VIETNAM TODAY

Lucrative land plots set aside for urban projects in Hanoi have been turned into parking lots, football grounds and beer bars.

An old Chinese map indicates that the most southerly point of China is Hainan Island and it does not include the Hoang Sa and Truong Sa Archipelagoes.

The central province of Thua Thien - Hue has set a target of welcoming between 2 and 2.5 million visitors during the National Tourism Year 2012.

More than 60 listed real estate firms have confirmed that they have excess inventories worth over USD4 billion.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon named a queen, a former president, a Nobel Peace prize winner and a corporate mogul to a 26-strong panel to recommend new global social and environment goals.

The Department of Planning and Architecture in HCMC reported that city leaders were working on a detailed plan to extend the city center area towards the Saigon River, and incorporate more area from other districts.

Popular British football team Manchester United announced Monday that it hopes to earn over $300 million in its proposed IPO on Wall Street.

Hundreds of strange birds which have appeared in the northern mountain province of Dien Bien recently have been confirmed as the rare Asian openbill stork.

Australian police have seized half a billion dollars' worth of crystal methamphetamine and heroin after smashing a Hong Kong-linked international drugs syndicate.

Nowadays there is a tendency for students to conduct practical scientific research and use it to earn money by selling data to corporate companies.

Vietnam aims to increase the number of people using mobile phone services to 90 percent of its population by 2015 and 95 percent by 2020.

Despite being in operation for only 2-3 years, many bridges have fallen into a state of disrepair, with cracks and erosion.

Tribeco will hold an irregular shareholders meeting to dissolve after a long period of consecutive losses.

A young star of American journalism has acknowledged he concocted quotes from Bob Dylan in his best-selling book of creativity featuring the American folk legend.

After a six-year wait, Venezuela formally joins the Mercosur regional trading bloc as a full member at a Brasilia ceremony to be attended by its mercurial President Hugo Chavez.

Average temperatures in northern central Vietnam can rise by 3.5 degrees centigrade and dry season rainfall reduce by 30 percent by 2100, according to a new report prepared by the MONRE.

President Sang left Russian capital city of Moscow late on July 30, concluding his five-day official visit to Russia.

There have been 29,400 cases of hand-foot-mouth disease reported in the northern region, accounting for 42 percent of the cases in the country, according to the Ministry of Health.

Prosecutors hit grad school dropout James Holmes with 142 charges after a gunman shot dead 12 people and wounded scores more in one of the worst mass killings in US history.