Telecom violations to be fined up to $4,800

A new governmental decree stipulates fines of VND200,000 to VND100 million (US$4,800) for individuals and service providers violating telecom and other regulations.
With effect from December 1, a fine of VND200,000-500,000 will be slapped on telecom companies for acts like providing customers with incorrect information and providing telecom services at self-service kiosks without the logos of service providers.
Anyone found damaging public telephone booths or misusing them will be slapped with a fine of VND2-5 million.
Fines ranging from VND5 to 10 million will apply for not producing any of the following documents when requested by competent authorities: license for setting up a public telecom network, providing telecom services, laying undersea telecom cables, and testing telecom networks or services.
Service providers will be fined VND30-50 million for fixing service charges well below the average market rate or below cost, or for changing phone numbers without prior approval from competent agencies.
The highest fines of VND70-100 million will apply for providing unlicensed telecom services, illegally installing equipment for telecom services between Vietnam and foreign countries or vice versa, and not informing subscribers within a certain period about changes made to their numbers.

90 tons of meat, animals without documents seized

The Thua Thien-Hue Province police yesterday, Sep 20, seized more than 90 tons of chicken, dog and cat meat, 100 cans of pork fat, and a large number of live cats and wild birds without documents in three separate incidents.

Early in the morning, following a tip-off from the public, traffic police officers caught a passenger van carrying rare wild birds in 13 cartons and some 250 kg of rotten pork on National Highway 1A.

The driver had no documents for the goods and the police seized them.

At 9 am, while patrolling in Dinh Lap District on the same highway, a police team found three container trucks that were about to transfer fresh food to five other trucks.

The officers found a large quantity of frozen chicken legs and gizzard, estimated at around 90 tons, but the drivers again failed to show any documents for the origin of the food.

They said merely that they had been hired to carry the food to Kim Kham Import, Export and Trading Co Ltd in Mong Cai town in Quang Ninh.

A few hours later police officers stopped a speeding van in Phong Dien District and found 100 cans of pig fat weighing nearly three tons, 200 live cats contained in five metal cages, and three cartons with 150 kg of dog and cat meat and organs of other animals.

The driver, Nguyen Thanh Tich, 50, had neither documents for the origin of the food nor quarantine certificate for the cats, Major Nguyen Ngoc Hoang of Traffic Police Team 2 said.
Tich, a native of Thai Binh Province, said he had been hired by a trader in Ho Chi Minh City to transport the food to a company in a northern province.
The traffic police have handed over all the seized items to the local environmental police and animal quarantine departments.

Elderly need more social security

Experts have emphasized the importance of protecting the nation’s aging population as it has reached a higher percentage earlier than previously predicted.

The number of Vietnamese aged over 60 has increased significantly from 8.7 percent of the population in 2009 to 9.4 percent in 2010, according to statistics released at the national workshop titled ‘Aging Population in Vietnam and the Formulation of the National Programme for the Elderly 2012-2020’ held in Hanoi on September 20.

Applying this rate, the elderly will reach 10.1 percent of the population this year, which put the country in the status of ‘aging population’, said Duong Quoc Trong, general director of the General Office for Population and Family Planning under the Ministry of Health.

“This reflects the improvements we have made in increasing the quality of life for all residents,” Trong said on the sidelines of the workshop. “But it also has come much faster than expected and we are not fully prepared for the arising challenges.”

Mandeep Janeja, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) deputy representative in Vietnam, said the country is going through a unique demographic transition with a huge bubble of young people, who are instrumental in the care of the elderly. However, without effective social protection policies for the elders, an aging population will create many serious socio-economic consequences, Janeja added.

“Vietnam will face a status of ‘getting old before getting rich’, pace at which the population growing old is rather high while the per capita income is only just reaching the level of a low middle-income country,” she said.

UAE Ambassador presents bikes to poor pupils in Tay Ninh

Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to Vietnam, Ahmed Ali Hamad Almualla, presented 215 bicycles worth VND200 million to outstanding poor pupils in the southern province of Tay Ninh on September 20.

The receivers were from Tan Chau, Chau Thanh, Duong Minh Chau, Tan Bien and Hoa Thanh districts, and Tay Ninh town.

The donation aimed to help local pupils overcome their difficulties and achieve better academic results.

Earlier, the UAE Ambassador had funded the building of new houses for poor families of Cham ethnic people in Tay Ninh.

HCMC police bust rampant used oil trade

Ho Chi Minh City’s Crime Prevention and Fighting Police Department (C49B) has discovered a ring selling used cooking oil to food processors.

In March, C49B officers found 34 barrels of used cooking oil that had already been recycled following a raid into the vegetable oil trading and recycling facility owned by Nguyen Thi Kim Hoa in Hoc Mon District.

Hoa admitted to buying 2 to 3 tons of used oil a month from food processing companies and restaurants via a wholesaler at VND10,000 a kg (US$0.5) before filtering the used oil and selling it again for VND15,000 a kg.

Hoa also said she had sold a total of 90 tons of used oil to three companies to produce animal feed, lubricating oil and soaps.

Besides Hoa, the officers also found 156 cans and two tanks containing 7.6 tons of used cooking oil at Mai Trang Co. Ltd. in Tan Binh District.

The company said it had bought the used oil from some restaurants and companies in HCMC with a daily amount of up to 200kg and sold it at VND12,000 a kg, doubling the purchasing price.

The company said it had bought and sold a total of 540 tons of used oil since 2000. C49B officers have also tracked the distribution path of used oil and eventually detected three food processing facilities in Hoc Mon and Cu Chi districts using used cooking oil to make crispy fried onions.

Le Van Trong, who runs the facility in Hoc Mon, said he had bought 675 tons of used cooking oil from Thinh Phat Co. and Son Dieu Co.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Thi Huong of Cu Chi District said she had bought 135 tons of used oil from Hoang Nga Co. Ltd., and sold the oil back to the company after frying the onions.
Dang Kim Thanh of Cu Chi also admitted to buying 45 tons of used oil every month from Mai Trang Co.

Senior Lieutenant Colonel Dang Van Tot of C49B said food safety authorities had failed to control the rampant used oil trade.
He said his unit had so far found 2,000 tons of used cooking oil in food processing in 12 businesses.

“But this is just the tip of the iceberg,” Tot said.

Multi-trillion VND programme to teach agriculture to rural workers

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) said it will soon submit to the government a 10 trillion VND programme on "Training rural labourers in agricultural skills in the period of 2011- 2020".

The programme, which is expected to be launched within this year, aims at creating a skilled labour force workers in rural areas, who will be capable of meeting requirements of a modern agriculture.

MARD has set a target to teach agriculture to about 300,000 rural workers across the country each year in the period of 2011-2020. This means that the percentage of trained rural workers will increase from 20 percent in 2011 to 50 percent by 2020.

Between 2011-2015, the focus will be on vocational training in the fields of cultivation, animal husbandry, afforestation, aquaculture and fishing, and agricultural services. In the remaining period, attention will be shifted to training in key areas of agriculture, and agricultural commodities production.

Earlier, the Prime Minister approved a project on vocational training for about 1 million rural workers each year to 2020, with 300,000 of them to learn agricultural skills.
After more than one year of implementation, the project has trained over 610,000 labourers in rural areas, 70 percent of them having found jobs.

Pipe breaks down, causes massive water loss

A water pipe on Phan Dinh Phu Street, Phu Nhuan District, Ho Chi Minh City broke down last night, causing a loss of millions of cubic meters of fresh water.

The pipe is 500mm wide and was installed 4m underground.

The water erupted from the broken pipe overflowed many houses and shops nearby.

It took the workers from a local sewage company 6 hours to fix the pipe.

Vietnam ready for Moving Planet Day

About 1,500 volunteers throughout the country are gearing themselves up for global Moving Planet Day on Saturday.

Volunteers across the world will engage in green activities by walking, cycling, and skating in a bid to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

This will be the third year Vietnam has joined in the event, but with the participation of the whole society this time.

The Month for Green Colour at Schools kicked off with thirty schools taking part in the programme that will last until mid October. The programme aims to encourage students to collect waste paper for recycling and to organize artistic activities.

Hundreds of people will form themselves into the number 350 at Thong Nhat Park between 6.30am and 11am on Saturday while 350 cyclists will be geared for environmental awareness.

Since August, volunteers in 16 cities and provinces have been taking part in environmentally friendly activities under the banner 350ppm, the maximum safe limit for CO2 levels in the atmosphere. The present level is 393ppm.

First study encouragement week in Vietnam

A variety of activities to promote the first Vietnam Study Encouragement Week will take place in 63 provinces and cities across the country from September 28 to October 2.

The week will be the first activity held by the Vietnam Study Encouragement Association, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Training, to celebrate the 15^th anniversary of its founding.

In Hanoi, the event will be celebrated at the Temple of Literature, aiming to attract an estimated 400 delegates, students, and young people to gather and share learning experiences.

There will also be a Study Encouragement Day (October 2) with the participation of about 500 delegations and families of those who love to study.

The Vietnam Study Encouragement Association has so far established chapters in all the country’s provinces, cities and towns with a membership of over 7.5 million. It has also set up more than 10,000 community-based study centres that attract about 10 million learners every year.

The National Study Encouragement Fund mobilizes over VND700 billion annually to provide scholarships for over three million students.

Men nabbed smuggling timber in police car

Phu Linh Commune People's Committee in co-operation with local rangers arrested two men on Sunday who were caught illegally transporting endangered timber via a police car in the northern mountainous province of Ha Giang.

The rangers seized 18 planks of nghien (Burretiodendron hsienmu).

Culprits Mam Van Huu and Nguyen Van Thinh work for the Ha Giang Police Department.

Thinh admitted that he used the public car to illegally carry the wood.

Provincial police are continuing with their investigations.

Defendants reject woman’s claim over photo use

The defendants who have been sued by 26-year-old Nguyen Thi Thu Trang for using her photo without her consent rejected her claim for damage at a reconciliation meeting held by the Vinh Long Province People’s Court on Monday.

Trang, of Cai Von Town, Binh Minh District, asked for a compensation of VND200 million (US$9,700) from a photographer and 13 newspapers, newswires, and magazines that she said had been using her photo for 8 years without her permission.

Trang claimed that the use of a photo titled "Cô gái vườn bưởi" (Girl in the pomelo garden) showing her in a pomelo garden caused her a “loss of honor, dignity and prestige” in a suit she filed last March against Nguyen Vinh Hien, who took it in 2003, as well as the media agencies.
At the meeting Monday, the representatives of the defendants rejected Trang’s claim for compensation, arguing that the person who has the right to file a lawsuit over the use of the photo is Hien, not Trang.

The defendants also said their use of Trang’s photo hadn’t caused any damage to her “honor, dignity or prestige.”

In addition, Trang’s claim is no longer valid since the statutory limit for the claim is over, the defendants said, citing Article 607 of the Civil Code.

They said Trang’s photo was used mainly from 2004 to 2007.
Hien, a resident of Vinh Long city, had earlier told the court that in 2003, Trang and another student had agreed to pose for him in photos that promote Vinh Long’s fruit orchards.
One of them is "Cô gái vườn bưởi" which was published in local newspapers that year and later found its way online and many media agencies used it without citing the source or the name of the photographer, Hien said.

The photographer also said he hadn’t received any royalty from those who used the photo.

VNN/VOV/VNS/Tuoi Tre