Check out what is in the news today:

Society

-- Truong Hung Long, head of the Vietnamese Department of Debt Management and External Finance, told a meeting on Tuesday that US$14 billion, or 92.2. percent of the $15 billion in ODA (official development assistance), has been allotted to different localities over the past 10 years. These locales will have to take ODA loans from the government in the coming time.

-- An urban management team in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, has stipulated that anyone caught peeing on the street will be requested to carry a bucket of water and wash their urine away.

-- Hundreds of scaffold floors tumbled down on Tuesday at a workshop located in the outlying district of Hoc Mon in Ho Chi Minh City, killing two workers and injuring another.

-- Passengers will be able to board trains without delay at Ho Chi Minh City-based Saigon Railway Station starting today, March 23. Railway operation has been disrupted following the collapse of the Ghenh railway bridge caused by a barge collision in the southern province of Dong Nai on March 20.

-- Vietnam Register leaders revealed at a meeting on Tuesday that more than 1,000 unregistered electric cars are currently in use nationwide.

Business

-- National flag carrier Vietnam Airlines confirmed on Tuesday that they have yet to adopt any change in flights bound for and departing from Europe following the terrorist attacks in Brussels, Belgium, on March 22 that claimed at least 30 lives. The airline is offering free-of-charge ticket cancellation and exchange services on flights to and from Europe until March 31.

-- Vinaconex Water Supply Joint Stock Company, the developer of a project to supply clean water from the Da River Water Plant in the northern province of Hoa Binh to Hanoi, which involves a pipeline that had either snapped or leaked for 10 times in the past 35 months, has confirmed that a Chinese company had won its bid to supply ductile iron pipes.

-- Dien Quang Lamp Co, one of Vietnam’s leading lighting equipment manufacturers, on Tuesday inked a deal with the Integrated Circuit Design Research and Education Center under the Vietnam National University-Ho Chi Minh City to produce made-in-Vietnam computer chips.

Lifestyle

-- Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has tasked the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism with preparing and submitting a dossier on Vietnam’s “hat xoan” (traditional northern music singing), to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) by March 31 for its recognition as a world intangible heritage.

Education

-- The University of Da Nang based in the namesake central city held a ceremony on Tuesday to confer an honorary doctorate on a Japanese professor and leading construction expert.