VIETNAM TODAY

Amid a bitter crisis in relations with the West over Ukraine, Russia's President Vladimir Putin is moving to bolster ties with China.

Hundreds of Vietnamese in the UK, Australia, Angola, Belgium and South Korea have held rallies to protest China's drilling in the East Sea.

A team from US-based Warner Bros, has surveyed a cave at Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park in Quang Binh province to select scenes for the film Peter Pan.

Hoi An ancient town has been cited as an essential stop on any tour of Vietnam and one of the top 20 most interesting places in the world by www.roughguides.com.

There have been numerous reports from journalists who have witnessed increased aggressive and provocative actions by China in the East Sea in recent days.

Nguyen Thi Anh Vien has become the first Vietnamese swimmer winning a berth to the world championships after her outstanding performance in the US.

All eight Vietnamese students have won prizes at the 15th Asian Physics Olympiad (AphO 2014) in Singapore, according to the Department for Testing and Education Quality Accreditation under Ministry of Education and Training.

A Vietnamese National Assembly official said that recent Vietnamese boycotts of Chinese products shows their patriotism in a negative way.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye formally apologized on Monday for a ferry disaster last month that killed about 300 passengers, mostly school children, and said she would break up the coast guard because it had failed in its rescue mission.

Vietnamese leaders on May 18 laid a wreath in tribute to President Ho Chi Minh at his mausoleum on the occasion of his 124 th birthday.

Leaders of the Party Central Committee, National Assembly, State and Government of Vietnam have sent sincere condolences to their Lao counterparts over a military plane crash on May 17 that killed a number of Lao senior party and government officials.

The police in central Ha Tinh province has launched legal proceedings against and arrested 16 people involved in a recent disturbance at the Vung Ang Economic Zone.

The NA's Law Committee has agreed to set back the deadline by five years for overseas Vietnamese to register their citizenships.

An anti-human trafficking hotline sponsored by the Japan International Co-operation Agency will open next week in An Giang Province, which shares a 100-kilmetre long border with Cambodia.

Paleontologists in Argentina say they recently discovered fossils belonging to the largest dinosaur on record. During its lifetime, the new species of titanosaur is believed to have stood 65-feet-tall, was more than 130-feet-long, and weighed 77 tons (177,000 pounds).

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung will attend the World Economic Forum on East Asia 2014 (WEF- 2014) and pay a working visit to the Philippines from May 21-22.

An international press conference was held to inform foreign reporters about bad individuals’ extremist actions that affected social order and safety in several localities.

Minister of Public Security Tran Dai Quang on May 17 talked on the phone with his Chinese counterpart Guo Sheng Kun over recent spontaneous protests against China’s illegal placement of its Haiyang Shiyou 981 drilling rig in Vietnam’s continental

Chinese vessels have continued to take aggressive measures to prevent Vietnamese ships from approaching the illegal oil rig in the East Sea, one official said.