VN to buy half million blue-ear vaccine

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is set to purchase 500,000 doses of blue-ear vaccine under a ministerial decision.

Costs are expected to be covered by the State budget.

Accordingly, breeders who raise less than 50 pigs will receive vaccines for blue-ear and cholera between October 01, 2011 and August 31, 2012.

Health insurance still unattractive

The Ministry of Health (MoH) made the information available yesterday at a conference reviewing the implementation of the Health Insurance Law over the past two years.

Deputy director of the Viet Nam Social Insurance Agency Le Bach Hong said that the situation had been caused by factors such as low awareness and a shortage of specific penalties aimed at insurance violations.

Hong further called drug management at hospitals ineffective alongside unstable and increasing medicine prices.

Health Minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien stressed that enabling people to benefit from health insurance services would be a gigantic task.

"Health insurance service quality needs to be improved, especially at primary health care level in order to reduce patient overload at central hospitals," Tien said.

"The health sector should also focus on re-adjusting health service payments," she added.

Health insurance services have covered 53.5 million people by the end of June 2011, compared to around 40 million people in 2008, according to the Ministry of Health.

By the end of 2010, nearly 13.4 million poor and ethnic minority people as well as 7.8 million children below 6 were provided with free health insurance cards. In the same year, around 106 million patient visits were paid for by health insurance funds at 2,176 hospitals and medical clinics.

24 foreigners arrested over possible high-tech crime

Policemen from the Ministry of Public Security and central Khanh Hoa Province have arrested 24 foreigners at a hotel in Nha Trang City over a possible high-tech crime case.

"We have detained 24 suspects, including 20 Chinese, 3 Taiwanese and 1 local people working as an employee to care for food, rent and interpreting job," said Colonel Nguyen Anh Hong, deputy chair of Khanh Hoa Province Police Department.

The law enforcement force have also seized high-tech equipment including laptops, 37 land-line phones, 8 cell phones, 14 radio devices, 2 high-speed Internet connection hub and other electronic devices.

The suspects would be kept in custody for investigation of violations of Vietnam laws such as failing to register for temporary residency and using high technology to commit crimes, Hong said.

The operations of this group of foreigners have violated political and information security of Vietnam, he added.

According to an officer of the police panel, the victims of those suspects are mainly the Chinese in a province in Chona.

The group of suspects had used the Internet and VoiceIP talk service to find information about the victims - often those committing frauds – and then disguised as the authorities to request the victim to provide bank account numbers or transfer money to their accounts for investigation.

Coach collision kills one, injures eight

One 26-year-old female passenger died at the scene and eight others were injured when two coaches collided on Sunday along a stretch of National Highway No 1A in southern Bac Lieu Province's Gia Rai District.

The coaches were travelling in the same direction.

Two of the injured have been discharged from southern Ca Mau Province's General Hospital and the others are still being treated.

Landslide buries two houses in Yen Bai

Two local houses were buried in a landslide in northern Yen Bai Province yesterday afternoon with fortunately, no loss of life.

Local authorities continue to evacuate residents to safer places.

Another landslide killed two and destroyed four houses in the province's Yen Bai City last month.

Floodwater submerges 100 houses in Binh Phuoc

Floodwater caused by torrential rains submerged over 100 houses in southern Binh Phuoc Province on Monday afternoon.

With the average height of 0.5 meter and the highest level of 1 meter, the flood swept away or damaged almost all the properties of over 90 local households.

Overwhelming floodwater had overflowed the damaged dam and inappropriately-designed drainage systems of the local Loc Ninh Rubber Co, causing the incident.

Local Youth Union has mobilized 700 notebooks for the children and 900 kilograms of rice for the affected people.

All Chinese clinics in HCMC break laws

All of the seven licensed Chinese clinics in Ho Chi Minh City have been found violating regulations on medical practice, the city Health Department reported.

According to the department’s note, the city currently has seven licensed Chinese clinics which operate many other medical facilities across the city.

The violators include the branch of the Chinese Medical Clinic in Ward 2, Phu Nhuan District; the Chinese Medical Clinic in Ward 14, District 10; the Trung Nam Traditional Medical Clinic in Ward 16, District 11; the Van Lang Medical Trading and Production Co Ltd in Ward 26, Binh Thanh District; the Anh Sang Traditional Medicine Co Ltd in Ward 8, Tan Binh District; the Hue Ha Traditional Medicine Co Ltd in Ward 12, District 5; and an individual health entity in Ward 12, District 6.

Following a recent investigation, the department found these entities advertising without registration or with unapproved contents, not using Vietnamese in their prescriptions, not having registry books for their patients, and using signboards not in accordance with relevant regulations.

The violators have been fined a total of VND324.3 million (US$15,500) and have been ordered to correct their wrongdoings, the department said.

Earlier, many readers reported to Tuoi Tre that many HCMC-based Chinese clinics launched boastful advertisements, gave deceitful prescriptions to patients, and provided medicines at exorbitant prices.

Tuoi Tre later conducted its own inquiries and found the situation was the same as reported by the readers.

Many patients said they ended up at Chinese clinics after seeing or reading their advertisements on the internet and in the newspapers.

Some of them were impressed with the printed materials, often made to look like health magazines and freely distributed by the clinics to patients, in which they boasted they could treat nearly all diseases.

Such extravagant advertisements are often seen on many national TV channels, including SCTV7, SCTV9, VTV9, and BPTV1.

However, many patients said after spending tens of millions of dong on treatment at these places, their health did not improve but in some cases they even suffered from complications.

Two charged for robbing jewel shop in Binh Thuan

The police of central Binh Thuan Province on Sunday prosecuted two men, including an overseas Vietnamese, allegedly for robbing a jewellery shop last week.

Nguyen Mark Joseph, alias Khanh, a 35-year-old American of Vietnamese origin, and Nguyen Phuoc Hai, 34, of HCM City's District 6 were arrested last Thursday night after four armed men robbed Thu Thanh Jewellery Shop in Cho Lau town earlier that day.

A third suspect, Huynh Quoc Thai, 23, has been taken to Binh Thuan for questioning after being seized at his house in HCM City's Binh Thanh District on Sunday.

A fourth suspect, Pham Quoc Bao, 33, of HCM City's Thu Duc District, who is still at large, was told to give himself up, the chief of the Bac Binh District Police, Colonel Nguyen Van Lam, said.

At around 7.20pm on Thursday, the robbers broke the jewellery shop window and took an unspecified amount of jewels and injured the elderly father of the shop owner.

The police said that after the heist, Khanh and the rest had driven off in a car towards HCM City.

After coming to know that their way was blocked by the police on both sides on National Highway No. 1 A that runs from HCM City to Ha Noi, Khanh told Thai and Bao to take the stolen jewels and get off the vehicle.

The duo walked around through the night and returned to the highway on Friday morning to catch a bus to HCM City.

Meanwhile, while trying to shake off the police, Khanh caused an accident in which Nguyen Nam, a 65-year-old resident of Hong Thai Commune in Bac Binh, was killed.

Khanh and Hai were soon arrested at that spot.

More investment for sci-tech development proposed

The Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) has proposed allocating around US$640 million from next year’s State budget for sci-tech development, an increase of 12 percent.

The proposal was made at a three-day meeting of the National Assembly Committee of Science, Technology and the Environment, which opened in Hanoi on October 17.

The Prime Minister has approved a plan that will increase the number of inventions patented for protection by 50 percent for 2011-2015, as compared with the last five years. The plan will also set about 4,000 national standards and 1,000 technical standards in order to ensure that all products comply with regulations on food hygiene, safety and environment protection.

MoST also aims to have 3,000 enterprises operating in the field of science and technology by 2015, along with establishment of 30 organisations equipped with modern facilities to conduct research.

To meet these goals, MoST says annual investment in sci-tech development to 2015 will keep increasing to account for 2.2-2.3 percent of the State budget. It also plans to boost privatisation of sci-tech activities.

According to MoST Deputy Minister Chu Ngoc Anh, the National Assembly approved a total sum of US$550 million to develop science and technology, in 2011, an increase of 12.5 percent over 2010.

Bus crew beat, extort passengers

The crew aboard a passenger bus going south from Hanoi allegedly assaulted passengers who have complained to the Ha Tinh Province traffic police.

On the morning of October 15 a man who identified himself as Cuong called Tien Phong newspaper to say he and several others had been cheated and assaulted on a bus with the license plate 53N-4536 and the name Thu Khuyen – possibly the name of the operator – painted on it.

While Tien Phong was contacting relevant agencies to help the victims, Cuong called again at 1 pm to say that after 18 hours the bus was finally leaving.

The passengers had been forced to wait for so long for the bus to pick up fares.

Cuong said he had come to the Nuoc Ngam station in Hanoi at 4 am to take a but to Quang Binh Province, and immediately a man had come over on a motorbike, claiming to be an employee of a bus company and saying a bus was about to leave.

Cuong and the man negotiated the fare and settled for VND300,000 (US$14.3). The latter then took Cuong to a bus parked outside the station and asked him to get on.

Cuong gave the man a VND500,000 bill and waited for the change, but the man allegedly said Cuong had given him a VND20,000 note and therefore had to pay another VND480,000.

When he denied it, the man beat him up. Some others threatened further beatings if he refused to pay.

A terrified Cuong gave them another VND500,000 and did not get back the change.

Nguyen Van Nam, 28, of Phu Tho Province, who wanted to go to Lam Dong Province, was lured on board at 7 pm the previous day at a fare of VND750,000. Nam gave the conductor two VND500,000 notes but the man, after putting the money in his pocket, asked Nam for another VND480,000, saying one of the two was a VND20,000 bill.

Nam told Tien Phong: “Since the man and his colleagues were aggressive, I had to pay. A moment later, I saw them use the same trick with an old man. I told them, ‘I saw him give you a VND500,000 note,’ and they immediately assaulted me viciously.”

Among the other victims were Nguyen Xuan Hung of Lao Cai Province, Nguyen Dinh Xuan and his mother of Vinh Phuc, Vu Chi Cong of Bac Giang, and Nguyen Thi Hien of Ha Giang.
All of them had paid using VND500,000 bills.

Tien Phong called the Ha Tinh police who sent a patrol team to investigate. At midnight on October 15 the team stopped the bus in Hong Linh town.

The coach’s owner, Nguyen Van Chien, who was summoned, told the police he did not know about and was not involved in the extortion.

But the passengers told the police that Chien’s employees had indeed extorted money from them.

Feeling angry with Chien and his employees, many wrote complaints on the spot and handed them over to the police.

Some of them said Chien had warned them at the bus station “not to quarrel with the conductors if they did not want to be beaten to death.”

They told police that two students had been violently assaulted for saying they wanted their money back and would get off the coach.

When the coach reached the Phap Van-Cau Gie expressway, the conductors pushed the students off the vehicle and did not give them their money.

Another victim, Nguyet, who wanted to go to Binh Phuoc, said in tears: “I paid them fully but they asked me to pay VND480,000 more. I had only VND250,000 left in my wallet but had to hand it to them. I later pleaded with them to return me some of the money but they refused.”

After examining the car and its papers, the police fined the driver for carrying cargo in space intended for passengers. They then let the vehicle go and promised to handle the passengers’ complaints within ten days.

Some of the victims, possibly fearful of what the crew would do to them, continued their journey on other coaches.

VNN/VOV/VNS/Tuoi Tre