Fifth-grade students hospitalized for pesticide poisoning 

Three fifth-grade students of a school in the Mekong Delta province of Hau Giang were still unconscious as of Saturday morning after being admitted to the local hospital with suspected pesticide poisoning on Friday.

One student, Tran Quoc Trung, regained consciousness on Friday while the other three - Truong Quoc Thang, Vo Minh Kha, and Lam Anh Minh - were yet to regain consciousness, doctors at Can Tho City’s Children Hospital said.

However, none of them were in critical condition, they added.

Nguyen Ba Tuoc, principal of the Long Thanh 1 Primary School, said the four students lost consciousness and their bodies turned pale around five minutes after coming back to class after a break.

Some of their classmates said they saw Trung, Thang, Kha and Minh drinking from a bottle of milky water during the break, but did not know what the drink was.

Police in Hau Giang’s Phung Hiep District are investigating the incident.

Tourism firm fined $15,400 for illegal constructions 

A corner of the Quynh Long tourism park in the central province of Phu Yen (Photo by SGTT)

Authorities in the central province of Phu Yen Friday fined the local branch of Quynh Long Company VND300 million (US$15,400) for illegally building 65 tourism facilities.

The unit had constructed the facilities on an area of nearly 18,000 square meters in Deo Ca Forest since 2005 and put them into operation though relevant agencies were yet to grant or lease the land to it, the Phu Yen People’s Committee said.

The firm had also failed to file an environment impact assessment, the committee said.

In related news, the Da Nang City administration has imposed a fine of VND225 million on Suc Tre Company based in Lien Chieu Industrial Park for dumping untreated wastewater into the environment.

In Ho Chi Minh City, the Tan Viet Wastewater Treatment Company located in Tan Thoi Hiep Industrial Park has been fined VND140 million for not having a safe place to temporarily store dangerous waste and dumping wastewater with toxic substances exceeding acceptable levels into the environment.

Female cop investigated in deadly traffic accident 

Police in the northern port city of Hai Phong Thursday said they are investigating a female lieutenant-colonel for running over a person to death and critically injuring another in a traffic accident last month.

On November 27, Nguyen Thi Lan Anh, deputy chief of Hai Phong Police’s Anti-Spy Security Division, drove a car from the beach to Do Son District, police said.

The car climbed on to the pavement on Ly Thanh Tong Street, hitting a motorbike carrying Nguyen Tan Cuong, 27, and Do Van Hiep, 25.

Cuong died on the spot, while Hiep was critically injured.

Witnesses said the 38-year-old officer was driving at high speed when she made a turn, so the car overran the road and climbed the sidewalk.

While trying to save the victims, locals found Anh hysterical and trying to take the car away from the site, they said.

The car smelt strongly of alcohol and two other young men in it were vomiting, they added. 

Investigators in Do Son District are cooperating with prosecutors in assessing Anh’s responsibility in the accident, Hai Phong police officials said.

GCSF and Boeing support the opening of a school in Quang Tri

An inauguration ceremony for Ta Lao Primary School in Ta Long Commune, Dakrong District, Quang Tri Province was held on December 8th with the participation of representatives from the Global Community Service Fund (GCSF), Boeing Company and Ta Lao village.

Built at a cost of US$31,000 from Boeing Company, the school, with 30 students from grade 3 to 5, is an environmentally-friendly place for children in Ta Lao village to study and play, as well as a get-together place for pupils’ parents and villagers.

Since the beginning of this year, GCSF and Boeing Company opened a school in A Vao Commune, Quang Tri Province, for 350 primary and secondary school pupils.

Over the past four years, Boeing Company has helped build 16 schools in 12 provinces and cities across Vietnam.

Speaking at the ceremony, Wes Harper, Boeing Company’s Marketing Director, said that the cooperation between Boeing Company and GCSF has continued to produce good results in Vietnam. He hoped that the opening of the Ta Lao School will further encourage pupils in their studies and contributions to the interest of the whole community.

Ex-officials nabbed for stock market fraud 

Investigators with the Ministry of Public Security Wednesday arrested in Hanoi two former officials of a subsidiary company of the state-owned oil and gas group PetroVietnam for management violations. 

Dao Duy Phong, former chairman of the PetroVietnam Real Estate Joint-stock Company (PVPowerland), and Nguyen Ngoc Sinh, former director general of the company, will be kept in custody for four months, investigators said.

They are accused of “lacking responsibility,” resulting in the company incurring losses of billions of dong in the sale of shares of Thai Binh Duong Services Joint-stock Company, of which PVPowerland is a founding shareholder. 

The investigators had last month placed Dang Sy Hung, former chief of PVPowerland’s economics and planning department under investigation, the Nguoi Lao Dong newspaper reported.

The paper also said that Hung was still at large.  

Initial enquiries show that when selling 12 million shares of PVPowerland to Le Hoa Binh, chairman of the 1-5 Construction and Services Joint-stock Company, Hung and Binh made a deal at VND14,000 per share, while it was listed at nearly VND21,000, Nguoi Lao Dong said. 

Hung and his accomplices then pocketed the price difference of VND66 billion (US$3.38 million).

The case is being investigated further.

Explosion injures forest ranger in northern Vietnam 

An explosion, which was allegedly caused by a home-made explosive, injured one person at a forest rangers’ station in the northern province of Thanh Hoa Thursday. 

Initial information showed that the incident happened at around 6 a.m. when a group of unidentified assailants hurled a home-made bomb into the Ngoc Lac District ranger station.

Le Van Tien, a ranger, was injured, and some equipment was damaged, witnesses said. 

A leader of Thanh Hoa Forest Rangers’ Agency who wished to remain anonymous confirmed the incident with Thanh Nien, but refused to provide more related information.

Related agencies are investigating the case and hunting for suspects.

WB satisfied at educational project for disadvantaged children

The Primary Education for Disadvantaged Children Project (PEDC), which aims to improve quality of education services and underprivileged children’s access to school, is one of the most efficient educational projects in Vietnam.

The remark was made by the World Bank inspection team at a conference to sum-up the PEDC in the 2003-2010 period, held by the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) in Hanoi on Dec. 8.

The World Bank supervision team visited PEDC beneficiary localities from Nov. 24 to Dec. 8 to assess the completion rates of the project’s initially-set targets and its effects on Vietnam’s implementation of educational targets as well as its sustainable benefits to the country.

At the conference, the WB team’s head, Maris O’Rouke, reported that the local authorities, teachers and parents of students showed improved awareness of their role and responsibility in reducing the proportion of children leaving school and in encouraging children to continue their education.

The project helped many schools obtain the minimum standard quality for their educational services. More than 300,000 teachers and managing officials in the projected localities were provided with training in 14 different programmes.

The PEDC also coordinated well a government-sponsored programme to upgrade schools to surpass the mid-term target in the number of schools upgraded and rebuilt.

Regarding financial management, the WB team praised the PEDC for a high rate of capital disbursement at over 99 percent.

The PEDC’s Director Dang Tu An said the project after seven years helped improve infrastructure for primary schools in the targeted districts. It built and upgraded more than 19,860 classrooms in 6,720 schools, 5,100 teacher’s rooms, and 10,640 toilets. It equipped the schools with 72,000 school desks, 3,400 tables for teachers, and thousands of blackboards.

It also helped improve the quality of primary education services through training teachers as well as assistants to help teachers and students of ethnic minority groups to better understand each other and grasp the curricula.

Thanks to the project, the number of registered students in 2010 was 98.7 percent compared to the target of 96 percent and the rate of children completing primary education in 2010 was 97.1 percent, exceeding the target by 10 percent.

The PEDC is a cooperation project of the Vietnamese Government, the World Bank, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), and the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID).

Vietnam hosts animal trafficking summit 

Smuggled wildlife animals being confiscated by Vietnamese authorities.

Key international and national organizations met in Hanoi on Thursday in a summit designed to bolster co-operation in tackling the illegal trans-boundary wildlife trade.

The two-day workshop brought together Vietnamese and international enforcement agencies to discuss enforcement challenges and strategies, according to wildlife trade monitor network TRAFFIC in a press release December 2.

The discussions will also draw from the knowledge of enforcement experts in other fields of illegal trade (such as narcotic and human trafficking), it said.

Representatives from international organizations including INTERPOL, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Customs Organization, and South Africa National Wildlife Crime Reaction Unit, will join nearly 30 representatives from Vietnamese enforcement agencies.

Despite an increase in enforcement efforts by international organizations and governments to control illegal wildlife trade at the national, regional and global level, this thriving business continues to threaten species such as tigers, rhinoceroses and elephants with extinction, TRAFFIC said in a statement.

Russia closes market, lays off 400 Vietnamese

Russian authorities Tuesday closed down the Emeral market in Moscow, driving away some 400 Vietnamese traders.

The closure follows an inspection tour headed by Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin who concluded a number of retail markets there did not meet safety and hygiene standards.

Dong Minh Du, a Vietnamese student who used to work at the Emeral market, told Tuoi Tre Moscow authorities would continue to clear other markets in the area next year.

“How can we make a living? I heard Russian authorities would ban all foreign retailers next year as well,” Vietnamese trader Nguyen Van Tinh was quoted by Lao Dong newspaper as saying.

“It never rains but it pours. We have just begun our new life after the Dome Market was closed”.

He was referring to the Cherkizovsky Market, known by Vietnamese traders as Cho Vom (Dome Market) which was closed last year, putting 100,000 people, mostly immigrants, out of work.

Vietnamese traders and workers made up nearly half of those who lost their livelihoods when Cherkizovsky was closed.

The 28-hectare Emeral market is operated by mostly traders from Russia and former Soviet Union countries, and a number of Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, Indian and Arabian traders.