Taxi
wheels break off when running

A
rare incident happened late today when the rear axle of a taxi came off as the
vehicle was running in the street in central Hue city city.

Le Anh Tuan, the 37-year-old driver,
said he was driving the four-seat car when the whole car body violently shook,
and the two rear wheels became suddenly separated from the vehicle upon his
slamming on the brake.

Photo: Tuoi Tre

The incident had caused one-hour
traffic congestion before the cab was towed away from the scene.

Tuoi Tre
correspondent reported on the spot that the car, the machinery of
which is in very bad condition, is owned by Dong Hien company based in nearby
Quang Tri Province.

The driver had just taken a patient
from the province to Hue central hospital for emergency aid.

Vietnamese man killed in dogfight
in Taiwan

One
Vietnamese was stabbed to death after fighting against his countryman during a
dogfight at a Vietnamese restaurant in New Forest District in Taiwan on Monday
night, The Liberty Times reported.

The scuffle brought the restaurant
into a panic, eyewitnesses said.

Two other men were also injured
during the incident and had to be hospitalized.

They are now in good health, the
police said.

The Liberty Times
didn’t offer further details about the case.

First Vietnamese American Ophthalmology Symposium
held

The first Vietnamese American Ophthalmology
Symposium (VAOS) will take place in Ho Chi Minh City on June 23.

The event, supported by the American
Eye Centre, involves leading doctors from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, the
Hawaii Ophthalmology Society and the HCM City Eye Hospital.

VAOS is a bridge connecting doctors
in the US and Vietnam.

The symposium aims to improve eye
care services in Vietnam through healthcare cooperation. It is also an
opportunity for Vietnamese doctors to share experience and receive new
technology from the US.

Vietnamese urged to buy local goods

Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung
Hai has called on all Vietnamese citizens to adopt a consumer culture dedicated
to using Vietnamese-made products.

Addressing a meeting in the capital yesterday to review the campaign Vietnamese
Use Vietnamese Products in the first five months of this year, Hai said
achievements gained have contributed to the successful implementation of
Government Resolutions No 11 and No 02 on curbing inflation, stabilising the
economy and ensuring social security.

“The
campaign is a very important factor in turning the country into an
industrialised nation by 2020,” Hai said.

Domestic
production has failed to meet public demand, he noted, leading to an imbalance
between imports and exports, particularly in equipment and spare parts.

“Our
nation’s production development potential is limitless, and there is no doubt
that when our products are of high quality, people will buy them. This is a very
important factor that the manufacturers should bear in mind,” said Hai.

“The
campaign urging Vietnamese to use Vietnamese products will be a long process,
since it is a campaign to build a consumer culture of the Vietnamese people
preferring Viet Nam’s products,” he added. Participants at the meeting agreed on
the imperative to further promote the campaign to encourage everyone to exhibit
their patriotism by buying Vietnamese products.

Among
officials attending the meeting were Dinh The Huynh, politburo member and
secretary of the Party Central Committee and head of the Party Education and
Communication Commissio; and Huynh Dam, President of the Central Committee of
the Viet Nam Fatherland Front, who is also director of the campaign’s National
Steering Committee.

2 Can
Tho housing officials arrested for bribery

The Ho Chi Minh City police
arrested the former acting director and chief accountant of a Can Tho-based
state housing company for allegedly taking bribes from a construction company to
award a contract to build two villas six years ago.

They also filed charges of “taking bribes” against Nguyen Duc Loc, former acting
director of the Can Tho Housing Development and Trading Company, and Quang Thanh
Can.

The two were dismissed by the Can Tho City People’s Committee for various
wrongdoings that reportedly caused losses of hundreds of billions of dongs to
the treasury.

Loc and Can allegedly took a huge, undisclosed bribe from Pham Viet Tien, former
head of the Construction Team 3 of the District 5 Housing Management and
Development Company in HCM City.

Tien, who is already in custody for suspected embezzlement in connection with
another case, told investigators he gave the bribe to Loc and Can in 2005 to get
his company the deal to build two large villas in Can Tho.

Also involved were Mai Van Dung, former director of the District 5 Housing
Management and Development Company, and Ha Van Tuan, its former chief
accountant.

Dung and Tuan were also arrested along with Tien.

Based on Tien’s testimonies and other evidence, the police took in Loc and Can
and searched Loc’s house and office.

The police are also investigating the other offences committed by the two in
violation of management, accounting, finance, and land transfer regulations for
which they were dismissed.

Bus
overtakes truck, claims life

A
deadly road accident occurred at 3:00 pm Tuesday on road 784 which spans Thuan
Binh Hamlet, Truong Mit Commune, Duong Minh Chau District in southern Tay Ninh
Province, claiming one life on the spot.

Witnesses said Lam Trong Nghia, 32,
was speeding up his bus to overtake a truck ahead driven by 35-year-old Duong
Thanh Tri when the truck crashed head-on into a motorbike which was moving in
the opposite direction.

The motorbike rider, 40-year-old Ngo
Quoc Cuong, was killed immediately.

Nearsightedness afflicts 15-40% of population

Those with eye refractive defects
account for 15 to 40 per cent of the population, among whom children are the
most susceptible, said doctor Nguyen Chi Dung. A conference yesterday in Ha Noi
held by the National Eye Hospital reviewed the national eye care plan in Viet
Nam.

There
are 3 million of children from five to 16 years old suffering from eye
refractive defect nation-wide, he said.

What
should be noted is that the nearly 50 per cent of students in urban areas wear
glasses while the ratio in rural areas is only 10 to 15 per cent. About 10 per
cent of poor students need financial aid to buy corrective glasses.

Doctor
Dung said the main cause is study rooms in schools that have insufficient light.
In addition, the myopia ratio increase is parallel to children’s increased
exposure to electronics devices including TV and computers.

Do Nhu
Hon, the director’s hospital, said in Viet Nam there are 500,000 people with
total blindness. 1.5 million are visually impaired, predominantly due to
cataracts, which accounts for 66 per cent.

Nhon
said this was a dramatic decrease from the last decade, thanks to the attentive
support of the Government and international organisations.

He said
the great impediment in a fight against blindness is that many poor patients
don’t have money to cover treatment expenses.

A survey
shows that 10 to 30 per cent of patients are not financially capable of
diagnosing and treating their diseases.

As of
now, health insurance covers 80 per cent of the expenses of essential
hospitalisations and only 30 per cent for patients of nonessential
hospitalisation. There was a suggestion that the Ministry of Health should
consider covering 80 per cent of the expenses regardless of the nature of the
hospitalisation.

In
addition, the shortage of doctors presents another obstacle. For example, in the
central province of Binh Dinh, there are only 31 ophthalmologists, which
translates one ophthalmologist for every 48,000 people.

Officials busted
using fake school diplomas

Fifty two government officials in An Phu District, An Giang Province have been
recently found to use fake high school graduation diplomas.

They are all top officials at
district and commune levels with some being members of the communist party.

The officials all admitted that the
diplomas are counterfeited; and some confessed they had to resort to buying a
diploma at several million dong after repeatedly failing their high school
graduation exam.

Those were all eliminated from the
local election taking place late last month.

Local authorities will take severe
disciplinary action against those people, said Nguyen Van Thanh, secretary of
the An Phu party commission.

An Phu authorities are also
conducting an investigation into a related case in which the chairman of a
commune allegedly obtained his high school diploma by asking someone else to
impersonate him in a high school graduation exam.

Three killed, one
hurt as train ploughs into truck

A
train Tuesday afternoon hit a truck in the southern province of Dong Nai near Ho
Chi Minh City, killing three and seriously injuring another.

Initial investigation found the
truck numbered 54L – 6698 controlled by Vo Thanh Tam, 20, was hit and crushed by
a train at the intersection between railway and roadway located in Hoa Binh
commune in Trang Bom district.

The accident immediately killed
three, and severely wounded another, who was later taken to hospital for
emergency care.

Among the victims were three family
members.

The deceased were identified as Vo
Thanh Tam (the truck driver), Luong Thi Nga, 39, from Ho Chi Minh City’s
district 12, and Pham Van Thanh, 11 (Nga’s son) and the injured was Pham Van
Tam, 54 (Nga’s husband).

Tuoi Tre correspondents reported
there were not any barriers or traffic lights at the intersection except the
traffic sign.

Another death caused by hand-foot-mouth disease

A 25-month-old boy died of hand-foot-mouth disease
at Children’s Hospital in the southeastern province of Dong Nai on June 7.

Nguyen Minh Vao in Tan Mai 2 hamlet,
Phuoc Tan commune, Long Thanh district had been infected with hand-foot-mouth
disease at level 4.

Seven children in the province have
died of the disease so far.

According to Director Nguyen Le Da
Ha, her hospital has treated some 210 cases of infection which account for 30
percent of its total patients.

She warned that any children having
symptoms of the disease should be brought to hospital immediately.

Nine suffer acid burns in splashing incident

Nine
people suffered from acid burns on Saturday after suddenly being splashed with
acid by 56-year-old Le Cong Tro, according to southern Dong Nai Province’s Long
Khanh Town Police.

Four
people with severe burns were taken to Cho Ray Hospital in HCM City while the
rest were being treated at a local hospital.

Tro
splashed two five – litre cans of acid mixed with petrol onto the victims then
started a fire as they were on their way to a birthday party. Tro was injured in
the incident and is currently under police surveillance.

Saigontourist
welcomes 2,700 foreign visitors

Vietnam’s leading tour operator, Saigontourist,
received 2,700 foreign visitors from the five-star Super Star Virgo cruise ship
that docked in Ho Chi Minh City on June 7.

The tourists, coming from Singapore,
Malaysia and Australia, visited Ben Thanh market (HCM City), the Cu Chi Tunnels,
and My Tho city (Tien Giang province) where they enjoyed traditional cooking.

To date, Saigontourist has welcomed
over 29,000 foreign tourists from cruise ships.

VNN/VOV/TuoiTre/VNS