Human resources development scheme launched

Viet Nam aims to have nearly 44 million trained labourers by 2020, under the Government's new scheme on human resource development.

The scheme, the first of its kind in Viet Nam, is estimated to cost VND2.13 trillion (US$10.4 million), making up 12 per cent of the nation's total social investment.

It sets out a roadmap for developing a qualified labour workforce in certain timeframes, aimed at increasing the nation's competitive capacity and helping realise the socio-economic development strategy over the next decade.

Under the scheme, the number of trained labourers is planned to reach 30.5 million (55 per cent of the total workforce) by 2015, and 44 million (70 per cent of the workforce) by 2020, up from 40 per cent last year.

The plan also identifies human resources demands in terms of quality and quantity for various sectors of the economy, including industry, construction, transport, environment, service, agriculture, forestry and fishing.

It also projects specific statistics of labour demands in each economic region, such as the northern midland and mountainous area, the Song Hong (Red River) Delta, the northern and central coastal area, the Central Highlands, and the Mekong River Delta, and so on.

Under the scheme, 158 new universities and colleges will be established by 2015. By 2020, there will be 573 universities and colleges in Viet Nam.

The government's plan expects to increase the number of vocational schools to 540 and vocational centres to 1050 in the next decade.

Flash flood sweeps away 17 houses in Ky Son, Nghe An

A flash flood has swept away 17 houses and destroyed many schools and medical stations in Huoi Cang 1 and Huoi Cang 2 hamlets, Bac Ly commune, Ky Son district in the central province of Nghe An.

The natural disaster, which occurred on July 22, also damaged local roads, causing traffic congestions in two days.

Reports of casualties and material losses were not immediately available.

The Ky Son district People’s Committee provided VND10 million for each house completely destroyed and VND5-7 million for each partially damaged.

Border guards also joined hands with local people to help victims overcome the aftermath.

Earlier, Ky Son had been struck by a flash flood on June 25 that swept away 110 houses and damaged public facilities, causing material damages worth hundreds of billions of Vietnam Dong (VND).

Child dies as alcoholic burns wife, children

An alcoholic in Da Nang tried to set fire to his wife and three children Saturday, killing the youngest child and leaving the others injured.
Pham Phu Len, 34, who works aboard a fishing boat, himself suffered burn injuries while Pham Thi Diem Hang, 6, died on the spot after he set fire to the mattress on which she had been sleeping.
Nguyen Thi Yen, 31, Pham Diem Ngan, 10, and Pham Diem Quynh, 11, are being treated at the Da Nang General Hospital.
Nguyen Quang Hiep, a neighbor, said he had seen smoke, smelt something burning, and heard screams from Len’s house at around 8.40 pm.
He had rushed there with a fire extinguisher and found Len with Hang in his arms on the floor, both unconscious.
Lying on the bed, screaming for help, were Yen and the other two children.
Hiep and others then put out the fire and took the victims to hospital.
The police arrived at the scene and said after a preliminary investigation that Len had set fire to the victims with two bottles of petrol.

Quynh recalled that Len had asked her and her two sisters to go to bed along with their mother.
Locals said the couple had been married for 12 years but quarreled often due to Len’s alcohol problem.
However, Len had not appeared unusual recently, they said.
The police are investigating.

Yen Bai strengthens quarry breach fines

Quarry exploitation companies, having failed to fulfil obligations associated with the Minerals Law, are set to be strictly punished, according to the provincial People's Committee.

In an effort to stomp out illegal quarry exploitation, possible punishments could include temporary suspension and, in the worst case, revocation of exploitation permits.

Common violations have included over large mining heights, over steep exploitation surfaces and the close proximity of supporting facilities.

Cruise boat sinks in Nha Trang

An empty cruise boat anchoring in the Cau Da Vinh Nguyen quay in Nha Trang City, Khanh Hoa Province suddenly sank at 4 am Saturday.

The 45-seat cruise boat named Ha Yen returned to the quay on Friday from on a cruise trip with 40 tourists, Thai Huy Can, the boat’s owner, said.

The boat was then anchored 100 m from the quay and suddenly sank while nobody was on board, he said.

According to an initial examination, the boat’s engine cooling pipe was broken, making way for water to enter the boat and causing it to sink, said Nguyen Ngoc Khoa, deputy head of the quay management board.

The boat’s owner had removed the boat from the quay for repair, Khoa said.

The investigation into the cause of the sinking is underway, he added.

More than 200 cruise boats are licensed to operate in the bay and over 3,000 tourists take cruise in this area everyday, Khoa said.

Bui Xuan Luong, head of the Tourism Transaction Division of the Khanh Hoa Province’s Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said 80 % of the cruise boats operating in this bay were originally fishing boats and are now too old to meet safety standards.
On May 20, an unqualified two-storey restaurant boat of Din Ky Restaurant Private Enterprise sank on the Saigon River in southern Binh Duong province in bad weather conditions, killing 16 passengers, including some children.

Major crossroads to relieve congestion in Da Nang

The Ministry of Transport has approved a VND2,000 billion (US$97 million) project to build crossroads and two flyovers at the gateway to Da Nang central city.

The crossroads and flyovers will remove congestion in what is a main transport node in the central region involving National Highway 1A, the north-south railway and main roads of the city.

It is an area of high-density traffic which experiences major traffic jams at peak periods, especially when the train is running.

The project has been designed with three levels: the lower or ground level includes roads not crossing the railway, the second level is a flyover with four lanes, the third level is a 17m wide flyover, 607m long.

Da Nang City's Transport Department is responsible for implementing the project with funding from the State budget. It is expected to be completed in 2015.

2 youngsters killed, 18 injured in road accidents

Two youths were killed and 18 others severely injured in three road accidents that occurred in three different provinces yesterday, July 24.

At 4.30 am a truck hit a motorbike on National Highway 61 in Hau Giang’s Phung Hiep District, killing Le Hoang Vu, the rider, and seriously injuring Le Phuoc Hiep, 19, who was on the pillion.
Hiep was taken to Can Tho Central General Hospital for emergency treatment.
Both victims were travelling from Kien Giang Province.
At 12.20 pm a bus travelling south from Da Nang ran into another bus coming in the opposite direction on National Highway 1A in Duc Pho District, Quang Nam Province.
The crash killed Luu Thi Vy Le, 22, of Binh Dinh Province, and injured 16 others, including one who is in serious condition.
All the injured were taken to the Dang Thuy Tram Hospital for emergency treatment.
The local police said both the buses were travelling at high speed and their drivers had lost control.

Two hours later a motorbike hit a bus on La Nga Bridge in Dinh Quan District, Dong Nai Province, seriously injuring Pham Thanh Vu, 19, of Ho Chi Minh City, the rider.
Vu crashed into the bus coming in the opposite direction after overtaking another bus, witnesses said.
In trying to avoid Vu, the two buses then hit each other, causing damage to both and blocking the bridge.

Hau Giang tops country in fighting prostitution

Hau Giang Province leads the country in prostitution control and prevention, the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs said, checking 720 establishments in the first half and slapping fines of US$4,180 on 137 of them found violating the law.

Countrywide 9,800 massage parlors, karaoke places, cafes, and other establishments were found to violate prostitution laws out of 28,000 that were inspected.

There were 380 cases in which 1,500 prostitutes, brokers, and their clients were caught red-handed.

Authorities have prosecuted 474 people.

Disturbingly, the average age of pimps was found to have declined by eight years to 18.

Move to reduce City tap water leakage

A project to reduce tap water leakage in HCM City, which began five years ago, remains well behind schedule, with the leakage rate actually increasing since.

The US$44 million project targeted reducing the leakage to 25 per cent in 2020 from 38 per cent in 2006, but the rate now is a whopping 40 per cent, figures from the Sai Gon Water Supply Company show.

The current daily loss equals 600,000 cubic metres, which translates into roughly VND2.6 billion (US$123,000). SAWACO supplies around 1.5 million cu.m a day.

The cost is partially passed on consumers.

Sawaco has begun installing meters at commune and district levels to find out where the leaks are occurring by measuring the overall quantity supplied to an area and the actual consumption by individual consumers there.

Sawaco says it has installed 27 such meters which has helped locate and repair a broken pipeline which reduced leakage by 30,000cu.m.

But Tuoi Tre quoted a Sawaco official as saying that since installing each meter takes several months, the project was taking longer than planned.

He also blamed the tardy approval from central agencies for the snail-paced progress of the plan. Besides, once a location was identified for a meter, approval had to be obtained from the city Department of Transport, he explained.

The project is being funded by the World Bank, and the water utility has petitioned the Government to seek a two-and-a-half-year extension from the bank.

3 dead, 40 injured in traffic accidents on Saturday

Four serious accidents happened on Saturday in Dien Bien, Quang Ngai, Dong Nai and Tien Giang provinces, killing three people, including two children, and injuring 40 others.

Of the injured, 10 were in critical conditions.

At 5:30 am a bus which was traveling in the rain on the Pha Din Pass in Tuan Giao District in the northern province of Dien Bien lost control and fell into a ditch.

The accident killed a man and two children on the spot and injured 17 others.

Earlier at 3 am, a collision between a bus and a truck on National Highway 1A in Tinh Phong Commune, Son Tinh District, in the central province of Quang Ngai, injuring 19 passengers on the bus.

All of the injured, including 5 in critical conditions, were taken to Quang Ngai General Hospital for emergency treatment.

And also yesterday morning, a truck hit and ran over an 8-year-old student, Nguyen Thi Lan, who was riding a bicycle on a road in Gia Kiem Commune, Thong Nhat District, in the southern province of Dong Nai.

Lan’s legs were crushed and she was taken to a local hospital in a very serious condition.

At noon, four of the 7 passengers on a 16-seat van were severely injured when their van crashed into a truck on the Ho Chi Minh City-Trung Luong expressway in Chau Thanh District in the southern province of Tien Giang.

The injured, including a 2-year-old girl, were taken to a local hospital for emergency treatment.

College student found hanging dead

Le Thi Huong, a junior college student, allegedly committed suicide by hanging herself in her rented room in Di An Town, Binh Duong Province on Saturday.

The owner of the boarding house found Huong’s body in the restroom of her room where she had been sharing with a girl friend.

The owner said Huong, who came from the northern province of Ha Tinh, was in her third year at some college in Ho Chi Minh City and a part-time worker at a company in Binh Duong’s Song Than Industrial Park.

The police are investigating the cause of the alleged suicide.

21 injured as van hits truck in central province

21 passengers on board a 16-seat van were injured in an early-dawn horrific accident on National Highway 1A in Quang Ngai central province Saturday after the vehicle slammed into a truck from behind.

Local police said after preliminary investigations that the passenger van, which had been heading for Gia Lai from Da Nang central city, lost control when it was traveling at high speed and carshed into the truck.

The accident left 21 passengers hurt including 5 in very critical conditions and caused the two vehicles to be badly damaged.

“The van driver didn’t jam on the brake to avoid the truck when the van’s head was very near to the truck from behind. I think his lack of sleep is one possible cause of the accident,” said passenger Tran The My, who luckily escaped death.

Immediately after accident, local residents had broken the glass to rescue the victims, who are undergoing emergency treatment at Quang Ngai General hospital.

Vietnam to test Augmentin for harmful plasticizers

After Hong Kong ordered the recall of antibiotic Augmentin in the form of 375 mg compressed tablets that contained harmful plasticizers, Vietnamese authorities have called for taking samples of Augmentin in all forms for testing.
The Vietnam Pharmaceutical Management Department said Hong Kong health authorities have requested GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to withdraw the product that had been confirmed containing DEHP, DINP and DIDP.
It was the second time within the past two months that Hong Kong found plasticizers in Augmentin. Last month, the territory, as well as Taiwan, recalled Augmentin in the form of syrup (475 mg/5 ml) that were contaminated with DINP and DIDP.
These plasticizers can cause hormone disorders, give rise to precocious puberty both in male and female, and have harmful effects on liver and thyroid gland, Cao Minh Quang, Deputy Health Minister, said.
Augmentin 375 mg tablets once exported into Vietnam by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) under registration No. VN-1865-96 but the registration was expired ten years ago and the company has since no longer exported it to Vietnam, said the Department.
However, the Department requested all municipal and provincial health departments to inform all health facilities and pharmaceutical traders of the drug recall in Hong Kong, examine all Augmentin products available on the market, and sent a report to the agency.
The Department also asked the Central Drug Testing Institute and the HCM City Drug Testing Institute to take samples of all Augmentin products for testing and reported the results.
The Representative Office of GlaxoSmithKline in Vietnam is required to report to the Department about the materials used for and the process of production of Augmentin products that have been exported to Vietnam.
All required reports should be submitted before August 5, the Department said.

US$7.4 bln beltways to be built around HCMC

The Transport Ministry has submitted to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung a project to build two beltways 3 and 4 to link Ho Chi Minh City with four neighboring provinces, Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Dong Nai, Binh Duong and Long An.
The total cost of the project is estimated at VND153 trillion (US$7.44 billion).

Beltway 3 will be 89.3 km long and have 8 lanes at a highest speed of 80-100 km per hour, while beltway 4 will has a length of 197.6 km and 6-8 lanes at a maximum speed at 60-80 km per hour.
The two beltways are designed to connect with the existing highways and expressways in HCMC to create an effective traffic system that helps satisfy the increasing transport demand, ease congestions in HCM City inner areas, and contribute to the economic development of the city and its neighboring provinces.
The ministry is calling for investment into the project, which is expected to be completed in 2020-2025.

VNN/VOV/VNS/Tuoi Tre