Leader calls for major Tet crime crackdown

Politburo member and Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc yesterday, Oct 24, instructed authorities to launch a campaign to combat crime and assure social security before, during and after the upcoming Lunar New Year Festival.

Speaking at a conference to review crime prevention work, Phuc, who is also head of the Steering Committee on the National Programme for Crime Prevention, said that although the rise in crime was still under control, the situation remained complicated, with new challenges including loansharking and murders targeting children.

Reports from the steering committee showed that in 2012, police investigated more than 37,000 serious crimes and broke up 6.22 per cent more criminal gangs than last year.

More than 11,000 economic crimes and 18,000 drug-related crimes were uncovered, and over 9,000 criminals were arrested.

But Phuc said co-ordination between committees and governments at all levels had not been effective enough and the implementation of crime prevention was not comprehensive.

He asked committee members to increase their responsibilities in all fields, complete policies to encourage and reward good people, and establish a fund for crime prevention.

Phuc also asked the Ministry of Public Security to launch campaigns to combat dangerous criminal activity involving the economy, corruption and drugs.

At the conference, committee members said that authorised agencies should pay more attention on measures to collect assets from economic crimes and suggest amendments to the Penal Code to punish criminal acts of manipulating banks.

HFM disease spreading in Lai Chau

Over the past two months, more than 50 children have been infected with hand-foot-mouth (HFM) disease in Lai Chau Province.

The provincial general hospital claims to have treated more than 500 cases of HFM infection since early this year.

Director of the provincial Preventive Medicine Centre Tran Thi Lien says most infection were caused by the lack of due attention to hygiene and preventive measures.

It seems difficult to contain the disease at crowded kindergartens when local people care little about hygiene practices.

Motorbike thieves captured by cops

Ha Noi Police arrested two men and are searching for a third after finding them involved in stealing expensive motorbikes from Hoang Mai and Hai Ba Trung districts since the beginning of this year.

They are Nguyen Truong Son, 46, of Hoan Kiem District in Ha Noi and Dinh Tai Duong, 26, of northern Nam Dinh Province.

When investigating the spate of motorbike thefts across the city this July, police found that Duong was driving a Honda SH, the number plate of which was matched a bike reported stolen.

The suspects admitted to police that they stole motorbikes before taking them to coastal Quang Ninh Province's Dong Trieu District to sell.

The suspects usually eyed Honda SH and Air Blade models which cost between VND36 million (US$1,700) and VND100 million ($4,800) each.

Dak Nong tackles roots of illegal logging

Authorities in the Central Highland Province of Dak Nong are to crack down on illegal logging in the area after more than 22cu.m of rare timber was discovered in the border district of Dak My last Sunday.

The provincial Forest Protection Department has completed and submitted documents to provincial police to investigate the illegal case of logging and storing.

The rare timber, including heartwood and barian kingwood, was found in the area of Dai Thanh Forestry Company Ltd thanks to a tip-off from local residents.

On Tuesday, the provincial People's Committee also assigned an inter-sector group to inspect the management tasked with curbing deforestation and illegal timber transport across borders.

Routine dredging work uncovers sunken ship

A sunken ship containing three skulls was discovered on Tuesday under the bed of Ma River at its Lach Hoi estuary to Sam Son sea, when routine dredging work led to the startling find, according to head of central Thanh Hoa Province's Border Guard Commander Hoang Minh Luyen.

"Some local residents suspect the iron ship is a navy vessel left from the American war but local authorities said this was unlikely based on the boat's appearance and recorded information," said Luyen, adding that it could be a civil transport vessel.

Local authorities are planning to fully raise the ship in order to solve the mystery of its origin.

Improving vocational training quality

Vietnam needs to improve the quality of vocational training in order to ensure workers’ skills will be recognised in other ASEAN countries by 2015.

Nguyen Tien Dung, head of the Vocational Training Department under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA), says vocational training is considered a marketable product and its quality is classified accordingly.

In Germany, he notes, 80 percent of students who have finished secondary education take vocational training courses and the remainder go to college or university.

In recent years, Vietnam has expanded its vocational training network and increased the scale of training. The number of people taking vocational training courses has reached 32 percent and mechanisms have been created to ensure the best possible conditions for those living in rural areas.

Around a million workers are trained each year for the industrial, agricultural and services sectors with international cooperation growing at both national and grassroots levels.

However, vocational training in Vietnam has not yet made any major breakthroughs as expected.

MoLISA Deputy Minister Nguyen Ngoc Phi says most Vietnamese students dream of entering college or university at any cost while millions of graduates remain jobless. The reason is many businesses are unable to recruit them due to financial constraints and want to train workers themselves.

Dung admits that the quality of vocational training in Vietnam is still lower than in other countries to meet the growing demand for human resources in specific sectors.

Vietnam plans to have 190 vocational training centres by 2015, including 26 of national standard, responsible for training around 2.9 million workers each year as from 2016 to 2020. It also expects to have 51,000 qualified vocational trainers, as well as 23.5 million workers by 2015 and 34.4 million by 2020.

The main focus of these centres will be on coordinating with businesses to train workers at their request.

To this end, Phi emphasizes, it is urgent to improve the quality of vocational training to provide suitable workers for both domestic and foreign businesses.

Hans Juergen Beerfelt, State Secretary of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Co-operation and Development, shares Germany's experience in developing young human resources, saying that the shortage of qualified workers is a human barrier to the national development process.

He insists that Vietnam must improve the quality of vocational training to meet business demand for practical skills on the part of workers in specific areas.

Tich River revamp urged to push on

The Ha Noi People's Committee has asked relevent parties to speed up the VND7 trillion (US$336.5 million) project to revitalise the Tich River in the distant urban district of Ba Vi.

The project, started in May last year, includes dredging the polluted stream and diverting water from the Da River to freshen the 110-km long river and associated irrigation works.

In the first phase which ends next year, a 12-km canal will be opened in Thuan My Commune while the river is dredged.

In the two following years, work will be carried out in the rest of the river, including building roads along the river banks.

Land needed for the project amounts to nearly 320ha. Compensation will total nearly VND2 trillion ($96 million).

In Thuan My Commune alone, the affected area is about 49ha, but the process is unfinished after more than a year.

According to the project management board, difficulties in identifying land users has slowed down land acquisition.

"This had led to a bottleneck in carrying out dredging and construction work," said head of the management board Nguyen Dac Thoa. Rain and floods had also affected progress.

Last year, the project investor, the Agriculture and Rural Development Department, paid VND218 billion ($10.48 million) in advance to Binh Minh Jointstock Construction and Tourism Company to carry out the work.

However, only VND12 billion ($575,000) is reported to have been spent on the project. The constructor said the rest of the money was spent on machinery.

This month, Ha Noi People's Committee vice chairman Tran Xuan Viet urged the contractor to finish land clearance and compensation by the end of the year to ensure progress was made.

VNN/VOV/VNS