Doctor banned one year over negligent death

Doctor Nguyen Duy Tu, who last week caused public outrage after his negligence resulted in the death of a rape victim, has been banned from practice for one year, his Nam Can Hospital confirmed Tuesday.

The doctor from the southernmost province of Ca Mau had previously been removed from his post as deputy head of the obstetrics department and transferred to another one.
Besides, Nam Can Hospital also issued warning notices to two doctors Huynh Van The and Pham Thanh Ly, who were involved in consulting the patient’s condition, and two nurses Ho Minh Canh and To Van Phuoc for poor communication with the patient’s family.
On June 28, Tu was on duty when Duong Thi Thu Huyen, a 17-year-old patient was admitted to Nam Can hospital in an unconscious state from an alleged rape.
Tu then performed a cursory check on Huyen and insisted that she was just slightly injured while the patient was actually suffering from a brain trauma.
He also ignored the family’s request to conduct another medical check when Huyen had difficulty breathing at midnight.
Huyen died at 4am on June 29.
Mob looting
On June 29 midnight and early morning of June 30, hundreds of locals besieged the houses of doctor Tu and doctor Tran Thien Thanh, Nam Can hospital’s director, and destroyed their properties in a fit of rage.
Police have arrested 41 people for the vandalizing and said many took advantage too rob and loot.
These people have no family relation with Huyen. Five of them even had served jail time for raping.

Le Thanh Son, head of Nam Can district police, said Nguyen Hoang Long, 35, had incited some residents to rush to the hospital and destroy facilities there.
Under Long’s call, a group of more than 40 people stormed and looted the houses.
Doctor Thanh said total damage to the hospital was estimated at VND100 million (US$5,000).
Meanwhile, damage to his private house is much more serious, at around VND1 billion ($50,000).

Death penalty upheld for official’s murderers

The two murderers at court on Monday, July 4. (Photo: Dan Tri)

Nhan had asked his friend Sang to tag along and the men carried with them duct tapes, electric batons, handcuffs and three knives.
As the men got into a verbal fight with My, they attacked her with the electric baton, stabbed her with a knife, and forced her to reveal where she kept her money.
My’s daughter, 25-year-old Tran Thu Huong, who ran down from upstairs and shouted for help, were also beaten until she passed out.
Hong, My’s friend, happened to drop by and Nhan beat her with a tennis racket and stabbed her 24 times with a knife.
My neighbors timely informed the local police and militia who arrived at the scene and managed to arrest the men half an hour later.

Two die, 23 injured when bus, cement lorry collide in Ha Tinh

A passenger bus and a cement truck collided yesterday morning, killing two people and injuring 23 others in the central province of Ha Tinh, local police said.

The Phu Quy double-decker was heading south to Ha Tinh centre on National Highway 1 in Tan Vinh Village, Nghen Town, Can Loc District, when it hit the turning truck at 6.30am.

"We heard a very loud noise," said a witness. "Then when we approached the bus, we saw the bus driver's assistant die on the spot. The injured driver was trapped behind the steering wheel. People were crying in pain everywhere in the bus."

Another man died on the way to hospital. Among the victims sent to Can Loc and Ha Tinh hospitals, many were in a critical condition, doctors said.

The bus, which left Ha Noi on Monday night, was carrying about 30 passengers, mostly from Ha Tinh.

The collision caused a traffic jam on the highway for more than an hour.

WB grants US$2.37m to Viet Nam to boost energy efficiency

The World Bank earlier this week approved a project to strengthen the capacity of the Vietnamese Government and other key stakeholders to meet the requirements of the national energy efficiency programme.

The project is designed to reduce green house gas emissions in key industrial sectors.

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) will fund the US$2.37 million three-part project.

The project's first component involves formulating energy efficiency strategies in energy-intensive high growth industrial sectors, as well as the establishment and implementation of voluntary agreements.

The second component of the project will involve development of energy service providers. It will provide technical assistance to key market players to save energy.

The third component involves improving management, monitoring and evaluation of the project, and capacity building at the Ministry of Industry and Trade's (MoIT's) Energy Efficiency and Conservation Office through provision of expert assistance and training.

5 injured by ice rain in HCM City

5 people in Ho Chi Minh City were injured on Monday, July 4, when an ice coupled with strong winds caused the front gate of Phu Tho Stadium in District 11 to collapse.

The ice rain also broke trees and caused other damage in districts 1, 5, and 10.

Malaysia to recruit 2,000 Vietnamese workers

The Malaysian Ministry of Manpower said it would recruit about 2,000 Vietnamese workers for Malaysia’s palm oil industry at a salary of 1,000-2,000 ringgit (VND7-14 million) per month.
The recruitment plan was announced by the ministry at a recent meeting with Vietnam’s Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) in Hanoi.
According to the plan, recruited workers will work as caretakers and harvesters at oil palm plantations in Malaysia and recruitment requirements are rather simple, MOLISA said.
Candidates are required to be 18-45 of age, have a good health, and attend a short vocational training course.
MOLISA Deputy Minister Nguyen Thanh Hoa said the ministry will select a number of businesses to provide workers to Malaysia on a pilot basis.
Accordingly, about 200 workers selected from those businesses will be sent to Malaysia every month, he said.
At a recent seminar on cooperation in sending Vietnamese workers to Malaysia for work, Hoa said Vietnam has provided over 200,000 workers to Malaysia since 2002.
Those workers mainly work in the fields of agriculture, construction, and services.
At the seminar, many Vietnamese labor exporters requested that the Malaysian Government raise basis salary, fully carry out insurance policies, and cut short the time for getting a visa.
In reply, Dato Sh Yahy a Bin SH. Mohamed, director of the Labor Department under the Malaysian manpower ministry, promised that Malaysia will offer Vietnamese workers best working conditions, including procedures, wage, allowance, and insurance.

Swiss extend aid for ethnic groups

A Swiss-funded programme to improve public services in the northern provinces of Cao Bang and Hoa Binh has been extended four years with total budget of more than US$14 million.

The project was first introduced to the provinces in 2008 when $7 million was provided to enhance administrative reform through a pilot scheme to decentralise decision-making powers to the commune level.

It improved residents' participation in developing socio-economical plans, provided funding and taught the locals how to manage the fund.

Under the agreement signed yesterday by Swiss Ambassador to Viet Nam Jean-Hubert Labet and leaders of the two provinces, the Government of Switzerland through the Swiss Agency for Development and Co-operation granted more than $11 million to the programme.

The remaining $3 million came from the two provincial budgets. The Swiss Association for International Co-operation Helvetas will provide technical assistance.

Lebet said that although Viet Nam had made incredible achievements in poverty reduction and economic growth in the last 20 years, poverty reduction was still a top priority, especially among ethnic minority groups.

In the first phase, the Swiss built up the capacities of commune staff and established mechanisms for participatory planning and information provision at the commune level, said Lebet. These successes would be expanded in the next phase.

Vice chairman of Hoa Binh Province People's Committee Nguyen Van Dung said the programme's approach was based on the needs of local residents and also engaged them to help carry the plan out.

He said thanks to the Commune Development Fund set up by the Swiss, more than 1,000 works of roads, irrigation, water supply had been built and thousand more activities carried out to improve local agriculture and production skills.

In the second phase, the programme aims to strengthen local planning, financial decentralisation and improving the delivery of public services in agriculture.

Official hacks government websites, posts porn

Police have identified an IT officer working for the Tra Vinh Province Department of Information and Communications as having hacked many government websites in Tra Vinh province and posted porn on them.
Police from the Ministry of Public Security have zeroed in on Phan Ngoc Quan, informed Quan’s employer Bui Chi Hung, deputy director of the department.
Investigation results show that Quan had broken into many website addresses listed on the Tra Vinh Province Information Portal at www.travinh.gov.vn.
The websites hacked include those of the Interior Department, the Science and Technology Department, the Business Association, the Office of the provincial People’s Committee, and the Finance Department.
Quan made changes to their contents and added pornographic information or images, Hung said.

Police suspect that some other hackers have taken part in Quan’s attacks on the websites.

The Department is conducting disciplinary actions on Quan while the police are expanding their investigation, Hung added.

Hanoi choked off in straw smoke as harvest ends

Dense smoke enveloped many areas in Hanoi yesterday, July 5, when farmers from the suburbs ended their harvesting season and burnt up the rice straw, choking locals and pedestrians.
Many families living on Nguyen Trai Street and Kim Ma Street in Thanh Xuan and Ba Dinh districts respectively had to shut their doors tight while passers-by had to wear masks to protect themselves from inhaling the ash and uncomfortable smell.
This phenomenon happens every year but could seriously affect people’s health under extreme circumstances.

Japan helps HCM City prevent flood

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Ho Chi Minh City Steering Centre for Flood Control (SCFC) on July 5 signed the second-stage of a technical cooperation programme, as part of a project to improve the flood situation in the city.

Following the previous stage that finished last November, the new three-year project will start in September, helping enhance the SCFC’s wastewater management capacity in the basins of Tau Hu, Ben Nghe, Kenh Doi and Kenh Te and work out wastewater quality improvement projects.

The project will also contribute to raising public awareness of environmental protection and perfecting a system of sharing information on operations of wastewater processing factories among relevant agencies.

Under the project, JICA will send experts to Vietnam to provide both short-term and long-term support to SCFC, host training courses in Japan and other countries as well as supply necessary equipment to the project.

Two killed in hit-and-run in Quang Nam

A woman and her 3-year-old daughter were killed in a hit-and-run accident in Thanh Binh District in the southern province of Quang Nam on Monday, July 4.
The deadly accident happened when Vo Ngoc Thanh was driving his wife, Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy, and his daughter, Vo Thi Thu Thao on a road in Binh Trung Commune.
Thanh, a resident of Phu Ninh District, told the police that after his motorbike ran over a sharp nail, he lost control of the vehicle, causing his wife who was carrying the baby on her arms to fall to the ground.
Thanh’s wife was killed on the spot while his daughter died later in hospital.
Witnessed said after running over the two victims, the truck’s driver got off his truck, looked at the victims, got into the truck and ran away.

Traffic cop killed over girl, confesses killer

A 25 year-old man who stabbed to death a young traffic police officer at a café in Ho Chi Minh City has given himself up to police. The reason is put down to conflict over a girl.

Hoang Ngoc Thang hailing from Binh Duong province confessed to killing Sub-lieutenant Phung Minh Thang on the night of June 28.

Due to their conflict over a girl, Ngoc Thang stabbed Thang to death at Thuy Truc Café on Chu Van An Street, Binh Thanh District, investigators said.

The victim, from Binh Phuoc Province Traffic Police Department, died after receiving two stab wounds to his chest including a fatal one to his heart.
Thang was attending an in-service course at the University of People’s Police in HCM City.

According to initial investigation, the two young men had met several times to settle the conflict but failed to resolve the problem.

On the fateful night, Ngoc Thang made a phone call to the official asking him to the café to settle the matter.

Their heated discussion later turned homicidal.

Sipping drinks, 3 injured; owner dead in crash

A seven-seat car that lost control veered onto the pavement and crashed into a house on Ly Thai Tong Street in the central city of Da Nang at 23:30 yesterday, killing its owner and injuring three guests who were enjoying some drinks in front.
The car traveling at high speed bumped hard into the house of Mr. Nguyen Tan Thang who later died in hospital.
The four injured are driver Phan Anh Tuan, Nguyen Ngoc Hai and Nguyen Thi Thi and one student.
Hai, Thi and the unidentified student were having some drinks at a roadside refreshment stall in front of Thang’s house.
Hai and Thi are in critical condition.
The damage is estimated at over VND50 million.

VNN/ VNS/Tuoi Tre