Check out what is in the news today, February 15

Society

-- The District 1 on Tuesday called on the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transport to reconsider the legality and rationality of erecting sidewalk barriers on a number of downtown streets.

-- The Ministry of Industry and Trade’s draft decree to adopt state monopoly in 20 business sectors has met with mixed reactions. 

-- Police in northern city of Hai Phong said on Tuesday they are working with representatives of a Taiwanese-owned cement company and their contractor who had erected barriers and placed big rocks to block traffic on a road in Minh Duc Town.

-- Bkav, a Hanoi-based company mostly known for the antivirus software of the same name, warned on Tuesday that Pitu, a popular Chinese swashbuckler-style photo editing mobile appl, may steal users’ sensitive information and run malware without their knowing.  

-- The National Traffic Safety Committee on Tuesday requested the leaders of the northern province of Bac Ninh to investigate a case in which a 35-year-old man had been stabbed and sustains serious injuries after he rushed a road accident victim to a local hospital. 

-- Police in the outlying district of Cu Chi in Ho Chi Minh City have worked with the director of a farming business to look into the sabotage of some thousand melon plants that happened late last week.

-- A search is ongoing for five fishermen who had gone missing after their boat sank on Sunday night around 36 nautical miles from Con Dao Islands, approximately 185km south of the southern resort city of Vung Tau, according to the Office of the National Search and Rescue Committee.

Business

-- An official from the General Department of Taxation has told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that tax departments in Ho Chi Minh City and its neighbors Binh Duong and Dong Nai provinces will pilot the electronic value-added tax refund procedures starting March 1. 

-- Sixty-six percent of Japanese enterprises have expressed intentions to expand their investment in Vietnam, Takimoto Koji, head representative of the Ho Chi Minh City branch of the Japan External Trade Organization, told a press conference on Tuesday.

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