Social News 28/11 Fewer VN traffic accidents in 2015 Viet Nam has seen a sharp decrease in the number and the severity of traffic accidents in recent years. Compared to 2011, the number of traffic accidents in 2015 has gone down by 51 per cent, the number of fatalities and injured down by 24 per cent and 60 per cent respectively. Traffic order and safety regulations have been steadily improved over the years despite the rising number of vehicles joining traffic every year, said chairman of the National Committee on Traffic Safety Khuat Viet Hung during a conference to discuss the country's traffic safety issues yesterday in Ha Noi. Chief of the country's traffic police Gen. Tran Son Ha said that implementation of technological advances has contributed greatly to the police's effort to handle traffic safety violations and improve its capacity to manage and control traffic. Since the beginning of the year, the authority has inspected nearly 390,000 vehicles and more than 37,000 were found to have violated traffic safety regulations with more than 12,000 drivers licenses taken away. Meanwhile, order and traffic safety at numerous train and bus stations has been improved as a result of a co-operation campaign between the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Transport, said head of the department of transport Tran Bao Ngoc. However, Ngoc also voiced his concerns over a number of shortcomings and limitations during the process of information exchange between the two ministries as well as the fact that transport companies and drivers were not willingly following traffic safety regulations. Notably, there were cases in which they modified vehicles to increase load carrying capacity illegally. The conference also heard a number of reports and various discussions on the implementation of information technology and other technological advances to improve traffic safety across the country. Khanh Hoa cracks down on foreign language billboards The People's Committee of Khanh Hoa Province has asked authorised agencies to inspect and punish stores in Nha Trang city with billboards written only in foreign languages. Truong Dang Tuyen, director of the city's department of culture, sports and tourism said that a large number of restaurants, food stores, and beauty salons on Nguyen Thien Thuat, Hung Vuong, Tran Quang Khai, and Nguyen Thi Minh Khai have billboards in Chinese or Russian languages. Only the addresses and names of these stores are written in Vietnamese. "Recently, the city has received a considerable number of Chinese and Russian tourists, so owners of numerous stores changed the languages written on their billboards and menus to attract more customers," Tuyen said. The Law on Advertising stipulates that a billboard must include content in both Vietnamese and the foreign language, and must have letters written in the foreign language below and not in larger type than the ones written in Vietnamese. "We will conduct inspections and ask the stores violating regulations to change their billboards in accordance with the Law on Advertising, but if they violate the regulations again, they will be penalised," Tuyen said. Apart from being a coastal city, Nha Trang is a political, economic, and cultural hub of Khanh Hoa Province. The city has attracted many foreign tourists, especially Chinese and Russian. — VNS Da Lat to plant 60,000 pansy flowers Da Lat City said there will be 60,000 pansy flowers will be planted at the upcoming flower festival and lunar New Year Festival. The flowers will be planted in an area near the Da Lat market extending to the major streets of Nguyen Van Cu and Ba Trieu. The flowers are expected to add vibrant colours of red, white, purple and yellow to the city landscape. The flower festival will be organised in Da Lat from November 29 to January 2. It is an annual event to attract customers to this highlands city. Nine persons face prosecution in pipeline case Nine persons will be prosecuted after police concluded investigation into a series of misconducts and violations at the Viet Nam Construction and Import-Export Co., JSC (Vinaconex). The company was responsible for the construction of the infamous Da River Pipeline, which has broken down 14 times since its completion in 2009, severely affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of households in the capital city. Former Director and former Deputy Director of the Da River pipeline project Hoang The Trung and Nguyen Van Khai are among the persons who face prosecution. Others are former Director and Deputy Director of Vinaconex Glass Fibre Reinforced Polyester Pipe Company Tran Cao Bang and Vu Thanh Hai, respectively, besides several department heads, engineers and inspectors. The police investigation concluded that the reason behind the pipeline's numerous breakdowns was the substandard material used during construction. The above-mentioned persons, who were charged with the task of procuring and inspecting construction materials as well as supervising the project, failed to comply with procedures for inspecting construction materials, quality control and construction process. Vinaconex Glass Fibre Reinforced Polyester Pipe Company, represented by Tran Cao Bang and Vu Thanh Hai, failed to supply the project with high-quality products as stipulated in the contract they had signed. Bang allegedly signed various documents to guarantee the quality of the fibre composite used in the project, even though its durability was not properly tested. The numerous breakdowns of the pipeline not only disrupted water supply to hundreds of thousands of residents, but also cost suppliers more than one trillion dongs in expenses to maintain water supply to the city and in repair costs. Workers return home from Algeria deep in debt The last batch of 18 Vietnamese workers assaulted by Chinese employers in Algeria late in October were repatriated today, happy to be soon reunited with family, but burdened with debts. They are among 56 workers, who had been hired by Dongji Yangsu Co, Ltd, a Chinese company, to work at a construction site in Kenchela province, 450km from the Algerian capital. Vu Dang, one of the workers, said his family is in dire straits financially. They had to borrow VND40 million ($1,770) for this trip. After two persons were assaulted by the employers, he still wanted stay on to help his family repay the debt. Nguyen Van Duc, another worker in the team, said his family borrowed VND20 million ($880) to pay for his employment. Although they were happy to welcome him home, they did not know how they were going to repay the debt. Dang said the labourers were not in the wrong as the contract said they would be paid on working days. When the conflict began, the employer not only refused to negotiate but also starved and threatened them. Two persons were beaten up for objecting. According to the contracts, the workers were to be paid on working days. But when workers arrived in Algeria, the company wanted to change the terms to payment by work. As the conflict deepened, all the 56 workers were refused food, and two of them were assaulted by their Chinese employers. To be allowed to return home, each worker was supposed to pay US$1,700 for breaking the contract, which they could not afford to do. Simco Song Da, the labour contractor, had to pay the compensation in advance along with the flight tickets so that the workers could return home immediately. Dau Hoang Anh, one of the workers who was assaulted, said he had worked as an overseas labourer in seven countries but had never been treated as badly as on this occasion. Hoang Anh, however, hoped that Simco Song Da, the labour contractor, would continue to help him and other people with other opportunities to work overseas due to their precarious financial condition. Police warn of surge in fraud cases HCM Police have warned that swindlers posing as law enforcement officials to appropriate money from victims appear to have made a comeback in recent months. Senior Lieutenant Colonel Cao Xuan Loi, deputy head of the police division of criminal investigation in economic management and positions of HCM Police, said yesterday that this kind of crime was being detected in Viet Nam since the end of 2013. The criminals use different methods to cheat potential victims and request them to transfer money to designated bank accounts. For example, they told victims that the latter had to pay a phone charge and would have their services terminated if they did not pay the amount to the designated account. Hundreds of people have been cheated of an estimated more than VND20 billion (US$889,000) with these methods. HCM Police have arrested and prosecuted about 70 offenders, 15 of them Taiwanese nationals. On Sunday, HCM Police arrested five people, including a Taiwanese man, for allegedly impersonating as police officers to swindle people. The gang used fake ID cards and opened 64 bank accounts to obtain money from people by cheating them. Earlier on November 9, police arrested four residents of Hai Phong and Quang Ninh on suspicion of having committed the same crime. Swindlers often withdrew money in cities and provinces far away from the places where the victims lived, police said, adding that the majority of victims lived in HCM City. It should be noted that the offenders were easily able to open dozens of bank accounts with the ID cards they collected. Nguyen Hoang Minh, deputy director of the HCM City branch of the State Bank of Viet Nam (SBV), said due to a large number of customers in their database, it was difficult for commercial banks to detect fake ID cards. The SBV would review regulations on the opening of bank accounts and order commercial banks to closely co-ordinate with the police on the matter, Minh said. A representative of An Binh Commercial Joint Stock Bank said the bank blocked a VND1.3-billion (US$57,800) bank account of a victim when a bank officer detected a suspicious sign being made by a suspect. Le Thi Tuyet Anh from HCM City's Viet Nam Post and Telecommunications Corp said people should be vigilant while receiving calls reminding them to pay a phone bill. She said the corporation didn't have that kind of service. Instead, post officials inform customers about the bill and provide them with an invoice after the payment. Health ministry launches online drug registration services The Drug Administration of Viet Nam (DAVN) under the health ministry today launched online public services level 4 to help pharmaceutical firms register drug and medicine prices. Service level 4, the highest of the four administrative service levels in the country, is expected to ease the registration process for healthcare enterprises. "The application of online service level 4 in drug management is a step forward by the health ministry towards administrative procedure reform and the improvement of state management at DAVN," Director of DAVN Truong Quoc Cuong said at the launching ceremony. "The service will create favourable conditions for enterprises, especially in terms of reducing expenses and time, and increasing transparency and publicity in health administration," Cuong said. People and enterprises would be able to submit documents, pay fees, check the progress of document being processed and receive results via the online facility from the beginning of next year, he said. A pharmaceutical firm representative said the service would help to reduce travel time and the expenses involved in printing and storing documents for enterprises. The health ministry has so far launched level 4 online public services in the fields of drugs, cosmetics, hygiene and food safety and medical equipment management. Advanced waste treatment plant lies unused The northern Hai Phong City's Trang Cat solid waste treatment plant, once known to be the most advanced one in Viet Nam, has not been operated for two years. The plant worked perfunctorily for a few years after it was launched in late 2008, and has remained closed since 2013 due to lack of funds and its inability to sell outputs, Chairman of Hai Phong Urban Environment Company's Management Board Nguyen Van Quy told VnExpress e-newspaper. The plant could treat up to 200 tonnes of waste per day and handle one-fifth of the total waste generated by Hai Phong's urban districts, Quy said. Hai Phong's solid waste treatment and management project was approved by the Prime Minister in 1997, with the aim of managing, collecting, transporting and treating waste in the area. The project had a total investment of nearly US$28 million, with $19.6 being borrowed from the Korean Economic Development Co-operation Fund and $5.7 coming from the local budget. The project covered a total of 60ha in Trang Cat Commune, Hai An District, in Hai Phong City. The landfill accounted for 40ha and the remaining area was occupied by the waste treatment plant. Trang Cat Plant has four solid waste treatment lines, which used advanced microbiological technology from Korea and successfully processed waste, turning it into compost, thus meeting Vietnamese standards. A Japanese company was considering co-operation with Hai Phong City in waste treatment and recycling investment, Quy said. Deaf struggle to find employment A 27-year-old female resident of HCM City, who is deaf, lost her job when her new boss decided not to renew her contract, saying that he did not want to communicate with her in writing as her former supervisor had done. Before she was hired, the woman had completed a six-month graphic design course at the city's Van Lang University in 2012. She had applied for a number of jobs before landing the graphic design position but worked for only five months before the new boss sacked her. "My new boss did not want to continue to employ me because he said he could not communicate with me," she said. The woman, who now works as the deputy head of the city's Club for Deaf Culture and sometime teaches graphic design to club members, spoke at a conference on employment for people with disabilities held earlier this week at the Disability Research and Capacity Development Centre (DRD). Like the 27-year-old, many other hearing-impaired people in the city also struggle to find work. Also speaking at the conference, a 28-year-old woman from Go Vap District, a recent graduate of Fine Arts University, described her problems at school and looking for work. "To follow my classmates, it was hard because I could not hear what my teachers were saying," she said. After two months looking for a job after graduation, she found a position drawing pictures of clothes for a private company. "The working time is 10 hours per day. My salary is paid based on the product, but it is lower than the salary for people without disabilities," she said. Representatives of enterprises attending the conference conceded that they had not employed people with hearing impairments because they had been unaware of their capabilities. Many of them said they would begin to pay more attention to such employees and hire people who have good reading and writing skills in English. Luu Thi Anh Loan, DRD's acting head, said that many people with hearing impairments could not find jobs as companies were reluctant to employ them. The employers do not know sign language, and as a result, communication has to be done via writing. Many hearing-impaired and deaf people in Viet Nam have not attended school, particularly in rural areas, and do not know how to read or write. According to General Statistics Office, the country had more than one million people with a hearing impairment in 2009, accounting for nearly 13.5 per cent of the total number of people with disabilities. Of these, nearly 200,000 people had attended school, with many completing primary school. "It would be wonderful if companies have staff who know sign language," Loan said. In the southern province of Dong Nai, a foreign garment company has an employee who is charge of personnel with hearing impairments. Because the employee knows sign language, she serves as a "link" between the company's managers and employees with hearing impairments. When these employees have problems in their work, they talk to her and ask for help. Many people of working age who have hearing loss or are deaf do not have broad knowledge in particular disciplines or professional skills, Loan said. It is vital for job centres and vocational training schools to hire teachers and employees who can communicate with sign language, she added. Deputy PM asks for stronger effort to ensure traffic safety Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has asked the Ministry of Transport to pay due attention to researching and rolling out measures to ensure traffic safety, and improving the quality of transport infrastructure facilities. Speaking at the third Vietnam Traffic Safety Conference in Hanoi on November 26, the Deputy PM agreed with the national master plan on applying information technology to ensure traffic order and safety. He spoke highly of measures put forward by scientists aiming to curb traffic accidents, saying that scientific and technological solutions play an important role in supporting State management in the field. He also showed concern about complicated developments in traffic safety and order, and problems such as quality of infrastructure, State management, traffic violation instructions and settlements, and low awareness of traffic safety, which are said to be the main causes of traffic accidents. During the conference, participants discussed and analysed scientific research outcomes and shared experiences in ensuring traffic safety, as well as application possibilities , thus contributing to building the State’s management policies and promoting technological application to ensure traffic safety in Vietnam. Reports presented at the conference focused on traffic safety management, transport infrastructure, means of transport, traffic participants, post-traffic accident response , aviation, waterway traffic safety, and the building of a national database on traffic safety. They also mentioned shortcomings of the transport sector such traffic accidents, loading capacity control, drink driving, mass-traffic accident response on expressways and issues handling traffic violations. The National Committee for Traffic Safety said the country has witnessed remarkable decreases in the number of traffic accidents, traffic facilities and injuries from 2012 to 2014. In 2015, the number of traffic accidents, and injuries and deaths from traffic accidents dropped 51 percent, 60 percent and 24 percent, respectively, compared with four years earlier. Attendees concurred that it is necessary to control drink-driving, as nearly 60 percent of traffic accidents were caused by alcohol consumption. They also agreed on the plan to expand camera systems on key highways and national roads. Vietnam in top three at shooting event Vietnam placed third overall at the 25th ASEAN Armies Riffle Meet, which closed in Prachuap Khiri Khan province, Thailand on November 25. The Vietnamese marksmen pocketed one gold, three silver and four bronze medals in nearly two weeks of competitions. Last year, they stood in sixth place. Thailand took the top berth, followed by Indonesia. The meet lured 10 delegations, competing in five different categories for both men and women. The next event will be hosted by the Philippines. Tuyen Quang: Over 7.2 trillion VND for new rural area building The northern mountainous province of Tuyen Quang mobilised 7.25 trillion VND (322 million USD) from different resources for its new-style area building from 2011 to 2015. During the period, Tuyen Quang built 3,000km of concrete roads, 126km of canals and 140 irrigation works, serving local people’s travel, trade and agricultural production. Over 700 classes, 330 cultural houses, and 190 new markets were also constructed or upgraded. To boost its economy and raise locals’ incomes, the province has focused development of commodity production areas while rearranging state-owned forest farms and plantations and improving operations of agricultural cooperatives. The province has communes fulfilled an average of 10 out of the 19 criteria for new rural areas. There are now ten communes recognised as new-style rural areas. Tuyen Quang is striving to have 17 communes recognised as new-style rural area by 2016, compared to 10 communes at present. The figure is expected to reach 30 percent of the total communes in the province by 2020. The national programme on building new-style rural areas, initiated by the Government in 2010, includes 19 criteria on socio-economic development, politics, and defence, aiming to boost rural regions of Vietnam. The criteria include infrastructure development, production capacity improvement, environmental protection and cultural value promotion. Italian region provides training, internship for Vietnamese students Italian universities and enterprises will forge engagement in training Vietnamese students following a pact signed on November 25. Representatives of Modena University (Unimore) and the trade-industry office in north Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region (Unioncamere Emilia-Romagna) sealed the deal in Modena, witnessed by Vietnamese Ambassador to Italy Cao Chinh Thien and Italian Ambassador to Vietnam Cecilia Piccioni. The pact is a result of over-a-year efforts to research and connect educational facilities to companies. It will provide financial assistance for Vietnamese students, especially who major in science and technology, to study and take internship in the region. At the signing ceremony, Unimore rector Ange Andrisano said the cooperation model shows how universities are capable of stimulating international ties and exchanges as well as supporting local economic initiatives. Unioncamere Emilia-Romagna Chairman Maurizio Torreggiani considered providing profession training related to made-in-Italy technologies for Vietnamese young intellectuals as a closer approach to their home market. The Vietnamese market boasts abundant opportunities concerning the upcoming birth of the ASEAN Economic Community. The diplomats encouraged the cooperation as it contributes to boosting Vietnam’s human resources and implementing contents of the Vietnam-Italy strategic partnership. Currently, 17 Vietnamese are learning at Enzo Ferrari, a technological establishment under the Unimore, which is the first to undertake the freshly signed deal. By 2014, 617 enterprises in the Emilia-Romagna region had exported goods into Vietnam with a total value of 120 million EUR. In June 2015, the region established its representative office in southern Binh Duong province, which is among industrial hubs in Vietnam. Conference discusses trans-national crime combat A round-table conference on preventing and combating trans-national crime was held by the Supreme People’s Procuracy and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Hanoi on November 26. Delegates discussed in depth the links between corruption and organised trans-national crime, the implementation of prosecution rights, and the supervision over investigations into corruption cases. They agreed that corruption will develop in a complicated manner in the near future so the fight against the scourge should be involved by the whole society. They also agreed that the legal system on preventing and combating corruption should be further improved and law dissemination should be stepped up to raise public awareness about corruption. The UNODC said it will continue to support relevant Vietnamese agencies and organisations with experience in corruption prevention and combat, personnel training, and anti-corruption policies. According to the Crime Statistics Department under the Supreme People’s Procuracy, the law enforcement agencies nationwide had prosecuted 505 corruption cases with 1,101 involved people between October 1, 2013 and September 30, 2015. Over 5 billion USD needed for Central Highlands’ transport upgrades The Central Highlands region will need about 115.06 trillion VND (5.06 billion USD) to invest in its transport infrastructure during 2016-2020. Speaking at a conference in Gia Lai province’s Pleiku city on November 26, Minister of Public Security Tran Dai Quang, who is head of the Steering Committee for the Central Highlands Region, asked ministries, sectors and regional localities to strictly follow Politburo resolutions on the implementation of transport-related projects. They were also urged to consider developing the East-West corridor road, and building the Ho Chi Minh highway and roads linking ethnic-inhabited areas. At the conference, participants also discussed and put forth measures to better the region’s transport infrastructure. During 2011-2015, more than 60 trillion VND was mobilised to upgrade the Central Highlands’ transport system. Many key works completed have helped improve the facelift of the region, including Buon Ma Thuot, Lien Khuong and Pleiku airports. Attention has been paid to strictly managing transportation activities, thus contributing to increasing the quality of transportation services. The Central Highlands region, which comprises Dak Lak, Kon Tum, Lam Dong, Gia Lai and Dak Nong provinces, currently has 35,639 kilometres of roads, in which the total length of national highways is 3,128 kilometres; the provincial roads, 2,302 kilometres; rural roads, 27,721 kilometres; specialised roads, 648 kilometres and urban roads, 1,840 kilometres. Training conference on carrying out Programme 135 A training conference took place in the central city of Da Nang on November 26 to share experience in carrying out Programme 135, which was designed for extremely disadvantaged communes. Launched in 1999, Programme 135 aims to stimulate production, improve management capacity at the local level and upgrade key infrastructure for sustainable development by 2020. By 2020, the average income per capita will rise by 3.5 times from 2011 to 26 million VND (1,180 USD), while the rate of poor households in communes will decrease by 4 percent, according to the Coordinating Office for Programme 135. Between 2011 and 2015, ethnic and mountainous areas in the central and Central Highlands regions expanded by 8-10 percent annually, with all communes achieving elementary education and having medical stations. Audio and television coverage hit 90 and 80 percent, respectively. The total capital for the programme next year is estimated at 4.2 trillion VND (190.9 million USD), bringing the total investment for 2016-2020 to more than 21 trillion VND (954 million USD). The Coordinating Office for Programme 135 has built draft criteria and allocated State budget funds for 2016-2020 on the principle of abiding by the Laws on Public Investment and State Budget, and relevant regulations. During the two-day event, participants gain insight into the community’s role in local development, the State regulations on community empowerment and community development based on local efforts.- New strategy on renewable energy development The national strategy on developing renewable energy sources until 2030 and a vision to 2050 has just been approved by the Prime Minister. The strategy affirms that hydro power contributes to local socio-economic development and power safety, and should be developed in line with local plans for small- and medium-sized hydro power plants on the basis of assessment of environmental impacts. Hydro power should provide nearly 90 billion kWh in 2020 and 96 billion kWh a year as from 2030, compared to 56 billion kWh in 2015. At the same time, the document notes that priority will be given to using biomass energy in producing electricity, and to using biogas and compact biomass to make fuel and liquid bio-fuel. It also sets the goal of using 50 percent of industrial and agricultural waste for energy production purpose by 2020 from roughly 45 percent in 2015, and the rate should be raised to 60 percent by 2030 and 70 percent in 2050. The use of waste from animal breeding industry and other urban waste sources for energy production will be encouraged under the strategy with the target of processing all the waste by 2050. Solar energy will be developed in a bid to supply electricity to the most remote and far-flung areas across the country. The total output of solar power should be raised to 1.4 billion kWh in 2020, accounting for 0.5 percent of total electricity output, and to 35.4 billion kWh, making up six percent of the total electricity production by 2030. In 2050, solar power should account for 20 percent of total electricity output or some 210 billion kWh. Additionally, wind power will be developed on land from now to 2030 while focus will be shifted to offshore wind power farms in the next period.  The total output of wind power is expected to hit 2.5 billion kWh in 2020, representing 1 percent of total electricity output, and increase to 16 billion kWh, accounting for 2.7 percent of the nation’s electricity output by 2030. The figure is projected to be 53 billion kWh or 5.0 percent by 2050. Poverty reduction policy credit benefits the poor in Central Highlands Preferential loans from the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies (VBSP) have helped lift 121,000 households in the Central Highlands region out of poverty since 2013, helping reduce the poverty rate from 18.9 percent in 2011 to 11.22 percent in 2014. According to the Steering Committee for the Central Highlands, during the period, 1.185 million households that lived under or near the poverty line and families of policy beneficiaries have gained access to these loans. The credit has also helped create jobs for more than 34,000 labourers and supported learning tuitions for nearly 55,000 students. Approximately 312,000 clean water supply facilities and toilets, and more than 6,000 houses were built. As of the end of November, the VBSP has a total credit balance of 16.3 trillion VND (717.2 million USD). The region’s average credit growth remained at 8.96 percent annually, above the national rate of 7.76 percent. VBSP Director General Duong Quyet Thang said that in the following years, banks for social policies in the region will maintain sustainable operations to better support the targeted households, ensuring that all needy households can gain access to policy credit. PM approves national population database project The prime minister has approved a project to build a national population database with a total investment of VNĐ3,367 billion (US$150 billion). The project will form the basic content of the national scheme to simplify administrative procedures, citizenship documents and databases related to population management during the 2013-2020 period. It will also serve to propagate and disseminate laws and policies concerning population management. The public security ministry (MOPS), which will be responsible for implementing the project, will build a uniform database to store, standardise, digitise and manage the basic information of all Vietnamese citizens. The plan includes building of technical infrastructure; leasing of transmission infrastructure; and the building and use of application software systems. The project also provides infrastructure and software application training. The Prime Minister asked ministries, ministerial-level agencies and government agencies to coordinate with MOPS to collect and update population data, and build specialised databases to ensure connectivity with the national database. People's committees of centrally run cities and provinces will co-operate with relevant departments, sectors and units to collect, update and extract information for the national database. The national population database is a shared one, and the core facility must be built to share information and form a specialised database. Vietnam-Laos friendship exchange programme held in Quang Nam A Vietnam-Laos friendship exchange programme was underway in Tam Ky city of the central province of Quang Nam on November 26. The event, organised by the Quang Nam University in collaboration with the Vietnam Union Friendship Organisations, was to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Lao National Day (December 2). Vice Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Nguyen Chin hailed Laos ’ achievements over the past 40 years, especially in socio-economic development and political stability, helping improve living conditions and raise the country’s position. For his part, Lao Consul General in Da Nang city Khamsene Phommaseng reviewed outstanding outcomes of the two countries’ comprehensive cooperation in recent years. He stressed the need to raise awareness of the Vietnam-Laos special friendship among the two countries’ young generations. He took this occasion to thank Quang Nam province for its support to Lao localities. As part of the event, a photo exhibition themed Colours of Champa flowers and a talk between former Vietnamese volunteer soldiers in Laos and Lao students in Vietnam were also organised. Since the 2006-2007 school year, Quang Nam has received and granted scholarships to students from the Lao provinces of Champasak and Sekong to study Vietnamese language and other majors. As many as 54 Lao students have graduated from the Quang Nam University so far. A boy in Danang with cancer fulfills wish of becoming traffic cop A nine-year-old boy with blood cancer in Danang city had his dream come true on his birthday: going out into the street and regulating traffic like a cop. Do Tuan Dung has been treated for cancer at the Danang Tumor Hospital for a year now. After five phases of chemotherapy, he has lost all his hair. Other patients at the hospital describe him as always smiling. One week before his 9th birthday doctors at the hospital decided to do something special for the young patient, and Dr Pham Le Na wrote to the city police department. The request to allow the boy to wear a uniform was accepted. On November 21, Dung had possibly the most memorable birthday of his life. Officers from the Traffic Police Division and members of a local pagoda’s charity group joined hands to celebrate his birthday party at the hospital. Dung had the chance to wear the cherished uniform. He cut the birthday cake, opened presents and sang songs cheerfully along with his fellow child patients. After the party he was taken on a traffic police motorbike on patrol. After “patrolling” some streets, he got off and was given a whistle and a baton to regulate traffic on the street. He signaled a motorbike rider to stop after spotting the rider did not wear a crash helmet. He then made out a ticket. He looked happy, sometimes touching the badge on his uniform and smiling. “I always wanted to be a traffic cop because I wanted to help people know more about traffic rules and avoid crashes,” Dung said. Nguyen Thi Thuy Huong, 47, his mother, has been struggling to raise her two children after her husband died many years ago. She was devastated when told that Dung had blood cancer. Dung has four more phases of chemotherapy to go. Doctors said his condition had become more stable after treatment over the last year, according to Huong. She said: “He is serious about traffic rules. One time I was in a hurry and ran a red light. He was not happy and told me I should not do that.” VNA/VNS/VOV/SGT/SGGP/TT/TN/Dantri