Here are the leading news stories about Vietnam you should not miss today, July 12

Politics

-- Prime Minister of Romania Dacian Ciolos on Monday began his official visit to Vietnam at the invitation of his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

-- Lao Party General Secretary and President Bounnhang Volachith pledged to facilitate bilateral defense ties between Laos and Vietnam, as he received Director of the General Department of Politics of the Vietnam People’s Army Luong Cuong in Vientiane on Monday.

-- Such issues as the East Vietnam Sea tension and the pollution-making steel plant of Formosa in north-central Vietnam should be made high on agenda during the first plenary meeting of the new 14^th National Assembly, scheduled to commence on July 20, lawmaker Truong Trong Nghia suggested Monday.

Society

-- The Vietnamese Embassy in Thailand on Monday worked with police in the Thai southern province of Songkhla on protection procedures for 15 fishermen who have been detained there since July 8.

-- Three schoolgirls, aged 10, 12 and 13, drowned when they were learning to swim at a dam in the north-central province of Nghe An on Monday.

-- The Vietnam Fisheries Society on Monday issued a statement strongly decrying China for sinking two Vietnamese fishing boats operating in Vietnam’s own waters on Saturday.

-- The environmental scandal of the steel plant of Formosa in north-central Vietnam poses defense and security risks in the long term, General Do Ba Ty, deputy chairman of the National Assembly, said at a meeting in Hanoi on Monday.

-- A man in the southern province of Tien Giang died after his wife aggressively squeezed his penis as they got into a conflict on Monday.

-- Two minors, aged 15 and 17, have escaped from a gold mine in the central province of Quang Nam, where they had been made to work as slave, the provincial authorities said Monday.

Business

-- Vietnam has decided to stop buying peanuts from Senegal for 60 days, as two species of maggots have been found in a total of 940 metric tons of such products so far this year, the agriculture ministry said Monday.

-- A car market, where car owners can put their vehicles on sale while potential buyers can find the cars of their desire, is scheduled for opening at the Nguyen Dinh Chieu – Mac Dinh Chi Intersection in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday.

-- The infamous pipeline system of the Song Da Water Project, which supplies clean water to thousands in Hanoi, had its latest rupture on Monday in the 18^th break since December 2012.

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