Asia media summit closes

 

The Eighth Asia Media Summit (AMS 8) closed in Hanoi Wednesday after two days of discussions, agreeing that the competition among broadcasters is becoming fiercer than ever.

 

Addressing the closing ceremony, Yang Binyan, Director of the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD), said that AMS 8 served as a platform for a multisectoral and multidimensional dialogue on the challenges and opportunities in the digital world for broadcasters.

 

He spoke of the summit’s outcomes, particularly in raising awareness and understanding among broadcasters of opportunities offered by technological advances and multiple delivery platforms such as the web, mobile, and social media that will expand their audience reach, address strong competition and improve their products and services as well as business returns.

 

Delegates to the summit reached a consensus that it was no longer business as usual for broadcasters in the battle for attention that has become more intense than ever in the digital world. They showed how news and social media have contributed towards addressing crisis and development needs in the region.

 

The summit helped AIBD and its partners to foster a more meaningful relationship with broadcasters, expand cooperation and contribute to an exchange of knowledge.

 

Through the summit Vietnam showcased its efforts in international integration and helped participants to better understand and speak of the country’s strong development dynamism, especially in the broadcasting industry.

 

The next summit will be held in May next year in Bangkok, Thailand.

 

‘Unruly’ aircraft passenger rejects penalty

 

Le Minh Khuong, the national taekwondo coach, who has been fined by the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam for “disturbing the peace” aboard one of its aircraft, has refused to pay up and complained to the transport minister.

 

His lawyer, Tran Thu Nam, said Khuong feels he is the aggrieved party since he was assaulted and humiliated by Da Nang airport security officers during his trip aboard a Vietnam Airlines flight from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City last month.

 

He had demanded an apology for it, Nam pointed out.

 

Since Khuong did nothing wrong aboard the aircraft, the fact that the CAAV has chosen to fine him VND2 million (US$97) is a violation of his rights and a dishonor, he said.

 

If Khuong’s complaint is not settled satisfactorily, he could take the case to court, he added.

 

The trouble occurred on April 18, when, due to bad weather in HCMC, the Vplane had to make an unscheduled stop in Da Nang where Khuong and his father asked to leave the aircraft.

 

Chief pilot Ivanov and chief of the cabin crew Trinh Thi Hoa denied their request.

 

When the plane prepared to leave Da Nang, Khuong allegedly began to shout and refused to return to his seat in economy class. Eileen Tan, a passenger in business class, said he had occupied her seat.

 

The crew decided to return to the terminal and report to security.

 

Four officers boarded the plane and asked Khuong to get off. When he refused, they forcibly removed him.

 

But they did not assault him, Tu Van Suu of Da Nang Airport Security Services Company said in a statement.

 

In a report, airport authorities said Khuong shouted, caused disorder, and flouted safety regulations.

 

Mother to bring murdered daughter’s body home

 

The mother and aunt of the Vietnamese bride who was murdered by her Korean husband on Sunday flew to Korea today to bring back her dead body.

 

The Overseas Korean Society in Ho Chi Minh City had helped the relatives pay for plane tickets.

 

Nguyen Thi Hoa, the bride’s mother, said it was her daughter, Hoang Thi Nam, who made her own decision to get married to Lim Chae Won.

 

Hoa said her daughter’s body would be cremated and either brought back to Vietnam or scattered over the seas.

 

Nguyen Thi Hoang Mai, the bride’s aunt, said she had asked the Overseas Korean Society to request the Korean government to allow Nam’s son to be brought up by another relative of the family in the U.S.

 

Hwang Ui Hoon, head of the Overseas Korean Society in HCMC, said this request was likely to be approved as the Korean government would consider the demand of the boy’s maternal family the top priority.

 

HCMC police open fire on robbers

 

The Ho Chi Minh City Police on Wednesday had to open fire on four men who were attempting to rob a woman on Nguyen Tri Thanh Road in Ward 12 in District 5.

 

As the men tried to escape after snatching the woman’s purse, the District 1 patrol police had to shoot twice, once into the air as a warning, and later at one of the robbers’ legs.

 

The injured robbers were Tran Dinh Lam, 21 and Do Thanh Quan, 18, from District 11. They were taken to Cho Ray Hospital afterwards.

 

The other two, La Phuong Thanh, 19, and Hoang Minh Tan, 21 were arrested and taken to the police station in Ward 12.

 

Vietnam explains MIA work to foreign attaches

 

Vietnam’s experiences and the results of searching for the remains of missing foreign servicemen during the war in Vietnam were introduced to foreign military attaches in the country at a meeting in Hanoi Wednesday.

 

At the meeting, Deputy Director of the Vietnam Office for Seeking Missing Persons (VNOSMP) Colonel Dao Xuan Kinh briefed the participants on a number of measures taken by Vietnam and the US in the search for servicemen missing in action (MIA).

 

In past years, the Vietnamese Ministry of Defence MIA Agency had collected information and documents and interviewed witnesses with information on MIA servicemen and also conducted excavations to search for the remains of those servicemen.

 

Vietnam had repatriated 915 remains of missing servicemen to the US and also a number of remains of Australian soldiers to Australia, said Kinh.

 

Military attaches from Australia, South Africa, Cambodia and Singapore took the occasion to thank the agency for exchanging information on MIA work, expressing the hope that the work would be quicker and more effective in the future.

 

Lecturer suspended for raising scores for money

 

Nguyen Ba Dien, an International Law lecturer at Hanoi National University has been suspended after he was accused of raising students’ scores in return for money.

 

Prof. and Dr. Pham Hong Thai, chairman of the Law Department confirmed with VTC News yesterday that his department had received letters of accusation from some students and had suspended Dien for investigation.

 

According to these letters, students who wanted to “improve” their scores in Dien’s

classes would have to pay him VND500,000 to 1 million for every score they wanted to be raised.

 

Talking with VTC news on the same day, some law students at the university also confirmed this.

 

Dr. Thai said after receiving the letters, his department set up two investigation teams for the case.

 

The students also accused Dien of letting his son, Nguyen Hung Chuong, teach certain subjects even though Chuong isn’t qualified to do so.

 

Regarding this issue, Dr. Thai also confirmed that Chuong is unqualified and had been suspended.

 

However, in his report to the department, Dien rejected all accusations against him, calling them fabrication. In his interview with VTC news, he said these accusations were a slander.

 

Dr. Thai said the department’s investigators would reach a conclusion in 2 days, adding this was the first time he had received such letters from students.

 

Hanoi National University’s Law Department this year has 500 students, including 300 full-time ones.

 

Regional seminar targets low-income earners

 

Policymakers and representatives of industries, private businesses, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and donors from Vietnam, China, Laos and Thailand gathered at a seminar in Hanoi Wednesday to discuss solutions to assistance for low-income earners.

 

In his opening remarks, Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan stressed that innovation and creativity played an important role in creating jobs for all people in each country.

 

Since Vietnam began its renewal process in 1986, it has recorded remarkable achievements in hunger eradication and poverty reduction, which were highly valued by the international community, he said, adding that the country’s poverty rate reduced from 58 percent in 1993 to 9.45 percent in 2010.

 

Also in 2010, Vietnam officially became a middle-income country, Nhan noted.

 

At present, 70 percent of Vietnam’s population lives in rural areas, with income mainly from agricultural activities. Therefore, to improve the living standards of low-income earners in Vietnam, as well as other Southeast Asian and Asia-Pacific countries, there should be a sharing of experience and solutions on renewal and creativity in support of low-income earners.

 

Man stabbed girlfriend over money

 

19 year-old Chau Tan Viet was arrested Wednesday morning after stabbing his girlfriend in a row about money in a boarding house on Hong Ha Road in Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Binh District.

 

Viet told the police he and his girlfriend, a 19-year-old message worker from Soc Trang Province, had broken up for monetary conflicts but still met each other occasionally.

 

As they were having sex yesterday morning, the girl pestered Viet for money. Viet said he then lost his temper and stabbed her with a knife.

 

He tried to run away but was caught by local residents.

 

Man crushed to death by cement eaves

 

A young man was crushed to death by cement eaves when he was whitewashing a wall at a construction project in Chien Luoc Hamlet, Binh Tan District, Ho Chi Minh City this morning.

 

The man was identified as Tran Quang Anh, 30, from Dong Nai Province, who is a nephew of the contractor.

 

The eaves are 4-m wide, 1m long and 50cm thick.

 

Expat turns vandal, claims being cheated by girl

 

Police subdued an overseas Vietnamese, or Viet kieu, patient early Wednesday morning after he destroyed medical tools in the Tra Vinh General Hospital in northern Vietnam because he said a local girl had cheated him.

 

Initial estimates show the incident caused damages in the hundreds of millions of dong.

 

Doctors at the hospital said Luan Quyen Dat, 46, from Long Duc District, was in the emergency room on Tuesday because of his high blood pressure.

 

At 9 p.m. the same day, Dat suddenly began shouting and breaking glass, and then used it to threaten people. He also destroyed two computers, a TV, and other medical equipment, police said. Four hours later, police arrived on the scene, overpowered him and injected a tranquilizer.

 

Doctors said they suspect he suffers from a mental illness.

 

According to eyewitnesses, Dat said he returned to Vietnam to get married to a local girl but his fiancée’s family cheated him out of US$20,000.

 

Local authorities brought him to Bien Hoa psychiatric hospital in southern Dong Nai province for assessment.

 

Former market officer caught smuggling cigarettes

 

Ho Chi Minh City police arrested three members of a cigarette smuggling ring Tuesday, led by a former market management officer.

 

Following a tip from the public, local economic police followed two young men who were carrying several bags on two motorbikes from Long An province’s Duc Hue District to HCM City.

 

The men eventually arrived at a house on Le Quang Dinh Street in Binh Thanh District.

Police stopped them and asked them to open the bags for examination.

 

They found 1,200 packs of cigarettes and the couriers failed to explain their origin, only saying they were supposed to deliver them to the house.

 

The two men are Huynh Duc Hanh and Vo Hoang Long, both aged 20.

 

Police immediately searched the house and found more than 14,000 foreign and 30,000 domestic cigarette packs.

 

Le Ngoc Tuan, the 51-year-old owner of the house, could not show any documents to prove the origin of the cigarettes.

 

The police later discovered Tuan was a former market management officer.

 

His ring would transport cigarettes at dawn from Long An to HCM City to avoid being detected and fixed the transport motorbikes with false number plates, according to police.

 

Tuan told police that he would collect the illicit cigarettes in his house. He would later distribute them to traders in the city’s Binh Thanh and Phu Nhuan districts and to other dealers in some southeastern provinces.

 

The police have detained the three men and are expanding their investigation.

 

Puncture causes multiple-truck collision, injuring 1

 

An accident involving three trucks severely injured one person Wednesday morning on National Highway 20 in Phu Ngoc commune in the southern province of Dong Nai.

 

Police said a truck, driven by Nguyen Van Tri, transporting chickens on the Da Lat-Dong Nai route suffered a punctured tire and slammed into the barrier on the right side.

 

Surprised by the incident, a truck carrying vegetables rear ended the first truck and hit another truck in the opposite lane.

 

Thai Vu Luan, the first truck driver’s assistant, is in critical condition, police said.

 

All three vehicles were badly damaged while the road was closed for three hours.

 

Arctic Ocean seal caught in Vietnam

 

A fisherman caught what could be a seal from the Arctic Ocean Tuesday while he was fishing on Son Hai beach in south central Ninh Thuan province.

 

Le Cu, from My Dong Ward, Phan Rang – Thap Cham City in Ninh Thuan, said he was fishing on Son Hai beach of Ninh Thuan when he suddenly caught a sea animal that looked like a seal he has often seen on TV.

 

The Aquatic Resources Exploitation and Protection Department of Ninh Thuan later took the animal and gave it to the Nha Trang Oceanography Institute for scientific research.

 

Officers of the institute said the animal could be a seal that is usually found in the Arctic Ocean, but they did not know how or why it appeared in Ninh Thuan.

 

Lightning claims 3 lives, injures 4

 

Lightning struck three people dead and injured four others in the central city of Hue last Monday.

 

The deceased are Tran Thi Minh Huong, 32, from Phong Dien District, an unidentified student in Phu Loc District, and Ho Tan Cheo, 68, a resident of An Lai Hamlet.

 

The injured are Le Phuoc Thai, 25, from Phong Dien District, Tran Thi Be and his two-years-old daughter Phan Hoai Vi from Phu Loc District.

 

Lightning also struck and injured a fishing boat’s captain Tran Lac, 30, from Hai Tien Hamlet when he was fishing offshore.

 

Deadly cruise pilot turns out to be handy man

 

The man who was operating the Din Ky restaurant ship on Friday when it sank into the Saigon River killing 16 people was actually a handy man and not a licensed pilot.

 

After the boat sank, police detained Le Van Duc, who was piloting the boat at the time, and Lao Van Quang, the ship’s manager, to investigate their alleged violation of waterway traffic regulations that caused the accident.

 

Police also called in Dinh Van Quan, the general manager of the restaurant, for questioning.

 

On May 20, one of the two licensed pilots of the Din Ky was sick, while the other had just finished his shift. Therefore, Quang assigned Duc, who does not have a pilot’s license, to operate the ship, according to investigators.

 

The 28-year-old handy man later decided to depart the dock with the boat despite signs of rain and whirlwinds.

 

Chau Hoan Tam, the owner of the boat’s operator, Din Ky Restaurant Private Enterprise, said at a press conference on Monday that Quang assigned Duc to pilot the ship.

 

“That was absolutely wrong,” he said. “If I had been present that day, it would not have happened.”

 

He also admitted to operating the tour-boat pier without a license, failing to re-register the boat after it had expired, and the use of an unlicensed pilot.

 

He said he had authorized the chief manager of the vessel to re-register it but he forgot to do so.

 

He added, “I take responsibility before the law for all their [the victims] losses and would like to send my apologies to them.”

 

Experts from the Ministry of Public Security and the Transport Ministry are scheduled to work with relevant Binh Duong agencies on Wednesday to examine the ship, which was recovered Tuesday, and investigate the cause of the accident.

 

Binh Duong province has set up an inspection team to check docks and resorts along the rivers and will give strict penalties to violators.

 

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Transport has asked relevant agencies across the country to strengthen the management and supervision of waterway passenger transport activities.

 

Unsafe vessels, unlicensed piers and unqualified pilots must be suspended and strictly punished, the ministry said.

 

Drowsy driver kills old man, injures grandson

 

A truck driver who admitted to nodding off at the wheel crashed into a motorcycle on National Highway 1A in the northern province of Ha Tinh early this morning, killing an old man and severely injuring his grandson.

 

Preliminary investigations found that Khu Hoang Long, the driver, hit some traffic cones before hitting the motorbike coming in the opposite lane.

 

The old man, known only as Long, died immediately while Tran Ngoc Anh, 14, had to be rushed to a nearby hospital for emergency care.

 

The local police are investigating.

 

Man sentenced to death for dismembering woman

 

A man was Tuesday sentenced to death for murdering and dismembering a 37-year-old woman in the northern city of Hai Phong to rob her motorbike and gold ring.

 

The first instance trial found Nguyen Dung Giang, 31, guilty of murdering Nguyen Thi Thu Hang with a hammer in his rented house which doubles as a clothes shop on No 676 Truong Chinh Street in Hai An district.

 

According to indictment, at 9pm, January 5, Hang drove a motorbike to Giang’s shop. When she was not attentive, the divorced Giang smashed her head with a hammer and dragged her into a room and locked the door.

 

There, he cut off her head and two arms and put them into three bags which he then disposed of in three different places.

 

On January 7, he sold the gold ring for VND720,000 (US$36).

 

At court, Giang denied killing Hang. He also refused to let a lawyer defend him, claiming this lawyer accepted a bribe from judges who all wanted to sentence him to death.

 

Giang claimed that Hang and a strange man visited his house that fateful day, after which he borrowed Hang’s motorbike and went out for a drink.

 

After returning, he claimed that he found Hang already dead and the strange man gone.

 

Giang then told the court that he had to choice but to hide her body.

 

However, the court found his statements groundless.

 

At 1.30pm January 7, Hang’s headless body was found in an isolated area near Dam Trieu Market in Kien An District.

 

Her arms had been chopped off and she was naked except for a pair of underpants.

 

As the body offered no clues, police screened the area for missing persons. At 8pm they managed to identify her as a resident of nearby Le Chan District.

 

A widow, she had been living with her high-school-going son.

 

After finding that she had left her house at 9pm Wednesday to collect a debt, the police homed in on Giang.

 

Giang was arrested two days later.

 

Police found the victim’s red Honda Wave motorbike at a parking lot and said they have confiscated her ring without revealing details.

 

They found a bag containing two arms and another with clothes near the Lach Tray River.

 

From a deep cut on the victim’s left thigh, the police suspect it was an attempt to dismember the limb.

 

Curiously, Kien An District is the birthplace of 27-year-old Nguyen Duc Nghia who was sentenced to death in Hanoi last year for killing his girlfriend, beheading her, and cutting off all her fingers.

 

Condemned man freed for lack of evidence

 

A 29-year-old man who had been sentenced to death for rape and murder and remained in custody for seven years has been acquitted by the Supreme People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City yesterday for lack of evidence.

 

The Binh Phuoc Province Procuracy had asked for the death sentence for Le Ba Mai for murder and a prison term of 16-18 years for “raping a minor.”

 

The court said it is unacceptable to find someone guilty purely on the basis of confessions made to the police.

 

Prosecutors had charged him with raping and killing an 11-year-old girl name Thi Ut in a garden in Binh Phuoc on November 12, 2004.

 

While working for a farm in Binh Long District, he had been acquainted with her.

 

In 2005 the provincial People’s Court as well as the Supreme People’s Court in HCMC had sentenced Mai to death based mainly on his confession to the crimes.

 

However, he later filed an appeal to the Supreme People’s Procuracy claiming he was innocent.

 

In late 2006 the Supreme People’s Procuracy ordered a fresh investigation.

 

In May 2007 the Judge Council of the Supreme People’s Court overturned the guilty verdict.

 

However, after a fresh investigation, the Binh Phuoc Procuracy reported to the Supreme People’s Procuracy that it was going ahead with the original charges.

 

But the court rejected Mai’s confession to the police after he said that investigators had coerced him into pleading guilty to the crimes.

 

The court also pulled up the investigators for making “many mistakes” in examining the scene of the crime and in collecting and maintaining the exhibits in the case.

 

Some items found at the scene, like four strands of hair, were not produced as evidence.

 

Besides, some of the testimonies contradicted the investigation results and the exhibits, while the investigation agencies had failed to clarify a number of issues raised by the Supreme People’s Procuracy.

 

Vietnam attends World Meteorological Organization Congress

 

A Vietnamese delegation, led by Tran Hong Ha, Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE), is attending the 16th Congress of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

 

During the congress, the delegation focused on discussing important issues related to the building and signing of an international treaty in the framework of WMO in an effort to improve the capacity to collect information related to meteorological and hydrographical phenomena.

 

The Vietnamese delegation also expressed wishes that the role of WMO in coordinating meteorological activities would be improved through its decision-making and programming.

 

It called for international technical assistance to promote its management, assessment, and observation of meteorological activities; improve the quality of weather forecasts to cope with the impact of climate change; and promote scientific research and application of technologies to reduce the impact of climate change for sustainable development.

 

According to Deputy Minister Ha, Vietnam is a developing country with underdeveloped technology, that is often affected by natural disasters.

 

As a WMO member, Vietnam has signed all international treaties in the framework of the organization.

 

On the sidelines of the congress, the Vietnamese delegation also had bilateral meetings with other members including China, Russia, the US, Australia, Japan, and the Republic of Korea during which agreements on meteorological cooperation were signed.

 

Participants in the congress were very interested in the Global Framework for Climate Services which is expected to provide poor and developing countries with climate-related information to help them adapt themselves to unavoidable risks.

 

Also at the Congress, David Grimes of Canada was elected WMO President for the 2011-2015 term in office and Michel Jarraud as WMO Secretary-General.

 

The congress will last until June 3rd.

 

Central Highlands copes with climate change

 

A seminar was held in the Central Highland province of Lam Dong on May 25 to seek ways to combine the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) programme with the region’s development plan.

 

Participants focused discussions on a wide range of issues such as climate change and its impact, the benefits and challenges of the implementation of REDD+ in Vietnam as well as how to work out a regional development scheme coupled with the performance of REDD+ in disadvantaged areas.

 

The delegates also debated prioritized orientations and requirements of the implementation of REDD+ in the Central Highlands to promote sustainable development in the region.

 

Experience from the two-year performance of REDD+ in Lam Ha and Di Linh districts of Lam Dong province was also shared at the workshop, jointly organised by the UN Development Programme, the Ministry of Planning and Investment and General Forestry Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

 

Live TV programme for AO victims

 

A live TV programme for victims of Agent Orange (AO), sponsored by the HCM City Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (HAVA), will be broadcast from Ho Chi Minh City and Kon Tum on August 7.

 

The programme is aimed at providing Vietnamese people, both at home and abroad, as well as international friends with an accurate window into the AO disaster in Vietnam.

 

During the programme, kind-hearted donors will be honoured for their active contributions to HAVA’s campaign to help AO victims.

 

Source: VietNamNet/SGGP/VOV/VNA/Tuoi Tre/Thanh Nien