New suspension bridge collapses in
Kon Tum

The
collapse of a new suspension bridge injured two people in Dak Ang Commune in
Tay Nguyen (Central High-land) Kon
Tum Province
on Thursday.

The
collapse occurred as seven people on motorbikes were carrying rice from fields
to their houses.

All seven
people fell into the Po Ko River. One person wounded a thigh in the incident.
The other received a chest wound as the result of striking a jagged object
lying on the river bottom. Both were treated at Ngoc Hoi General Hospital.

The bridge
connecting two communes of Dak Ang and Dak Nong was opened in July.

Before
that, local residents used a pulley system to cross the river for nearly a year
after a severe flood swept away the old bridge in 2009.

The new
bridge cost over VND120 million (US$6,000), with the money coming from a donor
and local residents carrying out the construction work.

According
to chairman of the district’s Peole’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Ha, the accident
happened because the pedestrian bridge was being used by motorbikes.

Some
residents said the accident was due to technical errors in building.

Man charged over anti-State material

The Ha Noi
People’s Procuracy yesterday indicted Cu Huy Ha Vu on charges of
“disseminating information against the State of the Socialist Republic of
Viet Nam” pursuant to Point c, Clause 1, Article 88 of the Penal Code.

According
to procuracy indictment No 18/CT-VKS-P2, the case started in October 2010, the
Ha Noi Department of Information and Communications sent a dispatch to
municipal police asking them to investigate Vu.

Investigators
found that between 2009 and October 2010,Vu posted a large number of articles
and interviews on the internet.

These
called for abolition of Article 4 of the Constitution of the Socialist Republic
of Viet Nam. They also maligned Party and State guidelines and policies,
defamed the administration and State institutions, and criticised the
Vietnamese people’s resistance war.

The
authorities took Vu’s acts seriously and prosecuted him.

Rough seas hamper search for 24
sailors

Three
sailors were rescued yesterday while 24 remain missing after a cargo ship
capsized in waters off the central province
of Ha Tinh early on
Thursday due to strong gales and rough seas.

The Hai
Phong Port Authority said the Duong Dong picked up one of the sailors at 8pm on
Thursday but he died on the way to hospital in the northern city of Hai Phong.

An
identification card showed that the victim was Dong Van Bau, born in 1979, from
Hung Hoa District in Thanh
Hoa Province.

According
to Xinhua News Agency, Chinese rescuers found two more Vietnamese sailors at
8.40am yesterday.

Viet Nam
National Shipping Lines said that the Chinese rescue vessel which was carrying
the two sailors was expected to arrive at port late yesterday afternoon.

The sailors
were in a critical condition and hadn’t been identified, the source said.

The other
victims have not been heard from since then and the search is continuing.

After the
incident took place, harsh conditions prevented rescue ships from reaching the
site where the Phu Tan went down, about 120km off the coast of Ha Tinh Province.

The Hai
Phong Port Authority received a distress call from the ship at around 7.30am on
Thursday reporting that the ship was sinking and a few hours later, they lost
contact with the ship.

The
authority also said the sailors and passengers may have fallen overboard.

The
Maritime Search and Rescue Centre for Region 1 dispatched rescue vessels to
search for the ship and ordered the Song Cau oil tanker which was operating
near the scene to help with the rescue mission.

According
to Xinhua, Chinese maritime rescue authorities also dispatched a rescue vessel
to help after receiving emergency calls from their Vietnamese counterparts.

The Phu Tan
was owned by the Viet Nam National Shipping Lines Company and had a loading
capacity of 140,000 tonnes. It was on its way to Hai Phong from HCM City
when the accident happened.

The extreme
weather conditions also damaged nine fishing boats with a total of 73 men on
board, said Phan Van On, head of the Committee for Flood and Storm Control in
the central province
of Quang Ngai.

Eight of
them containing 63 men have been escorted to safety.

Two men fined for illegal logging

The
southern Binh Phuoc Province’s
People’s Committee has decided to fine two men VND65 million (US$3,300) for
violating forestry protection regulations.

The men are
Nguyen Van Trai, 33, of HCM
City’s Cu Chi District
and Vo Thanh Sang, 30, of the province’s Bu Dop District.

Trai was
fined VND25 million ($1,300) for illegally transporting about 5cu.m of timber,
and Sang received a fine of VND40 million ($2,000) for illegally processing
nearly 9cu.m of timber.

Unlabelled wild-boar meat seized

Inspectors
of Thu Dau
Mot Town’s
Market Watch Team seized nearly 300 kilos of wild-boar meat from four vendors
as it lacked source of origin labelling at the town’s Huynh Van Luy Street in the southern Binh Duong
Province on Thursday.

The vendors
were unable to show any documents proving the meat’s origin.

They
admitted that they bought the meat in Chon Thanh District and had transported
it to the town for sale.

Plastic milk bottles tested for
toxin

The level
of Bisphenol A in baby milk bottles on sale in the market was within the
Government’s safety regulations, said Nguyen Thanh Phong, deputy director of
the Ministry of Health’s cooking safety and hygiene department.

The sample
check would be conducted on a wider basis before any decision relating to the
chemical could be made.

The move
came after the European Commission (EC) announced in November that the
production of plastic baby milk bottles would be banned as of March, 2011.
Exposure to Bisphenol A contained in plastic milk bottles could have
potentially negative health effects on children, according to the EC.

Bank official given sack for
offering $2.5m commission

The Sai Gon
– Ha Noi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB) has sacked the director of its Khanh
Hoa branch for proceeding with efforts to pay a commission of VND50 billion
(US$2.5 million) to a man who had promised to secure a big deposit.

The
decision to fire Truong Ngoc Nguyen on Thursday came three days after two other
officers were suspended for issuing Vu Xuan Lai a savings book into which the
commission was to be paid.

Lai had promised
to get a deposit of VND10 trillion ($500 million) for 10 years at a 3 per cent
interest, well below the current cap of 14 per cent.

SHB General
director Nguyen Van Le said the two suspended officers, financial controller
Chu Thi Hang Nga and accountant Nguyen Thi Truc Kieu, had flown several times
from Nha Trang to HCM
City to
“negotiate” with Lai.

The three
had allegedly met in a Nha Trang hotel a week ago to sign a deposit contract.

Nga and
Kieu had also handed the man the savings book but since then he has gone
missing while the money in the account has not been withdrawn.

Le said
that soon after Nguyen told him about the promised VND10 trillion deposit, he
had sent him an e-mail warning it was a “trick” and the money was
“non-existent”.

He had also
warned Nguyen not to have contact with “these frauds”.

Do Quang
Hien, the bank’s chairman, said bankers were prohibited from paying commissions
for deposits.

On the same
day the bank named Nguyen Tuan Khai, deputy chief of accounting at its head office
in HCM City, as deputy director in charge of
the Khanh Hoa branch.

Doctors perform liver transplant

Viet Nam’s second successful adult liver transplant was
performed at Viet
Duc Hospital
on Wednesday.

The patient
is currently recovering from the 13-hour procedure conducted by the hospital’s
doctors with technical support from Taiwanese health experts.

“The
patient recovered relatively quickly after surgery and he is currently in a
stable condition,” said Nguyen Tien Quyet, the hospital’s director.

The
44-year-old patient, from Da Nang
Province, suffered from
the later stages of cirrhosis. He was faced with potentially fatal consequences
without the transplant, and his 34-year-old cousin proved to be a suitable
donor.

Doctors
took more than 60 per cent of his cousin’s right liver lobe to replace his
diseased organ.

Quyet said
that adult liver transplants were more complicated and risky than in children
because doctors had to remove at least half of the donor’s liver lobe for a
successful transplant compared to one-third with children.

The first
successful adult liver transplant was carried out at the same hospital in 2008.

Source: VNS