Day: February 20, 2022

The United Associations of Vietnamese Students in New South Wales, Australia (UAVS-NSW) held a conference to review its operation in 2021 and sketch out its plans for 2022.

Addressing the event, Vietnamese Deputy Consul General in Sydney Nguyen Thi Ha congratulated the UAVS on its achievements in 2021, noting that despite COVID-19, the association held many activities to link Vietnamese students and develop the Vietnamese community in Australia.

She said she hopes that the association will continue to strengthen its efforts to build a stronger Vietnamese community in the time to come when the Vietnam-Australia direct air route is reopened and the number of Vietnamese students in Australia increases.

Meanwhile, Dang Thuy Chi, a representative from the Vietnamese Embassy in Australia said that Australia is a favourite destination for Vietnamese students with about 20,900, forming the fourth largest foreign student community in Australia.

She underlined the important role of the community in strengthening the Vietnam-Australia relations, especially in culture and education, as well as in promoting Vietnamese culture in the country.

She said she hopes the association will organise more activities in the future, pledging that the embassy will continue to suport and accompany it in the future.

At the conference, participants selected a new executive committee of the UAVS for the 2022-2024 tenure.

Dang Minh Hung, the newly-elected President of the committee, delivered the association’s plans for 2022 and thanked the Vietnamese Consulate General in Sydney and the Vietnamese Embassy for supporting the association.

President of the Vietnamese Students’ Association in Australia Nguyen Phuc Binh pledged to continue to work hard to foster connections among Vietnamese students in the host country, thus contributing to developing the Vietnam-Australia relationship.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Customs officers and border guards at the Bo Y International Border Gate Customs Sub-Department in the Central Highlands province of Kon Tum on February 19 coordinated with local police to arrest a Lao suspect who was illegally transporting about 1kg of drug through the border.

Nang Xi Sup La, a 37-year-old woman residing in Attapeu province of Laos was caught carrying a plastic bag containing white substance that is suspected to be meths.

The authorities have handed over the suspect to the Bo Y Border Post for further investigation.

In 2021, the Bo Y International Border Gate Customs Sub-Department joined relevant forces to raid two drug trafficking cases involving two kilos of meths.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The Ministry of Transport announced that it had directed relevant agencies to provide information and documents related to the flights repatriating Vietnamese citizens from abroad to the Investigation Police Agency under the Ministry of Public Security to serve the investigation into the “taking bribery” case at the Consular Department under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In its statement released on February 19, the ministry said repatriation flights were carried out as the Party and State wanted to help Vietnamese stranded overseas with disadvantaged circumstances and demand for getting home amid COVID-19 outbreaks.

The Transport Ministry has worked closely with the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the Public Security Ministry, the Health Ministry, and the Defence Ministry to conduct these flights, as assigned by the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control.

The Transport Ministry was responsible for directing the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam (CAAV) to issue flight permits and flight service plans for the repatriation flights according to the Citizen Rescue Plan approved by the Consular Department on the basis of consensus among relevant ministries and agencies, according to the statement.

“This is a mandatory procedure under aviation law and international practice for all flights,” it noted.

In addition, the CAAV was in charge of informing and guiding airlines, domestic and foreign air traffic service providers, and airport operators in carrying out flight plans as well as COVID-19 regulations on flights and at airports, the statement reads.

Evaluating the demands of Vietnamese citizens stranded overseas, making the final list of approved passengers on these flights, licensing businesses to operate ‘combo’ or ‘rescue’ flights were not the tasks that the Transport Ministry were assigned, it claimed. It has been working closely and responsibly to facilitate the flights to meet the demands of the Vietnamese citizens overseas.

The Transport Ministry said that Investigation Police Agency has asked the ministry to provide a list of “rescue” flights to repatriate Vietnamese citizens stranded overseas during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was requested to direct units to provide the names of airlines, flight numbers, take-off and landing airports as well as aviation businesses that were authorised to operate these flights, the agency said in a document sent to the ministry.

The list of citizens returning from abroad on repatriation flights and contracts, payment costs of each flight, and conditions for citizens to return home should be clarified.

The agency also asked the Transport Ministry to hand over a list of individuals who are working at the ministry in charge of approving airlines and businesses that conducted “combo” (with fees paid by the passengers) and “rescue” flights which were free of charge.

Earlier, the Investigation Police Agency started legal proceedings against and arrested four high-ranking officials of the Consular Department for “taking bribes” in line with Article 354 of the Penal Code.

The four are Nguyen Thi Huong Lan, born in 1974, head of the Consular Department; Do Hoang Tung, born in 1980, deputy head of the department; Le Tuan Anh, born in 1982, chief of the department’s office; and Luu Tuan Dung, born in 1987, deputy head of the citizen protection desk at the department.

They are accused of seeking personal gain in licensing some companies that organised special flights to take Vietnamese citizens abroad home from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, with countries around the world enforcing various degrees of border closures.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s official visit to Thailand from February 24-26 is expected to bring ‘good news’ on the reopening of Thai-Malaysian land borders.

The visit will be made at the invitation of Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.

Matters to be discussed during the visit include the reopening of land borders, bilateral cooperation and exploring trade and investment opportunities post COVID-19.

The two sides will also discuss the recognising of each other’s vaccination certificates.

Last week, the Thai Foreign Affairs Ministry’s deputy spokesman Natapanu Nopakun said Thailand was planning to reopen its border with Malaysia in March to lure tourist arrivals, as Malaysian tourists have been the largest group of visitors to the kingdom before the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) and Tourism Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) has been ordered to prepare and outline the pandemic mitigation measures for the reopening of the southern border provinces in the checkpoints of Songkhla, Narathiwat, Yala and Satun

In 2019, Thailand welcomed nearly 40 million tourists, including 4.1 million from Malaysia.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The young Vietnamese men’s and women’s tennis teams on February 19 departed for Colombo, Sri Lanka to attend the qualifiers of the 2022 Junior Davis Cup and Junior Billie Jean King Cup for the Asia-Pacific region.

According to the Vietnam Tennis Federation (VTF), the male squad consists of Nguyen Minh Phat, Nguyen Dai Khanh and La Hoang Anh, while the female players are Sophia Huynh Tran Ngoc Nhi, Ngo Hong Hanh, and Dao Uyen My.

Coach Nguyen Phi Anh Vu of the men’s team said a difficulty facing the young Vietnamese tennis players is that they have not attended international tournaments for nearly two years.

However, they are in good mood with high determination, he added, highlighting their goal for advancement ahead.

The qualifier matches are slated for February 21-26. If winning this round, the young Vietnamese players will continue to participate in the qualifying finals in Malaysia from March 28 to April 2 for the Junior Billie Jean King Cup and from April 4-9 for the Junior Davis Cup.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Vietnam confirmed 47,200 new COVID-19 cases on February 20, including eight imported infections, according to the Ministry of Health.

The capital city of Hanoi continued to record the highest number of infections nationwide with 5,102 cases, followed by northern Bac Ninh province with 2,360 and northern Phu Tho province with 1,981.

The national case tally has now reached 2,787,493 since the start of the pandemic.

There are 2,347 patients in critical condition while an additional 78 deaths were recorded, taking the number of COVID-related fatalities to 39,501.

A total of 613,414 patients were given the all-clear on the day, taking the total number of recoveries to 2,281,434.

As many as 191,368,265 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered nationwide so far.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused Laos’ unemployment rate to soar, with more than 400,000 people either losing their jobs or not finding new ones, according to the Lao Federation of Trade Unions (LFTU).

Speaking at a press conference on an employment promotion event, Chanphen Maniseng from the LFTU said the pandemic-induced closure of factories and workshops has reduced the scale of production, negatively affected the labour force, and increased the unemployment rate in the Southeast Asian country.

Despite the Lao Government’s efforts to ease COVID-19 restrictions, many business activities in the country are yet to be fully recovered, pushing the nation’s unemployment rate to increase from 9.24 percent to 21.8 percent in 2021. The pandemic has caused 439,082 Lao workers at home and abroad to lose their jobs or stop working.

The government aims to reduce the unemployment rate to 19.4 percent in 2022 via supporting business recovery, skill training, and new job arrangement.

Source: Vietnam News Agency