Vietnam: Biggest rhino horns transit nation

Vietnam is the largest transit nation of the illegal transportation of wild animal samples such as rhino horns and elephant tusks, heard a meeting on managing samples of wild animals enlisted in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in HCMC last week.

At the meeting with local media on Thursday, Do Quang Tung, director of CITES Vietnam, reported the grim news and insisted that the reason for this is due to a loose legal system lacking deterrence.

“Many illegal shipments of wild animal samples to Vietnam have been detected since 2004, with a total of nearly 150 kilos of rhino horns and more than 25 tons of elephant tusks detained. This must be the biggest detained volume in the world,” he said.

Besides, the number of Vietnamese citizens arrested for hunting and carrying rhino horns and elephant tusks in South Africa is also considered the largest number compared to other countries, Tung said. There have been around 30 Vietnamese arrested and sent to prison due to rhino horn and elephant tusk hunting and trading in South Africa at different times.

“Around 400-500 rhinos are hunted illegally in South Africa annually, with most of their horns transited in Vietnam. We suppose that Vietnam couldn’t consume all the volume based on investigations but we have still failed to find a convincing answer to the problem,” Tung said.

Khuong Thi Minh Hang of the Supreme People’s Procuracy said that Vietnamese law had yet to strictly apply administrative sanctions or criminal punishment to offenders carrying rhino horns and elephant tusks, which is seen as the country’s biggest legal shortcoming.

“The strictest punishment for such crimes is seven years in prison only while profits of the illegal actions are so huge which are equivalent to profits from drug trafficking, making it easy to understand why Vietnam is the biggest transit nation for the illegal transport of the two items globally,” she stressed.

The market price of rhino horns is as much as US$25,000 a kilo while that of elephant tusks is US$4,000 a kilo, Hanh noted. Tung, meanwhile, informed rhino horns sold for around VND130 million per 100 grams in HCMC at the moment. The costly prices result from the strong belief of locals that rhino horns can heal fatal diseases like cancer, he told the meeting.

Professor Nguyen Lan Dung, chairman of the Vietnam Biological Industries’ Association, at the meeting quoted scientific evidence saying that rhino horns don’t heal cancer or impotence and that taking overdoses of the items could cause liver poisoning.

Slim hope for Vung Tau boat collision victims

Rescue workers have continued searching for the remaining 7 missing aboard a Vietnamese sunken boat after a September 16 collision with Singapore’s cargo ship Sima Saphire in the waters off Vung Tau coast.

They spent the whole day on September 16 combing through the area where the boat sank, but tried in vain.

Two foreign container ships were asked to support the search, along with the deployment of two Defence Ministry helicopters.

Four of the 8 rescued were brought ashore early on September 17 for medical care (Photo:VNE)

However, heavy rains and rough seas caused by a low tropical depression hampered rescue efforts.

Sima Saphire saved eight Vietnamese fishermen, four of whom were brought ashore for intensive medical care due to bad health conditions.  

The four remaining remain aboard Sima Saphire to help with rescue work.

They said due to the strong collision their fishing boat broke in half before it sank.

Sources say the remaining 7 missing, including the captain, might have been trapped in the fishing net.

Noodles found with banned chemicals

Random tests of the products sold by all rice noodle and rice vermicelli makers in the Mekong Delta province of Hau Giang have shown that more than half the samples contained banned chemicals.

According to the provincial Food Safety and Hygiene Department, of the 48 samples tested over four inspections, 20 samples of rice vermicelli were positive for Tinopal, an optical brightener used in papermaking, detergents and other cleaning agents. Four samples of rice powders and two samples of rice noodles were positive for Tinopal and oxalic acid, a chemical substance banned in food processing.

The department has worked with the local health department to fine nine producers more than VND100 million (US$4,700), with 12 other companies to receive similar punishment soon.

Saudi man gets money back

A Saudi Arabian has been handed back US$1,500 he gave to a Vietnamese to hire him a domestic helper.

The Vietnamese, Nguyen Tien Dung, from Dong Anh District left to work in Singapore shortly after receiving the money.

When the Saudi citizen, Heendy Anzi, failed to hear from Dung, he went to the Saudi Arabian Embassy to ask for advice.

The Embassy contacted Ha Noi police whose investigations revealed the deal had been made. They ordered the man's family, which was holding the money, to hand it back..

Poor students get on their bicycles

The Learning Promotion Association in the northern province of Nam Dinh yesterday handed 800 bicycles, worth nearly VND900 million (US$42,800), to local underprivileged students.

The students, who have overcome difficulties to gain good results in their studies, include 46 children of war invalids who suffered from Agent Orange/Dioxin.

In the last three years, the association has mobilised money from many sources to hand over 2,000 bicycles to poor students.

Flying inspections reveal illegal clinics in HCM City

A number of private clinics near HCM City's Oncology Hospital have been discovered to be operating without permits after an unscheduled inspection by the city's Health Department.

A clinic at 48 Nguyen Huy Luong Street has been requested to halt its work immediately after inspectors found discrepancies in the registration forms and staff were unable to present any certification of medical capacity. The department has collected the names of eight doctors at the clinic along with a stash of evidence.

In addition, three nearby clinics on the same street have been discovered overstretching their staff and assigning specialist tasks to untrained doctors. The clinic at 48B has been told to close due to its lack of an operation license.

According to a recent report from the Health Department, only 2.5 per cent of health care practices do not have a licence.

However, touts outside the Oncology Hospital have been taking advantage of the overloaded amount of patients by introducing them to nearby private clinics, claiming money for taking them there and causing a headache for authorities.

HCMC looks to slash poverty rates by 2015

Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) is trying to lower the rate of poor households down to less than 1% of the total households by 2015.

This is part of the city's program to reduce poor households and increase well-off ones in the 2013-2015 period in a bid to cut local poverty rates by 1.5-1.8% annually.

As of 2012, the rate of poor households in which personal income stood at VND 10 million/year was 4.2%, said Hua Ngoc Thuan, Vice Chairman of the HCMC People’s Committee at a seminar which was jointly held by the city, Mekong Development Research Institute and United Nations Development Program.  

So far, half of the poor households have received assistance on healthcare insurance and preferential loans from the Fund for Hunger Elimination and Poverty Reduction to do business and raise income.

In addition, around 5,000 households living in dangerous areas were resettled to safer places.

Vocational training and job creation services covered over 60% of poor households.

Despite the aforesaid achievements, the poor's limited awareness of the interests of health insurance and inefficient use of preferential loans are major difficulties for local residents to get out of poverty in a sustainable way, according to a UNDP official.

To maximize the benefits of the program, Deputy Director of the HCMC Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs Nguyen Thi Thanh Mai suggested the city focus on reviewing and classifying poor households for proper assistance.

The city also needs to adjust the credit policies and disseminate the importance of vocational training as a long-term solution for poverty eradication, she said.

EU helps to improve local governance

The European Union and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) - a German political foundation - have co-funded 425,000 euros (US$564,700) to improve the governance capacity of local agencies and local small businesses in three cities of Viet Nam.

The two-year project implemented by the Association of Cities of Viet Nam (ACVN) and KAS targets northern Hai Duong City, central Hue City and southern Tay Ninh City, project manager Ngo Thi Tam said at the project launching ceremony.

Making up over 90 per cent of the total number of enterprises in Viet Nam, small-and medium-sized enterprises and family businesses have played important roles in sustaining economic growth, reducing poverty, creating jobs and improving the lives of people in the country.

However, local small businesses face challenges, including a lack of available and relevant business training, lack of competent technical advisors, information and technology issues, and limited access to capital.

Communication barriers between local governments and business sectors and the lack of supportive policy mechanisms pose further challenges to enterprises.

"When the business is prospering, more jobs would be created, helping to approach sustainable development," said Nguyen Lan, an advisor to the association.

Lan noted that to some extent, sustainable local governance means to ensure economic growth and living conditions for people, but even in urban areas it remains a challenge.

Under the project, policy dialogues between the central government level and stakeholders would be organised. ACVN will lead the exchange of best practices, draw conclusions and develop national policy recommendations to contribute to the improvement of the legislative framework related to small, local, and family businesses.

Speaking at the project launching ceremony yesterday, Dr. Franz Jessen, Ambassador - head of delegation of the EU to Viet Nam said that the innovative project would contribute to promoting better economic and social conditions for the population in the cities as well as provide practical policy inputs for the Government.

More cases of dengue fever reported in central region

It is the peak dengue season, with many provinces and cities reporting a rise in the incidence of the disease in recent weeks, the Preventive Medicine Department has said.

Dr Nguyen Van Binh, the department head, said the number of people contracting the mosquito-born disease would increase soon since September-October is the peak time.

The department has dispatched experts to high-risk areas like the central region and Tay Nguyen (Central Highlands) to monitor and prevent outbreaks.

It has provided more chemicals to destroy mosquito larvae to the central provinces of Quang Binh and Binh Dinh.

This has been a bad year for the central region's 11 provinces, which have reported a 2.5-fold increase year-on-year in the incidence of dengue in the first eight months.

The worst affected are the provinces of Binh Dinh, Khanh Hoa, Quang Ngai, and Quang Binh.

In the Central Highlands, the incidence has soared by seven times.

Nguyen Nhat Cam, head of the Ha Noi Preventive Medicine Centre, said the number of patients in the city this year has shot up by 34 per cent to 716.

But in the country as a whole, the incidence of the disease has fallen by almost half from last year.

Only around 40,000 cases have been reported so far.

Ha Long relocation plan lacks funding

A project to move those living in floating villages in Ha Long Bay to solid ground has been implemented more slowly than expected because there is not enough funding, said Tran Trong Trung, chairman of the Ha Long People's Committee.

There are currently 625 floating houses in Ha Long Bay, home to 2,100 people. Only 89 households have houses on land. Efforts to relocate the others to solid ground began in 2012; 122 households were resettled by last May.

But building houses for the others requires VND206 billion (US$9.5 million), a sum that includes VND39 billion ($1.8 million) for compensation and VND167 billion ($7.6 million) for building the eight-hectare resettlement area in Ha Tu District, which will contain 364 houses.

The provincial party secretary, Nguyen Minh Chinh, asked relevant agencies to complete the project by 2014.

The idea behind the project is to make the city environment cleaner and safer and create a better life for residents, Trung said.

Not only are there not enough funds; the residents are also concentrating on breeding season, making it difficult for them to think about moving.

Fake helmets lead to brain injuries

Fake helmets have flooded the market again following the temporary halt of a circular fining riders caught using them.

This has led to a call for the system to be changed so that manufacturers producing deadly "protective" helmets are fined instead.

The chairman of the HCM City Association for Consumer Rights, Ngo Bach Phong, said that substandard helmets were now widely on sale for about VND30,000-60,000 (US$1.40- 2.80), a quarter of the price for genuine goods.

Nguyen Thanh Hau, director of A Chau Plastic Trading and Manufacturing complained that genuine helmets could not compete with substandard ones, although the company had cut prices.

Health experts said that wearing a good helmet could reduce the risk of serious injuries by 69 per cent, and fatalities by 42 per cent.

However, according to the National Committee of Traffic Safety, 70 per cent of helmet wearers use fake or substandard products.

Of the 278 motor-cycle victims hospitalised at the HCM City-based Cho Ray Hospital during the National Day holidays,189 suffered from brain injuries because they were wearing fake helmets, according to the hospital.

More than 60 per cent of helmets fail to provide important information, including a product code and the name of the manufacturer and the company address.

Deputy Head of HCM City's Market Watch Department, Nguyen Van Bach, said the authority had handled nearly 290 cases of fake and substandard helmets in the past five months.

"Some enterprises produce substandard helmets and stick Conformity to Regulation (CR) stamps on them to sell on the market. In other words, they deliberately produce both safe and unsafe helmets. This hinders agencies from detecting violations", Bach said.

He suggested that to overcome the problem, CR stamps must be directly issued by quality control agencies.

Lawyer Thai Van Chung said it was not easy for people to distinguish between substandard helmets and genuine ones. He proposed that instead of fining users, agencies should crack down on manufacturers and importers.

Smuggled wood seized in Ha Giang

More than 2.5cu.m of rare and highly valuable timber was seized on a truck by police in northern border Ha Giang Province on Thursday.

The driver could not show any papers relating to the origin of the timber, which is known as Ngoc Am (Cupressus funebris). The truck and its cargo, including tree roots, is being kept while police hold further investigations.

Oil extracted from the timber can be used to treat many diseases. In addition, the wood has spiritual value because it was once used to embalm members of the nobility.

Imported medicine to be checked

The Health Ministry's Drug Administration on Thursday requested its agencies to start checking medicine imported into Viet Nam by foreign pharmaceutical companies before they are sold on the market.

The directive applies to companies that previously produced substandard medicinal products for import to Viet Nam.

The results are expected to be announced within 15 days after the agencies take adequate samples and importers meet medicinal testing requirements.

The move came after management authorities recently detected and recalled batches of substandard medicinal imports. The order will take effect on October 1.

Son La police make arrests in drugs case

Sop Cop District Police in northern Son La Province on Thursday arrested three suspects for trafficking drugs.

The suspects, aged between 23 and 40, included two Vietnamese from Muong Leo Commune, and a Laotian.

According to police, the suspects were caught using drugs at a local hotel early this week. Over 8,000 methamphetamine pills, two motorbikes, two mobile phones and two bullets were seized.

Further investigations are continuing.