A summary of some of the prominent news stories published Tuesday (March 26) in Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper:
Politics
-- The Lao government has licensed around 415 projects of Vietnamese enterprises with the total investment of around US$5 billion, Tran Bac Ha, chairman of the Association of Vietnamese Investors in Laos, said Wednesday on the occasion of State President Truong Tan Sang’s visit to Laos. AVIL also suggested Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia forge special cooperation by 2020 and 2030 and build a Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia rubber center.
Society
-- The upgrade of Nguyen Hue Street, the first pedestrian street in Ho Chi Minh City, has technically finished and will open on a trial basis from April 15 to 20, Nguyen Thanh Chung, director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transport, said Wednesday.
-- An Airbus A320 of low-cost carrier VietJet Air flying from the central city of Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh City had its brake broken after landing safely at 9:15 pm on Wednesday at Tan Son Nhat International Airport, having to stop on the runway and thus failing to reach the parking area. Passengers were later carried safely to the terminals and the plane was hauled out of the scene for repair.
-- A scaffolding collapse at the Formosa industrial zone in the north-central province of Ha Tinh at 8:00 pm on Wednesday killed at least 12 workers and injured around 30 others.
-- The Children’s Hospital in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho receives around 1,600-2,000 kids from the city as well as neighboring areas for health examinations on respiratory diseases every day, Doctor Tran Van De, director of the infirmary said, explaining it stems from the weather changing and getting hotter.
Business
-- Vietnam has been downgraded from the 3rd to the 4th place, following Pakistan on the list of countries exporting rice around the world.
-- The south-central province of Ninh Thuan on Wednesday held a conference in the hope of attracting more investment in 2015. Nguyen Duc Thanh, Secretary of the Ninh Thuan Party Committee, said the province has hired two foreign consulting groups to devise a plan for its socio-economic development by 2020 with a vision to 2030.
Education
-- More than 50 percent of students in both cities and rural areas are involved in school violence, according to a research project by Dr. Pham Minh Muc from a research center under the Vietnam Institute of Education Sciences. The figure was given on Wednesday in Hanoi at a conference discussing school violence and how to prevent it.
Lifestyle
-- A book festival kicks off on Thursday in the southern city of Can Tho, showcasing 222 booths with more than 160,000 book titles. The event, which is the biggest of its kind in the city so far, is scheduled to run until March 31.