Car crash injures 10 policemen

Ten policemen were injured after their vehicle collided with a car at the Hang Bai-Ly Thuong Kiet intersection yesterday, June 10.

Three of the 10 policemen are still in comas.

According to initial information, the van carrying 13 policemen plunged into a pavement, the driver of the car who had caused the crash was escaping.

Police are investigating the case.

Crawling as punishment for game addiction

Many locals in Gia Nghia town, Dak Nong province, yesterday witnessed two boys crawling along a road while a man followed, shouting at them.
The scene took place on Hai Ba Trung Street.

The man turned out to be the father punishing his two sons for their online game addiction.
The angry man told passers-by that the boys were so addicted to online games that they neglected their studies.
The boys are eighth and tenth grade students at a local high school, he said.
After locals calmed him down, the man agreed to stop the punishment.
Locals said the boys had crept about 500 meters.
The man is a resident of the town’s Nghia Thanh ward, locals said.

Sweets, soft drink contain plasticiser

HCM City's Food Hygiene and Safety Department has discovered imported candies and soft drinks to contain bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), which health experts say has potential harmful effects. DEHP is widely used as a plasticiser in manufacturing of articles made of PVC. The illegal use of the plasticiser in clouding agents for use in food has been reported.

The candies labelled Marshies with flavours of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry were imported from the Philippines by HAMICO Co Ltd. About 100 candy packages were withdrawn from the market and another 2,100 packages blockaded in the storehouse.

The soft drinks containing syrups with the flavours of red apple, grape and litchi were imported from Taiwan by Gia Thinh Phat Co Ltd. These products were also ordered to be recalled.

Unknown beast attacks women at central forest

An unidentified animal allegedly attacked 5 women while they were sleeping at a forest in the central province of Nghe An on Wednesday night, reported VietnamNet.

On June 8, Vi Thi Diep, Vi Thi Hung and three other women came to the Pha Den forest in Ban Dom 2 Commune, Chau Phong Commune, Quy Chau District to look for some herbs.

The women decided to build a tent and rest in the forest as they found nothing after a whole day.

After dinner, they heard a noise outside and a strange animal suddenly rushed into the tent and started roaring.

As the women armed themselves with sticks and knives for protection, the animal fled.

But it came back minutes later and made another sudden attack. The beast managed to hurt Vi Thi Diep on her right hand before running again to the forest.

“It was too dark and the fire was not bright enough for us to see what exactly the animal was,” said Vi Thi Hung.

Vi Van Phuong, an experienced local hunter, said there used to be a big tiger wandering around Pha Den forest.

Although no one has seen the tiger for five years, local loggers have recently found some big, cat-like footprints scattered throughout the forest, which they said might belong to the tiger, he said.

Another official nabbed for bloating house prices

Hanoi police have arrested an executive of the state-owned Urban Development Infrastructure Corporation (UDIC) for allegedly raising house prices to pocket the difference in a housing project.
Nguyen Thi Minh Dung, 53, was detained on Thursday and the police searched her office in Hanoi, seizing a CPU, two cartons of documents and some cash.
She was charged with “abusing position and power to appropriate assets.”
Earlier on June 6, the police arrested Truong Chien Binh, 38, general director of the Hanoi-based UDIC Investment and Real Estate Management Joint Stock Company – a UDIC subsidiary – for allegedly committing a similar offense.
Police searched Binh’s house and office, seizing many documents related to the case.
Three days before, the police detained Nguyen Tran Linh, 34, Binh’s deputy and also the company’s sales director, and Dang Quang Huy, 27, an executive of the UDIC trading floor, for the same charge.
Extortion
The three men increased the selling price of houses under a UDIC housing project including 12 apartments and appropriated the balance, investigators said.
In other words, they forced buyers to pay them an additional amount outside the contractual price.

The police suspected that Dung, who was assigned to supervise the project – in Hanoi’s Cau Giay District – had colluded with Binh in appropriating money from house buyers.
In late May, Nguyen Van Loc, from Ha Nam province, wanted to buy an apartment of the project. The apartment was priced at VND135 million (US$6,600) per square meter, but Linh and Huy told Loc that he would have to pay them an additional VND52 million ($2,500) per square meter.
Linh asked Loc to transfer the extra amount to him before signing the contract.
As the house is 86.1 square meters, the extra value amounted to nearly VND4.4 billion ($214,000).
Loc agreed to the deal but later reported the case to police, who arrested Linh and Huy while they were receiving the money from Loc on June 3.
The police said Chien, Binh, and Huy had sold 7 of the 12 apartments in this manner and pocketed nearly VND30 billion ($1.46 million).

They are continuing investigation.

Singer put in coma by gang

A gang in northern Quang Ninh province ruthlessly beat singer Duong Tuan Khanh Thursday, putting him in a coma and critical condition with a fractured skull and brain swelling.
Due to his critical condition, his relatives took him to a hospital in the Chinese city of Dongxing for treatment.
He reportedly remains in a coma at the hospital.
Early Thursday morning Khanh was told that an underground gang was causing harassment at a recreation area he owns on Hoa Binh Avenue. He then rushed to the site in his car.
On the way there, the gang stopped his car on Thang Long Avenue, pulled him out and beat him with iron rods until he became unconscious.
They also broke the windows of the car.
Police examined the scene and later focused their suspicion on a gang that was led by a leading gangster in the town of Mong Cai.
Tuan Khanh, of northern Hai Phong City's Ngo Quyen District, is the director of a recreation and fashion company that has been operating in the entertainment field in Mong Cai.
He has had recent success with the song “Đôi Uyên Uơng Thời @ (A Happy Couple in the Time of @).”
The police are expanding their investigation to track down the perpetrators of the brutal assault.

Two ships seized for smuggling chrome ore

A ship smuggling chrome ore was seized in northern Ninh Binh Province on Wednesday, according to the deputy commander of the province's Border Guard, Vu Van Lu.

About 800 tonnes of chrome ore were reported on the ship with no legal documents.

The ship had tried to flee after being asked to stop for check, but was later caught by Nam Dinh Province's Border Guard. Another ship carrying about 1,300 tonnes of smuggled chrome ore was seized in the same province two days ago.

Waterfalls and current energy researched

Vo Chi Cong, professor of Thermoelectric Cooling Technology at Da Naêng University of Science and Technology, successfully studied the use of waterfalls and water current energy for refrigeration.

This technology, applied in its daily ice-making capabilities, will help lower the price of ice by 35 per cent, compared to the cost of using electricity.

The cooling system, worth about VND12 million (US$571), can produce 200 kilogrammes of ice per day. The system can be applied in remote mountainous areas to preserve food.

Hanoi man stabbed in gang fight

A man was stabbed on Friday morning in a gang fight next to Hanoi People’s Committee headquarters on Le Lai Street.

Eyewitnesses said a group of two young men and a girl were walking on Le Lai Street at 8am when they suddenly came under attack by another group of young men.

A member of the latter group stabbed one man with a knife, causing the victim to fall to the street.

The victim, later identified as Thach The Duc, was immediately rushed to the hospital.

Neither of his friends nor any of the passers-by dared to intervene to stop the attack as the man appeared too violent.

He even challenged them to call the police, saying that he was taking revenge for his younger brother, who was earlier stabbed by Duc, one witness said.

The police quickly arrived to arrest some of the men for investigation.

Boat with Vietnamese sailors held in Maldives

Seahome Sapphiare, a boat with a crew of 13 Vietnamese and six others, has been held in Maldives, an island nation in the Indian Ocean, for three months due to financial problems.
Le Van Gioi, one of the Vietnamese sailors on the boat, sent a message to Tuoi Tre yesterday to ask for help, since the crew has run out of money, food and drinking water.
Due to payment problems, the local authorities neither allow the crew members to disembark nor permit the boat to leave, Gioi said.
Seahome Sapphiare is owned and operated by Gia Hai Shipping Co., Ltd., located in Binh Thanh District, Ho Chi Minh City.
The company has not paid salary to the crew since January 2011, Gioi said.
Tuoi Tre immediately contacted Vu Quang, Gia Hai director, who said the money transfer to the crew was late due to some unexpected problems.
He admitted that the company has fallen 4 months behind salary payment to the crew.
The company said they would pay the crew one month’s salary first and another month’s payment when the ship arrives in another port.
The one-month salary and another sum, which is for food and drinks, would reach them by next Monday, June 13, Quang said.

When the boat returns to Vietnam, the company will pay all the salary arrears to the crew, he said.
Quang also said he would work with the Maldives authorities to obtain permission for the boat to leave.
Meanwhile, the Myanmar captain of the boat warned that he would not continue his duty unless the company pays him all the salary it owes him.

$25m to upgrade cancer facility

The Hue Central Hospital will upgrade its tumour centre with an official development assistance loan of 17 million euros (US$25 million) from Austria.

Last week, hospital authorities signed a contract for equipment supply and construction with Austria's VAMED Engineering in Vienna during a visit to the EU country as part of a Thua Thien Hue Province delegation.

Work will begin later this year and is expected to take 30 months. The hospital is the largest in the central region.

Hand-food-mouth virus detected in Quang Ngai

Enterovirus 71 (EV 71), a new strain of virus in the hand-foot-mouth disease, was detected for the first time in the central province of Quang Ngai.

Among the 17 samples the province sent to Nha Trang City's Pasteur Institute for testing, four tested positive for the Coxsackie family virus which typically causes the disease, while one tested positive for the EV710.

The EV71 could cause complications such as meningitis and heart failure, and eventually lead to death.

The disease has caused at least 17 deaths nation-wide since early this year.

Justice sought for AO victims

Truong Tan Sang, Politburo member and permanent member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of Viet Nam, called for more support of Vietnamese Agent Orange victims in obtaining justice from the American authorities responsible for using AO during the war.

Speaking at the launch of the ‘Acting for Agent Orange Victims in Viet Nam' campaign in the capital city yesterday, Sang said that many AO victims were still struggling with life-threatening diseases, poverty and the loss of family members.

Praise

Sang praised the campaign, initiated by the Viet Nam Fatherland Front Central Committee, saying that it offered practical support to AO victims in surmounting difficulties to integrate into the communities and build better lives.

He called on all relevant authorities and organisations to take practical action in supporting and caring for AO victims, expressing Viet Nam's desire to continue receiving support from friends across the world in helping it overcome the devastating aftermath of Agent Orange.

The campaign is launched between June 26 and August 10 this year, in commemoration of the 50 years since the Agent Orange (Dioxin) disaster hit Viet Nam.

Organisations and individuals attending the launch ceremony donated VND2 billion (US$95,000) in cash, wheelchairs and scholarships to AO victims.

The Vietnam News Agency also donated VND20 million to the Association for Victims of Agent Orange in Da Nang City yesterday, June 10.

According to the Viet Nam Association for Victims of Agent Orange President, Nguyen Van Rinh, the US Army sprayed 80 million litres of Agent Orange, containing 366 kilogrammes of dioxin, across 30,000 square miles of southern Viet Nam between 1961 and 1971. As many as 4.8 million Vietnamese were directly exposed to Agent Orange and other herbicides during the Viet Nam War.

VFF leader congratulates Hoa Hao Buddhist sect

The President of the Viet Nam Fatherland Front (VFF) Central Committee, Huynh Dam, sent his regards to the Hoa Hao Buddhist sect's Central Executive Committee, its dignitaries and its followers to mark the sect's 72nd anniversary yesterday.

In a congratulatory message, the Fatherland Front leader commended the Hoa Hao Buddhist followers' solidarity and active contributions to national construction and defence.

He also highlighted the sect's efforts in upholding the philosophy "For the Faith, for the Nation" and taking part in practical patriotic activities, such as the movement to build a civilised lifestyle in the community and reserve a ‘Day for the Poor', a scheme launched by the VFF Central Committee.

Dam said he believed that the sect would make further contributions to national construction, studying and following the moral example of President Ho Chi Minh and implementing the 11th National Party Congress Resolution.

Din Ky, Chinese families differ on damages

Din Ky Restaurant Private Enterprise’s representatives, which owns the restaurant boat that sank on the Saigon River on May 20 killing 16 people, and the families of the four Chinese who died in the accident have failed to agree on compensation for mental anguish.
At their meeting on June 8, the Chinese families lowered their previous claim from US$50,000 to $US30,000 per victim, but Din Ky said it could only pay $US7,000 per victim.
Din Ky, located in Binh Duong province, argued that the Chinese’s claim should be practical and in accordance with the applicable laws of Vietnam.
Under prevailing regulations, a compensation for mental anguish cannot exceed 60 times the common minimum wage, which is now VND830,000 ($US40.40), Din Ky said.
The enterprise also said it has fallen into financial difficulties.
In addition to requesting higher compensation, the relatives of the Chinese victims maintained their previous demand that the owner of Din Ky, Chau Hoan Tam, be held criminally accountable for his negligence, said lawyer Ha Hai from Ho Chi Minh City.

They want Tam to be indicted for operating the tour boat port without a license, using a poor-quality boat, failing to re-register it after it had expired, and assigning an unlicensed pilot to drive the boat, Hai said.
"These are the causes for the death of our four relatives,” they wrote in their complaints to the Binh Duong police.
The Chinese who died in the accident are Zhuo Ying Hua, Jiang Li, Guo Dong Hui and Guo De Cai.
The bodies had been held in the morgue at Cho Ray Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City before being incinerated on Wednesday morning.
The ashes of the cremated bodies were sent to China Thursday afternoon.

VNN/VOV/VNS/TuoiTre