Healthy lifestyle can beat diabetes

People were advised to change their lifestyles by eating and drinking healthily and doing more physical activity at a function held last Saturday in HCM City to mark World Diabetes Day, November 14.

This was one of the most effective ways to prevent diabetes, Dr Nguyen Van Tien, head of the national diabetes prevention programme, told the attendees.

Improper diet and lack of physical activity could easily trigger chronic non-infectious diseases like diabetes, he warned.

The function at the Military Zone No.7 stadium in Phu Nhuan District, titled Proper Diet and Physical Activities in Diabetes Prevention, gathered nearly 2,000 people who were tested for blood pressure and glucose.

Diabetes had received attention from the country's leaders, Tien added.

In 2002 the Government approved a national programme on preventing non-infectious diseases that targeted reducing the number of people with diabetes and fatalities due to the disease.

In 2009 it approved a national programme for diabetes prevention.

WHO estimates 243 million people became diabetic in 2010 and the number will increase to 430 million by 2030.

In developing countries, nearly 90 per cent of diabetics do not know they have the disease.

In Viet Nam, the rate of diabetes among the population was 5 per cent in 2008 while 27 per cent have pre-diabetes.

Dr Do Thi Ngoc Diep, head of the HCM City Nutrition Centre, said a decade ago only people aged between 30 and 65 got diabetes, but now even people between 25 and 35 were becoming diabetic.

The event was organised by the HCM City Nutrition Center and sponsored by the Nutrition Food Joint Stock Company, or NUTIFOOD.

Tuoi Tre shoots video of man scattering nails

A photo extracted from a video clip recorded by Tuoi Tre's reporters showing the way Truyen scattered sharp nails on the road. (Photo: Tuoi Tre)

The video shows that on November 6, the man, who was later identified as 30-year-old Tran Ngoc Tuan, hid behind a cupboard in his repair shop located in Binh Chieu Ward of Thu Duc District to create diamond-shaped nails that he later used to trap drivers.

At 3 pm on the same day when a few vehicles were traveling on the National Highway 1A located in Thu Duc District, Tuan took a handful of nails and drove his motorcycle toward the Go Dua intersection and turned left to the Song Than crossing bridge.

While he was reaching the middle of the bridge, he secretly dropped nails through his fingers. Then he used a different road to get back to his shop.

At his shop, Tuan comfortably enjoyed tea and waited for his “preys.” 2 drivers then showed up with flattened tires.

After a few minutes, he picked a diamond-shaped nail from a customer’s tube and said, “You ran over nails, you have to change the tube.”

As the customers were still deciding, Tuan went on to create even more holes in the tube. The customers finally decided to change it at the cut-throat price of VND70,000, which is twice as much as usual.

That day, Tuan had more customers, including a monk. Among Tuan’s set of repair tools, there was a sharp knife. He used the knife to slit or destroy motorcycle tubes.

In just one day in late October, Tuan destroyed a tube and tire with a knife and a pair of scissors while the 20-year-old customer was distracted. Tuan then overcharged him VND200,000 (US$10) for a new set.

Tuan scatters nails three to four times a week usually between 7:00 to 8:00 pm. Sometimes, he changes the schedule to avoid suspicious looks.

He records his daily sales in a book that he places at his bed-head. According to the numbers shown in the book, he earns an average of VND500,000 – VND600,000 a day. Sometimes, he earns up to VND2 million a day.

After Tuoi Tre gave the video to local authorities on the morning of November 12, on the afternoon of the same day, local police raided Tran Ngoc Tuan’s repair shop and arrested him.

The police also found some tools used to create nails and his sale book.

Families affected by explosion at mine discuss compensation

The People's Committee of Tam Diep Commune in northern Ninh Binh Province has met with relevant agencies and local households to discuss damages and compensation after the explosion at the Dong Giao mine.

Chairman of the committee Vu Ngoc Chau explained that a deliberate blast had been carried out by the National Defence Industrial Materials Ltd.Co on December 22, 2010, in order to remove packed earth and rocks for coal exploitation. The explosion had caused vibrations that had so far affected 286 households.

The mine explosion was ordered under a contract between the company and Tay Nguyen Mineral Exploitation Company, a subsidiary of the Ministry of National Defence's East West Coal Corporation, which was licensed by the provincial People's Committee to exploit coal at Dong Giao mine.

Local authorities brought operations to a halt while they determined the total loss of property caused by the mine explosion and worked with the company to estimate compensation for affected households.

As of now, 260 out of 286 households have accepted and received compensation amounting to a total of VND4.1 billion (US$196,800). The remaining 26 households believed the proposed figure was not sufficient.

Chairman Chau said local authorities would continue encouraging the remaining households to accept the compensation to ensure social order and security.

The exploitation could only be carried out with the consent of local people, he said.

If these households continued to refuse the offer, local authorities would inform them of their legal rights to take action against the East West Corporation, Chau said.

Lightning kills 2 in Ho Chi Minh City

Two people sheltering from the rain in a hut in Ho Chi Minh City last Sunday were killed by lightning.

Nguyen Van Ut, 21, of Cu Chi District said he and his wife Nguyen Thi Ngoc Nguyen (17), two brothers Nguyen Van Thai and Nguyen Van Nhieu Phan, and Van Nha (29) ran into the hut in the middle of a field in Xuan Thoi Thuong Commune, Hoc Mon District, after it started to rain.

A bolt of lightning struck the hut, killing Nguyen and Nha instantly and tossing the rest outside.

Thai and Nhieu were seriously burnt and have been hospitalized.

Ut, a laborer, and Nguyen, a security guard, married a year ago, and she was a month pregnant.

Four days earlier, Uc had been hired by Nha to carry firewood in Xuan Thoi Thuong commune.

Nguyen was visiting her husband last Sunday.

Belgium, Viet Nam deal with food issues

The establishment of a Viet Nam-Belgium Food Net was officially announced at a two-day conference that opened here last Thursday.

The net has helped Viet Nam's universities and research institutes dealing with food issues to co-operate with Belgian counterparts in training, research and technology transfer, said Dr Ly Nguyen Binh, deputy head of Can Tho University's Agricultural and Biological Engineering Faculty.

Currently, the Food Net includes eight food research institutes and universities in Viet Nam and two universities in Belgium.

Pregnant girls seek adopters for unborn babies

Many pregnant girls have been posting messages online seeking somebody to adopt their babies and pay for the cost of childbirth.

“I am a student and cannot afford bringing up my future baby… Anyone wanting to adopt the baby can contact me at 0933014xxx,” a young girl who got pregnant unexpectedly said on the Internet.

The girl is one of many that have been contacted by VnExpress after they posted their “letters” online.

Most of these girls said they had been lured by unfaithful and deceitful men.

They did not want to mention the fathers of their future babies and wanted to hide their issues from their families.

An expecting mother with nickname Phonglan Tạ posted on hiemmuon.vn saying that she was expecting her baby between the end of this December and the beginning of next January and that anyone who is interested should contact her immediately.

Most of the girls also said they did not want to have an abortion but could not afford giving birth as well as bringing up their future babies.

Through the email address thanhthao...@yahoo.com, nEpxress.net contacted 27-year-old Thao, who was living with her family in District 11, HCMC and was in 6 months of pregnancy.

Thao said her boyfriend has abandoned her when he knew she got pregnant.
“My family’s living conditions are very poor,” she said. “I’m the main bread-earner. My job is not stable but I have to send money home to support my parents.”

Believing the reporter as a potential adopter, Thao said, “If you agree to receive my baby and pay for hospital fees, then I’ll use your name in signing papers at the hospital.”

When asked about their conditions for such a deal, most said they only needed to have a place to live until giving birth and to be paid for all costs related to childbirth.

Another girl is 20-year-old Minh, whose father died when she was a child. Minh is living with her mother in a poor rural area in Thanh Hoa Province. She is a university student and has to work to pay for school.

"I first worked as a dish washer at an eatery and then a marketer for a company, but I could not make enough money for my needs,” Minh said. “Then I accepted to live as a second wife of an old rich man who later abandoned me for a girl who was younger than me.”

Not long after that, Minh got pregnant with the man. “I didn’t dare to tell my mother about it, and couldn’t afford childbirth,” she said. “Yesterday doctors said the fetus had entered its 34 weeks. I couldn’t help bursting into tears when looking at the ultrasonic image of my future baby.”

Minh has stopped going to school and is now living on the support of her two girl friends with the hope that someone will adopt her child after reading her online message.

"I don’t know what to do if nobody adopts my baby.”

Some girls have faced this situation more than once.

A girl with nickname Huevn said, “Although I’ve decided that I wouldn’t repeat my mistake after the first time when I got pregnant with my boyfriend, I failed to control myself. Now I have to abandon my third child, a 7-month-old baby…”

Thu Thiem Tunnel opens to the public

More than 2,500 people in HCM City walked about 3km through Thu Thiem Tunnel yesterday morning as part of the inauguration ceremony of the tunnel and the East West-Vo Van Kiet Highway.

The project was an important step towards a modern urban traffic system, said Nguyen Van Hieu, municipal youth union secretary.

The Thu Thiem Tunnel, crossing the Sai Gon River, is the most modern underground road tunnel in Southeast Asia. The 1.5-km-long tunnel will be opened to traffic this Sunday.

Two new records set at rice festival

The Viet Nam Records Book Centre has recognised two records – the largest Vietnamese map made from paddies and the longest rice road – at the second Viet Nam Rice Festival.

The Vietnamese map covers an area of 54sq.m, symbolising 54 ethnic groups. It was made by 60 people in seven days, using 16kg of paddy.

The longest rice road is located on Hung Vuong Street of Soc Trang City. With a length of 1,200m, the road is lined with around 47,000 pots of paddy in different growth stages and many symbols of Mekong Delta agriculture.

Job center in central city engulfed by jobseekers

Tens of thousands of job seekers swallowed up a job center in the central province of Nghe An battle for a seat in an exam in Korean on Saturday morning.

Those were struggling for work in the Republic of Korea which says a certified command of Korean is a must for Vietnamese laborers.

The center based in Nghe An City – the provincial capital – had earlier announced any registration for the exam had to be made between Friday and Monday.

Thousands thus queued up at it for the registration forms with snacks and water in hand right in the small hours of the morning.

The center planned to distribute only 4,000 forms so the jobseekers jostled very hard for them, with some even risking their life by climbing the walls and water pipeline to get in the only registration room on the second floor.

Some women passed out after being fiercely elbowed.

Many complained the center hiked registration fees to VND560,000 (US$26.9) from the original VND510,000 ($24.5) without any reason.

Local residents made impromptu parking lots out of the pavement in front of the center to fleece the jobseekers, and cause traffic congestion at the same time.

Police were later called in to control the massive crowd of almost 10,000 thousand people.

The center has asked higher authorities for 2,000 additional forms and an extension of the deadline to November 16 given the chaotic situation.

Main driver of truck in tragic accident arrested

The main driver of a truck that killed 10 people and injured 20 others in an accident in Binh Thuan Province on November 6 has been arrested.

33-year-old Nguyen Dao of Khanh Hoa Province, who was the chief driver of the container truck that hit two buses in Hong Son Commune early in the morning of November 6, would be detained for 4 months for investigation, the Ham Thuan Bac District police said.

Dao wasn’t driving at the time of the accident and would be charged with “assigning unqualified people to drive road vehicles causing serious consequences,” the police said.

Dao told the police that after driving for a few hours from Khanh Hoa Province, he felt sleepy and asked his assistant, 22-year-old Tran Tu Thien – not Tran Thanh Thien as previously reported by the media – to drive the truck for him even though he knew Thien didn’t have a truck driver’s license.

Thien later lost control and crashed the truck into a bus of Tien Bo Thai Binh Transport Cooperative that was traveling on the opposite lane, and then hit another bus of Hoang Long Transport Company which was running on the same lane.

Thien’s truck and the Tien Bo Thai Binh bus, driven by 40-year-old Vu Manh Hung, exploded after the collision, killing 8 people on the spot and seriously wounding 20 others.

The injured victims were taken to Binh Thuan General Hospital, but 2 of them died on the way.

Thien was among the dead victims.

The container truck is owned by Thinh Hung Co Ltd in Cam Lam District, Khanh Hoa Province. The company has yet to submit the labor contract signed with Dao to the police.

Before the deadly accident, Dao was once fined and had his driver’s license withheld by the Binh Thuan traffic police for violating traffic rules.

The bus of Tien Bo Thai Binh Transport Cooperative was burned down in the accident.

Hanoi precocious child publishes novel at 10

A little boy who has yet to celebrate his tenth birthday has wowed many adults with his first novel, to be released next week.

The book, titled “Cuoc chien voi hanh tinh Fantom” (The fight against Fantom planet), to be published by Tre and Hong Bang publishing houses on November 17, tells a story about the fight of people on Earth against aliens.

Born in December 2001, Binh will turn 10 next month. At 18 months old, he learned to read and write and became fluent in reading and writing Vietnamese at the age of 3.

Two years later, he could use the computer and access the Internet.

At 6, he began to contribute to articles on the online, open encyclopedia Wikipedia.
“I could read at 3, but I did not remember what I read. They might be Dan Brown’s works,” Binh said with a smile.

The precocious boy also knows a little French and likes classical music.

He says science is his favorite topic and books about world civilizations his favorite kind of book. The 5th grade student could talk at length about ancient Egypt or the Silk Road.

Binh said when he first started his book in 2010, he tried to keep it secret from his family to surprise them.

"I wrote the book on my mom’s computer. At first no one knew about my work since I only wrote when they were all busy,” he said.

The boy’s dad said Binh often asked him to explain the meaning of words he did not understand. After a while, the father gave him a Vietnamese dictionary to look up the words’ meaning on his own.

“The most worn-out thing in my house is the dictionary I gave him,” Binh’s dad joked.

Pham Sy Sau, editor of Binh’s novel said he was surprised to find only 10 mistakes in the 200-page book.

“The book takes its readers on adventures around the world with exact details about the countries,” Sau said.

“Not many university graduates can write as accurately and well as he does,” he added.
Although he is working on the next two sequels to the novel, Binh says his dream is not about writing.

"I only had this ambition a few months ago. I want to study human thinking," he shared.

Quang Nam faces oil spill from blazing tanker

The central Quang Nam province authorities are coordinating with relevant agencies to cope with a possible oil spill after an oil tanker burst into flames off the province’s coast on Friday.

Phuong Nam Star oil tanker blazed up 20 nautical miles away from the Cham Islands at 11:40 am yesterday while it was transporting 5,600 cubic meters of diesel from the Dung Quat Port in Quang Ngai Province to the port city of Hai Phong, Quang Nam authorities reported.

The 19-member crew and three others aboard the tanker were rescued by a cargo boat that had received the SOS signals from the tanker, the authorities said.

The fire first broke out in the cabin before spreading to other areas, the crew said, adding that they had activated the fire extinguishing system but could not subdue the violent flame.
The fire could be caused by a short circuit that exploded the boat’s oil steamer, said the vessel’s captain, Tran Dong Phong.

As the tanker may explode any time, the Border Guard Command has sent two boats to the scene to warn other vessels from entering the dangerous area.

The provincial People’s Committee has asked for help from the Oil Spill Response Center and the National Search and Rescue Center, said Dinh Van Thu, deputy chairman of the committee.

If an oil spill occurs, it will seriously contaminate the waters of the province and create harmful effects on the Cham Islands, a world biosphere reserve, Thu said.

VNN/VOV/VNS/VNE/Tuoi Tre