Human resources

The patient was brought to Vietnam by a plane run by the UN Emergency Chartered Medical Evacuation Services (MEDEVAC).

After undergoing intensive treatment in a strict quarantine process, and thanks to expertise and dedicated care of Vietnamese doctors and nurses, the patient have fully recovered and been discharged from hospital. The UN staff member left Vietnam on June 15 to come back to work.

It was the first time Vietnam has received and treated a patient as a UN staff member under the MEDEVAC mechanism, marking a new development step in the Vietnam-UN comprehensive partnership. The deed once again affirmed Vietnam’s humane tradition, willingness and commitment to contribute to international cooperation in coping with the COVID-19 pandemic.

UN leaders and representatives at different levels appreciated and expressed their gratitude to Vietnam’s good will and spirit of international solidarity. They spoke highly of the Vietnamese health sector’s professional capacity and contributions to the care and protection of the people’s health as well as expanding international cooperation and improving the country’s position.

Especially, UN Under-Secretary General Atul Khare lauded the significance of the deed, saying it helped the UN fulfill its tasks in the region. He also expressed wish to receive more support from Vietnam in the near future.

On the occasion, he also thanked Vietnam for continuing to send medical workers to the level-2 field hospital in South Sudan and giving COVID-19 vaccine shots to them before departure.

MEDEVAC was set up with the aim of creating a global framework to provide emergency evacuation for severely ill UN staff members who require a level of care not available at their locations. Many countries in and outside the region engaged in the reception and treatment for them via the MEDEVAC mechanism.

The UN, through the COVAX Facility, had already sent nearly 2.5 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Vietnam, out of a total of 38.9 million doses it committed to provide for the country free of charge.

Since its admission to the UN in 1977, Vietnam has received great support and assistance from UN organs to overcome war consequences, reconstruct the country and in the renewal process, especially improve production capacity, develop human resources, science-technology, integrate into the world and fulfill global development goals.

Together with offering medical supplies to countries worldwide in the past year, Vietnam has and will continue contributing to international solidarity to surmount the pandemic.

Source: VNA

Despite impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Vietnam Football Federation still organises a full range of courses as planned. (Photo courtesy of VFF)

Hanoi (VNA) – The Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) said the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) on June 18 officially announced the recognition of A Level membership for the VFF related to the AFC Coaching Convention . VFF following its endeavours in organising football coach training courses at all levels in line with the AFC’s standards. Particularly in 2020 and 2021, despite impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, the VFF has still organised a full range of courses as planned, thereby making a positive contribution to the training of human resources for Vietnamese football. A level membership of AFC, the VFF can organise its courses and grant certificates to the trained coaches. These certificates are valid throughout Asia.

At the launch ceremony (Photo: VNA)

Jakarta (VNA) – The ASEAN Coordinating Committee on Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises ( ACCMSME ) recently launched ASEAN Access, a one-stop business information gateway for international-oriented firms to expand their market outreach within the ASEAN and beyond.

The launch took place in commemoration of the upcoming International MSME Day, celebrated every June 27 annually.

Deputy Secretary-General for ASEAN Economic Community Satvinder Singh welcomed the ASEAN Access as the latest addition to ASEAN’s trade facilitation support for businesses operating in the region.

He called on the national focal points to actively play their roles to promote, contribute contents, and secure quality service providers to ensure the ASEAN Access serves its purpose for the ASEAN business community.

In her remarks, Dato Ahmad, Chair of ACCMSME and Secretary-General of the Ministry of Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives of Malaysia, noted that the launch of the ASEAN Access is timely, given the prevalent use of digital platforms among businesses as one of the adaptive measures employed to survive the pandemic.

With the tagline “Your Business Information Gateway to ASEAN and Beyond”, ASEAN Access sets to facilitate internationalisation efforts among MSMEs.

To help mitigate the risks of entering a new market, the portal is designed to connect businesses to service providers in areas of distribution, transportation and logistics, market research, and consultancy on intellectual properties, laws and regulations, among others.

The team behind the ASEAN Access, comprising the public and private sectors, would pool their resources to operationalise and provide services to the portal, including business matching services, which is scheduled to be available by the end of 2021.

The ASEAN Access contributes to the implementation of the ASEAN Strategic Action Plan for SME Development 2016 – 2025 which aims to create globally competitive MSMEs./.

Former Vice Chairman of the HCM City People’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Tai (centre) at a hearing in March (Photo: VNA)

HCM City (VNA) – The People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City on June 17 announced that the second hearing for the case of law violation involving the land lot at 57 Cao Thang street being exchanged for the land lot at 185 Hai Ba Trung street in the city will take place from July 13-19.

The hearing, which was scheduled for May 26 to June 2, was delayed to June 22 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, social distancing measures are being applied in HCM City until the end of June, forcing the trial to be suspended again.

In this case, Duong Thi Bach Diep, Director of the Diep Bach Duong Real Estate Co., is among the key defendants in the trial, and is charged with “fraud, appropriation of assets”.

Nine other defendants in the case are charged with “lack of responsibility, causing serious consequences,” including former Vice Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Tai; former Deputy Director of the municipal Department of Finance Tran Nam Trang; former Director of the HCM City Light Music Centre Vy Nhat Tao; former Director of the municipal Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Thanh Rum; former Deputy Director of the department Le Ton Thanh; former deputy heads of the municipal People’s Committee Office Huynh Kim Phat and Le Van Thanh; former Director of the municipal Department of Natural Resources and Environment Dao Anh Kiet; and former Deputy Director of the department Nguyen Thanh Nhan.

According to the indictment, the 185 Hai Ba Trung land lot, owned by the State, was the headquarters of the Light Music Centre under the municipal Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism. In 2007, the centre’s then director Vy Nhat Tao contacted Diep to cooperate in upgrading the headquarters.

Diep then proposed exchanging her land lot at 57 Cao Thang street for the 185 Hai Ba Trung land lot, as she owned the land lot at 179 Hai Ba Trung street and wanted to build a five-star hotel complex there.

The property swap was approved by Nguyen Thanh Tai. During the process, Diep used the land use right certificate for 57 Cao Thang as collateral to borrow money from Agribank – HCM City branch.

After being granted a land right use certificate for the property at 185 Hai Ba Trung, however, Diep did not use it to replace the collateral at Agribank to hand over the property at 57 Cao Thang to the Light Music Centre as committed. Instead, Diep used the 185 Hai Ba Trung land lot as collateral for a loan at Southern Bank (now Sacombank) and so far was not able to repay the debt.

The indictment stated that Tai permitted the property swap while he was not responsible for handling and reorganising State assets.

On March 5, 2010, Tai signed a document sent to relevant units approving the exchange of the two land lots, without any request to check and clarify the legal status of the 57 Cao Thang land lot, causing losses of State assets .

The other defendants showed a lack of responsibility in carrying out their duty, thus facilitating Diep’s fraud and appropriation of assets.

The People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City on March 26 decided to return dossiers of the case for further investigations as new evidence and details were found./.

The two-dose Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine costs less than US$20.

Vietnam is among few countries that have high trust in Russia’s vaccine against Covid-19, according to a survey conducted by global public opinion and data company YouGov.

Percentage of people express their readiness for vaccination against Covid-19. Source: YouGov

The strongest indicator of trust in Russia’s vaccine Sputnik V was recorded in Mexico, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, according to Russia’s sovereign wealth fund Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF).

Results from the survey of more than 12,000 respondents in 11 countries showed their attitude towards vaccination against the coronavirus and their vaccine preferences. More than 2.5 billion people or 30% of the world’s population, live in these countries.

The survey became one of the largest on this topic and the first global survey involving countries in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

Four out of five respondents saying they would like to be vaccinated Russian Sputnik V vaccine.

The level of trust to a vaccine based on human adenoviral vector (Sputnik V platform) is 9 times higher than to other non-human adenoviral vector platforms.

Russia as a vaccine manufacturer is the most highly trusted, with 21% of the votes, surpassing the USA at 15% and China at 13% among the first choice countries named by respondents.

Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of RDIF, commented that the survey covered 11 countries located in various world regions, meaning the survey had a good representation of different nationalities and cultures.

The survey participants who had heard about the Sputnik V vaccine expressed a greater readiness to vaccination due to their understanding of the reliability, safety and efficacy of the Russian vaccine, he added.

Sputnik V vaccine

Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine against coronavirus. Photo: Shutterstock

Sputnik V vaccine is based on a well-studied human adenoviral vector platform that has proven safe and effective with no long-term side effects in more than 250 clinical trials globally conducted during the past two decades – while the history of the use of human adenoviruses in vaccine development began in 1953.

More than 100,000 people have received approved and registered drugs based on human adenoviral vectors.

Currently, 40,000 volunteers are taking part in the Phase III double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical post-registration study of the Sputnik V vaccine in Russia, of whom more than 22,000 volunteers were vaccinated with the first dose and more than 19,000 volunteers with the first and second doses.

There were no unexpected adverse events during the trials. Monitoring of the participants is ongoing.

The uniqueness of the Russian vaccine lies in the use of two different human adenoviral vectors which allows for a stronger and longer-term immune response as compared to the vaccines using one and the same vector for two doses.

According to RDIF, cost of one dose of Sputnik V vaccine for international markets will be less than US$10. Sputnik V is a two-dose vaccine. Its cost is two or more times cheaper than messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines with similar efficacy levels.

The first international deliveries of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine will be made to customers in January 2021 based on the existing partnerships with foreign manufacturers.

RDIF continues expanding existing agreements with international manufacturing partners to produce the vaccine for more than 500 million people starting from 2021.