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State President asserts Catholics’ services to nation
Hanoi (VNA) – State President Nguyen Minh Triet affirmed Catholic followers have contributed to building and developing Vietnam.
He made the statement in Ho Chi Minh City on Jan. 22 at a conference where the municipal Committee for Solidarity with Catholics reviewed its performance in 2010.
Reiterating Pope Benedict XVI’s saying “a good Catholic is also a good citizen”, President Triet said the Vietnamese Catholic followers, first of all, are Vietnamese citizens and have made huge contributions to the nation, in the struggles against invaders in the past and at the current cause of national construction, defence and development.
“Catholic followers’ contributions in any field or anywhere else are deserved compliments and recognition,” the Head of State stressed.
He spoke highly of efforts and services made by Catholic followers in general and those in Ho Chi Minh City in particular to community, social and charitable activities for the benefits of all people.
Priest Phan Khac Tu, Standing Vice President of the HCM City Committee for Solidarity with Catholics, said the year 2010 was significant to the country as well as the Vietnam Catholic Church and Catholic believers in the city were happy to see the success of big events in the country, including the 1,000 th founding anniversary of Thang Long-Hanoi and the 11 th National Party Congress.
For the Vietnam Catholic Church and the municipal Catholic community, 2010 had a special significance with the celebrations of the Jubilee Year, the 30 th anniversary of the Common Letter issued by the Vietnam Episcopal Council in 1980, and the 100 th birth anniversary of the late Archbishop Paul Nguyen Van Binh, the first Archbishop of the Saigon-Ho Chi Minh City Archdiocese, Priest Tu said.
He noted that in the past year, Catholic followers in the city actively took part in the campaign “all people unite to build cultural life in residential areas – leading a good life both secular and religious” and other role model movements and raised more than 55.5 billion VND for education, health, charitable and social programmes.
The same day, a delegation from the Government’s Committee for Religious Affairs led by its head Nguyen Thai Binh made traditional Lunar New Year visits to Buddhist, Catholic and Protestant dignitaries in the city.
Binh, who is also a Party Central Committee member and Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, also sent the New Year wishes and greetings to these dignitaries and to all Buddhist, Catholic and Protestant followers nationwide.
Representatives of these religions expressed thanks to the Party and State’s care and affirmed that religious followers will work together with the Party, the State and people nationwide for the country’s further development./.
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Over 12,000 people walk for the poor
HCM City (VNA)- Over 12,000 people joined the Lawrence S.Ting charity walk to raise fund for the poor in Ho Chi Minh City on Jan. 22 on the occasion of the Lunar New Year (Tet) festival.
The 2.87 km walk event, the sixth of its kind, was jointly organised by the People’s Committees of district 7, 8, Nha Be, Binh Chanh, the Saigon Giai Phong (Liberated Saigon) newspaper and the Phu My Hung company.
The organisers donated the proceeds worth 2.9 billion VND from the walk to “For the poor” funds of the above-said districts, fund for sports talents in Ho Chi Minh City and a fund of Ho Chi Minh City Television.
Over the past six years, the programme has attracted more than 66,500 participants and collected over 6 billion VND. Last year, 13,500 people joined the programme and raised 2.5 billion VND./.
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Plan to preserve UNESCO heritage launched in Hanoi
Hanoi (VNA) – The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on Jan. 22 launched a national action plan to preserve and develop the value of the Giong festival, which has been recognised as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by the UNESCO.
The plan was announced at a ceremony held in Phu Dong commune, Gia Lam district of Hanoi to receive the certificate of recognition of the UNESCO title.
At the ceremony, UNESCO Chief Representative in Hanoi Katherine Muller-Marin stressed that the Giong festival has been deeply impressed in the life of residents in the Red river delta as a part of their characteristics, passing from generations to generations. The recognition of the festival as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity is expected to accelerate humans’ creativeness and dialogues between cultures.
The ceremony was held in an open air of a northern countryside with an incense offering to Saint Giong at the beginning and then, the performances of ceremonies of the festival.
UNESCO officially honoured Vietnam’s Giong festival as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity at a meeting of its Inter-Governmental Committee in Nairobi, Kenya, on November 16, 2010.
The festival was Hanoi’s third heritage honour presented by the UNESCO in 2010.
The other sites include 82 steles engraved with names of doctorate holders for centuries in the Van Mieu-Quoc Tu Giam, Vietnam’s first university, which have been recognised as Documentary Heritage of the Memory of the World programme. The central site of the Thang Long Royal Citadel has won the title “World Cultural Heritage”.
The Giong festival is held annually in several parts of northern Vietnam, most typically in the Phu Dong and Soc Temples in Hanoi, to commemorate Saint Giong, one of the immortal quartets in the Vietnamese legends.
Legend has it that under the sixth King Hung’s reign (around 500 BC) Vietnam was threatened by the Kingdom of Yin, to the north of Vietnam.
A little boy, who was unable to crawl, roll over and say a single word at the age of three, had surprisingly grown up to a giant man in just several days after getting news on the foreign invasion. He used local bushes of bamboo to defeat aggressors and flew into the sky with his iron horse after the final victory.
In order to show their gratitude to the hero of Giong village, people proclaimed him Saint Giong.
The festival meets all qualifications for an intangible cultural heritage of humanity as it has been conserved by the community as part of the national cultural identity, handed down from generations to generations, holds creativeness of humanity and represents aspiration for prosperity by every family and peace for the nation and the world./.
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Saigontourist welcomes 2,500 maritime visitors
HCM City (VNA) – The Sai Gon Travel Service Company (Saigontourist) welcomed 2,500 European tourists and crew sailing aboard the cruise liner Costa Classica, which docked at the Lotus port in Ho Chi Minh City on January 22.
The visitors most from Italy , Spain , Germany , and the United Kingdom will have a five-day trans-Vietnam tour.
After docking at the Lotus port, the visitors will visit Ho Chi Minh City , Cu Chi tunnel, and My Tho city in the Mekong Delta.
The ship will then leave Ho Chi Minh City for Tien Sa port in the central city of Da Nang .
It will arrive at Ha Long Bay on January 25 for discovering the bay’s beautiful landscape.
In the evening of January 26, the ship will leave Ha Long bay, finishing its tour in Vietnam .
Last year, Saigontourist has welcomed more than 45,000 tourists arriving by sea, mostly from Europe. /.
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Action film star Jet Li attends VN’s blood donation festival
Hanoi (VNA)- Chinese action film star Jet Li(Ly Lien Kiet) attended the Xuan Hong (Red Spring) blood donation festival in Hanoi on Jan. 22 and called for more blood donation to help unlucky people.
Jointly organised by the Vietnam Red Cross (VRC), the National Steering Committee on Blood Donation, the Hanoi municipal Group of Young Blood Donors and the Thang Long Trade, Investment and Technology company, the event drew the participation of 5,000 donors.
Addressing the event, Tran Ngoc Tang, chairman of the VRC said that the campaign aimed to overcome the shortage of blood in hospitals for patients’ treatment. He also called on more people to donate blood before and after the Lunar New Year (Tet) festival.
On the occasion, 40 outstanding volunteers received VRC certificates of merit and gifts of Jet Li, the Goodwill Ambassador of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies./.
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German newspapers write about VN’s Party Congress
Berlin (VNA) – Some German newspapers recently carried articles on the success of the freshly-ended National Party Congress of Vietnam.
The “Neues Deutschland” on Jan. 20 carried an article by Detlef D. Pries on the success of the event which elected the new Party Central Committee, the Political Bureau and General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.
The article highlighted achievements Vietnam recorded in 25 years of implementing the renewal policy and quoted Vietnamese Party and State leaders’ determinations to basically develop the country into a modern industrialised country by 2020.
The same day, the “Junge Welt” wrote about the 11th National Party Congress of Vietnam, stressing on the democracy of the event. It said that was the first time in the political platform on building the country in the transitional period towards socialism, democracy was put ahead of equality./.
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Vietnamese-funded road opens to traffic in Cambodia
Dong Thap (VNA) – An inauguration ceremony of the road No. 312 that linking Bontia Chak Cray border gate and National Highway No.1 in Cambodia was held on January 21 in the southern province of Dong Thap .
The 28.5km long and 9.0-m wide road built at a total cost of 5 million USD funded by Vietnam ’s Dong Thap province.
Governor of Cambodia ’s Pray Veng province Ung Samy expressed his thanks for Dong Thap provinces’ valuable support to help Cambodia build the road.
He also suggested the ministries of communications and transport of both countries sign a protocol on goods inter-transport between Bontia Chak Cray border gate ( Cambodia ) and Dinh Ba border gate ( Vietnam ) to facilitate trade exchange between the two nations as well as promote the road’s efficiency in the next time./.
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New rural model about to take shape
Hanoi (VNA) - A model of new rural areas, where the central role of the people is upheld in every activity they participate in, is taking shape thanks to a pilot programme to be carried out in 11 communes nationwide since 2009.
The programme’s initial outcomes were reviewed in Hanoi on Jan. 22 at the programme Steering Board’s meeting, which also launched tasks for this year with the aim of building the new rural model in reality and drawing experiences for deploying the model nationwide.
According to the Steering Committee, 11 communes benefiting from the pilot project have seen improvements in a wide range of areas, including income, economic restructure, labour structure and production.
In these projected communes, fundamental infrastructure has been improved remarkably and production has been boosted. More attention was given to cultural and social affairs and environmental protection. Political system was strengthened, personnel work was enhanced, and security was maintained.
Several communes have built models pertaining to developing production for higher income, mobilizing all resources for development, and establishing the production connectivity between farmers and business, and others that have caught interests of other localities, the committee said.
Politburo member and Permanent member of the Party Central Committee’s Secretariat Truong Tan Sang praised endeavours made by agencies, communes and those involved in the pilot programme.
As the Head of the Steering Board for the pilot programme, Sang asked the agencies involved to continue disseminating information on the programme’s requirements and goals, especially to the people in the 11 target communes and instructed localities to prioritise target programmes in these communes.-Enditem
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Vietnam attends India’s North East Summit
New Delhi (VNA) – Vietnamese Ambassador to India Nguyen Thanh Tan, together with officials and diplomats from South Asian and ASEAN countries, has attended India ’s North East Summit in Mumbai.
Addressing the event, Ambassador Tan stressed the favourable conditions for Vietnam and India ’s northeastern region to strengthen cooperation, including the close distance and many geographic similarities, especially as the two countries are promoting their strategic partnership.
However, the diplomat also emphasised the need to further enhance connectivity in order to expand cooperation between the region and Vietnam in particular and ASEAN in general.
The summit, which ended on Jan. 22, discussed issues related to the Indian government’s development strategies for its northeastern region which has a great tourism and economic potential, especially in mining, infrastructure, agriculture, and food processing.
The northeast region consists of eight states with a total area of 262,230 sq.km and a 40 million population. It borders Nepal , Bangladesh , Myanmar , Bhutan and China .
The Indian government plans to attract foreign investment to turn the region into an international economic and trade hub, a gateway to ASEAN and East Asia, in order to promote the country’s “Look East” policy./.
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Vietnamese community abroad meet for Tet
Bangkok (VNA) - The Vietnamese community in Thailand gathered to welcome Lunar New Year (Tet) at a ceremony held in Nakhon Phanon province, Thailand on Jan. 22.
The ceremony was attended by more than 1,500 overseas Vietnamese, representing nearly 20 Vietnamese associations in Thailand .
Addressing the function, Nakhon Phanom provincial mayor Ruangsak Mahawitchaimontri highlighted the importance of the Thailand-Vietnam relations and the role of the Vietnamese community in the country.
Vietnamese ambassador Ngo Duc Thang informed OVs and Thai friends of Vietnam ’s socio-economic achievements in 2010 as well as the results of the 11 th National Party Congress.
He also praised Vietnamese community’s efforts to live in harmony with local people.
The same day, the Overseas Vietnamese Association and the Vietnamese Students Association in Hannover city and neighbouring regions, Germany , hosted a Tet welcoming ceremony, attracting 200 Vietnamese people and German friends.
Deputy Mayor of Hannover city, Bernd Strauch spoke highly of the integration of Vietnamese people in the city’s development.
On the occasion, First Secretary of Vietnamese Embassy in Germany Nguyen Anh Tuan presented a certificate of merit to the Vietnamese Association in Hannover and neighbouring regions for their contributions to community movement as well as to celebrations of the 35 th anniversary of Vietnam-Germany diplomatic ties in 2010.
The Vietnamese Embassies in Canada and India also hosted get togethers for overseas Vietnamese to celebrate the success of the 11 th National Party Congress and welcome Tet holidays./.
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Tet supplies warm up cold-hit island
Binh Thuan (VNA)- Shipments of food and other necessities for the approaching Lunar New Year Festival (Tet) were unloaded on the Phu Quy island on January 23.
The multi-hundred tonne supplies, provided and escorted by the naval force of region 4 for the island off the central province of Binh Thuan , have made a breakthrough to the recent sluggish trade between the island and the in-land.
It was reported that biting cold, rough waters and strong winds have stopped normal operation of fishing and cargo ships on the route from Phu Quy island to Phan Thiet township since late December last year, causing a shortage of foods on the island.
A delegation from the regional naval force also visited and presented gifts for poor families on the island.--Enditem
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China bank buys US stakes
Beijing (VNA) – The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, said to be the world’s biggest, signed a deal to buy an 80-percent stake worth 100 million USD of the US subsidiary of the Bank of East Asia on Jan. 21.
The agreement came by the time China ’s President Hu Jintao concluded his four-day visit to the US .
The deal still has to wait for approval from US managers. If approved, this will be the first US financial institution to be controlled by a Chinese State bank.
The Hong Kong-based Bank of East Asia has 13 branches in the United States./.
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Vietnam, Netherlands enhance PPP in agriculture
Hanoi (VNA) – The agriculture cooperation between Vietnam and the Netherlands under the public-private partnership (PPP), has seen positive development, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).
MARD’s International Cooperation Department said the fisheries, cocoa and coffee industries have benefited the most from the cooperation. The Netherlands will help Vietnam become a full member of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC). Both countries have agreed to seek funding for a programme to train quarantine officers and law makers in the European Union (EU) food safety and law.
The Netherlands has pledged an investment of 300,000 EUR over the 2010-2012 period to improve the sustainability of tra and basa fish rearing method in Vietnam.
In addition, the Netherlands has proposed a programme on sustainable production and business development for Vietnam’s coffee industry. Donors are expected to contribute 47 percent of the 32 million EUR programme to be carried out until 2012.
A delegation of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation is on a week-long fact-finding tour to Vietnam until Jan. 24 to devise a new PPP project on cocoa’s sustainable development in Vietnam.
The two countries have also paid due attention to the government to government cooperation. The Netherlands is working on three proposals in this form regarding the planning of Vietnam’s slaughtering and meat processing system, boosting Vietnam’s potato production and protecting Vietnam’s domestic pig species from foreign diseases.-Enditem
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Overseas Vietnamese celebrate New Year in HCM City
HCM City (VNA)- Over 600 overseas Vietnamese (OVs) flocked to a meeting in Ho Chi Minh City on January 22 in celebration of the Year of the Cat.
The event included dialogues between OVs and municipal authorities on policies to promote the OV community’s potential as well as on investment, trade and services. The dialogues provided OVs with information on investment climate, business opportunities, trade stimuli and new policies of the southern economic hub.
Organisers from the municipal liaison association to OVs said they expected the event would help attract an increasing number of OVs to invest and open business back home.
Overseas Vietnamese with successful business in Vietnam , such as Nguyen Tri Dung from Japan , Do Ngoc Quynh from Germany and Duong Duc from France , shared their experiences with younger generations, dealing with investment climate and overcoming challenges in doing business in Vietnam .
The OVs were also provided with free consultation on applying for nationality, real estate development, investment, business establishment, tourism and employment./.
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Diplomatic corps visit Ho Dynasty Citadel in Thanh Hoa
Thanh Hoa (VNA) – A delegation of foreign diplomats has paid a working visit to the Ho Dynasty Citadel, a national heritage site of Vietnam , in the northern central province of Thanh Hoa .
The citadel of the Ho Dynasty, also called Tay Do Citadel, is situated in Vinh Tien and Vinh Long communes, Vinh Loc district, west of Thanh Hoa city.
Built about 600 years ago, with four gates in the central of each of the walls South, North, East and West, the Ho Dynasty Citadel is an old military construction of great cultural and historical value. It was the old capital of Vietnam from 1397 to 1407.
The citadel includes three sections: A bamboo hedge, a moat and the citadel wall plus the internal area with several palaces connected to each other by marble-paved roads.
In 2004, Vietnamese and Japanese archaeologists conducted initial excavations in the central area in the citadel and found architectural traces of old palaces. In 2010, they discovered the foundation and the main part of the Nam Giao, an elevated platform for royal rituals worshiping the Heaven and the Earth, about 30cm under the ground.
The excavations also revealed thousands of artefacts believed to belong to the Ho Dynasty and ceramics of Vietnam and China , proving cultural exchanges had existed at the time between Vietnam and neighbouring countries.
Thanh Hoa province has submitted the complete dossier on the Ho Dynasty Citadel to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) for consideration and recognition as a world heritage site.
Katherine Muller-Marin, Chief Representative of UNESCO in Vietnam , said she was impressed by the construction of the citadel which used large stone blocks without any adhesive, special design of the Nam Giao Platform as well as Ho Quy Ly’s renovation thought, describing them as important things in documents on the citadel and the roadmap to become a world heritage site.
Besides the UNESCO representative, the delegation included diplomats of five permanent member countries at the World Heritage Committee and representatives from China, Cambodia, Myanmar, Austria, Indonesia, Morocco, Russia, Germany and Belgium./.
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