City’s hospitals to get new effluent treatment systems

Untreated wastewater from medical establishments pose serious health risks to humans, as it contains germs and viruses that cause diarrhea, typhoid and dysentery. The danger of hospitals’ untreated effluents discharging into the environment is enormous, with hospitals complaining that their wastewater treatment systems are too old. In response, HCMC’s hospitals are to receive new treatment systems, it was recently announced.

The Tumor Hospital’s wastewater treatment system (Photo: SGGP)

After the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Natural Resources and Environment announced that the Trauma and Orthopedics Hospital had not treated its effluent adequately, Do Trong Thuy, chief of the hospital’s Administration Division, explained the wastewater treatment system, built in 1994, was too old to remove physical, chemical and biological contaminants.

Moreover, the hospital’s treatment system cannot meet legal standards, as the hospital receives over 3,000 patients a day, who produce around 500 cubic meters of waste water, while the treatment system can only handle 400 cubic meters a day, said Mr. Thuy.

Mr Thuy’s colleague at Cho Ray Hospital, Nguyen Quoc Tuong, said his hospital was built when the French governed the country in 1900 and used simple on-site alternative septic tanks.

Japan rebuilt the hospital in 1972, using biological technology. However, it just meets the requisites necessary for 500 beds though today the hospital admits over 30,000 people annually.

Similarly, the Tumor Hospital endures the same situation when its sludge treatment system was set up in 1991, but now the number of inpatients is threefold compared to that in 1991. It cannot satisfy the national standard of wastewater discharge.

The city’s government has approved the building of wastewater treatment systems in hospitals by using State funds.

The total investment for the project to build Cho Ray’s effluent treatment system, with a capacity of 4,200 cubic meters of water, is VND6 billion, said Mr. Tuong.

The hospital invited bids and started construction in November, 2009. The system is expected to put into operation in the second quarter of 2010. The old system will still be used until the new system is completed.

The Tumor Hospital’s deputy head, Trinh Xuan Dung, announced that a new wastewater treatment system, at a total cost of VND7 billion and a capacity of 700 cubic meters of water, would go into operation in April 2010.

The hospital will use a temporary treatment system for the meantime.

Tran Nguyen Hien, from Department of Natural Resources and Environment, said hospitals have concentrated on investing in effluent treatment systems, however, they have not satisfied legal standards.

Currently, some hospitals like Children I, Hung Vuong, Tu Du, Nhan Dan Gia Dinh, are calling for social contributions for building new systems.

Ten other hospitals have not begun construction, citing changes to original proposals.

Sai Gon General Hospital, the Trauma and Orthopedics Hospital, Cu Chi General Hospital and Institute of Herbs have just set up plans for bids.

Relevant agencies have imposed administrative penalties on hospitals, which delayed construction of new systems. However, agencies cannot close the old systems down.

Some people have questioned whether the Department of Health and relevant agencies should have meted out heavier punishments in a bid to force hospitals to speed up the building treatment systems.

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Lan Huong to take part in Miss Model pageant

Model Nguyen Ngoc Lan Huong will represent the country to compete in the Miss Model of The World 2009, which takes place in China from November 9 to 29, it was recently announced.

Model Nguyen Ngoc Lan Huong will travel to China for the Miss Model of the World 2009 in November.

The 1.75 meters tall, 19 year old model is new to the Vietnamese fashion industry and left a deep impression with the audience and jury at the 2009 Vietnam Super Model Contest in May. Since then, she has taken part in many fashion shows around the country.

Her strong points are beautiful face and attractive performing style.

Fashion designer Hoang Hai will prepare her evening gowns, meanwhile designer Thuan Viet will create an Ao dai for her to wear at the pageant.

The Miss Model of the World contest was founded in 1988 by Çevik Suha Alpayli of Turkey. The pageant has gone onto become the world’s premier modeling contest.

The pageant has attracted more than 10,000 professional models from 70 countries over the past 20 years.

This year’s Miss Model of the World draws more than 60 contestants from throughout the world.

In related news, Truong Thi May, the first runner-up of the 2007 Miss Vietnamese Ethnic Group beauty contest, who recently suffered a serious sprain when she fell down a flight of stairs, has missed a chance to take part in the Earth 2009 pageant in the Philippines in November, said Elite Vietnam.

With little time to find a replacement, Vietnam will be absent from Miss Earth 2009.

Related article:
Miss Ethnic Vietnam runner-up to compete in Miss Earth 2009

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Typhoon Mirinae to make landfall, weaken November 2

Typhoon Mirinae will make landfall over the central region between Binh Dinh and Ninh Thuan Provinces and weaken into a tropical low pressure zone on November 2, the national weather bureau has said.

Storm Mirinae lashes Phu Yen Province on November 2 (Photo: Thanh Nien)

The National Hydro Meteorological Forecast Center said the system would pack winds of up to level 7, or 50-61 kilometers an hour, with gusts of up to level 8 or 9.

On November 1 the storm lay 450 km east of the coast between Quang Ngai and Phu Yen Provinces and was moving west at a speed of 20 to 25 kilometers an hour.

On the morning of November 2 it was 170 kilometers off the coast with winds of 75 – 102 kilometers and stronger gusts.

The central part of the East Sea will see level 9-10 winds and extremely rough seas. The region between Thua Thien-Hue and Binh Thuan Provinces will have medium to heavy rains.

Meanwhile, in the north, a cold front spreading in a southerly direction affected some areas November 1 and it is forecast to reach the central region.

As a result, the Gulf of Tonkin and the northern part of the East Sea experienced northeasterly winds of up to level 7 and gusts of up to level 9.

On November 1 authorities in the area between Da Nang City and Binh Thuan Province ordered 10,646 boats with 73,055 fishermen to take shelter to avoid the season’s 11th storm.

Most were moored safely by November 1 with only 149 of them, with nearly 2,000 people on board, yet to do so.

The border army in provinces like Thua Thien-Hue, Quang Nam, Phu Yen, and Khanh Hoa are keeping watch at river mouths to prevent boats from going out to sea.

Central authorities strengthened reservoirs to safeguard them in case of heavy rains.
 
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat, who is also the head of the Central Steering Committee for Flood and Storm Prevention, held a meeting the same day with leaders of Khanh Hoa and Ninh Thuan Provinces to discuss measures to cope with Typhoon Mirinae.

He ordered local authorities to coordinate with border soldiers and immediately evacuate residents living near rivers and sea to safe places.

Khanh Hoa authorities said the evacuation would be completed by 8pm the same day. The province also released water from the Cam Ranh and Suoi Dau reservoirs and dispatched officials to districts to direct safety operations.

Binh Thuan authorities said they are in contact with Phu Quy Island and have ordered boats to take shelter and farmers to protect their aquaculture “cages” at sea.

The province’s steering committee for flood and storm prevention said adequate preparations are in place.

The Hue Relic Prevention Center said November 1 it has ordered officials and staff to take measures to safeguard the city’s relics from the storm.

Farmers in Thua Thien-Hue Province harvested their crops the same day to save them from the impending storm.

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Sell-offs cause market to nose-dive

Vietnam’s benchmark VN Index started November with the year’s steepest decline, as investors dumped stocks despite the issuance of the Government’s second stimulus package.

The measure of 180 companies and four mutual funds on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange closed at 561.71 Monday after sliding 25.41 points, 4.33 percent, nearly the maximum five percent allowed by the exchange.

Trading also fell five percent in volume and ten percent in value compared to last Friday as around 64.75 million shares worth nearly VND2.9 trillion (US$155.5 million) changed hands.

On the index, eight companies advanced, 175 dropped and one was unchanged.

According to brokerages, the second stimulus package will affect the market in the longer term but may only help certain sectors, such as exports, agriculture and forestry production, and infrastructure.

Declines in the southern market were led by the seafood exporter NTACO Corp. (ATA) in the Mekong Delta An Giang Province, the HCM City-based real estate investor Van Phat Hung Joint Stock Co., and Tay Ninh Rubber Joint Stock Co. (TRC), a maker and processor of rubber products in Tay Ninh Province neighboring the city.

The list of active shares saw Saigon Commercial Bank, or Sacombank, (STB) take the top spot with more than 6.4 million shares traded on the HCM City’s bourse.

Vietnam Export Import Bank or Eximbank (EIB) came next with nearly six million shares changing hands, and Thanh Cong Textile Garment Joint Stock Co. (TCM) with more than 2.9 million shares.

The Hanoi-based HNX-Index tumbled 11.36 points, 5.70 percent, to 188.02. Nearly 32.4 million shares worth VND1.33 trillion changed hands.

The UPCoM-Index did not perform any better, ending up 70.24, down 2.48 points, 3.41 percent, over last Friday. A total of 188,030 shares were traded at VND3 billion.

On the global markets, Asian stocks fell for the fourth time in five days as weaker commodity prices and a drop in US consumer spending fueled concern a recovery in company earnings will falter, Bloomberg said.

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Bah! Humbug! – Scrooge to tour VN

A theatrical adaptation of Charles Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol” will be performed for Vietnamese audiences by the UK’s TNT Theater nationwide from November 21 to December 6, it was recently announced.

A scene in the play “A Christmas Carol” by TNT Theater.

The play will be staged at Hanoi’s Opera House, the Cultural Center in Hue, the Trung Vuong Theater in Da Nang, the Cultural Center in the central coastal city of Quy Nhon and Ho Chi Minh City’s Drama Theater.

The play will be in English with Vietnamese subtitles.

“A Christmas Carol” is one of the most famous Christmas stories in English literature.

It tells the story of the miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who through a meeting with three ghosts – Past, Present and Future – is challenged to change his mean ways.

The TNT Theater was founded in 1980 in Britain and has since established itself as one of the most popular international touring theatre companies.

Since 1993, the company has been in collaboration with the American Drama Group Europe.

The artistic director of TNT is Paul Stebbings, whose work has won many awards, including the Munich Biennale, the Edinburgh Festival, the Tehran Festival and from the government of Singapore.

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War keepsakes exhibit opens

An exhibition of hundreds of war keepsakes is being held at the Vietnam Military History Museum in Hanoi.

Neraly 450 objects including arms, medals, soldiers’ belongings, photos and letters, among others are displayed.

The exhibition, “Everlasting War Keepsakes,” marks the 65th anniversary of the establishment of the Viet Nam People’s Army and its Political General Department (December 22, 1944-2009).

The display introduces audiences to around 450 objects including arms, medals, soldiers’ belongings, photos and letters, among others.

Selected from 5,300 objects, they were collected from a campaign launched in February by the Political General Department, Vietnam War Veterans Association and the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union.

The exhibit is expected to run for three years and may be extended.

The exhibition aims to honor individuals and organizations that made outstanding contributions in the national liberation.

The organization board also praised people who donated a large number of objects to the display, such as the former Party General Secretary Le Kha Phieu; Lt. Gen Dang Kinh, the former deputy chief of the general staff of the Viet Nam People’s Army; Z117 Factory of the General Department of National Defense Industry; and US veteran Prunier.

 

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City to host Japan Cultural Month

A rich variety of traditional songs from the Okinawa Islands of Japan will be presented by the Okinawa – Chura Hura troupe at the HCM City Conservatory of Music on November 10. The songs will mark the opening of Japan Cultural Month in the city, which will run until December 12.

The concert by the Okinawa-Chura Hura will open the Japan Cultural Month from November 10 to December 12.

The event will bring various cultural activities, such as an exhibition of “100 designs of Japan Today” at HCMC Exhibition Hall from November 14-24; an award ceremony of a Vietnamese-Japanese haiku contest at Tuoi Tre newspaper on November 15; a seminar on Japanese studies at the Equatorial Hotel on November 22; and a film fest at Thang Long Cinema from November 25-19.

Other discussions about the development of research in the region and strategic partnerships will be held at the HCMC University of Social Sciences and Humanities on November 30 and December 1.

Performances of the Japanese drum Wadaiko and Robot will close the month-long cultural event in HCMC Opera House on December 10.

Free tickets for the concert by the Okinawa – Chura Hura troupe are available at the HCM City Conservatory of Music at 112 Nguyen Du Street District 1, and Japanese General Consulate at 13-17 Nguyen Hue Street, District 1.

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Suzuki Motor profit down 63.4 pct in first half

Suzuki Motor Corp. Chairman Osamu Suzuki holds his head as he answers questions during a press conference to announce the company’s financial result in Tokyo on November 2, 2009 (AFP photo)

TOKYO, Nov 2, 2009 (AFP) – Japan’s Suzuki Motor Corp. said Monday that its net profit fell by 63.4 percent in the fiscal first half from a year earlier due to weak sales, but it boosted its full-year forecast.

The manufacturer of small cars and motorcycles said its net profit came to 12.5 billion yen (140 million dollars) for the April-September period.

Operating profit plunged 47.5 percent to 31.8 billion yen.

Revenue shrank 31.3 percent to 1.18 trillion yen “due to sales drops at home and abroad as well as the impact of the yen’s rise,” which has reduced overseas income when repatriated, the company said in a statement.

Suzuki however sharply upgraded its annual forecasts, saying the first-half results were better than expected, because of cost cuts and a smaller-than-expected appreciation of the yen.

It projected a net profit of 15 billion yen, up from five billion yen the group forecast in May.

Operating profit is now estimated at 40 billion yen, up from 10 billion yen. Revenue is forecast at 2.3 trillion yen, unchanged from the earlier projection.

The new forecasts still fall short of the previous year’s results. The revised figures would mean a 45.3 percent decline in net profit, a 48.0 percent drop in operating profit and a 23.5 percent slump in sales from last year.

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Massive fire blazes on leaking Australian oil rig

SYDNEY, Nov 2, 2009 (AFP) – An oil rig burned uncontrollably off Australia Monday as officials warned the massive blaze could not be contained until they plug a leak which has gushed tonnes of crude over the past 10 weeks.

As the government ordered an inquiry into the emergency, environmentalists warned that delays in shutting down the fire and leak would further harm the pristine waters off the northwest coast, which are home to whales and dolphins.

This handout photo provided by PTTEP Australasia shows the West Atlas drilling rig and the Montara wellhead platform before the relief well intercept, with gas, oil and water cloud, some 250 kilometres (155 miles) offshore on November 1, 2009 (AFP photo)

The West Atlas rig caught fire Sunday during the latest attempt to stop the leak, which has dumped thousands of barrels of oil into the Timor Sea since it began leaching into the water on August 21.

The rig’s operator, PTTEP Australasia, said stopping the leak was the only way to extinguish the blaze engulfing the deck and well head platform some 250 kilometres (155 miles) off the coast. It will launch another attempt Tuesday.

“The best and safest way to stop the fire is to ‘kill the well’ by pumping heavy mud into the leaking well,” PTTEP director Jose Martins said.

“The mixture of heavy mud is designed to backflow along the leaking well, stopping the flow of gas and oil at the surface of the H1 well, cutting off the fuel source for the fire at the well head platform.

“This should kill the well and should stop the fire.”

Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson said the accident, the first on such a scale in 25 years of offshore drilling, had “clearly had an impact on the standing of the oil and gas industry in Australia”.

“And I simply say that once the well is filled, the platform is made safe, I will conduct a full and independent enquiry to actually assess the cause of the incident and the manner in which it has been handled over the last 10 weeks.”

A cameraman who flew over the site said the inferno was the biggest fire he had ever seen.

“It was so big we went round it two or three times, and in the end I just put the camera down and I just looked out the window and was awestuck by this thing,” Stephen Cavenagh told Sky News.

Environmental groups have criticised the government’s handling of the spill, saying it is threatening bird and marine life off Western Australia’s resource-rich north coast.

“We are ranking it as a major environmental disaster,” John Carey, a spokesman for the global Pew Environment Group, told AFP, adding that oil was a slow and silent killer for many marine species.

The area was a “marine superhighway for species moving in and out of the region so it’s an area of global importance,” he said.

“In terms of the greater northwest region, you are looking at up to almost one quarter of dolphins and whales in the world in this area.”

Environmentalists such as WWF Australia’s Ghislaine Llewellyn, who spent three days surveying the site, said the size and duration of the oil slick posed a high risk to marine and bird life in the area.

Llewellyn said in many cases there would be no dead animals lying on the water surface or washing up on to beaches because they would sink to the bottom if mired in the slick.

“Operating in a remote situation doesn’t exempt the need for appropriate standbys, safeguards, backups all being to hand,” she told AFP.

The Australian Marine Conservation Society said it hoped the government’s inquiry would force the industry to improve its management of such accidents.

“We don’t know why this disaster happened and we need to understand that to prevent this happening again in the future,” the society’s director, Darren Kindleyside, told state radio.

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Global crisis is hitting IT spending: Microsoft chief

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer speaks at a press briefing at a hotel in Seoul on November 2, 2009 (AFP photo)

SEOUL, Nov 2, 2009 (AFP) – Companies worldwide are slashing spending on information technology because of the global downturn and will have to learn to do more with less, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said Monday.

Ballmer, on a visit to South Korea to promote the newly-released Windows 7 system, said IT spending represents about half of all capital expenditure in developed countries such as the United States and South Korea.

“With capital more scarce, we know IT budgets are more scarce,” Ballmer told chief information officers (CIOs) from local businesses.

“There is going to be pressure in businesses to drive for a new level of efficiency.”

Ballmer said the global economy went through a set of “once-in-a-lifetime” changes last year.

“So it’s important that we’re not saying we just had a crisis and we are going to have a recovery. We are going to live in what we like to call the new normal.

“The new normal will be a more scarce environment than we saw a year, two years, three years ago. While we will see growth, we will not see recovery,” he said, citing a 15 percent drop in global personal computer and server sales.

Ballmer said there would be pressure worldwide to cut IT spending but to increase its impact. “We need a strategy to help you, we say, ‘do more with less’,” he said, touting Windows 7 as part of the solution.

“It’s simpler for its end-users and faster and more responsive,” he said. “You have an opportunity not only to help the users do more but also reduce IT spending.”

The system’s “cloud computing” and “virtualisation” allow users to perform tasks with less hardware and thus less electricity, he said.

The software giant last month said net profit fell 18 percent in the first quarter of its fiscal year to 3.57 billion dollars from 4.37 billion dollars a year earlier. But its revenue of 12.92 billion dollars exceeded analysts’ forecasts.

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