HCM City pork free of lean-meat agents

None of the samples of pork and pig organs sold in HCM City's markets contained clenbuterol and salbutamol, the lean-meat additives banned in breeding animals, the HCM

City Department of Food Hygiene and Safety announced yesterday, May 17.

Between April 16 and 21, the department took 24 samples of pork and pig organs from supermarkets, traditional markets and temporary markets for testing. The department

said it would inspect the use of this substance in the markets in the upcoming time.

The department also suggested that pork containing lean-meat additives usually have abnormally bright red colour.

Traffic deaths down by 30 per cent

Traffic deaths on land, rail and water in the first four months of this year decreased by 30 per cent against the same period last year, the National Committee for Traffic

Safety announced yesterday, May 17.

Nearly 3,700 traffic accidents were reported in the period, with more than 3,100 deaths (or 26 deaths a day) and 2,700 injured.
The number of the accidents was down by more than 900 compared to last year, said the committee.

Road accidents claimed the highest toll – about 3,000 deaths – followed by rail accidents 79 and waterways 51.

Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, who is also chairman of the committee, praised the efforts of relevant ministries and local governments to improve traffic

management and reduce traffic jams, particularly in Ha Noi and HCM City.

Phuc also spoke highly of new traffic safety initiatives by local authorities, including in the northern province of Quang Ninh and the southern province of Long An.

"However traffic safety is still a big problem and many serious accidents still happen, particularly on national roads such as National Road 1A," said Phuc.

He added that drink-driving, overloaded buses and motorists without helmets were still common.

Phuc asked ministries and local governments to step up information campaigns on traffic safety, improve traffic planning, invest more in parking lots and pavements and enhance public transport.

Police needed to increase patrols and catch and punish violators, he said.

Pickled plums with cancer-causing substance detected

The Ministry of Public Security’s police unit that fights against environmental crimes (C49B) yesterday announced that they have found the samples of a pickled plum

product that contains the forbidden cancer-causing chemical cyclamate.

The pickled plum, called Preserved Fruits and taken from the Binh Thien booth in An Dong market in Ho Chi Minh City, contained an amount of cyclamate and saccharin

that is 31 times higher than the allowed limit, according to the municipal Institute of Hygiene and Public Health.

Cyclamate can damage consumers’ livers, kidneys, and lungs, and has been banned by the Ministry of Health from usage in food meant for humans.

48-year-old Luong Dieu Minh, owner of the Binh Thien booth, said he has been selling the product since last November, and has managed to sell around 30kg a month.

The product is sourced from the Ba Tot booth in Binh Tay market, according to Thanh Nien.

Le Thi Sang, 44, owner of Ba Tot, confessed to the police that she had bought the product from Ky Luy, a store owned by 43-year-old Huynh Thi Luy located at 36 Pham Dinh Ho Street in District 6.

Luy is a wholesaler of jams, confectionary, and Preserved Fruits pickled plums for traders in Binh Tay market, C49B police said.

Luy told the police that she had bought the product from a woman called Hai with an unknown address at VND39,000 a kg. She failed to contact Hai after police requested her to.

The Preserved Fruits pickled plum is found to bear a Vietnamese label with the name of the importer and distributor displayed as Minh Chau Co, at 21 Nguyen Van Trang Street, District 12.

The label shows the product is imported from Thailand, and is manufactured by the Kim Seng Industrial Co.

However, C49B police said there is neither such company nor any street called Nguyen Van Trang in District 12.

“This is a contraband product, but the smugglers have sophisticatedly placed Vietnamese labels on it to dupe consumers,” Dang Van Tot, an official from C49B police, was quoted by Thanh Nien as saying.

Proposal to manage taxis fails to pass Ha Noi People's Committee has disapproved the Department of Transport's proposal to manage taxi services by 2015, saying painting all vehicles one colour and zoning operations were infeasible.

The committee has ordered the Department to establish the demand for taxi transport and inspect operations to set up a better development plan.

There are currently 114 taxi companies with more than 17,400 vehicles operating in the capital.

Vietnam’s first hovercraft tested on Saigon River

Vietnam’s first hovercraft, made by a group of students at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, is on a trial run on the city’s Saigon River.

During the test that began yesterday and will end May 18, the group checked the boat in straight movement, rotation, and in rescuing people drifting on the river.

The boat, which is named Bakvee (Bach Khoa Air Cushion Vehicle) by the group, was made by the vacuum casting method with materials as like wood, composites and foam.

Bakvee is 4.2 meters long, weighs 180 kg, has a power of 26 CV and can travel at 30-40 kph.

The boat can be operated on land and in water and can accommodate 3 people.

Equipped with the Global Positioning System (GPS), it can function as a rescue and tourist boat at a maximum operating range of 150 km.

If the test ends in success, the group will set out a list of standard technical specifications for this kind of boat and prepare instructions for its operation.

As hovercrafts are totally new to the country’s maritime sector, the producers said it would coordinate with concerned agencies to set up procedures for registration of hovercrafts in Vietnam.

HCM City fair presents new schooling models

Sixty-five domestic and foreign educational institutes and enterprises are showcasing advanced schooling models at home and abroad at the 4th HCM City Development

Education Festival, which opened yesterday, May 17, in HCM City's District 11.

The four-day event will include forums seeking investment in education and information technology application in education management and teaching among domestic schools in the city.

The Viet Nam Education Publishing House marked the event by handing out more than 7,400 sets of textbooks for 2,000 students who are children of martyrs and wounded

soldiers. It also donated a variety of reference books and bookcases to libraries in the city.

Man robs airline agent with knife, nabbed

A masked man broke into an airline ticket agency in the southern coastal city of Vung Tau on April 25, put a knife to the throat of its owner and demanded money. He fled but was later captured.

The robber pressed the knife on 44-year-old Dang Thu Hien, the agency’s head, and demanded her employees to take cash out of the drawers and put them into a bag.

“He suddenly showed up and placed the knife at my throat. I was extremely frightened at that time. He threatened to kill me if I moved,” Hien recalled.

The robber also ordered a male employee in the shop to tie two other female employees up with duct tape.

He demanded them all to go down on their knees and press their faces against a wall in the restroom so that he had time to escape.

After that, the man fled on a motorbike with the bag containing VND85 million (US$4,000) in cash and an I-phone. But, all his acts were caught by security cameras. No one was injured in the robbery.

On May 16, local police arrested the culprit after they reviewed the security tapes.

22-year-old Pham Ngoc Tai, the robber, confessed to his crime and told police that he spent the money on buying a motorbike and fashionable clothes for his girlfriend.

Severe accident kills three in bus crash

Three people were killed on the spot when a tour bus travelling from HCM City to Thu Dau Mot Town hit a truck going in the same direction on Binh Duong Avenue at 12:30am yesterday morning, May 17.

The crash completely wrecked the tour bus. Nguyen Thi Hong Phuong, its only surviving passenger, was critically injured and taken to Cho Ray Hospital.

Traffic was only cleared after 4am and Binh Duong police is investigating the cause of the accident.

Thai Binh to pioneer local sustainable energy

The northern province of Thai Binh has been selected as the first locality in Vietnam to implement a five-year project on local energy planning from 2012.

The project is jointly carried out by the cooperative alliance for sustainable energy development in Vietnam and the Mekong region, the Green Innovation and Development

Centre, the Centre for Sustainable Water and Resources Development and Adaptation to Climate Change, the sustainable energy organization of Denmark and the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation.

It aims to encourage local people to use renewable, biomass and biological energy and use them economically to contribute to reducing environmental pollution and meeting the demand of sustainable development.

Dr. Tran Duy Khanh, President of the Thai Binh Union of Science and Technology Associations, which was selected to implement the project, said the use of renewable, biomass and biological energy instead of energy from coal and oil is a choice for sustainable development in future, in the context of the increasing demand for energy.

Six communes in Thai Binh province’s Tien Hai district, including Nam Cuong, Nam Hung, Dong Hai, Dong Phong, Phuong Cong and Bac Hai, are selected for the project, with the first phase lasting from May 2012 to the end of 2013.

Explosive blast at gold shop, all escape safely

A dynamite explosion was heard in Anh The jewelry shop in Nha Trang City on Wednesday, about a year and a haft after it lost 200 taels of gold in a 2010 robbery, local authorities reported.

The owner of the shop, Phung Thi Canh, her husband, and other members of her family managed to safely escape from the explosion.

At 1:30 am Thursday, while Canh and her relatives were sleeping on the seconf floor of the shop, they heard a loud explosion coming from the ground floor and then the sound of the alarm system that was activated by the explosion.

While black smokes and a burnt smell pervaded throughout the house, the family’s members forced the back door of the house open and escaped safely, she said.

They later found a 30 x 10 cm hole at the bottom of one side of the shop’s folding iron door, which was partly damaged by the explosion.

However, all of the gold displayed in the windows on the ground floor remained intact.

Local police were called to the scene for examination and investigation. They initially concluded that the explosive could have been placed outside the door.

Canh told police that she and her husband have no enemies and they have a good relationship with their neighbors.

She also said she has been involved in the gold business for 20 years and has had no conflicts with any customers or partners.

Canh told police that on November 7, 2010, a robbery occurred in her shop and she lost 200 taels of gold, or 240 ounces, worth US$371,600, to thieves who broke into the house from the terrace.

The police are investigating the explosion to track down suspects.

VNN/VOV/VNS/Tuoi Tre