VNA NA Standing Committee sets programmeVietnam's National Assembly Standing Committee has set a programme for its activities this year, with focus on the building of laws and ordinances. The committee met in Hanoi on January 31 with Chairman Nong Duc Manh presiding to review what it did last year and decide its orientation and tasks for the year 2001. It will continue to lead the renovation of the entire process in which draft laws and ordinances are compiled and examined as well as when they are submitted to the National Assembly for approval. The committee will also increase the efficiency of supervision by the National Assembly and its agencies, with focus on supervising law enforcement and the implementation of resolutions issued by the National Assembly in all socio-economic areas. (VNA) **** President praises scientific achievements President Tran Duc Luong paid working visits to the Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (IHE), the Institute of Cattle Breeding (ICB) and the Institute of Agricultural Genetics (IAG) on February 1 in Hanoi. At the IHE, the president praised the institute's staff for their work in researching and applying bio-technology to produce vaccines against many diseases and epidemics such as hepatitis B, Japanese encephalitis, tuberculosis, measles, whooping cough, cholera and typhoid. President Luong said he hoped that the staff of the institute, a Labour Hero Unit, would keep on with their tradition of success and make greater achievements in order to contribute more to the preventive health care in particular and the health sector in general. Talking with staff of the ICB and IAG, the president affirmed that the Party and the State always attached importance to making the information technology and bio-technology a key sphere in the process of national industrialisation and modernisation in the new century. That policy will be concretised in the country's five-year and ten-year socio-economic plans. The president asked scientists at the two institutes in particular and others in the agricultural sector in general to align their research goals with the country's socio-economic development's needs. **** Vietnam publishes book on Paris talksVietnam has just published a book entitled 'The National Front for Liberation - the Provisional Revolutionary Government at the Paris Conference on Vietnam.' The publication was announced at a media briefing in Hanoi on February 1. The compilation began in mid-1999 and was completed in late 2000 to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the South Vietnam National Front for Liberation. The book contains memoirs of Madame Nguyen Thi Binh, who was then foreign minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam and led its delegation to the Paris Conference, as well as other delegation members. Also included are two overseas Vietnamese living in France and three foreigners, who witnessed or took part in the peace talks that led to the signing of the historic Paris Accords in 1973. (VNA) **** Work on Ho Chi Minh Highway accelerated The Da Nang Communications Works Company mobilised five units with more than 400 technical workers and 40 bulldozers and trucks during the first days of the New Year. This is in a bid to speed up the progress of construction of Ho Chi Minh Highway. The company's workers have levelled and bulldozed 240,000 cubic metres, dug up and embanked more than 700,000 cubic metres and cast 840,000 drain pipes over the past seven months of unfavourable weather and on muddy roads, in rugged forest and mountain terrain. To date, about 16 kilometres of road-bed in Hien district, Quang Nam central province have been nearly completed. **** Tree planting festivals continue Localities are launching tree planting festivals for the lunar new year. During the past five years, people in Huu Lung district of the northern mountainous province of Lang Son have planted each year on average three million trees. This year¹s tree planting festival, local people plan to plant 1,500 hectares of fruit trees of high economic value, contributing to greening waste land and bare hills, eliminating hunger and reducing poverty. Hung Yen northern province launched tree planting festival on February 2. The province targets to plant 350,000 trees this year, including 150,000 longan trees, 150,000 other fruit trees and 50,000 timber trees. The central province of Thua Thien-Hue has just launched their tree planting festival at the Vong Canh hill, starting the provincial programme to plant 5,000 hectares of forests in 2001. In the first week, A Luoi district has planted 20,000 green trees, mainly pine and gum trees, while Huong Tra district planted over 100,000 trees being scattered in 16 communes. Farming economy is developing strongly in the northern province of Ninh Binh and the tree planting festival is quite a good time for planting trees on farming land. The province at present has 2,654 farms. Of these, 915 farms plant short-term trees; the remaining 998 farms plant long-term trees. The southern province of Dong Thap has spent VND 1 billion on seedlings to provide to districts during the tree planting festival. Border guards in the province have planted tens of thousands of trees to-date. **** Vietnam-UNICEF co-operation programme approved The Vietnamese government and the Executive Council of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) have approved the Vietnam-UNICEF overall co-operation programme for the 2001-2005 period, according to the Vietnam National Committee for Child Care and Protection. UNICEF's budget for the programme amounts to US $70 million including US $20 million from the budget for outgoings and US $50 million from raised funds. The programme will assist the Vietnamese government in reducing mortality rates among under-five children and mothers and raising public welfare for children and women facing special difficulties, particularly those in remote areas, to help the country meet the targets set in the National Programme of Action for Children for the 2001-2010 period. (VNA) _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. 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