For normal people, passing a university admission exam is a big challenge. For Tran Ai Van, a 12th-grader at Gia Dinh High School in Ho Chi Minh City, the challenge is even greater, as she can only write with her mouth.

But the tough girl, who can hardly move her legs or hands as a result of muscle atrophy, has never stopped striving for a place in college.
A dedicated mother

Standing by Van for the last 18 years, Tran Thi Thanh Huong, her mother, has done many different jobs to earn money to support Van’s education.

Huong, 37, once worked as a hotel waitress and an interpreter before renting a house near her daughter’s school to sell milky tea just to earn a meager living for both of them.

She is now unemployed and is thinking of becoming a taxi driver to back Van’s college dream.

"Sometimes I feel so exhausted that I want to take my own life, but the thought that nobody would then care for Van has given me more motivation and energy to continue trying,” Huong said.

Van has maintained an impressive academic performance since elementary school even though she has been confined to a wheelchair the whole time. ... Xem thêm

A downpour yesterday afternoon caused serious flooding at the Go Dua Crossroad in Ho Chi Minh City’s Thu Duc District, affecting about 50 households there, local authorities reported.

The flood water measured more than 1 meter in depth at some places, and about 15 of these households were moved to safe places.

The flooding also caused a great deal of motorbikes to break down in the area, which is located in Tam Binh and Binh Chieu Wards.

The fire police of District 9 sent several fire engines and 10 firefighters to the scene to pump floodwater out of the area.

About 30 police officers, militiamen (lực lượng dân quân), and workers of the HCMC Urban Water Drainage Co Ltd were mobilized (huy động ) to use pumps, water-sucking trucks and sandbags to prevent floodwater from entering the area from the Ba Bot canal.

While explaining the cause of the flooding, Pham Hoai Anh, chairman of the Binh Chieu Ward People’s Committee, said, "The canal section that runs through the area is being upgraded and could not drain the huge amount of water caused by the heavy rai ... Xem thêm

A candidate was dismissed Thursday from Vietnam’s national college admission exam for bringing a knife into his exam room to intimidate ( hăm dọa ) another candidate.

Tran Van Cuong, a 19-year-old student from the central province of Nghe An, brought a 20-centimeter-long knife with him when he went to take the chemistry part of the three-subject admission exam, the country’s method of selecting students for higher education, at the Nguyen Trai High School exam council situated in the provincial capital Vinh City.

Though local exam proctors ( Giám thị-người coi thi) discovered the weapon right away, they only asked for help from police when Cuong threatened to slash (chém- khía) the candidate sitting next to him if the latter refused to let him copy the answers.

The student was then forced to hand over the knife to police before exam administrators nullified ( nullify :hủy bỏ) all of his exam papers.

Yet Cuong kept intimidating ( ... Xem thêm

Many people have expressed their concern on the announcement that local pop singer Dam Vinh Hung will release 500 real butterflies during a performance at his concert this month.

To prepare for the special performance at the live show titled "So Phan” (Destiny), to be held on July 21 and 22 in Ho Chi Minh City, the singer and the show’s director, Tran Vi My, said they have ordered the above amount of butterflies from a farm run by a disabled girl in Da Lat.

The director also added the show’s organizers will release the butterflies at a rehearsal to get a sense of the technique and safety problems. "To make the butterflies appear on the stage in accordance with our idea, we have to prepare magnetic field generators and lighting machines to lead them to fly the way we want them to,” he said.

However, the public seems unsupportive of the idea. They said the large number of the animals will have a negative effect on the audiences’ health.

Responding to such fears, the director added that his crew will pay close attention to the audiences’ safety. The organizers also have alternative plans in case the butterfly plan does not end up happening.

Doctor Le Duc Tho from HCMC’s Hoan My Hospital also gave some advice on this. According to him, the butterfly is not a toxic species, but it ... Xem thêm

Police in several northern provinces have busted (bắt) a large-scale drug-trafficking ring between Vietnam, Laos and China, arresting 18 traffickers and seizing (tịch thu) a large quantity of drugs, cars and money, along with a handgun (súng ngắn).

The bust was carried out successfully thanks to the joint effort of the ministry’s anti-drug police and police in Hanoi and Quang Ninh, Son La, Hoa Binh, Bac Giang and Hoa Binh Provinces, said Major General Nguyen Anh Tuan, head of the ministry’s Department of Drug Crime Investigation Police Department.

After months of investigation, a joint police team raided room 1004 of the CT1 Building in Van Khe Urban Area in Ha Dong District, Hanoi on the afternoon of July 3, and found 89 cakes of heroin, nearly 34,000 drug synthetic drugs, 1 kg of Methamphetamine, a K59 gun and six bullets, a motorcycle, and materials related to drug trafficking.

The police arrested a man, Nguyen Duy Thang, 28, and a woman, Nguyen Thi Thuy Duong, 24, both ... Xem thêm

Police in the Mekong Delta said on Wednesday they arrested a college student as he was selling fake university entrance exam answers to parents waiting outside a college.

Dinh Thanh Liem, a 20-year-old at Tay Do University in Can Tho, was hawking (bán hàng rong ) the answer sheets to parents waiting for their children at the Can Tho Junior College exam council, city police said.

Liem reportedly admitted to investigators he downloaded last year’s answer key and altered ( sửa đổi / sửa lại ) their date before distributing them for VND3,000 (14 U.S. cents) per copy. He sold roughly 50 in all.

At the junior college, students were taking the math portion of a two-day national college admission test that ended Thursday.

Vietnam requires all college-bound students to take the exam, which alone determines which school will accept them.