Tieng Viet lovers club

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New smoking law defined
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VietNamNet Bridge - A new law on tobacco harm-reduction that bans smoking in public places such as schools, hospitals and workplaces took effect on May 1. But it immediately has been violated publicly.


According to our observation, tobacco is available at all groceries in Hanoi. It is also eye-catchingly displayed on glass boxes of tobacco sellers along the roads.

At a big grocery on La Thanh Road, Hanoi, which has long been a familiar shop of smokers, we saw different brands of cigarette, including imported ones. Cigarette packages and cartons were displayed on a big glass chest facing the road to easily catch the eye of drivers.

At many other groceries and pavement tobacco selling points, cigarette packages and cartons were displayed the same way even though under the new law, retailers are allowed to display only one package, one carton or one box of cigarettes.

These shops also sell cigarettes to any buyer, regardless of their age.

VietNamNet talked with some cigarette sellers. They said they read newspapers and knew about the Law on tobacco prevention. However, they did not concern about the law and said that no one told them that they must be licensed to sell tobacco.

Regarding the sale of tobacco to persons under 18 years old, some tobacco retailers said that if they do not sell cigarettes to young people, others will. Moreover, they cannot determine the age of the sellers. They said the best way is to educate young people under 18 to not smoke right at their families because many fathers send their kids to buy cigarettes.

On the sidelines of a recent conference on the implementation of the Law on Tobacco Prevention, Mr. Nguyen Huy Quang, Head of the Legal Department of the Health Ministry admitted that the regulations are very clear but the implementation is still so hard.

Quang said the penalty provisions are primarily to uphold the deterrence and education. The implementation of this law depends largely on self-consciousness and awareness of the people about the harmful effects of tobacco on health and community.

The survey of 1,500 points of sale of cigarettes in 10 provinces from 2009-2011 by the University of Public Health showed that about 95 percent of the sale points violated regulations on advertising and promotion of tobacco.

The results of the monitoring of the Public Health University in December 2012 and January 2013 at the sale points of tobacco in Hai Phong, Khanh Hoa and Ho Chi Minh City showed that 100 percent of the points broke the rule on displaying only one cigarette package, carton or box.

Currently, a lot of the shop owners and tobacco agents do not know about the Law on tobacco prevention and regulations on the prohibition of advertising, promotions and sponsorship of cigarette.

Cam Quyen

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Vietnam’s 3G service fee 40 times cheaper than in Europe
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VietNamNet Bridge – The number of 3G subscribers and the average used traffic per subscribers have increased rapidly, which has made the initially designed 3G service packages become unreasonable.


The demand on the rise

A report of MobiFone, one of the 3 biggest mobile network operators, showed that the number of 3G service users still has been increasing rapidly despite the economic difficulties.

“3G service would see a boom in 2013 after it developed more slowly than predicted in the previous years,” a senior executive of MobiFone has predicted.

The rapid increase in the number of 3G subscribers has made the 3G service fee decrease sharply. The senior executive said the 3G service fee in Vietnam is cheaper by 40 times than in Europe and 10 times than in China.

Nguyen Viet Dung, Deputy Director of Viettel Telecom, has also confirmed that Viettel’s 3G users have been increasing more rapidly than ever. He said that Vietnamese have got used to the service over the last 3 years, since the day mobile network operators launched the service.

The sharp increase in the number of smart phone users has also led to the increase of 3G users.

Nguyen Son Hai from VinaPhone has agreed, saying that the 3G used capacity of VinaPhone’s subscribers has increased by 3 folds in comparison with the same period of the last year.

It’s time to design new 3G packages

Mobile network operators have all agreed that the initially service packages have become “out of date” in the new circumstances.

According to Nguyen Son Hai from VinaPhone, MAX package allowed customers to use up to 500MB of capacity at the fee of VND40,000 a month. The service package was designed when VinaPhone began providing 3G service and targeted the users who could control their expenses.

However, VinaPhone have found out that 70 percent of customers using the package have used more than the free capacity allocated to them. If they want to continue using the service, they have to register to use higher capacity at higher costs. Therefore, VinaPhone has decided to adjust the package to better satisfy the customers’ demand.

MobiFone has also said that it has launched new service packages more suitable to the customers’ taste.

Dinh Viet Hung from MobiFone said a survey has found out that 80 percent of the MIU package customers have used the capacity exceeding the traffic allocated to them. Therefore, MobiFone has increased the capacity of MIU package by 100MB.

Hung said that with the new package, in order to use the traffic equivalent to 600MB at high speed, customers would have to pay VND10,000 more. Meanwhile, with the previous MIU package, they would have to pay VND20,000-25,000 more to extend the service.

Hung said that the market has shown positive reactions to the new packages. It is estimated that MobiFone has 15,000 new 3G subscribers every day over the last month, since the day the new packages were marketed. The figure was 12,000 prior to the day of the service fee adjustment.

MAX and MIU, the basic packages of MobiFone and VinaPhone, now have the service fees equal to the MIMAX package of Viettel.

These are the three main rivals in the 3G service market now. MobiFone and VinaPhone, which both belong to the Vietnam Post and Telecommunication, have stated that they would pursue a policy of providing services at reasonable fees to compete with the military telco Viettel.

Buu Dien

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Be careful with tricks of Hanoi’s taxi drivers!
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VietNamNet Bridge – In the last two weeks, in Hanoi, several cheating and overcharging incidents occurred against foreign visitors or people from other places to Hanoi. This situation has made many visitors worry.


In early April, a taxi driver of Trung Viet Taxi was detected to install an additional chip to control the taxi meter. With this chip, if the car runs at the speed of 20 km an hour, the charge will be VND400,000 ($20) for 1km of road.


All sorts of tricks

Specifically, on April 28 and May 10, two drivers of Trung Viet and Thanh Nga taxi firms were accused of overcharging foreign tourists.

Shortly thereafter, the authorities offered apology to the victims and asked the taxi firms to punish and to tighten control over their taxi drivers to improve the quality of taxi services in Hanoi.

The concern is although the relevant agencies have strengthened inspection and punishment over taxi service-related violations but the taxi operation in Hanoi has not been improved.

According to the Hanoi Department of Transportation, there are over 117 taxi firms in the city, with a total of 17,000 vehicles and 2,000 drivers.

However, through the regular inspection, the Hanoi Transport Department found out that there are a few firms operating seriously and focusing on building their brands and improving their services.

Mr. Hoang Van Manh, deputy chief inspector of the Hanoi Department of Transportation said that only through a preliminary inspection of taxi services, inspectors discovered a series of "tricks" to adjust the meters to "pickpocket" passengers.

According to many, in the inspection on May 8, transportation inspectors detected at least five cases of fare cheating of the drivers of Ngoc Linh, Huong Lam, Song Hong and Trung Viet taxi firms. Some drivers used cell phones to control the meters or opened the meters to adjust the chip in order to increase fares.

Dodge the law to overcharge passengers

According to Manh, taxi firms in Hanoi develop in very small scales. HCM City has only 31 taxi firms with 15,000 vehicles while Hanoi has up to 117 taxi firms with only 17,000 cars.

On average, each taxi firm in HCM City has at least a few hundreds of cars while with just 5-10 cars, a taxi firm can be established in Hanoi.

In this situation, Manh said that Hanoi should slash the number of tax firms to 50-60 to facilitate management because at present, many taxi firms do not operation but sell their shares or hire their brands to other firms.

"This situation not only causes difficulties for management but also create conditions for tax evasion because the Enterprise Law, the government and the Ministry of Transportation’s rules do not prohibit this," Sang emphasized.

Mr. Thach Nhu Sy, Deputy Chief Inspector of the Ministry of Transportation, said that after inspections, a lot of violations of taxi firms were discovered but the state agencies could not put taxi firms in orders because they have many "tricks" to dodge the law.

According to Sy, when asking for business registration, taxi firms must register the number of cars. Some firms are licensed though they have several cars of their own and the remaining are leased cars. The loose control of vehicles of taxi firms facilitates taxi firms to dodge tax.

On May 13, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Hoang Tuan Anh asked all provinces and cities to set up a hotline to receive tourists’ information on cheating, overcharging, etc.

Vu Diep

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Vietnam has 1.6 mln LGBT people
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Vietnam has about 1.6 million homosexuals, bisexuals and sex-change people who are facing difficulties in identification, cohabitation, birth-giving and adoption, an institute said.

The information was released by the Institute for Social, Economic and Environment at a seminar on homosexual issues jointly held by the agency and the Institute for Legislation Research, under the National Assembly Standing Committee, in Hanoi on Friday.

Dr Nguyen Thu Nam, a researcher at the Health Strategy and Policy Institute, said that the number of same-sex marriages in European countries accounts for 2-3 percent of the total marriage cases.

This rate has been maintained during the past 10 years, Nam said.

In countries where same sex marriage is allowed by law, the proportion of people with sexually transmitted diseases is low, the expert said.

As previously reported, among its opinions on the amendments to the Law on Marriage and Family, the Health Ministry has said same-sex marriage should be allowed, since it is a human right.

The ministry maintains that homosexuals, like everyone else, have the right to live, to get married, to go to school, to love and to be loved, to pursue happiness, and other rights, as well as obligations, to the State and society.

Similarly, the Youth Study Institute said that same-sex marriage should be allowed and that it should be included in the amendments to the Law on Marriage and Family.

The Institute for Prosecution Sciences under the Supreme People's Procuracy also proposed that the law should not interfere with the cohabitation of same-sex people

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Learn Vietnamese Language With Annie - 365 Vietnamese #1:

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The big heat
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A couple of years ago, the school nurse showed me a number on a digital thermometer. My daughter was running a fever of 39.6 – but since we use Farenheit back home, I was more concerned by the nurse’s worried expression. It turned out to be a symptom of a bacterial infection, and our girl was back to normal in a few days.

Now I’m thinking about a different fever – the Spring fever that hit Hanoi with 40 degrees Celsius last week, or 104 Farenheit, the effects of which sent many children and elderly to the hospital. Time was that heat waves would simply come and go, part of the normal routine. But these days it’s harder not to think of extreme weather as a symptom of a long-term, self-inflicted ailment – climate change and global warming. An ill child can bounce back to health. But Earth’s condition is progressive, and accelerating toward a new normal – or, rather, a permanent abnormal.

Most readers here, I assume, are not the kind of willful know-nothings who think of climate science as some vast left-wing conspiracy – a viewpoint promoted by the oil and gas industry. Both the scientific consensus and common sense hold that that emissions from millions of smokestacks and tailpipes operating in the service of 7 billion Earthlings has indeed been altering the fundamental chemistry of our planet, and the impacts are accelerating. Levels of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, just hit the milestone of 400 parts per million threshold – and it is sure to keep climbing up, up, up, as are the temperatures.

Back home in the US – the world’s leading per capita producer of greenhouse gases, and second to China in total volume – there is still a great deal of denial and anger regarding climate science. Denial and anger happen to be the classic first two emotional stages of grief, followed by bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Today’s temperature is anecdotal, and so is regional data. Another anecdote would be Australia’s blistering heat wave in January, which showed an average high of 36.92 degrees Celsius – 2.28 degrees above the long-term norm and 0.11 degrees above the previous record. Put all the data over time and place into a mosaic and the trend is clear. Records compiled by the U.S. agencies NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that global surface temps in 2012 rose 1.03F, rank it as either the 9th or 10 hottest year since recordkeeping began in 1880. But a single year, like a single day, doesn’t show the trend: Each year of the 21st century has ranked among the 14 hottest years on record. And is any reputable scientist out there predicting a reversal? A return to the climate we used to know?

"One more year of numbers isn't in itself significant. What matters is this decade is warmer than the last decade, and that decade was warmer than the decade before,” a NASA climate scientist explained. “The planet is warming. The reason it's warming is because we are pumping increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere."

An onset of global cooling would be welcome and make thousands of scientists eat crow. The odds of that happening, however, seem as likely as those of a meteor smacking into Earth and bringing on nuclear winter. So what’s to be done? Most experts say that, even with the broad introduction of clean technologies and education efforts, the best practical hope is for a slowing of trend, not a reversal, not with China firing up another coal-fired electricity plant every couple of weeks. Just about everybody wants the goodies of modern life, including cars and air conditioning. And I don’t blame them: As I write these words, I have the air-conditioner on, a perk of my privileged expat lifestyle. I could ride a bicycle more but prefer the motorbike – especially when it’s so damn hot.

Millions of Vietnamese, and billions of people worldwide, have little option but to keep to the shade, or turn on the fan at best, or find a lake or river to cool off. In Hanoi, street life was visibly more sedate during the worst of the heat. But there were still the women shouldering their ganhs – yoke-like sticks – and others working over the hot charcoal-fed grills for bun cha. The trash collectors were still pushing their carts and construction workers trundling loads of bricks and sand.

Vietnam ranks among the nations most vulnerable to climate change, and some of the effects are already affecting agriculture in the Mekong Delta. This, however, won’t prompt Vietnam to adopt radical energy-saving policies, not when the nation aims to become an industrialized nation by 2020. International action is needed but, sadly, a pipe dream. The technological prowess exists to mitigate the problem and help manage it. But the political will is lacking.

A celebrated Silicon Valley technologist – Jim Clark, the subject of Michael Lewis’s “The New New Thing” – now spends much of his energy as an environmentalist focusing on the degradation of the ocean. He once told me how climate change will devastate agriculture and fisheries, triggering famine and warfare and, ultimately, “a population collapse.”

Could it really be that grim? Perhaps he was going through the “depression” stage. Or maybe I’m in denial

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Learn Vietnamese Language With Annie - 365 Vietnamese #2:

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Learn Vietnamese Language With Annie - 365 Vietnamese #3:

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Learn Vietnamese Language With Annie - 365 Vietnamese #4:

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Learn Vietnamese Language With Annie - 365 Vietnamese #5: