Official calls for crackdown on fuel fraud

A top HCM City official has asked the Department of Science and Technology to punish 11 fuel wholesalers who were caught selling substandard gasoline.

At a meeting on Wednesday, Le Manh Ha, deputy chairman of the People’s Committee, suggested slapping them with the highest prescribed fine for palming off what were actually A82 to A90 petroleum products as A92.

The numbers refer to the octane count in petroleum, with higher numbers indicating higher performance.

He also said their licences should be withdrawn for 12 months and they should be made to make good the loss they caused consumers since selling sub-standard fuel was tantamount to selling fake products.

Department officials concurred saying the fine of VND20 million to VND50 million (US$2,400) prescribed under Decree No. 71 was too little for the dishonest dealers.

The profits they would have made by cheating was much bigger than the fine, they pointed out.

Ha called on related authorities to come up with stiffer penaltie.

But they were probably not the only ones cheating and there were more, he said, ordering the department to test samples from all petrol stations in the city.

Similar violations would be treated as a crime in future, he warned.

Two injured in cigarette explosion at café

A 29-year-old man in Dai Loc District, Quang Nam Province was smoking a cigarette at a café when it suddenly exploded, injuring him and another man.

Nguyen Xuan Ly suffers injuries in his hand after the cigarette he was smoking suddenly exploded. (Photo: Tien Phong)

In his report to the local police, Nguyen Xuan Ly said at 12:30 pm on December 13, he went to a café in Phu Tho Commune and ordered a cup of coffee and half a pack of White Horse cigarettes.

A moment later, when he was smoking a cigarette, it suddenly exploded to his astonishment.
The explosion caused injuries to the forefinger and middle finger of his right hand. After the explosion, something fell out of the cigarette and hit another man, Phan Van Thuy, who was sitting near Ly, on the neck and thigh.

After going to a local clinic to treat his wounds, Ly wrote a report about the incredible incident and asked the café’s owner, To Minh Huu, and 9 other eyewitnesses to sign it.

Ly later submitted the report to the head of the communal police, Truong Minh Hoa, who confirmed the incident after questioning Ly and the witnesses.

Yesterday, Ly told Tien Phong Newspaper that the treatment of his wounds cost him VND100,000 (US$4.75).

He said he had phoned Khanh Hoa Tobacco Company (KHATOCO), the manufacturer of Whiter Horse cigarettes to report the problem.

Ly later received a call from number 0907.356.969 and was told that somebody from the company would meet him to discuss the issue.

On December 13, 3 people from KHATOCO met Ly and Huu at the same café. They examined the White Horse cigarettes remaining in the pack Ly had bought and told Ly that those cigarettes were indeed produced by their company.

They also said the police would come to the café to handle the case the following day but nobody showed up that day. Ly said he tried to call 0907.356.969 but nobody picked up.

According to Nguyen Thanh Tam, Ly’s father, Ly is a truck driver and the main bread earner of the family. “Since the day of the accident, he has often suffered pain from his wounded hand,” Tam told Tien Phong.

New terminal opens in Da Nang

A new terminal opened at Da Nang International Airport yesterday morning. The first flight departed for HCM City.

The terminal, which will eventually replace the old terminal, will serve 44 domestic and international flights, according Nguyen Hoang Lien, chief of office of the Middle Airports Corporation.

All flights from Da Nang will now depart from this terminal, Lien said, adding that important airport services had been shifted from the old facility to the new one at the beginning of this month.

Municipal People’s Committee chairman Van Huu Chien said yesterday the new facility would help the airport become a gateway and transit to other airports in the region add the world,” said the corporation’s general director Le Xuan Tung.

“More importantly, it will help Da Nang become a driving city for the development of the country’s central region,” he said.

The four storey terminal covering 14,400 sq.m will serve about four million passengers a year. This will grow to six to eight million by 2015.

The terminal will also receive from 400,000 to 1 million tonnes of goods a year.

With a total investment capital of nearly VND1.35 trillion (about US$64 million), it is the largest project involving Airports Corporation.

Da Nang International Airport is the third-largest airport in Viet Nam and the largest in the central region. It now serves 20 domestic and international flight routes with about 1,500 passengers per day.

Man arrested for attempting to rob taxi

A 30-year-old man was arrested yesterday, Dec 15, after he made a failed attempt to rob a Mai Linh taxi driver with a knife in Ho Chi Minh City.

The taxi driver resisted him so strongly that the man had to run away.

The driver is 23 year-old Le Van Trung from Binh Chanh District. The robber is Tran Dai Quoc from Binh Tan District.

Quoc attacked Trung as the latter was picking him up on Truong Chinh Street in Tan Binh District. Quoc first asked Trung to drive him to Road 2-6. When Trung reached the destination, Quoc asked him to open the window by his seat so that he (Quoc) could smoke a cigarette.

After Trung drove about 300 m on this road, he asked Quoc the number of the house where Quoc wanted to stop but Quoc said, “Keep driving. The house is at the end of the road.”

Feeling worried, Trung turned on the light inside the cab and a moment later he looked at the rear-view mirror and saw Quoc holding a knife.

At this moment, Quoc brandished the knife and shouted at Trung, “I’ll stab you to death.” Trung immediately raised his right arm to protect himself. His arm was cut by the knife.

Despite the pain, Trung tried to use his left arm to operate the steering wheel to stop the cab which crashed into a field.

The two men wrestled inside the cab and Quoc later escaped through the opened window. Local residents and the police caught Quoc 10 minutes later.

Trung suffered injuries on his arm and a finger and had 7 stitches for the wounds.

Quoc told the police he was a former taxi driver who had quit the job for two years.

He said he planned to rob a taxi and bought the knife several hours before getting on Trung’s cab.

Admin reform pilot programme to launch

The Peer Assessment Rating Index (PAR Index) will be piloted to assess and rank the implementation of administrative reforms during the year.

The pilot application will be implemented in three ministries and six provinces and cities from January to March, to find out problems of the temporary PAR Index, to perfect it for nation-wide scale application.

The PAR Index was developed to provide a single summary score which reflected the degree of improvement and success of treatment.

Mass media campaign to encourage breast feeding

A mass media campaign on breast feeding was launched earlier this week to reduce the rates of stunting and malnutrition in Vietnamese children.

The campaign, co-organised by the National Institute of Nutrition and the Alive and Thrive in Viet Nam – an initiative funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – involves TV commercials, community radio, print media and the web page www.mattroibetho.vn.

It was estimated that if all mothers practised appropriate breast feeding and complementary feeding, Viet Nam could reduce its stunting rate of children under 5 (which is now 7 million) by 26 per cent by 2015.

Jail terms cut for six in massage parlour scandal

Defendants in a sexual slavery case early last year had their prison sentences reduced by an appeals court in HCM City earlier this week.

Phan Cao Tri, director of the Tan Hoang Phat Massage Company, would only have to serve five years in prison, instead of 12 as sentenced by the Court of First Instance in February, for holding people in captivity and extorting money from them.

His five former employees also had their sentences reduced.

Running five massage/prostitution parlours in HCM City and neighbouring Binh Duong and Dong Nai provinces, Tri recruited women from the countryside and illegally detained them for at least six months.

In reducing the sentence, the appeals court said the court of first instance had mistaken the number of victims as 93 instead of nine.

Rapidly-aging patient discharged from hospital

26-year-old Nguyen Thi Phuong, who mysteriously turned as old as an 80-year-old, has been discharged from the University Medical Center in HCMC after 2 months of treatment.

Dr. Dang Van Phuoc, the center’s deputy director, said the medical therapy had erased 30 percent of her itchy wrinkled skin and made her look a bit younger.

Phuoc said she would be treated at home in another 2 months to help stabilize the condition.

Afterwards, the center will consult with leading experts to determine what plastic surgery should be done to remove the deep wrinkles on her face.

Dr. Hoang Van Minh also from the center who initially diagnosed Phuong with mastocytosis, a disorder caused by the presence of too many mast cells, told Tuoi Tre that Japan’s Fuji Television Station had filmed Phuong at the center for its “Mysterious Medical Cases” program.

Another Japanese TV station also came to shoot a film of her because the Japanese public has a special interest in her rare condition.

Phuong said she was very happy to be discharged and would be back to her hometown in Ben Tre and take medicine at doctors’ request.

According to the result of a skin biopsy conducted by medical experts at Baylor University in Texas, Phuong suffered from Mastocytosis and Acquired Cutis Laxa.

Phuong’s condition is very rare since she is the only second patient among 7 billion people in the world to have been diagnosed with these diseases, Dr. Minh said.

Phuong, who had grabbed headlines at home and abroad because of her strange condition, said red rashes “suddenly” appeared on her face “for no reason” 4 years ago.

Her face became itchy and later turned wrinkled.

She has always thought her problem isn’t just some simple food allergy.

Surgeons wrongly remove patient’s two kidneys

Can Tho General Hospital yesterday, Dec 15, admitted making “diagnosis mistakes” involving a patient whose two kidneys were removed accidentally by doctors on December 5.

The hospital has set up a committee to review the case. Doctors from outside the hospital will take part.

Nguyen Van Nghia, deputy general director of the hospital, said punishment for the doctors and staff in the surgery would be considered.

The hospital said the patient would remain in the hospital and future treatment would be provided free. The patient reportedly is in stable conditions.

Neighbors help put out a scooter on fire

A white Attila Elizabeth scooter sparked fire and was soon put out by residents on Cao Thang street, Lam Son district in the northern city of Thanh Hoa last Wednesday afternoon.

Luu Kim Chung, 36, owner of a hairdresser’s salon, said she had just returned from an errand to the city center and parked the bike in front of her shop. Just when she stepped into the house, a fire started and smoke appeared from the bike.

Panicked, she shouted out for help to put out the fire.

Tran The Trong, owner of a tailor shop next door, used a small fire extinguisher to suffocate the fire within two minutes.

At the scene, some plastic part of the bike was scorched, generating a burning smell.
Chung said the bike had been running smoothly and she had no conflict with anyone.
Police in Lam Son district arrived at Chung’s house and took her statement to handle the case.

Last Tuesday, a man was passing through Hanoi’s Chuong Duong bridge when his bike suddenly burst into fire and eventually burned down to ash. The owner left the scene as traffic congestion started on the bridge and other nearby streets.

Earlier on Monday, an SH motorbike suddenly caught fire in front of the Daewoo Hanoi Hotel at the intersection of Kim Ma and Lieu Giai streets in Ngoc Khanh Ward, Ba Dinh District, while its owner and passers-by just stood by helplessly.

On December 1, a Dream II bike suddenly burst into flame and was soon engulfed in a blaze while 29-year-old Nguyen Thi Quynh was riding it with her daughter on the back. Both mother and daughter died after being hospitalized.

22 gold miners suspected to have cyanide poisoning

The Da Nang General Hospital Wednsday afternoon received 22 gold miners from Quang Nam Province with the associated symptoms of cyanide poisoning such as hard breathing, fits of convulsions, chest tightness, and faint.

The patients, aged 17-27 and ethnic minority people from Nghe An Province, suffered these conditions while working at a gold mining site operated by Phuong Minh Co., Ltd. on a mountain in Kham Duc Town, Phuoc Son District, Quang Nam Province.

After being treated, the miners, who said they have worked for the company for several months, no longer display any of the symptoms although their strength is still weak and their legs remain swollen, doctors said.

“It is very likely that we were poisoned by using water from the stream on the site or by being exposed to the smell of cyanide that is used in mining. Luckily we were hospitalized in time or we may have died,” VnExpress quoted one of the patients as saying.

According to the doctors, the workers might have been poisoned with cyanide – an extreme toxic substance that is used in metal plating or gold mining.

The doctors excluded food poisoning as a cause since the patients had not suffered stomachache and vomitting.

The doctors have taken samples of blood from the patients for testing to identify exactly the cause of their condition. 

“Cyanide can penetrate the human body through the digestive system when people eat food or drink water infected with the substance, or through the respiratory system when people inhale the air containing evaporated cyanide, or through the skin,” Dr Tran Ba Thoai, of the Hoan My Hospital in Da Nang, said.

Once in the body, cyanide will connect with the Fe2+ radical of an enzyme named cytochrome oxidase to cause difficulty of breathing, leading to suffocation, the doctor said.

Cyanide prevents the cells of an organism from using oxygen, primarily through the inhibition of cytochrome oxidase. Inhalation of high concentrations of cyanide can bring about a coma, often with seizures, apnea, and cardiac arrest, with death following in a matter of minutes, according to some medical websites. 

US helps build kindergarten in Da Nang

The People’s Committee of the central Da Nang city on December 15 inaugurated a kindergarten funded by the US Pacific Command and the US Embassy. 

Built at a cost of more than US$385,000, the two-storey Huong Duong kindergarten in Cam Le district covering 800 sq m has six fully-equipped classrooms. 

Earlier, the US Pacific Command provided US$450,000 for construction of an early warning and flood management centre in the city’s Hai Chau district.

High-class call-girl ring busted in Hanoi

Police in Hanoi on Wednesday early morning raided a grand hotel in the capital downtown and caught four high-class prostitutes having sex with their clients who arrived in a luxurious car.

Earlier on December 11, a gay man nicknamed “Chị Bảo Bảo” (Miss Bao Bao) flew four ‘long-legged’ sex workers from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi to serve well-off men in the capital.

On December 14, he sent the girls to four BMW-driving men at Hao Nam hotel. However, Hanoi police later raided the hotel and caught them in the act.

The sex workers were all more than 1.6m tall and participated in a high-class call-girl ring run by Nguyen Ngoc Vinh, 36 (the gay man), who was also present at the hotel at the time of the police raid.

According to investigators, Vinh recruited long-legged, beautiful girls from major cities like Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hai Phong, Khanh Hoa and Da Nang, most of whom provide sexual services to wealthy clients at luxurious hotels at high prices, from US$400 to $2,000 per encounter or per night.

According to an investigator, Vinh also offered sex tourism service to wealthy men who travel abroad, which costs several thousand US dollars.

Vietnam, Laos cooperate in improving health services

Vietnam is willing to cooperate with the Lao health sector in the areas of infrastructure construction, equipment supply and personnel training.

Vietnamese Health Minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien made the statement at a working session with her Lao counterpart, Eksavang Vongvichit, in Hanoi on Dec. 15.

She highlighted the two countries’ long-term cooperation in health care, as well as the Lao health sector’s development, particularly its investment in technological modernisation and improvement of human resources.

Minister Tien insisted that with the long common borderline, the two countries should pay more attention to cooperating in preventive health, especially in prevention and control of diseases such as foot-hand-mouth, dengue fever, influenza and cholera outbreaks. 

The two health sectors should closely coordinate with relevant agencies to prevent cross-border transport of illegal drugs which are causing high HIV infection rates.

She pledged to help Laos in personnel training, saying that Vietnam will create good conditions for Lao students who want to study at medical colleges and universities in Vietnam.

In reply, Lao Minister Eksavang Vongvichit attributed the Lao health sector’s development in human resources and facilities to the Vietnamese Government’s assistance.

The Lao Minister said he wants Vietnam to further assist Laos to ease difficulties in such areas as epidemic control, personnel training, equipment provision and infrastructure construction.

Violators claim to be Hanoi police chief’s relatives

A man and a woman on a new BMW luxurious car claimed to be relatives of two top-ranking officials of Hanoi police to intimidate the traffic officers after being pulled up for violations.

Around 3:00pm on December 13, a team of Hanoi traffic policemen stopped a plateless black BMW X6 carrying 4 people inside.

Upon getting off the car, the driver and the woman sitting next to him told the police they were ‘relatives’ of Lieutenant General Nguyen Duc Nhanh and Colonel Nguyen Duc Chung, who are director and vice director of Hanoi police department, respectively.

When asked about their relationships with the officials, the two declined to give further information and walked away, saying they were in a hurry to get to a meeting.

Faced with the violators’ uncooperative attitude, a policeman asked the woman: “Are you going to leave the car right in the middle of the road?”

“Yes, I am. You can tow it to wherever you want,” she said defiantly.

After that, the four walked away towards Yen Phu Street, facing Sofitel Hotel.

About 10 minutes later, as the police officers were finishing their report of the case in which the car was specified to be ownerless, the four returned and had loud words with the policemen and picked a quarrel with a reporter.

In the mean time, the woman phoned someone and then forced a policeman to listen to a man’s voice on the other end. However, the policeman ignored her and kept making the report of their violations, driving without a driving license, license plate and failing to comply with the order of law enforcement forces.

However, the driver still refused to give the police his name and address. He even spat in front of the police and the reporter to defy them.

Many local residents witnessing the scene became angry and talked of ‘teaching him a lesson.’

Meanwhile, the woman continued to phone another “relative” for help.

However, the policemen remained firm in their attitude, explaining that leaders of Hanoi police department had instructed them to handle the case strictly.

The police then sealed the car and called a tow truck to the scene to take the car to the police station, at which point the driver implored the police officers not to tow the car away and agreed to sign the report.

He told the police that he is Nguyen Thanh Quang from Hai Ba Trung District, Hanoi and had just bought the car and has yet to register for a license plate.

Quang then raised his hands to make an apology to the reporter and the police officers and admitted that spitting is offensive.

US$50,000 for Cambodian flood victims

The Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Ho Chi Minh City on December 14 handed over US$50,000 in aid to the Cambodian Consulate General to assist flood-hit victims in the country. 

Since last August, the Cambodian people have been affected by large-scaled and prolonged floods, which resulted in heavy losses of lives and property. 

The donation was contributed by HCM City’s armed forces and people.

Foreman not prosecuted for gluing worker’s hands

A Wang, the Chinese foreman who glued the hands of a female worker at Taiwanese-owned Hong Fu Shoe Company in Thanh Hoa Province last month will not be prosecuted since his act does not constitute a crime, local police said.  

Wang’s act against 25-year-old Le Thi Phuong did not carry enough elements of criminality to be treated as a criminal offense under the Penal Code, Tran Van Thuc, the head of the provincial police department’s secretariat said yesterday, citing a report from the police of Hoang Hoa district, where Hong Fu is located.

“However, the local authorities, prosecutor’s office, police, and labor federation are considering an administrative penalty against the man,” he said.

The workers should comply with the company’s regulation that bans using the 502 glue to mend defective shoes, he added.

The company has earlier suspended Wang, pending the police’ investigation.

The incident occurred at noon on November 26, when A Wang caught Le Thi Hoa using the glue to close an opening in the sole of a shoe.

Upon noticing the infraction, Wang shouted at 25-year-old Le Thi Phuong, the shift leader, and then poured the glue on both of her hands before pressing them together.

Phuong suffered serious pain, cried profusely, and then fainted.

Panic stricken after witnessing the incident, Hoa and another worker, Tran Thi Thom, also passed out.

The three women were taken to Hop Luc General Hospital, where doctors were able to separate Phuong’s hands, but she required further treatment.

After the incident, many workers went on strike that day to object to Wang’s violent act, asking the company’s management to punish him.

The company’s board of directors acknowledged Wang’s act as unacceptable but also reported to the authorities that many workers often bring the glue along with them for their convenience, ignoring the ban on using such glue to mend shoes.

The district Labor Federation has requested that the company bear all expenses related to Phuong’s medical treatment and pay adequate wages to all workers who had taken industrial action.

VNN/VOV/VNS/Tuoi Tre