New plan targets labour safety

Increased awareness among all stakeholders is necessary to improve working environments in Viet Nam, which generally suffer from several forms of pollution as well as a lack of safety precautions, experts said on Monday.

Their comments were made at a meeting organised by the Work Safety Bureau under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs to unveil a five-year plan (2011-15) under which the propagation of labour safety and hygiene information will be strengthened nationwide.

Construction workers regularly work at great heights without protective equipment. A five-year plan will strengthen dissemination of labour safety nationwide. (Photo: VNS)

It aims to each out to more than 1,000 trade villages, 5,000 co-operatives, and 30,000 small and medium-size enterprises by 2015.

Labour safety and hygiene issues relating to their area of study would be included in the curricula of vocational schools and universities, said Do Thuy Nguyet, deputy head of the Work Safety Bureau.

Close co-operation was needed between local authorities and trade unions as well as other associations including the association of small and medium enterprises, women's associations and farmers' associations to implement the plan effectively, she added.

Ha Tat Thang, head of the bureau, said raising awareness of labour safety and hygiene among employees and employers was key to achieving the Government's aim of stable socio-economic development.

According to a report by the National Scientific Research Institute for Labour and Social Protection as saying the working environment in general is polluted by dust, noise and toxic gases.

Light in production areas was often lower than regulated, he said.

In the first six months of this year, 3,531 labour accidents occurred nationwide, an increase of 920 compared to the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.

The accidents killed 273 and injured 544 people.

Ten provinces and cities with a high number of fatal labour accidents are Dong Nai, HCM City, Binh Duong, Quang Ninh, Ha Noi, Da Nang, Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, and Son La.

Six indicted for trafficking girls to China

The police in Hanoi yesterday morning, Dec 6, pressed charges against six members of a gang that had cheated nine girls to sell them to China for prostitution.

Two young men Do Van Tien, 20, and Vu Dinh Pho, 21, and a 16-year-old girl Vu Thi Hong, all from Hung Yen Province, were arrested in late November when they were about to lure one more young girl into their trap before selling her into prostitution.

The police also detained three others involved in the case.

All the six will be detained for 4 months pending prosecution.

The gang confessed to the police that from August to November 2011, they had lured nine girls to Mong Cai Town, Quang Ninh Province, where they sold the girls to a madam named Tinh, the police said.

Tinh later forced the girls to go with her to China, where she is running a brothel, the arrested said, adding that Tinh paid them VND15-20 million (US$715-950) for each girl she bought.

Tien and Pho told the police that they had made acquaintance with many young girls through the internet webchat and then lured the girls to join them on a tour of Quang Ninh.

Meanwhile, Hong confessed that she had cheated two girls who were her former classmates.

Most of the victims are students at universities or high schools, the gang said.

In late November, Tien, Pho and Hong were arrested when they were preparing to lure a 14-year-old girl to Quang Ninh.

The police, who are expanding their investigation to track down other members of the gang, said they have rescued four of the nine victims and are trying to save the rest.

HCM City inspectors out dealers for selling poor-quality petrol

The city's Department of Science and Technology's Directorate for Standards, Metrology and Quality (STAMEQ) has announced the names of 11 businesses in the city that sell poor-quality petrol with an octane index lower than regulated.

STAMEQ also found that 16 out of 32 petrol samples did not meet the national standards. Among these were 11 out of 16 samples of A92 petrol and five out of 10 samples of A95 petrol.

The petrol stations have been selling poor-quality petrol for many years, department officials said.

The inspection was carried out at 55 petrol stations in the city by STAMEQ, the Market Management Bureau and an inspection team from the Department of Science and Technology between September 27 and November 16.

STAMEQ has transferred all documents about the violations to the inspection section of the Department of Science and Technology for follow-up action.

The Department of Science and Technology has ordered petrol stations in the city to provide necessary tools for customers to check the amount of petrol bought by them to prevent cheating, and to issue petrol invoices to customers that ask for them.

Hoang Lam, deputy director of STAMEQ 3, said most vehicles in the city's roads were now designed to use petrol with high octane indices, like A92 and A95. Petrol A83 is no longer suitable for modern vehicles. Its use could affect the vehicle's engines and shorten their life, he said.

Chinese national detained for stealing ATM data

Ho Chi Minh City police have detained a Chinese man for stealing the database of an ATM station at 1 Ly Thuong Kiet Street, in Tan Binh District.

Sang Yuan Sheng, 33, confessed to the police that he had used hi-tech equipment to steal the database of the station, which is operated by Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade (VietinBank).

At 6:20 pm on December 5, while on duty at the Bay Hien crossroads, a traffic police group from the Tan Son Nhat Traffic Police Team heard someone repeatedly shouting, “Catch him!” They then saw a young man running after another on Ly Thuong Kiet Street.

Sergeant Major Nguyen Tu ran after the suspected robber and seized him when he reached a bookstore.

The officer escorted the suspect to the Ward 7 police office for questioning.

Sheng told the police that he fled from the ATM when his illegal act was discovered by the young man who had chased after him.

The police said they are continuing to question the man to identify what information he has stolen, as well the purpose of his act.

Students receive AmCham scholarships

The American Chamber of Commerce in Viet Nam (AmCham Viet Nam) awarded 40 scholarships and 28 honourable mentions to 68 students last Saturday after they successfully completed the assessment process for the AmCham Scholarships 2011.

The annual awards, worth VND500 million (US$23,800) in total, include 40 scholarships valued at VND10 million each as well as soft skills training courses at Dale Carnegie Viet Nam.

Man with gun stopped, threatens to call deputy PM

Nguyen Khanh Hung (27), of Ha Giang’s Bac Quang district, threatened to call the deputy prime minister as he was seized by Hanoi police for carrying a gun.

The incident began when Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Van Tien, deputy head of Hanoi’s police patrol team, signaled for a white BMW driving through the Le Thai To- Hang Khay crossroad in Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem district to stop for inspection due to suspicious signs.

When they checked the car, police found a black German Vantel-model gun sitting in the front, near the gear lever.

Upon being restrained and handcuffed by police, Hung loudly threatened: “Do you need me to call the deputy prime minister so you can talk to him?”

However, he was soon brought to a police station for further investigation.

At the station, Hung claimed that the Ministry of Public Security had given the gun to police in Lai Chau province; and that they later passed it on to his Lai Chau-based construction and design consultation company.

However, Hung could not produce a license for the weapon, or remember the day he was given permission to use the gun.

Also taken from the car were two small bags that police suspect contain drugs.

Vietnamese, Italian hospitals boost ties

Directors of Viet Nam's National Hospital of Paediatrics and the Bambino Gesu Children's Hospital based in Rome, signed a memorandum of understanding on Monday in Ha Noi to boost co-operation.

Director of the Vietnamese hospital Nguyen Thanh Liem said that the co-operation between the two hospitals since 2005 had proven effective, especially in open heart surgery and heart transplants.

Giuseppe Profiti, director of the hospital in Rome, said that major co-operation in the future would be in technical transfer and research, and that working together was a great chance for them to understand and learn from each other.

Assailants in schoolgirl fight identified

Police in northern Vietnam’s Thai Nguyen province have identified the three assailants in a Youtube clip portraying the beating of a schoolgirl.

The three violent teenagers are Doan Thi Ngoc Huyen, Nguyen Thi Hien, and Truong Hong Yen, students in the 11th grade at a continuing education center in Dong Hy District; while the victim was only identified as P.T.H.T, a 10th grader at the same school.

Police have also identified the person who posted the clip on YouTube.

The teen attackers confessed to police that, thanks to their personal disagreements with H.T., they called on their friends to beat the girl. on November 18 at Chua Hang town, in Dong Hy District.

A staff member at the center accidentally found the clip online on November 30. Shortly after that, the center reported the case to the province’s Department of Education and Training and asked police to investigate the beating.

H.T. has recovered from the attack and has returned to school.

On November 28, a 3-minute video clip posted on Youtube caturing three girls violently attacking another girl wearing blue T-shirt while many people gathering around them and cheering has caused public outrage.

Economic integration threatens rural sector

While integrating into the global economy, the nation must not ignore investment in the rural and agricultural sectors, said the general director of the Institute of Policy and Strategy of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dang Kim Son, at a conference here yesterday.

The conference was held to review the first annual work plan of the Beyond WTO Programme's second phase. Participants addressed the societal consequences of economic integration for rural areas and discussed ways to strengthen the institutions of the market economy overall.

Farmers were the most vulnerable group when markets fluctuated as they were outside the social safety net, Son said, urging the Government to adopt policies to support the incomes of farmers, especially in times of crisis.

The domestic and international economic environment has changed considerably since Viet Nam joined the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the head of the Beyond WTO Programme's steering committee, Nguyen Van Long, told the conference.

Under the circumstances of global crisis, it was necessary to build strong national institutions to maximise the benefits of integration and minimise the side effects of globalisation, Long said. To deal with difficulties, the Vietnamese Government has focused its policies on stabilising the economy and improving its competitiveness, he added.

"While building a market economy, we have to reposition the role of the State and the role of the market," said the head of the legal department of the Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Tran Huu Huynh.

In a recessionary period, the State needed to interfere into the market more deeply but still needed to ensure healthy operation of the market economy, Huynh said.

He suggested that the Viet Nam Competition Authority and the Market Management Department no longer be placed under the authority of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, which was the ministry which also managed production sectors.

Trinh Anh Tuan, head of the International Co-operation Board under the Viet Nam Competition Authority, agreed, saying that the independence of the authority needed to be ensured in light of the ministry's management of State-owned enterprises which held a large share of the market in production sectors and which remained one of the major obstacles in the process of persuading other countries to recognise Viet Nam's market economy.

The Beyond WTO Programme was developed in response to a request from the Vietnamese Government for donor support to help with managing economic integration into the global economy and the transition to a market economy in the period following Viet Nam's accession to the WTO.

The second phase of the programme, launched in September 2009, has focused on capacity building for management and co-ordination of integration; support implementation for provincial action plans; and management of the multi-donor trust fund (MDTF).

The programme has been funded by the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID).

Abducted man set free after 4 days

Fearful of being tracked down by the police, a group of kidnappers that had abducted a man in Dong Nai Province for a ransom of VND3 billion (US$143,000) set him free on Monday.

They released 34-year-old Le Van Dung, of Trang Bom District, in a forest near National Highway 14 on Sunday night after holding him hostage for four days, local police reported.

Dung, who is former general director of a telecom electronics company in Binh Duong Province, told the police he was kidnapped on the evening of November 30 when he was taken to dinner by an acquaintance of his, Ha Xuan Gia.

After driving Dung in a car to an eatery, Gia, with the aid of two other men, put a gag on him and then drove him to Dak Nong Province.

The next morning, Gia asked Dung to call home to instruct his relatives to pay VND3 billion for his release.

After some negotiations between the kidnappers and Dung’s family, the ransom was gradually lowered until it was finally agreed at VND1 billion.

The group asked the victim’s family to pay them VND2 million in advance by wiring the money to a bank account held by a woman in Hanoi.

After the money was transferred to the account, the family reported to the police, who launched an investigation and summoned two suspects for questioning.

While the police, with the support of the Ministry of Public Security’s Anti-Social Crime Investigation Police Department, were tracking down the culprits, the abductors phoned Dung’s family to inform them that they would release him.

The police are continuing their investigation and hunting for Gia and his accomplices.

VNN/VOV/VNS/Tuoi Tre