Check out what is in the news today, January 18

Politics

-- Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc will lead a delegation to the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland from Wednesday to Friday, a local diplomat has confirmed.

Society

-- Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Tuesday jointly organized a charity program at a pediatric hospital in the central city of Da Nang where disadvantaged child patients were treated to music and variety performances and received Tet (Lunar New Year) gifts.

-- Vietnam is now empowered to demand removal of or directly block inappropriate, anti-state information, according to a circular on via-border provision of public information recently released by the Ministry of Information and Communications.

-- The People’s Court of the south-central province of Binh Thuan announced on Tuesday that they had reached negotiations on a compensation sum of VND10 billion (US$ 438,385) with a Vietnamese man who had served over 17 years in jail because of a wrongful murder conviction, against his claim for VND18 billion ($789,093).

-- Traffic police officers and volunteers have been deployed on many streets and congestion hotspots across Ho Chi Minh City over the past several days as the municipal Road and Railway Traffic Police department has pledged to exert all efforts to curb the increasingly serious traffic congestion ahead of Tet (Lunar New Year,) which is only ten days away.  

-- Police in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City revealed on Tuesday they are detaining four suspects following a swoop on a restaurant early Monday in which 33 people were found testing positive for drugs.  

Business

-- Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his visiting counterpart Shinzo Abe on Tuesday attended a meeting in Hanoi with the participation of representatives of nearly 50 local and Japanese enterprises to address measures to foster bilateral trade cooperation.  

-- Representatives of some lottery companies trading in conventional tickets with pre-printed numbers suggested during a “fiery” meeting on Tuesday that their special prize winners bring home VND12 billion ($526,062) along with other measures in an effort to boost sales amidst heavy competition from computerized rival Vietlott.

-- ‘Money exchanging’ services charging exorbitant fees have boomed on social networks in recent times as demand for small-denomination notes and banknotes from other countries and those featuring mascots to be given as lucky money in Vietnam during the forthcoming Tet is high.

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