Vietnamese family ransoms kidnapped daughter from Cambodia

A Vietnamese man in southern Binh Phuoc Province's Chon Thanh District has paid a ransom of US$10,000 to retrieve his kidnapped daughter from Cambodia.

Nguyen Van Thien said his 14 year-old daughter, Nguyen Thi Bao An, was discovered missing by her grandmother on Sunday night. At noon a day later, he received a phone call from a Cambodian man who said he was keeping An in the border area between the two countries.

The man asked Thien to bring a sum of $10,000 to the Moc Bai border gate in Tay Ninh Province as ransom for his daughter, or else she would be beaten.

For safety reasons, Thien kept everything secret and borrowed the money to meet the kidnapper's demand.

After countless negotiations, the family rescued An on Wednesday, still in the dark as to the identity of the perpetrators.

The Chon Thanh District police are investigating the case.

International jewellery sparkles in HCM City

The 9th International Jewellery and Watch Show opened on May 10 in Ho Chi Minh City.

The four-day event gathered almost 100 leading producers from Hong Kong and Taiwan (China), Israel, Italy, Malaysia, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.

Co-organised by VCCI Exhibition Service Co Ltd (Vietcham Expo) and Hong Kong’s World Trade Fair Limited, the event helped businesses promote their products and trademarks.

Bui Thuc Anh, Managing Director of Vietcham Expo, said the exhibition offers an ideal market for Vietnam’s jewellery industry and business, and opportunities for domestic enterprises to access world markets.

Director of Hong Kong’s World Trade Fair Ltd., B.K. Chow, said the event will help local and international producers explore the latest product designs and seek new suppliers and consumers.

A huge variety of diamonds and gemstones and a number of watch collections have been brought to the exhibition by major firms including Bestline, Diamond Wear, Glory United, Golden Master, Good Way from Hong Kong, Italy’s Graziella Group, Israel’s HBS Diamonds-Belisdian, India’s Fancy Diamond and Kan-chi from Malaysia.

Households at risk to be relocated

The northern mountainous province of Tuyen Quang will relocate about 150 households out of areas that face a high risk of landslides.
The budget for relocation to a settlement in the region is expectedly to be VND2 billion ($95,000).
The localities under high risk of landslides include Na Hang, Yen Son and Ham Yen districts. Work on reinforcing the banks of the Lo, Gam and Pho Day rivers will also be carried out with a total investment of VND579 billion ($28 million).

Science conference opens in Ha Noi

More than 2,000 participants, including health experts from 14 countries and territories shared over 450 scientific research papers at the international scientific conference Mekong Sante 3, which opened in Ha Noi yesterday, May 10.

The 3-day event, hosted by the Ha Noi Medical University to celebrate its 110th year anniversary, was a good chance for participants to discuss and exchange the latest research findings and advanced technology in various health and pharmaceutical fields.

Officials inspect seafood enterprise

A group of officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development visited the southern province of Bac Lieu on Wednesday to inspect businesses trading in seafood after a series of shrimp deaths caused by the use of chemicals in seafood farming.

After the two-day inspection, the group discovered seven prohibited herbal medicine and chemical products for seafood farming.
Since the begining of the year, local authorities have discovered 50 cases of businesses selling unauthorised products and 18 cases of shrimp that contain contaminants. Authorities also confiscated nearly 5,000 kilogrammes of shrimps during the period.

Buffalo on rampage gores five

A buffalo that allegedly ran from a slaughterhouse charged and injured several people in Huong Tra commune in the central city of Hue and destroyed their assets this morning before being shot down by eight bullets.

At least five people and seven motorbikes were gored by the animal, eyewitnesses said.

As 8am today, the buffalo butted Le Cong Thinh, 50, in La Chu hamlet when he stood by the roadside. The animal then went into a nearby house and hurled 70-year-old Nguyen Thi Vinh into the air, causing multiple injuries to her. Vinh was taken to hospital for emergency treatment.

Worried about being attacked, other villagers locked their doors and called local authorities for help. Several policemen were then deployed to the scene but could not catch up with the animal.

When the buffalo reached Kim Long ward, it jumped into Huong River and swam across to reach Thuy Bieu ward on the other side.

“It swam 300 meters through the river and tried to find and gore more people,” Dung, a resident in Thuy Bieu ward, said.

As 10am, it rushed into the house of Tong Huu Thang, another resident, and chased after him and two his sons but fortunately they escaped as the animal got stuck in the bed.

Afterwards, the animal got angry and shattered the bed with its pair of horns. It continued to run into a nearby house and butted a motorbike. The animal also ran after a young man who timely hid in a kindergarten classroom.

“He rushed into our schoolyard and asked me to close the door to prevent the buffalo from attacking the kids. I and another teacher woke the children up, locked the back door and ran outside through the main one,” Tran Thi Tuy, the school teacher, recalled.

Tuy added that the buffalo was kept in the schoolyard as both of the doors were locked.

“As 11am, local police shot down the animal by firing 8 bullets in its head and body,” Ton Si Bach, a local resident, told VnExpress.

Bach and other people said the buffalo allegedly broke loose from a slaughterhouse because they saw some injuries on the animal’s nose.

“It’s possible that the buffalo had beaten up badly before being killed for food, so it went wild and rushed to the streets and attacked people,” Bach guessed.

After being shot to death, the buffalo’s body was brought to the ward’s office. Its owner remains unidentified.

Minister calls for fight against drugs

Senior Lieutenant General Tran Dai Quang, Minister of Public Security, has asked the Departments of Public Security in Ha Noi and HCM City to step up work on curbing drug trafficking across Vietnamese borders.
From mid-April to early May, police uncovered six cases of drug trafficking and arrested eight people who were attempting to transport nearly 32 kilogrammes of drugs into Viet Nam through the Noi Bai and Tan Son Nhat international airports.
Quang praised the achievement in a letter to officials and offered the border gate police of Noi Bai and Tan Son Nhat airports a reward of VND10 million (US$480) each.

Land subsidence occurs in Quang Ninh

Nearly 30 households in northern Quang Ninh Province's Cam Pha City have been evacuated after land subsided in the residential area of Nam Son 2.

Three houses collapsed completely and many others were at risk, but no one was reported dead or injured in the incident.
A hole around 1.5m deep and 3-5m wide first appeared near the homes of workers from the Da Mai Southwestern Coal Joint Stock Company, before expanding to more than 4m deep and 10m wide on Tuesday.

The provincial Natural Resources and Environment Department deputy director Dang Dinh Lop said his department would work with the Viet Nam National Coal – Mineral Industries Holding Corporation Limited to find the cause.

HCMC seizes 13 tons of rotten chicken legs, pig udder

A Ho Chi Minh City joint inspection team has discovered a large amount of chicken legs and pig udder carried by a truck from Hanoi into the city.

Yesterday the city’s Thu Duc District Animal Quarantine Station and a traffic police force stopped a suspicious frozen truck for examination and discovered that it was carrying 10 tons of chicken legs and 3 tons of pig breasts – all rotten, stained and stinking.

The legs were packed in plastic bags and the breasts were contained in 46 cartons.

The truck was owned by transport firm Ngoc Hoan.

The driver, Tran Van Chinh, 30, of Nam Dinh Province, showed the inspector a duplicate of the quarantine certificate issued on May 6, 2012 by the Hanoi Animal Quarantine Sub-department.

However, inspectors surprisingly found that the document was actually issued for the goods carried by another truck, with number plate 15C-03-126 owned by the Tien Dat Food Trading Company.

It was the same truck that was caught carrying 2.2 tons of rotten meat by Dong Nai province authorities on April 18, as covered in the Tuoitrenews story “ Driver takes back rotten meat during incineration”, published on April 19.

Chinh said he was hired to transport the goods from Hanoi to several places in HCMC, including the District 9 Bus Station, Thu Duc, and An Suong crossroads.

Shortly after the goods was seized, a 34-year-old man, Cao Chi Dong, came to the station and told officers there that he is the owner of the rotten pig breasts.

The station and police are investigating in order to trace the origin of the goods.

As previously reported, Dong Nai province authorities on April 18 caught the aforementioned frozen truck carrying 2.2 tons of rotten cow and buffalo meat packed in 33 bags. All the items were stinking and rotten.

The goods were seized and the truck was escorted by market management officers to a yard in Long Binh Ward for the destruction of the meat.

All the bags of meat were put in a large hole in the yard and set on fire with petrol. About 20 minutes later, the officers in charge left the area.

At that time, the flames had only burnt the upper layer of the bags of meat and then died out. The truck’s driver and two other men proceeded to pull all the bags of meat out of the hole, loaded them back onto the truck and then drove it to Trien Khanh Private Enterprise, a cattle meat processor in Thuan An Town, Binh Duong Province.

Tuoi Tre immediately reported the case to Binh Duong’s concerned agencies, which raided the enterprise and found 8.4 tons of rotten meat being kept in cold starage.

Erosion destroys Delta houses

Five people were injured after four houses collapsed into the Cua Lon River in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta province of Ca Mau yesterday because of soil erosion.

Another house was badly damaged in the accident which took place at around 1:20am, leaving all members of five families in Nam Can District's Hang Vinh Commune homeless.

The two badly injured victims were rushed to the General Hospital in Ca Mau City.

The victims said they were sleeping in their homes when they felt vibrations and heard cracking noises from columns of their houses. They barely managed to get out before their houses collapsed into the river.

In the afternoon, Nam Can District officials visited the victims and offered VND4 million (US$192) to each of the five households.
On Wednesday night, another house collapsed into the Cua Lon River about one kilometer away from the site of the above-said accident, the district authorities said. There were no reports of casualties.

Several localities in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta are facing serious threats of land loss to soil erosion as the massive destruction of mangroves and climate change impacts take their toll.

HCM City plays host to obstetrics conference

Vietnamese and foreign experts presented nearly 50 papers at the 12th Viet Nam-France-Asia-Pacific Conference on Obstetrics and Gynecology held yesterday, May 10, in HCM City.

The annual conference, organised by the city-based Tu Du Hospital, the French College National Gynecologist-obstetricians, and the Borderless Gynecology Association, discussed the latest developments in the field.

Population, women's health, environmental effects on reproductive health, prenatal diagnosis, and assisted reproductive technology were among the topics on the agenda.

The conference attracted around 80 Vietnamese and foreign academics and medical practitioners.

Intel helps bring IT knowledge to Vietnam

Intel Vietnam Ltd., Co. has introduced a programme to teach information technology (IT) on TV during 2012, aiming at universalising IT for the community.

This is part of a joint programme between the Ministry of Information and Communication and Intel, launched in Hanoi on May 10.

The programme includes many activities which will last until the end of 2012.

Intel expects that through the programme, which is produced in collaboration with the Vietnam television company (VTC), 1 million Vietnamese people will be trained and retrained in computer skills and IT applications.

According to Andrew Allison, Director of the Asia-Pacific World Ahead Intel programme, the introduction of the Intel Easy Steps textbook in Vietnam is part of the group’s “Social Responsibilities” activities which have been implemented in many countries, making contributions to improving learning, as well as the coordination between families and schools in education and training development.

The company will also organise IT classes in remote areas with the assistance of volunteer Vietnamese students.
Australia helps Vietnam fight tuberculosis

A group of Vietnamese doctors have recently worked with the Centenary Institute under the University of Sydney and the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research in Australia on plans to prevent tuberculosis (TB) in Vietnam.  

The coordination on the National TB Control Programme (NTCP) research project between the Centenary Institute and the Vietnamese Central Hospital for Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases (CHTLD) in the past two years has gained remarkable results. The project is now being implemented at 71 hospitals in 8 cities and provinces across Vietnam.

NTCP Deputy Director Dr. Nguyen Tien Nhung said Australia has supported Vietnam in two major research projects on finding active TB in people who have contact with TB patients, and TB related genes.

In addition, Australia has sent doctors and researchers to work in Vietnam, and Vietnam also sent doctors to study at the University of Sydney, he said.

Voluntary martyrs repatriated from Laos

Thirty two sets of remains of Vietnamese voluntary soldiers and experts were reburied at the Road No. 9 Cemetery in the central province of Quang Tri on May 10.

This was the 26th repatriation of remains since 1993, showing the deep gratitude of both countries towards those who had laid down their lives for national independence.

The ceremony was attended by senior officials from the Ministry of National Defence and Military Zone No. 4, Vietnamese Consul General to Laos, local authorities, soldiers and people.

The remains of the soldiers, who were killed in Laos’s Savanakhet province, had been found by search team No.589 under the QuangTri Military Command after seven months.

Only two sets of remains were identified as Le De and Phuong. The others remain unknown.

Unbridled construction of power plants criticized

Delegates attending the conference “Sustainable development of hydroelectricity -lessons and recommendations” held this week in Quang Nam have criticized the unbridled construction of hydroelectric power plants in the central province.

Report shows that Quang Nam now has 119 hydroelectric plants built in forests. On average, one forest accommodates 2.5 projects.

Le Phuoc Thanh, chief of the parliamentary delegation of Quang Nam, said, “Hydroelectric power plants bring benefits to investors but not to local residents”. He pointed out their negative effects such as flood, relocation of citizens, lack of land for production, high rate of poverty and forest destruction.

Do Tai, chairman of the People’s Committee of Dong Giang District, complained that his residents do not have enough land for production and thus, have been forced to destroy the forest to earn a living.

Besides, the projects have caused bad effects on biological diversification.

At the conference, many professors and experts suggested leaders take urgent actions now to prevent further consequences from the thick power factory network.

Ph.D Vu Trong Hong, president of Vietnam Irrigation Association, recommended local authorities make a comprehensive survey to assess the stability of dams as soon as possible.

“We have taken the wrong step in building so many hydroelectric plants. Now, it’s hard for us to make amends,” said Dinh Van Thu, vice chairman of the People’s Committee of Quang Nam.

VNN/VOV/VNS/Tuoi Tre