A herd of five wild elephants has destroyed several hundred hectares of crops in the central province of Quang Nam’s Tra Doc and Tra Bui villages over the last few days.
The elephants, which came to the area last week, were roaming the forests of Tra Doc village and are moving towards residential areas in the nearby Phuoc Gia village. Their presence threatens the livelihoods of people in more than 200 households.
Cambodia will re-establish Cambodia-Vietnam friendship organisations in all of its provinces and cities, said an official from the United Front for National Construction and Defence of Cambodia (UFCDK).
The news was delivered at a meeting in Phnom Penh on August 7 between the UFCDK Vice President Min Khin and Tran Thanh Long, Vice President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front (VFF) and President of the VFF’s Ho Chi Minh City chapter.
Min Khin said the one-year-old UFCDK has established its chapters in all 24 provinces and cities in the country.
Recently, the UFCDK’s branches in localities sharing borders with Vietnam such as Kratie, Mondonkiri, Kongpong Cham provinces have built close relations with VFF chapters in neighbouring Vietnamese provinces.
The two officials agreed to intensify the cooperation between the UFCOK and the VFF in the future.
Visiting Cambodia from August 4-7, Long and his delegation also met with the Overseas Vietnamese Association in Cambodia, and handed over financing from the HCM City VFF branch to be used to build five houses for disadvantaged Vietnamese residing in Cambodia.
Plan Vietnam laid out its achievements in providing charity programmes to the disadvantaged, especially children, in northern Thai Nguyen province since the beginning of this year, at a conference in Thai Nguyen on August 6-7.
Plan has so far doled out over 13 billion VND on programmes that include the building of provincial medical centres, water-closets and kindergartens and more than 3 billion VND that was pumped into health care for local children, the international aid agency told delegates to the conference.
Plan estimates that the projects have benefited more than 7,000 local children, 45 percent of whom come from ethnic minority groups
It has also helped train local medical staff, provided free health checks-up for thousands of local poor, children and women, while spending over 2.5 billion VND on rolling out economic development models for more than 300 poor households, providing credits and training for nearly 700 poor women and supporting close to 4,500 victims of natural disasters.
The Vietnam News Agency (VNA) and Japanese news agency Kyodo have agreed to further their cooperation in the 2007-10 period.
An agreement to this effect was signed during a talk between VNA General Director Nguyen Quoc Uy and Kyodo President Satoshi Ishikawa in Ha Noi on August 7.
The two sides agreed to intensify the exchange of information, photos and other multimedia products, the cooperation in personnel training and continue with assistance to the other’s residential correspondents.
The Kyodo President arrived in Ha Noi on August 6 for a six-day visit. Besides Ha Noi, he is scheduled to visit the ancient city of Hue in central Thua Thien-Hue province, Hoi An town in Quang Nam province and Ho Chi Minh City.
A 5 million USD poverty reduction project that was largely funded by Norway, has benefited seven disadvantaged villages in the coastal district of Trieu Phong, central Quang Tri province.
The programme, to which Norway provided 4 million USD, has over the past six years built eight irrigation projects, a dyke along the district’s sand hill area and planted 914 hectares of protective forests.
72 aquaculture ponds, a shrimp nursery that supplies fry for 1,200 farmers and 12 ecological villages have been established to go along with schools, roads, and power grids and transmission stations that have been built thanks to the Norwegian initiative.
A workshop on the ASEAN community was held by the Vietnam Social Science Institute in Ha Noi on August 7, as part of a series of activities to mark the 40th founding anniversary of ASEAN.
According to Vietnamese delegates attending the event, Vietnam should work out measures to implement the framework agreement on the 11 priority fields for integration.
Vietnam should also uphold its role in the implementation of the Initiatives for ASEAN Integration, as well as Development programmes for the sub-Mekong region and the East-West corridor in order to narrow development gaps among ASEAN member countries and promote regional economic cooperation.
Cultural exchanges between Vietnam and regional countries should be increased to raise the level of ASEAN awareness among the people of ASEAN and uphold the community’s identity.
Participants of the workshop also suggested countries in the community pay greater attention to boosting cooperation in security and defence to increase confidence and minimise the risk of regional conflicts.
Vietnamese and Chinese police have been consistently stepping up cooperation in the battle against human trafficking.
The appraisal was announced at a workshop on the prevention and fight against human trafficking on August 6 by the Vietnamese police and their Chinese colleague.
Since 2006, police have uncovered 111 cases of trafficking women and children and arrested 214 suspects. In active coordination Chinese police have rescued and returned 511 victims to Vietnam.
In the reviewed period, 149 cases of human trafficking to China were discovered, involving as many as 271 people, including 59 children. Victims were from rural and isolated areas in northern provinces.
Recently, there has been an increase in the number of victims from central, Central Highlands and southwestern provinces.
The Executive Board of the central Da Nang City Buddhist Sangha held a congress for the 2007-2012 tenure on August 6.
The congress attended among others by Most Venerable Thich Tri Quang, Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha’s Executive Council and representatives from the municipal authorities, focused discussions on reform activities of the municipal Sangha under the motto of “Dharma-Nation-Socialism.”
It elected a 47-member executive board headed by Most Venerable Thich Giac Vien for the municipal Buddhist Sangha, 3rd term.
Over the past five years, the municipal Buddhist Sangha has made remarkable contributions to the city’s development. Buddhist dignitaries, monks, nuns and followers in the city have raised over 10 billion VND (625,000 USD) to support charitable activities such as building houses for poor people and providing aid relief for victims of natural disasters.
Orbis International, a non-profit humanitarian organisation, has received 5 million USD from the American International Group (AIG) for its work combating blindness in Vietnam, India and China.
With the funding, AIG becomes the largest donor for Orbis' work to eliminate avoidable blindness and restore eyesight in the developing world.
A substantial amount of the funding will be used for supporting projects to improve eye-sight for local people in Vietnam's northern Ninh Binh and central Nghe An and Ha Tinh provinces, according to Nguyen Huu Thinh, country representative of Orbis Vietnam.
The funding will also go to the construction of three eye care centres for children in Ha Noi, central Hue city and Ho Chi Minh City and campaigns on cornea donation, Thinh said.
The charity first appeared in Vietnam in 1996 with Orbis conducting training on eye operation technology for local eye doctors. Since 2000, it has trained 3,600 doctors, 12,600 health staff, provided eye-checks for 20 million local people and eye treatment for nearly 4 million patients.
As many as 41,000 patients have received eye surgery from Orbis programmes.
In 2007, Orbis has spent up to 2 million USD on its programmes in Vietnam.
(Source: VNA) | 
