Man spends 25 years fighting for a $0.15 debt

Despite a court ruling in 1986, a commune people’s committee in Tien Giang Province has since refused to pay VND3,200 (US$0.15) to a war invalid as part of his contribution to a local trading cooperative.

59-year-old Nguyen Van Tuan, of Phu Phong Commune, Tien Giang Province, showed Tuoi Tre a small bundle of papers and documents related to the case and said with a sigh: “The money was the result of the sweat of my wife and me, so I would definitely try to reclaim it at any cost.”

“Moreover, as the debtor is the commune authorities, I have even more motives to pursue it to the end, since any administrative agency, above anyone else, must take a lead in law and justice enforcement,” he added.

In 1980, Tuan was head of the commune military unit while his wife ran a small grocery. Five years later, as the authorities requested all individual traders to join in a trade cooperative by contributing capital to it.

In June 1985, the couple contributed VND52,000 ($2.47) to the Phu Phong Cooperative but never received any profit from its operation.

Six months later, Tuan asked the cooperative to return the money to him but was given only VND2,000, which was equivalent to VND20,000 before September 14, 1985, when the dong was revalued at the rate of 10 to 1.

In June 1986, Tuan asked the cooperative to repay him the remaining VND3,200 or 1,700 kg of paddy but the commune authorities, which managed the cooperative, rejected his request.

Tuan later filed a complaint with the Chau Thanh District People’s Court, which issued that the cooperative had to pay him the money in full.

The cooperative then appealed against the judgment, saying that it was under liquidation process because of loss and the commune people’s committee would take control of all of its assets.

At the appeal trial on December 16, 1992, the Tien Giang Province People’s Court ordered the people’s committee to pay VND3,200, equivalent to 1,700 kg of paddy, to Tuan, but the authorities did not comply with the court’s verdict.

On September 6, 2007, the district steering board for civil verdict execution requested the commune People’s Committee to execute the verdict, but the committee has since paid nothing to Tuan.

Talking with Tuoi Tre, Vo Van Tuan, chairman of the commune People’s Committee, confirmed the debt but said it could not settle it because of budget difficulties.

Asked why such a small case has not been resolved for a long time and outlived 4-5 terms of commune chairmanship, Tuan said, “We do not know clearly about it as it occurred so long ago. We need to review the case first.”

Meanwhile, Tuan asks the committee to pay him 1,700 kg of paddy, as ruled by the provincial court. At the current market price, the volume of paddy is worth VND15.3 million ($728), he said.

In addition, the committee has to pay him interest for late payment, Tuan added.

“In 1986, with the amount of VND3,200 I could buy two or three thousand square meters of land. But now, the value of 1,700 kg of paddy is equal to a few square meters. I neither understand why the local government has not paid its debt nor imagine I have had to suffer so much hardship in getting back my money,” Tuan said.

Hepatitis C treatments discussed

More than 200 professors, doctors and medical officers attended a conference on new treatments for Hepatitis C, including two new drugs approved by the US government.

The conference was organised on Friday by Merck Sharp&Dohme Viet Nam and the HCM City Liver and Gall Association.

Prof. Dr. Thiery Polynard, head of the Hepato-Gastroenterology Department at Groupe Hospitalier Pitie-Salpetriere in Paris, discussed new treatments for hepatitis-C patients.

He said that in May the US Food and Drug Administration approved two new drugs Boceprevir and Telaprevir, which are both HCV protease inhibitors. They work by to inhibit hepatitis-C virus (HCV) replication in the body.

Both drugs are meant to supplement the current standard treatment for patients, who previously failed treatment and patients new to treatment for chronic HCV genotype 1.

The new therapy substantially increases success rates compared to standard therapy.

For patients infected with genotype 1 virus, there is a 42 per cent sustained viral response (SVR) after completing the standard therap, while it went up to 70 per cent when they used the new drugs.

However, these drugs are also more expensive.

Representatives of MSD Co. said the company in June reduced prices of medicine for HCV treatment (PegInterferon alfa-2b) in Viet Nam.

MSD collaborated with local heathcare agencies in promoting disease-awareness education and offering training programmes for physicians and medical professionals.

The HCM City Liver and Gall Association has sounded an alarm about Hepatitis-C, saying that more than five per cent of the country's population, or 4.5 million people, are infected, according to association chairman Pham Hoang Phiet.

Dr. Dinh Da Ly Huong from the University of Medicine and Pharmacy said over the past 10 years, the number of patients with decompensated cirrhosis, due to the hepatitis-C virus, had increased more than four times.

Experts estimate that this year, about 500,000 chronic hepatitis-C patients will not respond to treatment.

Complications of cirrhosis and liver cancer are more likely to occur in patients with advanced liver disease.

Vietnam Red Cross receives Ho Chi Minh Order

National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung presented the Ho Chi Minh Order to the Vietnam Red Cross Society (VRCS) on the occasion of its 65th founding anniversary in Hanoi on Sunday.

NA Chairman Hung said the VRCS has always provided timely assistance to people in overcoming the consequences of natural disasters and also actively taken part in international emergency relief activities.

The top legislator took the occasion to thank the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the International Red Cross Committee and Red Cross organisations of other countries for their effective assistance to Vietnamese people.

The VRCS, Vietnam’s first professional humanitarian organization, was founded on Nov. 23, 1946 by President Ho Chi Minh, who was also the association’s honorary president.

The association now has 19,725 grass-root chapters in 63 provinces and cities, almost 21,160 cadres and nearly 300,000 volunteers.

It focuses on emergency relief, humanitarian aid, healthcare, first-aid; blood, tissue and human organ donations, search and rescue and responding to natural disasters.

Trade unions promise to better protect overseas VN workers

The Viet Nam Labour General Confederation has asked the Government to allow it to send trade union staff to countries with Vietnamese guest workers.

Mai Duc Chinh, the confederation's vice president, made the announcement at a two-day workshop in Ha Noi on protecting the rights of Vietnamese workers abroad that ended yesterday.

Participants suggested the confederation propose amendments to current regulations, particularly the Law on Vietnamese Employees Working Abroad, which regulates the rights and responsibility of trade unions regarding guest workers.

They also said it was essential to co-operate with foreign trade union members of the International Labour Organisation and trade unions of host countries to better protect the rights and interests of Vietnamese workers abroad.

A representative from the confederation's Board on Policies and Law said Vietnamese workers were first sent abroad in 1990. He said authorised labour export businesses were in charge of supervising, checking and protecting...

the interests of workers, while trade unions only took part in building policies and regulations and dealing with issues emerging when sending workers abroad.

Meanwhile, up to 85-90 per cent of Vietnamese workers currently abroad work under contract with 169 labour-export businesses.

Tran Anh Thu, deputy head of the Overseas Labourers Department's Inspection Office, said ineffective co-operation among relevant ministries, agencies and localities when implementing laws and policies was a problem.

In some localities, the management of labour export activities was not strict enough and authorities had failed to discover labour export fraud, he said.

Vu Le Ha,ø from the Foreign Ministry, said many workers abroad who had been badly treated did not know who to contact for help.

A recent survey by experts from the International Labour Organisation showed that 38 per cent of Vietnamese guest workers had submitted formal complaints – the highest proportion of any country.

A representative from the Department of Overseas Labourers said the department would work closely with authorised agencies of host countries to create better conditions for Vietnamese labour export businesses.

The department would also work with Vietnamese diplomatic agencies to ensure labour contracts met international standards.

The department reported that about 500,000 Vietnamese workers were currently working in 40 countries and territories – the majority being in Malaysia, Taiwan and South Korea.

Roughly 60,000-80,000 new Vietnamese workers are sent abroad each year.

Man dies after diving for girlfriend's wallet

A young man last night jumped into deep Tau Hu Canal in District 5 of Ho Chi Minh City to search for the wallet that his girlfriend had accidentally dropped into the water but he unfortunately drowned, according to VnExpress report.  

His girlfriend then shouted and screamed for help from people around.

Local authorities arrived on the scene quickly and began their rescue operations.

After swimming under the canal for one hour, the rescuers brought his body ashore.

The victim was identified as 26-year-old Nguyen Trong Thuc hailing from District 8.

Thuc’s mother also came to the scene and cried hysterically when seeing her son’s corpse.

According to his girlfriend, they had not seen each other for a long time.

The couple, therefore, made an appointment on the canal’s bank for talk on the evening of November 19 when the traffic accident occurred.

Police release ‘nail’ thug for lack of evidence

Police in Ho Chi Minh City’s Thu Duc District have released Nguyen Van Hai, who was caught red handed spreading nails on streets last Friday, since they didn’t have enough evidence to convict him.

Hai was freed on November 20 after 9 days being remanded in custody for questioning over accusation of ‘destroying property’.

According to investigators, Hai had hired a house in Linh Trung Ward of Thu Duc District to open a motorbike repair shop from October, 2011.

Hai came to a scrap shop in Di An market in southern Vietnam’s Binh Duong province to buy 11 iron bars which he latter cut into 150 nails in forms of diamond and triangle.

Hai then scattered the sharp metal objects on some streets on National Highway 1A located in front of Suoi Tien Cultural Park in District 9 to target passers-by.

Before his arrest, Hai had mended three flatten tubes and changed four tubes, which earned him VND290,000 (US$13.8) in total, thrice as much as usual.

However, according to the investigators, the motorbike users, who ran over nails on the aforementioned stretch of road at that time, couldn’t give any evidence showing the nails have been made by Hai.

Additionally no one has accused him of destroying their property.

On the morning of November 11, following a tip-off from Tuoi Tre reporter, Nguyen Thanh Hai, head of Phu Tho Hoa crime prevention team in Binh Duong southern province neighboring Ho Chi Minh City, caught red-handed Nguyen Van Hai using his shoes to spread nails while driving motorbikes.

Hai then was arrested with around 100 diamond-shaped nails on him.

Local authorities also seized some tools used for making sharp metal nails at his motorbike repair shop.

8 people sentenced for investment fraud

After five days of trial, the Dong Thap People’s Court yesterday sentenced 8 defendants for appropriating over VND58 billion (US$2.76 million) from numerous people who were lured to invest in a fake financial investment network.

Ly Hue Quyen, 46, of Ho Chi Minh City, and her accomplices were charged with swindling to appropriate assets, the court said.

Quyen was sentenced to 20 years in prison while Tran Tieu Linh and Nguyen Cat Bien got 14 years each, Vu Thi Thu Hang, 12 years, Tran Ha, 10 years, Diep Dung Trung, 8 years, Nguyen Da Thu, 7 years, and Nguyen Danh Minh, 2 years and two months.

The court ordered Quyen’s ring to return the money they had appropriated from their victims.

Quyen alone had to repay more than VND29 billion, the court said.

According to the court indictment, Quyen set up a financial investment mobilization network in April 2007 at http://colonyvinvest.net, which they deceptively told their victims was operated by Colony Invest Management Inc. (CI) and offered high interest rates to financial investors.

The company was later found to have no office in Vietnam nor have registered for doing business in the country, the court said.

Quyen and her accomplices persuaded investors to open an account at the website and deposited an amount to a designated bank account in exchange for a number of points equal to the value of their investment. The points would be accumulated in their accounts at the website, at a rate of US$1 for 1 point.

The points could be traded among the company’s investors, who were paid an interest rate of 2.8 percent per day on their investment that was represented by their scores, Quyen told her victims.

These scores could be converted into cash at a bank, Quyen said.

Attracted by the lucrative interest rate, a large number of people deposited their money into the bank account to get high scores.

Using this scheme, within only 8 months from April to November 2007, Quyen and her accomplices appropriated over VND58 billion from their victims, who later discovered the fraud and reported to police.

Newborn baby kidnapper indicted

The woman who kidnapped a two-old-day baby boy from 34-year-old Tran Thi Thom at Hanoi’s Central Obstetrics Hospital II early this month has been prosecuted for abducting children, local police said yesterday.

Explaining her motive for the crime, 29-year-old Nguyen Thi Le, a native of Bac Giang Province, told the police that after several years of marriage and much effort at getting herself pregnant, her first baby was stillborn. Devastated, she then planned to steal a newborn from other couples.

On November 3 she went to the hospital and stole a nurse’s uniform from a clothes line.

In the obstetrics ward, she found Tran Thi Thom holding her baby, and, pretending to be a nurse, told the mother that the baby needed a blood test.

Thom gave her son, Pham Van Truong, to the “nurse” without thinking. But more than an hour later she began to worry since the woman did not return.

Thom and her relatives then went to the doctor’s office to look for the woman but she was not there.

After searching for four hours in vain, the hospital complained to the Hoan Kiem District police.

Meanwhile, Le had left the ward, taken off the nurse’s uniform, and taken a taxi to Bac Giang first and from there to Hanoi’s Dong Anh District where her husband’s family lives.

After the baby was reported missing, the police sought information from the public, including taxi drivers, about the kidnapping.

On November 8, following a tip-off from Nguyen Xuan Viet, a taxi driver of Tuan Linh Company, the police seized her in Dong Anh.

The baby was returned to Thom and her husband, Pham Xuan Chieu, the same day.

A DNA test later confirmed the baby as the couple’s child.

Court handles $13.7 mln suit against ex-model Ngoc Thuy

The Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court is handling a lawsuit in which Nguyen Duc An, a Vietnamese American businessman, demands that his former wife, ex-top model Pham Thi Ngoc Thuy, return to him all properties, including 39 real estates and some bank accounts, that he had acquired in her name in Vietnam.

The total value of these assets amounts to VND288 billion, or US$13.7 million.

The 39 real estates include five apartments at the Avalon Building in HCMC’s district 1, four flats at the Sailing Tower building in the same district, 13 coastal villas belonging to the Sea links Golf Country in Phan Thiet city, some other villas in HCMC’s District 12, some plots of lands in Vung Tau city, and many cars, according to An’s complaint.

An told the court that after he and top model Ngoc Thuy got married in 2006 in the US, he returned to Vietnam and used his money to buy those real estates, all registered in Thuy’s name, because at the time as an alien resident he was not allowed to own these properties.

In November 2007, he and Thuy divorced in the US and the Superior Court of the State of California ruled that he has the right to exclusively own those assets he had bought in Thuy’s name in Vietnam with his own money.

After the court’s verdict took effect, Thuy did not return those assets to him but sold or transferred some of them to other people, including her relatives, An said.

Several months ago, An filed the lawsuit against Thuy with the District 1 People’s Court, which said the case was beyond its jurisdiction and referred it to the city People’s Court.

The court said it was working on the case and would inform Thuy about the lawsuit.

As An has yet to submit to the court an annotation of marriage between him and Thuy, the lawsuit will be handled as a common property dispute, not a post-divorce property dispute, the court said to the media.

Surgery for tumor patient likely to succeed

American plastic surgeon McKay McKinnon who is known for many successful giant tumor removal surgeries around the world arrived in Ho Chi Minh city Wednesday.

He visited and examined Nguyen Duy Hai, a 31-year-old Neurofibromatosis patient from Da Lat who has a 90-kilogram tumor on his right leg the next day and had a meeting with doctors at the HCMC Oncology Hospital to discuss the possibility of an operation for Hai.

Originally the surgery was planned to take place on Friday, with a Vietnamese – American surgeon team led by Dr. McKinnon performing the operation. However, it was canceled due to Hai’s worsening health condition, a report from the HCMC Oncology Hospital announced last Tuesday.

Calling Hai’s tumor one of the largest in the world, the doctor said it featured abnormal blood vessels and fibro tissues attached to the patient’s pelvis, while “his heart is somewhat enlarged by the fluid that is circulating through the tumor and himself, which is causing a leakage in his left lung cavity, leading to abnormal breathing.”

While the Vietnam- American team is still discussing the operability of this rare case, McKinnon said Hai needed to be in his best shape, emphasizing the need for nutritional supplements. This is important to keep Hai stable enough to withstand the surgery, which will be long and complicated if it is carried out.

For their part, doctors at the HCMC Oncology hospital remain more cautious about performing the operation on Hai as they said his weakened health condition, with a recently found pleural effusion complicating procedures, will not let him survive the surgery.

Doctor McKinnon later suggested another drainage of fluid for the patient as well as a second pulmonary function test in order to obtain a more exact assessment of his breathing ability.

He believed the previous test which established the pleural effusion diagnosis had been affected by the fact that “the patient was lying down during the test, instead of sitting upright, a position which would give a much more exact number.”  

The American surgeon also said that Hai’s operability is high and predicted that his condition will worsen fast as the tumor keeps growing and will seriously damage his heart, his circulation, and other body functions.

Thus he suggested that the surgery be carried out soon.  

Hai, who was transferred from Da Lat to Ho Chi Minh last week for the surgery said he depended on the American doctor for his survival.

“Please help me to remove this tumor; otherwise I don’t think I can go on any longer. As the tumor grows larger, my health is deteriorating and I am dying on this bed day by day.

“I put all my hope and trust in you, as a savior, I think only you can save me,” he said with tears welling up on his eyes on the hospital bed.

Having successfully treated many giant tumors in his 30-year career, particularly one of a similar size to Hai’s on an American woman in Michigan in 1999, Dr. McKinnon said he is positive about the chance of success for the surgery, which could reach 50 percent or more.

“The patient was a little bit older and in worse shape than Mr. Hai. She had a massive operation done, even when we knew her heart was not functioning and her lungs were either compromised or failing.”

“She survived that surgery after 50 units of blood transfusion. She was in the hospital about 6 weeks, and required physical therapy for about a year.

“ And the lady is now leading a normal life, I am happy to say.”

However, once the final conclusion whether to have the surgery is reached, there will still be pressing issues to address, such as a blood transfusion and anesthesia. An operation of this scale will require at least 15 – 20 units of blood and at least 10 units of fresh frozen plasma, the doctor said.

This morning, the surgeon held a talk with doctors of the HCMC Oncology Hospital to share his experiences treating Neurofibromatosis tumors.

Companies oblivious of cyber attacks

Many organisations and companies are not aware of that they are the victim of data breaches, according to a survey released yesterday.

Sixty-nine out of 300 organisations and companies polled failed to realise whether their network systems were compromised by hackers, according to the annual survey conducted by the Viet Nam Information Security Association (VNISA).

"Although the percentage of organisations and companies who were completely unaware of information security decreased from 29 per cent in 2010 and 38 per cent in 2009, it is still a worrying figure," said Tran Anh Tuan, deputy chairman of VNISA's southern branch.

More organisations and companies assign information security duties to specialised staff, with 61 per cent of polled organisations and companies employing staff responsible for information security.

More than two-thirds of organisations and enterprises failed to set up incident-response procedures to cyber-attacks, the survey revealed.

The survey was released at the fourth Viet Nam Information Security Day, which was held yesterday in HCM City by the city's Department of Information and Communications and VNISA's southern branch.

With the theme "Digital Information Security-Foundation of a Strong Nation in IT," the annual event aims to increase awareness of information security and related issues among State agencies, organisations and enterprises.

Experts, managers and technicians in the field of information security from Checkpoint, IBM, HP, Cisco, Oracle, Trend Micro and FPT discussed state-of-the-art knowledge and security solutions during the event.

Hanoian car, bike parks flaunt regulations: police

Many parking lots around the city refuse to comply with regulations, leading to traffic disruptions and blots on the urban landscape, said Cao Thang from Ha Noi Police Department yesterday.

A five-month inspection of parking sites by traffic police and inspectors has revealed that 86 per cent had committed at least one violation.

These included operating without business registration or temporary pavement occupation licence, illegal use of pavements, failing to display fees, collecting fees higher than permitted - and not fulfilling their tax obligations.

They were fined a total of VND4.8 billion (US$228,000).

Thang said some parking providers kept defying the rules despite having to pay the fines, citing offenders who repeated the offences the day after being fined.

He said this was partly due to local authorities not handling cases in a strict and timely fashion.

Deputy director of Ha Noi Police Department Tran Thuy said one problem was that more than one agency could grant licences. This led to situations where a provider could occupy both the pavement and part of the road at the same time.

Thuy requested traffic police and inspectors to strengthen their inspections and said he would revoke licences for repeat offenders.

"If we discover any provider who is a big tax evader, we will hand the matter over to relevant units for further investigation," he said.