Vietnamese carrots

The ready-made ingredients to make Han Thuc’s festival specialties has been plenty in both local and online markets for expats in Hanoi to buy and delight their children at home with a Vietnamese cooking lesson.

Hanoians often make two types of sweet dumplings – banh troi (floating dumplings) and banh chay ( sweet mung bean dumplings) – on the third day of the third month of the Lunar year, to worship their ancestors.

Making these eye-catching banh troi and banh chay can be a joyful moment for mothers and children. Photo: The Vietnamese sweet dumplings made by To Hung Giang.

Han Thuc Festival or the ‘Cold Food Festival’, falls on 14 April this year. Even though not many people are knowledgeable about the festival’s origin, it’s still considered important among all the Vietnamese rituals.

As special dishes made exclusively for Han Thuc festival, banh troi and banh chay as well as their ingredients are sold at every market throughout the country in the days leading up to and during the festivals. Expats in Hanoi can buy the ready-made ingredients and delight their children at home with a Vietnamese cooking lesson.

In these modern days, savvy working housewives don’t have time for the time-consuming task, so they prefer to buy banh troi and banh chay at food stalls in the market. But like many things, the best are home-made.

The colouful dish of Banh troi made by To Hung Giang.

Banh troi are small white dumplings made from glutinous rice flour stuffed with brown sugar. The most important stage of making banh troi is the shaping. Cooks pinch a little dough and flatten it out, place a brown sugar ball in the middle and roll it into a smaller ball of about three centimeters in diameter.

The cook heats the water to the boiling point, then cools it down a little bit before dropping some rice balls in, then boils again. When the balls float to the surface of the pot, they’re taken out with a ladle and then immediately placed into a bowl of cold water to prevent them from being overly sticky or gluing together.

The final step is the presentation. The white glutinous balls are put onto a plate and sprinkled with roasted white or black sesame seeds. Once made, they should be eaten that same day.

Banh chay are also made from glutinous flour, but they resemble boiled dumplings and are filled with mung bean paste, sprinkled with sesame seeds, and served in bowls with syrup flavored with grapefruit blossoms.

A new version of banh chay in funky shape of pigs made by Phuong Nguyen.

Traditionally, the banh troi and banh chay are white with a sugary taste, but talented cooks can make them more colourful and tasty by adding food colouring or flavouring to the dough.

In the present days, housewives do not need to prepare all ingredients for making these cakes by themselves but ordering from online stores on social media such as Facebook and Zalo or online shopping platforms like Shoppee, Lazada or buying from local markets.

These dough sets include all ready-made ingredients such as sticky-rice flour, natural brown sugar, green bean paste, sesame seeds, grated coconut, among others, at prices ranging from VND65,000 ($3) to VND100,000 ($4.5) per set.

A dough set at the price of $3 comprises one kilogram of ready-made glutinous rice flour (in five different colours) with corresponding amounts of sugar and roasted sesame.

The safe ready-made ingredients to make banh troi and banh chay could be ordered via social media such as Facebook and Zalo or online shopping platforms like Shoppee, Lazada. Photo: dolambanhgabi

A more expensive set, at $4.5, includes one kilogram of glutinous rice flour with corresponding amounts of sugar and roasted sesame for making banh troi and green bean paste and fresh sliced coconut for making banh chay .

Besides, the ready-made sweets are also available for busy housewives. The prices for ready-to-eat sweets range from VND10,000 to VND50,000 (from US$0.4 to $2.1) per portion, could also be ordered online or bought in the local markets.

For adventurous housewife who want to experience some new ‘different’ tastes, the floating dumplings with salted eggs or chocolate fillings are also available at the price of VND100,000 ($4.5) for a portion. Additionally, the floating dumplings in non-traditional shapes like rabbit, cat, fish are also the highlights of this year’s Han thuc Festival.

The ready-made ingredients for making banh troi and banh chay at home are available at: https://www.facebook.com/beemartvietnam ; https://www.facebook.com/vanashop or https://www.facebook.com/dolambanhgabi

The event was jointly held by the Institute for Environment and Renewable Energy under the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations and the Hung Kings Businessmen Association of the Hung Kings Talent and Human Resource Management Institute.

At the event, the organizers planted 300 Parashoreachinensis and Saraca dives trees, around Cay Xen lake of Gieng Temple. These trees of between 3 to 4 meters tall are of precious species.

The tree-planting is part of the environmental ambassador program entitled “Vietnamese managers-businessmen planting trees in commemoration of nation founders” and in response to the Prime Minister-initiated Program to “Plant One Billion Trees For a Green Vietnam”.

Below are several photos of the event.

Translated by Chung Anh

This year’s International Thalassemia Day, themed “Addressing Health Inequalities Across the Global Thalassemia Community”, is devoted to raising public awareness about Thalassemia and one of the major causes in the spread of the disease – cousin marriages, as well as the importance of pre-marriage and pre-pregnancy counselling and screenings to early detect the disease.

Data shows that there are about 8,000 new-borns carrying the Thalassemia gene every year, around 2,000 of which will suffer from severe symptoms.

Some 13 million Vietnamese, or 13 percent of the population, carry the gene. About 20-40 percent of the Thalassemia gene carriers are mountainous ethnic minority people, mainly due to inbreeding.

According to the General Office for Population and Family Planning, despite many efforts, treatment can only help improve patients’ quality of life and does not completely cure the disease.

A report shows that since 2001, up to 20 percent of children born with Thalassemia died at the age of 6-7 and most people with severe symptoms cannot find a spouse.

Thalassemia is an inherited blood disorder caused when the body doesn’t make enough haemoglobin – an important part of red blood cells. The disorder results in excessive destruction of red blood cells, which leads to anaemia.

People with severe symptoms may suffer from bone problems and liver and heart failure, and the condition can be fatal.

A child can inherit Thalassemia if one or both of his or her parents carry the mutant gene. The risk is higher if both parents have it.

Most married Vietnamese couples do not have any tests or consultancy on inherited disorders. People who carry such genes show no abnormal signs so do not undergo examinations or screening before giving birth.

Huge investment in medicine and regular blood transfusions make Thalassemia a costly disease, placing a financial burden on families and society as a whole.

It is estimated that 2 trillion VND (85.1 million USD) and 500,000 blood units are needed each year to treat Thalassemia patients in Vietnam. The average treatment cost for a severe case from birth to the age of 30 is about 3 billion VND (130,000 USD).

Source: VNA

Tran Phuong Hong, IT Advisory director, KPMG Tax and Advisory Vietnam and Do Kim Hien, senior solution consultant, KPMG Tax and Advisory Vietnam

In Vietnam, we have had vast opportunities in conducting SWIFT system security gap assessment projects for Vietnamese banks, and there are best practices that clients should consider while implementing and securing the system according to a SWIFT Customer Security Control Framework (SWIFT CSCF).

The SWIFT CSCF describes a set of mandatory and advisory security controls for users. Mandatory security controls establish a security baseline for the entire community and must be implemented by all users on their local SWIFT infrastructure. The SWIFT has chosen to prioritise these mandatory controls to set a realistic goal for near-term, tangible security gain, and risk reduction.

Advisory controls are based on good practice that SWIFT recommends. Over time, mandatory controls may change due to the evolving threat landscape, and some advisory controls may become mandatory.

All controls are articulated around three objectives: ‘Secure your Environment’, ‘Know and Limit Access’, and ‘Detect and Respond’. Controls have been developed based on SWIFT analysis of cyber threat intelligence and in conjunction with industry experts and user feedback. Control definitions are also intended to be in line with existing information security industry standards.

SWIFT CSCF version 2021 has defined 31 security controls (22 mandatory and nine advisory controls) that underpin these objectives and principles. The controls are intended to help mitigate specific cybersecurity risks that users face due to the cyber threat landscape. Within each security control, SWIFT has documented the most common risk drivers that the control is designed to help mitigate.

Addressing these risks aims to prevent or minimise undesirable and potentially fraudulent business consequences, such as unauthorised sending or modification of financial transactions; processing of altered or unauthorised SWIFT inbound transactions; business conducted with an unauthorised counterparty; and confidentiality or integrity breach of business data, computer systems, or operator details.

Ultimately, these consequences represent enterprise-level financial, legal, regulatory, and reputational risks.

Common violations

During the gap assessment for the SWIFT system, we have noticed a number of common issues that financial institutions often violate compared to SWIFT CSCF requirements.

Firstly, the network micro-segmentation for applications and SWIFT systems is not carried out clearly and completely. For example, email or active directory applications still have common connections to the SWIFT system.

Secondly, security policies and procedures (for example security vulnerability management procedure, and malware prevention procedure) are not detailed, accurate, or aligned to the current situation of the system.

Next, system hardening guidelines/standards are not fully and completely developed, and they are not periodically reviewed and updated. Additionally, the security vulnerability scanning is only conducted on important applications and servers. For network devices, virtualisation platforms, or databases, the scanning is almost ignored.

Finally, the password policy is only applied to Windows servers and not applied on network devices, security devices, or Unix/Linux platforms.

In order to fully assess the security controls of the SWIFT environment, the following important points should be noted.

Understanding client’s SWIFT architecture: The current architecture of SWIFT is divided into four types – A1, A2, A3, and B. Each architecture has a difference in components and the connection from the client to SWIFT. So, understanding each type of architecture will help you identify the scope and assess the relevant systems involved that may affect the security of the SWIFT environment.

Understanding security controls: SWIFT’s security controls are only applied to a certain scope – SWIFT systems and indirect infrastructure related to it. You need to be aware of connections and determine which scope would apply security controls to avoid assessing unnecessary components that are outside the scope.

Understanding mandatory and advisory controls: SWIFT’s security controls are divided into mandatory and advisory controls. Depending on the requirements of the customer and the scope of the assessment, you should decide which controls should be reviewed and evaluated in the most appropriate way.

Understanding the objective of each control: SWIFT CSCF 2021’s security controls are divided into eight groups. Understanding the objective of each control makes it easier to identify alternative controls if they exist and avoid misjudging the customer’s current security level because during the assessment, it is realised that customers could use different security controls than required by SWIFT and still meet the final objective and ensure the safety of the system.

Understanding purpose and role of SWIFT components: SWIFT includes many components with different roles such as messaging interface, communication interface, SWIFTNet Link, connector, and more. These components connect, interact, and have mutual security relationships. Therefore, understanding the roles and functions of each component helps you determine which security controls are appropriate for which component, thereby assessing most accurately and effectively for potential risks.

As international transactions and commerce become more popular, SWIFT becomes one of the important components of financial institutions, especially banks. Therefore, its security needs to be paid close attention to properly minimise fraud in international transactions, protect user data, and safeguard the reputation of the organisation.

Travel agencies in the Central region are creating new tourism products in preparation for the upcoming holidays on April 30 and May 1.