Social
News 28/9
New
expressway develops crack after torrential rains
Three days after
opening,
The Viet Nam
Expressway Corporation (VEC), which funded the expressway, on Wednesday
blamed soft ground for the crack at the 83km mark between Yen Bai and Phu Tho
provinces.
The corporation
said it had predicted the appearance of the crack and had placed a warning
sign near the site beforehand - and at nine other soft spots along the
expressway.
One of its
representatives said that torrential rains triggered by two recent storms
could have undermined the road.
The section of road
in question was built by Keangnam Construction Company, which claims it
closely followed regulations on treating soft ground.
The VEC
representative said the corporation always surveyed the ground looking for
soft spots and then took "appropriate measures".
Work on the
expressway began in 2008 and cost a total of US$1.25 billion.
Medical
staff to face prosecution
Ha Noi police have
decided to prosecute pharmacists, doctors and others involved in a health
insurance scam at the Ha Noi's Emergency Aid Centre, locally known as 115.
Investigation by
the Ha Noi Social Insurance in March this year found that pharmacists at the
centre illegally used health insurance codes of up to 49 people to get
medicines worth more than VND19.7 million (US$938) for personal use over a
period of six months last year.
However, further
investigations by the police revealed that the scale of the scam was greater,
with codes of more than 100 people used to appropriate medicines worth
hundreds of millions of dong.
A pharmacist at the
centre has allegedly confessed to misusing her position and stealing
medicines for personal use.
The medicines,
including some used to treat diabetes, were taken in the name of several
health insurance policy holders who'd never visited the centre.
Investigations
found seven doctors at the centre were requested by the pharmacist to sign
medical invoices without verification.
The pharmacist who
admitted her violations returned the money to the centre and was moved to
another position while the seven doctors were reprimanded.
The centre has
since tightened oversight over issue of medicines to health insurance policy
holders.
Under current
regulations, those found to abuse position and power to appropriate others'
assets can be sentenced to between one year in prison and life imprisonment,
depending on the level of the infringement.
Economy
creates 1 mln jobs in eight months
The
The report came at
the ninth session of the National Assembly (NA) Committee for Social Affairs
on September 25 focusing on labour, jobs and social welfare. By the end of
the year, the number of poor households is forecast to be 5.8-6% of the
nation’s population, down by 1.8-2% compared to last year.
Despite
improvements in vocational training, its quality remains poor, especially in
mountainous and rural areas.
Minister of Labour,
Invalids and Social Affairs Pham Thi Hai Chuyen said the Vietnamese
Government will pay attention to developing infrastructure facilities
particularly building vocational training schools and boarding schools for
ethnic groups.
Demand for
human resources grows along with
The demand for
human resources has increased in the IT, electronics, real estate,
tourism-hospitality, mechanical engineering-automation, and textile sectors
since last year, according to the HCM City Centre for Human Resource Forecast
and Labour Information.
The trend dovetails
with the city's economic development, Tran Anh Tuan, the centre's deputy
head, said.
The IT industry has
accounted for 8 per cent of the total demand this year as investment
increased.
In the first
quarter of 2016 Samsung Corporation's 70ha factory will begin to operate in
the city and need nearly 5,000 employees, and this would pose a challenge,
Tuan said.
In the housing
sector, which has accounted for around 6 per cent of the total demand, the
market's recovery and growth has led to an increased need for human
resources.
In the textile and
footwear sectors,
In the last quarter
the demand for manual labour at companies is expected to increase because of
the ongoing expansion in production.
Of 60,000 workers
needed in the remaining months, manual workers will account for 35 per cent,
up from 25.2 per cent in the third quarter, mostly in sales, services,
textiles, and tourism-hospitality.
The rest will be
skilled employees and graduates from universities, colleges, and vocational
schools in the fields of IT, mechanical engineering, electronics, electricals,
and telecom.
Tuan said 35,000
more workers would be needed for seasonal jobs between November and a few
after Tet in late January.
The number of
graduates seeking employment now accounts for 40 per cent of the total, he
added.
Involvement
of social organisations in law-making highlighted
Policy and legal
experts are gathering at a two-day conference in the central city of Danang
to discuss the contributions of social organisations to the law-building
process in
Participants in the
event, which opened on September 25 as part of a cooperation project between
the National Assembly and Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), included
members of the Vietnam Fatherland Front, representatives of the Vietnam Union
of Science and Technology Associations, and NA deputies from central
localities.
They reviewed the
current legal framework on the participation of social organisations in
legislative procedures, while discussing measures to build the State of the
rule of law.
Participants also
assessed the role of social organisations in legislation, shared practical
experience, and devised measures to strengthen the involvement of social
organisations in the processes of making laws and supervising their
implementation.
According to Dang
Dinh Luyen, Deputy Head of the NA Law Committee, in recent years, many laws
and regulations have been added to the NA’s law-building programmes, with the
active participation of social organisations.
However, he pointed
out that few social organisations could voice their opinions on legislation
in general, while most of them could only comment on legislation in their
respective fields of operations.
At the same time,
many responses failed to provide complete information and follow format
guidelines, he added.
Meanwhile, lawyer
Nguyen Hung Quang from the NHQuang Lawyer and partners company held the
social organisations in high regard, arguing that their participation would
benefit the State and members of the public.
That participation
would narrow the gaps between laws and their targeted community, enhancing
the transparency and accountability of State activities and improving legal
efficiency, he said.
The social
organisations, in turn, would have the opportunity to improve their policy
advocacy capacities, strengthening their network and getting closer to State
agencies, Quang added.
Smuggled
dental equipment seized
The Environment
Crime Prevention branch (PC49) of the Ha Noi Police is investigating a cargo
of dental equipments and medicine seized in the city on Tuesday.
The cargo was
confiscated while it was being unloaded at the Luong Yen bus station. Tran
Van Minh, the bus driver, was not able to present all the necessary documents
for his cargo.
The police have
identified a Chinese national, Mao Chi Cuong, as the owner of the cargo,
which contained 27 pieces of dental equipment and 1032 spare parts engraved
with Chinese letters without proper import documents.
Drug
traffickers sentenced to death
A court in the
northern province of Son La yesterday sentenced two men – Tran Manh Hung and
Nguyen Duc Trung – to death for drug trafficking.
They were found
guilty of transporting 22.9 kilograms of heroin in 78 packets.
Two others, Nguyen
Tri Huan and Dao Dinh
Hung and Trung were
caught while transporting 19 packets of heroin by car from Son La to Ha Noi
in February 2012. Huan and
Trung and Huan were
also found guilty of illegal storage of weapons.
In related news,
police of the
Community
walk to raise funds for sports
The HCM City
Department of Education and Training in collaboration with Nestle Milo will
hold its first community walk in District 7's Phu My Hung on October 5 to
raise funds for sports facilities at schools, and help students practice
sports to improve their health.
More than 7,000
people are expected to join in the community walk in
State Audit
evaluates strategic role
The chairman of
Ta was speaking at
a workshop on improving the strategic role of the audit office in public
finance management with Vietnamese and international auditors.
The main topic was
Values and Benefits of the State Audit Office in Public Finance Management.
The workshop was
organised by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
and the State Audit of Vietnam (SAV).
It was part of
USAID's Country Development Co-operation Strategy for
Addressing the
gathering, Ta said the audit office should transform its method from
compliance audit to performance audit and perform business-based audit to
improve work efficiency.
He added that it
should develop audit standards to ensure the proper use of State funds by
agency leaders, adding that it should operate as a large-scale independent
organisation without any external interference.
Director of
Regional State Audit Office 12 in Dak Lak, Nguyen Anh Tuan, said that State
audit offices had to prove their roles to ensure accountability in using
State funds.
A representative
from KPMG Vietnam said that the audit office needed assistance from those
audited to improve working results.
The deputy director
of Specialised Audit Department 4 in charge of capital infrastructure
investment and projects, Vu Nhat Anh, said State enterprises that had been
equitised should be included in the audit subjects to avoid losses in the
State budget.
He said it would be
better if SAV improved the quality of audit training programmes and the
exchange of information among auditors to improve specialist competency.
The director of
Regional State Audit Office 4 in
A representative
from the
He said the most
important matter was to tighten fiscal and financial expenses in the use of
State funds.
He added that
society would require information about State funds to be monitored to ensure
their integrity and transparency.
The Ministry of
Finance representative said that the quality of audit figures must be
guaranteed through internal and external monitoring and evaluation.
Tests
confirm bacterial contamination in food poisoning case
The Gia Lai
Preventive Medicine Centre yesterday announced the results of the tests done
on food samples after 114 people were hospitalised for food poisoning on
September 15.
The tests done on
beef samples and the well water sample taken from a certain Ro Lan Gong's
house showed that the amount of E coli bacteria and coliform bacteria
respectively exceeded the permitted levels by 100 times each.
The bacteria cause
diarrhoea, blood disorders and kidney problems which can be fatal.
All 114 food
poisoning victims, who are ethnic J'rai minorities from Ho Lang Village in
Chu Pong Commune in the Central Highlands
On September 15, Ro
Lan Gong had organised a funeral for his relative, and had slaughtered a cow
to offer food to the other villagers. After consuming the beef, 114 people,
including adults and children, were hospitalised with symptoms of stomach
pain, nausea and diarrhoea.
Viet Nam
preps for ASEAN Skills Competition
The 10th ASEAN
Skills Competition will test the know-how and nerves of scores of young
competitors from ASEAN nations in Ha Noi from October 23-28.
Speaking at a press
conference yesterday, Deputy Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs,
Nguyen Ngoc Phi, said
The 1,200-delegate
event, including 293 competitors under 22, demonstrated
"The issue of
vocational training is critical and poses many challenges. A large percentage
of families do not want their children to undergo vocational training and
instead just want them to go to university for a general education," Phi
said.
Cao Van Sam, deputy
head of the organising committee for the event and deputy director of
The competition
will test skills in 23 types of vocations, most notably automobile
technology, mobile robotics, mechatronics and web design.
About 140 doctors
from the Hanoi-based Vietnam-Germany Hospital (VGH) will deliver ten surgical
packages to seven hospitals in the north as part of its satellite hospital
project for 2013-2015.
The beneficiaries
include the general hospitals of Lao Cai, Dien Bien, Ha Giang, Bac Giang,
Quang Ninh, Thai Binh and Ninh Binh provinces, said Ass. Prof. Dr. Tran Binh
Giang, Deputy Director of the hospital, at a ceremony to launch the delivery
in
VGH has piloted the
model of satellite hospitals since 2002 with the aim of easing its
overcrowded situation, he said, adding that the model has been successful at
six hospitals in Tay Son (Hanoi), Hai Phong, Thanh Hoa, Bac Ninh, Nam Dinh
and Phu Tho.
The satellite
hospital network now comprises over 45 hospitals throughout the country, he
said.
According to Cao
Hung Thai, deputy head of the Health Examination and Treatment Management
Department under the Ministry of Health, the delivery of the ten technical
packages will help people in the targeted rural provinces enjoy hi-tech
health services at low costs.
Improved
migration policies increase climate change resilience
Policy-makers and
domestic and international scientists attended a workshop in
The function was
held by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Department of
Cooperatives and Rural Development under the Ministry of Agriculture and
Rural Development.
The Vietnamese
Government has carried out a number of strategies to minimise the impacts of
extreme weather phenomena and environmental pressures, with a focus on
households affected by tsunamis, floods, flash floods, and landslides, they
said.
In response to
growing economic and environmental pressures, many people have been forced to
alter their livelihood strategies or migrate. As a global trend, migration
possesses a number of opportunities to mitigate the risks of climate change,
address vulnerability, and improve economic opportunities, they added.
Bakhodir Burkhanov said
UN reports urged
Additionally,
authorities were called to improve their capacity to make sure target groups
are benefitting from social support programmes and raise public awareness of
climate change resilience.
During the
workshop, participants also discussed the building of climate
change-resistant houses and social support programmes.
Singapore-Vietnam
education cooperation progressing
Education is one of
the bright spots in the multifaceted cooperation between
Nearly 10,000
Vietnamese students are studying at Singaporean universities, colleges and
schools. Many Vietnamese officials, doctor or master degree holders have
graduated from renowned institutions in the island nation, particularly at
the Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP) and Civil Service
College (CSC).
Around 1,500
Vietnamese students have studied at the LKYSPP and most of them are currently
holding key positions in Vietnamese state agencies.
LKYSPP Dean Kishore
Mahbubani said he is very proud to hear that many Vietnamese students have
embarked on successful careers in their homeland after graduation. He hoped
that the school will have closer and tight relations with
Since 2001, CSC has
recruited Vietnamese students with the aim of introducing
CSC representative
Flynn Ong said the school wants to share experience with Vietnamese
officials, contributing to the country’s development.
Singaporean experts
spoke highly of Vietnamese students’ qualifications and suggested
Nam Dinh,
Hoa Binh women honoured as heroic mothers
The title ‘heroic
Vietnamese mother’ was bestowed upon 317 elderly women in the
Of the awardees,
only 123 are still alive. All of them lost their husbands and children during
the war.
Since 1994, over
1,240 women have been recognised as heroic mothers, many posthumously.
This year, Nam Dinh
spent 5.6 billion VND (267,000 USD) on providing medical care for the
province’s heroic mothers.
The same day, in
the
Conference
highlights involvement of social organisations in law-making
Policy and legal
experts are gathering at a two-day conference in the central city of
Participants in the
event, which opened on September 25 as part of a cooperation project between
the National Assembly and Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), included
members of the Vietnam Fatherland Front, representatives of the Vietnam Union
of Science and Technology Associations, and NA deputies from central
localities.
They reviewed the
current legal framework on the participation of social organisations in
legislative procedures, while discussing measures to build the State of the
rule of law.
Participants also
assessed the role of social organisations in legislation, shared practical
experience, and devised measures to strengthen the involvement of social
organisations in the processes of making laws and supervising their
implementation.
According to Dang
Dinh Luyen, Deputy Head of the NA Law Committee, in recent years, many laws
and regulations have been added to the NA’s law-building programmes, with the
active participation of social organisations.
However, he pointed
out that few social organisations could voice their opinions on legislation
in general, while most of them could only comment on legislation in their
respective fields of operations.
At the same time,
many responses failed to provide complete information and follow format
guidelines, he added.
Meanwhile, lawyer
Nguyen Hung Quang from the NHQuang Lawyer and partners company held the
social organisations in high regard, arguing that their participation would
benefit the State and members of the public.
That participation
would narrow the gaps between laws and their targeted community, enhancing
the transparency and accountability of State activities and improving legal
efficiency, he said.
The social
organisations, in turn, would have the opportunity to improve their policy
advocacy capacities, strengthening their network and getting closer to State
agencies, Quang added.-
France
funds medical equipment for Can Tho Hospital
The French
government has agreed to offer
The general
hospital, which was inaugurated last Sunday after five years of construction
at a total cost of around VND850 billion, covers an area of 2.5 hectares
including 10 floors and one basement.
The general hospital
has 23 wards and eight specialized functions with 500 beds, capable to
diagnose and treat large numbers of patients in Can Tho City and the Mekong
Delta.
Le Quang Vo,
director of Can Tho General Hospital, said with the financial aid from the
French government, the hospital will strive to become a major medical center
in the Mekong Delta.
Can Tho is more
developed than other localities in the delta in terms of healthcare. The city
has effectively carried out many community health programs to prevent and
control dangerous diseases, said Le Hung Dung, chairman of Can Tho City.
The provincial
authorities will equip the hospital with more modern equipment to support the
diagnosis and treatment for patients in the coming time.
Speaking at the
inauguration ceremony, Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Xuyen said it is
important to enhance quality of health care services, ease the overload at
other hospitals and improve professional ethics and expertise of doctors and
nurses.
* In related
development, an eight-storey building with a total floor space of over 5,800
square meters located in
The VND75.6-billion
building whose construction started last May has 43 inpatient rooms with 180
beds and other specialized functions.
The new building
helps the hospital expand its inpatient treatment area, facilitate diagnosis
and treatment, and enhance quality of health care services.
80% of
plant protection drugs wrongly used
A recent survey
conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development revealed that
as much as 80% of plant protection drugs have been wrongly used, threatening
food safety and causing environment pollution.
Pham Dong Quang,
deputy head of the Ministry’s Department of Crop Production, told a confererence
on restructuring agriculture held in Hanoi on Tuesday that the improper use
of such drugs are due to poor understanding of farmers and the weak
management of the authorities.
As the production
of the drugs is small and scattered, it is hard for authorities to manage the
drug market while the introduction of techniques to replace the plant
protection drugs is overlooked.
“It is estimated
that more than ten million farmers use plant protection drugs nationwide and
each agriculture official on average is tasked with giving guidance on how to
use the drugs for more than 3,000 farmers. With such a small number of
agriculture officials, farmers have very little chance to access proper
guidance to use the drugs,” Quang said.
Meanwhile, drugs
are sold widely across the country and farmers use such drugs under the
instruction of vendors, who always advise buyers to apply larger-than-needed
amount of drugs in order to earn more profits.
For paddy only,
around 9.3 million farmers use plant protection drugs on their fields to
prevent pests, said Nguyen Xuan Hong, head of the Plant Protection
Department.
However, Hong said
if the task of plant protection is well organized into service teams with the
coordination of relevant agencies and provision of suitable equipment, then
only between four and six people are needed to use the drug on an area which
currently requires 100 people.
If that can be
done, the drug use management will be more effective and the manpower can be
reduced by 94%, he said.
The agriculture
ministry is working on a project to organize such teams on a pilot basis in
the 2015-2017 period. According to the plan, the State will cover the costs
spent on establishing those service teams, training staff, acquiring machines
to spray the drug, and insurance premiums for members of those teams.
The project will be
applied next year if approved by the Government.
Air plants
come in vogue
In the cramped
atmosphere of close buildings and small streets with heavy traffic,
decorating office desks and small rooms by cay khong khi (air plant) has
become trendy in
By its name, this
kind of plant does not grow in soil, water or sand but it is fed by air.
Therefore, they can be hung, put in glass vases or set in a wooden frame.
Plants imbibe nutrients and water via air, so growers just need to spray
water on them once a week. However, in areas with high humidity, those plants
can absorb water in the air to grow, which saves time to take care of them.
“I used to decorate
my rooms by aquatic plants or many small ornamental and bonsai trees, but I
really like air plants as they make my space look clean thanks to the absence
of soil and water, and I do not need to worry about them while away from
home,” said Nguyen Thanh Thanh Hang, an enthusiast in District 10.
These plants
originate in
“Scientific
research shows that this plant has a function to balance yin and yang in feng
shui. It also gives a relaxing feeling to people as it helps improve air
purity,” said Huynh Ngoc Van, a nurse in
She added sources
on the Internet said such plants can absorb toxic substances such as
industrial smoke, cigarette smoke and unpleasant smells.
To make plants more
beautiful, some people put them together with colorful sands and pebbles.
Some dexterous planters also hang them together with light bulbs or small
lanterns and wooden frames to make the space artistic.
Source: VNN/VNA/VNS/VOV/SGT/SGGP/ND
|
Chủ Nhật, 28 tháng 9, 2014
Đăng ký:
Đăng Nhận xét (Atom)
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét