The view of the second plenum of the 13th-tenure Party Central Committee held on Monday in Hà Nội. — VNA/VNS Photo HÀ NỘI — The second plenary conference of the 13th-tenure Party Central Committee opened in Hà Nội on Monday. During the two-day sitting, the Party Central Committee will discuss the working agenda of the entire tenure, the nomination of candidates for high-ranking positions like the State President, Prime Minister, and National Assembly Chair – as proposed by the Politburo, and several other important issues. In his opening remarks, Party General Secretary and State President Nguyễn Phú Trọng said the session takes place when the country is celebrating the success of the 13th National Party Congress held on January 26-February 2 this year, implementing socio-economic development tasks while combating the COVID-19 pandemic and preparing for the upcoming elections of deputies to the 15th National Assembly and People’s Councils at all levels in the 2021-26 term, which is slated for May. Party General Secretary and State President Nguyễn Phú Trọng delivered the opening remarks of the second plenum of the 13th Party Central Committee on Monday. — VNA/VNS Photo Phương Hoa After the 13th National Party Congress, the Politburo has directed the completion and announcement of the congress’s documents, while preparing to issue the Politburo’s Directive on studying, disseminating and carrying out the congress’s Resolution. The Politburo has also been preparing for the building of working regulations and other important issues. The Politburo has approved working programmes of the Politburo and the Secretariat in 2021, assigned tasks for Politburo and Secretariat members, rearranged personnel of several centrally-run agencies and conducted preparations for the introduction of candidates to run for seats in the 15th NA. The Politburo would ask for the Party Central Committee’s opinions before it officially introduce candidates for other posts for …
Senior army rank
Malaysia begins national COVID-19 immunisation
Next in line to be vaccinated were the Health Ministry’s Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah and four other high-ranking medical officials. The national immunisation programme will be implemented in three phases, with the first from February to April for over 571,800 frontliners. Phase two from April to August is for senior citizens aged 65 and above, high-risk groups and people with disabilities involving 9.4 million people, while phase three is from this May to February 2022, for those aged 18 and above, covering more than 13.7 million people. The Malaysian government is targeting to get at least 80 percent of the people vaccinated to achieve herd immunity to curb and end the pandemic. Malaysia has signed agreements to procure 66.7 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine through the COVAX Facility and five producers, including Pfizer BioNTech, AstraZeneca, and Sinovac. Since the first ever COVID-19 case detected on January 25 last year, the country has to date recorded 288,229 infections and a death toll of 1,076. Meanwhile, the Philippine Department of Health said on February 24 that it will investigate the illegal use of unauthorised COVID-19 vaccines, after a presidential adviser admitted to receiving shots of a Sinopharm vaccine smuggled into the country. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved the use of the Sinopharm vaccine, making its importation and distribution illegal. Sinopharm has not sought emergency use authorisation in the country. Philippine Health Undersecretary Rosario Vergeire said recipients of unauthorised vaccines were also accountable. The Philippines has yet to start immunisations or receive any COVID-19 vaccines that it has approved for emergency use. …
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VIETNAM NEWS HEADLINES MARCH 7
15th National Assembly expected to have 500 seats There will be a total of 500 seats in the 15th National Assembly at both central and local levels, according to a new resolution adopted by the National Assembly Standing Committee. Minister promises greatest efforts to ensure safety in COVID-19 vaccinations The Ministry of Health will mobilise all resources to carry out COVID-19 vaccinations, the largest-ever vaccination programme, so as to ensure absolute safety for people, Minister Nguyen Thanh Long has said. Long chaired a teleconference which was organised on March 6 and connected with 700 places across Vietnam to launch the vaccination plan and provide related training for medical workers nationwide in the use and storage of the vaccine, as well as the treatment of post-injection complications. He informed the teleconference that the vaccination programme will start on March 8, although the first batch of vaccine arrived in Vietnam on February 24. “As the vaccine is new, we need to carry out thoroughly,” Long said, adding that Vietnam has to obtain an accreditation certificate from the producer and reassess the safety index of the batch of vaccine. Because of the limited number of vaccine, the ministry cannot allocate for all 63 provinces and cities, but for 13 pandemic-hit localities, with priority given to Hai Duong province – Vietnam’s largest outbreak at present, he added. The minister asked localities which have yet to receive the vaccine to prepare and make training programmes as the ministry will allocate vaccines to them when more are transported to Vietnam in March. COVAC and AstraZeneca have agreed to provide 30 million doses each for Vietnam this year, the minister said, adding the ministry asked the producers to hand over the vaccines to Vietnam before September and is negotiating with Pfizer to buy an additional 30 million doses from this producer. The ministry has assigned three deputy ministers to be …