A Ho Chi Minh City court Wednesday sentenced 24 defendants, including three Malaysians who are still on the run, for organizing and participating in illegal gambling.

Lim Leong Seng, Goh Ming Huat, and Chan Chee Sing, all from Malaysia, received five, four, and three years respectively for organizing gambling, the court ruled Wednesday. The Malaysian trio fled Vietnam after charges were laid last year and they were placed under house arrest. The Vietnamese police have been working with the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) but have not been able to locate them. Vietnamese Le Anh Tuan was jailed for three years, Vietnamese Le Thi Hong Nhung two and a half years, and Vietnamese-American Hua Quan Timmy six months and 22 days, also for organizing gambling, the court said. The other 18 Vietnamese defendants, found guilty of illegal gambling, received sentences ranging from one-year suspensions to two and a half years in jail. All 24 defendants were fined between VND10 million-50 million (US$572-2,860) each. According to the indictment, the six people charged with organizing gambling had connived to lure Vietnamese citizens to casinos at three luxury hotels in HCMC between April 2006 and May 2007. Vietnamese law prohibits Vietnamese citizens from gambling but allows hotels rated four-stars and above to operate casinos for people holding foreign passports. The police shut down the operation in May 2007 after raiding three clubs: De Palace Club at the Saigon Food Center in District 1, the Victoria Club at the Duxton Saigon Hotel in District 1, and the OV Club at the Equatorial Hotel in District 5. All of the clubs were run by Malaysian businessman Yap Kim San, who still hasn’t been charged. The court Wednesday also called for continued investigations into Yap’s role in the case. Reported by Le Nga

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The “notorious” Van Thanh 2 Bridge opened to traffic last Thursday Ho Chi Minh City residents will have a new vantage point to the Lunar New Year’s Eve firework displays when the Khanh Hoi Bridge opens to traffic a day earlier.

The new bridge will connect District 4’s Nguyen Tat Thanh Street with District 1’s Ton Duc Thang Street when it opens on January 24. At 167 meters long and 22 meters wide, the bridge will be able to handle 30-ton trucks and would meet the demand for transporting goods from HCMC’s Saigon River to southeastern provinces, said Vuong Hoang Thanh, deputy head of the East-West Highway and Water Environment Project Management Unit. The unit is tasked with overseeing construction of the bridge. Another bridge belonging to the East-West Highway project and linking districts 1 and 4, the Calmette Bridge, is also set to open next Tuesday, Thanh said. The new Calmette overpass includes an intersection of six streets. Two major sections from District 1’s Calmette Street and District 4’s Doan Van Bo Street are scheduled to be completed on Tuesday, while the remaining sections connecting to the East-West Highway and Thu Thiem underground tunnel will be completed by the year-end. Thanh said the commission of the two new bridges would significantly ease traffic congestion at the city center. ‘Notorious bridge’ also ready The controversy-mired Van Thanh 2 Bridge also opened to traffic last Thursday after being rebuilt for more than a year. The bridge, on Binh Thanh District’s Nguyen Huu Canh Street, is also expected to resolve traffic gridlocks from HCMC to neighboring provinces in a big way, an official said. After being put into operation in 2002, it was found soon after that the bridge was sinking on both sides. In 2007, the city approved a 10-month repair project costing VND141 billion (current US$8 million) to upgrade the road on both sides. The Tan Thuan Bridge 1 in District 4’s Nguyen Tat Thanh Street also opened to traffic last Thursday. Another bridge-opening in the offing is that of the Nguyen Van Cu Bridge over Ben Nghe Canal that connects districts 1, 4, 5 and 8. The section linking districts 1 and 5 with District 4 will open very shortly, while that connecting districts 4 and 8 is scheduled for completion soon after the Tet holidays. The bridge will ease traffic congestion on the Nguyen Tri Phuong, Y and Cha Va bridges. Reported by Phuong Thanh

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Experts are warning of increasing sex-related crimes and general social disorder if the highly unnatural level of gender imbalance in the country is not addressed.

They were speaking at conference in Hanoi Monday on “building a project to intervene in elements that affect gender at birth,” organized by the General Department of Population and Family Planning. The male to female ratio in Vietnam has climbed from 105:107 to 112:100 in the 1999-2007 period, said Pham Nang An, deputy head of the population and family planning bureau under the department. He said the ratio was alarming as it was far beyond the natural gender ratio of 103-106:100. The 112:100 ratio was similar to China’s in 1987, An added. It had been estimated that in 2004 in eight to ten years, there could be “40 to 60 million missing women” in China. An warned that rising gender imbalance in Vietnam could lead to social disorder and an increase in sexual crimes. Pham Ba Nhat, head of the bureau, attributed the ratio to the traditional preference for male children in Vietnamese society. Nhat said gender diagnosis during pregnancy and abortion of female fetuses was the main cause of the imbalance. He added that elsewhere in the nation, that when baby girls were born, some parents informed authorities that the babies were adopted; thus they had the right to give birth to more babies. Vietnamese law regulates that a couple can only have two children at the most. Prof. Nguyen Duc Vy of the Central Maternal Hospital said there was a need to distinguish between legal abortion and abortion based on gender. The latter must be banned, he added. Vy said there should be a ban to abort fetuses of more than 12 weeks old, except for birth deformities, as at this time the fetus’s gender could be known. Nguyen Dinh Cu, head of the Institute of Population and Social Issues, said surveys showed that more than 66 percent of pregnant women knew their fetus’s gender before giving birth, and up to 98 percent of the cases were thanks to ultrasonography check-ups. Cu said the percentage showed that the implementation of the population ordinance, which bans parents from choosing their baby’s gender by any means, was lax. He added there had been no penalties prescribed so far on violators including parents, doctors, and medical staff relating to checking fetuses’ gender so far. Dr. Nguyen Thi Thuong from the institute said authorities should offer better welfare policies for the elderly and farmers as they still bore in mind that sons were the only people they could rely on to take care of them during old age. Daughters are considered outsiders as they have to live with their husbands’ families after their marriage. Another conference in Ho Chi Minh City last month disclosed that around three million Vietnamese men will have difficulty finding wives by 2030 due to the rising gender imbalance. Reported by Nam Son

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A three-year project worth US$480,000 will be carried out in the central city of Da Nang to help improve the living standards of people with disabilities, particularly children.

The East Meets West Foundation (EMW) and Da Nang’s Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs have signed an agreement for the implementation of the Support Network for People with Disabilities Project in Da Nang. The project, co-funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Irish Aid (IA), will be carried out by EMW and local partners. From December 2008 to November 2011, the project seeks to improve the quality of life for people with disabilities in Da Nang, with a focus on children with disabilities in all seven districts, EMW said. Key activities will include medical and social screenings for the disabled in the city; physiotherapy and rehabilitation services for nonsurgical cases; and the establishment and technical support of community-based treatment units. Reported by Truong Son

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