Vxhoan's Weblog

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire

vxhoan — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 01:04:37 +0000

Linh is only 30, but he has already lost his hair in chemotherapy for lung cancer, which he developed after a mere 13 years of smoking.

Linh, an engineer whose doctor describes his disease as “fatal,” shares a room at Hanoi’s National K Hospital with a 42-year-old who also has cancer, an upper jaw affliction he developed after smoking a pipe for 22 years.

Head of the Health Ministry’s Vietnam Tobacco Control Program Ly Ngoc Kinh said up to 40,000 people die of tobacco-related diseases annually in Vietnam, adding that the figure is expected to rise in the near future.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that teen smoking is on the increase in many Asian countries, including Vietnam, but the global body said that local policies geared towards dissuading the youth from smoking are limited in the Southeast Asian nation.

More than 50 percent of adult males in Vietnam now smoke, Kinh said.

A majority of them started smoking as teenagers while 10 percent began smoking between the ages of 13-15.

Eighty percent of lung and upper jaw cancer patients in Vietnam have a history of heavy smoking from a very early age, said Pham Duy Hien, vice director of National K Hospital.

Nguyen Xuan Nghiem, head of the National Tuberculosis and Lung Hospital’s Recuperation and Emergency Department, said the number of patients suffering from lung-related and respiratory diseases at his facility is increasing by an estimated 15 percent annually.

Jean-Marrc Olives, the WHO’s chief representative in Vietnam, said that around one billion teenagers smoke all over the world while 85 percent of them are in developing countries.

Around the globe, about 5.4 million people die tobacco-related deaths every year, he said.

Policy gap

Vietnam has already banned tobacco advertising in the mass media and has increased the amount of information about the detriments of smoking that must be placed on packs of cigarettes.

However, the WHO and the Health Ministry agree that the solutions are not strong, effective or comprehensive enough as the number of smokers in Vietnam continues to increase.

The Vietnamese government tax on tobacco is low compared to other countries.

At two billion packs per year, Thailand’s cigarette consumption is just half of Vietnam’s.

However, the Thai government soaks up US$1 billion in tobacco taxes every year, 2.5 times higher than Vietnam’s $400 million in tobacco tax revenues.

Many tobacco brands in Vietnam are launching more sophisticated advertising and marketing campaigns to attract younger customers.

Many tobacco companies have scantily-clad young women selling their products table to table at bars, restaurants and coffee shops.

Many brands promote their products with raffles, lucky draws and games.

Olives said that walking through Hanoi, one comes across a dazzling array of shops painted with brightly colored cigarette ads.

He said such displays were alarming and obviously geared towards the youth.

Rivers endanger public health

vxhoan — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 01:03:58 +0000

“For many years, sewage and waste from industrial and residential areas have been dumped into rivers untreated,” said Deputy Head of the Construction Ministry Tran Ngoc Chinh at the Hanoi conference on sewage management and other environmental issues.

Chinh said waterways such as the Nhue, Day and Cau rivers in the north and the Dong Nai and Sai Gon rivers in the south were turning grey and smelling fetid.

He said such rivers were no longer healthy water supplies.

Bui Xuan Doan, Deputy Head of the Ministry’s Infrastructure Bureau, said the water pollution rate in the urban areas is especially high.

An estimated 41 percent of untreated sewage from households and 55 percent from industrial zones in Hanoi are discarded into the city’s main rivers such as To Lich, Kim Nguu, Lu and Set, said Doan.

He said recent mud tests at Hanoi lakes and rivers revealed high levels of lead, bronze and zinc.

Meanwhile, trade villages were also polluting rural areas, said Nguyen Thi Kim Dung, an official from the Water Resources and Environment Center.

Dung said the amount of harmful chemicals discarded by one particular trade village in the northern province of Ha Tay is many times higher than the legal limit.

The Health Ministry’s Preventive Medicine and Environment Department said more than 80 percent of the diseases in Vietnam – including cholera, typhoid, hepatitis A, and encephalitis – could be traced to the country’s water supply.

The figure was due not only to pollution that causes diseases, but also to the fact that water can help carry and transmit disease while also contributing indirectly, as in attracting dengue-carrying mosquitoes, for example.

The department also said the nation’s water supply was responsible for more than half of the country’s hospital patients.

Looking long-term

Although several water treatment methods are implemented in Vietnam, most are just short-term solutions for each river, Chinh said.

Chinh said the nation should design water treatment plans for whole river valleys and include several cities and provinces in each plan.

Doan said each locality should have separate drains for rain water and sewage water.

He also said each local area should build underground drains where sewage can be treated before flowing into rivers or lakes.

The criteria for waste processing systems in cities and industrial zones were also discussed at a seminar held in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday.

The criteria include the completion of sewage treatment systems in all industrial zones by 2010.

At the seminar, experts asked enterprises, who consume resources and dispose large amounts of waste, to cooperate in protecting the environment.

Government impatient to complete first oil refinery

vxhoan — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 01:02:54 +0000

Moving towards a market economy, the government has turned many state-owned companies into shareholding entities. In many cases, however, it seems only the names have changed.

The process of issuing shares to partly-privatized state-owned businesses, in which the government still holds the major stake, is termed by the government as “equitization.”

But after equitization, many of these businesses still keep the same personnel and corporate governance model that are, in most cases, incompetent and ineffective.

At a recent conference on restructuring equitized businesses, Hoang Nguyen Hoc, Executive Director of the State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC) – the government’s investment arm – said governance at these companies was still very weak.

Most managing staff were underqualified, he added.

The best example, Vinamilk Company, had only 30 percent of managing staff members who were competent for their jobs.

“The management in many equitized companies is the same as when they were still state-owned. Directors make their own decisions and don’t give shareholders a darn,”

Nguyen Minh Tuan, another SCIC executive, said.

Hoc said good corporate governance, not capital, would be the key for success for equitized companies.

Financial institutions and investment funds played a very important role in restructuring these companies, he said, adding they could assist in training management staff and improving governance.

Khám phá bí mật siêu địa chấn

vxhoan — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 01:37:10 +0000

Hãng tin AFP dẫn lời các nhà địa chất học Pháp – Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ cho hay họ đã tìm thấy bằng chứng về các tác động của một trận động đất cực kỳ khủng khiếp nhưng hiếm hoi gọi là supershear (tạm dịch là siêu dịch chuyển). Trong một đợt supershear, một xung động năng lượng có thể xé toạc dọc theo một đứt gãy với tốc độ 21.600 km/giờ, nhanh gấp nhiều lần vận tốc âm thanh, và có thể gây ra sự phá hủy tức thời với mức độ thảm khốc đối với các tòa nhà trong khu vực bị chấn động.

Những trận động đất dạng này không thường xuyên xảy ra và chỉ xuất hiện trên các đứt gãy đặc biệt cùng nằm trên một đường thẳng, khiến xung động mặc sức tung hoành mà không gặp trở ngại nào. Các nhà khoa học phát hiện các trận supershear gây ra các dư chấn tại những khu vực không hề ngờ tới. Nếu các dư chấn của những trận động đất thông thường xảy ra một cách tập trung xung quanh đường đứt gãy, các supershear giải phóng các dư chấn ở các đứt gãy thứ cấp và tại các đứt gãy đang ngủ yên trước đó, vốn không liên quan đến đứt gãy tại supershear.

Chung kết Robocon 2008: ĐH Công nghiệp Hà Nội vô địch

vxhoan — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 01:31:35 +0000

TTO - Tối 8-6, tại Nhà thi đấu Quân khu 7 (TP.HCM), đội Robocon FEE-02 (ĐH Công nghiệp Hà Nội) đã xuất sắc vượt qua đội Ngũ Hành Sơn (ĐHBK Đà Nẵng) giành chức vô địch Robocon 2008 và sẽ đại diện Việt Nam tham dự cuộc tranh tài tại Ấn Độ vào tháng 8 tới.

Trước đó, các CĐV có mặt trên khán đài Nhà thi đấu Quân khu 7 đã được thưởng thức bốn trận tứ kết giữa các đội: CKD Aress (ĐH Sư phạm Kỹ thuật TP.HCM) – BK FET (ĐH Bách Khoa Hà Nội); E-HT7 (ĐH Bách khoa Đà Nẵng) – CĐ9-CN II (Cao đẳng Kinh tế Kỹ thuật công nghiệp II); FA SO1 (Học Viện kỹ thuật quân sự) – Ngũ Hành Sơn (ĐH Bách khoa Đà Nẵng); FORT (Cao đẳng giao thông vận tải 3) - FEE-02 (ĐH Công nghiệp Hà Nội) với kết qu

Những gương mặt lọt vào vòng bán kết là BK FET (ĐHBK Hà Nội), Ngũ Hành Sơn (ĐHBK Đà Nẵng), FEE-02 (ĐH Công nghiệp Hà Nội) và CĐ9-CN II (Cao đẳng Kinh tế Kỹ thuật công nghiệp II).

Trận bán kết thứ nhất diễn ra giữa hai đội “bách khoa” BK FET và Ngũ Hành Sơn đã kết thúc với phần thắng thuộc về đại diện đến từ miền Trung. Ở trận bán kết thứ hai, “ẩn số” CĐ9-CN II đã không thể tiếp tục mạch chiến thắng dù trước đó các robot của họ hoạt động khá ổn định và sáng tạo. Với kết quả này, ”kịch bản” của trận chung kết Robocon 2007 đã được lặp lại: đội Robocon của ĐHBK Đà Nẵng gặp đội của ĐH Công nghiệp Hà Nội.

Với chiến thắng trước đội Ngũ Hành Sơn, FEE-02 đã trở thành đại diện của Việt Nam tham dự cuộc thi tại Pune, Ấn Độ vào tháng 8 tới. Tại lễ trao giải, FEE-02 đã được đại diện Bộ KH-CN trao tặng 10 triệu đồng để hoàn thiện robot tham dự cuộc thi Robocon châu Á – Thái Bình Dương 2008; 40 triệu đồng tiền thưởng của VTV, 1.000 USD của Hiệp hội phát thanh truyền hình châu Á-Thái Bình Dương…

ả khá bất ngờ: những đội được dự báo có nhiều khả năng chiến thắng đã không thể giành quyền đi tiếp.

Hello world!

vxhoan — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 01:27:29 +0000

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