Former volunteers gather in Danang
A get-together of 450 former young volunteers from the transport sector was held in Danang City on July 10 by the Ministry of Transport.
In his speech, Minister of Transport Ho Nghi Dung reviewed the 60-year tradition of volunteering since President Ho Chi Minh proposed establishing an organisation for young volunteers on July 15, 1950. In the past 60 years, young transport volunteers have rapidly developed into a key force, which made significant contributions to ensuring smooth transport during the wars of resistance against the French and US invaders.
Mr Dung praised the tremendous achievements recorded by the transport sector during the Doi Moi (Renewal) process and set development orientations for the sector until 2020.
Over the past few years, the transport sector has also paid special attention to improving the lives of former young volunteers by building houses and providing jobs for their families.
Summer Camp 2010 attracted overseas students
Nearly 40 overseas Vietnamese youngsters from Cambodia, the UK, Belgium, Germany, the US and Russia, are attending the Summer Camp for overseas Vietnamese students which opened in Ho Chi Minh City on July 10.
During the camp, jointly held by the Committee for Overseas Vietnamese Affairs (COVA) and the Ho Chi Minh City Communist Youth Organization, students will take part in a variety of meaningful activities such as an incense-offering ceremony at the Ho Chi Minh Museum and Hung Kings Temple, planting trees at the national cultural and historical park, and doing charity work at the Future School in District 5, Ho Chi Minh City.
They will also visit a handicraft village in Cu Chi district, the Thoi Son island, and the tombs of famous people such as Nguyen Thi Dinh and Nguyen Dinh Chieu.
The annual event is aimed at connecting overseas students to those in the homeland, bringing into play national traditions, and raising their responsibility for protecting and building the country.
Blue-ear pig disease outbreaks in Quang Tri province
By July 9, more than 250 pigs in the two communes of Trieu Tai and Trieu Hoa in Trieu Phong district of the central province of Quang Tri had been infected with blue-ear disease.
The provincial Department of Animal Health has worked with localities to sterilise, cull 50 pigs and set up quarantine points. The province has directed localities to strictly implement measures to stamp out and prevent the spread of the disease.
Phu Cua int’l cross border check-point inaugurated
Vietnam’s Central Highland province of Kon Tum on July 9 held an inauguration ceremony for a cross-border check-point at the Phu Cua International Border Gate of Laos.
The Phu Cua International Border Gate has been built since 2009 at a cost of over VND29.5 billion funded by the Vietnamese government to Laos as a non-refundable aid.
The work will contribute to strengthening the traditional friendship and comprehensive cooperation between the two countries, as well as promoting the development of economy, trade, tourism and services between Kon Tum and Attapeu provinces of Laos, and among provinces in the development triangle of Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia.
Earlier, the Bo Y-Phu Cua border gate was upgraded into international border gate on January 18, 2008.
HCM City receives US$6.8 mln foreign aid
Ho Chi Minh City received a total of US$6.8 million in grants from foreign non-governmental organisations, companies and individuals in the first half of the year.
Of the funding, 75 percent went to the city’s Health Department and HIV/AIDS prevention committee.
The city’s achievements in social welfare, education, health, poverty reduction and job generation has encouraged the contributions of NGOs and international organizations, said Nguyen Thi My Tien, General Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Union of Friendship Organisations at a gathering on July 8.
During the meeting with representatives of NGOs operating in the city, Tien promised that the union will work with relevant agencies to streamline the current procedures concerning NGOs’ operations.
The city is calling for US$713,000 aid for more than 20 projects, including legal advice and consultancy for people living with HIV and affected by HIV/AIDS; scholarships, teaching tools and equipment for poor students, students who are hearing-impaired or mentally retarded; protection and support for migrant children, street children and ethnic minority children.
US pianist raises funds for Da Nang AO victims
Quentin Fielding, a US pianist and composer, performed at the Church for All Nations in New York city on July 7 to raise funds for a charity project in the Vietnamese central city of Da Nang.
The event was jointly held by the Japan’s Human Security Association (HSA) and the Vietnamese preservative mission to the United Nations
All proceeds collected from the programme will be used to buy a piano as gift for Agent Orange (AO)/Dioxin victims in Da Nang city with the hope that the power of music would help ease the pain of the AO victims, foster their hope and bring peace of mind for them.
Da Nang city is a “hotspot” where many people and their offspring still suffer from deadly dioxin contained in defoliants sprayed by US troops during the war.
HSA plans to organise a charity concert in Da Nang city on August 29, using donated musical instruments, to mark the 35 th anniversary of the end of the US War in Vietnam.
HSA, a Tokyo and New York based non-profit organisation founded in 2009 by Tomo Nomura, aims to advance human security through the promotion of musical performances and events.
Vietnam to fulfill Millennium Development Goals
Vietnam has nearly fulfilled the Millennium Development Goals to which it committed, according to a report presented at a consultation workshop jointly held in Hanoi on July 8, by the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the UNDP.
According to the report, Vietnam has met its goal to reduce its poverty by 50 percent, complete the universialisation of primary education, improve gender equality, decrease child fatalities, improve maternal health, and eliminate diseases like malaria.
This was due to many factors, most important of which was Vietnam’s commitment and determination to fulfill its goals by developing the country’s economy, reforming its policies and methods of mobilising development sources, and giving priority to vulnerable and impoverished groups, said Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Bich Dat.
Christophe Dahuet, country director of UNDP Vietnam, praised Vietnam’s achievements in fulfilling these goals. He added, however, that the report should indicate the challenges still facing Vietnam like the development gap between regions.
Workshop participants said that although Vietnam achieved many of its goals in 2008, it needs to make greater effort to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and protect the environment.
Nguyen Tien Phong, head of the UNDP Poverty Reduction and Social Development Division, suggested further measures to ensure economic gains for the poor.
Japan funds construction of two schools in Vietnam
The government of Japan has pledged nearly US$180,000 in non-refundable aid to help build two primary schools in Nam Dinh and Ha Tinh provinces.
An agreement to this effect was signed at the Japanese embassy in Hanoi on July 8. Accordingly, a primary school in Hien Khanh commune, Vu Ban district, Nam Dinh province will be built at a cost of nearly US$94,000 while another in Gia Pho commune, Huong Khe district, Ha Tinh province at US$83, 200.
Japanese ambassador to Vietnam Mitsuo Sakaba expressed his belief that the Japan-funded projects will help improve the education situation in two communes and strengthen the friendship and mutual understanding between Vietnam and Japan.
Lao minister presented with Vietnam’s friendship order
The Minister and Chief of the Cabinet to the President of Laos, Souban Srithirath, has been awarded with Vietnam’s Friendship Order for his great contributions to the two countries’ relations.
The honour was presented by Nguyen Van Chien, Head of the State President’s Office in Vientiane on July 7.
Tran Huu Nam, a representative of the State President’s Office, highlighted the Lao minister’s active contributions to the traditional cooperative relations and friendship between the two parties, states, governments and peoples in whatever position he took during his revolutionary life.
For his part, Souban Srithirath expressed his gratitude to the Vietnamese Party, State and people, stressing that the award will encourage him to work further for the benefit of bilateral ties.
Vietnam needs 20,000 health workers for HIV/AIDS fight
Vietnam needs at least 20,000 health workers for its HIV/AIDS programmes by 2020 as new HIV infected cases continue to rise and need due treatment, said the chief of the HIV/AIDS watchdog.
This was estimated by Dr. Nguyen Thanh Long, Chief of the Health Ministry’s HIV/AIDS Control Department at a seminar discussing the training of health workers for the fight against HIV/AIDS in Hanoi on July 6.
At present, health workers working in preventive medicine, including anti-HIV/AIDS work, number just 1,300 nationwide, or 21 in average for each province or city, Long said, underscoring the lack of human resources as a great challenge to the nation’s HIV/AIDS prevention and combat progamme to 2020.
Dr. Tran Thanh Duong, Deputy Chief of the Health Ministry’s Preventive Medicine Department blamed insufficient investment in the field, including the lack of text books and training facilities, for the shortage of preventive health workers for HIV/AIDS programmes.
He referred to the fact that only 13 medical schools nationwide provide training courses in this field, ranging from post-graduates to lab technicians, with about 250 graduates a year.
Dr. Luu Ngoc Hoat, Deputy Head of the Hanoi Medical University, which has since 1994 carried out dozens of HIV/AIDS research and training programmes, agreed that preventive medicine lessons in his university lack coherent content and updates on real activities, causing difficult for students who are already burdened by heavy training curricula.
The Health Ministry pledged that it will work out appropriate hospital-university training forms together with scholarships and mechanisms to encourage more students to go to preventive medicine and HIV to meet the nation’s needs in the field.
Young people get loans to do business
More than 7,000 poor young people in the country have been provided with loans worth over VND100 billion in total to start their own business this summer, said the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union (HCYU).
Besides the provision of loans, HCYU, a socio-political organisation of Vietnamese youth, has offered job consultancy to over 100,000 young people and helped thousands of others secure jobs by introducing them to employers.
In an effort to help poor communes, the HCYU has since early this summer mobilised voluntary youth in a nationwide campaign to build, repair and upgrade 1,500 km of rural road and more than 6,500 houses for poor households, including those of former youth volunteers who took part in the country’s struggle against foreign invaders in the past.
The union’s members have also responded to a blood donation campaign since early June, donating more than 28,000 blood units.
Poor mountainous localities get access to Internet
A batch of 80 computers and 10 printers has been provided for the northern mountainous province of Bac Kan on July 7, helping poor areas in the province get access to the Internet.
The batch is part of a programme, PCs for Life, launched by the Ministry of Information and Communications at the World Information Technology Forum 2009 (WITFOR 2009).
So far, nearly 1,150 computers, 150 printers and other devices have been offered to 19 provinces nationwide.
Other beneficiaries of the programme are blind societies, centres for disabled people and border guards.
VND54 trillion more for rural water supply programme
More than VND54 trillion will be allocated for the national target programme on rural water supply and environmental sanitation from 2011 to 2015 to improve locals’ living conditions.
Of the total, VND21.8 trillion will be earmarked for water supply and VND25.6 trillion for hygiene in households and schools.
The programme aims to improve water supply services, raise people’s awareness and change the community’s behaviour regarding environmental protection. Priority will be given to remote, island, drought-stricken and polluted areas to benefit poor and ethnic minority people.
Vietnam has set a goal of supplying running water to 83 percent of the rural population by the end of 2010. A programme official says the goal would be beat this year, with 85 percent of the people accessing safe water. However, only 63 percent of rural households would have hygiene latrines, 7 percent less than the goal.
RoK doctors bring smiles to 190 deformed children
Volunteer doctors from the Republic of Korea (RoK) and their Vietnamese colleagues have finished 190 smile operations for children with hare lips and cleft palates in central Phu Yen province.
Doctors from the Central Military Hospital 108 and the provincial General Hospital took part in the programme from July 2-7.
SK Telecom and the RoK’s Smile for Children provided equipment and funded the surgeries.
This is the 15th consecutive year deformed Vietnamese children have received free smile operations from the RoK’s volunteer doctors. So far, nearly 3,000 children in many localities nationwide have benefited from the programme.
In 2009, the programme was also carried out in the central province of Thanh Hoa. It has also helped to raise the professional skills of Vietnamese doctors.
Tourism Australia launches Vietnamese website
Tourism Australia has launched a Vietnamese language official website for customers at www.australia.com, the Australian embassy said on July 6.
By the end of March 2010, Australia saw over 37,000 visitors from Vietnam, an encouraging increase of nine percent from the previous year, despite a challenging year including the global financial crisis and A/H1N1 epidemic.
“Vietnam is an emerging marketing for Australia, with good potential for growth, given the strong affinity that Vietnamese have with Australia in terms of education and immigration,” said Maggie White, Regional General Manager, South/Southeast Asia and Gulf Countries, Tourism Australia.
She adds, “We believe that having Australia.com available in the Vietnamese language will help inspire more Vietnamese to visit Australia.”
Tourism Australia will continue to work closely with its airline partners and Aussie Specialist travel agent partners to ensure the availability of attractive travel options for Vietnamese consumers, she said.
According to Australia’s Foreign and Trade Ministry, more than 210,000 Australians visited Vietnam in 2009.
E-customs procedures help boost exports
E-customs procedures, which are much simpler than traditional ones, have attracted 1,111 exporters to fill on-line forms for overseas shipments worth US$13,645 million over the past six months.
As many as 30 customs units are vanguards in this business, which is expected to expand to remaining units of 10 cities and provinces by the year’s end, the General Customs Office (GCO) reported at a workshop held in Hanoi on July 6.
The GCO added that the e-customs procedures are currently dealing with three major sectors, namely trading, manufacturing and export-oriented industry.
The new model is test-running in the export-processing sector and enterprises of priority.
Six crewmen rescued by foreign ship
The Marhall Islands ’ Hubsterllar ship has rescued six crewmen abroad a fishing boat off the coast of Da Nang city on July 3.
The Hubsterllar brought them safely to the Dang Xa port in the northern port city of Hai Phong on July 6.
On July 3, the BDD 50819 boat belonging the central province of Binh Dinh was suddenly hit by a vessel 15 nautical miles from the Da Nang coast and quickly sank down. All the six crewmen took the lifebuoys and jumped into the sea.
The Hubsterllar was on its journey from Singapore to Hai Phong.
Belgium donates over 13 million EUR to Ninh Thuan
The Belgian government has granted more than 13 million EUR to help Ninh Thuan province implement a project to build a drainage system and a waste treatment plant.
Of the sum, 10 million EUR will be sourced from Belgium’s non-refundable aid, while Ninh Thuan province will contribute more than 3 million EUR in matching capital.
The project will be carried out in Phuoc Dan town, Ninh Phuoc district and Phuoc Trung commune, Bac Ai district. In the framework of the project, several training courses will also be held for provincial officers involved in the project.
PV
