Ministry tightens up on road hoons

The Ministry of Transport (MoT) is determined to tighten the enforcement of traffic violations as Traffic Safety Month and Hanoi's millennium celebrations approach.

The ministry released data showing a decrease in both the number of accidents as well as the numbers of deaths and injuries in the first six months of the year.

It reported 6,559 accidents, 18 less than the same period last year, while traffic fatalities totalled 5,610, a 4 percent drop.

However, the department said illegal motorbike racing and other violations causing traffic congestion and accidents has worsened in Hanoi and HCM City.

In the six-month period, the Traffic Police Department and the municipal security authorities stopped and punished 455,000 violators with total fines of 70 billion VND (3.8 million USD).

Minister of Transport Ho Nghia Dung asked the National Traffic Safety Committee in collaboration with Traffic Safety Department to establish interdisciplinary delegations in localities.

Nguyen Nhat Huy, head of the Hanoi municipal Transport Department's Urban Management Office said they had been rushing to implement solutions to ensure traffic safety during the one-month long campaign planned for next month, ahead of the anniversary.

"We will strictly punish those caught speeding, motorbike racing, drink driving and driving without helmets," Huy said.

He said authorities will review parking sites on pavements to abolish illegal parking that caused traffic jams.

In the coming time, the department will define streets forbidden from parking and invest in some parking sites in Tran Nhat Duat and Tran Quang Khai streets.

He added that it will also strengthen inspections of taxis, buses and trucks in the capital and stop their operation if they do not meet traffic safety requirements.

"We will construct traffic control posts at key traffic sites in the city which have policemen on duty 24 hours a day," he said.

He said camera systems will also be installed to supervise traffic at key routes. The department wants to ensure smooth traffic flows along notoriously bad routes, including Nguyen Trai-Tay Son-Nguyen Luong Bang-Ton Duc Thang, Giai Phong-Le Duan, Le Van Luong-Lang Ha-Giang Vo, Cau Giay-Kim Ma-Nguyen Thai Hoc.

To ease traffic congestion on belt roads, the department would segregate lanes.

Parking sites would also be arranged at Ly Thai To street, Ba Dinh Square and My Dinh National Stadium which will all host activities celebrating the anniversary.

"Bus services will be improved and special routes will operate for tourists during the event," he said./.

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Farmers withdraw suits against Vedan

More than 1,250 lawsuits filed by farmers in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province against Taiwanese MSG-maker Vedan Vietnam have been withdrawn after Vedan paid compensation to the farmers on Wednesday.

The lawsuits were filed to collect compensation for damage to farmland caused by the company's illegal discharge of untreated waste water into the Thi Vai River.

Nguyen Thanh Ngoc, the lawyer representing farmers in the province's Tan Thanh district, withdrew the lawsuits after Vedan paid 26.8 billion VND to 1,255 local farmers affected.

Tran Van Cuong, deputy head of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said the company on August 17 transferred half of the total 53.6 billion VND (2.8 million USD) compensation for Tan Thanh district's farmers.

The company also paid 500 million VND (26,000 USD) to cover costs of calculating the losses by Tan Thanh district authorities.

Cuong said the provincial People's Committee would entrust Tan Thanh District authorities to draw up a list of names of farmers and the payment amounts. The disbursement would then be conducted within the next five days.

In addition, Vedan on August 17 transferred 22.9 billion VND to the bank accounts of farmers in HCM City's Can Gio district, the only area in the city affected by the pollution.

They also gave 500 million VND (26,000 USD) to Can Gio district authorities to cover the costs of calculating the losses.

In Dong Nai province, farmers have yet to agree on the amount of compensation and they continue to file lawsuits against Vedan with more than 4,000 applications.

Dong Nai provincial People's Committee has ordered the Department of Natural Resources and Environment to visit the affected areas to talk to farmers and calculate the amount of financial losses and measure the land area affected by the pollution./.

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Dyke violation crackdown in Hanoi

Dyke violations are reducing their effectiveness in the approaching storm season yet little has been done to resolve the issue, said Hanoi’s Flood and Dyke Management Department director Do Duc Thinh.

"Serious violations are being reported, such as the presence of houses and other solid constructions on the dykes, but so far they have not resulted in a clearance of the dykes," Thinh said.

Statistics showed there were 4,700 violations of the city's 20 dyke lines, which cover 470km; 440 violations were discovered last year.

"Though statistics show 177 violations in the first six months of this year, the real number is higher," Thinh said. "New violations are emerging every day while local authorities have not resolved the old ones."

Most violations involved construction of houses, workshops, stocks and brick-kilns on dykes. Others included dumping construction rubbish, removing gravel and digging irrigation channels.

Violations occurred primarily in the Hong and Day riverside districts, including Ung Hoa, Dan Phuong, Phu Xuyen and Hoai Duc districts.

"About 40 percent of violations occurred along a 36km stretch in Ung Hoa district."

Pham Van Hien, head inspector of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said some districts have not taken drastic enough measures to handle the situation, being content to settle the simple violations and ignore the rest. Some offenders continued violating for years and years.

In fact, he said, Phu Xuyen district's Minh Phu, Van Nhan and Hong Thai communes had actually signed contracts with individuals to build 35 brick kilns on riverbanks, which was a direct infringement under the Dyke Law.

In addition, brick kiln owners illegally exploit dyke land and transport materials.

Thinh said local authorities had carried out inspections of the city's dyke system which resulted in the removal of illegal homes and other buildings.

"However, a lack of strict punishment on the violations makes the situation complicated," he said, adding clearances requires co-ordination.

"The best solution is to closely follow up with dyke management and to continuously improve the dykes before and after the rainy season," Thinh said.

He also recommended Hanoi create a resettlement land bank for families whose houses were removed from the dyke system./.

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Chau’s prize, a reward for ‘Vietnam’s endeavors’

Professor Martin Groetschel

Professor Martin Groetschel, secretary of the International Mathematics Union, and Professor Gerard Laumon, PhD guide of Fields Medal-winning mathematician Ngo Bao Chau, speak to Tuoi Tre.

Prof Groetschel, can you tell us about the Fields Medal and why it was conferred on Ngo Bao Chau?

Ngo Bao Chau’s … work focuses on a very complicated branch of research. His contribution, work on general reductive groups, is one of the key components of the fundamental lemma proposed by Robert Langlands, which successfully connects two important fields of mathematics, arithmetic and geometry. So, Chau has solved the foundation problems for developing Langlands’ program.

I congratulate Ngo Bao Chau and the sweet outcome of Vietnam’s endeavors to learn math.

As an experienced mathematician who has worked with Asians, what do you think about Vietnam’s progress in mathematics?

Let me express my respect for Vietnam’s great achievements in math since it has just started to develop from a war-torn and one of the poorest countries in the world. I have a feeling that most Vietnamese people desire to be educated well. So Vietnam must try to create the most favorable conditions for Vietnamese youths to step up.

My first Vietnamese PhD candidate will soon hand in his work and I am instructing a Vietnamese master’s candidate in Berlin.

Prof Laumon, can you recall when you first met Ngo Bao Chau and why did you choose to instruct him as a PhD candidate?

It was Chau’s presentation for his MA degree that persuaded me since I had no good research topics for a PhD candidate. Michel Broue, who was in charge of math at École Normale Supérieure at that time, had a good impression of Chau and convinced me to be Chau’s PhD guide.

What do you think about Chau’s achievement?

It is the peak of the first half of his career and he now leads the world in math.

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Ministry tightens up on road hoons

Policemen fine traffic violators on Pham Hung Street in Ha Noi's Cau Giay District. — VNA/VNS Photo Bui Tuong

HA NOI — The Ministry of Transport (MoT) is determined to tighten the enforcement of traffic violations as Traffic Safety Month and Ha Noi's millennium celebrations approach.

The ministry released data showing a decrease in both the number of accidents as well as the numbers of deaths and injuries in the first six months of the year.

It reported 6,559 accidents, 18 less than the same period last year, while traffic fatalities totalled 5,610, a 4 per cent drop.

However, the department said illegal motorbike racing and other violations causing traffic congestion and accidents had worsened in Ha Noi and HCM City.

In the six-month period, the Traffic Police Department and the municipal security authorities stopped and punished 455,000 violators with total fines of VND70 billion (US$3.8 million).

Minister of Transport Ho Nghia Dung asked the National Traffic Safety Committee in collaboration with Traffic Safety Department to establish interdisciplinary delegations in localities.

Nguyen Nhat Huy, head of the municipal Transport Department's Urban Management Office said they had been rushing to implement solutions to ensure traffic safety during the one-month long campaign planned for next month, ahead of the anniversary.

"We will strictly punish those caught speeding, motorbike racing, drink driving and driving without helmets," Huy said.

He said authorities would review parking sites on pavements to abolish illegal parking that caused traffic jams.

In the coming time, the department would define streets forbidden from parking and invest in some parking sites in Tran Nhat Duat and Tran Quang Khai streets.

He added that it would also strengthen inspections of taxis, buses and trucks in the capital and stop their operation if they did not meet traffic safety requirements.

"We will construct traffic control posts at key traffic sites in the city which have policemen on duty 24 hours a day," he said.

He said camera systems would also be installed to supervise traffic at key routes. The department wanted to ensure smooth traffic flows along notoriously bad routes, including Nguyen Trai-Tay Son-Nguyen Luong Bang-Ton Duc Thang, Giai Phong-Le Duan, Le Van Luong-Lang Ha-Giang Vo, Cau Giay-Kim Ma-Nguyen Thai Hoc.

To ease traffic congestion on belt roads, the department would segregate lanes.Parking sites would also be arranged at Ly Thai To Street, Ba Dinh Square and My Dinh National Stadium which will all host activities celebrating the anniversary.

"Bus services will be improved and special routes will operate for tourists during the event," he said. — VNS

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Flyover eases road congestion

Traffic congestion at the Cat Lai T-junction and the Ha Noi Highway has been eased due to the newly opened Cat Lai flyover. — VNA/VNS Photo Hoang Hai

HCM CITY — A flyover bridge over the Cat Lai T-junction has significantly eased traffic congestion on the Ha Noi Highway, HCM City officials have said.

The highway, which links HCM City with Dong Nai Province's Bien Hoa City, was built in 1961 and is 31km in length and 21m in width.

Luong Cong Thanh, director of the Cong Thanh Transport Enterprise, said in the past the highway often faced heavy traffic jams at the section from the Sai Gon River Bridge to the Tan Van intersection.

The area's traffic jams were caused by congestion at the Cat Lai T-junction, Thanh said.

The new fly-over bridge is 300m in length, linking the Rach Chiec Sports Complex with the Cat Lai T-Junction in District 2.

It comprises approach roads totalling 200m and has a main span of 100m.

Now that the bridge is open, traffic congestion at the Cat Lai T-junction and the Ha Noi Highway has nearly ceased, according to Nguyen Van Quang, driver for the Dang Tien Transport Company.

Before the bridge was built, drivers of container trucks faced a dangerous bend in the road at the section linking the Cat Lai T-junction and the Ha Noi Highway and had to wait a long time at traffic lights.

But now all of these problems have ended.

Duong Quang Chau, director of the HCM City Infrastructure Investment Joint-stock Company (CII), said the construction of the Cat Lai flyover was one of several projects that the HCM City government developed over the last few years to reduce traffic on the Ha Noi Highway.

One of the major projects is to widen the Ha Noi Highway from the current six to eight lanes at an 8.5-km section from the Sai Gon Bridge to the Thu Duc crossroads, Chau said.

The project will be implemented in three phases on three sections of the road: from the Sai Gon River Bridge to the Rach Chiec River; from the Rach Chiec Bridge to the Thu Duc Crossroads; and from the Thu Duc Crossroads to the Tan Van traffic intersection.

Although the plan was developed in April this year, a majority of the construction work of the section from the Rach Chiec Bridge to the Thu Duc Crossroads has been completed, he said.

All work needed to enlarge the Ha Noi Highway would be finished at the end of the next year.

Together with some other projects, the projects to widen the Ha Noi Highway and build the Cat Lai flyover would help ease the traffic congestion on the highway, Chau said. — VNS

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Committee to discuss adoption guidelines

HA NOI — The National Assembly Standing Committee will discuss the Government's proposal to ratify adoption guidelines under the Hague Convention on Protection of Children during its 33th session that starts today.

The committee will also discuss for the first time drafts of laws on insurance trading, court appeals, human trafficking - and measurements.

The law on human trafficking will tighten regulations on adoption, foreign marriages, labour exports and tourism.

According to a report by the law drafting board, human trafficking, especially of women and women, has become more serious in the past five years.

The draft law proposes many new measures to prevent trafficking, including the application of modern technology at international border gates to check on fake documents.

The committee will also consider different opinions on draft laws covering consumer rights and civil procedures.

On the final day of the session on August 26, the committee will discuss a Government proposal to ratify inter-country adoption.

Reports on security and social order and the situation in the East Sea will also be presented at the meetings.

The Government will also present a report on the trial implementation of the abolishment of People's Councils at district and ward levels at the eighth plenary session of the National Assembly in October. — VNS

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