VIETNAM TODAY

At least 36 people died and dozens were missing on Thursday when a ferry carrying 189 passengers and crew capsized off the central Philippines, the coast guard and police said on Thursday.

Hundreds of people were sent to control a fire that broke out yesterday and destroyed more than 5ha of a pine forest in Nghe An Province's Yen Thanh district.

Novaland Group launched a programme called “the 100 first apartments for Vietnamese overseas and foreigners” on July 1, the day the revised Law on Housing takes effect.

The Jack Nicklaus Academy of Golf will open in Hanoi's Soc Son district this autumn.

Foreigners can buy houses in Vietnam under a new law that takes effect July 1, a move greeted as positive news for the local real estate market.

Central Quang Binh province started work on a US$13.7 million project in Bo Trach district to supply solar power to remote areas outside the reach of the national grid.

PM Nguyen Tan Dung has left for Japan to attend the 7th Mekong-Japan Summit in Tokyo from July 2-4 at the invitation of his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe.

The United States and Cuba on Wednesday agreed a historic deal to re-establish full diplomatic relations, severed 54 years ago in the heat of the Cold War.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung met with Airbus Group CEO Thomas Enders in Hanoi on July 1, expressing his confidence in the massive cooperation prospects between Airbus and Vietnamese airlines.

PM Nguyen Tan Dung called for a strong army able to respond to emerging challenges presented by today’s increasingly complicated, rapidly changing and unpredictable world.

The HCM City Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin on July 1 held a ground-breaking ceremony for a centre known as AO village to care for and provide vocational training and rehabilitation for AO/Dioxin victims.

Regulations on higher retirement age for officials and civil servants; management of paddy land; derivative securities; and allowances for workers in the art performance sector are among new policies which will come into effect from July.

An investigation has shown that vaccination did not cause the death of a three-month-old boy in the central Da Nang City, the health ministry's preventive medicine department said today.

The WB approved USD238m in financing for the government’s agriculture restructuring plan aimed at increasing prices of Vietnam’s rice and coffee exports.

The death toll from the crash of an Indonesian air force plane packed with military personnel and their families rose to 142 Wednesday, as witnesses described people fleeing the disaster zone covered in blood with their clothes alight.

US Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell has said her visit to Vietnam on June 29-July 1 aims to boost the US-Vietnam cooperation in the fight against wildlife trafficking, including elephant, rhino, sea tortoise, tiger, and pangolin.

Cafe owners in Hanoi say they are losing money to customers who linger at their tables to escape the summer heat.

Vietnam pledges to actively collaborate with other countries and international organisations to counteract terrorism and guarantee fundamental human rights.

The purchasing power of Vietnam posted a four-year high in the first half of this year due to low inflation.