Foreign
Vietnam to consider night drive time limit
The Vietnamese Ministry of Transport has proposed a ban on driving continuously for more than eight hours a day and more than three hours at night.
The ministry said on Friday that its decision was made in a bid to raise road safety.
Specifically, at night (from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. the next day), the continuous driving time must not exceed three hours and in the daytime hours, the total driving time of the driver must not exceed eight hours, it said.
According to the ministry, the regulation is applied to transport vehicle drivers.
The tightening of driving time at night would limit the driver’s fatigue and overwork, thereby preventing traffic accidents, it said.
It added that the regulation on driving hours was to control the risk of traffic accidents caused by tired drivers, especially long-distance truck drivers.
Nguyen Van Quyen, President of the Vietnam Automobile Transport Association, said the regulation was not appropriate as long-distance transport businesses would have to hire more drivers to ensure the rotation.
He also noted that the regulation on driving time without specific pilot studies should not be incorporated into the Law.
Meanwhile, Senior Colonel Pham Viet Cong, deputy chief of the Office of the National Traffic Safety Committee, said in order to limit traffic accidents at night, it was necessary to install more lighting and warning systems on the road.
A total of 5,928 traffic accidents occurred in the first seven months of this year in Vietnam, with 3,428 people dead, according to the country’s General Statistics Office.
German authorities have arrested three teenagers aged 15 and 16 on suspicion of plotting a deadly Islamist terrorist attack in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, prosecutors said on Friday.
The state’s Central Office for the Prosecution of Terrorism (ZenTer NRW) sought an arrest warrant for the teenagers over the Easter holiday.
They were suspected of plotting a terrorist attack in accordance with the aims and ideology of (extremist militia organisation) Islamic State.
The detained suspects are a 15-year-old girl from Dusseldorf, a 16-year-old girl from the Märkischer Kreis district and a 15-year-old boy from the Soest district, located about 100 kilometres to the east of Dusseldorf.
A fourth suspect has reportedly been identified in the south-western German state of Baden-Württemberg, and the local court there has issued an arrest warrant.
According to the investigators, the teenagers are accused of having agreed to commit murder and manslaughter.
This is in conjunction with the preparation of a serious act of violence endangering the state.
The presumption of innocence applied in all stages of the proceedings.
Security sources told newsmen that the young people had formed a chat group, but had not drawn up a concrete attack plan for a particular time and place.
However, sources said the cities of Dortmund, Dusseldorf and Cologne were discussed as targets, and attacks with knives and Molotov cocktails on people in churches or police officers in police stations had been considered.
The sources said authorities had also conducted searches as part of the investigation.
A machete and a dagger were seized in Dusseldorf, but no evidence of the construction of incendiary devices was discovered.
Sources said the father of the Dusseldorf suspect had already attracted attention from authorities in the past because he had allegedly collected donations for the Islamic State.
The investigators declined to reveal how the suspected terrorists were tracked down, but said that foreign intelligence agencies “did not play a role.”
Russia on Monday officially recognised Vladimir Putin as a candidate for the presidential elections in March, a vote that he is all but certain to win.
The 71-year-old has led Russia since the turn of the century, winning four presidential ballots and briefly serving as prime minister in a system where opposition has become virtually non-existent.
The Central Election Commission said it had registered Putin, who nominated himself, as well as right-wing firebrand and Putin-loyalist Leonid Slutsky as candidates for the vote.
The election will be held over a three-day period from March 15 to 17, a move that Kremlin critics have argued makes guaranteeing transparency more difficult.
Following a controversial constitutional reform in 2020, Putin could stay in power until at least 2036.
Rights groups say that previous elections have been marred by irregularities and that independent observers are likely to be barred from monitoring the vote.
While Putin is not expected to face any real competition, liberal challenger Boris Nadezhdin has passed the threshold of signatures to be registered as a candidate.
However, it is still unclear if he will be allowed to run, and the Kremlin has said it does not consider him to be a serious rival.
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