Good morning from Vietnam!

Politics

-- Vietnamese State President Truong Tan Sang has asked authorities in the Mekong Delta to fully leverage the region’s strength to increase local income. The president said that the region has great potential for an agricultural economy that could be developed on a bigger scale.

Society

-- The People’s Committee of Ho Chi Minh City has recently approved a project to build the 426.93ha Binh Quoi-Thanh Da ecological urban area in Binh Thanh District with the total investment of more than VND30,717 billion (US$1.37 billion).

-- Three high school students from the southern province of Ba Ria - Vung Tau have been found being involved in last month’s case, in which some people used several fake Facebook pages to claim that they were Islamic State members, Vietnamese cyber police announced on Wednesday.

-- More than half of the 100 people, aged 18-45, surveyed by Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper said they spent around 3-4 hours surfing the Internet.

-- U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Ted Osius has suggested establishing a nature museum in the southern city of Can Tho. The suggestion was offered during the opening day of the 9th session of the Joint Vietnam-U.S. Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation.

-- Since 2009, the southern province of Ben Tre has spent VND15.3 billion ($683,036) on sending 28 of its officials to countries like the UK, Germany, Thailand and Denmark for training.

-- Vietnam has recorded around 62,000 cases of dengue in 56 cities and provinces from the beginning of this year, Truong Dinh Bac, director of the Preventive Medicine Department under the Ministry of Health, said in a meeting in Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday.

Business

-- The World Bank said on Wednesday that the Vietnamese economy has well responded to the changing external economic environment, with an estimated GDP growth rate of 6.5 percent in 2015.

Education

-- A design contest on microcontrollers kicked off on Wednesday in the central city of Da Nang. The competition held by the American electronics company Texas Instruments Inc. in collaboration with the College of Science and Technology under the University of Da Nang has attracted nine teams from universities across the country.