Students disdain
social sciences

Low salaries and the fear of unemployment make social
sciences less and less appealing to students, academics said yesterday at a
seminar held in Ho Chi Minh City.

Tran Chut, vice president of Van Hien University, the host,
said the number of candidates applying for social sciences is declining every
year, leading even to the closure of related faculties at many places.

Delegates blamed the situation on the tendency of society to
think poorly of social sciences and discourage students from opting for them.

High schools are also to blame for failing to educate
students about their positive sides, they said.

A common perception is that social science majors get meager
salaries and face the threat of unemployment.

Bright students
allowed to gallop past their peers

Children with superior ability will be allowed to start and
complete junior high and high school at an earlier age than normal, under new
regulations released by the Ministry of Education and Training.

Parents and guardians should write to the school seeking
permission for this.

On the other hand, the upper age limit for underprivileged
children, those from ethnic groups, and overseas Vietnamese students has been
relaxed – they can join three years later than normal.

In other rule changes, teachers are prohibited from using
cell phones in class, verbally or physically assaulting students and
colleagues, and forcing students to come for private tutoring.

The regulations will take effect on May 15.

VN to have tsunami
early warning stations in July

The Da Nang People’s Committee has identified locations for
the country’s first 10 tsunami early warning stations - to be put into
operation in July by the military-run telecom company Viettel.

They include one each on Son Tra Peninsula, Furama Hotel and two popular
tourist beaches.

Two of them will be equipped with a 30-35 m high antenna for
wave absorption and an alarm system with a siren.

When the antenna captures tsunami signals, the siren will go
off to warn residents so that they can take safety measures.

The eight others will capture information about tsunamis,
including how powerful and how high they are, when they will make landfall,
which areas will be most affected, and which areas need to be evacuated.

The stations will sound the alarm around 30 minutes before a
tsunami hits.

IT scholarships for
100 disabled people

The Vietnam Search Engine Optimization Club will offer 100
disabled people full scholarships for joining a course that will teach them to optimize
text content and format websites so that search engines can locate them easily.

The course will be held every Sunday for two months at the Nghi Luc Song Center
for people with disabilities in Hanoi
or study online.

On completion, the trainees will get jobs at one of Vietnam
SEO Club’s member companies.

Applicants can send their profiles to nghilucsong@gmail.com
or the Nghi Luc Song Center which will organize a program for
the purpose at 8:30 am on April 10 at Linh Dam Culture House in Hoang Mai District.

Drunk cop assaulting
woman to be punished

Southern Tien Giang
Province Police Department yesterday asked the agency where Lieutenant Colonel
Huynh Chi Dung works to report the case in which he assaulted a hairdresser
Tuesday.

The provincial Police Department would consider the report
and give a punishment to Dung for his offense, said Major General Nguyen Chi
Phi, director of the department.

On the evening of March 29, Dung, who got drunk, came to a
hairdresser’s on Ly Thuong Kiet
Street in Tien Giang Province’s My Tho City, and picked a
quarrel with Y.O., who is the shop owner.

Dung insulted O. and beat her on the face and chest.
Witnessing the case, local residents called emergency police 113.

At that time, four policemen of ward 6 police rushed to the
shop, but Dung heaped insults on them.

Meanwhile, curiosity-seekers had flocked to the scene,
blocking the road and causing an accident, local police said.

The man later fled when the police 113 force arrived.

It was the third time Dung caused such an incident in the
city, said the My Tho City Police Department.

4 hooligans attack
on-duty police, 2 arrested

In two assault incidents, police in two districts in Ho Chi Minh City
yesterday detained two of the four hooligans who used brick and knives to
assault traffic policemen who stopped them on the streets for examination.

In the first incident, the police arrested Nguyen Van Phu,
29, while two other hooligans escaped from the scene.

At 1:00 am March 27 on Ni Su Huynh Lien Street, Ward 10, Tan
Binh District, two Tan Binh policemen during their patrol stopped Phu and Thai
as they were traveling at high speeds on a motorbike and zigzagging in and out
of traffic lanes.

When a policeman, Kien, was examining Phu’s papers, Thai
suddenly attacked Kien by throwing a brick onto his face. Phu and Thai then
dealt out blows to the two policemen.

Kien fired a shoot into the air to warn them and the two
hooligans ran away with their motorbike. At this moment, a man, later known as
Duong, rushed to the scene from a lane nearby and used a piece of brick to
strike the police motorbike.

Phu and Thai returned and continued to attack the policemen
with Thai throwing a plant pot at Kien, injuring him.

Phu used a tree branch in the attack but he was later seized
by the policemen who handed over him to local police.

The Tan Binh district police yesterday decided to detain him
for criminal investigation and are hunting down his accomplices.

The same day Binh Thanh police also detained Tran Quoc
Thanh, 37, a local man, for attacking a team of traffic police with two knives.

At 0:30 a.m. March 27, Thanh was driving without wearing a
helmet on Bach Dang Street
when he was stopped by the team for examination.

Instead of presenting his papers, Thanh used two knives
hidden under his clothes to assault the policemen, who managed to grab the
knives from them and seized him.

Thanh was handed over to the local police before Binh Thanh
district police decided to detain him yesterday for criminal investigation.

Sexiness at a price

Ever since she spent VND 70 million (US$ 3,300) to have her
breasts and buttocks implanted with silicone at a beauty center in Ho Chi Minh
City three years ago, N.T.H, 26 from Hanoi has been in pain.

She was recently hospitalized at Hanoi’s
St. Paul Hospital because of some painful lumps
in her breasts, buttocks and belly.

Doctor Tran Thiet Son, head of St. Paul’s
plastic surgery department, said a month ago, a 28-year-old woman from the northern province of Nam Dinh was hospitalized for worse
symptoms.

When doctors pressed on the breasts of this patient,
silicone oozed out from the nipples.

Son said in the cases of these two patients, doctors must
immediately remove the silicone or else, it would cause scars and deformity of
the mammary glands and migrate to other body parts.

And once it migrates to other body parts through blood
vessels, fatal complications such as heart attack, lung or cerebral infraction
that causes paralysis can occur.

There are reports of women dying from these complications
right during the implant, Son said.

Pham Quoc Khanh, deputy head of Trung Vuong
Hospital’s orthopedic
department in HCMC said every year his department receives 50 patients
suffering from silicone implant complications.

Recently, P.T.T, a 32-year-old woman from the southern province of Ca Mau was hospitalized with breast
deformity, pain and inflammation.

The patient had had breast implant abroad 8 years ago and
recently felt breast lumps and pain.

Trung Vuong’s doctors later operated to remove inflammatory
tissues from her breasts, but their original contours were permanently damaged.

Khanh said in HCMC, there are many unlicensed beauty centers
providing silicone implant whenever customers ask for it, utterly disregarding
their safety.

“Some patients even said they did the implanting
themselves,” he said.

Local artists to
raise $500 mln for children

A charity program launched last year by a group of
Vietnamese artists to raise money for poor children suffering from heart
disease aims for VND 10 billion (US$500 million) this year.

After holding musical shows and auctions to raise enough
money to pay for surgeries for 100 children last year, this time around,
Understanding the Heart asks people to donate VND 8,000 through a text message
or VND300 through an online message at the program’s website
www.vnn.vn/hieuvetraitim.

Organizers said they also planned other activities as part
of this year’s campaign such as appearing on TV talk shows and at schools
around the country.

A filmmaking competition will also be held from April to
July.

Hanoi makes bold move to save energy

Hanoi
on March 29 launched an energy-saving movement which sets a target of seeing a
warm response from over 1 million local households in 2011.

With the message of “Cutting unnecessary power consumptions
in 365 days and acting for the following years”, the campaign aims to raise
public awareness of the economical and effective use of electricity and develop
an energy-saving habit for Hanoians, helping ensure national energy security.

To make the movement effectively, the organising board has
trained 3,000 communicators on how to use home electric appliances in an
efficient way along with boosting dissemination through systems of loudspeakers
in wards and residential quarters.

A similar movement was launched in Hanoi in 2010 with the participation of
100,000 households, helping save 17 million kWh of electricity worth VND15
billion.

Vietnam urged to adopt strong talent strategy

Vietnam
has been called on to promptly map out a national strategy on talent, in order
to optimise the utility of this valuable resource for speeding up its national
industrialisation and modernisation.

Accordingly, a project aimed at establishing theoretical and
realistic foundations for the creation of a national talent strategy was
launched in Hanoi
on March 30.

The project was led by Ho Duc Viet, former Secretary of the
Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee (CPVCC) and former Chairman of the
CPVCC’s Organisation Commission.

According to the official, since its founding Vietnam has
recognised the importance of talent to the country’s multi-dimensional growth
and its Party and State have paid constant attention to finding, training and
utilising talented people, especially for the current renewal process.

He said Party and State have adopted various training
projects to enable excellent university students and competent State officials
to study abroad, in an effort to prepare a contingent of proficient personnel
for the nation’s sustainable development.

Viet also referred to policies and guidelines aimed at
attracting talented people working in different fields inside and outside the
country, as well as conditions to make the best utility of their gifted
capacity.

However, the official pointed out that the lack of strategic
programmes and plans hindered the early detection of the talented from schools
and universities and that insufficient preference given to talented people
failed to lure them to work in the political system.

The project focused on studying talented people involving in
leadership and management, science and technology, production and business.

PV