VIETNAM TODAY

The PetroVietnam Finance Joint Stock Corp have announced a merger plan with Western Bank which is facing financial difficulties.

Farmers in the Mekong Delta are facing amounting challenges and losses from growing rice.

Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong left Hanoi for Bangkok on June 25, beginning a three-day official visit to Thailand at the invitation of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.

Vietnam’s consumer price index in June increased slightly by 0.05 percent from the previous month, driving CPI in the first half of 2013 up 2.4 percent against last December, the lowest rate of growth since 2004.

A send-off ceremony was held in Hanoi on June 24 for 13 Vietnamese contestants who will be attending the 42nd World Skills Competition in Leipzig, Germany, from June 26 to July 8.

Seven houses by the Nha Be River in HCM City have fallen into the river as a result of landslide, threatening lives of dozens of people.

The Vietnamese U14 female squad has been crowned the 2013 Asian Football Championship for Southeast Asian region after thrashing Cambodia 7-0 in its last match in Ho Chi Minh City on June 23.

The Deutsche Gesellschaftfür Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in Vietnam has called on all its staff to protect wildlife.

Gunmen killed at least nine foreign tourists and a guide after storming a hotel in Pakistan’s remote northern Gilgit-Baltistan province on Sunday, police and security have said.

The Ministry of Finance will publicise the usage of fuel stabilisation fund and be more effective in budget spending.

Amid rising school violence, many schools in Hanoi are trying to find ways to help students to decrease such behaviour.

The Party and State have devised a host of exclusive policies to support ethnic groups in the Central Highlands, especially those living in poverty.

Despite being established in 1998, Hoa Lac High-tech park’s site clearance has not yet been finished.

The Phuc An Vien Cultural-Spiritual Park, phase one, was inaugurated at District 9 of Ho Chi Minh City on June 22, to serve as a new model of cemetery for the nation’s biggest city.

The national flag carrier, Vietnam Airlines will officially open two international air routes from Da Nang to Seoul (the Republic of Korea) and Siem Riep (Cambodia) as of July 1, 2013.

Fugitive intelligence leaker Edward Snowden arrived in Russia Sunday on his way to Ecuador, hoping to win asylum and evade arrest after leaking sensational details of secret US surveillance programmes.

President Truong Tan Sang will pay a State-level visit to Indonesia from June 27-28.

Coastal provinces from Quang Ninh to Khanh Hoa have been bracing for storm Bebinca, the second tropical storm of the year.

The fifth Quang Nam Heritage Festival 2013 is taking place in central Quang Nam province from June 22-26, aiming to honour the values of cultural heritage in the region and the country.