Japan to help reduce risk

The Japanese Red Cross has committed US$2.76 million to help a Viet Nam Red Cross mangrove and disaster risk reduction project till 2015.

Local Red Cross deputy chairman Phung Van Hoan said at a workshop in Ha Noi on Wednesday that the project aimed to support 356 vulnerable communes in eight northern coastal provinces and 10 com munes of two mountainous provinces, Vinh Phuc and Hoa Binh.

The project was expected to directly benefit 125,000 people and 2 million others indirectly.

Activities would be focused on the adaptation of local Red Cross experiences in forest resource development from coastal to mountainous areas. Around 150 communes in 20 provinces would receive intensive technical support and assistance to become safer and more resilient, Hoan said.

The local Red Cross was expected to expand its project to 1,000 communes and to provide input into the National Programme for Community-based disaster risk management that would cover 6,000 communes.

According to the statistics, 22,400ha of mangroves have been planted in 166 communes of eight coastal provinces of Viet Nam thanks to Red Cross projects since 1994.

Man burned while talking on phone at gas station

While talking on his cell phone at a Hanoi petrol station Hanoi yesterday, Dec 1, a man was severely burned by a flame that came from nowhere and engulfed him.

Vu Trong Khanh being treated at Saint Paul Hospital in Hanoi. (Photo: Afamily.vn)

Research on earthquakes in central Quang Nam begins

A group of geophysicists from the Ministry of Sciences and Technology began research on underground tremors in the Bac Tra My and Nam Tra My districts of central Quang Nam Province today.

The area was selected for research after four earthquakes occurred in Bac Tra My District last month, causing loud underground rumblings and threatening the lives of thousands of local people.

The research aims to pinpoint the epicentre of the earthquakes and test the feasibility of earthquake detection and alarm systems in the district. The research is expected to last ten days.

Yesterday, geophysicists worked with the local authority and conducted field research around the Song Tranh hydropower plant, which is situated in an area where three large tremors that created land depressions have been recorded.

Mother dies, daughter injured as scooter burns

Nguyen Thi Quynh (29) and her daughter were driving on their way to the girl’s school Thursday morning as their scooter suddenly began to burn in northern City of Bac Ninh.

The bike started to burn when Quynh was just a few meters from her house.

Quynh suffered serious burns and her daughter, sitting on the back, had her leg broken, in addition to receiving injuries to several body parts.

Her bike, which was bought in April, was completely burned and deformed.

They were quickly rushed to Bac Ninh general hospital by relatives and neighbors. Due to the seriousness of their injuries, the pair was later moved to Hanoi’s Viet Duc hospital.

Quynh died the same afternoon while her daughter, Van will undergo surgery.

Authorities are still looking into the causes of the bike’s sudden combustion.

Last October in Hanoi, a man was driving a Honda Air Blade scooter on Hai Ba Trung Street while taking his son to school when others on the road noticed a small fire under the bike.

Luckily, he took his son and got off the bike before the fire became too dangerous.

His bike completely burned, leaving only its metal frame behind.

Social insurance fees bite 24% chunk out of wages

Compulsory social insurance fees for workers will increase by two per cent to 24 per cent of their monthly basic wage as of the beginning of the year, according to the Viet Nam Social Insurance office.

Workers will pay seven per cent of the total while their employers will pay the rest.

Twenty per cent of the fees will go into retirement and death funds, three per cent of which will go to the sickness and maternity fund, while the rest will go into the fund for work-related accidents and diseases.

Employers of soldiers, police and military officers are obliged to pay 21 per cent of the common minimum wage.

Social insurance fees for volunteer participants will increase to 20 per cent of their incomes from the current 18 per cent. The participants will be allowed to choose the level of incomes for their payments but the level may not be lower than the minimum wage.

The number of compulsory social insurance participants has increased to over 9.7 million while the figure for volunteer participants is currently 90,000.

Vietnam attends int’l conference of Red Cross and Red Crescent

Vietnam joined 194 other countries at the 31^st International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in Geneva, Switzerland, from November 30 to December 1.

This year’s conference, themed "Our World: Your Move – For Humanity", was focused on strengthening legal protection for victims of armed conflicts, enforcing disaster laws, volunteering in emergencies and addressing barriers to health care.

The Vietnamese delegation was led by Vu Dung, Head of the Vietnamese Permanent Mission to the United Nations, World Trade Organisation (WTO) and other international organizations in Geneva, and Tran Ngoc Tang, President of the Vietnam Red Cross Society (VRC). They had a presentation on the support role of the VRC in humanitarian issues related to victims of Agent Orange, people with disabilities, and the use of nuclear and chemical weapons.

The Conference convenes every four years and brings together all 194 State parties to the Geneva Conventions and all the components of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement: the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), 186 National Societies and the International Federation.

Passenger smokes in plane toilet during flight

A man was caught smoking in the toilet of a Vietnam Airlines plane while it was flying from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City yesterday, the national carrier reported.

When the VN513 flight completed half of its journey, the aircraft’s warning system indicated an increased temperature in the restroom.

Attendants immediately checked the toilet and found a passenger, Nguyen Van Truong, was smoking a cigarette there.

The crew said they had warned all passengers that the flight was a non-smoking one, but Truong ignored the warning.

They made a report about Truong’s violation and when the aircraft landed in HCMC at 11 pm, they handed over the case to Tan Son Nhat Airport’s authority.

Violations of flight safety regulations have been increasing, the airline said.

Most recently, a 71-year-old Taiwanese man, Chuan Wen, was caught trying to open the emergency door of a plane while he was on the VN581 flight from Cao Hung, Taiwan to HCMC on November 19.

Wen had unfastened the door bolt and was about to press the “Open” button when another passenger managed to stop him in time.

The Ministry of Transport Inspectorate later fined Wen VND15 million (US$714).

Earlier this month, a 22-year-old college student Nguyen Duc Duy, who claimed he was flying for the first time, opened the emergency door while aboard a plane that was taxiing on the runway at Tan Son Nhat.

The HCMC- Hanoi flight, also operated by the national carrier, was delayed for over two hours. Duy was later fined the same amount.

Restaurant guards convicted for beating Dutchman

The Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court on Wednesday opened a trial for three guards at Minh Duc Restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City for assaulting 62-year-old Le Van Ngai, a Vietnamese-Dutch man who dined there last year.

23-year-old Bui Dinh Hoang and 20-year-old Duong Trong Nghia from HCMC and 32-year-old Nguyen Minh Duong from Long An Province were sentenced to 9 months imprisonment each for “intentional assault,” the court said.

The three defendants were employees of Thanh Cong Security Services Co Ltd that had been contracted to provide security to the restaurant and guard its customers’ vehicles.

The court also ordered their employer to pay more than VND51 million (US$2,430) in compensation to Ngai.

According to the indictment, on the evening of July 30, 2010, after dining at the restaurant on Ton That Tung Street, District 1, Ngai handed his parking ticket to Hoang whom he thought would take his motorbike out from the parking lot for him. However, Hoang refused, saying he was too busy to handle Ngai’s bike.

This started a quarrel between Hoang and Ngai who then went into the parking lot to retrieve his own vehicle.

When Ngai came out and was about to drive away, the three guards rushed to beat and attack him with an electric baton.

Ngai tried to run from the scene but Hoang called more guards from their company to come in a car to continue beating him.

Local residents called the police who arrived at the scene and arrested the three guards.
Ngai, who suffered multiple injuries on his arms, back and face, was taken to Franco-Vietnamese Hospital for treatment.

He was later confirmed to suffer an 8 percent permanent injury.

Lottery company finally pays big prize to winner

After a lengthy investigation, a local lottery company has finally paid the special prize of VND1.5 billion (US$71,400) to the real owner of the winning ticket, which was wet when the award was claimed.

The prize was handed to Truong Tan Tai, 42, of Tra On District, Vinh Long Province, yesterday after the company confirmed Tai’s lottery ticket no. 774976, issued on September 3, was real.

The company had earlier refused to pay Tai, since his ticket had lost the seal printed on it.

Tai admitted that the ticket had gotten wet from rainwater, and that he had dried it using an iron. But it was not torn and everything on it remained intact, he claimed.

However, the company rejected the ticket, claiming it as invalid.

Tai went to relevant agencies to confirm it was indeed valid, but the company still refused to make payment.

Tai later signed a legal service contract with Dao Xuan Thanh, a lawyer, to claim the prize. Under the contract, Tai agreed to pay Thanh VND500 million ($23,800) if he could persuade the company to pay the prize.

Thanh then filed a complaint in his name – not the name of the winner – to the Dong Xoai Town People’s Court demanding the company pay the prize to him.

When he found out what Thanh had done, Tai canceled the contract and continued to ask the company to pay the prize to him.

After gathering relevant information from the court, the company launched an investigation to identify the real owner of the ticket, as well as to find out whether the ticket was genuine or not.

Tai finally received his money once the Binh Phuoc Lottery Company concluded its investigation.

HIV risks cloud marriages along Vietnam-China border

Nguyen Thi Hoa married Chinese farmer Huang Haitong in Pingxiang, a border city of southern China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region adjacent to Vietnam’s Lang Son Province, in 2004 and developed recurring herpes on her face two years later. A doctor suggested an HIV test after the couple had spent much money but failed to stop the disease from coming back.

Xinhua, a Chinese state media agency, reported the husband as saying he felt his world had collapsed on hearing the HIV positive result. Since Hoa, not her real name, was a Vietnamese sex worker before her marriage to him, Huang, a pseudonym as well, suspected he had got the virus from his wife.

But, he said, it was not clear, and not important now, who had infected the other.

Cross-border marriage is commonplace in the Chinese city and so is the transmission of sexual diseases like this, the agency said.

Many Vietnamese sex workers like Hoa were wedded to Chinese husbands, according to Zhong Haidong, a staff member of the local disease control and prevention center (CDC).

Vietnamese sex workers are, in general, more likely to carry HIV than Chinese sex workers, CDC director He Bo said.

Two or three percent of them are infected whereas the infection rate of their Chinese counterparts is just more or less one percent, he added.

While prostitution is illegal in both Vietnam and China and police crackdowns on it have often been conducted in recent years, Pingxiang and Lang Son have cooperated to curb cross-border transmission of diseases by providing sex workers with regular health checks, according to He.

Pingxiang, inhabited by 110,000 people, is known as an important place of trade on the Vietnam-China border.

It is also seriously afflicted by HIV/AIDS with 638 people tested HIV positive in September.

About 600 young Chinese and Vietnamese people can be seen dragging their suitcases across the border in twos or threes each day.

China had 370,000 people living with HIV by the end of last year, as shown by official statistics from its Health Ministry.

Cabman drives hijacker right to police station

Even though he was being threatened with a knife, a Hanoi taxi driver, Nguyen Xuan Duong boldly drove Nguyen Trung Hieu, the hijacker, to a police station in the city’s Hoan Kiem district last Sunday night.

Earlier that evening Duong, a driver for Hung Vuong taxi, picked up Hieu, who has a record of previous convictions and offences, at the intersection of Dinh Le and Dinh Tien Hoan, in Hoan Kiem district.

Hieu asked Duong to stop on Ly Thai To Street to buy a pack of cigarettes.

Hieu did not pay, and quickly got back in the taxi, took out a sharp knife, and told Duong to drive him to Ha Nam province, 60 kilometers from central Hanoi.

Duong instead took Hieu to the front of Hoan Kiem district’s police station, stopped the car, and shouted so that people could hear him and catch Hieu.

Police are filing documents to handle the case.

The Binh Dong Kindergarten in Binh Dong Commune of central Quang Ngai Province's Binh Son District has been forced to temporarily close for a few days due to the sudden presence of hundreds of thousands of loopers on its premises.

The loopers, whose scientific name is Trichoplusia ni, were found in the steelyard, walls and classrooms last Friday, according to Vo Thi Lan, the school's principal.

Lan said pesticides had been sprayed there twice but the loopers had not been all killed off. She added that the school would open again soon after the spray's smell faded away and the classrooms were all cleaned up.

This was the first time such a phenomenon occurred in the area.