Tuoi Tre News briefs you on some of the leading stories published today, October 11, in Vietnamese media:

Politics

-- Vietnam and Japan should coordinate closely in order to maintain peace, stability and development in the region in the context of complicated regional and global situations, visiting Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc told Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at their talks in Tokyo on Friday. In reply, the Japanese premier pledged that he will try his best to step up cooperation between the two countries.

Society

-- The oil tanker Sunrise 689, with 18 sailors on board, which was hijacked on October 2 and then set free by pirates, is expected to arrive in the southern coastal city of Vung Tau this morning, October 11, the Vietnam Coast Guard said.

-- The rising water level of the Saigon River, which reached 1.66 meters on Friday, submerged many areas in Ho Chi Minh City, including parts of Binh Thanh, Nha Be and District 7, leaving numerous vehicles stranded and blocking traffic on many streets. This was the third day in a row that flooding had struck the city since the river began rising on Wednesday.

-- A resident in Tan Hung District of the southern province of Long An was electrocuted to death on Friday when a strong rainstorm snapped a power line that then fell on him. The strong winds also damaged 32 houses.   

-- Anti-drug police in the central province of Quang Binh on Friday arrested two brothers, Nguyen Van Thuc, 24, and Nguyen Van Bot, 21, for illegally transporting thousands of synthetic drug tablets from Laos into Vietnam for sale.

-- The second phase of a US$23.58 million project to upgrade Nguyen Hue Street in downtown Ho Chi Minh City into a square, and later a street for pedestrians only, began on Friday. Due to the work, the local transport department has banned vehicles on several streets in the vicinity of the construction site.

Business

-- The investor of the Long Thanh International Airport project, the Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV), will have to repay the official development assistance (ODA) loans that will be sought for the facility, Nguyen Nguyen Hung, ACV chairman, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Friday. The plan to build the new airport in the southern province of Dong Nai is estimated to cost over $18 billion in total and the state budget will not cover it, Hung asserted.

-- Well-known food and drink maker Nestlé has opened a new $37 million factory in the Amata Industrial Park in the southern Vietnamese city of Bien Hoa. The new facility, which will produce Milo milk, has increased the total investment by Nestlé in Vietnam to $450 million.  

Lifestyle

-- Hundreds of community cultural houses have been built in provinces in the Central Highlands at a cost of VND100-150 million ($7,070) per house, but most of them have remained unused and deteriorated, causing a great loss, local authorities said.  

Sports

-- Vietnam's under-19 football team, after losing 0-6 to their South Korean rivals on Thursday in their first match at the Asian Football Confederation’s U19 Championship in Myanmar, will face Japan at 4:00 pm (Vietnam time) today, October 11. The match will be broadcast live on Vietnamese channel VTV6.