Vietnam to open office in Russia

Legal procedures on the establishment of a Vietnam business and representative office in Russia have been discussed.

Marijuana, heroin dealers arrested in three provinces

Police in the central province of Nghe An seized 20kg of marijuana from a woman in Dien Chau District on April 20.

Nguyen Thi Huong admitted that the drugs had been sent to her by her husband in Lao.

The investigation is ongoing.

On Tuesday, police in the northern provinces of Son La and Lang Son also arrested three drug dealers for possession of heroin.

Japan government to reimburse Vietnamese

Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology

plans to reimburse students who were forced to return home because of the earthquake and tsunami.

The Japanese government will reimburse the cost of scholarship students' airfare home, said Nguyen Xuan Vang, director of the Viet Nam International Education Development Department.

VN Airlines responds to security incident

Vietnam Airlines has said that a stewardess on a domestic flight acted properly when a passenger argued with her about his boarding pass at around 1:43 am on Tuesday.

The airline, in a press release, said the stewardess and security crew, which escorted the man off the VN1169 flight, took necessary action to protect the security of passengers.

Le Minh Khuong, a passenger in the business section, said the stewardess had unfairly accused of him of creating trouble when he talked to her about his boarding pass in Da Nang.

He also said the security men handled him and his 70-year-old father in a ‘physically rough' way.

National roads threaten traffic safety

Over half of road accidents in Viet Nam occurred on national roads, a recently released report by the Transport Strategy Institute has shown.

Accidents on provincial roads account for 26 per cent and city roads claim 23 per cent.

The report concluded that more efforts should be made to improve traffic safety on national roads.

Viet Nam's national roads, a network of roads and a few expressways that link all the major population centres in the country, remained inadequate in terms of both quantity and quality, said Dr Pham Huy Khang, Dean of the Highways and Airdrome Department at the Ha Noi-based University of Transport.

Only 43 per cent of national roads were of a good standard, according to the report, and more than one fifth were "bad or very bad".

The length of national roads is also low, at 0.050km per square km and 0.2km per 1,000 people. The figures were "small compared to regional countries", said the report.

According to another traffic safety assessment that covered 3,800km of Viet Nam's national roads in 2009, only 8 per cent of them were "perfectly safe" for cars and 6 per cent for motorbikes.

A total of 13,700 road accidents with more than 11,000 deaths were reported in Viet Nam last year, according to the National Traffic Safety Committee.

The number of accidents and casualties reduced by 2.4 and 0.4 per cent respectively in the first two months of this year in comparison to the same period in 2010.

Local officials urged to expand food safety regulations

City and provincial leaders have been urged to expand food-safety and hygiene model programmes in HCM City, Ha Noi and Dak Lak Province by Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan and other leaders.

Speaking during an online meeting heads of health departments, Le Truong Giang, deputy head of the HCM City Department of Health, said the city two years ago had set up a model for safe food chains.

Companies have to ensure regulations on food safety and hygiene, including breeding, feeding, slaughtering, water use, pesticides and delivery.

The products will meet the Vietnamese Good Agricultural Practices (VietGap) standards, Giang said.

The city has co-operated with four companies to set up a model of safe food chains, including Hai Duc Company and Da Lat G.A.P Ltd in Lam Dong Province, which specialises in clean vegetables. They have also worked with Viet Nam Livestock Corporation in Ha Noi and Nam Phong Foodstuff Processing Enterprise in the city's Binh Thanh District.

However, the food from these chains goes to large hotels only and is not sufficient to meet the demand of the entire city, Giang said.

Ha Noi has also implemented other methods, including shutting down slaughterhouses that have failed to meet safe food regulations.

Ha Noi authorities have offered loans with preferential interest to owners of small slaughterhouses in the city's inner districts in order to move them to outlying districts.

Larger slaughterhouses in Ha Noi have used modern equipment for butchering animals. They have frozen storage and a standard wastewater treatment system as well.

In Dak Lak Province, the Food Safety and Hygiene Division has set up a food-poisoning prevention model in 14 kindergartens and two tourism areas in Buon Ma Thuot City. Other food safety and hygiene models, including 19 street-food ones, are operating in Krong Pak District.

Such models have contributed to reducing the number of food poisoning cases nationwide, Nhan said, adding that it was necessary to expand them across the country.

The Viet Nam Food Administration's report showed that 16 food poisoning cases occurred in the entire country in this year's the first quarter, killing five people.

Last year, 26 food poisoning cases occurred with 16 deaths in the same period.

According to Nhan, people's awareness on food safety and hygiene has improved, thanks to publicity activities.

The Ministry of Health's figures from last year show that the rate of food traders with awareness of food safety and hygiene regulations increased to 73 per cent from 65 per cent in 2008, and for food-processors, 44.4 per cent in 2009 to 79.4 per cent in 2010.

The rate of consumers' awareness also rose from 65.5 per cent in 2009 to 84.5 per cent in 2010

However, authorities in some localities, especially at the grassroots level, have not imposed stiff penalties, Minister of Health Nguyen Quoc Trieu added.

Nhan asked Ministry of Health and Ministry of Public Security to issue new fines to prevent violation of regulations on food safety and hygiene.

He told the Ministry of Health to complete the project on food safety and hygiene in the next five years. It will be submitted to the Prime Minister in the second quarter.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade was also asked to complete and submit a project to improve inspections on the quality of imported food.

Drought wreaks havoc on Dak Lak agriculture

Prolonged drought has left nearly 5,000 local residents in the Central Highland province of Dak Lak facing severe water shortages and damaged thousands of crops, causing estimated losses of more than VND300 billion (US$15 million).

More than 13,000ha of crops across Dak Lak had been damaged, including more than 10,000ha of coffee and 2,500ha of short-term crops, reported the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Local authorities were working with relevant agencies to dredge canals and had also earmarked part of the provincial budget to support farmers, said the department's deputy director Nguyen Huu Chung.

"Since the beginning of the dry season, which started in November last year, local authorities have been directing relevant agencies and farmers to take measures to cope with drought such as storing water, making use of all available water sources, preventing leaks and reasonably distributing water for different kinds of crops," he said.

"However, these measures only help in part to mitigate the consequences of the drought."

The provincial People's Committee has asked the Government to provide VND100 billion ($5 million) in aid to help local farmers repair irrigation systems and buy materials and seeds.

Province to spend $15m on clean water

The northern mountainous province of Thai Nguyen has begun a VND300 billion (US$15 million) national target programme for clean water and rural environmental hygiene in the 2011-15 period.

"This is the largest amount of funding provided to the province for the programme so far," said deputy chairman of the provincial People's Committee Dang Viet Thuan.

The funding has been sourced from various donors, with the State budget and international donors providing VND120 billion ($6 million); the provincial budget, VND60 billion ($3 million); credit loans, VND90 billion ($4.5 million); and local residents, VND30 billion ($1.5 million).

The programme started in the province on Tuesday.

The provincial authorities will spend VND225 billion ($11.2 million) on building clean water supply stations for rural areas.

The province will build 11,600 standard household water-closets in 58 communes at a total cost of VND23 billion ($1.1 million), 55 water-closets in schools which worth VND10 billion ($500,000), and 10 water-closets in communal health clinics at VND2 billion ($100,000).

The province is targeting that by 2015 as many as 95 per cent of local residents will be able to access clean water, 75 per cent of households will have hygienic water-closets and 65 per cent of households have hygienic livestock facilities.

At present, 65 per cent of local residents have access to clean water, but only 43 per cent of households have hygienic water-closets, according to provincial People's Committee statistics.

Police thwart attempt to kidnap student

Hai Phong City police have thwarted a kidnap attempt on a student at the local Maritime College.

On Monday night, a friend of Hoang Dinh Hiep told police that he was being held against his will by kidnappers who wanted a VND2 million (US$95) ransom payment.

Police said the kidnappers were named Nguyen Thanh Luan, 22, and Vu Trong Giang, 19.

12-year-old boy gets kidney transplant

Doctors at HCM City's Paediatrics Hospital No 2 on Tuesday announced they had successfully carried out a kidney transplant on a twelve-year-old boy.

Nguyen Ngoc Hieu Nghia, from Vung Tau City, is the eighth child to be given a kidney transplant.

After a two-hour operation, both the boy and his aunt, who donated her kidney for Nghia were in good health, doctors said.

VNN/VOV/VNS