Check out what is in the news today:

Society

-- Around 4,000 people from different units and forces participated in an unprecedentedly huge fire drill on Saturday at Vincom B, a luxury apartment-trade center complex in downtown Ho Chi Minh City, with three nearby streets blocked to serve the emergency practice.

-- The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam has requested competent agencies to strictly penalize those breaking rules on aviation security, disrupting public order and committing theft at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City.

-- The Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee has requested that the Department of Planning and Architecture and the Department of Natural Resources and Environment pool residents’ opinions on a project to build a golf course as part of an 821-hectare urban-tourism complex in the outlying district of Can Gio.

-- Border soldiers in the north-central province of Quang Binh announced they had arrested two Laotians for smuggling one kilogram of crystal meth and 22,000 synthetic drug tablets into Vietnam on Thursday.

Business

-- A crude water supply plant worth VND500 billion (US$21.8 million) opened on Saturday in Nam Dan District, located in the north-central province of Nghe An.

-- Famed flower villages in several Mekong Delta provinces are gearing up for the coming Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday, which kicks off in February 2016, with a clutch of new flower varieties grown in hi-tech models.

-- Vuong Huu Man, general director of Hiep Phuoc Industrial Park Joint Stock Co., said at a meeting on Saturday that companies will be entitled to various incentives if they choose to invest in its Hiep Phuoc Supporting Industry Park.

-- Kobayashi Tatsuo, head of the Kansai Information System Industry Association (KISA) in Japan, has told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that KISA members are looking to relocate their operations to Vietnam after exiting China. As many as 25 percent of the Japanese firms that had left China have moved to the Southeast Asian country, Yasuzumi Hirotaka, head of the Ho Chi Minh City branch of the Japan External Trade Organization, announced earlier.

-- Ito Kazuhiro, director of the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) in Bangkok, told Tuoi Tre that the number of Vietnamese visitors to Japan has surged by more than 53 percent at this point compared to the same period last year. JNTO is slated to organize a clutch of tourism promotion events early next year.

Lifestyle

-- Over 100 Vietnamese movies of different genres, including internationally-acclaimed and commercially successful flicks, are scheduled to hit Ho Chi Minh City screens from Tuesday to Saturday next week.