Good morning from Tuoi Tre News!

Politics

-- Ho Chi Minh City leaders paid a visit to General Khamtay Siphandone, former Party Chief and President of Laos, at his private residence on Wednesday as part of their official working agenda in the neighboring country to celebrate the nations’ 55^th anniversary of diplomatic ties.

-- Nineteen senior delegations from 15 countries in Asia gathered in Hanoi on Tuesday for the three-day 38^th Meeting of ASEAN Senior Officials on Drug Matters, which seek to strengthen regional cooperation in fighting drug crimes.

Society

-- VND1.6 billion (US$70,500) was spent on re-establishing sidewalk order by the authorities of District 9 in Ho Chi Minh City in the first six months of 2017, while only close to VND40 million ($1,800) in monetary fines was collected from the violators.

-- A team of independent scientists have been assembled by the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology to conduct a separate assessment on the environmental impacts of sinking one million cubic meters of matter into the ocean, as per the proposal by a thermal power plant operator in south-central province of Binh Thuan.

-- Over 100 workers at the Wondo Vina garment company in southern Tien Giang Province were hospitalized for food poisoning on Wednesday after allegedly eating chicken curry with bread for lunch in their factory’s cafeteria.

-- Experts have warned that mosquitoes in Vietnam might have developed immunity to insecticides used to kill off the dengue virus-bearing insects, which threatens to worsen the dengue fever outbreak in the tropical country.

Business

-- Sand scarcity following recent crackdowns on the illegal mining of the resource has left thousands of sand barges in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta region being put up for sale by their loss-making owners.

-- Room-sharing and short-term lodging services provided by house owners who connect with customers via booking apps such as Airbnb are on the rise in Vietnam, with as many as 6,500 such lodges in the country having been registered with Airbnb as of June.

-- Starting August, those buying fuel from Vietnam National Petroleum Group (Petrolimex) can pay with bank cards at any gas station run by the petrol group, following an agreement signed on Wednesday between Petrolimex, PG Bank and the National Payment Corporation of Vietnam (NAPAS).

-- The fate of a plan to develop Thanh Da peninsula in Ho Chi Minh City’s Binh Thanh District into a modern urban area, which has been on paper for 25 years, remains uncertain as a foreign investor in a consortium has withdrawn from the project.

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