VIETNAM TODAY

Vietnam and the European Union kick-started the fourth round of free trade agreement negotiations in Brussels on July 2, hoping to form a cornerstone of a complete pact.

The Hanoi People’s Council plans to issue a draft resolution on attracting educated and skilled workers to municipal agencies.

A powerful earthquake rocked the northernmost Indonesian province of Aceh on July 2, injuring at least 50 people and damaging many houses.

Vietnam’s leading chess player Le Quang Liem has jumped from 34th to 4th in the FIDE’s most recent World Blitz Chess rankings for July.

HCM City has earmarked VND70.54 trillion ($3.3 billion) for 36 projects to mitigate the effects of climate change, which is expected to severely affect the city.

The Vietnam manufacturing sector was hit by marked downturns in output and new orders in June, leading companies to cut employment and purchasing, according to HSBC.

Vietnam attaches special importance to co-operation with Japan and wishes to promote ties with the country in politics, economics, science-technology, education and labour.

During exam time at universities many landlords opportunistically increase their fees for accommodation because of high demand from students.

Fugitive US intelligence specialist Edward Snowden has broken his silence to accuse the Obama administration of pressuring countries to turn him away as he expanded his asylum requests to a total of 20 countries.

The Minister of Transport said that traffic accidents are caused both by ignorance of drivers and bad traffic management, partially putting the blame on state management.

14 Vietnamese athletes will participate in the 27th World Student Games festival, which is scheduled to take place in Kazan, Russia from June 30-July 20.

In the past six months, more than 3.54 million foreigners came to Vietnam up 4.9 percent from a year earlier, according to the General Statistics Office.

Seven people were killed on Tuesday in a suicide car bomb attack in Kabul targeting a foreign logistics company supplying NATO forces, police said.

Though the State Bank of Vietnam has lowered interest rates, banks have still found it hard to loan because so few enterprises qualify.

Civil servants members of the armed forces and socio-political organisations staff will enjoy an increase of 9.5 percent to their monthly minimum wage from July 1.

The Institute for European Studies under the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences in conjunction with the Naples University L’Orientale kick-started the project “Strengthening workers’ right and representation in Vietnam” on July 1 in Hanoi.

A freshwater shrimp, an island-dwelling lizard and a pupfish from Arizona have been declared extinct, while nearly 21,000 species are at risk of dying out, an updated "Red List" showed.

ASEAN dialogue partners pledged to continue supporting the association’s building of a community by 2015 and its central role at ASEAN+1 Ministerial Meetings in Brunei on July 1.