Read what’s in the news today, June 23!

Politics

-- Vietnam will work with other member nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to comprehensively develop the strategic partnership between the bloc and South Korea, Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Quoc Dung said on Thursday at the 22nd ASEAN-South Korea dialogue in Seoul on June 20-21.

Society

-- Land subsidence in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam is worsening by the day as up to 800 kilometers of the area’s coast has been identified to be vulnerable to the occurrence despite authorities’ costly efforts to contain its spread.

-- The People’s Council of Lao Cai Province in northern Vietnam on Friday voted to pass a resolution on the merger of the province’s transport and construction departments into one single department as a cost-cutting measure.

-- The Border Defense Force of Quang Binh Province in north-central Vietnam on Friday said they had found and rescued four Vietnamese fishermen who had been adrift at sea on a coracle for one day since their ship sank during an off-shore fishing mission.

-- A dozen of patients at the Cho Ray Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City have tested positive with swine influenza in the largest ever number of patients diagnosed with the deadly flu at the Vietnamese hospital, sparking fears of an outbreak after the first casualty of the disease in Vietnam in years was reported last month.

-- A gambling ring responsible for over VND600 billion (US$26.25 million) in transaction value among thousands of gamblers has been busted by Ho Chi Minh City Police, leading to the arrest of four men aged 20-27.

-- The Vietnamese Party’s Central Inspection Commission has set up a special supervision team to keep watch of assets owned by the police chief of Da Nang City in central Vietnam, who is rumored to have been given a multimillion-dollar villa as a gift from a local notorious tycoon.

Business

-- Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Friday received Italian Ambassador to Vietnam Cecilia Piccioni and the general director of Italian life insurance group Generali, Philippe Donnet, and wished the company success in doing business in Vietnam.

-- Experts to a health conference in Hanoi on Friday proposed the implementation of duties on sweetened products in Vietnam as a measure to combat growing obesity among young people in the Southeast Asian country.

-- 96 percent of more than 1,400 cars imported into Vietnam between June15-21 were from Thailand, according to statistics provided by the General Department of Vietnam Customs.

Education

-- Universities in Ho Chi Minh City have advised people against assembling on streets over the weekend to avoid disturbing the National High School Exam, taking place between June 24-27, which is crucial for high school students to graduate and be admitted to a higher education institution.

Lifestyle

-- A book written in Vietnamese on the life of late Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, who passed away in March at the age of 85, and how he is remembered by the people has been published in Vietnam by book company Alpha Books.