Let us begin your new week with a news wrap-up.

Society

-- Recent months have seen a boom in consultancy services on investment and migration to such countries as the U.S., Canada and Australia. Brokerage firms have promised things which are too good to be true, including a guarantee that their clients will surely obtain visas to the Promised Land. 

-- The Tan Son Nhat International Airport Customs in Ho Chi Minh City have detected and seized over 42 kilograms of pangolin scales which was smuggled into Vietnam from Nigeria.

-- David R. Nguyen, now a 43-year-old businessman, was taken to the U.S. in Operation Babylift in April 1975 along with some 3,000 other Vietnamese kids when he was three years old. Thanks to a get-together of Babylift members organized at the Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper office in 2010, on August 8, 2015 Nguyen had an emotional reunion with his biological mother in Ho Chi Minh City after 40 years of parting.

Business

-- A leader of private carrier VietJet Air has told Tuoi Tre that preparations for its initial public offering (IPO), which is expected to be launched in late 2015, are nearing completion. The local market, instead of either Hong Kong or Singapore as initially planned, will be where the Vietnamese no-frills airline sells shares to the public for the first time.

-- The Vietnam Leather and Footwear Association has announced that Vietnam has grown to be the third largest footwear exporter to the European Union market in 2014, only after China and Italy. The country’s footwear export turnover last year topped US$4.88 billion, a 20.5-percent year-on-year rise and the highest revenue in the 2010-14 period.

-- Many oil exploration companies and providers of oil-related services in Vietnam have been grappling with plummeting oil prices by not expanding, or even ceasing, their drilling and extracting activity and offering lower rates for their services.

Education

-- According to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training, over one million students in elementary, middle and high schools will officially begin their new academic year today, August 17. The new academic year has seen an increase of 58,000 high school students compared to 2014.

Lifestyle

-- Five expats who are aged between 21 and 26 and come from different countries share a traveling pursuit and fondness for Nha Trang, the capital of the south-central Vietnamese province of Khanh Hoa. After staying in the city for one year, the group decided to publish a magazine called “Discover Nha Trang” in English to promote the alluring coastal city to foreign tourists.

Sports

-- The 2015 Vietnam Motor Cub Prix, which took place on Saturday and Sunday at Phu Tho Sports Center in District 11, Ho Chi Minh City, drew some thousand expectant spectators. Motor racing enthusiasts in the southern hub have not watched such a race since 1998.