Whirlwinds damage over 2,000ha of rice

Heavy rains and whirlwinds ruined over 2,000ha of summer-autumn rice in southern Dong Thap Province's Thanh Binh District on Monday afternoon.

The rice yield is forecast to be 20-30 per cent reduced.

Local farmers expect to harvest the rice in the next few days.

Authorities have directed the full capacity of water pump operation to save the rice from flood.

Party official besieged for investment scam

Hundreds of people in a commune in the northern Lao Cai Province besieged the local government office Monday in protest against a Party official and his wife who had begun a Ponzi scheme and gone bust, VietNamNet reported.

 The Bao Nhai residents also brought along the man in question, Vu Ngoc Hieu, secretary of the commune Party Committee, after besieging his house the previous night to demand their money back, an official said.

The Bac Ha District public security agency sent four officers to the people’s committee office to find out how much money Hieu owed them, the official said.
Hieu admitted to them that his wife had accepted money promising high interest rates from many people since 2007 but had become insolvent.

Later the police called him to their office for interrogation.

Local residents said Hieu knew his wife Nguyen Thi Quyet took money from many people and promised high interest but did not stop her.

In fact, they said, he even took part in her racket himself.

Three days earlier the police had taken Quyet, 37, a teacher at the Bao Nhai A Primary School, to the public security office to protect her from irate investors.

Man breaks into jewelry shop, steals gold

A masked man broke the window of a jewelry shop in Ho Chi Minh City’s Thu Duc District with a hammer to steal gold at noon yesterday, July 26.

Photo: VNN

A witness said the robber was around 20 years old and was carrying a hammer when she saw him.

She added that nobody chased him since he threatened to hit anybody who would interfere with the hammer.

Local police have blocked the scene for investigation.

The stolen number of gold has yet to be determined.

Respiratory centre set up in Bach Mai Hospital

Ha Noi-based Bach Mai Hospital officially opened its new respiratory centre yesterday, July 26.

Climate and pollution have necessitated the setting up of the centre, said Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Viet Tien.

Respiratory diseases such as SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), H5N1 (bird flu) and H1N1 (swine flu) have been increasing in Viet Nam in recent years.

Justice official overspeeds, threatens traffic police

The deputy head of the judicial section in Hau Giang province on Tuesday afternoon allegedly insulted and caused minor injuries to a traffic policeman on duty in Can Tho City after being caught overspeeding.

Huynh Thanh Thang, 49, deputy head of the judicial section of Chau Thanh District is also accused of trying to snatch away a gun from Sublieutanent Pham Vinh Minh, of Can Tho city traffic police forces.

The physical altercation caused a shoulder board and a button torn off Minh’s uniform.

Thang also allegedly used indecent language.

Police are investigating.

In other news, police yesterday, July 26, arrested a 22-year-old man for attempting to shoot several traffic policemen in Hanoi.

On July 25, police found two men riding on a motorbike with a 60cm sword in Tu Liem district. When stopped, the man sitting behind took out a gun, shot at the patrolling team and sped away.

The police chased after them and finally managed to arrest the shooter, Nguyen Huu Luan.

EU helps Vietnam develop labour market

After three years of implementation from 2008 to 2011, the EU-funded Labour Market Project has made important contributions to developing Vietnam’s information system and labour market.
At a final workshop in Hanoi on July 26, Vice Minister of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs, Nguyen Thanh Hoa said that the 11.7 million EUR project funded by the European Union and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) helped build the Labour Market Information Centre which is linked with key areas and localities nationwide.
Additionally, the project also provided technical assistance in employment trend reporting, developing vocational skill standards and implementing the Community-Based Training for Economic Empowerment programmes for the Technical and Vocational Education and Training programme which is now underway and will benefit one million rural workers.
Rie Vejs-Kjeldgaard, Director of ILO Country Office for Vietnam said: “The pioneering role of the International Labour Organisation has not only given Vietnam a valuable labour market information system, but has also played a catalytic role in stimulating positive chain reactions of new initiatives being supported by government”.
On the occasion, medals in recognition of the contributions to the cause of labour, invalids and social affairs in Vietnam were presented to Rie Vejs-Kjeldgaard as well as to Johann Farnhammer, First Secretary, Head of Economic Development and Governance at the Delegation of the European Union to Vietnam and Vu Thi Tuan Anh, Programme Officer at the Delegation of the EU to Vietnam.

Resettlement rules slow site clearance for building projects

Site clearances had been carried out on only 131 road, housing and factory construction sites out of a total of 1,000 planned for Ha Noi this year.

In the first half of the year, VND8 trillion (US$388 million) compensation was paid to nearly 20,000 affected offices and households and 650 households had been resettled elsewhere.

Deputy chairman of the municipal People's Committee Vu Hong Khanh in a meeting with relevant agencies on Monday, said that despite the low completion ratio, it still reflected massive efforts by authorities at all levels as the policies related to site clearance were still not sufficiently comprehensive.

Some projects notorious for having been in limbo for long periods due to the complex issues involved have finally completed the site clearance process.

Khanh said the finished projects included Mo Lao, Le Trong Tan, An Hung and Duong Noi housing projects, another to extend Nguyen Khuyen Street in Ha Dong District, and a small and medium size industrial cluster project in Soc Son.

Head of the capital city's Land Clearance Steering Committee Nguyen Duc Ben said compensation and land revocation mechanisms still lacked coherence and that this hindered progress.

During the remainder of the year, the authorities will speed up the site clearance process for key Government and city projects, including the Ha Noi- Hai Phong, and Noi Bai -Thai Nguyen express highways, Noi Bai International Airport's Terminal 2 and Hoa Lac High Technology Zone.

Tran Viet Trung, deputy chairman of Dong Da District's People's Committee, said the requirements for one to be eligible for resettlement should be revised. In particular, he said the criteria should include the total building floor area apart from the revoked land area - and the number of people.

For example, an eight-member family in a four-storey house on 40sq.m of land could, according to the present criteria, only be relocated in an 80-square-metre apartment.

Trung said trying to handle this requirement was one of the main reasons leading to slow site clearance.

Khanh asked local authorities to handle the site-clearance process to relevant agencies for continued refinement.

This year, the capital has to finish site clearance for 1,000 projects involving 190,000 households.

Dong Thap reviews repatriation of fallen soldiers’ remains

The Mekong delta province of Dong Thap has repatriated a total of 1,035 sets of remains of Vietnamese voluntary soldiers and experts from Cambodia over the past decade. 

The figure was released at a July 26 meeting to review the 10 year-search for remains of Vietnamese voluntary soldiers and advisers who had laid down their lives during the war in Cambodia.
On the occasion, the Dong Thap provincial People’s Committee presented certificates of merit to Lao and Vietnamese units and individuals who have greatly contributed to the repatriation work.

Suspended caterer causes food poisoning

27 workers of Lien Hsing Co., Ltd. in Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Tao Industrial Park were hospitalized on Monday after eating meals provided by a company that was suspended two months ago.
The food provider is Sao Viet Co., Ltd., located on Le Trong Tan Street in Binh Hung Hoa Ward, Binh Tan District.
Sao Viet was suspended for not meeting safety requirements for food processing but has sneakily continued operation, Huynh Le Thai Hoa, head of the city’s Department of Food Safety and Hygiene, said.

Ho said the department had taken sample of all of the dishes for testing and ordered Sao Viet to shut down immediately.
The workers were taken to Quoc Anh Hospital for treatment after developing food poisoning symptoms such as stomachache, vomiting, headache, fever and rashes on their bodies, Ho said.

They were among 111 workers who had eaten the lunch, which included cooked rice, fried kohlrabi, soup, and one of three optional dishes: fried pork, tuna sautéed with tomatoes, or fired beef.
All of the victims said they had opted to eat tuna sautéed with tomatoes. Meanwhile, other workers who did not eat this dish remained in normal conditions after lunch.

Foreign couple caught on tape stealing shoes

A foreign couple last Sunday went to a shoe shop called Light Good on District 10’s Le Hong Phong Street in Ho Chi Minh City and successfully stole a pair of shoes worth VND3.5 million (US$170).
However, all of their actions were recorded by a surveillance camera placed inside the shop.
In the video, a man entered the shop when a woman waited outside. He looked and tried on many shoes before taking one pair to the cashier.
While waiting, he secretly opened a shoe drawer. The woman then entered the shop, pretended to wait for him for a while before she went outside and came back with a bag.
She went to the open drawer, took out the pair of shoes and waited for the man to distract the shop assistant.
According to a staff who was working that day, the man paid her US$200 and asked for VND500,000 notes as change. When she was trying to explain to the man she could not do as requested, the women put the shoes inside her bag and walked out.

The shop manager claimed the lost shoes are worth more than VND3.5 million (US$170).
“We have warned our staff to take care of such tricks but our inexperienced staff fell in their trap,” said the manager.

Remains of fallen soldiers in Cambodia repatriated

The southwestern border province of Long An on July 26 held a memorial and reburial ceremony for those soldiers killed in Cambodia at a cemetery dedicated to fallen combatants. 

Since 2010, the provincial taskforce has located and brought home 74 sets of remains of soldiers fallen on Cambodian soil, bringing the total to 1,896.
Tran Huu Phuoc, Vice-Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee, said during the 2011-12 dry season, Long An will bring home another 113 sets of remains of soldiers already located in 21 villages in Svey Rieng province of neighbouring Cambodia.
The process of locating, exhuming and repatriating the remains of Vietnamese soldiers is in accordance with Cambodian customs and practices and a relevant agreement signed by the two governments, the Vietnamese official said.

Month of Tribute in war-torn Quang Tri province

July is called the Month of Tribute in the war-torn central province of Quang Tri as tens of thousands of people nationwide visit and offer incense to fallen soldiers who are resting in peace at local cemeteries.

Since the beginning of this month, a series of activities have been held in Quang Tri in commemoration of martyrs at 72 cemeteries, including two national ones, namely Truong Son and Road 9.
Opening the Month of Tribute was a grand requiem, which was held on the bank of Thach Han river to commemorate fallen combatants, who laid their lives in a fierce battlefield at the ancient citadel of Quang Tri in 1972. Five hundred of war veterans, who fought during the 81-day battle, attended the ceremony.
Prominent among the veterans are four Heroes of the People’s Armed Forces who used to be officers and soldiers of the Thach Han Regiment – deputy head of the regime Tran Minh Van, head of company Bui Trung Thanh and Vu Trung Thuong and Mai Ngoc Thoang.
At the Truong Son National Martyrs’ Cemetery, since the beginning of July, tens of delegations have come to offer incenses and flowers in tribute to the martyrs each day, said Ho Tat Ai, head of the cemetery management board, adding that the cemetery received even over 100 delegations a day.
The Truong Son Martyrs’ Cemetery, the largest of its kind in Vietnam, buried more than 10,300 sets of remains collected from the battlefields along the Truong Son mountain range, commonly known as Ho Chi Minh trail.
At the Road 9 National Martyrs Cemetery, hundreds of delegations have come to pay tribute to the soldiers. The cemetery is the resting place for over 10,000 soldiers who were killed at the Road 9 battlefield and in Laos during the resistance war against the US imperialists.
The facility, built in 1995, was named after a road that was a strategic transport artery connecting the Vietnam-Laos borderline with Dong Ha, in Quang Tri province, during the war.

18-year-old fires in air when denied hotel room

Police have detained four youngsters who vandalized properties and fired into the air after being denied a hotel room when they tried to check in at the Asean Hotel in Hanoi, Dan Tri reported.

They are Vu Duc Tung, 23, Vu Dinh Duong, 21, Nguyen Dinh Dong, 18 And Nguyen Anh Tuan, 22.

Police have seized a Colt gun and two bullets.

According to police, at 1.10 on July 24, after some heavy drinking bouts, Do Thanh Tung and Duong and two others arrived on a car while Vu Duc Tung rode on a Honda SH motorbike to the Asean Hotel on 12A Ngo Si Lien Street in Dong Da District to rent some rooms to spend the night.

When told there was no vacancy, the group came upstairs to check and found out there were some empty rooms.

They then attacked the hotel staff, destroyed some properties and left.

20 minutes later, Do Thanh Tung, Dong and one another returned to the hotel and smashed a computer and other properties. When security guards appeared, the 18-year-old Dong fired a shot into the air and left.

Dong later told police he bought the gun at Tan Thanh Border Gate in Lang Son province bordering China for VND6 million (US$300).

Possessing guns is illegal in Vietnam except for policemen and military forces.

Police are hunting down Do Thanh Tung and others.

HCMC to auction prime site on Dong Khoi Street

Ho Chi Minh City will auction the building that houses the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism located on 164 Dong Khoi Street, District 1 to mobilize capital for projects on sports and tourism.

The city People's Committee has told the Department to seek approval to auction the site.

Hence, the building on this ‘golden’ area would be up for grab as the Department has been relocated to No. 3, Phan Van Dat Street, District 1.

The fund from the auction is expected to channel towards building the Rach Chiec fitness-sport complex in District 2 in preparation for Vietnam applying to host the SEA Games and Asiad in the 2017 and 2018.

The Department is coordinating with the Urban Management Northwest in Cu Chi District to build an athletes village.

Official apologizes, pays damages for slander

A court in Binh Phuoc Province has agreed to allow a defendant in a slander case to settle by offering a public apology to the complainant and paying damages worth five times the minimum salary totaling VND4.15 million (US$202).

The settlement was reached after two sessions of reconcilement at the court between Nguyen Thi Hanh, the defendant and deputy head of accounting and finance at the provincial Preventive Health Center, and Pham The Anh, another official, whom she had defamed. 

Anh had filed against Hanh for falsely accusing him of being a thief, rapist, and murderer at a meeting at their center, and provided the court a recording of the proceedings.

Anh had also complained to the local police who fined Hanh VND150,000.

Former VN Airlines official jailed for bomb hoax

A former employee of Vietnam Airlines was Tuesday sentenced to 15 months in prison for a bomb hoax last year that disrupted a flight to Cambodia.

Nguyen Bang Viet, 36 on November 9, 2010, texted a chief stewardess a message that there was a bomb aboard a Vietnam Airlines aircraft that was about to leave Hanoi’s Noi Bai International Airport for Siem Reap.

The flight was canceled and security forces searched the airport but found no bomb.

Viet who was arrested in December last year was sentenced on charges of “disrupting airway traffic”.

He was also ordered to pay over VND200 million (US$10,000) in compensation to Vietnam Airlines.

Chinese man caught smuggling 2.4kg of drugs

Police in the northern province of Quang Ninh Monday arrested 29-year-old Chen Jun Qiang for smuggling 2.4 kg of drugs from China into Vietnam.

The Chinese man was caught red-handded hiding the contraband beneath his calves and thighs when he was carrying out immigration procedures at border station Ka Long in Tran Phu ward of the province’s Mong Cai City.

Further investigations are ongoing.

VNN/VOV/VNS/VNA/Tuoi Tre