Briefs of some of leading news stories published Tuesday (January 21) in Tuoi Tre Newspaper that will be carried today on Tuoitrenews.vn:

Politics:

-- The National Assembly’s Standing Committee has ratified an ordinance to appoint the People’s Court as the only body to have the power to send a person to rehabilitation center. Earlier, the power belonged to the government of ward level and above.

-- Vietnam yesterday signed a 60 million Euro contract with Belgium to provide satellites for supervision of natural resources and calamity. The satellites will be launched in 2017 and work for at least five years.

-- Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong paid a visit to the northern province of Ninh Binh and advised local authorities to work out plans for tourism development and services.

Society:

-- Vietnam Railways Corporation has approved a VND302 billion (US$14.5 million) project to install hygiene devices on 823 passenger carriages in 2014.

-- A hydrofoil of VinaExpress plying between Saigon and Vung Tau burst into flames yesterday at 12:45pm, just ten minutes after leaving Bach Dang Port in Saigon. 92 people including 85 passengers aboard were safe after jumping into water.

-- A group of environment policemen and market management staff were put under house arrest yesterday in Hanoi when they were on duty, checking illegally imported goods at the Song Moi Company. 60 bags of illegal toys were seized.

-- A 52-year man died of H5N1 epidemic in the southern Binh Phuoc Province, the first case in Vietnam in the last nine months, according to the General Department of Preventive Medicine.

-- A 19-year man who was wrongly diagnosed and amputated his left leg by the Kien Giang Province General Hospital was announced yesterday that he will benefit lifetime health care service and some financial support by the hospital.

-- 30 people were yesterday given death penalties and 13 others given life sentences by the Quang Ninh provincial court for trafficking 4,400 cakes (nearly 1,500kg) of heroin from Laos to Vietnam and China.

Business:

-- Economists have called on the government to tighten control over State-owned corporations offering exclusive services as VNPT, Viettel, and Petrolimex after they gained a profit of thousands of billions dong each (VND1 trillion equals US$48.1 million) in 2013.

-- The Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV) announced yesterday that its shares will be posted in the stock market at the price of VND18,700 a share on January 24.