Check out what is in the news today:

Politics

-- Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Le Hai Binh on Tuesday vehemently protested China’s unilateral and legally invalid ban on fishing in the East Vietnam Sea, which applies from 12:00 am on May 16 to 12:00 am on August 1.

Society

-- Airline representatives said that the downpour on Tuesday afternoon had disrupted takeoff and landing schedules of many flights departing from and bound for Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City. Several planes had their scheduled routes diverted to other places, including the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh.

-- Major General Lam Quang Dai, deputy political commissar of the Air Defense – Air Force of Vietnam, on Tuesday led a delegation to visit Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper’s head office in Ho Chi Minh City. Highly appreciative of its in-depth articles on the force, the major general expressed his hope that Tuoi Tre will highlight the force’s activities even more in the time to come.

-- On Tuesday, Vietnamese Minister of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung and Republic of Korea Employment and Labor Minister Lee Ki-kweon signed a memorandum of understanding to resume the Employment Permit System program between the two countries, with 3,500 Vietnamese workers to be sent to the East Asian nation this year.

-- The People’s Court of Dong Thap Province in the Mekong Delta on Tuesday sent two former police officers in Cao Lanh City to jail for applying corporal punishment to a local suspect, causing his death in November 2012.

-- Five fifth graders in Buon Ma Thuot City in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak got burns, including serious ones, after a small-sized gas canister in a cooking class exploded on Tuesday.

-- The Ho Chi Minh City administration has ordered competent agencies to look into the largest-ever mass fish death occurring along the Nhieu Loc – Thi Nghe canal, one of the metropolis’ new icons, following a downpour on Monday afternoon. Up to 14 metric tons of fish of different kinds floated dead due to allegedly polluted river water triggered by the early-season rain.

Business

-- Deputy Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam Nguyen Dong Tien told Tuoi Tre on Tuesday that the bank will submit a plan on restructuring part of property developer Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group’s to Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc for approval.

-- Many business owners have been on hot bricks in recent times as a number of enterprises that have minus input value-added tax (VAT) for 12 consecutive months due to unsold stocks will no longer be eligible for VAT refunds, starting July 1.

-- The Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee has proposed the municipal Department of Transport consider a project to build a flyover and tunnel at an intersection in Tan Binh District leading to Tan Son Nhat International Airport. The project, to cost VND760 billion (US$33.5 million), is meant to ease the chronic congestion around the airport and better cope with a surge in air passengers in recent years.