President urges focus on care for elders' health

President Truong Tan Sang praised the contributions made by Viet Nam Association of the Elderly to national defence and construction, while paying a working visit to the association yesterday, July 2.

Sang asked the association to promote the tradition of Vietnamese elderly people having strong wills. He said this provided a good example for younger generations to follow.

He also asked the association to diversify activities to attract more elderly people and to organise activities to improve healthcare, especially for those in remote areas.

Association president Cu Thi Hau said the group was organising the collection of 1 million warm clothes for poor older people.
However, she and many delegates said it was necessary to improve performances at the association's branches. At present, many elderly people still had no access to proper healthcare.

According to the Health Ministry, only 5 per cent of the elderly were in good health.

The Viet Nam Association of Elderly, founded in 1995, now has more than eight million members. More than 11,000 communes, wards and towns have set up branches.

Four workers die in coal mine explosion

Methane gas released from a pit at the Khe Tam coal mine in Quang Hanh Ward, Cam Pha City, Quang Ninh Province, exploded yesterday morning, killing four workers on the spot.

At 5:30 am on Monday, while six workers were installing a rack system and checking the electrical system 150 meters deep in a coal pit, they heard a loud explosion and saw a large flame break out, while the pit began to collapse.

Two of the six workers managed to escape from the debris, while the remaining four were buried under it.

Rescuers were sent to the scene but they faced numerous difficulties due to the high temperatures caused by the fire.

It was not until 11 am that they found the first body. The three other bodies were removed from the collapsed pit at 5:30 pm, when the heat at the scene had finally dropped significantly.

The dead victims were Tran Van Trinh, 25, from Thai Binh Province; Nguyen The Anh, 23, of Vinh Phuc Province; Le Kim Long, 27, of Thanh Hoa Province; and Hoang Van Trong, 25, also of Thanh Hoa.

All four were electricians of the 86 One-member Limited Liability Company, under the Northeast Coal Corporation, which operates the mine.

The relatives of the four dead workers have received their bodies and brought them to their home land for burial.

The provincial authorities gave VND6 million (US$288) as initial support to each family.

Police and other concerned agencies are investigating the cause of the explosion.

Rainstorms bring flood warning in north

At least three heavy rain storms are forecast to hit the north region this month, warned the National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting.

Localities, especially northern mountainous provinces, have been urged to take precautions against flash floods and landslides.
Floods are predicted to hit the northern and central regions this month due to rising water levels in rivers in the north-central region, central Binh Thuan Province and the Central Highlands.

800 kg of rotten suckling pigs seized in transport

Traffic police in Thua Thien-Hue Province have seized about 800 kg of suckling pigs that was being transported in a truck from Nghe An to Quang Ngai Province without documents.

On Sunday, July 1, a patrol police team stopped a suspicious truck for examination and discovered that it was carrying the pigs, all of which were rotten and stinking.

The truck’s driver, Huynh Ngoc Vu, 23, of Quang Ngai Province, failed to show the police any documents or a quarantine certificate related to the goods.

Vu said he had been hired by a woman identified simply as Huong in Nghe An Province’s Vinh City to transport the pigs to Quang Ngai to be sold.

The team has given the rotten pigs to the local environmental police for handling.

Last April, a joint inspection team in Ho Chi Minh City seized 215 decomposed suckling pigs and a large amount of rotten pigskin loaded onto two buses for delivery.

While examining the buses in the yard of Cam Van Co Ltd, located at 49 Tan Thanh, Hoa Thanh Ward, Tan Phu District, inspectors found that one of them carrying three cartons containing 67 dead suckling pigs and two bags of pigskin – all rotten and stinking.

In the other bus were another 10 cartons containing 148 suckling pigs, 7 cartons of pig fat, and 5 bags of pigskin – all in the initial stage of decomposition.

The bus driver, Huynh Van Thau, of Binh Dinh Province, said he had been hired by a trader to transport the decaying goods to HCMC for VND50,000 (US$2.4) per carton.

Timber seized from smugglers left to rot

Tens of cubic metres of Glyptostrobus pensilis (water pine) which had been seized from loggers and illegal wood smugglers in the Central Highland province of Dac Lak are starting to rot due to bad weather and storage conditions.

The rare timbers, potentially worth billions of dong, were discovered in the districts of Krong Nang, Ea H'Leo and Krong Buk. Relevant agencies have suggested the trees should be sold to wood processing and production units to avoid wastage.

Bank official gets death in $2.2 mil embezzlement case

A Hanoi court yesterday sentenced Le Quang Khai, 30, an official of the My Duc Agriculture and Rural Development in Hanoi, to death for his leading role in a case on the appropriation of nearly US$2.2 million of the bank that involved 6 defendants.

Khai, of Ha Dong District's Kien Hung Ward, who was an executive of the Kenh Dao Branch of the bank, was charged with embezzlement and gambling.

Two other officials of the bank, Nguyen Thanh Hai, 32, and Le Van Hien, 44, were sentenced to life imprisonment for the same charge. Hai was an executive of the bank’s Huong Son Branch, while Hien was head of the accounting and treasury department.

The three other defendants were Nguyen Van Nghi, 49, Tran Van Hai, 47, and Hoang Huu Hop, 34, who were prosecuted for “being irresponsible and causing serious consequences”. They were given sentences of 3-4 years in prison.

Nghi was director of the Kenh Dao Branch, Hai was Nghi’s deputy, and Hop was an executive of the Huong Son Branch.

Most of the defendants were addicted to gambling, mostly illegal football betting.

The police are hunting for another defendant in the case, Pham Van Quyet, who has been indicted for running a gambling den but has fled from his residence in Hanoi. He is alleged to have lured the other defendants into gambling.

According to the indictment, Khai colluded with Hai and Hien to make false transactions to withdraw a total amount of VND45.84 billion (nearly $2.2 million) from 177 saving accounts at the bank from February to May 2011.

The other defendants had given assistance to the three men until their illegal activities were discovered a few months later.

The court blamed loose management by the bank for the appropriation by the defendants, who spent most of the money on football gambling and personal needs.

At the trial, all the defendants showed their repentance and begged for clemency, but since the damage they had caused was enormous and could not be recovered, the court announced one death sentence and two life sentences to three of them.

Binh Bridge repairs to cost $7.5 million

Authorities in the northern city of Hai Phong have approved a project to repair Binh Bridge at a cost of over VND157 billion (US$7.5 million), of which $6.5 million is being funded by the Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA).

Work to repair the city's cable-stayed bridge across the Cam River started yesterday, July 2.

The Department of Transport, local police and relevant agencies have diverted road and water-way traffic during the construction work.

The bridge that connects Hai Phong and Quang Ninh Province was badly damaged on July 17, 2010 after three large ships were swept into it by a storm.

Mom gets death penalty for drugs, son gets life

A provincial court last Friday ordered the death sentence for a mother who smuggled methamphetamine in a paint box, highlighting a string of similar rulings in Vietnam in recent years.

Nguyen Thi Hanh, 43, admitted to sneaking 8.4 kg of methamphetamine total into the country from Laos, along with her son, who received a life sentence.

In addition to Nguyen Canh Chien, who is 22, the People’s Court in Ha Tinh Province also ordered Ha Thuc Cheng, 38, to life behind bars.

Two other collaborators, Nguyen Hien Nam, 39, and Tran Thi Phuong Thanh, 25, were sentenced to 20 years and 14 years in prison, respectively.

Police arrested the mother and son, who are from Nghe An Province’s Vinh City, as they tried to smuggle 5.4 kg of methamphetamine at the Cau Treo International Border Gate in August, according to the indictment.

The contraband, divided into seven bags hidden in a used paint can, marked the pair’s six delivery into Vietnam, starting in May 2011.

Death penalty for three other women

The latest verdict comes after many other cases of drug trafficking into the country.

In separate cases this year, three women found themselves facing capital punishment: two college students and a ringleader moving drugs from Cambodia.

Le Thi Thu Thao, 30, oversaw an 11-member network of smugglers, including her significant other, whose convictions in April amounted to prison sentences ranging from four years to life. Thao received the death penalty.

One of the other three women, 23-year-old Tran Ha Duy, saw her life sentence increased to the death penalty at an appeal hearing June 20.

Prosecutors in Ho Chi Minh City initiated the appeal after finding the original judgment in March insufficient.

Duy took part in a drug ring organized by foreigners in October 2010, when she was a student at Hong Bang University. She later enlisted her sister, Tran Ha Tien, 21 and also a student. Each received US$500 to $1,000 each time they brought drugs into Vietnam.

After her sister’s arrest at Tan Son Nhat Airport in July 2011, Duy turned herself in. Tien was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment.

VNN/VNS/Tuoi Tre