Ba Na Mountain hosts beer festivalThe Sun World Ba Na Hills Mountain resort, 1,500m above sea level, has launched a beer festival, the B’estival 2018 to celebrate summer holidays, offering 1 million litres of German beer for tourists between May and September. Tourists clink glasses with German beer during the beer festival in Ba Na Mountain resort in Da Nang City. — Photo courtesy of Ba Na HillsThe beer festival organisers said the beer festival, which opened on April 30, aims to lure tourists to spend the festive season in the mountain rendezvous this summer. A 3,000-seat Beer Plaza in the Du Dome Park was designed for the beer festival with German-style cuisine, BBQ parties and fashion from Oktoberfest – the famous Bavaria beer festival. More than 200 artists from Europe will perform during the four-month long beer festival in the cool air of the Ba Na mountain climate.

Part of 45-kg tumour removed from patientViet Duc Hospital’s Department of Plastic Surgery successfully conducted a surgery to remove part of a 45-kg tumour from a 34-year-old patient. – Photo courtesy of Viet Duc HospitalThe tumour had spread to his buttocks, back and almost the entire left thigh. The patient was unable to walk normally and had to crawl because of the tumour. The patient’s family members from the Nghệ An central province said the tumour developed each year, and the family could not afford to get the patient treated when he was young so the tumour spread gradually. Associate Professor Nguyen Hong Ha, head of Plastic Surgery Department, said the patient was hospitalised in poor health due to chronic blood loss.

People’s reports help rescue wildlife animalsTimely reports made by people have helped rescue many wildlife animals, said Director of Education for Nature Vietnam Bui Thi Ha on May 3. (Photo: Education for Nature Vietnam)She hoped that the centre’s hotline number 1800-1522 will continue receiving reports on crimes related to wildlife trafficking, helping more wildlife animals to return to the nature, she added. Many wildlife animals have been saved from being illegally kept or illegally traded across the country in recent times, according to the Education for Nature Vietnam. The monkey was then saved and transferred to the Cu Chi Wildlife Rescue Centre. Violations in protecting rare, precious and endangered wildlife are also viewed as “extremely serious offence” instead of “serious offence” as stated in the previous code.-VNA

HCM City noise pollution strikes wrong noteVietNamNet Bridge – Noise pollution is worsening in HCM City, posing health risks and contributing to social disorder. Similar results were found in examinations conducted by the HCM City Environmental Protection Agency. Noise pollution doesn’t only affect the health of local people, but also causes social disorders. The number of noise-related cases had risen in HCM City over the past two years, Vietnam News Agency reported. The altercation began because a group of workers at a warehouse in the alley often made loud noise at night.

French circus to perform in HanoiVietNamNet Bridge – Twelve artists from Be Clown will perform a contemporary circus show, taking the audience on a timeless journey away from everyday reality, in Hanoi on Saturday. The theatre is now the cornerstone of the Be Clown Circus in Vietnam. Binh has been a circus lover for many years and has dreamed opening a circus. Lanthiez and Varreon decided to follow his dream and collaborate in this long-term and local project by helping Binh in the construction of a circus theatre. — Photos be-clown.comThe circus theatre is made mainly from bamboo, and is a part of an already existing rural development project, being carried out on a long-term basis.

French doctors honoured for contributions to health care in VietnamFour French doctors have been awarded with certificates of merit of the Vietnamese Health Minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien for their contributions to public health care in Vietnam. At the ceremony (Source: sggp.org.vn)The doctors namely Alain Delbary, Daniel Derval, Eric Wohlschies and Diep Mong Hung received the honour at a ceremony held by the General Hospital of the central province of Ha Tinh on May 3. The doctors, from the Côtes d'Armor Vietnam Association, have had working trips to Ha Tinh General Hospital. Over the past time, the Côtes d'Armor Vietnam Association has helped the hospital develop professional technologies and improve the quality of medical check-ups and treatment, benefiting thousands of patients in Ha Tinh.-VNA

Relations with Vietnam is excellent: Dutch AmbassadorDutch Ambassador to Vietnam Nienke Trooster has described the relations between the Netherlands and Vietnam over the past four decades as wonderful and excellent in various fields. Dutch Ambassador to Vietnam Nienke Trooster ( Source: Embassy of the Netherlands in Vietnam)“If we look at trade and investment, we are doing very well,” the diplomat said in an interview granted to Vietnam News Agency at a recent celebration to mark 45 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The Netherlands is the number one EU investor in Vietnam by registering more than 7 billion USD of investment capital. This will increase even further once the EU- Vietnam Free Trade Agreement comes into effect. For Vietnam, the Netherlands functions as ‘gateway to Europe’, providing additional trade and investment opportunities.

Vietnamese NA enhances ties with Romanian ParliamentA high-level delegation of the Vietnamese National Assembly led by its Vice Chairman Uong Chu Luu is paying a working visit to Romania in order to intensify the traditional friendship between the two legislatures and enhance coordination at multilateral forums. Regarding cooperation between the two legislative bodies, Luu stated that the ties have developed continuously, contributing greatly to the Vietnam-Romania relations. The Vietnamese NA Vice Chairman took the occasion to thank Romania for training thousands of Vietnamese experts in different aspects, and currently providing 10 scholarships a year for Vietnamese students. At the talks with Deputy Speaker of the Senate Claudiu Manda, the Vietnamese NA Vice Chairman hailed Romania’s socio-economic development achievements and its integration into the European Union. Claudiu Manda suggested the two sides discuss specific measures to intensify multi-faceted cooperation, while affirming that the Romanian Senate supports the promotion of bilateral economic ties.

74 percent of high school candidates apply to universitiesVietNamNet Bridge – Nearly 74 per cent of the 925,961 candidates taking the upcoming national high school graduation examinations have applied to universities, according to the Ministry of Education and Training. The high school exam will be held from June 24 to 27, with the scores used for admission to universities, colleges and vocational schools. There are 500 colleges and intermediate schools providing two-year training programmes besides 1,974 vocational schools this year. Last year only 5-7 per cent of junior high school students applied to vocational and intermediate schools though usually 80-90 per cent of their students get jobs on graduation. To improve things, secondary school students need to be provided counselling on vocational training, the directorate said.

Review of VN's first-four-month foreign investment in 2018Foreign investment inflow decreased by 23.9% but disbursed volume increased to US$5.1 billion from US$4.8 billion of the same period last year.

No risk of insolvency for social insurance fund: officialVietnam Social Security Fund (VSSF) will not go bust by 2025, Deputy General Director of the Vietnam Social Security Dao Viet Anh has said. He said the forecast was made by the International Labour Organisation before the issuance of the Law on Social Insurance in 2014. However, under the new law, the coverage of social insurance has expanded and the methods to calculate premium and payments have changed, which made the previous forecast no longer correct, he further explained. He stressed that the proposal on higher retirement age must take into account various issues like age, the efficiency of human resources use, labour productivity and gender equality, apart from social insurance fund balance. According to MoLISA Minister Dao Ngoc Dung, either of these options, if approved, will be implemented with a planned timeline so that it will not be an immediate change for labourers.-VNA

Ly Hoang Nam enters men’s doubles’ final of VN F1 tennis eventThe Vietnamese duo Ly Hoang Nam and Le Quoc Khanh reached the final of the men’s doubles category of the Futures Vietnam F1 tennis tournament in Hue yesterday. The Vietnamese duo Ly Hoang Nam and Le Quoc Khanh. — Photo VTFThe Vietnamese pair defeated Niki Kaliyada Poonacha and Abhinav Sajeev Shanmugam of India 6-4, 6-2 in the semi-final match. In today’s final, Nam and Khanh will face the winners in the match between the pair Justin Barki of Indonesia and Soichiro Moritani of Japan and Chun Hun Wong, Park Long Yeung of Hong Kong. Nam, No 1 seed and world No 461, also faces Kazuki Nishiwaki of Japan, world No 998 ATP in the quarter-finals in men’s singles.

More investors want to sell giant BOT projects to the govtVietNamNet Bridge - More infrastructure developers want to transfer projects to the State because of a number of problems they face. Investors want to sell BOT projects to the governmentCienco 4, Tuan Loc and Truong Loc, the initial investors of Thai Nguyen – Cho Moi BOT (build-operate-transfer) project, capitalized at VND2.713 trillion, has sent word intimating that they want to transfer the project, which is facing difficulties. After three months of implementing fee collection at one of two collection stations of the projects, the investors collected only VND6.6 billion. More infrastructure developers want to transfer projects to the State because of a number of problems they face. Prior to that, some other BOT project developers also intended to transfer the entire project to the state because of problems.

Gov’t leader urges reforms to keep up with global development paceAmid the complex world situation, Vietnam needs to push ahead with reforming policies and regulations to keep up with the development pace of the global economy, said Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc. While some officials, public employees and civil servants haven’t been drastic enough in their work, resources remains limited and existing policies haven’t truly created conditions for development. He asked each Cabinet member to be well aware of their responsibilities to stand ready to respond to new problems and fast changes of the domestic and international situation in order to create momentum for sustainable development. He told them to swiftly address problems arising and lingering shortcomings, particularly in food safety, culture, smuggling, trade fraud and deforestation. Regarding export promotion measures, he requested the Ministry of Industry and Trade, relevant ministries and sectors, and localities to step up trade promotion and remedies, seek new markets, and improve domestic production capacity.

The country raked in 6.5 billion USD from exports of main agricultural products, 2.4 billion USD from seafood and 2.7 billion USD from main forestry products, up 11.9 percent, 13 percent and 7.9 percent from the same time last year, respectively. Earnings from coffee regained a slight rise of 0.4 percent to 1.3 billion USD despite an 18.1 percent increase in volume with 691,000 tonnes. Imports of telephone and spare parts increased 9.8 percent to 4.42 billion USD, and that of fabric of all kinds was up 10 percent year on year to 3.66 billion USD. Exports showed a reduction of 13.9 percent on a monthly basis to 18.2 billion USD, and imports in the month also fell 7.3 percent month on month to 17.5 billion USD. As a result, trade surplus in April is estimated at 700 million USD, raising the surplus for the January-April period to 3.39 billion USD.