Day: January 7, 2022

The Government Office has issued a document regarding Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam’s guideline on the supply of medical oxygen for the treatment of COVID-19 patients.

Per request of the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) on the issue, the Deputy PM assigned the MoIT and the Ministry of Health to continue carrying out guidelines stipulated by the Prime Minister in previous documents on the work.

In case measures are needed to ensure the supply, the MoIT may halt or limit oxygen exports.

The Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Public Security are ordered to facilitate the transport of medical oxygen, meeting the demand for treatment.

The Ministry of Finance is instructed to join hands with the Health Ministry, the MoIT and relevant ministries to promptly decide on a suitable price support mechanism for medical oxygen manufacturing and transport facilities in emergencies, in accordance with the law.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam has signed a decision to approve a programme on the supply of public telecommunications services by 2025.

The programme offers compulsory services for society and universal services for remote, border and island areas and those with extremely difficult socio-economic conditions.

It targets supporting 800,000 poor, near-poor households, social welfare beneficiaries, and others to get data terminal equipment for learning and communications. Meanwhile, 100 percent of the communes with extremely difficult socio-economic conditions as well as island communes and districts will be assisted to secure access to public broadband internet services.

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Illustrative photo (Source: ictnews.vietnamnet.vn)

In particularly, the programme will equip its targeted households with 400,000 tablets, as well as partly finance the cost of 400,000 smart phones for those in need.

Notably, fishermen will be subsidised to pay for their use of maritime mobile

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The National Tourism Year 2022 will officially kick off on March 25 in Hoi An city of the central coastal province of Quang Nam.

According to Director of the provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Thanh Hong, the National Tourism Year 2022 themed “Quang Nam – A green tourism destination” will help the locality introduce its traditional culture and tourism potential to international friends.

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A view of Hoi An ancient town (Photo: VNA)

The provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism will coordinate with the Tourism Association to organise tourism promotion campaigns via technological platforms and social networks, he said

The event is also expected to help Quang Nam gradually resume domestic tourism activities and attract international visitors in the coming time.

Two world heritage sites in Quang Nam – Hoi An ancient town and My Son Sanctuary – began to welcome foreign tourists starting November 15, 2021.

The roadmap to welcome foreign visitors will be rolled out in three phases, with the first one running from mid-November to November 30 and the second one between December 1 and January 31, 2022.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The best possible conditions will be created for overseas Vietnamese (OVs) to return to the homeland with safety from the pandemic ensured, especially now that the Lunar New Year festival is just around the corner, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Quang Hieu has said.

Talking to the Vietnam News Agency, the Chairman of the State Committee for OV Affairs also said repatriating OVs amid the COVID-19 pandemic is a major policy of the Party and State.

During the recent overseas trips by Vietnamese leaders, OVs expressed their wish to visit the homeland, attracting great attention from Party and State leaders who have ordered maximum conditions be created.

He noted that amid the complex pandemic situation around the world, including Vietnam, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) has worked with relevant ministries and sectors to arrange many flights repatriating those with special disadvantages, particularly the workers losing their jobs to the pandemic.

In 2021, MoFA coordinated with the ministries of national defence, health, public security, and transport in organising 173 flights repatriating over 50,000 people of the priority groups. Besides, another 400 flights brought home about 70,000 others. All of those people went to quarantine facilities right after their arrival back to the country.

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Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Quang Hieu (Photo: VNA)

Hieu said to meet OVs’ demand for returning to the homeland for the Lunar New Year festival – a traditional occasion for family reunion, as directed by Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh, MoFA and related agencies have been working to resume regular international flights to the places with high pandemic safety, firstly Beijing/Guangzhou (China), Tokyo, Seoul,Taipei (Taiwan, China), Bangkok, Singapore, Vientiane, Phnom Penh, and San Francisco/Los Angeles (the US), starting on January 1, 2022.

However, as demand among the expatriates is even greater, the ministries have proposed more international flights, aside from those linking with the nine above-mentioned places, be conducted in the form of charter flights to bring home OVs from other countries like what was done in 2020 and the first half of last year, with compliance with anti-pandemic rules ensured.

To do this, on December 16, 2021, the Ministry of Health issued guidance on COVID-19 prevention and control for people entering Vietnam. Accordingly, those who have been fully vaccinated only have to carry out quarantine at their home for three days while the unvaccinated ones must stay at concentrated quarantine sites for a longer period of time. Besides, MoFA is also discussing the “vaccine passport” recognition with other countries’ authorities so as to facilitate OVs’ travel, the Deputy Minister went on.

As the pandemic remains complicated, especially now that many new coronavirus variants have appeared, and countries are taking different response actions, the repatriation must be aligned with the situation, he noted, adding that the most important thing is to provide the best possible conditions for OVs to travel with ensured pandemic safety.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The annual “Xuan Que Huong” (Homeland Spring) programme 2022, a run-up to the Lunar New Year festival for Overseas Vietnamese (OVs), will take place in Hanoi on January 22.

Speaking at a press conference in Hanoi on January 7, Pham Quang Hieu, head of the State Committee for Overseas Vietnamese Affairs under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said this year’s event will include a string of activities, namely an incense offering ceremony, carp releasing and a meeting between senior Party and State leaders with outstanding OVs.

President Nguyen Xuan Phuc is expected to extend New Year wishes to OVs. An art exchange will also be staged on the occasion, featuring the development of Vietnamese music and harmonisation between preserving and promoting the traditional cultural values of the nation.

The programme will be held in-person and virtual forms and be broadcast live on Vietnam Television’s VTV1 and VTV4 channels, Hieu said.

As many as 300 OVs are expected to take part in the face-to-face event at the Hanoi Opera House, including 100 persons with outstanding achievements in such fields as culture, science and technology.

Organised regularly since 2008, the programme has become a much anticipated event attracting a large number of expatriates from all corners around the globe.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

A virtual photo exhibition entitled ‘Vietnam – India: 50 years of cooperation’ began on January 7.

The event is in celebration of the 50th founding anniversary of the Vietnam – India diplomatic ties (January 7, 1972 – 2022) and five years since the establishment of the two countries’ Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (September 2016 – 2021).

Held by the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) together with the Embassy of India in Vietnam and the Vietnam – India Friendship Association, the exhibition can be viewed at https://link.gov.vn/TLAVNAD (in Vietnamese) and https://link.gov.vn/PICVNAD (in English) until January 11.

In her opening remarks, VNA General Director Vu Viet Trang emphasised that amid complex developments of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is hard for many activities to take place on a large scale.

“The VNA and the co-organisers wish to highlight the historic landmarks in the traditional and long-standing friendship between the two countries, as well as the profound sentiment and sharing that the countries’ peoples have given to each other over the last five decades,” she added.

Vietnam and India boast a long-standing friendship. The foundation of their friendship was set up by the two preeminent leaders – President Ho Chi Minh and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Through ups and downs in history, the sound traditional friendship between Vietnam and India has always been nurtured, consolidated, and developed to a new level by generations of the two countries’ leaders and people in the interests of both sides, and it has been developing well across all fields.

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Indian Ambassador to Vietnam Pranay Vermah speaks at the event. (Photo: VNA)

For his part, Indian Ambassador to Vietnam Pranay Verma thanked the VNA for sharing some rare pictures from its archives to commemorate the 50th founding anniversary of diplomatic ties.

He said the photo exhibition offers a glimpse of some precious historical moments in the India-Vietnam relations and captures the depth of the bilateral ties and close friendship.

The common values and interests, along with the deep mutual trust and understanding, have turned Vietnam into an important partner of India in terms of bilateral, regional, and global cooperation, the diplomat continued.

He expressed his belief that the close friendship between the two peoples will become increasingly strong and the Vietnam – India relations will reach new levels.

The display features 50 black-and-white and colour archive photos which truthfully and vividly reflect the increasingly strong solidarity, friendship, and cooperation between the peoples of Vietnam and India.

The photos by the VNA introduce to the public touching moments of bilateral ties, from President Ho Chi Minh’s warm reception for Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru during the latter’s visit to Vietnam (on October 17, 1954) to the presence of both President Prasat and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru at New Delhi airport to welcome President Ho Chi Minh, the warm welcome by New Delhi people for the Vietnamese leader during his India visit in February 1958, along with an image of Hanoians lining the street to welcome Indian President Prasat to Vietnam on March 22, 1959.

Visitors can get a look at important milestones in the two countries’ relations, including the signing ceremony of the Joint Declaration on the Framework of Comprehensive Cooperation between Vietnam and India as they enter the 21st Century; the elevation of bilateral ties to a Strategic Partnership and then to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership; Indian President Ram Nath Kovind’s attendance in the sixth session of the 14th National Assembly of Vietnam; as well as activities in economic and defence cooperation, people-to-people diplomacy, and mutual support and assistance in the combat against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Police in Duc Hoa district of the Mekong Delta province of Long An on January 7 issued decisions to prosecute four individuals living at a family Buddhist worship place named “Tinh that bong lai” in Hoa Khanh Tay commune for “abusing the rights to freedom and democracy to violate interests of the State, rights and legitimate interests of organisations and individuals” under Article 331 of the 2015 Penal Code (revised and supplemented in 2017).

According to Deputy Director of the provincial police Colonel Van Cong Minh, the district police investigation agency also issued decisions on the arrest of Le Thanh Hoan Nguyen, 32; Le Thanh Nhat Nguyen, 31; and Le Thanh Trung Duong, 28. Meanwhile, the 90-year-old defendant Le Tung Van was banned from leaving the residential place.

These decisions have been approved by the People’s Procuracy of Duc Hoa district.

The case is brought to light after the police received numerous complaints from citizens about the establishment, which said the establishment’s founder – Cao Thi Cuc, took advantage of religions and charitable activities for her own benefits.

The Executive Board of the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha (VBS) in Long An affirmed that the establishment, now named “Thien am ben bo vu tru”, is not under the management of the VBS’s Long An chapter, and those living there are not Buddhist monks and nuns.

Initial investigations reveal that 62-year-old Cuc has turned the nearly 2,000sq.m land lot in Hoa Khanh Tay commune, Duc Hoa district, into a family worship place after purchasing it in 2014.

Van, moved in to live with Cuc in 2015, earning his living on child adoption.

In fact, most of the children the group announced to be orphans or homeless are living with their mothers in the worship place that accommodates 18 people, of whom six are with their mothers.

The establishment has called for support from donors at home and abroad for the children under the cover of caring for orphans, thus affecting social security and order and causing public concern.

Notably, the group has used different social network accounts to publish video clips distorting the fact about the case.

Source: Vietnam News Agency