Briefs of some of the leading news stories published on Tuesday (January 27) in Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper: 

Politics

-- Efforts have been made to organize a trip for U.S. President Barack Obama to visit Vietnam in the near future, Dr. Murray Hiebert, vice director of the unit for Southeast Asian studies under the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Tuoi Tre on Monday.

-- Vietnam and the U.S. have taken long strides to improve their mutual ties since the two countries normalized relations in 1995, according to diplomats attending the international conference entitled “Vietnam – Untied States Relationship: For 20 More Successful Years” held in Hanoi on Monday.

Society

-- The urban traffic management unit No.1 in Ho Chi Minh City has approved a VND100 billion (US$4.8 million) project to renovate road sections leading to Tan Son Nhat International Airport. The roads are Truong Son, Tran Quoc Hoan, and Phan Thuc Duyen with a total length of two kilometers.

-- Husbands are now granted at least five days off when their wives are on maternity leave, according to Vietnam’s modified insurance law.

-- The Asian Development Bank will invest $16 million in a project to offer health care to people in the Central Highlands region from 2014 to 2019.

-- Police in the southern province of Binh Duong have broken up a ring that specialized in forging documents such as school diplomas and driver’s licenses. Four people involved have been detained.

-- Officials of state agencies in Ho Chi Minh City will have a nine-day leave for the Lunar New Year (Tet) festival from February 15 to 23, according to the local People’s Committee.

-- Four people aged 16-19 drowned yesterday at a beach in Cam Nghia Ward in Cam Ranh Town of the south-central province of Khanh Hoa.

-- Locals in Hoa Cuong Bac Ward in Hai Chau District of the central city of Da Nang have complained about land compensation for the development of the Asia Park Project, located on 846,632 square meters.

-- The Hanoi market management unit has discovered that the Bac Ha food factory imported 47 tonnes of buffalo meat and sold it as beef.

-- The People’s Committee of Nhut Chanh Commune in Ben Luc District of the Mekong Delta province of Long An has mobilized local enterprises to donate money for the construction of a local road by threatening that “communal authorities will not solve issues faced by enterprises in the future.”

-- Vietnam uncovered 1.7 million instances of people illegally crossing the border to Cambodia, 234,000 of which showed signs of gambling in the nation, according to Vietnamese police.

Business

-- Twelve farming cooperatives in Tam Nong District of the Mekong Delta province of Dong Thap have inked a contract with the Loc Anh import-export company to consume all rice produced on their 5,400 hectares of land from the winter-spring crop. It is estimated that 37,800 tonnes of rice will be produced on the area.

-- The prices of beer on the Vietnamese market have slightly increased ahead of the Lunar New Year festival.

-- Banks in Vietnam have set a target to reduce their bad debts from five percent in 2014 to less than three percent in 2015.

Sports

-- Vietnamese tennis player Ly Hoang Nam will face Australian Akira Santillan today in the second round of the youth category at the 2015 Australian Open in Melbourne.