Hanoi Youth Union honoured with ASEAN TAYO Award

The Hanoi Youth Union has received the Ten Accomplished Youth Organisations (TAYO) ASEAN Awards, as part of ASEAN Youth Day, launched by the Committee of ASEAN Youth Cooperation (CAYC) and the Philippines National Youth Commission (NYC) from December 18-21.

The ASEAN TAYO Award is in recognition of the Hanoi Youth Union’s achievements in environment protection, culture-education, job creation, adolescent reproductive health, volunteer youth activities and social welfare.

Secretary of the Hanoi Youth Union, Ngo Duy Hieu praised practical contributions by the Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi Youth Unions to youth activities and socio-political tasks, particularly the millennial celebration of Thang Long-Hanoi.

The Ten Accomplished Youth Organisations (TAYO) ASEAN Award is annually presented by the CAYC to honour outstanding ASEAN youth organisations.

Vietnam improves quality of population

Photo: VOV

With its economic, healthcare and educational achievements, Vietnam has remarkably improved the quality of its population, an official said on December 20.

Speaking at a press conference in response to the national action month for population and Vietnam ’s Population Day (December 26), General Director of the General Population Department Duong Quoc Trong said Vietnam’s human development index (HDI) rose from 0.690 in 2000 to 0.725 in 2009, hitting the projected target in the 2001-2010 Vietnam population strategy.
The country has also achieved its birth reduction and birth replacement rate targets. The nation’s population growth rate dropped to 1.1 percent in 2009 from 1.5 percent 10 years earlier.
Vietnam already reached the birth replacement rate in 2005 and its population is estimated at 87 million by the end of 2010.
However, Trong noted Vietnam is still among middle HDI countries, as its healthy life expectancy or the average number of years a person might live in good health is just 66, ranking 116 out of 182 countries worldwide in 2009.
Population work will face more challenges during the 2011-2020 period, he said, referring to the fact that the fatality rate among under-one-year-old infants remains high in several regions and the number of children suffering from autism, diabetes and obesity is increasing.
The ratio of newborn boys to girls is growing rapidly, reaching 111/100 last year, while the Vietnamese population is ageing, the official elaborated.
Vietnam is now completing its legal documents and improving population management work in an effort to keep the sex ratio at birth no more than 113 by 2015 and 115 by 2020, and restrain its population to not exceed 93 million and 98 million in those years, respectively.

Vietnam to boost statistical research

Vietnam intends to be among the leading countries in ASEAN in the field of statistics by 2025 despite currently trailing its neighbours, according to a conference in the northern province of Bac Ninh on December 20.

The World Bank 2010 report indicates that Vietnam ranks 7th out of nine countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (excluding Brunei), only ahead of East Timor and Myanmar.
The country's statistical capacity is seven points below the ASEAN average and four points below the world average, the report reveals.
However, the country has made considerable progress in improving its statistical capacity over recent years, said WB statistics consultant Richard Roberts at a workshop organized by the General Statistical Office (GSO).
GSO acting director Do Thuc said the opposite trends in ranking and assessment by the WB are based on different statistical methodologies being applied in Vietnam and other countries in the world.

Two men arrested for illegal video post

The Investigation Police Department under the Ministry of Public Security arrested two men on Sunday for allegedly posting a video clip of a police raid at the New Century nightclub in 2007.

The 22-minute clip received hundreds of thousands of hits in just a few days.

The suspects allegedly admitted to the police that they knew the video clip was police material but decided to post it on the internet without permission from authorised agencies anyway.

The police are continuing to investigate how the suspects managed to steal the footage.

Premature baby given clean bill of health

Doctors at Bach Mai General Hospital discharged a prematurely born baby after three months of care yesterday.

The 700-gramme baby was rushed to Bach Mai Hospital on September 11 after her mother went into labour just 28 weeks into her pregnancy. Emergency surgery at a district hospital in central Nghe An Province failed to save the 28 year old woman who died of septicaemia.

The baby now weighs 3.1 kilos and could drink bottled milk like any other baby, doctors said.

Earlier this month, doctors at the National Obstetrics Hospital saved a 500-gramme new-born, the smallest premature baby to survive in Viet Nam.

Rescued Chinese sailors hospitalised

Two Chinese sailors are recovering well after receiving emergency care from doctors at Le Loi Hospital in southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province on Sunday afternoon.

Earlier on Sunday, Chinese sailor Wang Ping, 56, broke his arm and Zhan Yang, 23, had his liver crushed in an accident on the Centrals Lucky Ship en route from Singapore to Hong Kong.

A Vietnamese rescue ship came to the sailor's aid and took them to HCM City's Cho Ray Hospital.

Civil servants ordered to work Saturdays

Civil servants at administrative agencies city-wide must work on every Saturday morning except holidays and Tet, according to a new decision by the Ha Noi People's Committee.

The agencies include departments, committees and industries of Planning and Investment; Natural Resources and Environment; Labour, Invalid and Social Affairs; Construction; Justice; Transport; Agriculture and Rural Development and People's Committee at districts and ward levels.

VND17 billion raised for the poor in Quang Ngai

More than VND17 billion was raised from the “Day for the Poor” programme launched by the Quang Ngai provincial chapter of Vietnam Fatherland Front and the Quang Ngai provincial Radio and Television station on December 20.

VNN/VOV/VNS