VIETNAM TODAY

During the month of the Tet festival, the CPI of HCM City went up by 1 percent and 1.44 percent compared with those of the previous month and last December respectively.

More Vietnamese women are using white skin bathing methods to lighten complexion but are ignoring the risk to their skin due to the use of chemicals.

Israeli guards supposedly keeping a round-the-clock watch on a mystery dual nationality prisoner held in isolation failed to notice his suicide for a full hour, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

The transport ministers of Vietnam, Laos and Thailand gathered at a conference in Hanoi to discuss objectives and solutions to enhance trilateral transport cooperation.

Representatives from relevant agencies, donors and international partners, students, teachers and parents attended the International Mother Tongue Day 2013 in Hanoi on February 21.

The annual International Windsurf Race will take place tomorrow on the Phan Thiet City beach in Binh Thuan Province.

Attracting 7 – 7.5 million international tourists and serving 36 – 37 million domestic ones by 2015 are among targets set out in the latest national action programme on tourism.

Vietnam lacks the technical ability to track meteors such as the one that occurred in Russia on February 15, said an expert.

Five people were killed when a small jet crashed off the end of a runway in US's Georgia state, an official confirmed.

The fishing industry in the central provinces has recently had trouble recruiting fishermen.

Real estate experts have forecast a boom in the low-price housing market this year, as prices continue to fall.

Vietnam has yet to detect any cases of SARS-like infection, but can treat the disease, said Dr Tran Thanh Chuong, Deputy Head of the Preventive Medicine Department.

The year’s most-anticipated poetry festival takes place at the Temple of Literature in Hanoi this weekend with the theme Tuoi Tre Voi To Quoc (Youth and Nation).

Bilateral trade turnover between Russia and Vietnam reached US$3.5 billion last year, up 40 per cent from 2011 and is expected to increase to $7 billion in 2013, officials said.

AC Milan outplayed FC Barcelona for a 2-0 win in the first leg of its Champions League last-16 tie, beating the Spanish team for the first time in eight matches.

The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, a member of the World Bank Group, wants to cooperate with and assist Vietnam to develop infrastructure.

Those who criticise with negative intentions will suffer the same fate according to one veteran NA Deputy after a dispute over deputies.

Banning children under five from studying foreign teaching programmes would help preserve Vietnamese culture, an official said.

A US congressional delegation headed by Senator Mary Landrieu is on a visit to Vietnam to discuss issues relating to children welfare and the resumption of a child adoption programme between the two countries.