VN news

[Dam Thanh Son <son@ctp.mit.edu>]

Japan considers helping Vietnam develop nuclear energy
Vietnamese academic executed after professional battle
Illegal motorbike racers to go on trial
Quang Tri claims 15,000 Agent Orange victims
Vietnam has 1.35 million handicapped children: official


Japan considers helping Vietnam develop nuclear energy
  	  				 
   HANOI, Aug 18 (AFP) - Japan is considering helping Vietnam develop a
nuclear energy industry, an official report said on Wednesday.
   Professor Yutaka Takeyama, head of the Japan Atomic Industry Forum
(JAIF), told Prime Minister Phan Van Khai Japan was interested in working
with Vietnam, the Vietnam News reported.
   Takeyama, a member of Japan's House of Councillors (Upper House), was
leading an official delegation from JAIF this week. It was the second
official atomic energy delegation from Japan this year.
   Vietnam relies solely on hydro and thermal power for its energy needs.
It has vast offshore gas reserves and coal in the province of Quang Ninh.
   The United States helped provide a small experimental nuclear centre in
the highland town of Dalat in the 1960s under the "Atoms for Peace"
program but did not generate electricity.
   A recent World Bank report said Vietnam's energy demand in 2010 would
be three times its demand in 1997. 
   Meeting those needs will require an investment of 6.9 billion dollars
in the next three years alone, the report said.
   The bank warned against further delays in the construction of a
pipeline to bring gas onshore from the Nam Con Son basin operated by BP
Amoco and Statoil to fuel a thermal plant in Phu My in southern Vietnam.
   The foreign consortium and Electricity of Vietnam have failed to agree
on a gas purchase price plan because electricity is sold below cost in
Vietnam.


Vietnamese academic executed after professional battle

   HANOI, Aug 18 (AFP) - A former professor and two others were executed
by firing squad for separate crimes in Ho Chi Minh City, an official said
on Wednesday.
   Do Thuong, a former professor at Hanoi Teachers College was executed on
Tuesday for the murder of Pham Khac Chi in 1997, an official from the
Capital Punishment Department of the People's Tribunal told AFP.
   His victim was an internationally known academic against whom Thuong
held a professional grudge. Chi came from an influential Vietnamese
academic family. His brother Pham Khac Lam is vice president of the
Commission for Overseas Vietnamese.
   Also executed at Thu Duc execution ground were Le Van Be, for
committing several rapes of his 14-year-old step daughter and Vo Van Hung,
who murdered his father over a land dispute. 
   According to official statistics, 30 people were executed in Vietnam in
1998. Most of those shot were convicted of drug trafficking or murder.


Illegal motorbike racers to go on trial

   HANOI, Aug 17 (AFP) - Eleven people accused of illegal motorbike racing
in Hanoi in celebrations tied to Vietnam's march to the finals in the SEA
Games football championship will go on trial, an official said Tuesday.
   The 11 will be tried by the People's Tribunal of Hoan Kiem district on
August 26 and 27 for illegal motorbike racing and causing public
disturbances during the SEA Games the court said. 
   Eleven people were killed in wild celebrations in Vietnam between when
the national team played their first match at the Southeast Asian Games in
Brunei on August 4 and the final which Vietnam lost to Thailand on
Saturday. 
   None of those charged are being held directly responsible for the
deaths. 
   Following the early casualties, police clamped down on security,
erecting roadblocks and posting riot police with bamboo truncheons and
water cannons.
   On Monday the same court found six others guilty of illegal racing in
July, handing down sentences of between eight and 15 months.
   Since the beginning of the year police said they have discovered 34
cases of illegal racing in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.


Vietnamese province claims 15,000 Agent Orange victims
  	  				 
   HANOI, Aug 17 (AFP) - The province of Quang Tri which separated north
and south during the Vietnam War has 15,000 victims of the chemical Agent
Orange, a provincial official said on Tuesday.
   According to a survey concluded in July, 2,000 people had died from
causes related to the chemical defoliant used by US forces during the war
to flush out communist forces operating on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. 
   Some 7,921 people were directly affected by exposure to the chemical or
through footstuffs sprayed, while 5,240 children whose parents were
exposed were born with deformities, an official from the provincial
department of work, invalids and social affairs told AFP.
   "Quang Tri is one of the provinces most affected by US chemical
products," said Hoang Anh Quyet, directeur of the department in Quang Tri.
   The survey was part of a national census of Agent Orange victims
launched earlier this year in 55 provinces believed to be suffering from
the chemical's effects.
   Quang Tri saw some of the fiercest fighting during the Vietnam War, and
has the highest percentage of accidents from unexploded ordnance, many of
which are left over from the "McNamara Line" laid across the province. 
   The demilitarized zone along the 17th parallel divided Communist North
Vietnam from the US-backed South between 1954 and 1975 when the country
was united after the fall of Saigon.
   Hanoi has never officially sought compensation from the Americans for
the victims of Agent Orange but the subject was raised when US Secretary
of State Madeleine Albright visited in 1997.
   Last month US researcher Arnold Schecter from the University of Texas
worked with Vietnamese colleagues to collect blood samples that could help
pinpoint the link between Agent Orange and health problems.


Vietnam has 1.35 million handicapped children: official
  	  				 
   HANOI, Aug 18 (AFP) - Vietnam has 1.35 million handicapped children
almost one third of whom receive no medical treatment, according to a
report by the ministry of labour, invalids and social affairs published
Wednesday.
   These children, including some 200,000 who face serious handicaps,
account for 27 percent of all handicapped individuals, the Nguoi Lao Dong
reported.
   Vietnam has a population of 76 million. 
   The paper quoted a ministry report presented on Tuesday in Hanoi which
said that 31.62 percent of handicapped children received no medical
treatment because their families could not afford it.
   The report also said only 1.97 percent of handicapped children
underwent professional training of any kind. 
   The ministry has pledged to provide medical attention to all
handicapped children by 2005, the newspaper said.
   Children are born handicapped in Vietnam for a variety of reasons,
including poor nutrition or prenatal care.
   Their parents' exposure to the defoliant Agent Orange used by US forces
during the Vietnam War has also been blamed by Vietnamese officials.