After reviewing the available studies it is clear that women who take Avastin for metastatic breast cancer risk potentially life-threatening side effects without proof that the use of Avastin will provide a benefit, in terms of delay in tumor growth, that would justify those risks," FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said in a statement.

"Nor is there evidence that use of Avastin will either help them live longer or improve their quality of life."

Avastin's risks include severe high blood pressure; bleeding and hemorrhaging; heart attack or heart failure; and the development of perforations in different parts of the body such as the nose, stomach, and intestines.

However, Avastin will still be used as an approved treatment for certain types of colon, lung, kidney, and brain cancer, the FDA said.

Dr. Tran Van Thuan, deputy director of the Hanoi-based K Hospital, said the drug has been used in Vietnam to treat breast cancer patients in late stages, but the hospital stopped using the drug six months ago after studies showed it was ineffective.

Avastin is produced by F.Hoffmann-La Roche, a Swiss global health-care company.

Vietnam needs constitutional court: ex-official

The National Assembly should set up a constitutional court to try individuals or organizations that violate the Constitution, Tran Trong Tan, a former member of the Central Party Committee, said.

Tan, who is also a former head of the Central Committee for Culture and Ideology, made the proposal at a conference held yesterday in Hanoi to review possible amendments and supplements to the 1992 Constitution.

As stipulated in Article 4 of the Constitution, the Communist Party of Vietnam, the vanguard of the Vietnamese working class and loyal representative of the interests of the working class, the working people and the whole nation, who adheres to Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh's thought, is the force assuming leadership of the State and society, Tan said.

In this spirit, if the party keeps aloof from the working class and the working people and fails to ensure or promote the people’s rights, it will no longer be eligible to assume its leadership, he said.

This Article also regulates that “all organizations of the Party shall operate within the framework of the Constitution and the law,” he added.

Such a detailed regulation is good, but there is still no legal framework to enforce this article, he said.

“This is a major shortcoming, and I suggest that a specific law be established to enforce Article 4 of the Constitution.”

Pham Van Hai, deputy chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Fatherland Front Committee, said there have been efforts to supervise the enforcement of the article, but the efficiency of this supervision is still limited.

To improve adherence to the article, the Constitution should be amended to include a chapter concerning the Fatherland Front Committee in order to provide legal frameworks that serve as the basis for issuing necessary laws, such as the Law on Supervision by the Vietnam Fatherland Front, or for amending the existing Law on the Vietnam Fatherland Front, Hai concluded.

VNN/VOV/VNS/Tuoi Tre