738 bridges condemned as unsafe nationwide

The VRA’s construction expenses for this year is estimated at 6.43 trillion VND (349.4 million USD), of which 2.6 trillion VND (141.3 million USD) will be spent on road repairs.

The administration has asked relevant agencies to speed up construction of many bridges and directed local authorities to keep a close eye on managing and repairing the weak bridges.

Women need protection from marriage brokers

Hanoi (VNA) -- Fourteen years ago, 21-year-old Vu Thanh Huyen (an alias), from Lap Le Commune, Thuy Nguyen District of Hai Phong City, left her hometown with the hope of changing her life by marrying a Chinese man. 

Five years later, Huyen contracted HIV/AIDS from her husband. 

In 1996, keeping in mind the promise of a bright future with a rich Chinese man, Huyen left her hometown to follow her dreams to China . But she was shocked to find out that her "husband" was a peasant who gambled all day and treated her like a servant. 

After she gave birth to her first child, a boy, her husband's family took him away from her. 

When she gave birth to her second child, a girl, no one cared for either of them. 

Later on, she found out she had caught HIV from her husband. After returning to Vietnam , she has had no news of her son. 

Huyen's is only one of the many sad stories of women who used a marriage broker to marry a foreign man, hoping that luck would come to them and change their poor lives. 
According to Vu Thi Ngot, president of Lap Le Commune's Women Union, in the past two years more than 20 women have returned from such marriages, all with their dreams in tatters. 
A good choice? 
According to statistics by the General Statistics Office, between 2005 and 2008, 32,000 Vietnamese women married foreigners, mostly Chinese and Korean. 
Meanwhile, statistics by the Statistics Office of the Republic of Korea (RoK) show that, the number of Korean men marrying Vietnamese women increased from 134 in 2001 to 5,822 in 2005. 
According to Le Thi Quy, director of the Gender and Development Research Centre, most of the Vietnamese women who want to marry foreign men are from poor families, either jobless or doing agricultural work. 
" Vietnam 's laws do not prohibit foreign marriages, which can prove to be a cultural bridge linking Vietnam to other countries," she said. 
According to Ho Xuan Huy from the Vietnam International Organisation for Migration (IOM), most foreign marriages are arranged through marriage brokers. 
"These agencies earn their fees by enticing Vietnamese women with false information about their future husbands," Huy said. 
Many women are then forced to become servants for their husbands' families and made to work hard and sometimes even hit, according to a report by the IOM. 
Lack of knowledge among Vietnamese women living in rural areas and a lack of adequate regulations on foreign marriages are problems that need to be addressed to tackle the issue, according to Quy. 
Le Thi Hoang Thanh, from the Institute of Legal Science of the Ministry of Justice, said that Vietnam did not have any systems in place to provide information to citizens who wish to marry foreigners. There are also no regulations for the protection of Vietnamese women who choose to settle in their foreign husbands' country, as no agreements have been reached for Vietnamese women's rights abroad. 
For example, RoK law states that housewives should not be acknowledged as contributing to the common property of husband and wife. 
Moreover, no effective attempts had been made to stop the illegal marriage brokers, Thanh said. 
Marriage support centres had been set up in 16 cities and provinces across the country but the operation of these centres had not been effective enough, she added. 
Quy said that laws needed to be improved for the protection of women so they can enjoy safe and happy marriages, as well as gender equality. 
Campaigns to provide Vietnamese women with information about foreign marriages should be strengthened together with the opening of more marriage support centres. 
"If I had been warned in the first place, I would not have taken the risk," Huyen said, adding that there were still many women in similar positions to the one she had been in, who wished to marry a foreigner. 
"Communication is very important to help these women avoid the things that I and many others have been through" she said. Sighing deeply, Huyen said her only wish was to meet her son again, and she said she hoped no other mother would have to suffer what she had endured.-Enditem

TTA2202.010 Thirteen cement lines to be put into production

Hanoi (VNA) – The Ministry of Construction and the Vietnam Cement Association have said 13 new cement production lines are expected to be put into use this year with a combined capacity of about 11.7 million tonnes, raising total capacity of the local industry to approximately 70 million tonnes.

The increased capacity would ensure enough supply to meet this year’s projected demand for 48-50 million tonnes as well as demand in coming years.

Work is ongoing on several cement factories that are expected to increase output to meet domestic cement demand of 102 million tonnes by 2020.

Ancient objects found at former Hoa Lu capital

Hanoi (VNA) – A host of ancient objects dating back to the 10 th -18 th century have been discovered at the Hoa Lu ancient capital relic in the present-day northern province of Ninh Binh. 

The objects made in the Dinh (968-980), Ly (1009-1225), Tran (1225-1400) and Le (1418-1789) dynasties include square floor tiles with lotus and phoenix patterns, bowls, dishes, jars and other pottery items. They were found after archeologists excavated an area of over 500 sq. metres at the relic site. 

The archeologists said they would continue their excavation in the coming time to find the remains of the ancient capital. 

The excavation project is jointly carried out by the Ninh Binh Department of Culture, Tourism and Sports and the Vietnam Museum of History.

Vietnamese in Germany celebrate Tet

Berlin (VNA) – Nearly 400 Vietnamese nationals in Germany ’s Halle city gathered together to celebrate the traditional Lunar New Year (Tet) Festival on Feb. 20, the seventh day of the Year of the Tiger. 

Nguyen Quoc Tuy, president of the Vietnamese Association in the city, reviewed their activities towards the homeland over the past year.

Nguyen Anh Tuan, First Secretary of the Vietnamese Embassy in Germany in charge of press and culture took this occasion to extend warm greetings and best wishes to all the Vietnamese people in the city and informed them about the Embassy’s activities in 2010 celebrate the 35th anniversary of Vietnam-Germany diplomatic ties. 

He also called on local authorities to create more favourable conditions for the Vietnamese community in Halle to integrate into the German society more successfully.

Petra Schneutzer, who is in charge of foreigners, highlighted contributions by Vietnamese people to socio-economic development in the city.

The same day, Vietnamese people in Berlin , and some other localities in Germany also held get-together to welcome the lunar New Year festival with the participation of local authorities.

Vietnam grandmaster to be enlisted in the world’s top 50

Hanoi (VNA) – Young Vietnamese grandmaster Le Quang Liem is most likely to be included in the list of the world’s top 50 chess players after he won the Aeroflot Open which took place from Feb. 9-17 in Moscow . 

The list will be announced by the World Chess Federation next month. 

Earlier, Liem ranked 93 rd in the list of the world’s top 100 announced by the Federation in January and was the only Vietnamese in the list. 

Vietnamese male chess players currently ranks 38 th in the world.

Calligraphers play with ancient works

Hanoi (VNA)- Zenei is a group of five, young avant-garde calligraphers who are forging a new path. The Zenei group are elevating both art and history to a new level of experience. 

Nom, the demotic script of Vietnam , was once the means with which Vietnamese literature, philosophy and country records were transcribed and it has nearly been forgotten. Today, there is only a small number of people who are able to both read and write Nom. However, five young scholars, who are able to read and write in this now unfamiliar script, have banded together to create Zenei. The Zenei group is actively carrying the Nom script forward from its place in history into modernity. 

"By composing and decomposing, creating and reinventing, the Zenei group is creating a living, visual experience that has a indiscernible form, sound and meaning," Suzanne Lecht, Art Director of Art Vietnam Gallery, said. 

"Each of the five artists in Zenei have their own unique way of relating to Nom in order to make it live again," she said. 

To Tran Trong Duong, the important thing is the spirit of the character not its literal translation. Using a brush to transcribe the character, he preserves the spiritual root of the word, but all traces of the character's original meaning have evaporated. 

Nguyen Quang Thang writes solely in Nom characters. He writes sentences in Vietnamese and thinks about the content before he starts to paint, but once he starts his mind is free of linguistic constraints. Like a man following a running stream, Thang treasures each character's intrinsic beauty. 

Pham Van Tuan has three large works in this exhibition. Tuan concentrates on illuminating the relationship between black and white. "I'm weak in my body, but when I write it is very strong. I work against my body," he says. His energy comes from God and a belief that a strong mind can lead to a strong stroke. 

In this installation Le Quoc Viet uses Chinese Han, the language from which Nom was derived, however Nom and Han are linguistically related but not identical. 

In Viet's installation, he uses ceramic plates and balls that have characters painted on them. This work can move and make sounds. The balls are placed on mirrors, which are in constant movement. When the balls move, the reflection creates thousands of images, which then makes a new modern language. 

Nguyen Duc Dung concentrates on making each stroke. "By focusing on the character's movement between light and dark, I pursue a primal understanding of the balance struck between the two colours, which is a balance between meaning and non-meaning," he says. "All our artworks are the result of our excursion into the scripts." 

"The five young artists are well-versed, passionate and well-educated in Han, Nom and calligraphy. They use ancient and ‘challenging' pseudonyms," says critic Nguyen Quan. 
"The five artists here play with letters, they create them and transform and analyse the structure of the scripts." 

Zenei's artworks are on display at the Art Vietnam Gallery, 7 Nguyen Khac Nhu Street , Hanoi , until March 3.

Securities industry in desperate need of qualified brokers

Hanoi (VNA) – The nation’s stock brokerages are starved for qualified personnel. In January, the job search website vietnamworks.com saw nearly 80 recruitment ads for staff for securities companies, most seeking qualified brokers to serve growing number of clients on a stock market once again seen as burgeoning. 

“Brokers and service staff make up 40 percent of securities companies’ human resources and they are likely to switch jobs the most,” said Rong Viet Securities Co general director Nguyen Mien Tuan, who said many of the best were bered away by better offers from competing firms. 

Many stock brokerages let staff go during the market downturn in 2008-09, but were now eager to recruit new employees with university diplomas or certificates in investment, banking, finance, insurance, auditing or accounting, and at least a year of relevant work experience. 

Le Dat Chi, dean of the finance department of the HCM City University of Economics, said there were very few finance majors who could not find jobs after graduation. 

“Current training programmes cannot satisfy the increasing demand for human resources in the financial sector,” Chi said. 

“Many people have pursued second degrees in finance and internships with securities companies” in order to qualify for the growing numbers of positions. 

The State Bank’s termination of gold trading floors, effective March 30, was also expected to shake up the human resources market in the sector in the near future.

Thirteen cement lines to be put into production

Hanoi (VNA) – The Ministry of Construction and the Vietnam Cement Association have said 13 new cement production lines are expected to be put into use this year with a combined capacity of about 11.7 million tonnes, raising total capacity of the local industry to approximately 70 million tonnes.

The increased capacity would ensure enough supply to meet this year’s projected demand for 48-50 million tonnes as well as demand in coming years.

Work is ongoing on several cement factories that are expected to increase output to meet domestic cement demand of 102 million tonnes by 2020.

Largest vessel ever calls at southern port

Hanoi (VNA) - SP-PSA International Port in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province has successfully handled on a trial basis the largest container ship ever to dock at a Vietnamese port during the Tet holiday.

The Albert Maersk, a 352m-long vessel, boasts its size of 109,000DWT with a container intake of 8,272-TEU. 

During the traditional Tet holiday, the SP-PSA port also received the 345m Queen Mary II cruise ship, with 2,600 passengers on board.

The port authority said the arrival of the vessels marked the start of new direct-call services to Europe and North America , which are expected to benefit importers and exporters. 

SP-PSA International Port is a joint venture between the Sai Gon Port, Vietnam National Shipping Lines (Vinalines) and PSA International Pte of Singapore. Starting operations in May last year, the port is the first deep-sea container terminal of Vietnam.

Mekong Delta focuses on FDI attraction

Hanoi (VNA) - The Mekong Delta region will improve its infrastructure and human resources to lure more FDI in high-tech, supporting industry, agricultural processing, and rural development, local officials said. 

At present, there are about 450 foreign direct investment (FDI) projects worth 7.7 billion USD in the region, the Department of Foreign Investment under the Ministry of Planning and Investment reported. 
Long An province is taking the lead in attracting FDI with 274 projects worth 3 billion USD. It was followed by Can Tho city with 53 projects, valued at 700 million USD.