What you need to know in Vietnam today:

Politics

-- Vietnam’s State President Truong Tan Sang on Thursday joined a meeting with Chinese Party General Secretary and State President Xi Jinping in Beijing, where he reaffirmed that the Southeast Asian country consistently attaches importance to developing stable, healthy and long-term relations with China on the basis of peace, independence, self-reliance, multi-lateralization and diversification.

-- The verification conducted by Cambodia’s border commission on Thursday at the Peace Palace in Phnom Penh showed that the map the Cambodian government is using to demarcate its border with Vietnam is identical with the one it borrowed from France. There is no difference between the map of Cambodia published by the Geographical Service of Indochina and the one the Cambodia-Vietnam Joint Committee on Land Border Demarcation and Marker Planting has been using, according to Secretary of State and Chairman of the border commission Var Kimhong.

-- Vietnamese National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung on Thursday left New York for Boston for a visit at the invitations of President Pro Tempore of the U.S. Senate Patrick Leahy, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner, and U.S. Senator John McCain after attending the 4th World Conference of Speakers of Parliament.

Society

-- The coming winter in the northern parts of Vietnam is expected to be warmer than those in the past due to the effects of El Nino, according to the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting. The center has forecast that 2-3 tropical storms would reach the East Sea and directly affect the mainland from now until the end of this year.

-- Nearly 15,000 residents in the southern province of Dong Nai will have to leave their home and be relocated to other areas to make room for the construction of Long Thanh International Airport. It will cost VND13.1 trillion (US$580 million) to cover site clearance compensation for around 1,970 hectares earmarked for the proposed airport in Long Thanh District, according to the Dong Nai People's Committee.

Business

-- Japanese retail giant AEON will inaugurate its first trade center in Hanoi on October 28, it said at a press briefing on Thursday. The 4-story AEON Mall Long Bien will accommodate some 180 stores. In 2016, AEON will open another shopping mall in Ho Chi Minh City, where it is operating a trade center.

-- A joint venture between Damen Group from the Netherlands and Vietnam’s Song Thu Shipyard Corporation has begun building two Stan patrol ships, the SPA 5009, for export to Venezuela. The building of the large-scale patrol vessels, fully equipped for patrol duties in harbor, coastal, and offshore areas, are the result of the second export contract the joint venture signed with Venezuela this year.