Three workers suffocate to death in fish sauce vat; Hanoi firm found selling pirated books; Two children die of hand, foot and mouth disease; EU grants €14.75m to health sector

Hanoi police and market management staff discovered nearly 9,000 illegally-printed books on Friday during a spot check at the Huu Duc Trade and Printing Company.

They also found more than 2,000 kilograms of yet-to-be-bound pirated books at the company premises.

Nguyen Van Chung, director of the company, told the police his firm printed popular books and distributed them to bookstores in Hanoi.

Thousands donate blood in summer campaign

Some 230,000 people have registered to donate blood in the Red Blood Drops Summer Campaign 2009, and organizers have collected over 143,000 units of blood for medical treatment.

The figures were released at a meeting held in Hanoi on September 19 to review the four-month campaign launched in 60 out of 63 cities and provinces nationwide in May by the Vietnam Red Cross.

The campaign attracted more than 6,000 volunteers, who assisted in promoting humanitarian blood donation, and set up more than 180 clubs of volunteers.

In the campaign, donators came from many social groups such as state staff, police officers and self-defence force members.

The Chairman of the Vietnam Red Cross, Tran Ngoc Tang, said the amount of donated blood has met only nearly 40 percent of the demand for medical emergencies and treatment.

‘Culture of silence’ aids domestic violence in Vietnam

The problem of domestic violence worsens when the victims choose to stay silent, and this is the usual practice in Vietnam, officials said at a three-day conference ending Friday.

In the central city of Da Nang, 20 percent of 1,980 divorces in the 2001-2005 period were due to domestic violence.

However, during the 2006-2008 period, this figure rose to 70 percent of the 4,026 divorces, the city’s Women’s Association said at a conference organized in Hanoi by the Ministries of Justice and Public Security, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Le Viet Hung, deputy director of Can Tho Police, told the conference more than 600 domestic violence cases were recorded in the Mekong Delta city in 2008, some even resulting in death.

Hung added that was just the official figure and that actual figures could be higher still.

Do Thi Minh Chau from a violence research team of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said although police and the media have tried to fight domestic violence, “the victims have usually chosen to suffer in silence.”

Chau said the “culture of silence” was even more problematic in rural areas where the social mores were more inhibiting and formal social institutions not well equipped to deal with such problems.

Vietnam passed the Law Against Domestic Violence in July 2008 but many officials at the conference said the law lacks effective measures to control the situation.

It takes six to nine months to prepare documents required by the law before sending a person committing domestic violence to education centers. During the time, the victim would continue to suffer, they said.

Many speakers expressed the opinion that domestic violence should be considered a crime under the Vietnam Criminal Codes.

Cash penalties for domestic violence simply means “I’ve got money, so I’ve got the right to abuse [my family members],” said Nguyen Tuan Anh of UNODC Vietnam.

The police, justice, women’s association officers from provinces across the country as well as international experts at the conference agreed with a proposal that abusive members in the family are forced to do hard labor.

Two children die of hand, foot and mouth disease

Two child patients died of hand, foot and mouth disease at the Children’s Hospital No2 in Ho Chi Minh City on September 17, reports the Dong Nai provincial Preventive Medicine Centre.

The two victims from Bien Hoa city were previously hospitalized in critical condition.

The medical centre says that since the beginning of the year, more than 300 children in the southern province have contracted the disease and four of them have died.

Currently there is a rise in the cases of dengue fever and hand, foot and mouth disease and parents are recommended to take particular care in the hygiene of children and their toys.

Vietnamese press develops quickly, says FOJO

The Vietnamese press has grown quickly and its face has remarkably changed and contributed to the country’s development, said experts from Sweden’s Institute for Further Education of Journalists (FOJO) at a workshop held by FOJO and the Ministry of Information and Communications.

An exhibition of new year’s special issues published by media organizations in 2008.

At the workshop, FOJO experts also said that the gap between Vietnamese and Swedish press had narrowed.

The three-day workshop was organized to strengthen the skills of Vietnamese journalists.

The head of the Press Department, Hoang Huu Luong, said that the program of cooperation in training provided by FOJO had played an important role in the country’s development of its modern press.

“FOJO training courses have equipped thousands of Vietnamese journalists with various content, from organizing an editorial office, media management, ways to get and write news articles, photography and layouts to earn money for newspaper,” Mr Luong said.

“FOJO has also given important forecasts on the world press, helping the Vietnamese press have useful reference channels and plan adequate development models,” he added.

EU grants €14.75m to health sector

The European Union has granted €14.75 million for a €16.65 million Health Sector Capacity Support Project (HSCSP).

Willy Vandenberghe, Charge d’ Affaires and acting Head of the EC delegation to Vietnam, and Dr. Nguyen Quoc Trieu, Minister of Health, signed the Financing Agreement on the “Health Sector Capacity Support Project” on September 18.

Building on previous EC funded health initiatives, including the “Health System Development Project” and the “Health Care Support for the Poor of the Northern Uplands and Central Highlands,” the HSCSP is designed to assist Government-led reforms, supported by the donor community through the Joint Annual Health Review (JAHR) process initiated in 2007.

The project aims at strengthening the capacity of the Ministry of Health, provincial Departments of Health and key sector stakeholders in the areas of sector policy (including health financing); planning and budgeting; management and regulation in the health sector (including Public Finance Management); coordination in the health sector; and delivery of quality health services, with a focus on primary health care and preventive medicine.

The project, with an EC grant of € 12.75 million and a €2 million contribution from Luxembourg, will focus on activities at both central and decentralized levels.

The Vietnam government will contribute €1.4 million, while Germany will contribute €0.5 million.

The project is expected to start in November 2010 and will run until December 2013. It will be part of the EC’s external assistance to Vietnam, which is averaging €40 million per year.

Man dies in Gia Lai police custody

One of 75 people who were arrested on Wednesday for allegedly “causing public disorder” in the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai has died of critical diseases, the local authorities said on Saturday.

Tran Minh Sy, 23, showed signs of fatigue the night he was taken into police custody and was rushed to the hospital, but died the following morning, according to a press briefing held by the Gia Lai People’s Committee.

An autopsy showed that Sy died of heart and lung diseases, Chief of Gia Lai People’s Committee’s Office Ngoc Ngoc Sinh told the briefing.

The arrest followed an incident where a local resident Pham Ngoc Den, drowned while crossing a river as he fled from traffic police who’d caught him driving a motorbike without a crash helmet on Monday.

Den’s family and other residents then gathered in downtown An Khe town to express their anger over his death. The demonstration led to public disorder until late in the day and traffic jams ensued for several hours on national highway No. 19 which passes through the town.

“It’s still not clear when the arrested people will be released, as investigators are checking and short-listing them to apply the right measures for each individual,” Sinh said, adding that the case will be brought to court soon.

Syringe-armed robbers arrested in southern hub

Men suspected of being members of a gang in Ho Chi Minh City that used needles to rob bus passengers.

Ho Chi Minh City police arrested five men on Sunday for robbing bus passengers by threatening them with needles.

All five – Huynh Phi Ho from the south central province of Binh Dinh, Nguyen Van Khen from the Mekong Delta province of Hau Giang, and Ho Chi Minh City locals Nguyen Huy Cuong, Nguyen Tan Kiet and Nguyen Thanh Luan – are heroin addicts, police said.

In June, many passengers on buses between HCMC and Mekong Delta destinations said gangs of men were posing as medicine salespeople on the buses and using what looked like bloody needles to force passengers to hand over their valuables.

The robbers acted day and night, police said, adding they had identified three gangs with a total of over ten members posing as medicine salesmen in order to rob people on buses.

Members of the gangs drive motorbikes alongside the buses to help their accomplices get away in emergency situations, police said.

More than 30 police officers arrested three such suspects Saturday when Cuong, 24, picked up Ho and Kiet after the two had stolen two mobile phones and VND300,000 (US$17) from a bus, according to investigators.

Police seized the goods and three needles at the scene.

Luan and Khen, thought to be members of another gang, were arrested later that same day.

The suspects said their gangs had committed around five robberies a day each, according to police reports.

Inspectors are continuing the investigation.

Horrific crash kills five in northern Vietnam

A head-on collision in the northern province of Phu Tho on Sunday left five people dead and scores in hospital.

The crash in Tieu Son Commune involved a bus carrying 43 students and five teachers of Chu Van Tho High School in adjacent Yen Bai Province back home from Phu Tho’s famous Temple of the Hung Kings, and a car traveling in the opposite direction.

Police say four people died on the spot, while 62 people were taken to hospital. One of the injured died in hospital later the same day.

PV