Businesses promise to help clean up Hanoi lakes

Businesses in Hanoi on Wednesday pledged hundreds of billions of dong for improving the quality of lakes in the capital city.

The pledge was made at a conference in response to an appeal by the city government.

Vu Van Tien, general director of Hanoi General Export Import Joint Stock Company, known as Geleximco, said his company will invest in two projects, newswire Vnexpress reported on Thursday, without specifying the money involved.

But Tien said the city should reduce red tape so that the projects can be started in the dry season this year, which is during the first quarter.

The company and many other businesses have committed VND296 billion (US$16 million) in total and registered BT (build-transfer) and (build-operate-transfer) projects worth VND430 billion to clean up the 44 lakes in Hanoi downtown that have never been subjected to such efforts in the past.

Nguyen The Thao, chairman of the Hanoi People’s Committee, said lake and river pollution has become a big problem for the capital city residents.

“But the city budget is thin so the city really needs businesses to help.”

The city has only managed to dredge, clean up and beautify large lakes such like the Tay (West) or Guom (Sword), and the job has not been done properly yet, Thao said.

Do Xuan Anh, director of Hanoi Construction Department, said 44 of 111 lakes that cover around 1,165 hectares in ten downtown districts have experienced “severe quality downgrade” as the city has never launched projects to improve them.

Most of those lakes have turned into polluted close-end ponds, causing tremendous inconvenience to residents not to mention posing health threats, Anh said.

Studies by the state-owned Hanoi Drainage Company showed heavy pollution at lakes that have not been dredged or cleaned up, with the amount of pollutants many times above permitted levels.

Anh blamed “loose management activities” for the encroachment and despoiling of such lakes as Linh Quang, Re Quat, Tai Trau and Tu Lien.

Nguyen Van Suu, director of Hanoi Department of Investment and Planning, estimated VND1.88 trillion will be needed to improve the quality of environment around the 44 lakes, including the construction of drainage systems, dykes and surrounding roads, and preventing encroachment.

Suu also said businesses would not give much money to clean lakes because there were very few ways they could get their money back.

Pham Quang Nghi, head of Hanoi party unit, was quoted by newswire Vietnamnet as saying “the total number (of unimproved lakes) is much more.”

Nghi said many lakes around the outskirts of Hanoi, which was extended in August 2008, have not been counted.

Source: Thanh Nien

Universities must cater to country’s needs, educators say

Vietnamese education needs to focus on the practical everyday needs of the economy, experts said, eschewing the long-held belief that the country must strive to create an “American-style” or “world-class” university.

There is no perfect model for building an international university in Vietnam, said the experts at last week’s US Ambassador Conference on Higher Education in Vietnam.

Instead the country should focus on improving its universities’ research capabilities and students’ creativity while also focusing on skills training to address the shortage of skilled labor at the middle level, they said.

The experts called for more academic freedom and autonomy for Vietnamese universities and for the government to create more preferable policies for the private sector to get involved in reforming universities.

Fundamental difference

As a senior expert in the Ministry of Education and Training’s Higher Education Department since the 1990s, Mai Van Tinh has watched the country’s decades-long effort to reinvigorate its higher education system.

Early on, he was sent abroad to consult experts and develop the perfect model for Vietnamese universities. Tinh said a group of Vietnamese experts studied multidisciplinary model campuses of the US, leading to the creation of Vietnam National University in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

But there was a fundamental difference in the two models, he said.

Most major universities in the US took years, even hundreds of years, to develop into prestigious institutions offering majors in various disciplines while also focusing on research activities.

“What we did with VNU Hanoi and HCMC was merging a number of existing universities. We think that’s all it takes for a quality education?” Tinh said.

He said Vietnam should think of an international university model that best suits the current needs of the economy with more investment put into developing technology alongside the creation of better teaching and study materials.

According to a presentation at the conference by Professor Pham Vu Luan, standing Deputy Minister of Education and Training, Vietnam had plans to renovate the management of universities nationwide during the 2010-2012 period.

But Tinh said all the talk about renovating higher education had been too often focused on goals such as building “world-class” universities or training a certain number of doctors in foreign countries (most recently 10,000) – and far less on things such as improving the management culture at institutions of higher learning.

Responsibility, independence

Kathryn Mohrman, director of the University Design Consortium at Arizona State University, suggested that the country develop “signature” or “world-class” programs at its existing universities to best serve Vietnam’s national priorities. Vietnamese universities should also think about forming networks with their counterparts in ASEAN countries because these nations have a lot in common.

“Every country is crazy about having a world-class university and I don’t think Vietnam should follow any single model,” she said.

The mission of higher education isn’t just about training people for jobs, but also about “citizenship and social responsibility” and creating “independent thinkers who can analyze situations,” she added.

Two women, one mission

Though the debate over which model to base international universities in Vietnam is far from over, both Madame Ton Nu Thi Ninh and Tan Tao Group Chairwoman Dang Thi Hoang Yen are already well on their way to building private international universities in Vietnam. A well-known diplomat, Madame Ninh’s ambitious project is the Tri Viet University, which is expected to open in 2013. Among the richest women in Vietnam, Yen’s project is the Tan Tao University, which is expected to start recruiting students this fall. Both schools aim to offer classes in English, faculty members recruited from overseas and the US and modern campuses. While Tri Viet University’s mission is to be the first green university in Vietnam, Tan Tao University wants to offer an American-style university with all programs accredited by US accreditation agencies. The women spoke at the conference about the difficulties of setting up such ambitious projects. Both called for the government to give greater autonomy to schools such as theirs to design the curriculum and establish governing structure. “We must have the right to decide our own curriculum,” Yen said on the sidelines of the conference. “In America, no one controls the quality of its higher education but often it’s considered the best in the world. In Vietnam, why do we control the quality and it is still not as good as we expect or wish for?”

Reported by Huong Le

Vietnam netizens touched by father’s 15-year-search for daughter

A website created by a father who has been looking for his lost daughter and her cousin over the past 15 years has drawn great interest from netizens with nearly 21,000 page views since its launch two weeks ago.

The site www.nguyenminhchau.com has also made headlines in many local newspapers and newswires with hundreds of comments left by readers to encourage Nguyen Minh Chau in his long search for his daughter, Nguyen Truong An and cousin, Diem My.

A bunch of messages about the website with prayers and best wishes to Chau and An have been sent among netizens via Yahoo! Messenger these days as well.

Chau from the Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang said An went missing on December 10, 1995 together with her cousin when both were five years old.

On that day after coming back from their kindergarten, An and My ran to play at a neighbor’s home, but were nowhere to be found when the family came to call An back home in the evening, Chau said.

He said he and his wife were very busy with house construction and had not given proper attention to An.

The 45-year-old father said the last time he saw An was when she came to show him a certificate of her good performance at school at around 3-4 p.m. before going out with My.

Since then Chau and his wife have searched high and low for their daughter in various localities like Ho Chi Minh City and Binh Duong province, and even neighboring Laos. He also turned to newspapers and television for help, yet nothing has been heard of An so far.

Recently he decided to open the website designed by his nephew in the hope that it would open up more possibilities for the search, said Chau, who is now the father of three other girls.

He said he would post more photos and memories about An on the website, which is bilingual (Vietnamese and English) basic information about her, and his contact details.

“My wife and I believe that our daughter is still living somewhere in this world. As long as we are still alive, we’ll never give up hope and will continue looking for her,” Chau said.

Source: Tuoi Tre

Quang Nam to grow organic veggies with Japanese knowhow

Japanese experts will help farmers in the central Vietnamese province of Quang Nam cultivate organic vegetables for three years starting April.

A joint project agreed upon in the province on Wednesday also aims to establish a retail outlet for homegrown organic vegetables at the Binh An terminal in Thang Binh District at prices favorable to farmers.

Under the agreement, Japanese experts in the field from Minamiboso, Chiba will be sent to Quang Nam to offer technical advice and take Vietnamese interns back to Japan.

The experts will instruct local farmers on establishing network to cooperate with each other in producing, selling and transporting their produce.

Local farmers will also be given equipment such as freezers to keep the vegetables fresh, as well as cash registers and funds to set up vegetable retail outlets.

Tran Minh Ca, vice chairman of Quang Nam People’s Committee, said the province is turning paddy fields in Tam Ky and Duy Xuyen Districts into vegetable gardens to set up an organic vegetable zone.

With the same money and on the same area, farmers can earn three times more money growing organic vegetables than rice, Ca said.

Source: VNA

Mass killing may push Vietnam’s tigers to extinction in 12 years

Indochina’s big-cat population at ‘crisis point,’ could vanish by next Year of Tiger, says WWF.

Dead tigers turned up around Hanoi last year as if they were nothing more than cheap smuggled goods from China.

Hanoi environmental police uncovered a frozen tiger and 11 kilograms of tiger bones in the trunk of a taxi in July 2009.

A January seizure of more than two tons of wildlife products including tiger bones and six tiger skins at a store in Dong Da District became the largest-ever seizure of illegal wildlife products by Hanoi authorities. This was followed by a February seizure of 23 kilograms of frozen tiger parts, also in Dong Da.

The Indochinese tiger is only found in the Greater Mekong region
of Southeast Asia, including Vietnam

Increasing demand for tiger body parts used in traditional Chinese medicine has fueled a virtual holocaust of tigers, pushing the animal to the brink of extinction, the WWF said in a report released this Tuesday.

Infrastructure developments were also blamed for fragmenting the habitats of tigers, as roads cut up forests and wilderness is converted into commercial crop plantations, the conservation group added.

Although Indochinese tigers were once found in abundance across the Greater Mekong region, there are now no more than 30 tigers in Vietnam, the WWF said.

The problem is similar in Cambodia and Laos, it said, adding that the remaining animals were now predominantly found in the Kayah Karen Tenasserim mountain border between Thailand and Myanmar.

"There is a potential for tiger populations in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to become locally extinct by the next Year of the Tiger, in 2022, if we don't step up actions to protect them," Nick Cox, Coordinator of WWF Greater Mekong’s Tiger Program, said ahead of the beginning of the Year of the Tiger on February 14, according to the Chinese lunar calendar.

“The first priority is to ensure that protection measures such as increased patrolling and law enforcement are put in place in the nationally protected forest areas where tigers still exist,” Cox told Thanh Nien Weekly.

The priority protected areas in Vietnam include those in the Truong Son Mountain Range and the dry forests of the Central Highlands, he said.

Cox placed an emphasis on the continued need for Greater Mekong countries, including Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, to continue stepping up law enforcement in particular along border areas.

“However, in order to be effective in reducing the illegal wildlife trade, it is essential that offenders are prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

The wild tiger population across Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam has plummeted more than 70 percent in the last 12 years, from an estimated 1,200 in 1998, the last Year of the Tiger, to around 350 today, according to the WWF.

The regional decline was reflected in the global wild tiger population, which is at an all-time low of 3,200, down from an estimated 20,000 in the 1980s and 100,000 a century ago.

"Today, wild tiger populations are at a crisis point," the WWF said.

Reported by An Dien

Vietnam primary schools to teach swimming

Fourth graders around the country will be taught how to swim to reduce the number of drownings in the country, according to a recent Ministry of Education and Training directive.

The ministry this week sent a note to city and provincial Departments of Education and Training, asking them to try teaching swimming for primary students, especially those in fourth grade, local newswire VietnamNet said Thursday.

Schools were asked to train their physical education teachers and build and share swimming pools, depending on the amount of space and finances available.

The children should be taught swimming on the weekend, during summer vacation or in physical educations classes if possible, the ministry said in the note.

The ministry will subsequently take into account swimming instruction when evaluating the performance of the city/provincial education departments.

Source: Thanh Nien

17 tons of frozen food with unclear origin found in Hanoi

The Ministry of Public Security’s environment department (PC36) and the Ministry of Health’s food safety department on Wednesday found over 17 tons of frozen food of unclear origin in Hanoi.

Tran Manh Hieu, representative of a family-run business on De La Thanh Street in Ba Dinh District, told the team of inspectors he bought the products from Ho Chi Minh City’s Binh Dien Market to sell them in the capital city.

However, he could not produce the documents asked for by the agencies which conducted the inspection along with the Hanoi Market Management Bureau.

PC36 deputy head Luong Minh Thao said they suspected the products, comprising nearly 70 items of mainly seafood and meat, came from China.

According to the agencies, the food was improperly packaged in sacks and spongy containers with Chinese labels.

They also also found chicken legs soaked in an unidentified solution, and took samples for testing.

The agencies said they had sealed the storage facility and asked the business to halt selling the products.

Also on Wednesday, Hanoi’s traffic police detected more than four tons of animal fat of unidentified origin in a truck on National Highway No.1B.

Driver Bui Ngoc Tho said he was transporting the fat to Hanoi on behalf of a person in Quy Nhon Town, Binh Dinh Province.

In a separate case on the same day, Hanoi police confiscated some 3 to 4 tons of chicken from another truck on its way to the capital city from the northern province of Quang Ninh.

Source: Thanh Nien, Agencies

Delta workers hospitalized after mass hysteria attack

More than 40 female workers were hospitalized in the Mekong Delta’s Long An Province Thursday in what appears to be a strange case of mass hysteria.

Around 100 women began crying copiously, and collapsed with their faces turning red, local reports said.

Two women were sent to the Can Giuoc District hospital and 40 to Nha Be Hospital in the neighboring Ho Chi Minh City after the incident happened at around 10a.m. at the bag-making factory of the South Korean Simone company.

Others recovered on their own. Health authorities have not figured out what caused their condition, but suspected it was a case of hysteria.

“I saw her crying and moving her arms and legs like a psychic. Several minutes later, I began crying and felt tired. I saw myself in the hospital when I woke up,” a worker named Tuyet was quoted by newswire Vnexpress as saying about a colleague.

Many others in the hospital also said they became fearful and began crying after they saw others doing so.

They felt tired, had difficult breathing and collapsed, workers said.

Dr. Phung Thi Xuan at Nha Be Hospital said the workers’ condition was not critical.

The first woman having the symptom, who was not identified, said she only remembered feeling something stuck in her chest and had no idea what she did after that.

All the sick workers said they had smelled nothing strange and they’d had their own breakfast, not from a canteen.

Phan Van Nghiem, a doctor from HCMC Health Department, said some workers might have their sugar levels drop as they didn’t have breakfast, and others caught the symptoms because of “psychological infection”.

Nguyen Huu Tho, director of the Nha Be Hospital, told Tuoi Tre hysteria might be the cause. The paper also reported that some workers said they’d seen ghosts in the toilet and made others terrified.

The managers of Simone, where more than 3,000 workers went on a two-day wildcat strike last month asking for timely payment of their salaries, health and social insurance, and not being forced to work overtime, have not been available for further information or comments.

Reported by Thanh Tung

No new swine flu cases during Tet: health ministry

Vietnam has recorded no new H1N1 flu cases during the Tet Lunar New Year Festival so far despite earlier concern over the virus’s spread, health officials said Tuesday.

The H1N1 virus was previously feared to spread during Vietnam’s traditional New Year due to increasing travel rates and public gatherings.

Since it was first detected here last May, swine flu had attacked 11,186 people and killed 58, according to statistics from the Ministry of Health.

Avian influenza, otherwise known as H5N1, was detected in seven provinces in the country, but no human cases of the virus were reported during the holiday, the ministry said.

The ministry also said casualties caused by accidents during Tet so far fell 14.2 percent from the same period last year, with traffic casualties down 21 percent.

Source: VNA

Can Tho police shoot one dead in cockfight crackdown

Members of an illegal cockfighting ring in the Mekong Delta’s Can Tho City attacked local police last week, forcing them to shoot, killing one man and injuring three others, an official said Thursday.

Duong Van Tri, chairman of the People’s Committee of Truong Thanh Commune, said police launched a crackdown on the cockfighting ring near the house of Dinh Van Tiep on Thursday last week. Tiep, 67, and several other men prevented the police officers from entering the house.

Two days later, the police carried out another raid, but all ring members managed to flee the scene before they came, Tri said.

On their way back to the office, the police officers were insulted by Dinh Cong Thoai, Tiep’s relative.

When the police tried to bring Thoai to their office, they were attacked by Tiep and dozens of other people.

The police shot into the air but Tiep and his group persisted with their attack. They even captured one of the officers and beat him up, Tri said.

The officers then decided to shoot to defend themselves, hitting Tiep and three other men. As the attackers remained aggressive, the police then retreated, Tri said.

Tiep died after he was hospitalized.

The case is being investigated further.

Cockfighting is a traditional sport in Vietnam but betting on it is illegal.

Reported by Mai Tram

Vietnam to auction mining rights

Vietnam plans to auction mining rights towards making more effective use of the nation’s natural resources, says Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Pham Khoi Nguyen.

The natural resources available in the country are supposed to play a large part in economic growth, but so far the permit-granting system has failed to tap the huge potential, Nguyen said.

The ministry plans to auction mining and exploration rights as well as commercialize information and data on natural resources to raise money for the government’s budget, Nguyen said in an interview published on the government’s website Tuesday.

A land auction system, for instance, could generate VND30 trillion (US$1.6 billion) for the government every year, instead of the current VND3-5 trillion, he said.

“The goal is to make the natural resources sector contribute more to the country’s budget in the next 10 years, at least at the same level as the oil sector.”

Crude oil is one of Vietnam’s top export earners. Crude exports last year stood at $6.19 billion, down 40.2 percent due to falling prices, according to the General Customs Department.

Source: Thanh Nien

Capital bill raises concern at house committee meeting

A draft of the newly-proposed Capital Law, which would give Hanoi the power to draw up and implement its own laws without central government involvement, met with concern at the National Assembly this week.

Nguyen Van Thuan, chairman of the Law Committee, warned at a Standing Committee meeting on Tuesday that the draft was unprecedented and contained several stipulations that were outside of the purview of the nation’s current laws. He said careful surveys and research needed to be done before the law is discussed more seriously at assembly meetings this year.

Tran The Vuong, a member of the NA Standing Committee, meanwhile, said the draft violated the country’s constitution, which does not state that Hanoi, even as the national capital, may have it’s own laws different from central government rules.

Issued last month, the draft of Capital Law would give Hanoi authorities the right to issue laws that differ from those of the government, so long as they were within the framework of the national constitution.

In case of conflicts between the capital city’s laws and central laws, the former would take precedence in Hanoi, according to the draft law.

Under the draft, the authority to decide on, plan and execute most of the city’s infrastructure projects, including those relating to transport, culture and education, would be handed over to the capital city administration rather than larger government ministries.

The new law would also tighten permanent residency regulations, asking residency applicants to hold a legal job with a salary double the regulated minimum wage. Such applicants would also have to show proof of legal accommodation in the capital or hold temporary residency there continuously for at least five years.

Currently, citizens can apply after only one year of temporary residency.

Source: Tuoi Tre