Disabled kids get free corrective surgery

About 30 children with physical disabilities in the northern province of Nam Dinh have been provided with free corrective surgery under a programme launched by the Australian charity organisation Hands For Hope.

A local orthopaedic surgeon carried out surgeries in the southern province of Bac Lieu last week and is scheduled to continue in central Nghe An and Ha Tinh provinces later this month. Around 100 children will benefit from the programme nationwide this year, said Nhan Nguyen, the organisation's co-founder.

About 30 children with physical disabilities in the northern province of Nam Dinh have been provided with free corrective surgery under a programme launched by the Australian charity organisation Hands For Hope.— Illustrative image/Photo nld

Hands For Hope was established by a group of young Vietnamese-Australians in 2000 with the goal of providing direct assistance to underprivileged children in Viet Nam.

Vietnamese students awarded at Russian language contest

Eight Vietnamese students have been awarded at the 3rd Russian Language Olympic, two of them as gold prize winners.

The competition, divided into many categories, including conversation, literature, painting, and photography, attracted more than 600 competitors from 42 countries and territories around the world.

During the awards ceremony held in Moscow on June 6 as part of activities marking great Russian poet Aleksandr Pushkin’s birthday, awardees presented their works during performances by outstanding Russian artists.

Elena Aleksandrovona, a teacher of Thao and Linh – two gold prize winners – was very proud of her students, saying that they are intelligent and very good at Russian.

Smuggled explosives seized in Quang Binh

Border guards and police in central Quang Binh Province seized 90kg of illegal explosives on Wednesday night.

A 41-year-old man from Le Thuy's District Sen Thuy Commune was caught transporting 19kg of the explosive on his motorbike to a nearby commune for sale.

An additional 71kg were found at his house.

Apartment carpark fires highlight safety risks

A basement blaze burned more than 30 motorbikes in Dong Da District's Cat Linh Ward on Wednesday, spotlighting the lack of fire regulations in old residential areas.

Because the fire was discovered late and the small fire extinguishers did not work effectively, all of the motorbikes were burnt within one hour, the guard of the Cat Linh parking area said.

The Cat Linh police continue to investigate the cause of the fire. But Vu Ngoc Dam, head of the Ha Noi Department of Construction's Housing Development Division, blamed the incident on the lack of detailed fire regulations.

"We have dozens of regulations for newly built residential quarters, but none for the old ones, even though there must be thousands," said Dam.

Today, when a new residential quarter opens, a maintenance fund is set up and a management board is appointed with clearly regulated responsibilities.

But older apartments, built about 40 years ago, lack these regulations.

"Moreover, guards in the parking places of old residential quarters have never received any training in firefighting, so they would be very embarrassed if a fire broke out," Dam said.

He proposed relevant agencies and local authorities inspect parking places in those areas to ensure that they had adequate firefighting equipment and electricity, and also suggested that firefighting teams be set up to train local youth and other community members.

Many die as bus plunges into ravine

At least six people died after a bus carrying more than 30 passengers crashed into a mountain side and plunged into a ravine in Khanh Hoa province.

The accident happened at around 10.00am on June 7 when the bus was travelling from the Central Highland resort city of Da Lat to Nha Trang city.

Aboard the bus were teachers of a primary school in Danang city returning from a trip to Hoa Qua Son, a tourist attraction in Da Lat city.  

The driver was said to lose control of the vehicle, crashing into a mountain side and falling into the nearby ravine of the Hon Giao pass.

“There were no other vehicles at the scene when the accident occured,” said Le Quang Thanh, a local police officer.

Five passengers died inside the car. Rescuers pulled more than 20 others from the wreckage, many of them seriously injured.

A doctor at Khanh Vinh District Medical Centre said they had received 15-16 injured passengers, including one death.

Hon Giao is one of Vietnam’s highest and longest passes, linking Khanh Hoa province and Da Lat city.  It is a beautiful, but perilous pass due to thick fog.

Prison escapee caught after 24 years on run

Police in the northern province of Ha Giang have captured Truong Manh Hung, 47, nearly 24 years after he escaped from a local prison while being held on robbery charges.

Hung was nabbed living in Go Vap District in HCM City.

Police said Hung was remanded in custody in July, 1988, after stealing property in Ha Giang Province's Vi Xuyen District. He escaped in 1990. However, the provincial People's Court sentenced him 36 months in prison in his absence.

Russia to hand over two submarines to Vietnam

St Petersburg-based Admiralty Verfi shipyard will hand over first two diesel-electric submarines to Vietnam this year, Russia’s Itar-Tass News Agency reported on June 5.

The two vessels have finished testing, meeting technical specifications.

The third submarine will be launched in August and the fourth will be built this year, according to Itar-Tass.

Vietnam signed a contract with Russia in 2009 to purchase six submarines. Under the contract, Russia will train Vietnamese crew to master the submarine technology.

Itar-Tass quoted Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung during his visit to St Petersburg last month, saying Vietnam-Russia cooperation on military technology is not only limited to the building of the six submarines, but expands to other types of weapons.

The diesel-electric submarine of project 636 is the third generation of submarines of projects 877 and 877EKM - the famous Varshavyanka, which is well known all over the world for its high tactic and technical characteristics, and which NATO classifies as of KILO-class.

The biggest advantage of this type of submarine is the ability to adapt to modern technology, enabling it to be integrated with new weapons, including Club-K anti-ship missiles.

Swine flu claims third victim of the year

A 24-year-old woman has died of swine flu in HCM City, taking the death toll in the city this year to three.

The woman, from Central Highland Kon Tum Province, had delivered in another city hospital last Sunday when she was rushed to Cho Ray General Hospital where she succumbed on Wednesday after three days of treatment.

Dr Hoang Lan Phuong, deputy head of Cho Ray Hospital's tropical diseases department, said she was admitted with a fever, cough, and respiratory problems, and later tested positive for the H1N1 strain of swine flu.

Her family said she had not been in contact with anyone with swine flu. According to doctors at Tu Du Hospital, where she delivered, her child is in good health and does not have the disease.

Water supplies need better management

About 25 water supply plants in northern midland Phu Tho Province's Yen Lap District have been out of operation for several years due to lack of management and maintenance, leaving hundreds of local residents scrambling to find water.

No-one was responsible for the plants, said Hoang Tien Quy, Thuong Long Commune Party Secretary. Two of them, servicing 540 households, came into operation in 2003 but several years later they stopped operating because their filters, storage tanks and pipelines broke and were never repaired.

Commune resident Trieu Phu Vi said households were having to look for other sources of water, such as springs and from relatives in other communes, which involved many hours of hard work each day.

Residents in 12 other communes faced the same problem. Trieu Van Lien, chairman of Nga Hoang Commune's People's Committee, said pipes carrying water to each household were broken.

Local authorities said no one was responsible for managing the water supply infrastructure.

The State had installed the systems but had not made provisions for their management. So, localities had no legal right to repair the works.

Phung Manh Dat, Thuong Long Commune Party Deputy Secretary, said residents themselves had refused to contribute to repair work. Maintaining the system would have cost each household just VND200-300 per cubic metre of water but they refused to pay.

Dao Kim Phuong, deputy head of the district's Agriculture Department, said local authorities and residents themselves were to blame for water system breaking down.

He said the district was going to draw up specific management regulations requiring the participation of residents in maintaining the works.

He said the district has just found VND3.2 billion ($152,000) in funds to fix eight water supply works.

Vietnamese scientist meets German President

Nguyen The Hoang was one of more than 550 international scientists received by German President Joachim Gauck at Bellevue Palace in Berlin on June 6.

Hoang - Deputy Director of the Trauma and Orthopedics Institute under the Military Central Hospital 108 – has won the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Scholarship Foundation.

President Gauck said Germany has spared no effort to create a favourable scientific and research environment for international scientists to study and research.

Hoang became an army doctor in 1987 and received a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in 1994 to do doctorate degree at Rechts der Isar under the Munich University.

In 2006, he got a Humboldt scholarship to conduct a research project in Germany.

The Alexander von Humboldt Scholarship Foundation has established a network of more than 26,000 international scientists from 130 countries, including 49 Nobel prize winners

The Vietnamese and Mongolian Ministries of Health will increase cooperation in training, scientific research, pharmaceutical manufacturing, preventive medicine, and traditional medicine.

They will encourage direct cooperation between their hospitals, medical universities, and research institutes.

A document to this effect was signed in Hanoi on June 6 between the two ministries, clarifying the areas of healthcare cooperation over 2013-2015.

Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long noted that medical cooperation between Vietnam and Mongolia has developed well since the two signed the first agreement in 2002.

The annual Vietnam-Mongolia Intergovernmental Committee meetings ensure healthcare remains a focus of the two countries’ relationship.

Long said he hopes updated plans for healthcare cooperation between Vietnam and Mongolia will be realized in the near future.

VNN/VOV/VNS/VNA