Posts Tagged ‘mulls’
Can Tho City mulls over golf project elimination
In Uncategorized on October 13, 2010 at 7:46 amCan Tho will consider dropping the golf project at Binh Thuy District, said Nguyen Thanh Son, deputy chairman of Can Tho City People’s Committee.
The municipal committee had entrusted the Department of Construction with inspecting and giving consultancy about this problem before taking action, he said.
In August 2004, the committee issued a decision to allow Hong Lam Company to build a center for entertainment, culture, and sports at Long Hoa Ward, Binh Thuy District.
In July 2008, it granted the company an investment certificate, allowing it to build an 18-hole golf course in an area of 94 hectares, a housing resettlement in an area of 54 hectares, and an entertainment center with a total investment of VND1 trillion. The project was scheduled to finish by the last quarter of this year. However, the company has conducted sluggishly its project, causing many difficulties to local residents.
By the end of last year, the committee decided to withdraw the project’s investment certificate.
Source: SGGP
Malaysia mulls school for pregnant teens to curb dumping
In Uncategorized on July 26, 2010 at 3:18 pm
This photo taken on July 16, 2010 shows a tourist walking through a bar decorated with baloons for the weekend in Kuala Lumpur. AFP
KUALA LUMPUR, July 26, 2010 (AFP) – A Malaysian state is considering establishing a school for pregnant teenagers, to curb an alarming epidemic of “baby dumping”, a report said Monday.
The chief minister of Malacca state, Mohamad Ali Rustam, said according to the New Straits Times that the school was among strategies including encouraging pregnant girls to marry.
Only married teens will be allowed to attend the school.
“For unmarried teenagers, they also can be part of the school but with one condition — they must marry the baby’s father,” Ali said.
Authorities in Muslim-majority Malaysia are grappling with the problem of rising numbers of abandoned infants, often dumped dead or dying in the streets or on rubbish dumps.
“This problem has become a disease of sorts. We cannot just turn our backs and think that this is not our problem,” Ali said according to the English-language daily.
“Baby dumping cases usually happen among the Muslim community as teenagers were desperate to conceal their pregnancies. Some of the girls were also disowned by their families,” he said.
“They do not perform abortions as this is prohibited in Islam. So, they take the shortcut to solve their problem by dumping their newborns. We do not want this to continue. It has to be stopped.”
The chief minister said Malacca was considering establishing a special school for pregnant girls to encourage them to continue with their education and to protect their unborn children.
“In the event normal schools cannot accept pregnant girls, we are going to build a school just for them,” he reportedly said, adding that youngsters from other states could also attend.
“This school will cater to those who are legitimately married.”
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Source: SGGP
Mekong Delta mulls ways to boost tourism
In Uncategorized on May 29, 2010 at 9:12 amNowhere in Vietnam has good condition for waterway tourism as in the Mekong Delta with plenty of canals and rivers. However, the great tourist potential has not been properly invested and exploited, making the region tourism monotonous with uninspired tourist packages.
Tourists visit Cai Rang Floating Market in Can Tho City (Photo: SGGP)
The issue was discussed by management officials, experts, researchers and travel businesses at a seminar to seek measures for the delta’s waterway tourism development, which was held in Kien Giang Province May 28 .
Addressing about potentials to develop waterway tourism in the Mekong Delta, delegates said that the region has 750 kilometers of beaches, 360,000 square kilometers of territorial waters, 28,000 kilometers of rivers and canals and numerous of islands in Kien Giang and Ca Mau Provinces.
Over the past time, the region tourism has rather developed. In 2009, it received over1.2 million of foreign and eight million of domestic visitors, triple the number in 2000.
However, the delta tourism development has been mainly from exploiting available potentials with a shortage of high-quality and diversified tourist products. Especially, a lack of coordination between localities while businesses have haphazardly operated has restricted the delta further tourism development.
Phan Xuan Anh, chairman of Du ngoan Viet Travel Company said that travelling to the delta is unattractive to visitors as most of tours are similarly organized.
In addition, most of the boats do not have lavatories. Some of them have but the lavatories are too dirty, he said.
Meanwhile, Phan Dinh Hue, deputy principle of the Ho Chi Minh City based International School for Tourism and Marketing said that tours to the delta are usually patchy and uninspired. Visitors, thus, just spend one to two days in the region. Poor services together with weak marketing have made the region tourism hard to entice visitors.
To boost the region tourism, Nguyen Phu Duc, chairman of Vietnam Tourism Association said that the most urgent matter is diversifying tours, which need a coalition among localities.
Hideki Asami, general director of Nikken Sekke Civil Engineering Ltd., said that the significant factor is upgrading the traffic infrastructure including roads, waterways, airways and roads.
According to Pham Phuoc Nhu, chairman of the Mekong Delta Tourism Association, the delta is well-known in the world with its unique waterways. However, the State has not much invested to promote the region strengths.
One of steps to comprehensively develop the region tourism is establishment of a committee on the Mekong Delta tourism, which will play the role of a “bandmaster”, he said.
Stating at the end of the seminar, Huynh Vinh Ai, deputy Minister of Sports, Culture and Tourism said that tourism must become a key economic factor of the Mekong Delta.
The Ministry will soon build a website to advertise for the delta tourism and in the year’s third quarter, the ministry will also host a seminar on association for the delta’s sustainable tourism development.
Source: SGGP
Nation mulls broader tourism cooperation
In Uncategorized on May 10, 2010 at 4:52 pmThe national travel chief has confirmed broader cooperation with regional partners in promoting the industry, cultural identity of each country and working out specific products for sustainable development in the region.
The Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Hoang Tuan Anh, made the statement before 300 senior travel officials from 17 countries and territories in Asia and the Pacific, international travel organisations, foreign diplomatic corps in Vietnam and the domestic hospitality industry at a meeting in Hanoi on May 10.
Tuan added the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) would work with the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) in boosting the exchange of experiences in promoting tourist brand names and launching promotion campaigns.
Cooperation will also be sought for conducting feasibility surveys of virgin sites of great potential such as Ba Be and Thac Ba lakes as well as community tourism in the northern mountainous province of Ha Giang, the travel chief emphasised.
In the recent past, the UNWTO has helped Vietnam develop local traditional craft villages, boost MICE tourism and draft a tourism law.
At the meeting, policy makers, experts and entrepreneurs in the hospitality industry discussed measures to address challenges and increase the industry’s contributions to the socio-economic development such as jobs and income generation and poverty reduction.
Tourism nets 4.05 billion USD a year, ranking in the list of top five hard-currency earners in Vietnam.
Source: VNA
Source: QDND
S.Korea mulls providing more aid to N.Korea
In World on December 21, 2009 at 4:04 pmSEOUL, Dec 21, 2009 (AFP) – South Korea said Monday it may provide more aid to impoverished North Korea following last week’s shipment of swine flu medication, in a new sign of cross-border reconciliation.
“We are considering funding assistance projects by several international organisations for North Korean infants and children,” unification ministry spokesman Chun Hae-Sung told a briefing.
The spokesman did not elaborate, saying the issue is still being reviewed.
Seoul’s Yonhap news agency, citing a government source, said the aid worth billions of won (millions of dollars) would be channeled through the United Nations Children’s Fund and other bodies.
South Korea on Friday shipped Tamiflu and Relenza worth 15 million dollars — enough to treat 500,000 people — to North Korea in the first direct government aid for nearly two years.
The shipment followed North Korea’s report of nine cases of the (A)H1N1 virus, amid fears that the disease may spread fast because of poor health conditions and malnutrition.
It was the first direct aid to Pyongyang from Seoul’s conservative government since it took office in February 2008. President Lee Myung-Bak linked major assistance to progress in nuclear disarmament, a stance which enraged the communist North.
North Korea in recent months has been trying to improve relations with South Korea and its ally the United States.
US envoy Stephen Bosworth visited Pyongyang earlier this month for talks aimed at bringing it back to nuclear disarmament negotiations.
Source: SGGP
