PM offers condolences to Japan over tropical storm tragedy

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung yesterday sent a message of condolence to Japanese counterpart Yoshihiko Noda regarding the loss of life and property caused by tropical storm Talas.

The storm, which swept across western Japan two days ago, killed at least 29 people and causing 56 others to go missing. The storm unleashed record rainfall that triggered landslides and flooding.

59 foreigners arrested over possible high-tech crime

Policemen from the Ministry of Public Security and central Phu Yen Province have arrested 59 foreigners at 4 guest houses and hotels in Tuy Hoa City over a possible high-tech crime case.

"We have detained 62 suspects, including 28 Chinese, 31 Taiwanese and three local people working as employees to care for food, rent and interpreting job," said Colonel Nguyen Trung Nghia, chair cum spokesman of Phu Yen Province Police Department.

The law enforcement force have also seize high-tech equipment including 18 laptops, 108 land-line phones, 14 cell phones, 13 radio devices, 25 Internet connection hub, 14 network ports, 10 wireless routers, a printer and other devices.

The suspects would be kept in custody for investigation of violations of Vietnam laws such as failing to register for temporary residency and using high technology to commit crimes, Nghia said.

The operations of this group of foreigners have violated political and information security of Vietnam, he added.

According to an officer of the police panel, the victims of those suspects are mainly the Chinese in Vietnam.

The group of suspects had used the Internet and VoiceIP talk service to find information about the victims - often those committing frauds - and then disguised as the authorities to request the victim to provide bank account numbers or transfer money to their accounts for investigation.

Illegal gold exploiters attack environment policemen

Hundreds of illegal gold exploiters reportedly threw stones at policemen who seized three excavators in northern Cao Bang Province on Sunday afternoon.

Lieutenant-colonel Hong Van Dinh, deputy head of the district Police, said that the crowd, including illegal exploiters and local residents, eventually agreed to lay down their tools.
While no serious injuries were sustained, this had been one of the largest uprisings against the police in the province's history.

While local authorities have meanwhile stepped up inspections and punishments related to illegal gold exploitation, many illegal exploiters remain at large.

Man arrested for killing 2 in Tuyen Quang

Police in the northern Tuyen Quang city on Sunday arrested a local man for allegedly stabbing two people to death.

The police said after preliminary investigation that Vu Van Nhan, 52, of Y La Ward had visited Vu Van Can, 54, Saturday and spent the night at his house in Tan Ha Ward.

After lunch Sunday Nhan quarreled with Can and stabbed him several times, killing him on the spot.

He then went to the back of the house to stab Luc Thi Thu, 27, Can’s daughter-in-law.

She was taken to the local general hospital for emergency treatment but died due to loss of blood.

The police were called to the scene and Nhan hid in the toilet with the knife in hand, refusing to come out. Officers had to force the toilet door open to seize him.
Locals told the police that Nhan has a history of mental illness.
The police are questioning Nhan and witnesses to find out the cause of the killings.

Girl recovers chopped-off arm

The chopped-off arm of the nine-year-old victim of a gold shop robbery in northern Bac Giang Province has been re-joined following successful surgery.

Alongside the renewed ability of using her right hand, Trinh Thi Bich's facial injuries were also in stable condition, although her brain injuries were still under supervision, said Nguyen Tien Quyet, director of the Ha Noi-based Viet Duc Hospital where Bich is receiving treatment.

Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien on Monday awarded the doctors who had carried out the surgery a merit certificate and VND10 million (US$490).

The doctors explained that, while rejoining a chopped-off arm often only took around six hours, due to Bich's multiple injuries, her operation had taken roughly 11.

The police have meanwhile arrested 18-year-old Le Van Luyen on suspicion of committing the gold shop atrocity.

Luyen allegedly killed Trinh Van Ngoc, 37, and Dinh Thi Chin, 35, as well as their one-year-old daughter before making off with a large amount of gold.
Bich was found lying unconscious with her right hand chopped off, having hidden under a wardrobe at the time of her family's murder.

Scholarships awarded to 2,250 students

Scholarships were awarded to 440 disadvantaged students with good academic results from northern provinces on Sunday, boosting the total number of national recipients to 2,250 this year.

The scholarships, offered by Rencontres du Viet Nam (Meeting Viet Nam) and the Odon Vallet Foundation, are worth VND15 billion ($730,000) in total.

Meanwhile, US-based Procter and Gamble (G&B) and the Binh Duong Province Labour Union last week also handed out scholarships worth VND600,000 ($29) each to 150 underprivileged students.

Leading UK professors to lecture students

A one-week visit by Sterling Group, starting tomorrow will bring seven professors from the UK's leading research universities to deliver lectures to students at top engineering institutes in Ha Noi, HCM City and Da Nang.

Lecture topics will include building intelligent machines, managing water resources and guarding against flooding.

This will be the fourth successive year that the Sterling Lecture Tour has been held in Viet Nam. Last year, over 2,000 students in Ha Noi and HCM City joined the tour.

Binh Duong vigilante attacked again by thugs

A 34-year-old vigilante in Binh Duong Province, who has been honored repeatedly by the police for his efforts to fight crime, came under violent attack again from suspected criminals yesterday, Sep 5.

Nguyen Tang Tien, a member of the An Binh Ward anti-crime voluntary team, was working at a bakery at 4 am when four men came on two motorbikes and rushed inside.

Two of them were armed with swords. Tien responded immediately by grabbing a wooden bar and parrying the attacks before counterattacking and forcing them back into the street.

Another member of the team, who was walking on the street, rushed to Tien’s support and they managed to chase away the attackers. Neither man was injured.

Tien said one of the attackers was a man who had attacked him two days earlier in revenge for Tien’s investigation of a theft.

On September 3, following a tip-off from the public, Tien followed a suspected motorbike thief from the Song Than overhead bridge area after informing the local police and his colleagues.

When the suspect stopped at a barber shop, Tien went over to him and asked him about the origin of the vehicle.

The suspect asked Tien to wait for a moment and then called someone. Within a few minutes, eight men arrived with knives. They asked Tien: “You are known as the street knight, aren’t you?

 “Let us know where you live so that we can come and kill you.”

Fortunately, Tien’s colleagues arrived in time to save him.

Earlier, on June 27, he was attacked with swords by Vu Duc Tuan, 33, aka Tuan “dog”, and three other men at his home.

Tuan “dog” was avenging one of his gang members who had been seized by Tien for stealing a motorbike in Di An town three days earlier.

Tien suffered deep cuts in both hands and his right thigh, and was in hospital for several days.

The police later arrested Tuan “dog” and his accomplices and said they had been watching him for more than five years on suspicion his gang was stealing motorbikes in Binh Duong.

Tien, who was born in a poor family in the central Quang Ngai Province, moved to Binh Duong and is married. His wife is pregnant with their first child.

In the past several years he has received many certificates of merit from the police and hailed as a “knight” for his bravery in fighting crimes.

Dangerous holiday for drivers

This National Day (September 2) holiday seemed to be particularly dangerous with accidents claiming dozens of lives and injuring hundreds around the country.

Viet Duc Hospital in Hanoi received almost 200 victims from September 2 to 4.

In the southern province of Dong Nai, two train crashes on September 3 killed two people and seriously injured another.

In the central Quang Ngai Province, a 73-year-old woman was hit and killed by a train when she chased after a cow on the rail track on September 4.

On September 4, two men were killed following a collision between their motorbike and a car on National Highway 1A in the central province of Binh Dinh.

In Tra Vinh in the Mekong Delta, a truck crashed into four motorbikes September 4, killing one and injuring three others. On the same day a passenger bus overturned in the Bao Loc mountain pass in Lam Dong Province, leaving nine passengers severely injured.

The same day the brakes failed on a tractor-trailer which skidded backwards from the mountain pass and crashed into a motorbike behind, injuring 37-year-old Le Thi My Linh and killing her two children on the spot.

Jewelry shop killer addicted to violent games

Le Van Luyen, who allegedly killed three people at a jewelry shop in Bac Giang Province last month and robbed the place, confessed to committing the crime to get money for his expenses, including playing online games, the police said.

Newswire Dan Tri reported that the 18-year-old had confessed to investigators that he was very fond of online games like “Kiếm thế”(World of JX), a violent game.

He intended to spend a part of the stolen money, estimated at over US$100,000, on repaying debts and playing his favorite game and give the rest to his parents.

He had not felt fearful about killing since he wanted “to rob the shop to change his life,” Senior Lieutenant Colonel Le Van Dung, deputy head of the Bac Giang police’s political department, was quoted as saying.

But a senior police official told Dan Tri that Luyen was now fully aware of the implications of his action and showed repentance.

Luyen told the investigators that the killings haunted him badly and it seemed that he had acted under “the orders of the Devil.”

Every night at the detention center in Bac Giang, he had nightmares in which he saw the victims, especially the little girl, Trinh Bich Ngoc, 18 months old, whose throat he slit.

A tearful Luyen told an investigator: “At that time, the baby cried loudly and I feared detection. So I decided … I do not know how I could kill her… I dream of her every night.”

He also killed Trinh Van Ngoc, 37, and his wife Dinh Thi Chin, 35, and chopped off the right arm of nine-year-old Trinh Ngoc Bich, the other daughter of the couple.

Locals in Thanh Lam commune told Dan Tri that Luyen had been good-natured and timid as a child. However, from the age of around 13, he had begun to neglect his studies and occasionally steal money from his parents to go out with his friends.

After ninth grade he dropped out of school and did odd jobs to make money. He also began to play online games.

A few days before the crime, he borrowed a motorbike from a relative and pawned it to play games. It was then he decided to rob the shop to get money to redeem the motorbike.

Before committing the crime, he had bought two knives and decided to kill anybody who came in the way.

Court to hire lawyer for jewelry shop killer

Le Van Luyen, who allegedly hacked three people to death at a gold shop in Bac Giang Province, will get a lawyer appointed by the court since he has yet to hire one, the local police chief said.

The 18-year old has not asked for a lawyer but under Vietnamese law, it is mandatory for minor defendants to have a lawyer.

Colonel Pham Van Minh, director of the Bac Giang Province Police Department, said during questioning after his arrest four days ago, Luyen had admitted to acting alone in the killing of Trinh Van Ngoc, the 37-year-old jeweler, his wife Dinh Thi Chin, 35, and daughter Trinh Phuong Thao, nine months, on August 24.

He also allegedly chopped off the right arm of nine-year-old Trinh Ngoc Bich, another daughter of the couple.

“Luyen’s testimony matched the report from the crime scene and the evidence collected,” Minh said.

There were wounds on his face and hands caused by grappling with the murdered man and his wife, he said.

Luyen was arrested in Lang Son Province on August 31 as he returned to Vietnam from China, where he fled for three days but could not find a place to stay.

The police have also arrested four other people. Le Van Mien, 42, and Truong Thi Thom, 38, Luyen’s parents, were taken in for “hiding a criminal,” and Truong Van Hop, 47, the father of Truong Thanh Hong, 19, for “not reporting a crime,” the police said.

Before fleeing to China, Luyen went to Lang Son and stayed at the house of his aunt Le Thi Dinh.

On August 28 Dinh’s husband Le Van Nghi took Luyen to China but returned there three days later to bring Luyen back and turn him in, investigators said.

Therefore, no charge would be pressed against Nghi and her wife, they said.

The police would decide about prosecuting Luyen’s parents and the other two people this week, Minh said.

Call to speed up green-hub plans

Planning for Ha Noi's satellite cities should be sped up so that the master plan for the capital can be carried out. The plan was approved by the Prime Minister in July.

The Ha Noi Urban Planning Institute in co-ordination with the Department of Planning and Architecture are in charge of detailed planning for satellite cities in Hoa Lac, Xuan Mai and Son Tay.

The planning of two other satellite cities, Soc Son and Phu Xuyen, and other ecologically based cities and towns around the metropolitan area is also in progress.

According to Deputy Director of the Department of Planning and Architecture Vu Tuan Dinh, 17 out of 25 subdivision planning projects from Belt Road No 4 inwards would be completed this month and given to the municipal People's Committee for ratification in November. The rest are expected to be completed by mid next year.

In addition, detailed planning of major roads, such as those connecting Nhat Tan and Noi Bai, West Lake and Ba Vi, Co Loa and West Lake, Bac Thang Long and Noi Bai, and both sides of the Red River also need completing.

"The implementation of capital development plans is an urgent, key task of authorities and residents," said People's Committee's chairman Nguyen The Thao.

According to director of the Ha Noi Urban Planning Institute La Thi Kim Ngan, planning will ensure a balance between urban areas and green belts.

The ultimate plan was to make the capital a green and modern centre, said the deputy director of the Ministry of Construction's Urban Development Department, Do Tu Lan.

Weapons found in businessman’s car

At 0:20 am on Sunday, a joint police team in Hanoi stopped a car for examination and found a lot of weapons inside the car’s boot.

The Hyundai Getz was carrying four rubber bludgeons, two long knives, one tear gas sprayer, one police hat, one soldier hat, one life jacket for waterway police, a specialized tape recorder, and one plastic catapult along with two bags of porcelain balls for the shooting device.

The police also found several car rental contracts and a number of receipts issued by a pawnshop.

Especially, the car is equipped with a siren system only used on police cars.

The two men in the car, Nguyen Dinh Hiep, 25, director of the Gia Nguyen Trading and Services Co Ltd, located in Yen Nghia Commune, Ha Dong District, and his employee Tran Van Phuong, also 25, failed to show any documents to prove the origin of the weapons.

The police then escorted them to the Hanoi’s criminal police office for questioning.

Hiep told the police that they usually brought those weapons along with them on their long trips for self-protection purposes.

He also said the catapult was from his nephew.

The police have seized all the above-mentioned weapons and are working with the two men to clarify their origins.

Four students swept away by river currents

Rescuers have yet to find four of the five students who were swept away by strong river currents in Son Duong District, Tuyen Quang Province on Sunday, local authorities reported.

The accident occurred yesterday afternoon on the Pho Day River in Hon Mun Hamlet, Khang Nhat Commune.

The only rescued student has been taken to a local hospital for emergency treatment.

All the missing victims, who are students of Khang Nhat Junior High School in the commune, have yet to be identified so far, said Nguyen Thi Hue, secretary of the district Party Committee.

Rescuers are continuing to search for the victims and the local police are trying to identify them.

$10.75m to renovate National Highway 6

A budget of more than VND224 billion (US$10.75 million) has been granted towards the renovation of the Chuc Son section of National Highway 6, according to the Ha Noi People's Committee.

The section of the road, running through Chuc Son Town in Ha Noi's outlying district of Chuong My, will be extended by 56m in width to allow a maximum speed of 80kph. The section's infrastructure, including water drainage, lighting and pavements, will also be upgraded.

National Highway 6 is one of the country's major roads, linking Ha Noi to the northwest highlands.

VNN/VOV/VNS/Tuoi Tre