VIETNAM TODAY

Vietnam and France on September 25 issued a Joint Statement on their Strategic Partnership on the occasion of Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s official visit to France from September 24-26.

Saigon-Hanoi Commercial Bank announced that it has settled nearly VND3 trillion of bad debt one year after being merged with Habu Bank.

The Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Health have exchanged blame over unmanageable rises in prices for baby formula.

Gold bars worth EUR1.6 million disappeared from a shipment on an Air France flight between Paris and Zurich last week in a robbery that police believe was an inside job.

Local pharmaceutical producers will have a chance to expand their market share in HCM City thanks to a new programme designed to stabilise prices for essential drugs in the city.

The police of Hai Duong Province have decided to prosecute over the recent trade centre fire which caused losses of VND500 billion.

Police officers in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau and neighbouring localities have attended a sex-offender workshop to learn how to track down tourists who exploit children.

Hanoi will hold the first festival of Chau Van singing from late September to early October, the municipal Department of Culture, Sport and Tourism said on September 23.

More than US$3.1 billion out of nearly US$4.6 billion in official development assistance have been disbursed over the past nine months.

More than 8,000 disadvantaged students have received performance-based tuition subsidies under a three-year program funded by the Global Partnership on Output-Based Aid, according to the Vietnam News Agency.

Pakistan's military rushed to reach the scene of a huge earthquake that killed at least 208 people and toppled many mud-built homes when it hit the country's south with enough force to create a new island off the coast.

More than 3,000 ha of Soc Trang City's mangrove coastal forest will be co-managed by local authorities and the Vo Thanh Van Hamlet coastal forest co-management group.

20 of the largest coffee exporters have made complaints that their operations have been threatened by slow VAT refunds.

A number of big corruption cases will be prosecuted this year, including the scam related to the founder of the ACB, Nguyen Duc Kien, an official said.

A Vietnam Airlines steward was arrested at Noi Bai International Airport for attempting to smuggle 50 iPhone 5s on a flight from Paris to Hanoi.

Vietnam’s No1 badminton player Nguyen Tien Minh is expected to win the 2013 National Badminton Champions, which opened in HCM City on September 23.

Fitch Ratings forecast that the Vietnamese banking system would be stable in 2014.

The Asian Book of Records has acknowledged Hanoi’s Thang Long Water Puppetry Theatre as the only Asian theatre performing water puppet shows every day of the year.

The average life-span of Vietnamese people increased from 40 in 1960 to 73 in 2012, according to the Ministry of Health.