Happy New Year’s Eve!
Society
-- The Japanese government has recently agreed to sponsor a US$4.3 million project to install LED lights on offshore fishing boats of Vietnamese fishermen in the central province of Quang Tri. As planned, 70 boats will be selected to get the sponsorship.
-- Phan Tuan, head of the forest protection department of the central province of Quang Nam, on Wednesday said local residents have caught a 1.2m-long crocodile in Binh Hiep Village in Thang Binh District. Eight months earlier, a local in Phu Ninh District also caught a crocodile lying on National Highway No. 1.
-- The number of vagrants and beggars which have been brought into social centers in the central city of Da Nang has reached 331 in 2015, three times higher than last year.
-- The National Congress of Vietnam’s Young Physician Association will be organized in Hanoi for two days from January 6, with the participation of 350 people representing more than 80,000 members of the association.
-- A number of coastal real estate project investors have redirected their investment to constructing buildings instead of hotels Da Nang. Experts have warned that coastal buildings could cause overload to infrastructure and living space.
-- About 90 percent of the people participating in a survey conducted by Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on 70 locals and tourists in Ho Chi Minh City said they were ripped off while traveling here.
Business
-- In 2015, Vietnam has welcomed more than 7.9 million foreign visitors and served 57 million domestic tourists, raking in VND338,000 billion (US$15.09 billion) in revenue, Nguyen Van Tuan, head of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, said at a conference to review the country’s tourism in Hanoi on Wednesday.
-- The industry of aquatic product export has earned US$6.7 billion this year, a 14.5 percent decrease against last year.
Education
-- Many students from Can Tho University, located in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho, on December 29 and 30 presented their ideas to protect the Mekong River at a conference on hydropower plants.
Lifestyle
-- Local officials on Wednesday convened a conference in Hanoi to discuss keeping or scrapping the Nem Thuong Pig Slaughter Festival in the northern province of Bac Ninh. The festival has been strongly criticized for its cruelty as pigs are carried around a village before being slaughtered in front of thousands of people, including children, as a rite.