Cold spell in northern Vietnam takes toll

 http://www.saigontimes.com.vn/daily/detail.asp?muc=2&Sobao=3127&SoTT=2

The prolonged cold snap is taking its toll in the north of the country, with the agricultural sector suffering the most.

Cold weather has left at least 10,000 animals dead and destroyed at least 53,000 hectares of rice as it is sweeping through the northern region, according to a latest report by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Minister Cao Duc Phat said at a recent meeting in Hanoi that the month-long cold spell had damaged a majority of northern Vietnam’s major winter-spring rice acreage and husbandry industry.

The ministry has told local officials to warn farmers against sowing rice seeds when temperatures are down to less than 15 degrees Celsius and find ways to protect the seeds and store enough water for their crops.

Preliminary figures show that at least 5,000 hectares of seed in 16 northern provinces had been devastated.

Haiphong, Hai Duong and Thai Binh alone have reported 25,000 hectares of rice is affected. Damaged crops in Nghe An and Thanh Hoa provinces total about 20,000 hectares.

The upland provinces of Bac Kan, Lang Son and Son La are most affected by cold weather, with agriculture hit by frost.

The National Weather Forecast Center reported that temperatures had declined to less than 13 degrees Celsius over the past month. 

Son La Province’s authorities said around 1,400 cows and buffalos had been killed by cold weather.

Lo Van Tang, head of Son La Animal Health Department, told Vnexpress that cold weather would eat into the province’s economic growth as husbandry accounted for 20% of the province’s gross domestic product.

Meanwhile, over 2,000 cows and buffalos died in Ha Giang Province and 500 others have died in Lai Chau Province.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has warned that cattle will continue to die as cold weather would remain unchanged in the next several days.

The ministry has instructed the farming sector in the northern provinces to assess damage and report to the ministry so that it can find a way out for the situation.

Bui Ba Bong, deputy minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, said the ministry would encourage enterprises to import more rice seeds to offset the shortage caused by cold weather.

Cold weather has also been affecting people’s health and certain business areas, especially tourism. Hospitals Ninh Binh, Hanoi and Nghe An, among others, have become overcrowded with patients.

Yesterday the national weather center forecast that temperatures would fall to 2-5 degrees Celsius in the upland provinces, resulting in frost, rain and fog. The cold spell could abate next week.

In the two past days, Son La and Bac Kan provinces have been hit by frost as temperatures there have dropped to zero degree Celsius or lower.

5,000 auto-workers on wildcat in Vietnam

http://libcom.org/news/5000-auto-workers-wildcat-vietnam-14022008 

More than 5,000 workers in Hai Phong City, 60 miles south east of Hanoi began a strike yesterday.

Yazaki Haiphong Vietnam Co, a Japanese car-part manufacturer, is based in Nomura Industrial Park, where 2,000 workers from different companies were on strike earlier this month for similar grievances. Wages were increased in January, but pensions and bonuses were cut. Workers also complained of lack of respect, bad food and unreasonably maternity leave requirements as contributing factors to the strike, according to the Thanh Nien news.

The State run trade union, which has only a negotiating role in Vietnam and does not call strikes, is in negotiations with representatives from the company to end the strike. According to the union, there were 541 strikes in Vietnam last year, involving 350,000 workers.

Bird flu kills one, infects another in Vietnam

http://www.reuters.com/article/africaCrisis/idUSL14412931

HANOI, Feb 14 (Reuters) – Bird flu has killed a 40-year-old Vietnamese man and infected another after both came in contact with infected chickens, state media said on Thursday.

The man died in a Hanoi hospital on Wednesday four days after being treated for lung and kidney failure, the Liberation Saigon newspaper quoted the hospital’s deputy director, Nguyen Hong Ha, as saying.

The Health Ministry said tests confirmed the man from the northern province of Hai Duong, 50 km (31 miles) southeast of Hanoi, had the H5N1 strain of the virus.

It was Vietnam’s second death from avian influenza this year and brought the country’s toll from bird flu to 49.

Health officials have been monitoring the man’s relatives since last week after he and his family ate two chickens that had died from unknown causes. Dead chickens have also been reported in the neighbourhood.

Doctors also confirmed another 27-year-old man had been infected by the H5N1 virus and was now in critical condition, state-run Vietnam Television said in its evening news bulletin.

The Health Ministry said the man from the northern province of Ninh Binh slaughtered two sick chickens on Jan. 31 and fell ill two days later with pneumonia symptoms. He was taken to Bach Mai hospital in Hanoi on Tuesday.

The patient, Vietnam’s third human bird flu case this year, was now on a respirator, the television footage showed. Last month, bird flu killed a 32-year-old man in the northern province of Tuyen Quang.

H5N1 remains mainly a virus of birds, but experts fear it could mutate into a form easily transmitted from person to person and sweep the world, possibly killing millions.

Not including the latest death, the H5N1 virus has killed 226 people among the 360 known cases. Most of the deaths are in Indonesia, followed by Vietnam, World Health Organization figures show.