VietExplorer

Calls of all types Operators at the child protection hotline recently took a call from the aunt who was worried that her eight-year-old nephew wouldn’t be able to attend school because he had no birth certificate. According to the aunt, the child’s mother did not take a DNA test upon her son’s birth and therefore the boy wasn’t issued a birth certificate. “We are in the process of working with authorities to help the mother register for a birth certificate for her son,” an operator from the hotline said. “If the mother refuses, authorities will fine her because the child must be given a birth certificate and he has every right to go to school.” All day, every day, phones ring off the hooks in the 50-square-meter office where the hotline is housed. Of course, while adults use the hotline to access help in relatively extreme situations, children also reach out to the hotline with their own, more unique issues: “I want to ask the switchboard operator to help me fix my phone,” “I h...

General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and President of China Xi Jinping (R) and General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong. (Photo: VNA) The following is a translation of the letter: Thank-you letter To: Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee, Dear Comrade General Secretary, On behalf of the Chinese Party, State and people, I sincerely would like to thank you for sending a message of condolences over the passing of comrade Jiang Zemin and to convey the thank-you from comrade Jiang Zemin’s family to you. Comrade Jiang Zemin had joined hands with Vietnamese leaders to promote the normalisation of China-Vietnam relations and established the 16-world motto of “friendly neighbourliness, comprehensive cooperation, long-term stability, looking towards the future” which has had a deep and far-reaching impact on the development of the China-Vietnam...