US company to design 79-storey tower in Hanoi

The US architectural firm Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects has won a US$30 million contract for investment planning and technical design services of a 79-storey commercial building invested by the PetroVietnam Construction Joint-stock Corporation. 

The US contractor will have six months to January, 2012 to plan investment and four months to May, 2012 to draft architectural plans for the US$600 million project in order to start construction by late in the first quarter of 2012. 

The project, called “Vietnam Oil and Gas Tower”, includes first-class offices and apartments, a five-star hotel and a shopping centre alongside a museum and an information centre of the oil and gas industry. 

It is a complex aimed at being friendly to the environment and resistant to earthquake measuring six degrees on the Richter scale, higher than national standards.
Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects was the architect of the Twin Towers in Malaysia. Its entry with a dazzling flame icon won an architectural contest on the Vietnam project in March.

Thu Thiem Tunnel opens on November 22: city committee

Thu Thiem Tunnel. (Photo: VNE)

Rescue drills will be carried out in October in preparation for the official opening date, it says.

Thu Thiem Tunnel – 1.49 kilometers long, 9 meters high, and 33 meters wide – has 6 lanes for use by both cars and motorbikes, and two 2-meter emergency exits on the sides. Vehicles will be allowed to travel at 60 km per hour at the most in the tunnel.

Large trucks will be able to travel through the tunnel at specific time set by local authorities.

The underwater tunnel is the most important component of the 22-km Dong – Tay (East – West) Boulevard which connects District 2 to the east and Binh Chanh District to the west of the city.

It broke ground in 2005, and was initially slated to open on September 2 this year to celebrate Vietnam’s Independence Day.

Local media often dub it ‘the most advanced underwater tunnel in Southeast Asia.’

Kidnapped forest officers rescued

Police have managed to rescue three forest protection officers who were kidnapped while patrolling in a forest in Quang Binh province.

On Wednesday, five officers from the Phong Nha Ke Bang forest protection forces were inspecting a forest in Thuong Hoa commune, Minh Hoa district when they discovered many logs and tree trunks hidden there.

On the way back, the team was attacked by nine people with knifes and sticks.

Three of them - team leader Pham Van Sau, Nguyen Van Que and Nguyen Duc Minh - were detained and taken deep into the forest where they were locked up inside a cave.

The thugs then freed and instructed Sau to come back to fetch VND25 million (US$1,250) as ransom otherwise they would kill the two remaining hostages.

Meanwhile, two officers who luckily escaped the attack reported the matter to police.

The police then set off for the rescue and by chance met Sau who had just been freed earlier.

With Sau showing the way, the police managed to find the cave, besiege the kidnappers at 8pm and rescued the two hostages.

One of the thugs has been arrested.

Police are expanding investigation.

As for the victims, Que was hospitalized at the Vietnam Cuba Dong Hoi Hospital today morning suffering from a kneecap fracture on the left leg and many wounds on the chest, head and arms.

Remains of 112 volunteers returned from Cambodia

The remains of 112 volunteer soldiers who died in Cambodia were reburied yesterday, July 27, in Tan Bien District's Martyrs' Cemetery in the southern border province of Tay Ninh.

The remains were located and collected by two teams from the Military Zone 7 High Command, the Tay Ninh provincial Military High Command, K70 and K71, from Cambodia's Siem Reap, Battdombong, Kongpongcham and Pailin provinces. The teams worked during the dry season from November 2010 to July 2011.

With the support of the Cambodian Royal Army, the authorities and local people, the K70 and K71 teams have so far located, exhumed and repatriated 2,546 sets of remains of Vietnamese martyrs.

On the same day as the Tay Ninh reburial, the neighbouring province of Binh Phuoc also held a ceremony to rebury 65 sets of Vietnamese volunteer soldiers' remains from Kratie, Mundulkiri and Kongphongthom provinces of Cambodia.

To date, Binh Phuoc has exhumed a total of 2,149 sets of remains of Vietnamese soldiers fallen in Cambodia and the Binh Phuoc battlefield. Yesterday, the southern province of Kien Giang and Military Zone 9 High Command co-organised a reburial for 112 sets of remains of Vietnamese experts and volunteer soldiers killed in Cambodia.

Dong Thap Province also reburied 48 sets of remains of Vietnamese volunteer soldiers who laid down their lives for international tasks in Cambodia. Over the past 10 years, the province has collected and repatriated 1,035 sets of remains of Vietnamese martyrs from Cambodia.

1 unconscious, 3 badly injured in HCMC accident

A woman lost her consciousness and three other people picked up major injuries in a an accident involving a van and two other bikes at a crossroads in Binh Tan District, Ho Chi Minh City yesterday afternoon, July 27.

Eyewitnesses said 32-year-old Le Tien Luong from Thanh Hoa Province crashed his van into a motorbike traveling in the opposite direction and seriously wounded Nguyen Thi My Anh and Nhu Dinh Ghi when he was driving it towards Ten Lua – No 7 Street intersection.

Luong, thinking the two were dead, drove away and smashed the van again against another motorbike ridden by Truong Thi Hoai Ai who then became unconscious. Hoai, a man traveling right behind Ai, was given a start and fell off his bike.

Ai broke her leg and arm while Hoai’s arm was fractured.

The van ran off the road into a ditch alongside right afterwards.

The four victims are being treated at the district’s hospitals now.

Locals nabbed Luong and handed him over to Binh Tan police who are conducting further investigation into the accident.

Province begins final quest for $100bil treasure

After several failed attempts to find 4,000 tons of gold that some people believe was buried under the Tau Mountain by a Japanese general in 1945, the Binh Thuan Province People’s Committee has agreed to look for the treasure one last time.

Phap Luat (Law) newspaper said the province’s Department of the Culture, Sport and Tourism will make arrangements to explore the mountain to see if the US$100 billion treasure is fact or fiction.
A group of treasure hunters hired the Geophysical Equipment Joint Stock JSC to survey the mountain’s structure.
The company reported that it found an extraordinary underground geological structure measuring 10 meters wide, 200 meters long, and 50 meters deep and containing natural or manmade metals.

To find out what it is, it is required to drill to a depth of 100 meters, Nguyen Huu Hao, the company’s deputy director, said.

The first exploration will be done in a few months, Phap Luat said.

The gold rush began around 10 years ago when some people in Ho Chi Minh City and Binh Thuan said they had evidence to prove that the treasure was buried somewhere under the mountain.

But their efforts came to naught.
One of them is 96-year-old Tran Van Tiep, a Hai Phong City native settled in Ho Chi Minh City.
Tiep, who took part in the war against the French colonialists, said he had obtained a lot of information about the treasure in 1957 but was unable to look for it due to the war.
In 1945, after Japan surrendered to the Allies in World War II, Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita had ordered his soldiers to bury 4,000 tons of gold and jewelry next to Ca Na Bay between Binh Thuan and Ninh Thuan provinces, Tiep said.

After the war, some foreigners, including a Japanese man named Hakamura, had returned to look for the treasure but failed.

The treasure was worth more than US$100 billion, Tiep said.
After obtaining a license from the Binh Thuan people’s committee to “explore for metal” in 1993, Tiep hired geologist Hoang Van Truong to help him find the gold.
He has so far discovered a Japanese sword with its sheath, a 10,000-yen coin, a broken metal hookah, and two metal Black Dragons badges.

Rice fields wither due to water shortage

According to the Department of Agriculture and rural Development, nearly 190 hectares of paddy fields in Phu Yen Province are withering as irrigation water is lost to hydropower plants nearby.
Since there has been no rain and no water released from hydropower plants, the area is turning arid, negatively affecting harvest’s productivity, Tran Tien Anh, director of Thuy Nong Company said.
The Vinh Son Hydropower Joint Stock Company (Hinh River) and the hydropower plant (Ba Ha River) have to reasonably regulate water flow to Dong Cam Dam to stabilize water for irrigation, he said.

Herbalife Vietnam sponsors Hoa Binh Humanitarian Centre

The Casa Herbalife Programme has presented the Hoa Binh Humanitarian Centre with VND390 million to care for children.

A Herbalife representative said at the opening ceremony of the Herbalife office in Hanoi on July 27 that the company will sponsor the centre for one year and will continue to expand its humanitarian activities in Vietnam in the future.

Casa Herbalife has coordinated with nonprofit organizations to provide nutritional support for disadvantaged children.

William M.Rahn, Managing Director in the Asia-Pacific region and Deputy General Director of Herbalife Group, said the group is developing Herbalife Vietnam with the aim of turning the country into the fifth largest market in the region, after the Republic of Korea, Australia, Thailand, and the Philippines in 2012.

Water pollution continues at An Giang Industrial Parks

According to the Department of Environmental Resources, a centralized wastewater treatment system is yet to be built at Industrial Parks in An Giang Province.
Some investors are preparing technical designs for the system at Binh Long, Binh Hoa Industrial Parks in An Giang.
Currently, sewage released from Industrial Parks is only being cursorily treated, failing to meet environment standards.
Back in 2010, the management committee of An Giang Province Economic Zone was fined VND180 million for environmental violations.

Cop demoted for brutalizing boy

Thua Thien-Hue Province Police Department has demoted Sub-Lieutenant Tran Nguyen Hong Quang of Hue City’s Thuy Xuan Ward to Sergeant Major for cruelly beating 11-year-old boy last month.
The Department also gave a warning to Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Anh, deputy head of the ward police.
Earlier, the Hue City Police Department’s Disciplinary Council has unanimously recommended that Quang be dismissed from the police force and that Anh be transferred.
On June 15 Ngo Dinh Phat was brought to the police station by his aunt for allegedly stealing VND3.1 million (US$150) from her home to buy a mobile phone.
Anh ordered Quang to question Phat and Quang used his baton to beat the boy.

In the afternoon, the police called Phat’s father and asked him to take his son home.

At home, seeing Phat moaning and crying in pain, his father took off his clothes and found he had been beaten black and blue.
That night he had fever and convulsions and had to be taken to hospital for emergency treatment.
Doctors found his buttocks, thighs, and face covered in bruises.
The next morning Phat’s father went to the police station to complain. Police apologized to him and gave him VND1.5 million (US$72) for medical treatment.
The police’s representatives also visited Phat at the hospital and apologized to him and his family.

Quang’s family also visited Phat and gave the boy’s family VND2 million ($97) as payment for hospital fee.
Phat’s father later agreed to drop the case.

Province official sacked for hacking websites

An IT official working for the Tra Vinh Province Department of Information and Communications has been sacked and expelled from the Communist Party for hacking into and posting pornography on local government websites.
Earlier this month, after several websites listed on the Tra Vinh Portal at www.travinh.gov.vn. were attacked, the Ministry of Public Security investigated and identified Phan Ngoc Quan as the hacker.
Among the websites he hacked were those of the Interior Department, the Science and Technology Department, the Business Association, the People’s Committee Office, and the Finance Department.
Quan altered their contents and added pornographic information and images to some of them.
All the websites have since been recovered.
Quan admitted to the hacking but did not reveal his motive.
The police, who are continuing their investigation, said a person from outside the province had also been involved.

US Vietnamese help AO victims

The Vietnamese and US people in New York raised funds for the Vietnamese Agent Orange (AO) /dioxin victims at a get-together yesterday, as part of a campaign to seek justice for the victims.

The Viet Nam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign and the Delegation of Permanent Representatives of Viet Nam to the United Nations jointly organised the event to mark the 50th year since AO/dioxin was first sprayed over areas in Viet Nam (August 10, 1961).

Addressing the event, Ambassador Le Hoai Trung, Head of the Delegation of Permanent Representatives of Viet Nam to the UN, thanked US friends for their active support in seeking justice for the Vietnamese AO/dioxin victims and underlined Viet Nam's efforts to overcome the consequences of this toxic chemical. He called on Americans to support the Vietnamese AO/dioxin victims at US forums.

At the event, the participants auctioned paintings for fund-raising and wrote letters to the US parliamentarians, calling for support and assistance to the Vietnamese victims.

The delegation of US war veterans in Viet Nam also presented photographs of the Vietnamese AO/dioxin victims, taken during their visit to the country last year.

Dolphin drifts to Phu Yen shore, buried

A resident of Tuy Hoa City in central Phu Yen Province early Wednesday discovered a live dolphin drifted to the beach.

The creature was two meters long and weighed nearly 100 kilograms, and it had no wounds on the body.

Pham Chinh Thai, 34, resident of Long Thuy Village in An Phu Commune, said he found the fish alive, so he asked two other villagers to help him carry and release it to the sea.

According to Thai, the dolphin was weak and it was drifted ashore again shortly afterwards. Villagers then carried it to the village’s cemetery for “sacred” sea creatures (whales and dolphins) and waited until it died to bury it in line with traditional practice.

Nguyen Tan Duc, who manages the cemetery, said fishermen believe the arrival of whales and dolphins is a lucky sign for residents in the village.

In 2006, a whale of nearly 300 kilograms was swept ashore to the village beach and it was buried at the cemetery there.

Legal officer held after attack on policeman

Huynh Thanh Thang, deputy head of the Justice Office of southern Can Tho City's Cai Rang District, was detained yesterday for allegedly attacking a traffic policeman after being caught speeding on Tuesday.

Bui The Bang, head of Investigative Police of Cai Rang District, Can Tho Province, said Thang admitted to speeding on his motorbike along National Highway 1A in Cai Rang, but denied the charges of abusing and attacking a policeman.

The case is now under investigation.                                                

Taro jelly destroyed after chemical found

Nearly 10,000 boxes of taro jelly products made by Taiwanese company New Choice Foods were destroyed in the southern province of Binh Duong yesterday, July 27, after they were found to contain traces of the toxic chemical DEHP.

New Choice Foods requested the withdrawal of their products, which also included sweets and soft drinks, after their products at several markets were found to contain the chemical last month.

DEHP, a plasticizer used in products to soften plastics and polymers, has been proved to harm human cardiac cells, reproductive health and result in obesity.

VNN/VOV/VNS/Tuoi Tre