Armed drug trafficking ring busted

A major drug trafficking ring has been busted by police in the central province of Quang Tri.

According to police reports yesterday, seven packs of heroin, 162 tablets of synthetic drugs, a scale, gold, some $170,000 in cash and a large stash of guns and other weapons were found when a Camry car was stopped last weekend on National Road 1A. Two men, including the driver, were detained after throwing a grenade at police officers.

More than 13,000 synthetic drug tablets, 4kg of heroin, explosives and other weapons were later found at the driver's house in Vinh City.

Hanoi to host FAO conference

The event will include 44 FAO member countries in the region and observers from UN organisations, donors and other development partners, as well as inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations, civil societies and business sectors.

MARD said that high on the agenda will be discussions with high ranking officials on food security, rural poverty reduction, regional and global policies and legal issues concerning agriculture and the food situation in the Asia-Pacific, in addition to initiatives from the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) and other budget programmes.

A round-table meeting to resolve problems related to changing food prices will also be held during the conference and official reports will be approved at the closing session on March 16.

Train hits elderly couple at rail station

An elderly husband and his wife were killed when a train ploughed into them at Dong Ha Railway Station in the central province of Quang Tri on Monday night.

The couple, who had just disembarked from another train, were walking along the rails to an official exit point, instead of using the entrance gate.

The couple, who were both in their 60, were from Dong Ha Town.

Man jailed for raping, murdering 62-year-old woman

The people’s court of the central Binh Dinh Province today sentenced 24-year-old Van Tot to 25 years’ imprisonment for the rape and murder of a 62-year-old woman.

Van Tot, a resident of Hoa Thuan hamlet of Tay Son District’s Tay Thuan Commune, was also ordered by the court to pay a compensation of VND106 million (US$5,000) to the victim’s family.

According to the indictment, the victim discovered Tot chopping trees on her farmland and had a heated argument with him.

In anger, Tot grabbed a tree branch to hit the woman with and pushed her to fall to the ground. Recognizing the woman was too weak to resist, the man sexually assaulted her.

Fearing the woman would denounce his crime, Tot dragged the woman towards the bank of a stream and beat her to death with stones. Then he dug a hole to bury the body in hope of destroying the evidence.

Local police later uncovered his crime.

Landmines destroyed in Phu Tho Province

Nine landmines that were recently found along the Lo River in northern Phu Tho Province were destroyed today, according to Doan Hung District's authority.

The landmines, left by the US Army, were later discovered when four secondary school students were seriously injured by a bomb blast last Wednesday.

In order to guarantee people's safety, a search for other landmines is being conducted in the area around the Lo River by provincial and local military forces.

Instructions on bomb detection and handling was delivered to local schools via an official document distributed by the Doan Hung District People's Committee.

The local administration offered each of the wounded students from VND2 million (US$95) to VND3 million (US$143).

Malaysian ship hit Vietnamese fishing boat

A Malaysian ship numbered ZINHWA38 hit a Vietnamese fishing boat 21 nautical miles off Soc Trang Beach on the way to Thailand at 3.30am on February 28.

The Soc Trang provincial Border Guard Command said after receiving an SOS call, the border guard rushed to the scene and rescued all 12 fishermen in distress.

The boat is owned by Nguyen Van Sieng in Tran De district, Soc Trang Province.

Lieutenant – colonel Nguyen Hoang Du said the Malaysian ship is being held as the subject of a police investigation.

Ex-official jailed for hacking, adding porn to sites

The Tra Vinh Province People’s Court yesterday sentenced Phan Ngoc Quan, a former local IT official, to 2 years imprisonment for hacking many local agencies’ websites.

The 35-year-old man, formerly an employee at the provincial Department of Information and Communications, was charged with “illegally accessing others’ computer network, Internet or digital facilities,” the court said.

According to the indictment, the department had arranged for Quan to take training courses in website designing and programming and later assigned him to design more than 20 websites for local agencies.

During the process of designing, Quan attacked different websites listed on the Tra Vinh Portal at www.travinh.gov.vn, including those of the Interior Department, the Science and Technology Department, the Business Association, the People’s Committee Office, and the Finance Department.

He altered their contents and posted obscene images on their home pages as well as links to pornographic websites.

After the Tra Vinh Portal reported to police about the attacks, the Ministry of Public Security launched an investigation and then identified Quan as the hacker.

Quan was subsequently dismissed and expelled from the Communist Party of Vietnam after his illegal acts were discovered.

VNN/VOV/VNS/Tuoi Tre