Good morning from Tuoi Tre News!

Politics

-- Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has promised to provide full support for Ho Chi Minh City to help the southern metropolis attract more foreign investment during his meeting on Wednesday with the recently appointed chief of the city’s Party Committee, Nguyen Thien Nhan.

Society

-- Despite the implementation of online administrative procedures in multiple districts in Ho Chi Minh City since the end of last year, the positive change has been viewed with skepticism by many developers of private housing projects, who complain that the new system is still filled with red tape.

-- The number of patients hospitalized for dengue fever has climbed by 40 percent in Ho Chi Minh City and rocketed by 190 percent in Hanoi as the tropical country enters the hot and humid summer, with around 1,700-1,800 new cases reported daily nationwide.

-- Despite a strong directive by Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc this time last year that the government would close down all entrances to natural forests in the Central Highlands region in an attempt to fight deforestation, wood from illegally felled trees is still being transported to the lowlands for consumption, according to a Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper investigation.

Business

-- Vietnam’s state-owned flag carrier Vietnam Airlines is looking to add 18 new jets to its fleet, including ten Airbus A350-900 XWB Airliners and eight Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners, in two separate deals worth over VND2.11 trillion (US$93 million), or 72 percent of its investment budget for 2017.

-- Around $2.1 billion in inward remittances to Ho Chi Minh City was reported  in the first six months of 2017, a $50 million increase from the same period of last year, according to Nguyen Hoang Minh, deputy director of the Ho Chi minh City branch of the State Bank of Vietnam.

-- Vietnam has exported 7,300 metric tons of lychee, worth around $4 million, to China since the start of the lychee season this year, which saw a slight drop from previous years due to tightened control over agricultural imports by Chinese authorities.

-- In spite of black pepper prices having dropped from the peak of VND200,000 ($8.81) per kilogram in 2015 to VND70,000-75,000 ($3.08-3.30) recently, growers of the flowering vine in Vietnam’s Central Highlands provinces still race to increase production.

Education

-- Today, hundreds of thousands of senior high schoolers across Vietnam enter a three-day national high school examination, which tests students with five papers in literature, mathematics, English, natural sciences, and social sciences, the results of which will be crucial to their graduation from high school and university admission.

Sports

-- The administration of Ho Chi Minh City is seeking final approval to host the 2021 Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games 31), with plans in place to construct a brand new 50,000-seat stadium at a cost of VND3.45 trillion ($151.98 million) to house the event’s football and track-and-field.

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