Shoal of feeding fish attacks man off Vietnam

A fisherman from Phu Yen province was attacked by a shoal of strange fish when his coracle sank 50 nautical miles off Tuy Hoa coast a few days ago.
Ngo Quang Dung, 40, from Ward 6, Tuy Hoa District, has now slightly recovered.

On June 26 night, Dung left the PY-00983-TS boat and paddled the coracle out to catch cuttlefish.
When his basket boat was 500 meters away from the PY-00983-TS, it was hit by strong waves and sank.
Immediately after sinking, he spotted a swarm of fish closing in on him. They started to bite him on the right knee and left arm.
According to him, the fish are called “phet” in Vietnamese. Each is as big as two adult fingers joined together and 20-30 cm long.

Since his coracle is equipped with a walkie-talkie, his fellow fishermen started to search for him after they failed to communicate with him several hours later.
However, it was not until 1 am the next morning that they found and rescued him.
He was taken to Phu Yen General Hospital in critical condition, with his body turning blue from numerous small bites. He was totally exhausted.
The patella ligament on his right knee was broken and his left arm muscle was severely torn, said Dr. Truong Ba Ngac, head of the hospital’s Trauma Surgery Department.
After intensive treatment, the fisherman’s health has improved, Dr Ngac added.

Some elderly people in Tuy Hoa said it was the first time such a fish attack to occur in the province.

Heavy floods sweep away 300-ton crane

Around 1:00 am this morning, sudden floods from Hong River severed four cable wires of a 300-ton floating crane and swept it away for about 1.5 km.

The floating crane has been used to construct part of the Coc Leu Bridge located in the northern mountainous province of Lao Cai. 

Nguyen Xuan Can, head of the contractor, said the crane fortunately was not wrecked.
Can said the contractor used two anchors and a winch to hold the crane in place this morning and planned to take it ashore as soon as the floods subside.
Luu Minh Hai, general director of Lao Cai’s Hydrometeorology Forecasting Center, said due to tropical low pressure, the average annual rainfall in the province on Monday night was about 20mm.

CEO faces indictment for stock manipulation

The former chairman and CEO of Vien Dong Pharmaceutical JSC is facing prosecution for manipulating stock prices when he faked false high demand to inflate stock prices last year.
If charged, Le Van Dung, 39 is the first in Vietnam to be inducted for stock manipulation.
Also facing prosecution are Le Van Manh, 34, chairman of the Vien Dong International JSC Nguyen Van Viet, 35, a member of Vien Dong’s Management Board, and Le Minh Truyen, 27, a stock broker at Sacombank Securities JSC.
The Ministry of Public Security has proposed the Supreme People’s Procuracy to indict the four.
Dung was found to have opened 13 accounts under his and other names to conduct call and put options for shares of Vien Dong (ticker name DVD).
From early 2010 to September 30, 2010, Dung carried out 1,725 transactions selling and buying DVD shares among his different accounts to create a false impression that DVD stocks were in high demand.
Total value of those virtual deals amounted to hundreds of billions of dongs [VND1 billion equals to US$48,500], according to investigators.
Manh, Viet and Truyen have been found to actively help Dung.
In addition, Dung and some others also allegedly counterfeited documents and state seals.
The investigation into this forgery issue is underway, said investigators.
Meanwhile, Cao Hong Van, vice financial general director of Vien Dong, has been arrested for her involvement in the stock fraud.

Wood factory goes up in flames in Nghe An

A fire razed down a wood-manufacturing plant in Nghi Loc district in the central province of Nghe An this morning, burning 2,000 sq.m of the factory.

The total damage is yet to be tallied. Fortunately, no human casualties have been reported.

Some workers said they found the blaze at the processing area at 10:00 am.

10 fire trucks were mobilized to the scene 30 minutes later to put down the flames.

It took 2 hours to subdue the fire.

Tuan ‘dog’ arrested in attack on whistleblower

The police have arrested Tuan “cho” (Tuan “dog”), 33 for allegedly organizing a bloody revenge on Monday in Binh Duong province on a xe om driver who tipped off his crime to police.

Police said Tuan has been under their monitoring for over 5 years, since this man reportedly led many gangs stealing motorbikes in Binh Duong.

Police also said they will indict some other thieves for the revenge.
Senior Lieutenant Colonel Tran Nhat Hieu, deputy head of Di An Town Police, said the attackers would be charged with “intentionally causing injury” on Nguyen Tang Tien, the whistleblower in Di An.
On June 27, Tien was ruthlessly slashed by a group of four men with scimitars when he was in the kitchen.
Tien is a motorbike taxi driver by profession but he does catch some thieves and carries out informal patrols on the side.
He is now recovering from an operation and is being treated at the Binh Duong General Hospital under police’s protection.

The attackers are reportedly members of the gang that Tien and his fellow ‘crime fighters’ have tipped off to the police on June 25, leading to their arrest and release.

Asked why Di An Town Police released the alleged thieves one hour after arresting them which enabled them to carry out the revenge, its representative told Tuoi Tre that they had no incriminating proof.

But the police assured that they have identified the attackers and are hunting them down.

Traffic cop stabbed to death at HCMC café

A traffic policeman was stabbed to death when he was sipping coffee at the Thuy Truc Café on Tuesday night in the southern province of Binh Phuoc, Nguoi Lao Dong (Laborer) Newspaper reported.

The victim was identified as sublieutenant Khanh, who was taking a short, in-service course at the People’s Police University in Thu Duc district.

According to the victim’s friend(s), when Khanh was having coffee, a strange man with a knife in hand approached and stabbed him. However, Khanh managed to dodge the first attack.

The man later thrust the knife into Khanh’s heart.

Immediately after the murder, the city’s police arrived on the scene.

No one has been arrested.

81-year-old man jailed for raping Dak Nong girl

An 81-year-old man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping a 9-year-old girl in the Central Highlands province of Dak Nong last December.
The Provincial People’s Court yesterday handed down the sentence to Nguyen Van Bay who hails from Quang Tin Commune, Dak Rlap District.
Bay was also ordered to pay VND15 million (US$730) as compensation to the victim.
The judges concluded that Bay’s crime was especially serious, as it not only harmed the girl but also caused anger among the public and affected social morality.
However, this sentence is lighter considering that the victim’s family has agreed to drop charges against him and that he had no previous criminal records and sincerely cooperated with police.
According to local prosecutors’ office, on the morning of December 1, 2010, Bay went to the Quang Tin Market to buy some fish.
The stall’s owner, one of Bay’s neighbors, then had Bay bring some food to her home as breakfast for her children.
When Bay arrived, he met her daughter, N.B.B.T who just stepped out of the toilet.
The 81-year-old man then asked the little girl to follow him to the kitchen where he committed the crime.

VN-Russia hospital performs unlicensed surgeries

The Hanoi-based Vietnam-Russia International Ophthalmology Hospital has been turning some Vietnamese patients into “Guinea pigs” by applying new, unlicensed methods for eye surgeries on them, Tuoi Tre has found.
Such techniques have not been approved nor licensed by Vietnamese authorities.
A reader angrily wrote that this amounted to testing on Guinea pigs.
In 2009, Nguyen Hai Minh, 7, was taken to the hospital for myopia treatment.
Initially diagnosed with 1 and 1.5 diopters for each eye, Minh’s myopia rose by 2 diopters 6 months after he was subjected to some mild non-surgery treatment.
Doctors there then persuaded his mother Nguyen Thi Hue to let him undergo a sclera surgery.
The doctors said it would help prevent retinal detachment.
They also promised that Minh’s myopia would stop escalating after the surgery.
“But after a year since the surgery, my son is now 7-diopter shortsighted,” she lamented.
Doctor Pham Thi Khanh Van, who works at the Vietnam National Institute of Ophthalmology, said the sclera surgery technique must only be used on patients above 18 years old.
She said the Ministry of Health has been recommended not to allow this technique to be performed on young patients.
Prof. Doctor Nguyen Trong Nhan, head of the Vietnam Ophthalmology Society, said his organization has asked the Vietnam-Russia hospital to go through certain licenses first but is yet to receive a reply.
“And it worries me that they still apply those techniques”, he told Tuoi Tre.
At a conference last year held by the Ministry of Health, experts also expressed concerns that the Vietnam-Russian hospital too used another unlicensed technique to treat amblyopia diseases and blindness caused by damaged optic and retinal nerves.
This technique and the sclera surgery have not been licensed by the Hanoi Department of Health or the ministry.
In response, the hospital’s CEO Duong Chi Kien retorted that “these unlicensed techniques could still be performed in my hospital because they were performed by the foreign surgeons”.

VNN/VOV/VNS/Tuoi Tre