Building firm fined for delayed school project

The Ha Noi Housing Development and Investment Corporation (Handico) was fined more than VND11 billion ($534,000) by the People's Court in northern Hai Duong Province for taking too long to complete a building.

The company was sued by Dai Son Development and Investment JSC who hired the company to build the Viet Nam-Canada Vocational Training School in Hai Duong.

Crane loses hook, worker injured

The crane operator had managed to raise the load many floor high when the cable unfastened and the hook broke loose.  (Photo: LD)

Vedan set to pay for pollution violations

Vedan Company, convicted for pollution, will pay compensation of more than VND70 billion ($3.4 million) to farmers in southern Dong Nai Province's Nhon Trach and Long Thanh districts within a week, according to chairman of Dong Nai Association of Farmers Tran Nhu Do.

The first payment of VND40 billion ($1.9 million) was delivered to farmers in January.

About 6,000 local households were affected when the company dumped untreated wastes into Thi Vai River, destroying farmland and fish and shrimp ponds.

Vietnamese killed in Haiti plane crash

A Vietnamese passenger and two pilots were killed when a small passenger aircraft of a Haitian airline crashed while trying to land during heavy rain in northern Haiti on Tuesday night.
The Vietnamese passenger was 33-year-old Nguyen Huu Duc, the Vietnamese Embassy in Cuba confirmed yesterday, citing a notice from Natcom Telecom Company, a joint venture between Vietnam’s Telecom Viettel Group and Haiti’s Teleco.
The Vietnam News Agency cited a source from Viettel this morning that said Duc was not a Viettel employee.
Since Vietnam has yet to have a diplomatic office in Haiti, Natcom is working with Haitian authorities to handle Duc’s death.
Of the two pilots who were killed, one came from neighboring Dominican Republic and the other was from Mexico, Cap-Haitien Mayor Michel St. Croix told the Associated Press.
The local police and the airline Salsa d’Haiti said the two pilots, one of whom was female, and the plane’s only passenger were found dead in the wreckage in a sugar cane field outside the northern city of Cap-Haitien.

Frantz Lerebours, the Haitian National Police spokesman, confirmed there was no other passenger on board.
A local police officer Ernst Silenceuse told AP that the plane was a Beechcraft 99, which can carry 2 pilots and 15 passengers.
He said it was the last flight of the day to Cap-Haitien from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince.

Man killed in elevator accident: witness

56-year-old Nguyen Van Hoa died from an elevator accident Wednesday morning, when he tried to jump out, slipped and fell, a witness said.
Hoa was visiting his nephew at CT3 Yen Hoa Apartment in Cau Giay District at the time of the accident. He took the elevator which stopped between the fourth and fifth floor when the power suddenly went out.
People outside the elevator tried to break inside to get Hoa out. Hoa, however, tried to jump into the fourth floor but fell into the basement. He died immediately.
CT3 Yen Hoa is a 12-storied apartment built by state-owned Constrexim Company in 2006. Residents here said their elevator had broken down many times.
Although they have repeatedly sent petitions to the management board, no action has been taken to fix the problem.
Similarly, residents at CT1 Apartment in the My Dinh-Song Da residential area said their elevator broke down once, sometimes two to three times a week. People can be stuck inside for as long as 30 minutes.
And earlier, residents at an apartment at 220 Pho Vong Street in Hai Ba Trung District also expressed their concern about their elevator which had broken down four times in just two months.

Swimming to school

Every morning when the sky is still foggy, dozens of students in the mountainous commune of Trong Hoa in Minh Hoa District, Quang Binh Province take off their uniform, put on plastic bags and swim across Khe Rao River to get to school.

Around 7 km away from Trong Hoa Commune is Ong Tu Village with 106 inhabitants and 20 households. Of them, 14 are studying at Hung Primary School. And in nearby Ka Ooc Village, 10 students are taking class at Trong Hoa Junior High-school.

To these 24 students, Khe Rao River is their only road to school.

“In flooding seasons, school is closed for a month,” said Ho Danh, a 4th grader at Hung Primary School.

And in drier days, Danh said he and his friends had to overcome their fear to swim across the river.

“We wade across the river in winter also,” Danh continued.

It takes boys couples of minutes to get to the other side. For girls, swimming across Khe Rao is much more challenging.

Ho Thi Thoai, an 8th grader at Trong Hoa Junior High said she used to be very scared of the swift-flowing river. But she had to muster courage to learn swimming from a friend because she wanted to go to school.

According to 79-year-old Ho Nhung, who is Ong Tu Village’s chief, students here have had to swim to school since last winter.

The village used to have a boat to take them to school but it was swept away in a flooding season.

“No child has been hurt but accidents can occur at any time,” Nhung said. “We all dream of a bridge but it is yet to come true.”

On September 17, the Trong Hoa Commune People’s Committee gave students in this village a boat and life-jackets as a temporary solution.

Dinh Xuan Tien, Chairman of the committee, said the commune had asked higher authorities to build a bridge crossing Khe Rao River as well as a road to connect Ong Tu and Ka Occ village.

But Tien said the commune doesn’t want to move local residents to clear sites because they are needed to protect the forest.

Dinh Quy Nhan, Chairman of the Minh Hoa District People’s Committee, has also told Vnexpress newswire that the district could only urge parents to take their children to school and offer life-jackets because it would be beyond the district’s budget to build a bridge.

ASEAN nations bridge rural digital gap

The digital gap between rural and urban areas remains a challenge for people in the rural communities of ASEAN member countries, who struggle to get better access to key services such as education and health care. 

IT groups and ICT experts from ASEAN member countries gathered at a conference on September 21 in Hanoi to examine ways in which ICT can bring more efficient key services to people living in rural areas. 

The three-day ASEAN rural connectivity conference on education and development also highlights the building of ASEAN-US public-private partnerships to facilitate the financing of underserviced rural areas in ASEAN countries. 

Dr Somsak Pipoppinyo, Director of Finance, Industry and Infrastructure Directorate of the ASEAN Secretariat said rural information and communication technology (ICT) needed to be promoted in rural areas by increasing access, improving quality of services and availability of applications. This will help narrow the digital gap between urban and rural areas and offer more digital opportunities. 

ASEAN leaders in October last year ratified a master plan on ASEAN connectivity which encompasses three key elements of physical connectivity (energy, ICT, transport), institutional connectivity and people-to-people connectivity, he said. 

Regarding financial issues, Jun Labadan from the ASEAN-US Technical Assistance and Training Facility said challenges were numerous. Challenges include raising the amount of infrastructure required, providing Internet access, upgrading facilities and training manpower for use and support. 

He put forth some solutions including stimulating local Government financing, private public partnerships with local telecommunications companies and banks, grants and tie-in services that generate both service and income. 

Regarding strategies for rural connectivity and technology in Vietnam, Vice President of the National Institute of ICT Pham Manh Lam said the Prime Minister in October last year approved projects for development of information and communications in rural area during the 2011-15 period. 

Under the project, all communes in remote areas will have access to post and telecom services and the broadband network, he said. 

HCM City leads way in domestic water recycling

Water recycling was being considered more seriously by experts and enterprises as a solution for natural resources management, said Dr Nguyen Phuoc Dan, head of Environment Department at the HCM City University of Technology.

Sai Gon Pearl (SSG) residential area used recycled water for irrigating small plots of land, an initiative that had saved its inhabitants more than VND40 million (US$1,923) a month.

The company decided to take advantage of its buildings' waste water to save about 3,000cu.m of clean water which would otherwise have cost a minimum unit rate of VND12,000 ($58).

A daily 600cu.m of waste water was treated and purified to meet the requirements for irrigating water which was to be odourless and to contain no pathogenic micro-organism.

Recycled water used by the SSG had also been certified by the Institute of Labour Protection and Environmental Technology to be of better quality than that of the Sai Gon River.

Dan said the use of reclaimed water could benefit Viet Nam in many ways.

First, it could ease the problem of fresh water shortages on islands and in coastal areas as well as in populated urban areas.

In particular, big city water consumption had great potential for water recycling schemes.

The initiative would also help prevent the over-exploitation of water resources and its consequences including landslides and the salinisation of ground water.

Water recycling also allows less toxic substances to be discharged, contributing to the preservation of the aqua-ecosystem.

Many developed countries had used reclaimed water for different purposes: non-drinkable water for irrigation and cleaning in the agriculture and industrial sectors and, with treatment, for use in daily life.

However, water recycling was not yet a common option in Viet Nam, Dan said, because the supply of freshwater and ground water remained plentiful, which had led to low prices and the lack of strict regulation on water exploitation.

In addition, the common perception was that recycled water was not sufficiently clean.

Dan proposed a more active role of the Government to improve the situation.

"The State could raise water prices to a reasonable level to encourage water saving while keeping a closer eye on the exploitation of water resources.

"Meanwhile, subsidies could be granted to investors in water recycling projects."

A precise framework of requirements and guides would also be essential to facilitate the promotion of water reuse, Dan said.

VNN/VOV/VNS/Tuoi Tre/LD