Check out what is in the news today, July 12:

Society

-- The People’s Committee of the central province of Quang Tri on Tuesday inaugurated a national flagpole on Con Co, an outpost islet which is also rich in tourism potentialities.

-- The Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court on Tuesday sentenced a Vietnamese man and a Chinese national to seven and eight years in prison for impersonating police officers and swindling their unsuspecting victims. They had also received jail terms of 14 and 13 years respectively from its counterpart in the north-central province of Thanh Hoa for the same charges.

-- A 61-year-old security guard at a tenement in District 9, Ho Chi Minh City fell to his death after tripping and falling into the open space of a broken elevator.  

-- Vietnam's Ministry of Industry and Trade will force consumers to switch from the popular A92 gasoline to the ethanol-mixed biofuel E5, starting January 1, 2018, its Deputy Minister Hoang Quoc Vuong announced on Tuesday.

-- A group of traffic inspectors in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho on Tuesday were given a life sentence and condemned to seven to 20 years in jail by the municipal People’s Court for taking bribes totaling approximately VND4.1 billion (US$178,508) from 2013 and 2016.

Business

-- Vietnam added 8,100 rooms in 41 new three-to-five-star hotels in 2016, raising the total number to more than 420,000, which is higher than that of other Southeast Asian countries, according to the results from the Vietnam Hotel Survey 2017, released on Tuesday by UK-owned audit and consultancy firm Grant Thornton Vietnam.

-- Truong Quang Hoai Nam, deputy chair of the Can Tho People’s Committee, expressed hopes during a contract signing working session with a local travel firm on Tuesday that the company would help promote the city’s tourist spots and appeal.

-- Singapore-based private equity firm Quadria Capital announced on Tuesday an investment sum of at least $10 million for France-Vietnam (FV) Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City.

Lifestyle

-- The three-day 2017 Fashion and Technology Festival, which will feature fashion shows, music performances, exhibitions and shopping stalls, is slated to run for the first time at Nguyen Hue Pedestrian Street in downtown Ho Chi Minh City in October, the organizers revealed on Tuesday.