What you need to know in Vietnam today:

Politics

-- Le Hai Binh, spokesman of the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on Tuesday made a strong protest against China’s illegal construction of two lighthouses on Chau Vien (Cuarteron) and Gac Ma (Johnson South) reefs in Vietnam’s Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelago. China’s transport ministry held a ceremony on Friday last week to illegally declare the lighthouses operational.

-- Assistant Secretary Thomas Countryman told a press conference organized on Tuesday at the U.S. Embassy that during his delegation’s ongoing visit to Vietnam, they are furthering cooperation discussions with Vietnam to help the country become the first nuclear energy producer in Southeast Asia.

-- Leading Vietnamese and Japanese foreign policy scholars met in a seminar jointly organized by the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam and the Japanese Embassy in Hanoi on Tuesday to address the link between Japan’s development 70 years after wartime and Vietnam’s global integration.

Society

-- Police in Phu Nhuan District, Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday worked with the municipal public security agencies to investigate the cause of the death of a 68-year-old Vietnamese-American man who was found dead in his rented house, located on the district’s Phan Dinh Phung Street. 

-- Six crewmen on a fishing boat which was allegedly robbed and damaged by a Chinese vessel while they were fishing off Vietnam’s Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelago on September 29 arrived in Quang Ngai City, the heart of the central province of Quang Ngai, on Tuesday to report the case.

-- Hundreds of residents in a 33-story tenement situated in Hoang Mai District, Hanoi fled in panic on Tuesday night after a fire broke out in the garbage dumping structures on some of its high floors. A large blaze also engulfed another 34-floor apartment building in the capital on Sunday evening, injuring an unspecified number of people and trapping hundreds inside before they were rescued.

Business -- The Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism in Da Nang has warned that a boom in the number of one-to-three-star hotels throughout the city has caused supply to exceed demand.

-- A male pilot of national carrier Vietnam Airlines had remained in detention in Japan as of Tuesday afternoon, one week after he was caught red-handed attempting to carry unpaid items out of a shop in Osaka, according to a source close to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

-- Military-run Vietnamese mobile network operator Viettel has topped a list of 10 businesses making the largest tax payments in Vietnam, released on Tuesday by Vietnam Report, which is a local company, and the Tax Magazine.

Lifestyle

-- Twenty fashion designers and brands from Vietnam and several other countries famous for their fashion industries will join the Vietnam International Fashion Week 2015, to run from Wednesday to Sunday in Ho Chi Minh City.

Sports

-- The Vietnamese men’s national football team lost 0-3 to their archrivals Thailand in a Group F match of the 2018 FIFA World Cup’s Asian qualifying round that took place in Hanoi on Tuesday evening.