VIETNAM TODAY

Many businessmen and companies are busy sending local Tet specialties to Vietnamese communities in foreign countries.

The Association of Vietnamese in Berlin-Brandenburg (Germany) and the Cultural Association in Berlin’s Lichtenberg district organised a celebration to welcome the traditional Lunar New Year (Tet) Festival on February 8.

Thick snow is blanketing the north-eastern US as a storm cuts power to thousands of homes and plays havoc with transport schedules.

Even when people flock to make the last-minutes purchases for Tet, small traders said they could not compete with supermarkets.

The Japanese Government has agreed to finance school and hospital projects in the northern province of Hung Hen and Phu Tho.

Poor workers in Hanoi’s industrial parks and export processing zones were provided with free travel home as the Year of the Dragon comes to an end.

Hospitals are struggling to find sufficient numbers of male assistants, particularly as Tet nears.

NASA is gearing up for the Monday (Feb. 11) launch of an Earth-observation satellite that will continue a celebrated 40-year project to monitor our planet's surface from space.

On the occasion of the approaching Lunar New Year festival, a TV programme themed “Towards Truong Sa” was broadcast live from central Khanh Hoa province and two sites on the island district.

Senior economic expert Tran Hoang Ngan believes that effectively implementing Government solutions will help Vietnam’s economy develop steadily and fulfil major targets set for 2013.

Dozens of people were missing on Friday after a ferry carrying around 100 passengers collided with a barge and capsized in Bangladesh’s Meghna River, officials said.

The State Bank of Vietnam is gathering opinions from local banks and credit institutions on its draft circular on gold bar trading.

Grandmaster Le Quang Liem will take part in the 2013 Aeroflot Open held February 12-17 at the InfoProstranstvo exhibition centre in Moscow, Russia.

Vietnamese private airline VietJetAir will inaugurate its Ho Chi Minh City-Bangkok air route on Feb.10, or the first day of the Lunar New Year.

A spate of car bombs in Baghdad and central Iraq, including two explosions minutes apart at a popular bird market, killed 16 people and wounded dozens on Friday, security and medical officials said.

Police has proposed prosecuting four more officials for embezzlement in the Vinalines corruption case.

The Ba Na Hills Mountain Resort will put into operation its third cable car route after one year of construction on March 29.

Disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong was sued by a company that paid him about $12 million for three of his seven Tour de France wins.