VIETNAM TODAY

Sixth graders applying to study at Tran Dai Nghia School in HCM City will have to attend an English test instead of an entrance exam.

The Mekong Delta Green Tourism Week 2015 is set to take place in the Mekong Delta City of Can Tho from June 27 to July 3, drawing the participation of tourism provinces, diplomatic agencies and foreign businesses.

Amusing Planet, a photoblog that features odd news from around the world, has introduced to its readers interesting information on a rare Vietnamese chicken breed called the Dong Tao.

Eight suspected pirates, alleged to have hijacked a Malaysian fuel tanker and fled to Vietnam waters, have confessed after being detained by the coast guard.

Hanoi’s consumer price index, an indicator of inflation growth in the city, grew by 0.13 percent in June from the previous month and 0.98 percent against the same month last year, buoyed by the increase in petrol prices.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung left Hanoi for the seventh Cambodia-Laos-Myanmar-Vietnam Summit and the sixth Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy Summit in Myanmar.

Bac Thang Long Hospital and the municipal Health Department jointly held a quick response drill in Hanoi on Saturday in anticipation of a MERS outbreak.

Vietnamese athletes amassed 222 gold medals at international sports competitions in the first six months of 2015, according to the General Department of Sports and Physical Training.

Vietnam is striving for more mechanisation in agriculture and high-technology farming, but qualified graduates are unable to find jobs in the sector because companies are switching to more profitable businesses.

The US Embassy in Hanoi and Freeland Foundation will launch a contest to highlight wildlife trafficking and rhino horn use in Vietnam at Hanoi Cinematheque on June 22.

Coastal provinces from Quang Ninh to Binh Thuan spent the past day preparing for tropical storm Kujira (whale in Japanese), which formed yesterday morning above the territorial waters of the Hoang Sa (Paracel) Archipelago.

The President's Office launched its official website yesterday, in part, celebrating the 90th anniversary of Viet Nam's Revolutionary Press Day.

Islamic State has planted mines and bombs in the ancient part of the central Syrian city of Palmyra, home to Roman-era ruins, a group monitoring the war said on Sunday.

Vietnam is the second largest textile and garment exporter to South Korea, making up one-fourth of South Korea's garment market, after China.

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Van Ninh has asked ministries and agencies to speed up implementation of the national one-door customs mechanism by 2016.

The Vietnamese government will give VND72 billion (US$3.3 million) for training students of agriculture, forestry and fisheries at the Viet Nam National University of Agriculture (VNUA) in the 2016-2017 period.

The Communist Party of Argentina inaugurated a reading room named after Vietnam’s President Ho Chi Minh on June 19 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

A pilot program to export fresh lychees into Australia could open up the prospect of substantially increased Vietnamese agricultural exports to the market downunder.

The Hanoi-based Art Tunnel Gallery and the Republic of Korea's Hansae Yes24 Foundation will jointly organise an exhibition of about 42 lacquer paintings by 14 Vietnamese artists in downtown Seoul next month.